GUELPH WWII pilot Charley Fox is credited with shooting German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel changing the outcome of the war. Military photo.
This valiant Canadian veteran helped changed the outcome of the WWII.
It was 13 years last October since the death of Second World War veteran Charley Fox who is best known for shooting legendary German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and taking him out of the war.
Fox, who was born in Guelph n 1920, was a fighter pilot in an all-Canadian squadron of Spitfires that attacked a large formation of German Focke-Wulfs and Messerschmitts. The Canadians shot down two enemy planes and damaged several others before the Germans disengaged and withdrew.
ROMMEL was a top commander in the German army who was shot by a Canadian.
Fox it is reported had been in the thick of the fight, “badly damaging at least one of the enemy aircraft himself and assisting others of his squadron to rout the enemy.”
Fox had struck a serious blow to Nazi Germany. In a strafing attack, he had wounded Rommel, known as the Desert Fox because of his campaigns in North Africa. Rommel was one of the senior German commanders, who was considered Germany’s most capable general.
Fox enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in March 1940. He earned his wings and his officer’s commission in July 1941 at Dunnville, Ont., graduating near the top of his class.
He worked at first training pilots for two years in Dunnville, where he married his high school sweetheart, Helen Doughty. By the time Fox shipped out for England in 1943, they were expecting their first child.
Fox was serving with 412 Fighter Squadron, patrolling the skies over England, the Channel, and the North Sea. On one occasion he was in the officers’ mess at an airbase when it came under attack by German bombers.
ROMMEL (above) was wounded by pilot Charley Fox and his driver killed.
In the spring of 1944, Fox took part in operations over France in preparation for the Allied invasion of Hitler’s “Fortress Europe.” On D-Day, he flew three patrols over the French coast.
Once the Allies had secured a foothold in Normandy and established airbases, fighter squadrons were sent up to clear the Luftwaffe from the sky and seek “targets of opportunity.”
They would attack trains, military convoys and artillery emplacements. Many Canadian pilots considered strafing men on the ground repugnant, but a German officer’s staff car was fair game.
Rommel travelled in an open military staff car and used country roads as much as possible to avoid detection.
At about 9 a.m. on July 17, Rommel was in his car on a country road near Caen, according to reports. With him were his driver, two other officers and a guard. Suddenly they were under attack by Allied fighter planes. The driver raced toward a place where they could pull over and take cover. Before he could reach it, a Spitfire strafed the car.
The driver lost control and the car went into a ditch. The only casualties were the driver, who soon died; and Rommel, who had serious head injuries and was taken out of action.
One day earlier, the British Special Air Service had decided to send a commando team behind German lines to assassinate or kidnap Rommel. Three days after the strafing, German military conspirators tried to kill Hitler with a bomb. Rommel was eventually implicated in the plot, and committed suicide with poison on Oct. 14. The Nazi government told the German people he had died from his wounds.
Everyone then was boasting of shooting Rommel. The Americans said one of their pilots had strafed Rommel’s car. A South African flying for the Royal Air Force also claimed the honour. Two other Canadian pilots thought they’d had Rommel in their gunsights.
It took many years before historians ruled “Charlie Fox is probably the guy that fired at Rommel’s car.” The Guelph flyer was deemed to be in the air at the right time and place to have attacked Rommel’s car.