by Chris Lynch
It’s making me nostalgic for my old baseball days, which hasn’t happened in a while. A great big benches-clearing Donnybrook would be just the thing now.
Except.
Hank had always watched my back. In every single last brawl.
He sure can’t do it now. Instead, I’m heading into a fight with eight highly trained combat specialists lined up at my back, in every sense, and one warplane after another of similar gangs aligned behind them.
Not that I don’t have faith in this force right here, because I do, but I’d trade the entire Mighty Eighth AF to have Hank behind me instead.
Our target turns out to be Saint-Nazaire, which comes as very little surprise since the port at Saint-Nazaire has been a legendary enough place for a lot of reasons throughout the whole war. It’s a major repair operation with a massive dry dock and the only one big enough to handle the Nazis’ biggest sea monsters like the battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz. It had also been the main staging area for the brutal U-boat attacks on merchant shipping, convoys, and the Liberty ships that the United States had been sending across to try and help out the Brits well before we were technically involved in the war. Saint-Nazaire was the source of all those nasty sneaky subs that had been prowling under the waters of New York’s outer harbor, and the Carolinas’ and Florida’s so far back most Americans were barely aware at the time of any serious conflict being carried on in Europe, and the few who noticed were not really concerned. That’s what the papers were all saying anyway, after everything blew up in our faces and the Japanese bombed another famous harbor that I still can’t bring myself to name out loud.
WHILE AMERICA SLEPT! is basically what all the big newspapers said when we were humiliated by a sucker punch way off in the Pacific, which changed every aspect of life in America and eventually most other places in the world, too. In the span of less than two hours and with more than two thousand murders, Japan stepped right up, jumped onto the front pages, and made itself the bully of everybody’s nightmares. It was the kind of low-down, dirty move that would cost a local guy every friend he had, and on a bigger scale forced just about every country in the world to fall one way or the other. One way to react was, hey, I don’t want any trouble and looking down at your shoelaces. The other way, taken by most nations with at least a granule of actual human soul among their leaders, was to condemn this inexcusable act without reservation.
Oh, right, there was a third way. Four days later and over seven thousand miles away, Germany declared war on the United States.
My brother passed through that famous harbor in the sunny Pacific paradise more than once. He loved it instantly and couldn’t wait to tell me all about what made the place so special. He put it all in a letter.
I read it a lot, still. Last letter I got from him. Most recent, anyway.
Anyway, the point of all this is the whole interconnectedness of everything now. The full circleness. It was always there, of course. The Earth is round, after all. But we keep seeing it now, keep knowing it, because this gigantic miserable war connects everything to everything eventually. And this gives the newspapers all those great opportunities to connect the dots and sketch the maps and shout the headlines that connect the far-flung nasty places like Japan and Germany by way of a few other nasty places like Bulgaria and Italy but even more by way of the quiet bystander nations who stood by and did nothing! Kind of like while America slept!
Just as, it seems, these same newspapers who are shouting at everybody now were napping the whole time German submarines were slithering just as they pleased like monstrous steel eels up and down the east coast of America. They sulked from New York — where those shouty newspapers probably could have seen them from their office windows — to Florida, with my folks place in Maryland right there in between. Which is funny in that way that awful things are funny because the very week I fled the house in Accokeek and ran back to the war, didn’t German subs deliver saboteurs all the way right up to American shores in both New York and Florida right under everybody’s noses? Right under my very flight path to England, probably, just to make one more point about the full circleness of everything now.
And those subs made it all that way and threatened our very soil and my very family after launching from the base at Saint-Nazaire.
“It’s mine now, boys, all mine!” Gallagher screams like a maniac the instant we cross the IP. The air all around is popping, both inside the Batboy and out, as the whole crew screams murder and tries to deliver it, while ME-109s and FW-190s swarm us from more angles than even seem possible, peppering every sight line with streams of rounds that appear to have no end. I feel us getting hit, often and all over but that is almost a sideshow because we are also learning the hard way why Saint-Nazaire has the nickname “Flak City.” The air is thick and noxious as the famous German antiaircraft shells sweep and arc and then explode, timed precisely to do their dirty business when they reach our bombing altitude.
An altitude, which at about eighteen thousand feet, is seven thousand lower than we would choose to drop from. The B-24 is renowned for many things, and high-altitude bombing is one of them. So we should be higher. This feels very much like we are playing somebody else’s game, in their home ballpark.
The two groups of B-17s we linked up with are ahead of us and another several thousand feet lower still. There is no doubt those boys are absorbing a lot of punishment, a lot of damage to both machinery and personnel.
It is chaos, from the moment we get close enough to draw their fighters. The flak assault is relentless, and only getting faster, bigger, louder as we bear down on the targets. I get knocked completely sideways and off my feet by a shell that doesn’t even hit us but detonates so close by that it rumbles every bolt holding the Liberator together. I land on a highly focused bombardier, who screams without words, torques like a sidewinder, and punches me crisply on the cheek.
It doesn’t hurt or shock me or even register as a real thing in the midst of everything else happening all around that is already so much bigger than life and scarier than death. I jump to my feet and jump back on my gun, banging shoulders with Bell who is manning the gun to my left. He doesn’t seem to notice me at all as he beams in on a Messerschmitt wheeling right for us, or right for Bell, to be more specific, as the fighter pilot fishtails a sharp turn that looks like it’s going to end right here in the glasshouse with us.
But Bell locks onto the German before he can lock onto Bell, and I swing over and pour everything I have into joining Bell’s barrage, pummeling the cockpit glass and the face that is no longer a face, no longer a head, no longer a recognizably human anything. The pilot fairly explodes, with the blood and mush of him filling the cockpit before splashing out of it every which way. And we are one lucky Liberator as the Messerschmitt looks so certain to hit us head-on that I actually jump backward just in time to watch the full finale as the flaming plane snaps down violently, straight toward the ground, like a big nasty dog getting its snout slapped down by its master.
It’s impossible to decide whether we are the aggressor or the target once we feel the disorientation at the very center of this man-made storm. Somehow we have made it over the submarine docking bays. The U-boats are all visible below.
Some kind of distantly human screech comes out of Gallagher just as we feel the thwump of the bomb bay doors opening and the glorious whistle song of the full payload of bombs. All the other smoke and boom shrinks away into total feebleness in the wake of our Armageddon of rapid-sequence bomb blasts that shake the sky as much as the earth. And it’s a whole new experience from this low altitude. We can actually feel the heat of our success blast right up back to us, and something even more incredible and victorious and sickening rides up with it. I am certain that I’m smelling the flash burning of human flesh, wafting through the very same bomb bay doors that delivered those men their death. It’s as if they just had to fly up and force us to breathe in the thing we did. To get it right up into us, into our sinuses and our pores
as we make our sweeping, banking turn back to home where it will linger, and rot, and stay with us always. I am quite sure of that.
I am already queasy thinking about it when, behind me, from just beyond the pilot’s deck, I hear a violence of vomiting that does not help things at all.
ARE YOU KEEPING UP? WITH THE DIARY, ARE YOU KEEPING UP WITH YOUR ENTRIES LIKE I TOLD YOU TO? BECAUSE IF NOT, AND AT THE END OF THE WAR THE MOVIE PEOPLE HAVE MOSTLY MY WRITING TO WORK FROM, DON'T COME CRYING TO ME WHEN YOU LOOK LIKE A BIT PLAYER WITH SOMEBODY LIKE MAYBE MICKEY ROONEY AS HENRY MCCALLUM WHILE I'M BEING PLAYED BY JIMMY STEWART. HE'S ONE OF US, YOU KNOW. ARMY AIR CORPS AND A QUALIFIED BOMBER PILOT, NO LESS. I KNOW ALL THE HOLLYWOOD GUYS ARE JUST PLAYING DRESS-UP AND MAKING RECRUITMENT FILMS, BUT THERE ARE STRONG RUMORS CIRCULATING THAT HE'S GETTING HIMSELF SENT OVER HERE, AS A REAL PILOT IN A REAL EIGHTH AIR FORCE BOMBARDMENT GROUP. MAKES SENSE THOUGH, RIGHT? HOW'S HE SUPPOSED TO PLAY ME RIGHT IF HE DOESN'T COME OVER AND WATCH ME IN ACTION?
AND OH, BROTHER, HAVE I BEEN IN ACTION.
TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH, I DON'T KNOW IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE GETTING EQUAL SCREEN TIME EVEN IF YOU DO WRITE YOUR STORIES DOWN. I'LL ADMIT, HAVING YOUR AIRCRAFT CARRIER BASICALLY DESTROYED TWICE AND SURVIVING BOTH TIMES … THAT DOES PROBABLY GIVE YOU A BIT OF A HEAD START. BUT IT WON'T BE ENOUGH IF I KEEP GOING THE WAY I'M GOING RIGHT NOW, I'LL TELL YOU WHAT.
YOU KNOW I'M A NOSE GUNNER ON A B-24 LIBERATOR HEAVY BOMBER, RIGHT? AND NOW I'LL TELL YOU, THE GUYS NAMED THE THING AFTER ME. YOU KNOW, THE WAY THEY DO WITH THE PLANES, DECORATING THE NOSES AND ALL? WELL, THE KID THEY PAINTED UP THERE DOESN'T LOOK LIKE ME, BUT HE IS CARRYING A BAT AND DRESSED ALMOST SORT OF LIKE A BASEBALL PLAYER. AND THE NAME OF THE THING, AND, YEAH, GO AHEAD AND LAUGH, BECAUSE YOU'RE YOU, RIGHT? I WOULDN'T WANT TO TELL YOU NOT TO LAUGH. 'CAUSE I LIKE THE SOUND OF YOUR LAUGH, ALWAYS DID, REMEMBER? EVEN WHEN YOU WERE LAUGHING AT ME, WHICH WAS MOST OF THE TIME. WHATEVER IT IS IN YOUR LAUGH, I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF, EVEN IF YOU WERE STANDING ON MY HEAD IN THE DIRT AND I WAS CRYING, ALL OF A SUDDEN I WAS LAUGHING, TOO. LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF I WOULD HAVE SAID, IF YOU WEREN'T KEEPING MY HEAD FIRMLY IN PLACE. BECAUSE YOU WERE STANDING ON IT.
REMEMBER THAT, HANK?
AW, NOW LOOK. YOU GOT ME ALL BOTHERED AND EVERYTHING AND, MAN, I COULD USE A LAUGH, I REALLY COULD. I'D BE ALL RIGHT IF YOU COULD JUST SEND ME ONE FROM WHEREVER IT IS YOU'RE HIDING. AND IF I COULD JUST HEAR IT, JUST CATCH THAT SLOW ROLLING RUMBLE OF YOURS FOR EVEN A FEW SECONDS, I THINK I'D GET A BOOST AND STOP GETTING ALL WEAK AND BOTHERED HERE. I CAN'T BE LIKE THAT, AS I'M SURE YOU KNOW ALREADY I'M A GUNNER, MISTER, AND I'M HARD AS NAILS AT IT, I REALLY AM. SO, IF I CAN'T CONVINCE YOU TO THROW A LAUGH MY WAY, I'LL JUST HAVE TO CHEER MYSELF THE WAY I DO THESE DAYS. I'LL GO OUT AND KILL SOME PEOPLE NEXT TIME I FLY. THAT SEEMS TO CHEER ME UP A WHOLE LOT.
KILLED A GUY JUST THE OTHER DAY, IN FACT. SHARED HIM, REALLY, WITH A NAVIGATOR, LIEUTENANT BELL, WHO DOUBLES AS A GUNNER BESIDE ME IN THE NOSE CONE WHEN THINGS GET HEAVY, EVEN THOUGH IT'S CRAMPED ENOUGH ALREADY AND I CAN HANDLE THREE GUNS BY MYSELF, THANKS ALL THE SAME. BUT, I AM A TEAM PLAYER, RIGHT, YOU'D KNOW THAT BETTER THAN ANYBODY, SO WE TWO GUNNERS GUNNED, ALL RELENTLESS, STRAIGHT INTO THE FACE OF THIS MESSERSCHMITT THAT LOOKED FOR ALL THE WORLD LIKE HE WAS INTENDING TO SMASH RIGHT INTO MY VERY COMPARTMENT. I'LL TELL YOU WHAT, BY THE TIME YOU TALLIED IT UP I WOULD SAY LIEUTENANT BELL AND I HAD POURED A GOOD TWENTY OR THIRTY POUNDS OF .50-CALIBER ROUNDS INTO THAT SQUARE GERMAN FACE OF HIS, MAKING FOR ONE HEAVY HEAD FOR THE LAST FEW SECONDS HE ACTUALLY HAD ONE. WE SAW THE THING EXPLODE, HANK, NO BIT OF A LIE.
REMEMBER THAT THING WITH THE FROG AND THE FIRECRACKERS? WELL MULTIPLY THAT BY ABOUT A THOUSAND AND THERE YOU HAVE IT.
THAT PART I'LL WANT IN THE MOVIE. I WAS JUST THINKING, I DON'T WANT THAT OTHER STUFF, ALL THAT CORN ABOUT WHAT I THINK ABOUT YOUR LAUGH, TO BE PUT IN THE MOVIE. NOT QUITE SURE YET ABOUT THE STANDING ON MY HEAD THING, BUT THERE'S STILL TIME, SO, WE'LL LEAVE THAT FOR NOW.
SO, EXCEPT FOR THE ENDLESS PARADE OF GERMAN FIGHTERS CHASING US AND TRYING TO KILL US ALL THE TIME LAND BY THE WAY, I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH OF A HANDFUL THOSE JAPANESE FLYERS HAVE BEEN, BUT I'M HERE TO TELL YOU THAT THESE GERMAN BOYS ARE EVERY BIT AS GOOD AS ADVERTISED. MAYBE EVEN BETTER, BECAUSE BEFORE I SAW FOR MYSELF, I COULDN'T HAVE IMAGINED THE THINGS THEY CAN DO WITH THEM PLANES AND NOT TO MENTION THAT THEY DO THE WHOLE FLYING AND SHOOTING SHOW TO MAKE OUR BOMBER LIVES EVERY WHICH WAY A MISERY WHILE AT THE SAME TIME WEAVING AND DANCING BETWEEN THE SOLAR SYSTEM OF FLAK THAT IS SENT UP BY THEIR OWN SIDE AND COULD KILL THEIR OWN GUYS JUST AS EASILY AS US) I COULD SWEAR WE WERE AT WAR WITH FRANCE, SINCE THAT'S THE PLACE WE'VE BEEN KICKING THE SNOT OUT OF MOSTLY. I DON'T KNOW, MAN, I THINK BY THE TIME WE “LIBERATE” THEM SOME MORE AND OFFER THEM THEIR COUNTRY BACK, THEY JUST MIGHT DECIDE TO SAY NO THANKS. I COULD UNDERSTAND, SORT OF, BUT THEN I WOULD WANT TO SAY BACK TO THEM, WELL, IF YOU REALLY LIKED THE PLACE THE WAY IT WAS YOU MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT GIVING THE NAZIS A LITTLE HARDER TIME TAKING IT AWAY FROM YOU. THERE WERE STILL A LOT OF LOW MILEAGE FRENCH TANKS SITTING AROUND JUST LOOKING PRETTY FROM WHAT I'VE HEARD.
I HATE THE FLAK, MAN, I REALLY DO.
ANYWAY, YOU KNOW HOW THEY SAY ALL COMBAT AIR CREW ARE AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT CRAZY? WELL THEY DO, AND I FIND THAT IT'S REALLY DIFFICULT TO TELL, BECAUSE IT'S LIKE A RELATIVE THING — AND, NO, I HEAR YOU LAUGHING NOW BUT I DON'T MEAN A RELATIVE LIKE UNCLE HAMISH WITH THE PANTS AND THE TEETH AND THE THING — I MEAN MORE LIKE RELATIVE TO ALL THE GUYS YOU SEE AROUND YOU, IN THE SAME PREDICAMENTS, THE SAME TIGHT SPACES, FACING THE SAME THREATS AND DOING THE THINGS YOU HAVE TO DO AND SEEING THE THINGS YOU HAVE TO SEE OTHER PEOPLE DO, AND THEN THERE'S THE FOOD AND EVERYTHING ELSE. YOU GOTTA COMPARE TO YOUR PEOPLE, NOW DON'T YOU? WELL, THESE ARE MY PEOPLE NOW AND — I'M NOT LOONY SO DON'T THINK IT — WHEN I LOOK AROUND, SNEAK A PEEK OVER MY SHOULDER DOWN TOWARD THE BOMB-SIGHTING STATION ON THE FLOOR NEAR MY FEET, WELL I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK WHEN I TRY TO MEASURE UP WITH MY PEOPLE HERE. I DON'T KNOW HOW I MEASURE, IS AS CLOSE AS I CAN COME TO TELLING YOU.
WHEN YOU WERE MY PEOPLE, BOY I ALWAYS, ALWAYS KNEW WHO I WAS, AND I WAS ABSOLUTELY FINE WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE AND THAT WHO.
SO HERE I WENT FROM SORT OF KEEPING TO MYSELF AT FIRST, THEN GETTING KIND OF PALLY WITH THE GUYS WHO FELT MOST LIKE MY GUYS, ALL OF THEM GUNNERS AND ALL OF THEM SERGEANTS AND PRETTY ALL RIGHT GUYS WHO MIGHT ALSO BE VARIOUS GRADES OF NUTTY, BUT I LOST MY ABILITY TO TELL THAT KIND OF THING.
EXCEPT WITH THE OFFICERS, OF COURSE, WHO I DON'T ENGAGE WITH ANY MORE THAN NECESSARY, AND ONE OF WHICH I AM GOING TO MAYBE, MAYBE, HAVE TO DO A BODILY HARM BEFORE THIS THING IS OVER.
THE KILL I SHARED WAS OVER A SUBMARINE INSTALLATION WE WERE BOMBING FROM A LEVEL WE WERE NOT USED TO AND NOT SUITED TO. THE B-24 IS A BURLY, BULKY BIRD AND PROBABLY THE ONE ADVANTAGE THAT THE FAMOUS FLYING FOOTREST THAT IS THE B-17 HAS OVER US IS GREATER MANEUVERABILITY, ESPECIALLY AT LOWER LEVELS AND IN THE FORMATIONS THAT BOMBER GROUPS HAVE TO HOLD LIKE OUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT BECAUSE OUR LIVES VERY MUCH DO. I WORRY SOMETIMES. ESPECIALLY AFTER I'VE BEEN TALKING WITH OUR ENGINEER, COULEY, WHO IS ALSO TOP TURRET GUNNER AND A SERGEANT AND SO MOSTLY ALL RIGHT. BUT HE HAS SOMETHING LIKE AN OBSESSION WITH THE WEAK POINTS AND FLAWS AND — THIS IS THE REALLY GREAT PART — WHAT HE CALLS THE “TRAGEDY-IN-WAITING QUALITIES” OF THE WHOLE FLEET OF LIBERATORS. NOW, AM I WRONG? AM I OVERSENSITIVE OR SOMETHING, OR IS THAT KIND OF UNHELPFUL STUFF TO BE SAYING?
SURE, I CAN TAKE IT, BUT A LOT OF GUYS ON A CREW LIKE OURS MIGHT NOT BE HANK MCCALLUM'S BROTHER, RIGHT, YOU KNOW? THEY MIGHT BE MADE OF SOFTER STUFF THAT WON'T ABSORB WHAT HANK MCCALLUM'S BROTHER WAS TAUGHT TO SHRUG OFF EVERY DAY OF HIS LIFE.
ANYWAY, THERE ARE FLAWS. THEY ARE REAL, BUT SO WHAT, AND WHAT'S THE USE OF THINKING ABOUT THEM ALL THE TIME? I LOVE THAT PLANE SO MUCH I WISH THEY WOULD LET ME TAKE IT HOME TO ACCOKEEK WITH ME WHEN WE'RE DONE FIXING THINGS FOR EVERYBODY OVER HERE. IT DOESN'T BELLY-LAND VERY WELL, APPARENTLY, IN AN EMERGENCY. THERE ARE LEAKS. LIKE AIR COMES INSIDE THE FUSELAGE THROUGH SMALL UNSEALED SEAMS. AND AT TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND FEET IT IS VERY UNWELCOME AIR. AND GAS, A LOT OF TIMES, LEA
KS OUT. VERY ODD SETUP WITH THE DISTRIBUTION OF GAS TANKS ALL OVER THE STRUCTURE, INCLUDING THROUGH PARTS OF OUR WINGS. DAVIS WINGS, MOUNTED REAL HIGH AND THIN, WHICH IS WHY WE CAN GO SO MUCH FASTER AND FARTHER WHILE CARRYING MORE TONNAGE THAN THE B-17 EVERYBODY LOVES SO MUCH. IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DESIGN, OUR WING. BUT THERE'S TALK THAT MAYBE YOU DON'T WANT TO BUMP TOO HARD A LANDING UNDER THEM. BUT TALK, RIGHT? THE ARMY RUNS ON TALK, ISN'T THAT WHAT THEY SAY? SO THEN THE ARMY AIR CORPS MUST RUN ON HIGHER TALK EVEN, HUH?
THING IS, HANK, THOSE FLYING FORTRESS GUYS, WE'VE WORKED WITH THEM A LOT AND THEY ARE REALLY OKAY. THEY JUST ENJOY A LITTLE BIT OF RAZZING THE OTHER TEAM IS ALL, AND, HEY, WAS ANYBODY EVER ANY BETTER THAN THE MCCALLUM BROTHERS AT THAT? NO. SO MOSTLY, FROM WHAT I CAN TELL, THEY'RE A-OK GUYS.
THE B-17S, WHEN WE FLEW THAT LOW-LEVEL MISSION OVER THE SUBMARINE BASE, WELL, THEY HAD TO FLY EVEN LOWER. AND, WELL ANYWAY, THEY GOT KIND OF MAULED, IS WHAT HAPPENED, HANK. THEY FLEW IN WITH THIRTY-THREE HEALTHY PLANES AND THEY STAGGERED OUT WITH TWENTY-TWO OF THEM ALL CUT UP AND NOT EVEN ALL OF THOSE MADE IT BACK TO SHIPDHAM. THE KWM CLUB — JUST SOMETHING I CAME UP WITH SO I DON'T SPEND ANY LONGER THAN NECESSARY BREAKING DOWN KILLED, WOUNDED, AND MISSING IN ACTION STATISTICS — SIGNED UP FIFTY-FOUR NEW MEMBERS.
A GOOD THING THOUGH, A SILVER-LINING TYPE THING: THE PROGRAM OF LOW-LEVEL BOMBING RAIDS OVER SUBMARINE BASES IS CANCELED IMMEDIATELY. BECAUSE IT WAS SO STUPID AND CARELESS TO BEGIN WITH. NOW, ME AND THE REST OF THE CREW OF THE B-24 BATBOY ARE GOING BACK TO DOING WHAT WE DO BEST, HIGH-LEVEL BOMBING OF TRAIN DEPOTS AND VEHICLE MANUFACTURING FACILITIES, MUNITIONS SITES, BALL BEARING PLANTS AND ALL THAT OTHER STUFF THE GERMANS DO SO WELL UNTIL WE STOP LETTING THEM DO IT. OH, AND BRIDGES, TOO. BRIDGE BOMBING MIGHT BE MY FAVORITE. NOT THAT IT CHANGES MY SPECIFIC JOB ALL THAT MUCH BECAUSE WHEREVER WE GO TO DO OUR WORK, IT SEEMS A MOUNTAIN-SIZE HORNET'S NEST OPENS UP AND A WHOLE BEVY OF THEM OLD 1095 AND 1905 ARE BUZZING STRAIGHT FOR ME YET AGAIN. SO MY JOB HOLDS STEADY. I SHOOT THEM, I DOWN THEM, WITH A LITTLE LUCK I KILL THEM IN ORDER TO PROTECT THE BOMBER AND THE BOMBS UNTIL THE THING BELOW THAT NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED IS DESTROYED. BUT WITH BRIDGES, THE COUNTRYSIDE IS ALMOST ALWAYS SO MUCH NICER. REMEMBER I ALWAYS LOVED BRIDGES, HANK? REMEMBER THAT? YES. YOU DON'T REMEMBER ME LOVING U-BOATS THOUGH, DO YOU?
