When Heroes Flew

by H W Buzz Bernard

  Al and Sorey held the Liberator steady, the roaring chatter of its quartet of Pratt & Whitney engines reverberating through the fuselage and accompanied by the creaks, rattles, and clanks of the speeding beast. The edge of the rail yard flashed beneath them. Ahead, a half dozen bombs arced from Flavelle’s plane and erupted in bright flashes as they smashed into the sheds.

  Almost simultaneously, Kenny announced, as calm as ever, “Bombs away.” Oregon Grinder, freed of its bomb load, leapt up, leaving its own trail of explosions in its wake.

  “Rammed the bombs right down their throats,” Staff Sergeant Billy Cummings, the tail gunner, yelled.

  “Good shooting, Kenny,” Al said.

  “Whoa, shit, look out,” Sorey screamed.

  Al saw them, too, a flight of German Junkers Ju 52s dead ahead, flying directly at them.

  “Transports,” Al said. “No weapons.” But transports or not, the enemy. “Gunners, get ready. Junkers coming up on our nose. Open fire when you see them.”

  Flavelle didn’t break formation, but headed straight for the tri-motor German planes.

  “Damn,” Sorey yelled, “must be forty of them.”

  The Liberators charged directly into the German flock, which scattered in all directions as the American fifty calibers opened up.

  But one of the Junkers didn’t break off and continued on a beeline for the bombers.

  “What’s with that bastard?” Al shouted.

  A stream of tracers from at least two of the Liberators lanced into the German transport. Trailing smoke and shedding parts, it crashed into the Sicilian countryside.

  “Maybe the pilot was a wannabe fighter jockey,” Sorey said.

  “Think we discouraged him,” Al responded. “Let’s head for home.”

  Benghazi, Libya

  April 4, 1943

  As Al and Sorey performed their preflight walk around Oregon Grinder, preparing for their return to England, a jeep rolled up to the bomber and stopped. A short but handsome man, an Army colonel wearing a set of neatly pressed khakis, dismounted and walked toward the pilots.

  Al and Sorey sprang to attention and saluted. The colonel returned the salutes.

  “Gentlemen, I’m K.K. Compton, commander of the 376th Bomb Group. I just wanted to come by and thank you for a job well done with the attack on the Messina rail sheds. We’ve been trying to knock them out for a long time, and you, along with Lieutenant Flavelle and a couple of other Liberando birds, did it in five minutes. Oh, and General Ent sends his regards and thanks, too.”

  “Our pleasure, sir,” Al said.

  “I’ll make sure Colonel Baker knows his Traveling Circus flyboys are up to the job. Glad to have you as part of the team. I like your skills.”

  “But there won’t be a lot more demand for low-level bombing, will there?”

  Colonel Compton smiled, an enigmatic grin. “Have a good flight back to England, gentlemen.”

  After Compton departed, Sorey said, “Part of the team? He likes our skills?”

  Al ran the words through his mind. He didn’t like what they suggested. “I have a feeling we’re not going to be in England too long.”

  Sorey shook his head. “I sure as shit hope that doesn’t mean we’re going to be returning to this godforsaken sand box.”

  3

  Benghazi, Libya

  Late June 1943

  Al and George sat on the hard desert ground, their backs resting against Oregon Grinder’s left landing gear tire. They sipped warm English beer that, because of its warmth, did nothing to ward off the oppressive heat of the late afternoon.

  Al spit his beer onto the sand. “Jesus, you’d think they could find some ice to store this stuff in.”

  “Come on, Pops, we’re lucky to have beer, let alone chilled beer.” George took another pull from his bottle. “Besides, it’s safer to drink than the water.”

  Al swatted at a small swarm of the omnipresent flies that plagued the jury-rigged Benghazi air base. He hated the desert. Hated being back here so soon after their visit of a few months earlier. Hated the flies, the scorpions, the jerboas—hopping rodents. Hated the suspended dust that wafted in on winds called ghiblis and coated everything in a fine, gritty powder. He especially detested the virtually inedible meals of pressed ham and dried cabbage boiled in alkali water.

  “I know, I know,” he muttered, responding to George’s comment on the safety, or lack thereof, of the water. “How many guys in the infirmary now?”

  “Lots. Too many. Most with dysentery."

  “The runny, bloody shits,” Al groused.

  “Trouble is, we’re gonna need all the airmen we can get soon. There’s something big afoot.”

  “Yeah, that’s obvious. So what’s the scuttlebutt? Where? When? Why?”

  “How should I know? You’re the commander.”

  Al shrugged. “I’m a junior officer, not brass. You’ve been in the Army longer than any of us. You must have connections, ways of picking up on the jungle drums.”

  In contrast to the bewilderment often professed by George, he always seemed to have a good handle on what was happening.

  “Look around us, Pops. There are scores of Liberators here. There wouldn’t be that many for some sort of minor action, so there has to be a major raid in the offing.”

  Al could make out through the dusty haze at least a dozen other B-24s parked haphazardly alongside the runway. Among them sat Hell’s Wench, Lieutenant Colonel Baker’s aircraft, Utah Man, Tupelo Lass, Honky-Tonk Gal, Thunder Mug, and Jersey Bounce.

  He knew many others squatted nearby. They had arrived from England about a week ago, the entire 93rd Bomb Group, the Traveling Circus.

  “How many aircraft you figure altogether, from all the bomb groups?” Al took a tentative sip of his beer. Yep, warm, but better than dealing with dysentery.

  George crinkled his face in a show of concentration. “Let’s see. In addition to us there’s Colonel Leon Johnson’s Flying Eight Balls out of Shipham, and Colonel Jack Wood’s Sky Scorpions from Hethal. There were a couple of groups here already, the Liberandos and Pyramiders, who’ve been chasing Rommel’s Afrika Korps back and forth across the desert for months. So, all totaled, I guess there’s gotta be over a hundred and fifty Liberators here.”

  Al attempted to whistle, but his dry, cracked lips only produced something that sounded akin to a soft fart.

  “The Sky Scorpions,” he said, “they’re new to this game, aren’t they?”

  “Yep. They’re driving Liberators fresh off the dealer’s lot, and a lot of the pilots and crews haven’t even been shot at yet. But they’ll learn fast. I’ve heard there are a bunch of missions to Sicily coming up. It won’t be long before the Army and Marines hit the beaches there, so I’m positive the brass will wanna soften up the defenses before that happens.”

  “But that can’t be why there are five bombardment groups here, can it?”

  George shook his head. “No, that wouldn’t make sense. Look, what don’t you see here? B-17s. There are no Flying Fortresses, just Liberators. Why just Libs? Because they’ve got a longer range and carry more bombs than B-17s. So Sicily wouldn’t make sense. Too close.”

  “What about mainland Italy?” Al took another swallow of his tepid beer.

  “Maybe, but I was thinking something even farther away, like Austria or the Balkans. They’ve got munitions and aircraft factories in Austria, and oil refineries in the Balkans. But it’s gotta be something special.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  George took a pull from his own beer, then answered. “Think about it. Before we left England, what were we doing over the past two months? Flying training missions up and down the East Anglian countryside at treetop level. Scattering horses and cows, scaring kids, and pissing off farmers. Treetop level, like fighters making strafing runs. And what did we do on our TDY here last spring? Two rooftop-level raids on Messina.”

  “Well, two tries, one raid.”

  “Point taken.” />
  “But come on, B-24s were never conceived to do that. We’re supposed to be dropping bombs from twenty or twenty-five thousand feet.”

  “Says the guy who I heard almost got drummed out of the Army because he shaved the top off a haystack in western Kansas.”

  “Accidentally, not deliberately.”

  “And clipped a radio station broadcast antenna in New Mexico?”

  “What the hell, Rabbi? You aren’t going to become one of those . . . those . . . what do you call those lawyers?”

  “Prosecuting attorneys. No. I’m trying to make a point. That the plane can be flown at low level.”

  “No way. Not safely. Look, my little, let’s call them indiscretions—and I should have kept my mouth shut about them—occurred on training flights. No bombs, light on fuel, half a crew. Driving a B-24 with a full load is like trying to steer a dragon. It’s not very damn responsive. Let’s leave the nap-of-the-earth stuff to Spitfires and P-40s.”

  “The brass may not feel that way. Besides, we kind of proved a point by blowing up the rail sheds.”

  “But that was with four planes. You put dozens of Libs together barreling along at two hundred miles per hour at tree-top or wave-top level, and you’re asking for trouble. I’ll say it again, Liberators aren’t P-40 Warhawks.” A B-24, Sweet Adeline from the Sky Scorpions, settled onto the runway after a training run. It ground to a stop in a roiling brown cloud of dust and sand. Al and George watched it, then resumed their conversation.

  “So why would the brass feel they have to fly bombers at kite-level?” Al asked.

  George shrugged and tossed his empty beer bottle on the ground near Oregon Grinder’s nose wheel. “To avoid radar detection? Or maybe to put a big load of bombs on a target very precisely? Maybe both. So we have to think about what kind of facility would warrant that sort of attention.”

  “A factory in the middle of a city where we want to avoid killing civilians and blowing up their homes and businesses?”

  “Makes sense. Or maybe a target so important and so well defended the planners think we’ll get only one crack at achieving total surprise.”

  “Yeah,” Al groused, “attacking so low we’d have to navigate using road signs would certainly achieve total surprise. It would sure stupefy me.”

  George laughed, almost choking on his beer.

  Al went on. “All kidding aside, it would be just too damn dangerous. Think about it. Down near the ground you’ve got all kinds of turbulence. Thermal, mechanical, prop wash from other aircraft. In close formation, how would you keep from getting tossed into each other? You know that happened in England during training, right? A couple of planes collided. Only two guys survived.” He tipped his bottle to his mouth, took a final swig, and pitched it next to George’s dead soldier.

  “And another thing,” he went on. “Think of the antiaircraft fire. It’d be point-blank range for flak gunners. They’d have a field day. Like blasting metal ducks in a shooting gallery. We might as well be sporting big red and white bullseyes on our planes saying ‘Aim here.’ And if we get hit, we go down. We’d be so close to the ground already we wouldn’t have a chance to maneuver. Or even bail out.”

  “So, all those minor contingencies aside,” George said, “you think it’s doable, then?”

  Al snorted a chuckle.

  “Sure,” he said, “just like those B-26 pilots did in England about a month ago. A squadron flew a low-level raid into Holland. Nobody came back.”

  “Ah, but I remind you again, we pulled it off in Sicily.”

  “Yeah, damnit. We probably should have fucked it up.”

  The men fell silent. In the distance, the clatter of Sweet Adeline’s engines faded as it taxied toward its bed down site with the Sky Scorpions.

  “Got a cigarette?” George said.

  Al pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes from his shirt pocket, flipped one loose, and extended it to George. He plucked one out for himself, then lit both with an engraved Ronson lighter his wife had given him before he deployed.

  “Last smoke for the condemned?” George asked. Gallows humor.

  “I just don’t know,” Al said. “I just don’t know if I’d be up to it, this low-level crap. You know, what if I shit my pants, close my eyes, and slam into the ground screaming like a baby.”

  George extended his arm, resting a hand on Al’s shoulder. “That’s not you, Pops. We’ve all seen you in action. Unshakable nerve, steady hands. The guys wouldn’t want to fly with anyone else.”

  Al remained silent.

  “Look,” George continued. “We’ve all got the same heebie-jeebies. Every mission. But we come through every damn time, because we’re the best trained in the world, because we believe in each other, because we care for each other like brothers.”

  Al nodded. “Okay,” he said softly. “I guess if you guys got my back, I got yours.”

  That evening, Al rested on the cot in his tattered tent. A sea breeze off the Mediterranean kicked in, but managed to lower the temperature only slightly while at the same time boosting the humidity to tropical levels. Adding to the oppressiveness, a repulsive odor wove its way into the Circus’s encampment: an amalgam of stench from the oil drum crappers mixed with the fetor of aviation fuel seeping from a rusted storage tank, probably something the Afrika Korps left behind. It happened occasionally when the wind was just right. Or wrong.

  Darkness descended over Benghazi. Only the distant, muffled sound of a BBC newscast reached Al’s ears. Memories of the Glen Island Casino seemed a million miles away, a million years away, and in a different universe.

  Had he ever really been there, dancing in a tight embrace with the woman he loved to the music of the Glenn Miller Orchestra? Or had it all been merely a titillating dream designed to bring peace to a soul imprisoned in the reality of a spartan wartime existence?

  No, absolutely not. After the dinner and the dancing, after leaving the casino, the night had morphed into something more than a dream. Something titillating, yes, but not a fantasy, not something imagined. It had erupted in a genuine explosion of breathless passion, tangible and real, vivid in his memory: him pawing at her skirt, slip, panties, garter belt, bra—how could it take so damn long to undress a woman?—before they both climaxed in an anvil chorus of gasps and moans.

  To his amazement, his heart rate increased merely recalling the moment. The memory grew so intense he could virtually feel Sarah’s presence, her smooth skin, soft lips, warm breath. He closed his eyes and extended his hand to the side of his cot, hoping Sarah might materialize to grasp it, to let him know the bond between them remained firm and eternal. But no such touch came. He knew it wouldn’t, of course, knew he was being foolish, knew most of all he didn’t want to admit that loneliness, despite his being among thousands of men, sometimes overwhelmed him. As it probably did everyone.

  Thoughts of Sarah spiraled away and he sank into a blue funk, dwelling on the darkness of the immediate future. So many challenges. One, for instance: it seemed hopeless to think he might get through twenty-five missions and return home. Even after the sorties he’d flown out of England, and the two special missions he’d gone on out of Benghazi, he’d made it only halfway to the magic number. And now there apparently loomed on the horizon some sort of deadly fool’s errand from which he and many others might never return, though no one seemed to have a clue—or if they did, weren’t talking about it—what that operation might be.

  Low-level bombing in a B-24 Liberator? No, it couldn’t possibly be that, could it?

  If so, why not just walk into the enemy’s camp tugging a five-hundred pounder in a little red wagon?

  He fell asleep with visions of Sarah and him gliding across a dance floor as the muted trombone section of the Glenn Miller Orchestra oop-pahed its way through “Tuxedo Junction.”

  4

  Kalamaki, Greece

  Late June 1943

  Luftwaffe Hauptmann Egon Richter landed his single-engine Messerschmitt fighter, a Bf 109, at a
German air base near Kalamaki, Greece, in the late morning, well before the daily peak of the searing summer heat. The base sat roughly six miles south of Athens. It had been a civilian facility before the RAF took it over in 1940, and before German forces claimed it in 1941.

  Egon taxied his plane to a hardstand where a Kübelwagen, a light military vehicle, waited for him.

  “Oberstleutnant Rödel wishes to speak with you,” the driver of the vehicle, a young staff sergeant, said.

  Egon nodded. He knew of Gustav Rödel, but did not know him personally. Rödel, deemed one of the “fast burners” in the Luftwaffe, had become a wing commander at the age of twenty-seven. He had almost eighty kills to his credit, a remarkable number of enemy planes shot down in just under four years. As a commander, his popularity among pilots soared, for he believed in leading from the front, in the cockpit of a fighter, not from behind, at a desk in a headquarters building.

  Egon turned over his flight equipment to a ground crew and climbed into the Kübelwagen.

  “Headquarters is just south of here,” the staff sergeant informed him. “We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

  Leaving a trail of dust behind them as the vehicle jounced along an uneven dirt road, they reached headquarters, as promised, in short order. The sign over the entrance to a three-story villa announced Jagdgeschwader 27. 27th Fighter Wing.

  Egon thanked the staff sergeant and entered the building. He found Oberstleutnant Rödel’s office on the second floor. He knocked.

  “Herein.”

  Egon entered.

  Rödel rose from behind a desk where he’d been sitting.

  Egon saluted. Not the Party salute, but a traditional military salute, common in the Luftwaffe.

  Rödel returned the salute. “Ah, Hauptmann Richter. Welcome! Please, take a seat.” The wing commander, dressed in military shorts and a short-sleeved military shirt, gestured at a chair in front of the desk. With a youthful, slightly rounded face, he appeared to Egon more like a big brother than a commanding officer. He guessed they must be very close in age. One big difference, however: the Iron Cross that hung around Rödel’s neck. It helps to have shot down over six dozen enemy aircraft.