WW2 pilot learns wingman survived crash

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill., April 12 (UPI) -- A U.S. pilot discovered six decades after the fact that his wingman survived being shot down over occupied France during World War II.

Arnold Rusten, 90, of Arlington Heights, Ill., learned that Stanley Canner was rescued by a French Resistance group when Canner's son, Neil, called him recently, the Orlando Sentinel reported. The resistance hid Canner until Canadian forces arrived six weeks later.

"I was so happy," Rusten said. "I assumed he was killed. I had lost a No. 2 man about three months before that. This was the second man that was down, and I didn't like it at all."

Rusten was a captain in the Army Air Corps in July 1944 and Canner was a lieutenant.

Rusten, who last saw Canner's P-51 in flames, was so convinced his wingman was dead that he did not make any inquiries later. Canner assumed that Rusten would have heard he had been rescued.

Canner died in 1984. But his son, who is writing a book about his father's war experiences, visited Rusten in Illinois. The two men and Canner's brother, also a World War II pilot, got together again last month in Kissimmee, Fla.