“Pilot to gunner. Report in. Everything check out back there?”
“So far, so good,” Jack said. “I’d like to give it another short burst, if it’s okay.”
“Negative,” came the reply. “Sounds like it’s working fine to me. We don’t know what we’re gonna be up against out here. Better conserve ammo.”
“Yes sir.”
“Keep your eyes peeled, Jack,” Ozuk interjected. “We could be seeing bad guys anytime now.”
“Roger,” Jack said.
“I see land, Lieutenant Gray,” announced Jones, the bombardier. “Coming up fast. Dead ahead.”
“I see it,” answered Gray. “I’ll take her up a few feet just to be safe.”
Jack turned in the turret as the plane climbed slightly upwards. So far so good. Except for the occasional fishing boat and cabin cruiser, they’d seen no one else to this point. Although the vessels were harmless, it was still unnerving to see the Rising Sun flag, waving in the breeze atop their masts. Almost everyone on board the boats had waved as they flew by.
“Bogies. I see bogies. Twelve o’clock high. Three of them. No, six of them. Two sets of three,” Manch shouted from the cockpit.
“Jack, do you see—”
Gray’s voice cut off. Jack flicked on the interphone and hailed Gray. “Lieutenant? Lieutenant Gray?”
No answer.
Jack pushed the control lever to the left until the turret swung to the front. He looked up in the sky and, sure enough, two V-formations of planes were coming their way, about four to five thousand feet up. He raised the twin guns toward the planes, then cracked his knuckles and stretched his fingers. He let them rest, carefully, on the trigger. His heart began to pounce. Beads of sweat started to pool on his forehead.
The enemy planes traveled slowly, maybe two hundred knots. So far, they made no attempt to change course. Jack looked at his watch for an instant, trying to remember from his studies exactly what time Doolittle dropped his bombs on Tokyo. Once the explosions began, the Japanese would know something was up and be on the lookout for others.
“Pilot to gunner. Pilot to—” Again nothing.
Jack tried frantically to respond. “Lieutenant?” he shouted. “Do you hear me? You keep getting cut off. Something must be wrong with the intercom. If you can hear me, I do see those bogies overhead.”
Jack felt a tug on his pant leg. He looked down.
“Jack!” It was Ozuk, the navigator standing below him. “Gray sent me to ask if you saw that formation.”
“I’m watching them right now.”
“Well, keep your eyes peeled for more. Doolittle’s bombs should be hitting Tokyo any minute now.”
Jack looked back at the plane formation. They were still there but heading away from them. “I understand. But tell him I can’t hear him. He keeps getting cut off.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Jack. I’m gonna have my hands full from here on out getting us to the target. Just keep your eyes open.” Ozuk headed back toward his station.
This wasn’t good. Jack wondered…was this how Faktor died? Did it have something to do with the radio?
# # #
For the next fifteen minutes Jack remained in his turret, perched in silence. He rotated it every so often. Occasionally, he spotted a lone aircraft here and there, but thankfully they were civilian. He was amazed no one had come after them yet. Surely, Doolittle and Hoover, in plane number two, had dropped their bombs by now.
As he reached the six o’clock position, he heard a loud mechanical noise grinding beneath him, just forward in the fuselage. The bombay doors were opening. A great rushing wind. He stood and turned the turret forward. Tokyo was in sight. To the north, smoke billowed from several buildings, marking the spots where the first two bombers had blazed their trail.
Jack saw strange little black clouds up ahead, although the sky was completely clear in every other direction. Then he realized they weren’t clouds. It was flak. They were flying straight into anti-aircraft fire. In moments, the strange little black clouds were all around them. Several rounds exploded close enough to shake the plane. “Okay, okay,” he muttered to himself. No one gets shot down on this raid. Stay focused.
Suddenly, the plane banked heavily to the left, then straightened out. Jack felt the back end of the bomber swerve as Gray made a few corrections with the rudder. For the first time on their journey, the plane began to climb dramatically. Jack stiffened to avoid sliding forward into the gun sight.
They were making their bombing run.
The first bomb released from its hold and fell away. He stood in the turret in time to hear the explosion and catch the small mushroom cloud erupt behind them. The plane banked again to the left, only slightly. The tail swerved again in response to the rudder, as Gray brought the plane on course for bomb number two. Jack watched again with amazement as the second 500-pound bomb dropped from the plane’s belly. Two large smokestacks disintegrated behind them. A mass of smoke, flame, and flying debris.
Jack was shocked at how low to the ground they were.
In similar intervals, bombs number three and four dropped in quick succession. The fourth bomb was an incendiary, actually dozens of little bomblets that broke apart as it dropped into the wind, raining fire down from the sky. In a city like Tokyo, made of mostly wooden structures, this bomb could cause the most destruction of all.
The whole episode seemed to move in slow motion. When it was over, Jack looked at his watch. The whole run took less than two minutes. The plane dove and turned again, this time southwest, toward the coast of China.
He breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps the worst was over. For a moment he stared back as the city of Tokyo began to fade in the distance. Then he smiled. As frightening as this had been, it had been proportionately as thrilling. Fear and fascination in equal parts. They flew on for several more minutes without incident.
The quiet was interrupted by the sound of a single-engine plane buzzing overhead. His head snapped in its direction. Under both wings Jack saw the ‘red meatballs’ the Japanese painted on all their military aircraft. He grabbed the control lever firmly and swiveled the turret into position. The Japanese plane turned around.
It had spotted them.
Remember, he thought, lead the plane. Fire where it’s going. Don’t shoot at it.
He squeezed hard on the trigger and felt the powerful jolt of the twin fifty-caliber guns roaring into action. Tracer bullets quickly formed dotted lines of smoke racing upwards toward the enemy plane. The plane inverted and dropped to the left. Jack followed it as far as he could until the fuselage blocked his view.
No smoke. Must’ve missed. Okay little guy, where are you?
He swung the turret slowly toward the front, then back to the rear, searching the skies, hoping the plane would not reappear. He was just beginning to repeat his loop when tracer bullets started whizzing by no more than ten feet above his head. They were followed by the rapid staccato of machine gun fire. The plane came right at them, guns blazing, from the starboard side. But Jack was facing port. He needed to get his guns turned around.
Jack whipped the control lever around, trying to force the guns toward the incoming plane. Tracers from the Japanese plane moved steadily downward, just a few feet above the B-25. Soon they’d be hitting their mark. The turret motor whined and spun. Suddenly, Jack lost his balance as his foot slipped off the footrest. He banged his head against the steel sidewall of the turret and was knocked out cold.
# # #
When Jack awoke, the right side of his head ached and throbbed. He opened his eyes. Everything was all wrong. Where was the Japanese plane? Had he shot it down? Was the dream finally over?
As he looked around, he could tell he wasn’t back in his bedroom yet. The sky was dark and stormy again, even worse than that morning. Rain pelted against the plexiglass dome of his turret. He could see streaks of lightning in the distance and hear peals of thunder. Even the plane engine’s sounds were differ
ent. They were sputtering, choking. What was happening?
Jack dropped down into the fuselage.
He picked up the microphone and yelled into it. “Lieutenant Gray? Lieutenant Manch? Jones? Ozuk? Can anybody here me?” The plane bucked up and down violently in the turbulence created by the storm and the faltering engines. He ran toward the front of his compartment and screamed into the passageway, “Is anybody on this plane?”
No reply.
I’ve gotta get outta here. Everyone’s bailed out.
He felt the plane start to gradually descend.
Frantically, he groped along the dark walls of the fuselage until he located a parachute. He strapped it on in frenzied fashion, hoping against hope that it would hold when he pulled the cord. He yanked and tugged at the straps. They seemed secure.
He dropped on all fours, fumbling for the hatch. When he found it, he opened it without hesitation. Chilly wind and rain slapped him in the face. He lay on his stomach, his legs now suspended in the open air. With a deep breath, and a brief, fearful prayer, he flung himself into the elements.
He tumbled for what seemed like an eternity, falling end over end. He started to regain control after he extended his limbs as far as they would go. When he finally stopped spinning, he yanked hard on his ripcord and felt the sensation of all his insides lunging up into his throat.
The sound of the plane’s engines faded. He looked up into the darkness for one last glance but couldn’t see it. He could barely see his parachute above his head. The cold rain spat on him, drenching his hair and face, even his clothes.
His insides started to settle down after a few seconds, and he even began to feel quite peaceful floating through the air. As his head began to clear, he tried to sort out what must have happened. He remembered shooting at the Japanese plane, then slipping and hitting his head. The rest of the crew could not have known this because the intercom wasn’t working. They must have flown on toward China until they ran out of fuel and bailed out. Jack imagined somebody must have yelled back for him to bail out, but he couldn’t hear them. Now he was floating through the air over who knows where. He hoped he’d find the rest of the crew when he landed. Or better yet, that he would wake up.
He looked in the direction of the ground below, but it was much too dark to see. He figured he must be landing far from any towns or villages because there was no ground lighting anywhere in sight.
Then he realized with great relief…he had beaten the curse of Leland Faktor.
He was alive.
A question was just beginning to form in his mind about how much farther he had to fall before landing when a searing pain shot up from his legs. His whole body crumpled and seemed to break apart inside him. The air thrust out of his lungs with terrific force as he smacked into the ground with an impact far too great for anyone to survive.
Then there was nothing.
23
It was Thursday morning. Rachel Cook rushed across the campus, trying to make it to class on time. She was responding to an odd request, a favor from Professor Thornton. He’d asked if she would be willing to take over his classes for the day.
She was surprised he’d even thought of her. She was a teaching assistant, not a professor, and her forte was political science, not military history. He said she had nothing to worry about. It was more of a babysitting assignment, presiding over a steady diet of video documentaries, perhaps fake her way through a few class discussions.
Still she was flattered. And a bit nervous.
When he’d called earlier that morning, he’d sounded a little edgy. He said he was just fighting a stomach virus or something. He’d tried calling Jack several times, hoping he might do it but only got his answering machine.
As she climbed the steps of Thornton’s building, she didn’t notice the large young man running up behind her, didn’t hear him call out her name.
“Rachel,” the man yelled again. “You hear what happened?”
She almost tripped on a step. A strong arm reached out to steady her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She turned to see a visibly shaken Jed Lucas. He was at Culpepper on a wrestling scholarship. Rachel thought he might be described as handsome if his face hadn’t hit the mat so many times. “Hear what?” she asked.
“It’s Riesner, he’s dead.”
Riesner, Rachel thought, the name briefly escaped her.
“You know…Ralph,” he said.
“Ralph Riesner?” Now she remembered.
Lucas nodded. “Yeah, he’s dead.”
Rachel had only one connection with Riesner, Thornton’s class. He was an annoying little weasel, although she felt terrible thinking about him like that now. She remembered he sat right by the door, the guy who always dimmed the lights during media presentations. He kept trying to hit on her. She finally had to insult him to get him to back off. “How’d he die?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Lucas said. “I saw it on the news last night. The police said they’re ruling out foul play. They said it was natural causes.”
“Natural causes? But he wasn’t sick. Was he?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe he was, and he didn’t want us to know.”
“He must’ve had something wrong with him,” she said. “Twenty-two year olds don’t just up and die from natural causes.”
“He always did seem kind of thin…and pale, you know?”
“I still can’t believe it. Ralph Riesner is dead. Did they say anything else?”
“Not much. Just flashed a picture of him on the screen—I about choked on my pizza. They said a student at Culpepper died last Friday evening or early Saturday night. They said his body was discovered by a friend.”
“So he’s been dead since Friday? Wonder why they’re just reporting it now?”
He held the door open for her. “It had something to do with notifying the next of kin.”
They walked through the double wooden doors and down several hallways until they reached Thornton’s classroom. Rachel noticed the mood inside was not unlike a funeral home.
“I wonder where the Professor is,” Lucas whispered.
“Actually, that’s why I’m here. I’m kind of subbing for him. He came down with some kind of bug.”
Just then, along the wall behind Thornton’s desk, the door joining his office to the classroom opened with an audible creak. A noticeably disturbed and subdued Thornton shuffled in. “Good morning class,” he began in a shaky voice. “I guess it really is not a good morning, is it?”
Rachel was shocked. She assumed he’d called her from home. He must be really sick. He looked like he had aged ten years.
He walked over to his desk, cleared his throat and continued. “I’m sure you’ve all heard by now the tragic news about our young colleague, Ralph Riesner. He was a fine young man. I believe he had a bright future ahead of him. I’m saddened we will not get the chance to see what his contribution might have been.” He paused a few moments, shifted some paper around his desk. He seemed to be trying to regain his composure. Jed Lucas took his normal seat in the third row. Rachel stood off to the side, waiting for Thornton to introduce her as the sub for today.
Lucas spoke up, breaking through the pall. “Professor, do you know anything more about how he died than what they said on the news? He have some disease we didn’t know about? He seemed fine last week.”
“I’m sorry, Jed. I don’t know anything more than you all do about this. As far as I know, he was in good health. I had a brief conversation with his father this morning. He said the family is in a state of shock. That doesn’t sound like he had some well-known affliction to me. He didn’t offer any additional information, and I didn’t pry. He only called to apologize to any of Ralph’s friends who might have wanted to go to the funeral. They’re shipping his body home to Charlotte today. His father left an address if any of you care to write. I put it on the bulletin board.” Thornton took out a white handkerchief and wiped th
e sweat off his forehead. His voice, though stronger, was still trembling.
Rachel was surprised by how badly Thornton seemed to be taking this. Thornton and Riesner weren’t close as far as she knew.
“Guess when your number’s up, it’s up,” Lucas said. He didn’t notice the disapproving stares.
“Class, if you’ll excuse me…I feel we must keep on track with our plans—as trying as that may seem with this news. It might even help to take our minds off of—excuse me.” Thornton wiped his brow again and the sides of his mouth.
He motioned for Rachel to come closer. “I’m actually not feeling very well,” he said. “I’ve asked Miss Cook if she’d be kind enough to sit in for me. We’ll be picking up on our study of the Doolittle Raid by watching the classic movie Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Has anyone seen it?” Several hands went up. “You’ll enjoy it, I’m sure,” he said. “It is a rather long movie, so you’ll have to watch it over two classes. But Miss Cook will be passing out a list of questions I’d like you to answer and turn in on Monday. I should be back in time for our class then. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Hope you feel better,” one of the students yelled.
The mood in the room was understandably unsettled. Rachel watched as Thornton turned and walked away, slipping into the side door leading to his inner office behind the lecture hall.
“Okay class, get comfortable,” she announced, trying to sound authoritative. “I’ve read the book and seen the movie. Pretty close to history for an old Hollywood flick. Not as realistic as more modern war movies like Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, but it should help open the Doolittle Raid up a bit. Could someone get the lights?”
Several students turned toward the empty chair where Ralph Riesner used to sit. “I’ll get ‘em,” Joe Lucas said.
# # #
Professor Thornton did feel sick to his stomach, but it was no bug or virus.
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