Gods of Tin

by James Salter

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  an ace in China only seven years earlier. At the moment, he

  explained, he was in fighter-bombers, which was a waste of his talent; he would like to come to the Fourth.

  Thyng was always on the lookout for able men. Did he

  have any time in F-86? he asked Colman. Yes, sir, Colman

  said, about two hundred hours. He actually had none and had

  merely picked a figure that seemed probable. Thyng, inter-

  ested, told him to leave his name and other details with the adjutant and he would see what could be done.

  A few weeks later orders for the transfer came through and

  Colman left for Korea carrying, he said, at his own suggestion, his flight records with him. These records, sometimes sent

  separately, are a pilot’s full credentials and are sacred. They list everything—every flight, date, weather, type of aircraft. En route to Korea, Colman slid open the window of the transport plane and casually dropped this dossier into the sea. The

  pages, torn apart, slid under. Fishes nosed at the Japanese

  planes shot down, night flights in Georgia and Florida, rail-cuts near Sinanju, the entirety.

  In the new squadron, the one I was soon afterwards to

  join, he was asked for his records. They were being mailed, he said blandly. In the meantime, for convenience, he offered a rough breakdown of his time, very close to the fact but including several hundred hours in the F-86. Like the bill in a fine restaurant it was an impressive sum.

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  g o d s o f t i n

  Airplanes are the same in the way that ships and automo-

  biles are the same; they are similar, but there are also specifics.

  On his first flight Colman climbed into the cockpit and after a few minutes beckoned the crew chief to him. It had been a

  while since he’d flown this model and he didn’t want to make a mistake; why didn’t the crew chief show him the correct way

  to start the engine? he asked. The rest was easy—radio, con-

  trols, instruments, all these were the usual. He taxied out

  behind his leader and off they went on a local flight. They

  were carrying drop tanks but Colman hadn’t found out how to

  turn them on. As they were flying along about forty minutes

  later, he saw every needle suddenly wilt. His engine had

  stopped.

  He had a flame-out, he reported.

  “Roger,” the leader said. “Try an air start.”

  This was another gap in his knowledge. “Just so I do it

  right,” Colman said, “read it to me off the checklist, will you?”

  Item by item they went through the procedure. Nothing

  happened. The engine was all right and there was plenty of

  fuel, but it was all in the drop tanks. They tried a second time and then declared an emergency. Colman would have to try

  and make a dead-stick landing.

  He might have done it easily except he was a little short of altitude. Nothing can amend that. At the last, seeing he was not going to make it, he picked out the best alternative he

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  could, railroad tracks, and landed on them wheels-up, which

  was the right way. He was skating down the rails as if they were a wet street, finally coming to a stop just inside a wire-mesh gate which happened to be the entrance to the salvage yard.

  The plane, damaged beyond repair, would have ended up

  there anyway. Eventually the fire trucks came, and an ambu-

  lance, and Colman, who had injured his back slightly, was

  taken to the hospital.

  One of the first things noticed in the wreckage was that

  the drop-tank switches had not been turned on. Amell was in

  a very unfriendly mood when he arrived at the hospital. As

  soon as he entered the room, Colman held up his hands

  defensively. “Major, you don’t have to say it,” he began, “I fucked up. I know I fucked up. But you have to admit one

  thing. After I fucked up, nobody could have done a better job.”

  Impudence saved him. He was in disgrace but at the same

  time admired. You could not help liking his nerve.

  m

  We traveled far together, sometimes to forbidden places,

  deeper and deeper into Manchuria, almost to Mukden, look-

  ing for them in the sanctuary, so high that the earth seemed neuter. It was a great, barren country, brown, without features.

  The Yalu was behind us, no longer in sight. Farther and far-

  ther north. Every minute was ten miles. No one would know

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  g o d s o f t i n

  Capt. Philip “Casey” Colman

  what had happened to us, no one would ever hear. My eye

  returned to the fuel gauge again and again. The needle never moved but then it would be lower. How much do you have? he

  asks. Nine hundred pounds, I reply. Two brief clicks of the

  mike; he understood. Finally, giving up, we turned.

  m

  It was not duty, it was desire. Duty would not search with such avidity in the waning light, coming down the river one last

  time, the earth already in darkness that was rising slowly, like a tide, the heavens being the last to go. A strange high sound

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  begins in the earphones: gun-laying radar. Along the river a final time. Near its mouth the darkened earth begins to light up, first in one place and then another, like a city come to life.

  Soon the entire ground is flashing. They are firing at us far below. Black shellbursts, silent, appear around us, some showing an unexpected red core.

  It was victory we longed for and imagined. You could not

  steal or be given it. No man on earth was rich enough to buy it and it was worth nothing. In the end it was worth nothing at all.

  m

  24 March 1952. The dawn mission got into a big fight. I was walking to the showers when I heard that Schwab had been hit by a 23mm.

  The second mission got into an even bigger fight. We

  heard it at lunch. Woody was hit in the wing. Carey was shot down. First we heard he was missing. After a while his fuel

  would have been gone.

  Col. Mahurin gave us a ride down to the line. He was eager

  to go on the next mission. So were we.

  None of us saw anything. We were at fever pitch and saw

  absolutely nothing. Tremendous letdown.

  m

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  g o d s o f t i n

  When the ships returned from a mission, everybody watched

  for them. Usually, they came lining back to the field in flights of four, flying tight show formation with the black smoke fading in parallel streams behind as they turned in towards the runway and landing pattern. They seemed to be most indestructible

  then. They were of frozen silver. Nothing could possibly dim that grace. No enemy could deny them. Departures were stir-ring; but every return, even the most uneventful, was somehow transcendent and a call to the heart to rise in joy. Out of the north they had come again, brief strokes of splendor.

  m

  6 April 1952. 25th mission. Kasler on my wing. Five days ago, when I was over at Tsuiki, ferrying, he shot down a MIG and

  damaged another.

  Love is leading the flight. I’m determined to get a kill.

  Casey and Austin each had one on the mission before this.

  We climb north through layers of stratus out over the Yel-

  low Sea. MIG flights being reported in the area.

  Blue Flight is in a fight near Mizu. We turn east past

  Antung at 30,000. Moments later there are planes below us

  going west. We drop tanks and go down. They’re 86s.

  Me
anwhile, Love had gone on and run into MIGs. I could

  have kicked myself. We see six or eight 86s, nothing more.

  Kasler talking a lot, making suggestions. Someone calls ten

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  MIGs over Sinanju at 23,000. We head there. I spot two

  flecks of silver, low, going north.

  —Stay with me, I call, peeling down.

  They’re straight-winged, ours. Climb back up, low on fuel,

  heading north again. The sun is low, the earth becoming shadowed. We hear that MIGs are attacking our fighter-bombers

  near Long Dong. Head there, find nothing. Two ships near the river trailing thin lines of black smoke. 86s, chasing a MIG.

  Suddenly a plane flashes by just beneath us, very close, a

  MIG! I rack it over to get behind and cut him off. Calmer than ever before. Cage my gunsight and look back to clear Kasler who cries,

  —Check your right! Look right!

  There’s another MIG, the wingman, not two hundred feet

  away, stubby, foreign-looking, like a great, silent fish. I turn towards him and start to “S” back.

  —Break left! I hear Kasler call. They’re coming in on you

  from the left!

  I break, don’t see them, roll out to pick up the MIG again.

  He was about 1,800 feet away now. I fire but see no hits.

  Finally have to break off. We’re about forty miles inside China.

  I have 1,000 pounds. Time it takes to cross back over the river seems interminable.

  m

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  g o d s o f t i n

  The engines drank as they climbed. It was a hemorrhage. They were paying for altitude with an open-throated flow. It poured away. The needle of the gauge seemed to fail as Cleve looked at it. The minutes were endless. He suffered through them, trying not to think, restraining himself. He looked out to sea, where they would probably end up. It had always seemed a sanctuary.

  Now it was unnerving, a place to drown in. He thought of bailing out. He had never left an airplane before, and the moment of abandoning that close cockpit for sheer, climactic space

  chilled him.

  They were climbing fast. The ships performed better the

  emptier they became, and the blackfaced dial then showed just less than one hundred pounds. It was hardly enough to wet the bottom of the tank.

  m

  8 April 1952. To Tokyo for R and R, Woody, Austin, Kasler, and I. Tried to catch an earlier flight at K-16 but nothing available.

  Ate at the mess in our blues, then went to the club. Maj. Amell there, having a few. Sat down with him. Soon he was wishing

  he could go with us, he had a head cold and couldn’t fly anyway. He called for a staff car for us, insisted that we stay in Japan until the 15th. We said, largely in self-defense, we would, but only if he came with us. By god, he would!

  He called Col. Thyng and in fifteen minutes was back in

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  blues with a B4 bag. When the staff car came, Casey saw us

  off, firing shots in the air. It emptied the movie, but we were gone.

  Miserable flight. Canvas seats, cold cabin, impossible to

  sleep. Took off at one in the morning and sat shivering in the darkness until five AM.

  Astor Hotel, bar and restaurant open 24 hours, Japanese

  not allowed. Slept until afternoon, then downtown to the

  Meiji Building. No one I knew was in FEAF anymore, only

  Betsy Vandegrift in Flying Safety. Then to the Gae-jo-en.

  Drinking. Amell talked and talked. Woody nicknamed him

  Rackety-Rax, should be back in college as an undergraduate.

  On to the Imperial. Singing songs in the bar, Amell shout-

  ing “Louder!” People began to leave. The manager came.

  Amell was telling some civilians he didn’t want to impress

  them with his education. Then to the Mimatsu, big nightclub

  on the Ginza. Huge floorshow, hostesses in evening gowns,

  confetti from exploding firecrackers, Amell smashing martini glasses on the floor.

  Miyoshi’s again. A girl smooth as a pear. In the morning I

  hesitated outside, thinking I’d forgotten something. Woody

  asked if I was going back to get my self-respect. Found out

  that Amell had spent the night sleeping in the backseat of a car at Tachikawa. Met him at the Marinouchi Hotel. He didn’t

  want to have lunch. Said his friends in the past never had

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  enough money to eat and drink, too. Drinks, shrimp cocktails, and steaks. Bill was $1.80. Amell off to Tachikawa to visit the nurses again. We went to the Bacchus, an officers’ nightclub.

  The strippers took everything off, the last one at the beginning of her act. Great-looking girls. Heard they were asking 20,000 yen for the night. At the Hotel Sakiya tried to buy a wonderful wind-up gramophone. Bought five bicycles the next

  day instead, went back to the Bacchus.

  Shopped the last day, went out to Tachikawa, Kasler,

  Woody, and I. Had a steak dinner and flew out at midnight.

  Miserable flight. No sleep. Landed at Seoul at 5:30 in the

  morning. It was Easter Sunday. Flew a mission that afternoon, my 26th. Saw nothing.

  15 April 1952. The rains have come and high winds. Windows rattle incessantly. Once in a while the door blows open. No

  flying. We work to fix up the room.

  m

  There were so many things that could happen, a large part was chance. Perhaps it has rained for days—the planes sit out in the weather and dampness affects them, the radios become

  unreliable. Break! they are crying in a fight and you hear nothing. The silence is uncanny. Break right! they are shouting, break

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  right! For some reason you look back and there, behind you, is an intake the size of a locomotive. In fright you pull too hard and the plane shudders, snaps, begins to spin. The earth is

  revolving, dirt from the cockpit floor is floating up, and they are following you down; when you pull out at low speed they’ll be waiting.

  There were days one felt a dread, when something was

  wrong, something impalpable. Like a beast lying in a field sens-ing danger, you could not run from it, you did not even know what it was. It was an eclipse, not total, of courage. People were getting hit, Woody, Bambrick, Straub. Carey was lost,

  Honecker. Sharp, with his savoir-faire and black moustache,

  was shot down—the MIG dropping out of the clouds behind

  him—and rescued.

  m

  17 April 1952. Sunny. Promising. On the early mission, weather reccy, Bryant and Miller were hit by MIGs. They reported the enemy fields jammed with aircraft.

  At the briefing, Col. Thyng said there were 600 of them

  counted on Antung, Ta-tung-kou, and Taka-shan. Flew three

  missions, leading the flight on the third. Our squadron took off first. We went to 42,000 over the river, throttled back and slowly descended, east to west, then back again, .85 or .9 all the way. They were reporting MIGs in the air. Lattshaw saw

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  Col. Harrison R. Thyng, CO 4th Fighter Wing, Korea, 1952

  streams of fuel and vapor from their dropped tanks near Mizu.

  We were halfway there at 36,000. The MIGs were said to be

  at 25,000. We passed Mizu but saw nothing, turned back

  towards the southeast. After a minute or two, there they were, skipping north through the cons. One was at 12 o’clock. I

  turned in behind him.

  —That’s a MIG, Jim, Austin said.

  It was turning and climbing, white cirrus behind it. Big

  barn of a tail. I fired, but my gunsight was t
errible. With the pipper right on him, my tracers were arcing out far to the left,

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  even in fixed sight. I couldn’t pull closer. May have hit him but doubt it. Finally I was just following.

  —We may have to break, Kasler called.

  A few seconds later,

  —Break left, Orange!

  Two MIGs coming down on us, turning in behind.

  —They’re breaking off, I called. Kas, reverse your turn.

  They climbed away. We circled slowly, hunting. Near the

  river we spotted two, but with 86s behind them, Austin and

  Flanagan.

  —Get after that one at two o’clock, Austin called. I hit

  him, but I’m fired out.

  I turned that way. The MIG was too far off. Kasler had

  called MIGs at twelve o’clock, low, but I didn’t hear. We

  became split up. We headed for the mouth of the river to join again, needles crossed by 30 knots. Swung north again after

  joining, but we were low on fuel. I had only 200 gallons. We saw nothing.

  Will I never get one?

  20 April 1952. First morning mission. Weather not good. Near Pyongyang shreds of cirrus hung in the air like icicles on the edge of a roof. Ahead, the mist was flat as a table. A band of green haze rimmed the distant horizon.

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  Near Antung, a great, many-layered cloud, like an

  immense fungus. We were up for an hour and three quarters

  but saw nothing.

  21 April 1952. Big fight this morning. Casey and I sighted two.

  —Take the one on the left, he said.

  But they turned left, and he took the left one. The other

  curved away and down.

  I cleared him and watched the two of them against dark

  blue sky, climbing, turning, diving in majestic loneliness and silence. Casey was firing but not hitting him. I was crossing to the inside of the turn, slightly ahead. I called that it was me crossing in front.

  —OK, go ahead, you take him, Casey said.

  I was sure Casey would get him and didn’t want to share

  his kill.

  —No, go on, I said.

  A few moments later Casey asked if I had the MIG in

  sight. No.

  —I’ve lost him, he said.

  We flew along the river. Saw one plane splash in a bright

  burst of flame and black smoke. Turned out to have been

  Kasler’s MIG. We dove on a MIG, lost it, then on another.