When Heroes Flew

by H W Buzz Bernard

  “We’re going on one of the biggest jobs of the war so far, men,” Baker said, his voice husky with emotion. “I’ll be honest, it will get rough. But our final practice run a couple of days ago proved we can pull it off. If we hit our targets in Ploesti like we did those in the desert, we might just cut six months off this damn war. Whatever the cost, it will be worth it. I know we can do it.”

  A navigator in the crowd piped up. “Sir, what’ll happen if you and Hell’s Wench don’t make it to the target?”

  “Nothing like that will happen,” Baker said firmly. He paused for effect, then raised his voice. “Gentlemen, I’m going to take you to this one even if my plane falls apart.”

  Al hoped the colonel’s words wouldn’t prove prophetic.

  Another question came from the group of assembled airmen. “What do you think our chances are of staying undetected, Colonel?”

  Baker furrowed his brow, shook his head. “Don’t count on totally surprising the Germans, fellows. Look, once we get in the air, they’ll hear us all the way to Cairo, not that they’ll know for sure where we’re headed. A low-altitude attack is probably our best bet at catching them off guard. They won’t be expecting that.”

  “Then why maintain radio silence?”

  “Good question,” Baker said. “I’m sure the Krauts will know when we depart Benghazi, and they’ll be on alert, but they won’t know exactly where we’re headed. They might guess Ploesti, but they can’t rule out Italy or Austria, either. If they can’t pick up our radio transmissions, they can’t track us.”

  Baker handled a few more questions before dismissing the group. “Okay, it’s chow time. Eat hearty and sleep well, though I know that’ll be impossible. We’ll gather for a final briefing tomorrow morning, oh-four-thirty.”

  Al walked with the men as they moved toward the mess tent in relative silence, many likely lost in private thoughts or, perhaps, prayer.

  After dinner, Al sat on the edge of his cot, reading letters from a stack that rested beside him. The letters had finally caught up with him after being routed, via an APO address, to RAF Hardwick in England, where the Circus had previously been stationed, then to the Benghazi complex. Most of the missives had been posted in the spring, several months ago. They came from his family, his friends, and most importantly, Sarah.

  Under flickering lights powered by a stuttering electric generator, he read through them one by one in chronological order until he came to the most recent, a letter from Sarah postmarked May 29.

  From outside, the frequent roar of B-24 engines being tested rode through the encampment on a muggy Mediterranean breeze. Rumor had it that as many as two dozen more Liberators, in addition to those that had flown the final dress rehearsal, might be combat-ready by tomorrow morning.

  Al held the envelope containing Sarah’s letter in his hand for a moment before slicing it open with his pocket knife. He hated unsealing it, since it marked the last of his available mail. He compared it with having to read the final chapter of a novel you really loved—you hated for the book to end.

  He pulled the letter from the envelope, unfolded it, and read the first line. His heartbeat stumbled. He reread the line, then sprang to his feet and whooped so loudly he scared himself.

  He startled the officer in the cot next to him, Honky Tonk Gal’s bombardier, who leaped up, too. Forty-five automatic in hand, he assumed a combat stance and swept the pistol in an arc from side to side.

  “What is it?” he yelled. “Bandits? Scorpion? What?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. It’s okay. Relax. Look”—Al held the letter aloft—“I’m a dad!”

  The bombardier lowered his gun. “Shit, you scared the hell out of me, Pops.”

  “Sorry.” He sank back onto his cot.

  “Congratulations, daddy.” The bombardier extended his hand to Al. “Tell me.” He nodded at the letter in Al’s hand.

  “A boy. Eight pounds, ten ounces, born May 26.” He couldn’t help grinning. He thought he probably looked like a goofy Cheshire Cat.

  “You’re gonna have to find some cigars.”

  “Yeah . . . after we get back.”

  “Right. After we get back.”

  Al noted that neither of them said if.

  He continued to read the letter. Sarah said she hadn’t mentioned her pregnancy earlier, not wishing to worry him when he likely had so many other things on his mind. But everything turned out okay. In his absence, the family decided to honor him by naming his son after him: Albert Junior.

  Sarah said she calculated, counting backward, that “it” had happened the night after their visit to the Glen Island Casino. “As I recall,” Sarah wrote, “things got pretty passionate that night.”

  “Passionate” constituted an understatement, Al thought. Descriptions such as “wild” and “urgent” came to mind. All he recalled were clothes flying off, a crash landing in bed, and an eruption of lust-filled groans and cries. At least two curtain calls followed their initial performance as their final sleepless hours together ticked toward dawn.

  Al lay back on his cot and clutched the letter to his chest. Overcome by emotion, he squeezed his eyes shut and allowed tears to leak down his cheeks. A tsunami of joy, and concern, flooded over him. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever get to see his son, hold him in his arms, hug him, wish him happy birthday, play ball with him, see him off to college, attend his wedding, and on and on. Goddamn this damned war. Damn the Germans. Damn the Japs.

  Al opened his eyes, rolled onto his side, and retrieved several sheets of paper and a fountain pen from a beat-up metal table adjacent to his cot. He maneuvered himself into an awkward sitting position on his thin mattress. With his knees pulled up so he could rest an old Life magazine on them, he used the magazine as a surface on which to rest the sheets of paper and began to write his newborn son a letter.

  Dear Son Albert,

  You can’t imagine my surprise and joy—overwhelming joy, I might add— upon learning you had arrived in the world. I’m sorry beyond words I wasn’t there to greet you. Perhaps you will understand, someday when you are older, that I was away doing something important: fighting a war against evil so you might never have to. I suppose by the time you are able to read this, the outcome of that conflict will have been determined. At this time, things seem to be going well for us, if “going well” is a phrase that can be applied to armed combat and people dying.

  Son, I hope against hope that I will be able to return home and share in raising the fine young man I know you will become. If for some reason I don’t make it back, know that though I may never have held you in my arms, I will love you through eternity.

  Know, too, that your mother loves you as much as I. She’s a beautiful, level-headed, and delightful woman who will, if I don’t return, raise you with great care, wisdom, and integrity. If it comes to that, I pray that you will always respect and support her.

  If I make it through the mission I’m flying tomorrow, which is perhaps one of the most dangerous ever undertaken, you will have received this letter through normal post. If I don’t survive, it will have arrived from the chaplain’s office in Benghazi, Libya, where I’m stationed. (I will leave this letter in the chaplain’s care as soon as I complete it.)

  I suppose I should say a bit about the world we live in in the mid-20th century. I’m sure you’ll read about it in history books, but perhaps some insights from your father might offer you a better perspective.

  We, the US and our allies—Great Britain, France, Canada, Australia, and many other smaller nations—are fighting to maintain our freedom. Freedom to choose our leaders, speak our minds, live our lives as we wish, at least within legal and moral bounds. These are liberties I hope you are able to take for granted as you grow up.

  Unfortunately, the 1930s gave rise to dictators—despots and fascists—who wanted to do away with those freedoms. I’m sure you will read extensively about Germany’s Adolf Hitler, Italy’s Benito Mussolini, and Japan’s Empero
r Hirohito. Also, Russia’s Joseph Stalin, though we’ve embraced him as an ally, is reported to have murdered and starved millions of his own people. That’s not exactly the kind of leader we want as a friend.

  At any rate, these dictators, whom I consider moral degenerates, rule by fear, torture, and extermination as they seek to expand their empires. We cannot let that happen. It is why I and others joined the military and pledged our lives to stop the spread of authoritarianism, to stop it now so that you might not have to. I wonder if when you reach my age, the world will still be beset by such concerns as fascism and despots. I hope not. I want you, and others being born in these difficult times, to grow up in a world free of fear and terror and war. But I must admit, my son, based on what little I know of history, I harbor my doubts.

  Al continued writing for another half hour, telling Al Junior more about his mother, life in the Army, life in the desert, and as much about tomorrow’s mission as he could. Finished, he folded the letter, kissed it, and tucked it into an envelope.

  Missive in hand, he trudged to the chaplain’s tent through the humid darkness. He found the lights in the “office” shining brightly.

  He poked his head through the tent’s opening. “Hey, Chappy, still open for business?”

  “Never closed. Come on in.”

  Al entered. Major Dawson Bills sat at a camp desk, puffing furiously on a yellowed Meerschaum pipe. A frail column of foul-smelling smoke spiraled upward from the pipe’s bowl.

  Al fanned his hand in front of his nose. “Holy cow, padre, whattaya got in that thing? Camel dung?”

  The chaplain removed the pipe from his mouth. “Keeps evil spirits away.”

  “I thought you used prayer for that.”

  “I like to cover all the bases.”

  Al smiled. So did Bills. He placed his pipe on a tin ashtray, then stared up at Al with tired eyes and a hang-dog look. Slightly paunchy and crowned by a sparse wreath of unkempt brown hair, he reminded Al of an aging Friar Tuck, a character he’d seen in Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood movie. The chaplain gestured at Al to sit.

  “So,” Bills said, “I gather you’re flying the raid tomorrow.”

  Al nodded. “With the Circus.”

  “Addison Baker’s group.”

  “Yes.” He held up the envelope for Bills to see. “I’ve got something I’d like to leave with you, Chappy. You know . . . just in case . . .”

  Bills nodded. “I know.” He extended his hand for the envelope.

  “It’s to my son.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  Al laughed. “I don’t know a thing about him.”

  Bills cocked his head in a questioning manner.

  “I just found out about him an hour ago,” Al continued. The words caught in his throat. “A letter from my wife finally reached me. She informed me I’d become a dad as of the end of May.”

  “That’s wonderful, Captain.” Bills stood and waddled to where Al sat. “Congratulations, daddy.” He shook Al’s hand. “May God bless you, and your wife and son.”

  Al looked up, his eyes slightly misty. “You think He will, padre?”

  “Always.”

  “How many men have you seen off on missions?”

  Bills returned to his chair. “Hundreds, I suppose.”

  “And you’ve prayed for their safe return?”

  Bills didn’t answer for a long moment. He picked up his pipe, examined it, knocked the ashes out of its bowl, and placed it back on the ashtray. Finished, he spoke in soft, measured tones.

  “We both know not everyone makes it back from bombing raids. All I can do is offer up prayers that God will grant you courage and wisdom, and that you will carry out your mission as you’ve been trained. I can’t promise my words will bring you and your crew home.” He paused and let his message hang in the air.

  “God doesn’t care?” Al’s question sounded harsher than he’d meant it.

  “Oh, He cares, all right. But you’ve got to understand, He didn’t cause this war, man did. And as men, we suffer the consequences of that.”

  “But we’re the good guys.”

  “In the end, I have no doubt we’ll prevail. But there’s still a price to be paid, on both sides.”

  “I guess, Chappy, I was hoping you could put in a good word for me.”

  Bills sighed and leaned forward on his desk. His words came out quiet and soothing. “Of course I will, Captain. But you’ve got to understand something, I’m in sales, not management.” He flashed a wan smile at Al.

  “I accept that,” Al said, though he’d hoped for a different answer.

  Bills stood and walked to Al. “If you’d like, I’ll pray now.”

  Al nodded.

  They knelt together on the hard ground covered by the tent’s tarp. Bills draped his arm over Al’s shoulders and reminded God that Al was a good man who wanted nothing more than to see his son. He prayed that God might grant Al courage, wisdom, and clarity on his mission; that he might lead his crew to victory, though Al noted the term victory didn’t necessarily include safety. The chaplain concluded his petition to the Almighty with words of thanks and an amen that Al joined in on.

  They stood. Bills shuffled back to his desk where he retrieved Al’s letter, then walked to a makeshift set of shelves sitting in a dark corner near the rear of the tent.

  “I trust I’ll be giving this back to you tomorrow,” he said. He held up the envelope before placing it in one of several stacks containing what Al guessed must be several dozen other letters and packages.

  Al stared. “The packages, what’s in the packages, if I may be so bold?”

  “Photos, high school rings, family keepsakes, medals, a few bundles of cash, even a camel whip, one airman told me.”

  “It looks like more than a hundred letters.”

  Bills nodded, a deep sadness etched in his corrugated face.

  “But I don’t suppose you’ll be returning all of them,” Al said, instantly regretting it.

  “No,” Bills responded softly, “I won’t.”

  Al ducked out of the tent. “Thank you, Chappy,” he called back.

  “Godspeed, Captain.”

  A scorpion scuttled across the sand, fleeing the shaft of light that fled from the tent as Al stepped out.

  12

  Benghazi, Libya

  July 31, 1943

  After leaving the chaplain’s quarters, Al strolled away from the lights and noise of the encampment into the desert a short way. A vast canopy of flickering stars draped across the sky, stretching from horizon to horizon. He knew other men had gazed up at them in the past, as he did now, perhaps on the eve of other great battles, and tried to divine their place in the infinite universe, their reason for being.

  He stared at the heavens for a long while, feeling his tininess, his fleeting impermanence, and unimportance in the cosmos. But at the same time, he sensed something else: that he actually might find meaning, a purpose to his temporary existence, in the mission tomorrow. Maybe, he thought, the raid would present a chance not many men got—to plunge a dagger into the ever-beating heart of evil. It was an effort that might well be forgotten in fifty years, or a hundred, but for the here and now, he envisioned it as offering a chance to validate his being. And test his courage. I hope Al Junior will remember.

  He trudged back to his tent where, realizing any attempt to fall asleep would be futile, he lay on his cot listening to the distant, calming wash of the Mediterranean on the barren shores of the Libyan desert. But tranquility proved elusive. The rattling bellow of twelve-hundred-horsepower engines being tested punctuated the stillness at regular intervals as maintenance crews, continuing their desperate round-the-clock sprint to resuscitate as many B-24s as possible, labored through the night. The attack, now only hours away, would require every bomber that could fly, though Al knew some might be barely airworthy.

  His thoughts gradually drifted from Liberators, bombing missions, and the Mediterranean to another ocean and another time�
�to an era devoid of being deployed to faraway lands, free of concerns over piloting planes and dropping bombs, and absent of fears over never seeing or hugging your newborn child.

  He paged back through his well-worn memory book to the first kiss he and Sarah had shared, three, maybe four years prior to their marriage. They’d been strolling along a beach on the Oregon coast when a sudden spring shower swept in off the Pacific. Sprinting just ahead of the fuzzy gray curtain that swallowed the April sun and pursued them with furious sneezes of wind, they found shelter in a shallow depression hewn into a rocky cliff. A cave-let, Sarah called it. Shivering, they embraced, Sarah forcing her tiny body unashamedly against his. The redolence of salt spray coating her hair teased his senses. Tentatively, they pressed their lips together, then let them linger. Seventeen seconds, Sarah told him later, seventeen seconds. However long it was, it became an epiphany for Al. With the assurance of youth, he knew from that point on they would be together forever in a bucolic world, one that didn’t include Liberators and Messerschmitts, thousand-pound bombs and eighty-eight-millimeter antiaircraft cannons, fear, and death.

  Al wondered if he would ever have the privilege of hearing about a romantic moment such as he and Sarah had experienced from his son, not that sons shared those kinds of secrets with dads. But he knew they shared others. Dad, my gal broke up with me. Dad, I’m having a tough time in math class. Dad, coach has me sitting on the bench all the time.

  Lord, give me a chance. I’ll fly that plane ’til the wings fall off. Just let me walk away from it. Allow me to hold my son in my arms, look him in his big, uncomprehending eyes, and tell him Daddy loves him. I know you know about that, Father. Amen.