On the way to the nose, he reviewed their names. Adel and Gorno in the waist, Caplinger in the tail, Osborne in the ball turret, and Bernard, the radio operator. The flight engineer he knew was named Polazzo.
Strange, they hadn’t displayed any of the resentment toward him the officers had. A close bond of association did not exist between the officers and enlisted men. They lived apart, and they played apart. They probably didn’t care who flew with them as long as they got back alive.
Alive. He remembered then where he was and what he was preparing to do, and he shuddered involuntarily. The bombs were designed to destroy submarine pens. They were not designed to kill people. And yet. There would be people down there. They would surely be . . . No. Stop thinking about that.
To escape the thought, Hal began the pre-flight checkout of the bombsight and the bombardier’s surrounding instruments.
A half-hour later, when Fox and O’Reilly reached the ship, Hal had finished checking the ship’s oxygen supply, the first aid kits, and the bombsight and was studying his target data. Cossel had crawled into the nose section and was sitting at the small navigation desk studying their routes on his maps and setting up the Gee-box. Hal was familiar with this navigation aid. A bombardier’s training included Dead Reckoning or D.R. navigation so that in an emergency, he could take over the navigation. As a result, his first stop upon arrival in England had been at an assignment depot near Liverpool, where he had been briefed on local navigation, including the British “Gee box,” which was used to read radio transmissions from two fixed ground stations. By knowing the locations of the two stations and using the Gee box to read where their transmissions intersected, it was possible to obtain an exact navigation fix. Unfortunately, each station’s range was limited to prevent their use by the enemy, reaching only slightly beyond the East coast of England. Out of Gee box range, the navigators had to use Dead Reckoning navigation, augmented from time to time with pilotage landmarks and celestial fixes on the sun.
Cossel looked up from his worktable to say, “Thanks for the flak suit’” Hal nodded, feeling good about it.
It was still dark when the yellow-red ‘engine start’ flare went up from the control tower, and one by one, under O’Reilly’s and Fox’s urging, the four engines ground their big propellers around and coughed into life. Shortly after all propellers of the group were spinning and all engines humming in synchronized harmony, the yellow-green taxi flare went up. The crew chief pulled the wheel chocks, and O’Reilly released the brakes. Following hand signals of the crew chief, they eased into their designated slot in the line of planes slowly moving along the perimeter track toward the far end of the long runway. Because the pilots could not see over the tilted nose, each ship proceeded in a series of shallow S turns like waddling ducks so that they could view the ship ahead out of the cockpit’s side windows.
During the stop to blow soot from the sparkplugs, O’Reilly spoke through the intercom. “Now hear this, guys. The Maj said that if we do a good job, we all get three-day passes. So, look alive.”
“Yeah,” Fox added. “I’ve got plans for London. So, the first son-of-a-bitch who screws up it going to get it right in the ass. Understood?”
Nobody answered, and the intercom clicked off. No answer was expected.
CHAPTER 7
Precisely thirty seconds after the B-17 ahead of it had taken off, the black and white checkered runway control van near the head of the runway flashed the green takeoff signal and ‘O’Reilly’s Mongrel House’ began its charge down the long strip of concrete. Each of its four radial engines bellowed with the power of eleven hundred angry horses as O’Reilly walked the four throttles forward, playing them with the fine touch of a violinist, using applications of power to keep the big bomber heading straight down the runway until enough speed was reached for the rudder to take effect. From his seat in the nose, Hal watched the runway lights slowly flick past while the perimeter lights at the far end of the runway raced toward them at terrifying speed. Hal’s airspeed indicator wound through 30 knots . . . 45 . . . 70 . . . The nose dipped slightly as the tail came up . . . 90 . . . Still on the ground . . . 100 . . . Hal felt the heavily laden ship slowly lighten under him . . . 110 . . . My God. Those perimeter lights were getting close. Thank God the mission had not called for a full gas load . . . 115 . . . Hal couldn’t take his eyes off the onrushing light. At what seemed like the last second, the ship made one last light bounce and reluctantly left the ground, vibrating from the spinning wheels. Hal felt the vibration stop as Fox lightly touched the brakes to halt the spinning, and a moment later, there was a ‘chonk’ as the wheels nestled into their nacelles and ‘O’Reilly’s Mongrel House’ was off to war.
Hal was suddenly conscious that a voice had been muttering in his earphones all during the takeoff.
“That’s a baby, come on, baby.” The words had been repeated over and over, and he recognized the voice of Lou Polazzo. Taking off with a heavy load of highly flammable gasoline, three tons of instant death in the bomb bays, and hundreds of pounds of guns and ammunition was white knuckle time for all crewmen, even the flight engineer. A blown tire, a sudden loss of power, a gust of prop wash, almost anything out of the norm could splash the straining bomber across the landscape like a fiery Juggernaut.
Hal became conscious that Cossel was crouched behind him, looking out over his shoulder, his form scarcely visible in the faint glow of the navigator’s desk light. Cossel grinned and pressed his intercom push-to-talk button.
“You should see me sweat us off when we’ve got a max load. One time we took out part of the perimeter fence.”
“That’s what I like,” said O’Reilly’s voice over the intercom. “Confidence.”
“We’re with you, Papa.” Caplinger reported from the tail position. “Just take me out and bring me back.”
“I’ll salvo all you bastards if you don’t shut up and start looking for the group leader,” O’Reilly said. “We’ve got yellow-yellow flares and the letter ‘S.’ That’s three dots, Caplinger.”
“What the hell,” Caplinger said. “I know what an ‘S’ is. Why don’t they try something hard like ‘Z’?”
“Or ‘Q’ for queen,” Bucky Adel chimed in. “No-balls-at-all.”
“That’s the reason they use simple letters like ‘S,’” Polazzo said. “So, you jokers won’t line us up on the moon or something. Not including officers, I mean.”
It took almost twenty minutes to reach the rendezvous altitude of nine thousand feet. Cossel, staring at his Gee-Box, was calling navigation directions to O’Reilly every few seconds. Their rendezvous point was over a radio beacon on the ground designated ‘Buncher 3,’ and Cossel was using the radio compass and Gee-box to lead them to the proper point over the green fields of England. Out in the black sky, Hal could see the flashing red and green riding lights of other ships. A few short miles away, orbiting a different radio beacon, there was an occasional burst of a flare as another group lead tried to gather in his flock.
Peering into the darkness, Hal saw a yellow-yellow flare burst far ahead of them. Then a pinpoint of light flickered three times, and he called, “There’s the group lead. One o’clock. A little high.”
“Okay,” O’Reilly said. “I see it.” And the ship banked gently toward the distant pinpoints of light, the engines throbbing a deep song as they climbed.
When they were closer, the tiny blinks grew into steady flashes . . . dot, dot, dot . . . pause . . . dot, dot, dot . . . as the tail gunner in the group’s leading ship used a powerful Aldis lamp to flash the signal that allowed the other airplanes to find the lead ship in the darkness. Above and below the dark shape of the group leader, darker shadows followed as ship after ship slid into position, building the formation into the lead squadron, left, right, and low squadrons. Round and round, the formation circled the invisible radio beacon on the ground, taking approximately fi
fteen minutes for each orbit, maintaining a precise race-track course with ten-mile straightaways. The pilots struggled to hold formation while its sweating pilot and co-pilot jockeyed each lumbering beast into its proper slot. With forty-eight airplanes plus three spares groping through the darkness, it was nerve-wracking work for pilots and crew. But it was killing work for Captain Newman, the group navigator in the lead ship. Despite a strong crosswind, he had to maintain their flight path within strict limits because ten miles to the south another group was forming, running its own tight circle; ten miles north was another group, and also to the east and the west, until the dark sky above England was a hive of heavy bombers wheeling in a dance as precise as a minuet.
O’Reilly eased into the lead slot of the squadron slightly below and to the right of the group lead squadron, and Hal saw their deputy lead pull into position off their right-wing
“There’s Hollister,” he heard Cossel say. “He looks okay.”
“He’s pretty good,” O’Reilly said. “Maybe Schultz’ll make lead yet.”
Caplinger said, “We just picked up Peterson,” as the fourth ship of their flight slide into its slot between and lower than the two wingmen. It was the most difficult position to fly in the diamond formation because the pilot had to juggle speed and altitude to hold his difficult position.
“Uh-roger,” O’Reilly acknowledged. “Let me know when we’ve got our high and low flights.”
“Uh-roger,” Caplinger replied.
Suddenly, while they were swinging away to begin another down-wind leg of their orbit, another group going in the opposite direction cut through the 401st’s orderly formation. Hal, with a clear view forward, watched in horror as, for an instant, the sky was filled with a confused jumble of black hurtling shadows and thundering engines and violent wing-wrenching maneuvers as the pilots fought to avoid colliding. Just as abruptly as they had appeared, the encroaching group was gone, and the scattered ships of the 401st slowly began to creep back into position.
Hal tried to swallow, but his mouth was so dry and had such a metallic taste that his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He almost had to pry his fingers from a grip on the seat of his chair.
“Cossel,” Fox asked over the intercom, “Who goofed? Us or them?”
“We did,” Cossel said easily. “Newman let us get too far downwind before we started the turn.”
“Oh, the excitement,” O’Reilly said. “Don’t you just adore the thrill of it all?”
“Yeah,” Bucky Adel said. “One more thrill like that, and I’m quitting.”
“Me too,” Caplinger chimed in. “I’ve got a lot of brown back here.”
“Just wanted to keep you guys awake,” Fox said. “From now on, it’s all downhill.”
At 0548 exactly, the group navigator broke the 401st Bomb Group out of its circle and into a climbing arc toward the east coast of England using as a guide the ‘Splasher 4’ radio beacon. The sky around them was now luminous with light from the still unseen sun, while the land below was wrapped in the pre-dawn darkness. Slowly, the groups converged, swinging in from all parts of Britain, edging into their slots in the long column with split-second timing. The planes of the 401st droned steadily upward, and, as they passed the 14,000-foot level, Hal checked to make sure everyone was on oxygen. Then he began the monotonous oxygen checks every five minutes.
They had passed over ‘Splasher 4’ and were heading out over the English Channel when the sun thrust above the horizon and spangled the Plexiglas of the bomber’s nose with brilliant sunlight. Looking out across the airy void, Hal could see group after group of B-17s suspended in space. The only sense of movement were the miles-long contrails streaming behind many of them. The contrails were formed by the hot engine exhausts condensing cold, moisture-laden air. Since air of the required moisture content and temperature was not consistent, some planes left thick contrails while others left thinner trails or none at all.
As the coast of England slowly slid back and away, ahead of them, the distant hazy coast of Holland emerged from the darkness of the land.
“Bailey.” O’Reilly’s voice in his earphones startled Hal. “You dead down there?”
“I’ve been taking temperature checks. It’s ten below zero outside.”
“That’s splendid, splendid. But if you will look down, you will see we’re over the Channel. I do believe it would be safe to pull the pins on your bombs.”
“Uh-roger,” Hal said. He had forgotten part of his job, and the fact irritated him. “I’ll do that.” He got up and disconnected his throat mike and earphones, unplugged his oxygen tube, and plugged it into a walkaround bottle. He turned to go back past Cossel, then hesitated. Should he take his parachute with him? It would be a tough enough working in the bomb bay without the cumbersome chest pack.
He decided that carrying the parachute would look amateurish, so he left it and made his way back past Cossel, who was taking his final readings off the Gee-box and working on his navigation chart. Even though he was not the group leader, each navigator kept a running position so that if his ship was forced out of the formation due to mechanical problems or enemy action, he could navigate them back home.
The bulky flight clothing made the going difficult, but Hal managed to crawl through the narrow well and up into the pilot’s compartment where Fox and O’Reilly were sweating to keep the ship in precise formation above and behind the lead squadron. Polazzo was standing in the upper gun turret, and he moved his legs aside so that Hal could work his way past and through the door onto the bomb bay’s narrow catwalk. The bay doors were closed, but a strong, sub-zero wind keened through the cracks and tore at Hal’s legs. He clamped the walkaround bottle under his left elbow and used his left hand to hold onto the inboard rack while he worked the safety cotter pins out of the nose and tail fuses of the twelve bombs.
He was almost finished when his walkaround bottle of oxygen went empty, and he found himself sucking on a vacuum. Instantly panic gripped him. He knew he had to get oxygen quickly, or he would pass out. And, if he fell on the bomb bay doors, they would burst open under his weight, and he would plummet twenty thousand feet before he slammed into the icy waters of the English Channel. From that altitude, it would be like hitting concrete.
He scrambled up on the catwalk and shoved through the rear bay door into the radio room. Bernard looked up, startled, as Hal lunged past him and snatched a yellow walkaround bottle from its bracket on the wall. Frantically Hal fumbled his oxygen hose from the empty bottle and plugged into the other one, and then he sucked in great, restoring drafts of oxygen.
He saw Bernard watching him, his eyes over his oxygen mask showing concern. Now that he could breathe again, Hal realized his panic must have been obvious. He wanted to explain, but he could not. Instead, he held the cold metal of the bottle in both hands to hide their shaking and ducked back into the bomb bay.
He finished removing the remainder of the safety pins and stuffed them into his pocket. Then he made his way back to the nose compartment and hooked back into the main oxygen circuit, glad that the oxygen mask hid his face. He knew he had goofed. A full walkaround bottle would not have gone empty. It was part of his pre-flight routine to check the oxygen level in all bottles. Next time he would remember.
A flight of P-47 fighters with wing tanks buzzed over the group and continued in a climbing turn toward the distant coast, leaving the slow-moving bombers to lumber in their wake. Hal looked far, far down at the shimmering water below; it was empty, vast, and empty. “Check your guns,” he said, tensely into the intercom. “Watch where you’re shooting.”
A moment later, he felt the ship vibrate as the gunners fired their fifties in short, quick bursts. He pulled the arming handles on his chin turret guns and, without swinging the gunsight control column over from its stowed position, pointed his guns out at two o’clock low and flicked the trigger.
Both guns stuttered with a quick burst, and he grunted in satisfaction. It was hard to clear a jam in the chin turret. You had to reach barehanded down under the seat into the icy slipstream to tear at the frozen metal. He had almost frozen his hands in gunnery practice at eight thousand feet over Oklahoma. He could imagine what it would be like at twenty thousand over the England Channel.
Checking the thermometer, he found that he’d been right about the outside temperature. It was minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit, and he entered it on his computation pad.
The coast of North Holland slid closer to them, and Cossel said, “Eight minutes to the I.P. You guys better put on your flak suits.”
“Uh-roger,” Hal acknowledged. He checked the altimeter; they were almost at the prescribed twenty-three-thousand-foot bombing altitude. He reached behind his chair and picked up the pieces of his flak suit from the floor. It was a strange feeling to buckle them on. This must have been what a gladiator felt as he buckled on his armor before he stepped into the arena. He hoped like hell it wouldn’t be needed.
He made a final temperature reading and, using his E-6B, finished his bombing calculations. After setting the information into the bombsight, setting the trail arm, and leveling the gyro, he broke out his maps and studied the terrain below. It was a clear day, and he was able to make out every indentation in the coast, every river, and stream, every odd-shaped feature of the topography. They were flying a course over the North Sea paralleling the West Frisian Islands. Watching the coastline gradually roll beneath them; it was a simple matter to determine their location. They would soon reach the Initial Point, which was the island of Borkum.
After they reached their bombing altitude of 23,000 feet, the group leader continued to climb another thousand feet then made a gradual dive to the required altitude. This was so that by picking up a little speed, the heavily laden bombers would not ‘mush’ coming out of a climb into level flight.
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