When Heroes Flew

by H W Buzz Bernard

  “We got things worked out, found a replacement, a new guy, Lieutenant Smith.” Al inclined his head toward Vivian.

  The chief nodded a greeting to the “new guy.”

  Vivian nodded back, staying in the shadows, away from the brightness cast by the floodlights being used by the ground crew. With her utility cap pulled low over her forehead, almost down to her eyebrows, her femininity remained hidden.

  “Whatta we got for a weapons load, Chief?” Al asked, steering the sergeant’s attention to other matters.

  The chief, working bare-chested in the pre-dawn warmth, wiped the sweat from his torso with a tattered, oily-looking rag. “Three general purpose five-hundred-pounders on forty-five-second delay fuses, two GP thousand-pounders on a one-hour delay, and two boxes of British incendiaries. Should do some damage.”

  “Let’s hope.” Al turned to his crew. “Okay, mount up, guys. I’ll do the walk-around.”

  George and Kenny wriggled up through the nose-wheel well of the aircraft into their respective positions, navigator and bombardier, in the front of Oregon Grinder. The remainder of the crew entered through the open bomb doors. From there they scrambled onto a narrow, corrugated steel catwalk and moved to their assigned locations.

  Al performed his walk-around, literally kicking the tires and making cursory checks for gasoline and hydraulic fluid leaks.

  “Looks like we’re good to go, Chief,” he said after he finished his inspection. “Thanks to you and your men for taking care of the old girl.”

  “Yes, sir, Pops. Please bring her back in one piece. Same goes for you and your guys.”

  “Do my best.”

  “I know you will. Godspeed, Captain.” The sergeant popped off a crisp salute.

  Al returned it. He crawled into the bomb bay of Oregon Grinder, sidled forward on the catwalk, then up a tall step onto the flight engineer’s deck, followed by a shorter step up into the cockpit. Vivian, wearing a Mae West and a parachute harness, sat in the right-hand seat with the preflight checklist already open on her lap.

  Al sat in the pilot’s seat. He took a good look at Vivian, trying to discern if she evidenced any kind of jitteriness that might invalidate his decision to carry her into combat as a B-24 copilot.

  She looked back at him, holding him in a steady gaze. Other than appearing a bit paler than she had earlier, she exuded a professional confidence that put him at ease.

  “Scared?” he asked.

  “Of course. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “No one in his right mind . . . or her right mind.”

  She smiled. “I’ll be scared ’til we get back to Benghazi.”

  Well, at least she thinks we’ll get back.

  “Okay,” he said, “I’m thinking this will be a normal flight, just like a ferry mission, until we get into Romania. Not much work for us to do until then except stay in formation. The lead navigator will get us there.”

  “He’s flying with the Liberandos?”

  “Yes, that’ll be the group just ahead of us. He’ll be in Colonel Compton’s plane, Teggie Ann. Compton is the raid’s leader.”

  “Got it.”

  “We’ll cross the Med at about four thousand feet, then climb to ten thousand over the Greek Island of Corfu. That’ll be the altitude we fly over the Pindus Mountains at.”

  “And they’re where?”

  “Along the Yugoslavia-Albania border.”

  “Okay. I assume we drop back down after that?”

  “Correct. Three to five thousand feet once we’re over the mountains and into Romania . . . until we hit the IPs.”

  “The IPs?”

  “Initial Points. The landmarks that set us up for the bomb run.” Al sensed the wheels cranking in Vivian’s mind as she assimilated the information he tossed at her. She seemed to be absorbing it, not asking him to repeat things. “There are three IPs,” he went on, “laid out in a straight line about equidistant apart as we come in from the southwest. At the third IP we’ll make a final turn, to the southeast, and execute the attack. We’ll be hugging the terrain by then, so it’ll be pretty hairy. And there’ll be a lotta bad guys trying to knock us out of the sky.”

  She didn’t say anything in response, just nodded. He knew the enormity of what she’d volunteered for had to be sinking in now.

  “Looks like you’re ready to do—”

  “Hey, what’s with that guy?” Vivian interrupted, pointing through the cockpit window at an aircraft parked several hundred yards away. “That’s not standard preflight, is it?”

  Al squinted, trying to get a clear look through the haze of the slowly brightening dawn. Across the runway, a figure strode around and around a B-24 and appeared to be throwing small objects at it.

  Al laughed. “That’s Lieutenant John Palm,” he said. “He drew an old clunker called Brewery Wagon for the mission. She gets shot up almost every time she goes out. Rumored to be a bad luck plane. He’s tossing stones at her. Supposed to chase away evil spirits.”

  “Does it work?”

  “We’ll know by the end of the day.” He paused a beat. “Ready to run through the checklist, Viv?”

  “Ready.”

  “Go.”

  She began calling off the items on the engine pre-start checklist one by one. Al responded to each.

  “Flight controls.”

  “Free and correct.”

  “Flap handle.”

  “Neutral.”

  “Fuel boost pumps.”

  “Off.”

  And on and on. Snap, snap, snap. They rolled through the list in a little over a minute.

  Al glanced at his wristwatch. “Okay, let’s wind ’em up.”

  Outside, the crew chief standing near engine number three, the one nearest Vivian, gave a thumbs up. Al and Vivian ran through the start procedure and the big Pratt & Whitney coughed, clattered, and came to life in a throaty, chugging growl, belching streamers of black smoke into the breaking day. The remaining three twelve-hundred-horsepower engines roared to life one by one until all four of Oregon Grinder’s three-bladed props spun in dizzying unison. As dozens of other Liberators followed suit, a manmade dust storm sifted over the sprawling Benghazi complex. Operation Tidal Wave had come to life.

  The Circus planes lumbered onto the runway. At the four other runways scattered around the encampment, Al knew the Liberandos, Pyramiders, Eight Balls, and Sky Scorpions would be doing the same. They’d gather over Torca, fifty miles up the coast, then set off in formation, north over the Mediterranean Sea, Colonel Compton in Teggie Ann leading the way.

  At the end of the runway, the Liberators paused, waiting for the dust to settle. Tank trucks moved among the idling bombers, topping off their gas loads.

  “We’ll need every inch of runway to get Oregon Grinder up,” Al said to Vivian. “It’ll be like trying to get a pregnant hippo to skip rope. We’re carrying thirty-five hundred pounds of bombs plus extra fuel in special bomb bay tanks.”

  “I’m good at getting hippos to jump rope,” Vivian responded. She flashed Al a quick grin.

  At oh-seven-hundred hours a green flare fired from the field’s control tower arced into the sky—the “go” signal. Lieutenant Colonel Baker’s lead ship for the Traveling Circus, Hell’s Wench, waddled into takeoff position. Baker ran up the engines and released the brakes. Hell’s Wench, almost at a leisurely pace, rolled down the runway and lifted off into the glowing dawn. As Al had warned, the ship used virtually every inch of the runway.

  “We’re up next,” he said.

  He and Vivian maneuvered Oregon Grinder, shaking, rattling, clanking, into position. They waited two minutes, then revved the engines and released the brakes. An atavistic roar flooded through the interior of the bomber and it lurched forward, only gradually picking up speed. As the end of the runway hove into view and the Libyan desert appeared, Al and Vivian pulled back on their control wheels and the bomber struggled into the air.

  “Good job,” Al said. “We’ve got thirty-seven more Circ
us planes following.”

  “How many all together, all five groups?”

  “I think I heard the final count was one hundred seventy-eight.”

  Vivian’s eyes widened. She nodded her acknowledgement.

  They climbed to two thousand feet. Below them, bomber after bomber lifted off from the five runways into the brightening dawn.

  “Oh, shit,” someone yelled over the interphone.

  “What?” Al snapped, alarmed.

  “Tail gun here. Bomber down.”

  “Where? Who?”

  “Behind us. On takeoff. Looks like a Lib crashed. Lots of fire and smoke. Might have been Kickapoo.”

  “Roger that.” He knew Kickapoo. It had been loaned to the Circus for the day by the Pyramiders. One of the weather-whipped North African Libs from Colonel Kane’s group, it may have been pushed past its useful lifespan.

  He turned to Vivian. “Make that one hundred seventy-seven,” he said, his voice weary with emotion. The first fatalities of the Ploesti raid had been chalked up before they’d even embarked en route for the target.

  By oh-eight-hundred, the five bomb groups had mustered their forces north of Benghazi and departed for the island of Corfu five hundred miles away. They fell into their basic defensive formation of six-plane boxes, each box consisting of two three-plane Vs with the Vs stepped up toward the rear of each bomb group.

  The air fleet streamed northward over the glittering Mediterranean, their shadows gliding over the water like flying fish. The armada of thundering Liberators appeared to stretch over the sea for miles.

  Vivian leaned forward in her seat and surveyed the dozens of B-24s in front of and surrounding them.

  “It’s like the ‘Ride of the Valkyries,’” she said.

  Al shot her a questioning glance.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re not an opera fan?”

  He shook his head. “More Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller.”

  “‘The Ride of the Valkyries,’” she explained, “it’s a piece from one of Richard Wagner’s operas. He was German. The Valkyries are mythological female figures who choose who lives and who dies in battle.” She paused a beat. “I wonder if the Germans know we’re coming.”

  Al decided he had a warrior sitting in the right-hand seat of Oregon Grinder, then responded to her musing. “Let’s hope they don’t.”

  Kalamaki, Greece

  August 1, 1943

  “Wake up, Hauptmann. They’re coming.” Egon, through squinted eyes, peered up into the face of the young Oberleutnant who had awakened him.

  “Who’s coming?” His words came out sleep-slurred and muffled.

  “The Americans. Oberstleutnant Rödel wishes you in his office immediately.”

  Twenty minutes later, his eyes still half closed and his face unshaven, Egon stood before the wing commander. Rödel motioned for him to sit.

  “There’s something big underway,” Rödel said. “We just received a flash message from our Signal Interception Battalion near Athens saying the Americans have been transmitting to all Allied forces in the Med warning that a large mission is airborne from Libya. Apparently they don’t want friendly fire shooting them down.

  “That fits in well with other intel we’ve picked up that a large force of four-engined bombers, probably Liberators, has been taking off from the Benghazi area since sunrise.”

  “Ploesti?”

  “Maybe, but we don’t know for sure. Could be Italy. Now that the Allies have landed in Sicily, we know the mainland of Italy will be next. On the other hand, they could be after the Messerschmitt plant in Wiener Neustadt.”

  “In Austria?”

  “That would be at the extreme reach of their range, but possible. For that matter, we can’t rule out Sofia or even Athens.”

  “So where does that leave us, sir?” Egon had become more fully awake. He eyed a pot of percolating coffee in the corner of Rödel’s office.

  “For now, on standby. I want your squadron to be able to launch on half an hour’s notice. Since your ten new Messerschmitts are equipped with auxiliary belly tanks, your planes are the only ones that have the range to chase the bombers down. As soon as we get a more accurate fix on the Americans’ location and direction, I’ll make a definitive call.”

  “Any idea how large the force is?”

  “Nothing precise, but it sounds like well over a hundred bombers.”

  “They probably aren’t going for Sofia or Athens then.”

  “You’d make a good intel officer, Hauptmann.”

  “Danke.”

  “But you’re a hell of a lot more valuable as a fighter pilot. Get your men ready. As soon as I get additional details, I’ll contact you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Grab a mug of coffee on your way out.” Rödel inclined his head toward the burbling percolator. “It’s going to be a long day.”

  15

  Over the Mediterranean Sea

  August 1, 1943

  Oregon Grinder held steady off the right wing of Hell’s Wench, Lieutenant Colonel Baker’s aircraft. In the right-hand seat of Hell’s Wench, Major John Jerstad, the guy who’d stopped counting the number of missions he’d flown, assisted Baker in holding the thirty-nine bombers of the Traveling Circus on a steady course following Colonel Compton’s lead group. Occasionally, Jerstad glanced over at Oregon Grinder and gave Al a quick nod of approval. So far, so good.

  Al called his navigator on the interphone. “Hey, Rabbi, where are we?”

  George responded quickly, giving the coordinates of their latitude and longitude, then added, “About three hundred miles south of Corfu. Lookin’ good.”

  Al watched the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea flashing by four thousand feet below and thought about his son. He wondered if he’d ever be able to take Al Junior trolling for salmon in another ocean, the gray-green Pacific, or casting for rainbow trout in the crystalline waters of a Cascade Mountain lake, or drift fishing for steelhead in the swirling, eddying currents of a coastal river in Oregon.

  His thoughts drifted back to the stacks of letters and packages that sat in the chaplain’s tent in Benghazi. Some would be retrieved by the men who had left them there, others would be dispatched to the families and loved ones of those who didn’t come back. He squeezed his eyes shut. Which am I destined to be, oh Lord? Which? He didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one.

  A brief burst of gunfire interrupted his reverie. The ripping thud of twin fifty-caliber machine guns sliced through the monotonous roar of Oregon Grinder’s engines. Al jerked upright in his seat.

  Vivian yelled, “Cripes.” Her arms twitched as she gripped the control wheel in the copilot’s position, creating a little bobble in Oregon Grinder’s flight.

  “Test firing,” Al said. “Sorry, they’re supposed to warn us before they do that. But better get used to the sound. You’ll hear a lot of it before the day is over.”

  “Sorry, Pops.” The call over the interphone came from Sergeant McGregor, the radioman who’d volunteered to handle the top turret guns. “Forgot to give you a heads-up. Just wanted to make sure I remembered how to shoot down bad guys.”

  “Kill ’em all, Stretch.”

  “You got it, sir.”

  A call from Sergeant Cummings in the tail gun position came next. “Some Libs are starting to drop out of the formation behind us.”

  “The Pyramiders?”

  “Roger that, Pops.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “At least three have feathered a prop and turned around. They jettisoned their bombs and a bit of fuel and headed back toward Benghazi, I guess.”

  Vivian shot Al a questioning look.

  “The Pyramiders have the oldest planes,” he said. “They’ve been operating in the desert for over a year and their engines have taken a real beating. You know, the sand, the dust, the heat. We’ll probably see more of them hitting the road for home.”

  Al’s words proved accurate.

  Cum
mings called again after half an hour. “It’s getting hard to see, but it looks like four more Pyramiders have wheeled out of formation.”

  “Why hard to see?”

  “They’ve fallen behind us quite a ways, sir.”

  “How far?”

  “About two or three miles.”

  “Jesus,” Al exclaimed over the interphone. “We’re supposed to maintain five-hundred-yard visual contact between groups.” Three miles meant the gap had opened up to over five thousand yards. A stab of concern shot through him. If the Pyramiders had fallen that far off the pace, that meant the two groups following the Pyramiders, the Eight Balls and Sky Scorpions, had, too. With radio silence mandated between groups, Colonel Kane, the commander of the Pyramiders, had no way of notifying the attack leader, Colonel Compton, the mission force had become stretched out.

  Al feared the split would only grow, to the point where it became dangerous. He understood the likely cause but could do nothing about it. He assumed Colonel Kane had dropped the speed of his force to accommodate the slowest of his beat-up Liberators, those that had been operating in the desert for so long. The fact that seven aircraft had already turned back indicated how bad the situation had become. By reducing power, and thus speed, Kane probably hoped to preclude any additional abdications. Meanwhile, Colonel Compton, assuming everything to be fine, would continue to press forward at normal cruise speed. The separation between the two batches of aircraft would only grow.

  “Uh-oh, look,” Vivian shouted. She pointed out the windscreen to her right. One prop feathered, a Circus Liberator, banked out of formation and turned tail for Benghazi.

  “Looks like we’re getting hit with the same affliction as the Pyramiders,” Al responded.

  Over the next thirty minutes, four more Circus planes abandoned the group as engine failures and maybe even fuel leaks took their toll. The attack force had dwindled. Al ran the simple math in his head—at least twelve turn-backs that he knew of, and a crash on takeoff—down thirteen bombers and they hadn’t even reached Corfu. Not a good sign.