When Heroes Flew
Page 24
Inge reentered the room with wine and glasses on a silver tray.
Al and Sarah and the Germans spent the remainder of the afternoon polishing off two bottles of Zeller Schwarze Katz and too many pastries. They offered numerous toasts to the memory of Egon. They chatted about their lives and families as if they were lifelong friends, which Al guessed they probably had become.
Al spoke of Al Junior and his two other children, a girl and a boy. Christa said she had married and given Inge four grandchildren, three girls and a boy. Inge had never remarried, she explained, since most men close to her age had been killed in the war.
Gustav offered few details about his family, but talked mostly about his career in the West German Air Force. After a series of training courses in the US, he’d stepped into his new military role in 1957 and retired in 1971.
When the get-together ended after several hours, Al and Sarah traded hugs with Inge and Christa, and handshakes with Gustav. Then Gustav accompanied them down the stone stairs to the street.
“Again, I can’t thank you enough for coming from America to tell us about Egon,” he said. “Although what he did would have been viewed as treasonous thirty years ago, we can now see it as honorable and ethical. In the end, that’s more a measure of a warrior than how many targets he destroyed or how many enemies he killed. An enemy never remains an enemy, but a man’s integrity is eternal.” He spoke the last words in a quiet but clear voice.
The late afternoon had slipped into early evening, and the sky had morphed into a panorama tinted in tones of soft purple, gold, and pink. Bats, presumably pursuing evening meals, darted in and out of a cone of brightness cast by a nearby street light as it flickered to life. High overhead, still illuminated by the bright rays of the setting sun, a flight of four F-4 fighter jets, American Phantoms, roared northward.
“From Hahn Air Base,” Gustav said, looking up.
“The new warriors,” Al added.
Gustav returned his gaze to Al. “With the old ones relegated to the ground and their memories.”
His sentence seemed wrapped in melancholy and Al sensed he had something more to say, so remained silent.
“Memories,” Gustav repeated softly. “When heroes flew.” He quit speaking and stared past Al, as though gazing into the past. His eyes seemed to reveal a deep sadness.
He lifted his right hand and placed it on Al’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you survived the war, my friend, that you got to return home and meet your son, raise him, love him, watch him mature. I didn’t wish to say anything in front of Inge and Christa—this was their gathering—but I lost an infant son in an RAF bombing raid. Let us hope the generations that follow us will never again have to go through what we endured.”
He removed his hand from Al’s shoulder, stepped back, and saluted. “I honor your service.”
Al, his heart aching over what Gustav had just revealed, returned the salute. “And I, yours, sir.”
The Phantoms disappeared over the horizon, leaving only thin, smoky trails of exhaust hanging in their wakes.
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When Heroes Flew
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Author’s Note
When Heroes Flew began life as a short story, “Oregon Grinder,” almost fifteen years ago, well before I knew anything about crafting a novel. Then, after writing five thrillers, a couple of which did well on Amazon’s Kindle bestseller lists, I went back to “Oregon Grinder,” took it apart, and rebuilt it into a novel. Much of the rebuilding process centered around developing the character of Egon Richter, the German fighter pilot, and wrapping my wife’s experiences of growing up in prewar and wartime Germany into Egon’s family story.
Besides employing many of the tales my wife, Christina, told me about being a child in Nazi Germany, I used a memoir, Christmas Trees Lit the Sky—Growing up in World War II Germany by Anneliese Heider Tisdale, to gain additional insights.
The small town on the Mosel River, Zell, described in the novel really exists. I’ve walked its streets many times. It’s where my wife grew up.
Except for the engagement between Oregon Grinder and the German Messerschmitts over the Ionian Sea, the major events depicted in When Heroes Flew actually occurred. The details of the raid on Ploesti, Operation Tidal Wave, were gleaned from numerous sources, the most valuable of which was the book Ploesti—The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943 by James Dugan and Carroll Stewart.
A large number of sources describing the raid can be found on the Internet. One of the best is a video on YouTube, “The Ploesti Raid.” The video features the late Robert Sternfels, a decorated pilot who flew the mission.
I tried hard to get the details of the two aircraft, the American B-24 and the German Messerschmitt Bf-109, featured in the novel correct. To that end, I used a number of references, including American Warplanes of World War II and Warplanes of the Luftwaffe, both edited by David Donald; B-24 Combat Missions—First-Hand Accounts of Liberator Operations over Nazi Europe by Martin W. Bowman; and The Wild Blue by Steven Ambrose.
To make sure I got the descriptions of flying the Liberator correct, I had a B-24 pilot, Allen Benzing, review what I’d written.
Allen is a pilot of one of the two B-24s still flying, Diamond Lil. Diamond Lil belongs to the Commemorative Air Force of Dallas, Texas. The other airworthy Liberator is Witchcraft owned by the Collings Foundation of Stow, Massachusetts. I flew in Witchcraft as part of my preparation for the novel.
Albert Lycoming and his wife, Egon Richter and his family, the crew of Oregon Grinder, and Vivian Wright are all fictional characters, figments of my imagination. But most of the other military officers, both US and German, portrayed in the novel really existed.
Much of the material I used to paint a picture of the Luftwaffe came from the book, A Higher Call by Adam Makos with Larry Alexander.
In addition to my wife, Christina, and Diamond Lil’s pilot, Allen Benzing, a lot of other people contributed to making the novel as authentic as possible. A B-24 bombardier, Irving Charles Rowe, who served in the Pacific Theater during WWII, offered some insights on what flying in a Liberator was like for the short story version of what became the book.
A long-time friend and former Air Force weather officer, Bill Culver, offered helpful insights on Libyan weather and topography.
A group of sharp-eyed beta (or initial) readers of the novel-length manuscript helped make When Heroes Flew a better book. They included my brother, Rick Bernard; Barbara Brauer; Ed Davis; Tom Howley; Skip Karas; and a superb critic who’s been on “my team” since Day One, Gary Schwartz.
Ed Davis and Skip Karas are both former Air Force fighter pilots and Southeast Asia veterans. They helped me craft the depictions of the fighter tactics described in the book.
When Heroes Flew couldn’t have been brought to life, of course, without the trust placed in me by Andrew Watts and his hard-working team at Severn River Publishing.
So you see, it took an entire squadron of people to get When Heroes Flew airborne. Again, my profound thanks to them all.
In closing, I believe it’s worth relating a bit more about the heroism of Lieutenant Lloyd “Pete” Hughes who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions with the Sky Scorpions. T
he citation that came with his medal read in part:
“The target area was blazing with burning oil tanks and damaged refinery installations from which flames leaped high above the bombing level of the formation. With full knowledge of the consequences of entering the blazing inferno when his airplane was profusely leaking gasoline in two separate locations, Second Lieutenant Hughes, motivated only by his high conception of duty which called for the destruction of the assigned target at any cost, did not elect to make a forced landing or turn back from the attack. Instead, rather than jeopardize the formation and the success of the attack, he unhesitatingly entered the blazing area and dropped his bomb load with great precision.”
We should never forget what men like Pete Hughes and the hundreds of others who flew Operation Tidal Wave did or, in many cases, sacrificed. The courage and heroism displayed on that mission remain among the most remarkable of WWII.
Indeed it was a time when heroes flew.
About the Author
H. W. "Buzz" Bernard is a bestselling, award-winning novelist. A retired Air Force Colonel and Legion of Merit recipient, he also served as a senior meteorologist at The Weather Channel for thirteen years. He is a past president of the Southeastern Writers Association and member of International Thriller Writers, the Atlanta Writers Club, Military Writers Society of America, and Willamette Writers. Buzz and his wife, Christina, live in Georgia with their fuzzy, strangely docile Shih-Tzu, Stormy... probably misnamed.
www.SevernRiverPublishing.com/Buzz