11/11/2025
Repost from Honoring all who have served this Veterans Day. Take a moment to read the remarkable story of Lt. Frank Speer, courtesy of
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He survived flak, capture, and a 400-mile escape on foot.
May 29, 1944 — the 4th Fighter Group launched one of its longest es**rt missions of the war, a withdrawal support flight to Poznań, Poland. Don Blakeslee led the formation. Among his pilots was Lt. Frank Speer.
The Luftwaffe rose in strength, and fierce dogfights erupted over the bombers. “I saw a Bf 109 open fire and went after him,” recalled Lt. Robert Church. “We dove nearly straight down at 450 mph.” In the chaos, Speer’s P-51 took a direct flak hit. He crash-landed in a Polish field, then fled—alone, unarmed, and hunted.
He hid until nightfall and began an astonishing journey: 400 miles across occupied Europe on foot, hoping to reach Denmark and find a boat to Sweden. Exhausted, he was captured after falling asleep in the woods. Imprisoned in Stalag Luft III, Speer survived the winter “death march” to Nürnberg, later escaping with another POW and accepting the surrender of twenty-four German soldiers as the war collapsed around them.
In this cockpit portrait, Speer wears his issued AO AN6531 Aviators—the original U.S. Army Air Forces flight glasses produced by . Designed for clarity at altitude and glare protection above the clouds, they became standard issue for thousands of Allied airmen. Eighty years later, AO still builds the same heritage frames—unchanged in silhouette, forged in the same spirit of courage and precision that defined the men who first wore them.
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