Egon debated joining the assault, but decided to allow one of his youngsters to claim a solo kill. He held his position and watched as the 109 dove toward the lumbering B-24.
22
Over the Ionian Sea
August 1, 1943
“Bandit, bandit!” The shout over the interphone startled Al. Vivian turned, stared wide-eyed at him.
“Where?” Al yelled. Alarm filled his voice. He thought they’d verged on a clean escape.
“High on our six, a little left. Single bandit.”
Al pivoted in his seat, trying to spot the attacker over his left shoulder. Couldn’t.
“I’m gonna bank right, give the waist a better field of fire.” He and Vivian turned the plane to allow the left-side waist gunner a wider arc of fire. No need to shoot the left vertical stabilizer apart, too, with half the right one already gone.
The tail, left waist, and top turret positions opened up on the Messerschmitt simultaneously. The ball turret remained inactive since its gunner, Stumpy, had taken over the right waist position for the badly wounded Chippy. The rattle of the fifty-caliber machine guns resonated through the interior of the bomber, joining the clamor of the thundering engines.
“Here he comes,” someone shouted over the interphone.
Oregon Grinder vibrated as violently as if a giant hand had swatted it. Shrapnel ricocheted around the cockpit as a cannon round sliced diagonally through the top of the bomber, carving a gaping hole in the aluminum top just to the rear of Al and Vivian. Al heard Sergeant McGregor scream and knew without looking the sergeant and the top turret position had been obliterated.
At the same time, a burst of machine gun fire from the fighter blew apart the number two engine just left of where Al sat. Something speared into his left upper arm, jolting it into numbness.
“Jesus,” he yelled. “Jesus!”
He flexed his arm, making certain it still worked. It did. The numbness morphed into searing pain. Blood soaked his sleeve. But adrenaline kept him functioning, able to ignore the wound.
He glanced at Vivian. A piece of metal had knifed into the side of her temple. She bled profusely, but kept wiping the flow from her eyes as she battled to hold Oregon Grinder steady. The plane, now flying on only two engines and losing power, wobbled toward the water.
The Messerschmitt roared just over the top of the B-24. Al and Vivian leveled the wings of the bomber. Al whipped his head to the right, spotted the 109, saw that at least one of Oregon Grinder’s gunners had nailed it. The fighter appeared fully engulfed in bright orange flames and tar black smoke. The pilot tumbled from the blazing plane, but his parachute, also ablaze, failed him. Arms and legs flailing in frantic desperation, the German plunged into the sea like a human torpedo.
Egon watched the death dive of his fellow aviator from above. A mixture of anger and sorrow flooded through him. Anger at the Americans, sorrow over the death of yet another young pilot. Lack of experience again? Or does your luck just eventually run out regardless of how skilled an aviator you might be? Does fate overwhelm everything in the end?
Damn this war. Damn the Third Reich. He knew the Wehrmacht no longer fought for the glory of the Reich, but merely for the survival of the German people.
He throttled back and studied the battle-riddled bomber. It bore so many holes in its fuselage it looked like a perforated sausage. Or a chunk of flying Swiss cheese. Only two props continued to turn. Part of a vertical stabilizer had been shot away, as had the right wing tip. A wire or cable of some sort clung to a tail fin, fluttering in the B-24’s slip stream like a tattered battle standard. A filament of a battle standard, anyhow. Like the plane itself, there didn’t appear to be much to it.
Another thing he noticed, the crippled Liberator pissed fuel like an Oktoberfest celebrant who’d swilled too much beer. He marveled the craft remained airborne. It obviously had no chance of making it to Sicily, or wherever it might be bound. It would end up in the sea. But perhaps he could hasten its demise. Another kill. More enemy dead. Revenge for his fellow aviators. Revenge for Köln and Bremen and Berlin and Hamburg. Still—he hated to admit it—he harbored a grudging admiration for the Liberator’s crew. But however much he might admire them—their daring, their bravery, their skill—they remained the enemy.
He had enough ammo for one pass. But not enough gas to attack and get back to Kalamaki. He needed to make a decision. Is a Bf 109 worth sacrificing if I take down a B-24 and its crew? He made his choice and eased the Messerschmitt abeam of the Liberator just out of range of its fifty-cals, seeing if he could draw fire, seeing if he could determine which gun positions were still operable. Some, he knew, had probably been destroyed or were out of ammo. If so, he could build the tactics of his attack around that knowledge.
But the bomber didn’t fire. That meant either well-disciplined gunners, waiting for the Messerschmitt to creep closer, or that its guns had burned through all their ammo. He could see the top turret had been destroyed, and that cracks spiderwebbed the armored glass in the tail position where the guns pointed down, not at him.
“Bandit, nine o’clock, level!” The call came from Sergeant Reeser, Ned, who manned the left waist gun. “And big trouble. I’m down to only about a dozen rounds.” Enough for a single quick burst.
“Right waist. Nothing at all left here.”
Al stared at the Messerschmitt running parallel to them over a thousand yards to the left. It seemed in no hurry to attack, so its pilot must have resigned himself to the fact he didn’t have enough fuel left to make it home.
“What’s he doing?” Vivian asked. Her bleeding had stopped, but the side of her face had become swollen and purple where the shrapnel had smashed into her.
“Sizing us up, figuring out the best way to bring us down. Bastard.” Al’s arm throbbed in nonstop waves of pain, but he refused to loosen his grip on the wheel. Oregon Grinder’s shaking verged on violent and it continued to lose altitude. The fuel leak had turned from a spray into a gusher. He knew the old gal didn’t have long to live. He considered jettisoning everything possible—ammo boxes, oxygen bottles, fire extinguishers, machine guns, even the ball turret, though that would take time—to stay aloft, but realized it would forestall the inevitable by only a matter of minutes.
He squeezed his eyes shut, thought again about the son he’d never seen—might never see—and issued a silent, sardonic snort about the reason he’d decided to become an Army aviator. At the time he’d made his choice, he thought being a pilot might be the best way to exert a modicum of control over his destiny. But he realized now, the vagaries of war overwhelmed everything. In matters of life and death, he had control over nothing. He could try, would try, to dodge the Grim Reaper, not only for himself, but for his men and Vivian. But in the end, it all came down to a roll of the dice. He’d seen too much death to believe otherwise.
He pressed his throat mike. “Gentlemen”—he paused and shot a glance at Vivian—“and lady, I’m proud to have served with you. Words can’t express the respect and admiration you’ve earned. You’ve fought bravely and honorably. I doubt there exists a finer crew in the Army Air Force. But we can’t fly any longer. It’s time to leave. I can keep this thing in the air for a few more minutes, long enough for everyone to bail out. Go out through the bomb bay. Make sure you take the life rafts. Hopefully there are American or British ships nearby that will pick us up.”
“Won’t the German shoot us in our ’chutes?” Vivian shouted at Al.
“The Luftwaffe doesn’t have that reputation,” Al yelled back. “We’ll be okay.”
“Sir, Stumpy here. We can’t move Chippy. It’ll kill him. He’s barely alive now.”
“Leave him here. I’ll try to ditch. But the rest of you, get out!” Al knew ditching a B-24 constituted suicide, but maybe he’d get lucky. Whatever, he had no intention of abandoning a wounded comrade. He had his doubts about Rhett, the tail gunner, too. At the very least, the kid had to have suffered a severe concussion.
“Rabbi here, Pops. Kenny and I have discussed it. We’ve made our decision. We’re sticking with you. We’re a team, remember?”
“Damn it, you guys. That Messerschmitt out there will likely knock us out of the sky before I have a chance to get us in the drink. We’ve nothing left to fight with.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
“He’ll figure it out real quick.”
“Let’s make him work for his kill, then.”
“Stumpy here. I’m with Rabbi and Kenny. I’m stickin’ around.”
“Ned here. I’m not goin’ no place, neither.”
Al looked directly at Vivian.
“I don’t believe in jumping out of airplanes,” she said. “Besides, in for a dime, in for a dollar.”
Al hadn’t heard from Rhett in the tail, so had to assume he might have passed out again.
“So what do you know about ditching B-24s . . . assuming we get the chance?” Al said to Vivian.
“Not much. Only what I’ve read and heard. Kind of like how I knew to try using parachutes as drag chutes when I landed without hydraulics.”
“That worked out okay.”
She shrugged. “So you think I can get lucky twice?”
“Given that we have no other options, yes.”
She flashed a quick smile, then pointed out the windscreen past Al. “Our German friend is still watching us.”
With the Liberator’s top turret fifty-cals out of the game, and likely the tail guns, too, Egon decided to attack from the rear and above and shoot for the wing root, where the wing joined the fuselage. If he could sever the wing, the bomber would become a lead sled.
He peeled off and climbed, circling back to get behind and above the wounded bomber as it staggered along like a drunken dinosaur . . . a relic of the past.
He knew he could make quick work of it and maybe still have enough gas left to get back to the Greek coast. Kalamaki was out. But he might be able to at least reach land.
The fighter climbed away from Oregon Grinder and executed a one hundred and eighty-degree turn.
“He’s leaving us,” Vivian yelled, optimism and excitement infusing her voice. “Maybe he’s running on empty. Or out of ammo.”
“He’ll be back,” Al retorted. “If he were down to zero gas or ammo, he wouldn’t have bothered spending time studying us. Now he knows how he wants to kill us.”
“Oh.” The word came out freighted with defeat and fear.
“Okay, guys,” Al said, “the bandit will attack our six from above. He knows the top turret is gone, and I’m guessing he probably figures the tail guns are no threat, either.” He paused, then called Rhett in the tail position once more, but again got no response, confirming his worst fear.
“So, no tail weapons. That means all we’ve got left are a few rounds in the left waist. But I’ve got a half-assed plan. We can at least go down fighting.”
“Let’s hear it, Pops.” It sounded like George.
“Stumpy, Ned, you guys in the waist positions will have the best chance of spotting the Kraut when he comes after us again. Holler at me when he starts his attack. He knows we’re wounded and can’t fight, so he’ll shed speed and try to keep us under fire as long as he can.
“There’s a big ole cumulus up ahead, just off to our right. Viv and I can’t make any fancy turns, but I think we can make it into that cloud before he fires. It’ll be risky, but we’ll drop the flaps and landing gear when we get in there and see if we can dump enough speed the bastard will lose us and blow right on by.”
Risky didn’t begin to describe the maneuver. Even now they verged on stalling. If they slowed too much more, Oregon Grinder would become a cannonball. Not that it wouldn’t anyhow.
Al continued speaking, but realized his voice must sound as if it were wrapped in barbed wire. “When we pop out of the cloud, we’ll roll slightly right and try to give the left waist a more open field of fire. If you spot the bandit, Ned, blast him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then, “Here he comes, Pops. On our six, about two miles back.”
Al and Vivian pivoted Oregon Grinder toward the white mass of cloud.
23
Over the Ionian Sea
August 1, 1943
Oregon Grinder shimmied and rattled even more as it plunged into the towering cumulus. A thick, gray mist swallowed the plane. More than that. The bomber, half shot to pieces, had become a sieve—the swirling fog invaded the interior, as well.
In the cloud, the visibility dropped to zero. Al focused his eyes on the artificial horizon indicator on the instrument panel, making sure he held the aircraft in level flight.
As quickly as they had entered the cloud, they popped out, back into sudden, brilliant sunlight. He and Vivian retracted the landing gear, lifted the flaps, and shoved the throttles forward to keep from stalling. And, as planned, they banked the B-24 a smidgen to the right, just in case the left waist gunner, Ned, had an opportunity to fire one last volley.
Egon had seen the maneuver before. Run and hide in a cloud. He watched the bomber disappear, but didn’t pursue it. He throttled back and turned away from the cumulus. He remained on its periphery and tried to gauge where the Liberator would exit. If he guessed correctly, it would be an easy surprise kill.
“Ja,” he exclaimed, as the bomber burst from the cloud, a bit below him and slightly to his right. But the craft had shed speed and he found himself, much to his chagrin, virtually abeam of it—an awkward position from which to attack, since a fighter carries only forward-firing weapons.
Before he could register his foe’s intention, the bomber rolled slightly right and the fifty-caliber machine gun in the waist position swung in his direction. A short stream of tracers burst from its muzzle and swept toward him.
“Scheisse,” he cried—shit—and jammed the stick and throttle forward, attempting to dive away from the American’s ambush. But too late. At least one round smashed into the fighter’s nose just to the rear of the engine. A thin stream of black, viscous liquid erupted from where the shell had struck. It slithered back along the side of the aircraft.
Oil tank. At least the volley had spared the engine. Not that it would last long without oil. He glanced at the oil gauge. The needle quivered, but didn’t yet indicate a loss of pressure. He still had some fight left, time for one last pass, one final opportunity to bring down an enemy that wouldn’t abandon the battle.
He yanked back on the stick, climbed, and turned, intending to counterattack. The machine gun burst that had struck his plane had been strangely brief, so he guessed that had been the bomber’s last hurrah, its final rounds of ammo. For all practical purposes, it had become an unarmed Zeppelin. It would be no more of a challenge now than routine target practice.
“I got ’im, I got ’im,” Ned screamed over the interphone.
The Messerschmitt had been positioned dead even with Oregon Grinder as it blew out of the cloud. Al had been as surprised as he guessed the 109’s pilot had been. The ploy of reducing speed appeared to have worked, for the German had found himself in no position to attack. In fact, he had inadvertently placed himself in a momentarily defenseless situation.
At least one round from Ned’s short burst found its mark. Sparks flew from the fighter’s fuselage just to the rear of the engine. A thin stream of oil followed, snaking back along the side of the aircraft. But the wound hadn’t been catastrophic. The Messerschmitt continued to fly.
“God loves fools and fighter pilots,” Al muttered. A P-40 jockey had once told him that after bailing out over occupied Belgium and landing near a farm house full of resistance fighters.
The Bf 109 peeled away from Oregon Grinder and climbed. Al knew it would be back. And next time it would be met with no resistance. To make matters worse, there seemed not even enough time to ditch before the bandit returned.
Al’s innards churned. He’d failed to get his crew to safety. He clenched his jaw in anger and a sense of defeat. The thought of never having held his
child bordered on unbearable. It hollowed out his soul, leaving nothing but a dark, infinite void. He drew a deep breath and sucked in an incongruous mix of odors—fresh sea air, aviation gas, expended ammunition . . . and death.
He got on the interphone. “We’re done, guys. We didn’t knock the bastard down, so he’s coming back for us. Everyone move to the floor near the waist gun windows. I don’t think I can ditch before he returns, but in case I can, I want all of you in position to get out once we hit the water. Go out the windows. Well, assuming we don’t break up, which we probably will. Sorry. There’s not much structural integrity left in this old bird. Thank you one and all. And Godspeed.”
He turned to Vivian. “Get back there with the rest of the guys. I’ll stay here and try to land us in the water, assuming we don’t get blown to bits before I have a chance.”
“No,” she said.
“It’s an order,” he snapped.
“I’m not in the military,” she lashed back. “I’m not even here, damnit.”
“Vivian, please.” Exasperation overwhelmed him.
“You’ll need help ditching. I’ve got some ideas.”
Oregon Grinder continued to tremble and quiver. One of its engines—of the two that continued functioning—coughed. Al knew the lifespan of the bomber had dwindled to a matter of seconds. Maybe all of their lifespans had.
Egon pulled a tight turn and brought the fighter in behind the bomber and slightly above it. He reduced his speed, intending to take his time and keep the Liberator under fire as long as he could, or at least until he’d expended all his ammunition.
When Heroes Flew Page 19
