Please see my full-length article about Lieutenant Butler on Delaware's World War II Fallen for further information.

John Mitchell Butler was born on June 23, 1918 near Andrewville (just west of the town of Farmington, Delaware). He was the second child of Willis Norman Butler (a farmer) and Mary M. Butler (née Barney). Nicknamed “Johnny,” Butler had an older brother and an adopted younger sister. Butler grew up on the Butler family farm near Andrewville. He was working as a farmer when he married Margaret Susan Donovan in Farmington on July 5, 1937. They had one son, Roger. The couple divorced sometime in the early 1940s.

By March 11, 1940, Butler was working as a spinner at the DuPont Company’s nylon factory in Seaford, Delaware. During World War II, Butler would come to rely on nylon towlines as a glider pilot.

Butler had roughly three years’ experience flying light aircraft as a civilian prior to volunteering for the U.S. Army Air Forces on January 8, 1942. During the next 27 months, he moved between no fewer than 14 different bases in 10 states, covering the full length and breadth of the country. He began at Fort Dix, New Jersey, followed by Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri, and then Luke Field in Phoenix, Arizona. At Luke Field, he was a Link Trainer (an early form of flight simulator) instructor. While stationed in Arizona, Butler met his future wife, Meredith Young.

Butler arrived at Twentynine Palms, California to begin glider training on June 3, 1942. The following month, he transferred to the Army Air Forces Glider School at English Field in Amarillo, Texas. On July 24, 1942, he was promoted to staff sergeant. Assignments in Aberdeen, South Dakota and Pittsburg, Kansas followed. Butler wrote that his job at the latter was “to give final army check rides to the students. If they passed their check ride, they went on to the next school, if not, they were washed out.”

Staff Sergeant Butler arrived in Dalhart, Texas on January 21, 1943 to take the Advanced Glider Pilot course. After graduating on February 8, 1943, Butler was appointed to the grade of flight officer. He then served briefly as a check pilot at Ardmore Army Air Base, Oklahoma and several months at Bowman Field in Louisville, Kentucky, where he joined the Glider Pilot Combat Training Unit. Butler wrote that “There I was in charge of 110 Instructors.”

On August 6, 1943, Butler was transferred to the 38th Troop Carrier Squadron—an operational training unit—at Laurinburg-Maxton Army Air Base, North Carolina. (The unit operated at nearby Camp Mackall from September 10, 1943 until January 17, 1944, when it returned to Laurinburg-Maxton.)

Butler was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant on September 1, 1943. A flight physical dated February 15, 1944 stated that 2nd Lieutenant Butler had 1,200 hours of flight time as a pilot including 125 hours in the last six months. Butler was certified to pilot the main American glider—the Waco CG-4A—as well as the larger Waco YCG-13 and a British glider, the Airspeed Horsa.

On March 8, 1944, while on temporary duty at South Plains Army Air Field in Lubbock, Texas, Lieutenant Butler remarried, to Meredith Young. On April 3, 1944, 2nd Lieutenant Butler to Headquarters I Troop Carrier Command at Stout Field, Indianapolis, Indiana. He and three other officers were dispatched to England to assist with glider preparations for the Normandy invasion. One officer was Lieutenant Colonel Michael C. Murphy of I Troop Carrier Command. Destined to fly alongside Lieutenant Butler on D-Day in Normandy, Mike Murphy had been a barnstormer in the 1920s and was perhaps the U.S. Army Air Forces’ foremost glider proponent.

On the evening of April 12, 1944, the officers began a multileg transatlantic journey, taking off from LaGuardia Field in New York as passengers aboard a Douglas C-54 transport aircraft. After intermediate stops in Bermuda, the Azores, and Prestwick, they arrived in London on the afternoon of April 14, 1944.

An April 20, 1944 memorandum addressed to Lieutenant Colonel Murphy, Captains Milau and Smith, and 2nd Lieutenant Butler stated in part:

“1. In the U.S. you were occupied with the training of glider pilots and establishing procedures for glider use and maintenance. Your position here in England is a continuation of your U. S. job except that now you are to act in an advisory capacity to The Commanding General, IX Troop Carrier Command, and will also absorb information in this theater to help you in the later conduct of your school and station in the U. S.

“2. You are also to assist the Troop Carrier Command in any help they want or need in training and in the preparation of plans for operations against the enemy.”

Brigadier General Paul L. Williams (head of IX Troop Carrier Command) gave the four officers broad latitude to travel to bases throughout England to accomplish their mission. He also sent a memo to the commanders of the troop carrier wings under his command encouraging cooperation with the four officers. They spent the weeks that followed moving from airfield to airfield by train or plane, evaluating and troubleshooting. Lieutenant Butler encountered many glider pilots that he’d trained back in the United States.

Butler worked closely with Lieutenant Colonel Murphy during the mission and when Murphy invited him to fly with him during the upcoming D-Day mission, Butler readily agreed. On May 24, 1944, Lieutenant Butler flew to R.A.F. Aldermaston, where the 434st Troop Carrier Group was based. He spent the next few days doing check rides. With the invasion coming up, Butler wrote that they were working 16-hour days to get ready.

Lieutenant Butler wrote in his diary on May 30, 1944: “Went and had breakfast and then we got about the hardest blow since we have been over here. Our flying will be done at night!” He underlined the last sentence. Most of the glider pilots scheduled for the mission had little experience flying at night during training missions, since D-Day plans originally called for gliders to land at dawn or dusk. The small fields bordered by hedgerows in the landing zone were also a complicating factor.

Lieutenant Colonel Murphy would be pilot and 2nd Lieutenant Butler the copilot aboard the lead CG-4A of 52 gliders in the Chicago Mission. Their passengers and cargo were Brigadier General Don Forrester Pratt (assistant division commander of the 101st Airborne Division), Pratt’s aide 1st Lieutenant Lee John May (John L. May in some sources), and Pratt’s command jeep. Pratt was traveling by glider because he was not a qualified paratrooper.

Their assigned glider was high profile as well. Charles L. Day wrote in his article “The Flag Ship” that:

“The Fighting Falcon CG-4A serial number 42-46574 […] was the 23rd glider built by the Gibson Refrigerator Company, Greenville, Michigan and was delivered to the Army late in May 1943. The grade school children of Greenville, Michigan sold war bonds in the first government approved War Bond Drive by private citizens with the intent to sell enough War Bonds to purchase one of Gibson’s gliders for the Army. In approximately six weeks these grade school children sold over $72,000.00 of War Bonds, enough to buy three and one-half Gibson built gliders (based on Gibson’s contracted average cost). The children decided to name the glider The Flying Falcon. […] An officer of the Gibson Refrigerator Company had decided the name Flying Falcon was not fierce enough and he had changed it to The Fighting Falcon.”

According to glider historian Leon B. Spencer, General Williams himself “decreed that it would be the lead glider in the D-Day invasion of Normandy in recognition of the Greenville school children’s patriotic spirit.”

Ironically, according to Spencer, shortly before D-Day, “Colonel Murphy decided to replace the original Falcon with a CG-4A equipped with the frontal crash protection device, the Griswold Nose.” The replacement glider, 43-41430 was then painted as another Fighting Falcon.

Murphy and Butler’s glider took off from R.A.F. Aldermaston at 0119 hours on June 6, 1944, towed by a C-47 piloted by the 434th Troop Carrier Group’s commanding officer, Colonel William B. Whitacre. During the flight to the landing zone, Murphy and Butler’s glider was hit by German antiaircraft fire but sustained only light damage. They arrived at the release point around 0400 hours.

Spencer wrote:

“In view of the heavy load it was carrying, the final approach speed of the No. 1 glider was somewhat above the normal tactical speed of 70 mph. Murphy said that he touched down on the first third of the field at 80 mph. He immediately pushed the glider down on its nose and jumped on the brakes to stop the glider quickly. To his astonishment the glider’s forward speed didn’t appear to diminish at all. A fully loaded CG-4A could normally be stopped in 200 to 300 feet. That morning the ill-fated substitute Falcon continued to slide on the slick, dew covered pasture grass for about eight hundred feet before crashing into a hedgerow.”

The glider struck a large tree, killing Lieutenant Butler and General Pratt instantly. Lieutenant Colonel Murphy’s legs were injured. Only Lieutenant May escaped serious injury.

2nd Lieutenant Butler was posthumously awarded the Air Medal and the Purple Heart. His body was initially buried at the temporary military cemetery known as Blosville Cemetery. After the war, his family requested that his body be repatriated. After services in Harrington on May 20, 1948, Butler was buried at the nearby Hollywood Cemetery. His parents and brother were also buried there after their deaths.

Over the years, various stories circulated about extra armor added to Murphy and Butler’s glider, ostensibly a contributing factor in the crash. Some versions are suspect or can be disproved outright. While there is some evidence supporting the claim that armor was added to the cargo area, it is unclear that, if true, it contributed to the outcome. See the full-length article for further details.

2nd Lieutenant Butler was memorialized on a plaque of employees who died during World War II displayed at the DuPont company plant in Seaford beginning in 1948. He is also honored on the list of names displayed at Veteran’s Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware. Lieutenant Butler’s son donated many photographs and documents to the Greater Harrington Historical Society, where an exhibit about Lieutenant Butler is now on display.

Special thanks to Roger Butler and Doug Poore (the latter of the Greater Harrington Historical Society) for the use of the extensive collection of documents, letters, and photographs pertaining to Lieutenant Butler. Thanks also go to glider historian Charles L. Day, who provided several photographs as well as valuable insight into the discrepancies surrounding the final flight of The Fighting Falcon.