Moon Above, Moon Below

by William Peter Grasso

  The sergeant looked at the drawing—the cartoon Hitler hanging by the seat of his pants from the tip of a thin crescent moon—and let out a roaring laugh. “Now that’s some good shit, Lieutenant. A lot better than what you named the last one, anyway.”

  “Oh, yeah? What was wrong with Belle of Canarsie?”

  McNulty pinched his nostrils like he’d just smelled something awful. “Don’t cut no ice outside of Brooklyn, sir.” Waving the sketch like a victory flag, he added, “But this one’s pretty darn good. I’ll get Vincent Van Goldbrick to paint it on once you’re back for good today.”

  Tommy began the preflight inspection while McNulty and his crew did their final checks and fuzed the bombs. Three 500 pounders hung from below the jug, one on each wing just outboard of the landing gear, one below the belly between the wheel wells. He paused reverently and laid his hand gently on the bomb below the left wing. He was quite sure the frightening image of what bombs like this had done at Sées yesterday would never leave him.

  A mechanic held up a piece of chalk and asked, “You want to write something on that egg, Lieutenant? A little greeting to the Kraut bastards, maybe?”

  “Nah,” Tommy replied. “No need. They work pretty damn good just as they are.”

  “Mind if I do, sir?”

  “Help yourself, Private.”

  Tommy noticed something strange farther outboard on the wing’s underside. Calling McNulty over, he asked, “Is this the hard point for the rocket tubes?”

  “Yeah, but they ain’t all wired up yet. Depot’s been a little slow getting us the mod kits. Should have it all done in a couple of days, though.”

  Together they inspected the aft fuselage, with its high, crowned upper skin extending aft from the cockpit to the vertical stabilizer. “I knew you wanted another razorback, sir,” McNulty said, “and I didn’t have no trouble snagging you one. There were just a few bubble-canopy girls to choose from, anyway, and they found themselves a home pretty quick.”

  “Good. I’d feel like I was in some kind of fishbowl flying a bubble. And I like all that metal behind my head.”

  They both knew all that metal behind my head was false security. Bullets and flak would go through that thin aluminum like butter. It was the armor plate on the seatback that protected the pilot, and the bubble and the razorback were quite similar in that respect.

  McNulty asked, “But a bubble gives you a lot better look out your six, don’t it, sir?”

  “Look at what? Haven’t seen much of the Luftwaffe lately. Have you?”

  “No, sir. Not one damn plane.” He looked worried as he asked, “But you still keep an eye in that rear view mirror for ’em, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Good, because you know what they say, sir: the guy who gets you is the one you never see coming.”

  When they got back to the nose of the airplane, the mechanic was still writing on the bomb. Tommy asked him, “You writing a novel there, Private?”

  The man stepped back to show his work. “There. All done, sir.” In neat block letters, he’d spelled out his message to the Germans:

  Come Christmas, we’ll all be home. And you’ll all be dead.

  Eclipse of the Hun—radio call sign Gadget Blue Leader —lifted off the runway and promptly afforded Tommy a spectacular view of Alençon just 10 miles to the north. Standing beneath the dome of the noonday August sky, it looked more like a storybook village than a place that was nearly a battlefield just a few days ago. His wingman, Lieutenant Jimmy Tuttle, tucked up his jug off Eclipse’s right wing.

  In a few minutes, they passed directly over Alençon. Tommy could see the grand-rue running north-south through the town. He even thought he could pick out Papa’s House, as Sylvie had called it. If there was a line of GIs waiting to be serviced there, he couldn’t tell. And somewhere on the road leading east from town was his brother in a Sherman tank, driving toward Gacé with Combat Command Fox.

  Climbing to 5000 feet, they headed north toward Sées—just four minutes ahead—but gave it a wide berth. Tommy hadn’t forgotten the hidden guns in the town yesterday. They’d do the same for Argentan, another five minutes beyond Sées. If all the intel was true, there would be plenty of unconcealed roadkill out in the French countryside to keep them busy.

  There were many planes in the air over the Flers-Falaise-Argentan triangle, still not in sight but crowding the radio frequencies: P-47s from the US IX Tactical Air Command supporting Hodges’s 1st Army west of Argentan; RAF Typhoons and Tempests north of Falaise supporting Montgomery’s Brits, Canadians, and Poles; and their outfit—XIX Tactical Air Command supporting Patton’s 3rd Army east of Argentan. Lots of aircraft but none of them German; none of the combat reports were of air-to-air action. Tommy and Tuttle skirted Argentan and dropped lower to scout for German columns reported to be on the highway heading east toward Gacé and beyond.

  Tommy spotted it first: from a patch of woods rose a wispy column of grayish-white smoke, moving steadily eastward.

  A train, Tommy told himself. The Krauts must be getting real desperate if they’re rolling in daylight with all these planes waiting to hit them. Of course, it might be studded with anti-aircraft guns, too, so no more than one pass.

  Tommy led Tuttle through a diving, three-quarter circle to the left. “We’ll hit them broadside. I’ll take the locomotive,” he told his wingman. “You shoot up as many of the cars as you can. We’ll take them as soon as they’re out of those trees. Guns only—don’t waste your bombs.”

  Like lambs being led to the slaughter, the locomotive began to pull its cars clear of the woods. The P-47s came in low, hugging the flat terrain, the trees hiding their approach; the trainmen and German soldiers on board couldn’t see them coming until it was too late. Caught by surprise, the anti-aircraft gunners atop the two middle cars struggled frantically to depress their 20-millimeter cannons enough to engage fighters on the deck but lost the race; Tuttle’s eight .50-caliber machine guns demolished one of those cars and caused the gunners on the other to jump for their lives. His plane streaked low over the train and made her escape.

  Tommy’s attack considerations were different. Already, I’m too low and too close, with only one direction for escape: left.

  It’s got to be left. If the locomotive blows, I’ll get caught up in the blast if I go over the top. If I go right, I fly over a train-load of pissed-off Krauts with guns.

  He squeezed the trigger, watching the rounds land short at first and then walk right into the side of the locomotive’s big boiler. They made tiny red flashes as they struck the curved iron.

  But this was no time to hang around and see the results. He jerked the stick left—and she seemed so sluggish with 1500 pounds of bombs hanging under her, 2000 rounds of .50 caliber, and nearly full tanks—that he thought she’d never turn.

  Then suddenly she responded, banking so steeply left he thought he’d bury her wingtip in the ground. Slamming the stick right, she seemed to take forever to level off. But once she did, it was time to climb and rejoin Tuttle.

  Damn, that was close. Is this new bird a little screwy? Or am I getting rusty?

  “Did I get her?” Tommy asked his wingman.

  “Oh, yeah. Blew like a volcano. I only got a couple of cars, though. Sure you don’t want to have another go?”

  “Positive.”

  With Tuttle back on his right wing, they climbed to 2000 feet and continued eastward. In a few minutes, they were halfway between Sées and Gacé when the call came over the radio. It was unmistakably Charlie Webster’s voice but an octave higher. Combat Command Fox’s ASO was calling for fighter support. He sounded scared out of his mind.

  “Halfback One-four, this is Gadget Blue,” Tommy replied. “Tell me your troubles, over.”

  Webster’s next transmission was a breathless recitation of CCF’s predicament. They were stopped dead on the road five miles south of Gacé, up against a roadblock making a determined stand with massed heavy weapons. N
o matter how the Americans pummeled their adversaries with tank and artillery fire, they couldn’t break through. They didn’t even seem to be weakening the defenders, no matter what they tried.

  Shit, Tommy thought. The lead elements must be taking a beating. He tried to force the image of flaming Shermans from his head.

  Taking a quick glance at the map on his kneeboard, he told Webster, “On station in three minutes. Advise splash on last rounds, over.”

  As soon as the P-47s were close enough to view the battle from above, they could see what Combat Command Fox couldn’t: there was a stream of combat vehicles—tanks, assault guns, half-tracks, and trucks—flowing south on the highway from Gacé. They had to be Germans, ready to join the swirling mass of smoke, dust, and armored vehicles locked in combat.

  No wonder they can’t seem to make a dent in them, Tommy told himself. Knock one out and another one takes its place. But we’re flak-bait if we hang around up here, just sightseeing…and this new ship’s still got me guessing a little.

  He looked farther south and saw a quartet of tanks blazing on the road. From this height—and through all the smoke and haze—it was impossible to tell German feldgrau from American olive drab. But based on their location and orientation, he guessed they were American…

  And one of them could be my brother’s.

  Blue Flight broke left just as an arcing ribbon of tracers rose to meet them. But a quick turn and steady descent got them quickly out of harm’s way. Down to 300 feet, Tommy told Tuttle, “This column is definitely Krauts. We’ll hit them from their ass end. You trail and drop first, then break hard right and I’ll drop mine.”

  Tuttle was relieved to hear that plan. At this low altitude, he’d barely be able to outrun his own bomb blasts without having to dodge the explosions in front of him from Tommy’s bombs, too. But he was getting more nervous by the second: they were about to begin an attack run which, if the American artillery was still firing, would fly them straight into those incoming rounds.

  “Blue Two to Leader,” Tuttle called, “we didn’t get splash yet. Better abort.”

  “Negative, negative. We’ve got time.”

  Time? Half’s losing his mind. We’ve got a couple of seconds, maybe, until—

  Before he could finish that thought, Webster’s voice was in their earphones: “Splash, over.” The last American artillery rounds were impacting. Tommy could see their blasts well ahead of him. “Roger,” he replied. “Perfect timing.”

  Over the German column now, Tuttle pickled his bombs in sequence—One, two, three—and announced, “Blue Two, breaking right.”

  Tommy released his bombs in the same one-two-three sequence as his wingman.

  “Blue Leader, breaking right.” Then he asked Tuttle, “That wasn’t so bad, was it, Jimmy?”

  “Yes, it was. I don’t like betting the farm against artillery rounds.”

  “Maybe once you do a stint as ASO you’ll get to trust the dogfaces a little. Now let’s see if we did any good.”

  From a thousand feet, it seemed a certainty they had. Their six 500-pound bombs had left a chain of craters hundreds of yards long and inflicted horrific damage on the German column.

  “Look at that!” Tuttle said. “We ripped the shit out of them.”

  True, vehicles were ablaze all along the road, perhaps as many as a dozen, but they were mostly trucks, half-tracks, and assault guns—all thinly armored or not at all. Tommy counted seven tanks—he couldn’t tell what type they were—but only one was billowing smoke. As best he could tell from this altitude, six German tanks were still on the move and battleworthy.

  “Let’s do another pass, same direction,” Tommy told Tuttle. “Try and keep those panzer bastards out of the fight. At least give them a headache.”

  “But shouldn’t we hit ’em from a different direction this time?”

  “Negative. We’re down to guns, so let’s shoot up those tankers in the ass where we might actually do a little good. If they’re buttoned up, they won’t even see us coming.”

  “Hey, Half, maybe we can skip some rounds underneath and up through their bellies.”

  “You don’t really believe that works, do you, Jimmy? Just aim for the damn engine…and pray we knocked out all the flak guns already.”

  They came in lower this time, barely higher than the tips of the German tanks’ antennas, flying echelon right to stay clear of the ejected cartridges from each other’s guns. Sights locked on the tanks, they both expended a quarter of their .50-caliber ammunition load—about 300 rounds per plane, almost 40 rounds per gun. But it seemed like wasted effort. Tracers just bounced off the tanks’ armor, arcing into the air like stars from a Roman candle.

  Tommy wondered, Did any of that API punch its way inside a tank?

  As they climbed and circled back, it looked like only one tank had suffered damage from the strafing; it was being pushed off the road by another tank. That left five. At least none of the assault guns, half-tracks, and trucks seemed to be in the fight anymore. They sat lifeless on the sides of the highway, some burning ferociously. If there were German soldiers around those vehicles, alive or dead, Tommy couldn’t see them.

  “Halfback One-four, this is Gadget Blue. We’re clear. Let ’em have it.”

  With their fuel and ammo sufficient, Blue Flight could loiter in the area, standing by for any further requests for help. But it would be hard to tell who was winning from the safe perch of a few thousand feet until, like all battles, it reached critical mass: the point at which one side sensed it was inflicting far more damage than it was receiving. Then, and only then, would the winning side be confident enough to steadily advance and overrun their enemy. From the air, it would look like a surge of ants pressing relentlessly forward.

  But critical mass still hadn’t happened for either side. The only change seemed to be the growing number of burning armored vehicles littering the battlefield. From Tommy Moon’s balcony seat, it looked like a stalemate. With each tank knocked out, the odds of one of them being his brother’s grew. He took a look at his fuel gauge: About an hour’s worth before we’ve got to go home and tank up. If only I could tell who was who down there...

  Charlie Webster’s agitated voice was back on the air. “Gadget Blue, Gadget Blue, this is Halfback One-four. Do you identify red smoke, over?”

  A thin, barely perceptible plume of red smoke billowed up from the ground, right about where Tommy figured the American line was. It looked like it came from a GI smoke grenade.

  “Roger, got red smoke.”

  “Okay, Gadget, red smoke is Halfback. Repeat, red smoke is Halfback. Now look about a thousand yards east, over.”

  A thousand yards east marked the edge of a forest. Tommy was already turning and diving in its direction as he asked Webster, “We’re looking at the treeline, affirmative?”

  “Affirmative. Krauts with big guns hiding in the woods on our flank. Standby for goal posts.”

  Goal posts: the name General Wood had given to Tommy’s idea of marking a target line with white phosphorous airbursts.

  “Splash, over,” Webster reported, a warning the bursts were about to happen.

  “There they are,” Tommy told his wingman. “Have you ever seen goal posts before?”

  “Negative, Half.”

  “Those bursts give us the target line. The lower one is over the target area. Do it echelon left this time. We’ll probably never see the Krauts, so just stay on the line and let her rip.”

  “If they know where they are, why the hell ain’t they hitting them?”

  “They’ve only got so much artillery, Jimmy, so they need a little help. Now are you coming or what?”

  “Affirmative, boss.”

  Tommy banked his ship left and brought her around to the target line, passing just under the floating puff of the high airburst. Then he started a steep dive aimed short of the low burst, hoping to compensate for probable error and not overshoot.

  “You still with me, Jimmy?” he
asked Tuttle.

  “Affirmative. Right on your eight o’clock and dropping like a brick.”

  As their altimeters spun rapidly down, the battlefield was starting to make more sense. Tommy had a much better idea where the Americans were—and where those invisible guns in the forest were menacing them with flanking fire. It was hard enough for the troopers of CCF to engage an enemy dead ahead of them. To have to fight in more than one direction could be a recipe for their destruction.

  The jugs’ .50-caliber guns worked over the forest like crazed woodsmen, shredding the tall trees—and hopefully the invisible Germans among those trees—with industrial efficiency. Pulling up from the attack run, Tommy told his wingman, “Let’s pull a one-eighty and do that again.”

  “Hey, Half,” Tuttle said, “a couple more passes like that and we’ll be guns dry.”

  “That’s what ammo’s for, Jimmy…to fire it. Breaking hard right.”

  With the cushion of altitude, Tommy banked his new ship harder than he ever had before. He was relieved when she responded exactly as he expected.

  There…that’s more like it. I guess she handles differently with external loads than my old ship. Without the bombs, though, she’s pretty nimble. Just like she should be.

  As they streaked down for another strafing run, Tuttle said, “Pretty easy to see the line we just shot up. Looks like a tornado went through there. Started a few fires and everything.”

  “Halfback One-four,” Tommy called, “are we doing any good?”

  “Affirmative, Gadget Blue. We think those guns are trying to withdraw. Maybe move your next pass a smidgen or two east.”

  The two jugs slid left as requested. Halfway down their strafing run, both ships lurched from the shock wave of an explosion beneath them. Tommy said, “I think we found them. Feels like some of their ammo just went up.”

  “Speaking of ammo,” Tuttle replied, “how much you got left?”

  “Not much…about a hundred rounds.”

  “Roger. Me too.”

  One hundred rounds—12 per gun, give or take a few. Enough for one more pass at something.