Two or three weeks after it happened, A.E. learned that Flight Lieutenant—Wing Commander now—Walter Churchill got killed in the air over Sicily. He’d made a good squadron CO. She missed him. What she felt, though, was nothing like the devastation losing Shorty or Red or Andy—or Amy!—had caused her. She wondered if she was getting numb even to death.
Chapter Twenty
More and more Americans were in London every time A.E. went into the battered metropolis. Their accents stood out. So did their crisp new uniforms. The English, especially the civilians, were trying to muddle through as best they could with what they’d had on hand when the war started. By now, the war was three years old for them. What they’d had on hand was getting pretty shabby.
Americans in crisp new USAAF uniforms also started visiting North Weald and, no doubt, the bases where 121 Squadron and 133 Squadron were stationed, too. Sure enough, they were planning to bring the Eagle Squadrons under American control. They were also trying to learn how an air force that actually knew how to fight a real war went about things.
Most of the men were excited about coming home to Uncle Sam. The United States was their country, after all. And American officers made three or four times as much money as their English counterparts.
Again, A.E. found herself less thrilled. In part, that was because she needed the money less than the other fighter jockeys did. And in part it was because she still hadn’t talked seriously with one of those spruce young USAAF officers.
They had big plans for the Eagle Squadrons. They aimed to form all three of them into the US Army Air Force’s Fourth Fighter Group. The pilots would keep their beloved Spitfires. That made sense, since America still wasn’t building fighters anywhere near so good.
If they had big plans for A.E., they kept quiet about them. She didn’t need long to get fed up with that. As was her way, she set about finding out what she needed to know. She went up to a visiting USAAF major and said, “Speak with you for a couple of minutes, sir?” She hadn’t quite got his name—Carruthers or Carmichael or something like that: long and with a C.
Like so many American smiles, his showed off good teeth. “Of course, uh, Flying Officer,” he said. He stumbled a little before using her title instead of calling her Amelia, but he did it. She liked him better for that.
All the same, her question was blunt. “What kind of place will I have in this spiffy new Fourth Fighter Group?”
The smile slipped a little. “Well, the thought is that you’ve already done all the combat flying and taken all the chances we could expect from anybody, irregardless of whether it’s a man or a woman.”
“That’s your thought. The Army Air Force’s thought.” A.E. waited till Carruthers/Carmichael managed a nod. Then she said, “Suppose it isn’t my thought?”
“I didn’t make the policy. You’d have to take that up with the men who did, the men above my rank.” He smiled again, with so much charm that A.E. guessed he got laid a lot. “The feeling is that instead of exposing you to more danger, the Army Air Force would send you back to the States, promote you to captain, and put you on tour to boost war-bond sales and help recruit female ferry pilots to bring more men into battle.”
“My feeling … sir … is that I’d rather keep on doing what I’m doing now. I’ve been doing it for a while, and I’ve got pretty good at it.”
“You have to understand,” Carruthers/Carmichael said, “there is no place in the USAAF for a woman combat pilot. We just don’t do that. We have plenty of men. But you could do important work for us that only you are suited for. You’d help your country more that way. You understand, don’t you?”
“I think showing my country a woman can fly a fighter plane as well as a man is the most helpful thing I can do right now,” she answered. “Women need to see other women doing these things, so they know they can, too, if they want to enough.”
“We don’t feel that way about it,” the major said stiffly.
“I know,” A.E. said. “But I’m still under RAF jurisdiction, not yours. If I can’t be a fighter pilot for you, I don’t want to come under your jurisdiction, either.”
Carruthers/Carmichael frowned. “People back home won’t be happy to hear you feel that way.”
“People back home did everything they could to keep me from coming over here and flying for England to begin with,” she answered. “If the customs men who questioned me when I was crossing into Canada two years ago hadn’t thought I couldn’t be a pilot because I’m a woman, they would have seized my passport, locked me up, and thrown away the key. Now we don’t like the Nazis, but we still don’t think women can fly fighter planes. They took a while here to realize women can, too, but they finally did.”
Frowning, the USAAF major said, “The United States never liked the Nazis.”
“Well, maybe not, but it sure went out of its way to keep Americans from fighting them. Three good friends of mine went through the same nonsense at the border as I did, only worse—they were men, so even customs inspectors could figure out that they might know how to fly.”
Major Carruthers or Carmichael or whatever his name was turned a dull red. “I’m sure they’ll all be proud to serve in the Fourth Fighter Group,” he said.
“No. They won’t,” A.E. replied in a voice empty of … everything. “They’re all dead now.”
“Oh,” the American said, and then not another word for close to half a minute. At last, he managed, “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me, too, every day, for them and for all the other people who used to be here but aren’t any more. You don’t know anything about that yet, do you, sir?” If she’d called him you son of a bitch, she wouldn’t have insulted him more than she did with the formal title of respect.
The red he turned this time wasn’t so dull. “A little. A friend of mine crashed in training. They pulled him out, but he didn’t make it.”
She nodded. “That counts. They’re just as gone no matter how they go.”
“They sure are.” Carruthers/Carmichael tried to bring things back to the business at hand. “So will you go home to the United States and help the war effort along? The country needs you.” He didn’t stick out his forefinger at her the way Uncle Sam did in the recruiting poster, but he might as well have.
“I am helping the war effort—I’m fighting in the war,” A.E. said. “I aim to keep on doing it, too.”
“I’ll have to report your attitude to my superiors.”
“Be my guest,” she answered cheerfully, which sent him off in some disarray. People were supposed to shake in their boots when you invoked higher authority. Carruthers/Carmichael didn’t know how to deal with it when they failed to. A.E. couldn’t have cared less. That was his problem, not hers.
There was a form to fill out if you wanted to request a transfer from the RAF to the USAAF. More and more these days, there was a form to fill out for everything. A.E. neatly folded the form and dropped it into the wastebasket. She waited for the sky to fall.
She knew she wasn’t the only American flyer staying in the RAF. That had nothing to do with anything, though. A male pilot who didn’t join the USAAF was a checkmark (a tickmark, they’d say here) on yet another form. A female pilot …
Before the powers that be could decide what to do about her, they had other things to worry about. With two other RAF units, 133 Squadron was supposed to escort B-17s to Morlaix, in Brittany. Something went horribly wrong. Bombers and fighters never rendezvoused. Strong winds and heavy cloud cover meant the Spitfires got badly off course.
And when they ducked under the clouds, flak and F-W 190s set upon them. More than half the escorts were lost, including every single Spit from the Eagle Squadron. Some pilots were killed, others captured after hitting the silk. One managed to get back to England on his last drops of fuel, but a wheels-up landing left his plane a write-off.
133 Squadron was gone, or as near as made no difference. That put a crimp in the plans for turning the Eagles into the Fourth Fight
er Group. Officials vowed that the ruined squadron would be reconstituted, which made A.E. think of dehydrated food. In the meantime, nothing happened for a while.
Then A.E. got summoned to RAF headquarters in London. When she arrived and announced herself, the military bureaucrats downstairs sent her up to Air Marshal Douglas’s office. Her heart sank as she trudged up the stairs. Sholto Douglas was liable to order her out of the RAF and into the USAAF to be rid of her and to spite her.
Two other officers went into his sanctum while she sat in the antechamber. Neither looked happy when he came out, which did nothing to lift her spirits. Then it was her turn. She walked in and gave him the crispest salute she had in her. “Reporting as ordered, sir.”
“Yes, yes.” Douglas returned the salute. “Take a chair if you care to.” A.E. tried to hide her surprise as she sat. All her previous meetings with the air marshal had been at rigid attention. He eyed her. “So you’d sooner stay in our service than go to your own country’s?”
“That’s right, sir.” She left it there. Least said seemed best.
But he said, “Tell me why, if you please.”
Again, politeness alarmed her more than the brusque bark he’d shown before. “Sir,” she said slowly, “you didn’t like—the RAF didn’t like—letting me fly fighters, but you did it. The Army Air Force won’t. As far as they’re concerned, I’m just good for raising money to help the war effort. I’d rather go on flying.”
He glanced down at some papers on his desk, then nodded. “So I’ve been given to understand. I wanted to hear as much directly from you.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and waited.
He shuffled the papers, looking at one in particular through reading glasses that magnified his eyes. He took them off and set them down when he turned his attention back to her. “I can send you to 609 Squadron again. Not many left in it who were there when you last served in it, but no help for that. It’s been a damned hard war, pardon me. They’re converting from the Spitfire V to the Typhoon. The changeover shouldn’t give you much trouble.”
“I’d be glad to go there, sir. Thank you!” she said.
Douglas waved that aside. “Here’s something for you to remember if you will. We built the Typhoon as an answer to the 190, which has a clear advantage over the Spitfire.”
“I’ve seen as much, sir,” A.E. agreed.
“Quite,” Douglas said. “Well, it isn’t, much as we wish it were. It’s very fast, and it carries four 20mm cannon. Air-to-air against one of the Focke-Wulfs, though … I shouldn’t recommend it above 15,000 feet.”
“Okay. Thanks. I will try to remember,” A.E. said, and then, “Ask you something, sir?”
“Go ahead. I don’t promise to answer.”
“How come you’re not just making me go back to the USAAF? I know I got you plenty mad a couple of years ago.”
He nodded. “You did. But since then you’ve buckled down, done what you were told to do, and kept your mouth shut. Most Yanks can’t manage that last, but you might have been born here. It can’t always have been easy for you, either—I do recognize that.”
How much did he know? How much did he suspect? Even a tenth of what she’d gone through? She wouldn’t have bet on it. All the same, he’d come further than she’d dreamt he could. She answered him with a shrug. “You do what you need to do, that’s all. Maybe it will be easier for the women who come after me.”
“Perhaps, if we win this time, we truly won’t have to study war any more. Of course, they said the same thing in 1918, and see how that turned out.” Sholto Douglas put his glasses on again. “Your orders are waiting downstairs. May good luck stay with you, Flying Officer.”
“Thank you, sir.” Out she went. She might have underestimated him when they butted heads in the dark days of 1940. Or he might have underestimated her, and come to realize it over time. Which didn’t matter. She’d stay in the RAF, and stay in the air.
Chapter Twenty-One
609 Squadron, she discovered from the orders, was at Biggan Hill these days, an airstrip about fifteen miles southeast of central London. When she walked into the Nissen hut that did duty as squadron barracks, David Crooke looked up from his game of bridge and said, “Good Lord, look what the cat dragged in!”
“Hello, David,” she said. Good to find at least one of the Battle of Britain veterans still in the squadron, even if they hadn’t known each other well. He was a flying officer now, too, she saw. A moment later, she noticed the ribbon for the Distinguished Flying Cross above his left breast pocket. “What did you get the gong for?”
He shrugged an elaborate shrug. “Staying alive, mostly. Surprised they haven’t inflicted one on you, too.”
That was British underplaying, nothing else but. You earned a DFC; they didn’t just hand them out. She asked, “Who’s commanding the squadron now?”
“Flight Lieutenant Roland Prosper Beamont just took over,” Crooke replied. Seeing the look on her face at the fancy handle, he added, “He goes by ‘Bee.’ He’s a good egg.” He pointed back to the far end of the hut, where a door probably led into the slightly roomier and more private quarters a squadron leader could boast. She walked over and knocked on the door.
“Who’s that?” came a voice from within.
“Flying Officer Earhart reporting, sir.”
The door opened. Beamont might or might not have been half her age. He did seem to wear command easily, though. “Welcome! Do come in. I hear you were daft enough to prefer us to the Yanks.”
“I get to keep flying this way, sir.”
“Daft,” he repeated, but he stood aside to let her past, then closed the door behind them. Waving her to a folding chair, he asked, “Where does your score stand?”
“I have four, sir—two with this squadron in 1940, two since.”
“One to go, then. To the more immediate point, what kind of accommodations can we give you? David says you used a tent before, but you transferred out before the weather got too nasty to make that pleasant.”
“Yes, sir.” She described how she’d arranged things with the Eagles, leaving out the time that pilot tried to molest her.
Beamont idly scratched his chin. “Corner spots are taken here. Do you mind a tent for a little while, so we can give the bloke we oust time to shift his gear?”
“That’d be fine, sir. Thank you. As long as it doesn’t start snowing, I can stay in the tent.”
“I heard you were a trouper. I see I heard right. Now, what were you flying in 71 Squadron?”
“The Spitfire V.”
“Well, we have some. We still fly them now and again,” the squadron CO said. “But what we mostly do is go hunting the Focke-Wulf fighter-bombers that hit-and-run across the Channel. You’ll know about those, I expect?”
A.E. nodded. “I sure do, sir. I went after a 109 like that one time. He dumped his bomb in the ocean and scooted home to France.”
“Jolly good. The 190’s a better plane in the role, though. Even with a bomb under its belly, it can give a Spit trouble. That’s why we’re switching over to the Typhoon. It’s faster, and those four 20mms pack a punch like your Joe Louis. If you can fly a Spit, you shouldn’t have any trouble with it.”
“Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. That’s what I’m here for.”
Beamont eyed her. “Good heavens, where would we be if everyone had that attitude? In Berlin by now, I daresay.”
The tent they gave her was bigger than the one she’d had when she was with the squadron before. If she found some way to keep the inside halfway warm in winter, she thought she might like it better than a cot in the Nissen hut. It wasn’t much privacy, but it was more than she’d have there.
As for the Typhoon … She saw what Beamont meant right away. That it could do more than a Spitfire was obvious from the moment she first got airborne in one. Just for flying, though, she would have rather stayed in a Spit. It had what struck her as the perfect combination of grace and power. The Typhoon did what it did
very well, but did it by brute force.
She soon found she wasn’t the only pilot who felt that way. “It’s like measuring thoroughbreds against Clydesdales, isn’t it?” David Crooke said. “You’d sooner ride the racehorse, but if you’ve got to haul a load of bricks you’ll take the Clydesdale every time. Well, right now we’re in the brick-hauling business.” She nodded. So did several other flyers at the mess table.
The squadron soon moved from Biggan Hill down to RAF Manston on the Kentish coast, to be closer to the English Channel and to raiders coming from France. WAAFs there were quartered in the Ursuline convent at the village next door. A.E. kept her tent by the men’s barracks. No one said a word about it.
While she flew patrols over the ocean and over southern England, she thought about going down to France and shooting up anything that moved. Sure as the devil, the Typhoon would be great at that. Other squadrons were doing it, but not 609, not right this minute. Everybody had a particular role to play. It was like a movie (and, God willing, would turn out better than Eagle Squadron).
When she mentioned going down to France to Beamont, he quirked an eyebrow at her. “Funny you should say that. I’ve been having the fitters dim the lights on the instrument panel and the reflector sight in my cockpit so they don’t ruin my night vision. I want to fly down there after dark and give those Nazi buggers a little surprise.”
A.E. had all she could do not to clap her hands in glee. “What a wonderful idea! What does the brass think of it?”
He shrugged with studied nonchalance. “If I come back alive, maybe they’ll let others try it, too.”
Over the next week or two, he shot up several military trains on the Calais-Paris line. Before long, the electricians started modifying the cockpit lights in other planes, too.
Or Even Eagle Flew Page 11
