When Heroes Flew

by H W Buzz Bernard

He scuttled back to George. “Hey, have you seen Sorey this morning?”

  “Nope. Don’t worry, though. Remember, he just got sprung from the infirmary late yesterday. He’s probably still snoozing, trying to gain back some strength.”

  “I hope so.” Al beckoned Sergeant Reeser over. “Sarge, go see if you can find Lieutenant Sorenson. I think he’s three or four tents over. Tell him to get his ass up and in here.”

  “Yes, sir.” The “kid” sprinted off.

  Lieutenant Colonel Baker entered the tent and the men sprang to attention. The briefing covered pretty much what had been gone over in other briefings: the importance of maintaining radio silence, of nailing the IPs, of dropping the bombs from minimum altitude.

  “Each plane will carry a thirty-five-hundred-pound bomb load,” Baker said, “thousand pounders and five-hundred pounders. Most of the thousand pounders will be on a one-hour delay fuse, the five-hundred pounders mostly on forty-five-second delays.”

  The delays, Al understood, would prevent the bomb groups from blowing up other aircraft on the raid as they attacked from almost ground level.

  Baker continued his briefing. “In addition to the bombs, each aircraft is being issued boxes of incendiaries, thermite sticks. Waist gunners can toss the sticks out during the bomb runs. They’ll help ignite anything combustible around the refineries. And believe me, there’s a lot of stuff to combust.”

  Baker motioned a bespectacled, pimply-faced lieutenant front and center. “Stormy will give us the weather now.”

  “Gentlemen,” the lieutenant said in a surprisingly firm and confident voice, “the weather looks good. The nearest front is stuck over western Europe. Weak high pressure is centered over Poland. The target area should have only scattered clouds, cumulus with bases around four thousand feet, and maybe an isolated rain shower or two. Visibility is expected to be at least seven miles.

  “En route weather is forecast to be clear until you hit the Pindus Mountains along the Albanian-Yugoslavian border. Over the mountains, scattered to broken towering cu, tops around sixteen thousand feet, are likely, and there could be a stray cumulonimbus here and there. But you should be able to thread your way VFR between cloud towers. Any questions?”

  “Flight level winds?” Colonel Baker asked.

  “A light headwind, ten to fifteen miles per hour going. A slight tailwind to boost you on your way home.”

  “Turbulence?” someone in back asked.

  “Minimal, but probably some light to moderate thermal bumps over the target.”

  To be expected, Al thought. He looked around to see if Sergeant Reeser had returned with word of Sorey. He hadn’t.

  The weather guesser fielded a few more questions then turned the briefing back to Colonel Baker. Baker announced takeoffs from the five airstrips would begin at oh-seven-hundred local with the bomb groups rendezvousing over Tocra, about fifty miles northeast.

  “We’ll depart Tocra at oh-eight-thirty,” Baker said. “We expect flight time to the target to be a bit over seven hours. With a lighter load and our ability to gain altitude and catch some stronger tailwinds after the attack, we should get home a lot quicker.”

  Al gave an absentminded nod in response. Just getting home period is all I want.

  Baker wrapped up the briefing with a time hack so everyone’s watch would read exactly the same.

  “One last thing,” he said. “Not to sound overly dramatic, but the next twelve to fourteen hours will likely be the most important of your lives. I’ve never worked with a finer group of men, and I want you to know it’s a privilege—no, an honor—to fly and fight with you. I will get you to the target, gentlemen, and we’ll make the enemy wish he’d never heard of the United States Army Air Force and Ted’s Traveling Circus. That I promise. Dismissed.”

  The men stood and cheered.

  As they filed out of the tent, they picked up escape kits, packets containing items that could be used to facilitate survival in case of being shot down. Included in the kits: a handkerchief map of the Balkans, gold pieces—US twenty-dollar coins or British Sovereigns—Greek drachmae, Turkish lire, pressed dates, water purification tablets, biscuits, sugar cubes, some sort of odd-looking chocolate, and tiny compasses that could be hidden in various parts of the body.

  Al had just retrieved his kit when Sergeant Reeser skidded to a stop in front of him.

  “Sir, I found Lieutenant Sorenson!”

  “Is he on his way?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “He’s in the infirmary.”

  “Oh, shit, no. Not again.”

  “He was taken there last night. Some guys found him passed out in his bunk. His bedding was so full of crap they had to burn it.”

  Al gritted his teeth in frustration. “We need to find a copilot, really fast.” He pushed his way back into the briefing tent and found Colonel Baker. “Sir, I’ve got a problem.”

  Baker looked at him, frowned. “Tell me.”

  “Lieutenant Sorenson, my copilot, is in the infirmary. His dysentery returned last night.”

  Baker shook his head. “Bad timing.” He glanced at his watch. “Only three hours ’til we start engines. Do you know we’ve managed to get two dozen additional Libs combat-ready? There’s been a mad scramble to assemble crews. We’ve pulled guys out of the infirmary, put guys back on flying status who’ve completed their mission quotas, and tossed a few rookies from the Sky Scorpions into left-hand seats. Hell, Major Jerstad volunteered to be my copilot. He’s flown so many more missions than his quota he stopped counting. He should be on his way back to the States. I’m afraid you may be SOL, Pops.”

  “How about the infirmary? You think I could Shanghai somebody from there?”

  “Doubt it. It’s been raided two or three times already.”

  “I’m desperate. I don’t wanna let you or my crew down.” But deep within his psyche, a conflict ripped through Al. He knew he could easily stand down from the attack—he had a legitimate excuse now—and maybe live to see his son, but at what cost? Backing off from one of the most important raids of the war, from everything he’d ever trained for, while his buddies fought and died? The debate was short. He wouldn’t do that. “I’m going to try the infirmary again. I may have to drag somebody out of there tied to an IV bottle.”

  He darted to the infirmary, burst in, and grabbed the first flight surgeon he saw. He explained to him the dire situation, the words tumbling out of him like a waterfall emptying a flooded stream.

  “I get it, Captain, I really do, but I can’t help you,” the Army doc responded. “The walking wounded have already been drafted. We’ve got three extreme cases of dysentery, including your copilot, who can’t even stand. No way they could fly. Got one guy with an impacted wisdom tooth, but he’s not a pilot. Got three flight neurotics, and three who just flat refuse to go into combat. I suppose you could march ’em out of here with a .45 at their head, but you wouldn’t want ’em in the right-hand seat. I’m sorry.”

  Feeling as if he were mired in a psychological swamp, Al trudged to the mess tent. The aroma of bacon and eggs—probably real instead of powdered for a change—biscuits and gravy, and Lucky Strikes and Chesterfields permeated the crowded structure. Despite the massed aircrews, a strange quietness blanketed the dimly lit tent as each man seemed to be dealing with his thoughts and fears alone.

  Al found his crew and announced they’d probably have to stand down from the mission. Strangely, no one looked happy about it. They undoubtedly bore the same burden of disappointment he did, knowing they’d be sitting on their butts in Benghazi while their fellow airmen engaged in what likely could be one of the greatest battles of the war. Soldiers don’t train to sit on the sidelines.

  Al sat and George slipped a mug of coffee in front of him. “It’s not as bad as usual,” George said. “I think they left out the motor oil. Special treat for the warriors.”

  “Yeah, some warriors we’re turning out to be.”


  George squeezed onto the bench seat beside Al. “Maybe we should tell the guys to ask around and see if any of the other crews are looking for backups, especially gunners. No point in everyone missing the Big Show.”

  “I suppose,” Al mumbled.

  The mess facility began to slowly empty as crews finished off their breakfasts and departed to preflight their aircraft. Finally, only the men from Oregon Grinder remained.

  Al sipped his now lukewarm coffee and stared at a wall of the tent without really seeing it. How had it come to this? Grounded by a tiny bug, a bacterium or amoeba or whatever in the hell it was, that caused the runny, bloody shits.

  “Damnit all,” he blurted, and slammed his coffee mug onto the table.

  “Damn what all?” A female voice. “And why are you guys still here? I heard wheels up is in a couple of hours.”

  Al looked up into the face of Vivian Wright. He’d forgotten completely about her. Dressed in freshly pressed khakis, she could have been a poster girl for recruiting females into the . . . what was it? WAFS? “Grab some chow and I’ll tell you.”

  She returned a few minutes later with her breakfast and coffee and sat across from Al and George. Others in the crew had spread out in the now virtually empty facility, sipping coffee and puffing on cigarettes. No one had expressed interest in signing on with another crew.

  Al explained their plight while Vivian ate. She finished and dabbed her mouth with a napkin.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Well what?” Al responded.

  “The solution is obvious.”

  “What do you mean the—” He stopped before he finished the question. “Oh, hell no, Vivian. Don’t be ridiculous. I’d get court-martialed, get booted from the Army if I pulled a stunt like that. Besides, the guys would never buy into it.”

  “Look, I can handle a B-24 as well as any of the men here. Probably better than most.”

  “Stop it. This isn’t about just flying. People are going to try to kill us today. You’ve never had eighty-eight-millimeter shells bursting in your face, or a Messerschmitt diving at you with its twenty mike-mike cannon blazing. Quit with the fantasy crap, okay?”

  She slammed her coffee mug onto the table. “Well la-di-da, I’m not the one sitting around pissing and moaning that I can’t go to war with my buddies cuz I don’t have a copilot. I’m offering you a way out. I’m serious. Try looking at me like I was a pilot instead of some doll who’s worried she might get her mascara messed up. I can get you into the fight, flyboy, and you damn well know it. I’m the only ticket to Ploesti you’ve got left.”

  “Get off my case, Miss Wright. You know that would be illegal as hell. Read my lips. Women don’t go into combat.”

  “Tell that to the Russians.”

  “We aren’t Russians.”

  “No, you aren’t. You’re an American aircrew that’s going to miss, from what I’ve heard, one of the most daring air raids in US history, Doolittle’s aside. And Doolittle’s, while heroic, was really designed to be more of a ‘flag waver’ than a ‘shorten-the-war’ mission like this one.”

  Al looked at George, who’d been listening to the exchange with Vivian without entering into it. “So, Rabbi, what would you do?”

  “Defer to my aircraft commander.”

  “Thanks. You’re a big help.”

  “This is a command decision.”

  Al sighed. “Bigger than that, I think.”

  George glanced at Vivian, then back at Al. “Okay, here’s what I think. If we take her as our copilot, and we get blasted from the sky, what’s the diff? We’re all dead and nobody gets court-martialed. If we take her and make it back home, do you really think somebody would try to court-martial us? Hell, we might even get medals.”

  Al shook his head. “I dunno, I dunno. It’s just so against tradition. If people ever found out—”

  “Look at it this way,” Vivian said. “I can’t officially be part of your aircrew because officially I’m not here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t officially, legally, ferry aircraft overseas. Therefore, I’m not here. Yet here I am. Here but not here. So I couldn’t really be Oregon Grinder’s copilot. Stick me in that right-hand seat and I’d be nothing but a figment of people’s imagination. There but not there.” She paused. “I’m good to go if you are, Captain.”

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “Crews are starting their preflights,” she said.

  Al looked at his crew scattered around the mess tent, then at George, who nodded. Al stood. “Guys,” he called out, and motioned them back to the table.

  After they’d gathered, Al cleared his throat and began speaking. “I’ve made a decision, gentlemen. We’re going on the raid. I’ve found a copilot.” He paused. “Vivian Ann Wright.” He nodded at Vivian.

  A couple of the younger crew members snickered, taking it as a joke. Sergeant Gallagher, the engineer and senior NCO on Oregon Grinder, rolled his eyes and mumbled, “No frigging way.”

  “Here’s the deal, guys,” Al continued. “What I’m proposing is highly, well, let’s say, unusual. Out of bounds. So none of you has to go on this mission if you don’t want to, if you feel too uncomfortable. But if you didn’t see Vivian land that B-24 a few days ago with no hydraulics, you probably heard about it. It was quite a show. She’s probably logged more time at the controls of heavy bombers than most guys getting ready to fire up their engines out there right now.”

  The crew had fallen silent, a few exchanging glances that appeared riddled with uncertainty.

  “She’s been a crop duster, a wing walker, and an air racer,” Al went on. “And she volunteered to fly on this raid. I didn’t go to her on bended knee.”

  Vivian stood and inserted herself into Al’s pitch. “Volunteered, hell. I practically kicked down the poor captain’s door. Made a total pest of myself. Look, guys, I’m an experienced pilot. I’ve logged thousands of hours. Yeah, I’ve never flown in combat, but I promise you, I’ll hang onto those controls like a leech and help the captain get us to the target, Germans or no.”

  She stopped speaking briefly and looked around the table, giving each man a stony glare. Al could tell she’d had to stand up for herself against males before.

  She continued speaking. “I know some crews are not going to return from this raid. I fully understand that. But since I’ll be the first woman to fly in combat—not that anybody will ever know about it—I’d kind of like to be on a gang that does get back. That’s my incentive. I know some of you might not be comfortable flying with me, but like Captain Lycoming said, you’ve got a choice.” She sat.

  “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but there’s no way I’m flying a mission with a broad on board,” Sergeant Gallagher growled. “That’s just not how things are done in this man’s Army.” He thumped his fist against his chest. “It’s bad luck. We’d be dead men walkin’. Sorry.” He stood and strode from the mess tent.

  The tail gunner, Sergeant Cummings, the kid called “Rhett,” stood, too. “I don’t wanna die, either. Don’t need no bad luck.”

  “Men are gonna die today, regardless of whether they got a woman onboard,” Al snapped. “Forget your damn superstitions. Let God sort it out. We’ll make our own luck. And we’ll do that by having the best crew possible, working together, and sticking to our training. Pardon my being crude, but it doesn’t make any difference whether ya got a flopper or not. That’s not what counts, it’s what’s in here.” He pointed his thumb at his heart. “Viv’s got that. I know she does.”

  After a brief silence, George said, “I’m with Pops.”

  Then Kenny, the bombardier, spoke up. “Me, too.”

  One by one, the enlisted men followed suit, even Sergeant Cummings. He sat back down, though his face remained etched in uncertainty.

  “But now we’re short our top turret gunner,” Kenny reminded everyone. Sergeant Gallagher hadn’t returned.

  “Hey, I’ll handle the top turret,�
�� Sergeant McGregor, the radio operator, piped up. “Since we’re maintaining radio silence, I’m unemployed.” He grinned. “I was a nose gunner on a B-17 before I joined the Circus, so I can handle a fifty-cal.”

  “You got it, Stretch,” Al said. “Thanks.” He paused for a moment. “Okay, gentlemen, here’s the deal—our special crew is our little secret. If anyone asks about our copilot, it’s a ‘Lieutenant Benjamin Smith,’ a new kid, okay?”

  Scattered “yes, sirs” and nods followed.

  “I’ll track down Moe and tell him the same. It’s okay if he’s not joining our party, I gave him that option, but he’s gotta keep his mouth shut about why.” He turned to George. “Get Viv a utility hat, will you?” Then he faced Vivian. “Viv, tuck your hair up underneath that hat when you get it. Oh, and try not to wiggle when you walk.”

  Chuckles and a laugh or two followed, including one from Vivian. Exactly what Al wanted.

  He stood. “Oh, I almost forgot. One final thing. I’ve got a really strong reason for coming home alive from this mission, guys. I found out last night I’m a father. Al Junior. Born in May, eight pounds, ten ounces.” He couldn’t help but break into a jack-o’-lantern grin.

  Hearty handshakes, back slaps, and shouts of congratulations followed. Vivian patted him on the shoulder and said, “You’re gonna be a great dad.”

  George grinned and said, “So now you’re a Pops for real.”

  The tumult quieted and Al inclined his head toward the mess tent exit. “All right, gentlemen, lady, let’s go to Ploesti.”

  14

  Benghazi, Libya

  August 1, 1943

  Oregon Grinder’s ground crew, wrapping up loading bombs, greeted Al and his crew with waves and shouts as the airmen, and one airwoman, approached the plane. The chugging purr of the aircraft’s putt-putt, the auxiliary power unit used to generate electricity for the ground workers, filled the air, joining a chorus of dozens of others around the base.

  The maintenance chief, a veteran master sergeant, stepped forward. “Good to see ya, Pops. We heard you guys might not make it, that Sorey was back in the infirmary.”