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Video: Focus On The Pines
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Ocean Pines resident Walter Starck is Jack Barnes' guest in this Focus on the Pines program. Starck was a fighter pilot in World War II. He saw action in the skies over Europe and was held by the Germans as a prison of war.

"Twilight Victory" © 2000 Troy White, Oil on Canvas, 34" x 44"

Captain Walter Starck blows past a German Me 109 that he has just damaged on July 1, 1944. Starck was leading the 352nd FG when controllers vectored him to an air battle that was already in progress. Upon arriving at the scene, Starck quickly dispatched one of the enemy 109s and damaged this second aircraft before it ducked into a cloud. His wingman, Lt. Sheldon Heyer, narrowly missed colliding with Starck’s first victim as the Nazi pilot baled out. Heyer noted that the second Me 109 started smoking before it entered the clouds. Starck would run up his score to seven confirmed air-to-air victories before he was forced to bail out over Germany. On November 27, 1944 Capt. Starck shot down three Me 109s, but spent the remainder of the war as a POW after being forced to abandon his P-51 Mustang which was damaged when stricken with debris from his last victim. He remained in the Air Force and retired as a Colonel in 1965.

"Twilight Victory" is available at http://www.starduststudios.com/bluetv.htm