Fly Boy (12 page)

The briefing room was filled with pilots, flight engineers, bomb aimers, and navigators. There was a lot of loud conversation and laughter going on as the men milled around the room. I sat in the back, quiet, trying not to be noticed.
Captain Matthews was at the front with his senior officers. He’d be leading the briefing.

I adjusted my new jacket—my flight jacket. It was leather and had a thick lining. I felt very hot and wanted to slip it off, but all the other men were wearing theirs and I didn’t want to stand out. Besides, I felt pretty proud to be wearing it … proud, but maybe not worthy … at least not yet.

All my clothes, right down to my felt flight boots, were designed to guard against the cold. We’d be flying at around fourteen thousand feet and the Lancasters weren’t heated. A couple of guys had mentioned to me that it was so cold up at that altitude that I’d be able to see my breath. They joked that if you “bought it” up there, at least you could “see” your last breath.

“Okay, men, let’s settle down!” Group Captain Matthews yelled out.

Instantly the room went completely silent. The men took their seats and opened up their flight journals. Everything was now business.

“Gentlemen, I would like to begin with a review of yesterday’s raids. As you are aware, we joined with other squadrons in a mass assault involving 208 planes. The pathfinders did a first-rate job in marking our targets, and the aerial photographs taken by the recon units indicate that our barrage registered significant success.”

“Does that mean we don’t have to go back at those yards tonight, Skip?” one of the pilots asked.

“Looking for a new challenge, are we?” Matthews replied.

“I’m just starting to feel like I’ve been there so often, the enemy should invite me down for a spot of tea.”

“And with the amount of archie they were throwing up
at us, you could have practically walked down to the ground to get that tea,” another pilot said, and there was a lot of laughter.

“The anti-aircraft fire was, as always, heavy,” Group Captain Matthews agreed. “Of the eleven planes lost, seven of those were due to ack-ack. The remaining four planes were taken down by enemy fighters.”

I’d already heard that three of those planes were from our squadron.

“Any word on our men?” an officer asked.

“Parachutes were seen exiting from
two
planes.”

What he was saying was that the men in the other plane didn’t get out, so they were dead.

“We have not received word indicating anything further on the men who parachuted from their planes. However, these days many more of our downed airmen are being assisted by locals and by members of the Resistance and have managed to avoid capture. At this point, we simply assume that no news is good news.”

It had been three weeks from the day my father had been shot down till the day we received word that he had been taken prisoner. We would never have conceived that my father being taken prisoner could be “good news,” but it was. It meant that he was alive, and that’s all that mattered.

I’d often thought about what it must have been like for him—being shot down, captured, and brought to a POW camp, where he’d been living now for the past two years. None of it seemed possible or real. I guess I wanted it to stay that way.

“Which reminds me, please make sure that you have your escape kit with you at all times!”

I had been issued mine. It was a small package that contained a silk map of France, a rubber water bottle, a few French phrases—Lord knows I wished I’d paid more attention in French class—a file, a compass, and some foreign currency, mostly French francs and German marks.

“I know that some of you are superstitious and feel that if you keep the escape kit on your person, you are somehow jinxing your plane. We are flying in Lancs, not on broomsticks, so there is no place for magical thinking. Keep the kits with you.”

There was a little bit of grumbling around the room.

“That was not a suggestion,” Group Captain Matthews boomed.

I was struck with a strange thought—of getting shot down and ending up in the same camp as my father, of he and I becoming bunkmates. That wasn’t the family reunion either of us would have expected or wanted.

“We will be in the air by twenty hundred hours.”

Matthews was leading the raid. He was no “penguin,” which was the term given to squadron leaders who didn’t fly in missions even though they had wings.

“There will be full fighter escort for the initial two hundred miles and they will be waiting for us upon our return. It will be a full circus tonight.”

I leaned over to the officer beside me. “What’s a circus?” I whispered.

“A circus is when we have a mix of bombers and fighters. A rodeo is when the groups operate alone.”

“Thanks.”

Matthews continued. “We will be taking a vectored course with two mid-flight course corrections. Your navigators
have already been given that information to make plot changes. Please make these changes in unison. Our best defence against enemy planes is to stay together. We may not be in a tight formation, but being in the same area is essential.”

He used a pointer to show the flight plan and the two course changes leading right to the target.

“Expect heavy anti-aircraft fire, as always. Once you’ve dropped your cookies, scramble out but try to remain on course. Stray planes present the easiest targets for enemy fighters. Your return route is direct and, as I said, full fighter coverage will escort us home as soon as we’re in range.”

Fighter planes had limited fuel capacity, so they weren’t able to stay with bomber missions that went deep into enemy territory.

“What’s the weather looking like?” somebody asked.

“Slight headwinds, which certainly will, of course, become tailwinds to aid in our escape, unlimited visibility, high ceiling, and, as we all know, almost a full moon tonight. There will be no place to hide but, by the same token, no place for enemy fighters to hide either. We should be able to see them coming, so gunners, eyes fully open for the entire mission, because we are counting on you.

“I’m going to be leading tonight’s mission. Accompanying me will be the newest member of our squadron.” He gestured in my direction. “McWilliams, stand up.”

I slowly, awkwardly, got to my feet. Every eye was on me. I felt so self-conscious. I figured I knew what they were all thinking.

“He’ll be riding a few flights to get up to speed as a navigator before he’s assigned to a crew. Do whatever you
can to show him the ropes and make him feel like a member of our squadron.”

“Good to have you aboard,” one of the airmen said.

“Welcome!” said another, and there was a round of applause.

I nodded my head, gave a little wave, and settled back into my seat.

“Dismissed, men.”

I stood in the cockpit behind Group Captain Matthews and the flight engineer as they were going over their pre-flight checklist. Matthews was behind the yoke and the flight engineer was to his right, where he could monitor the gauges.

“We’ll start with the inner starboard tank,” the flight engineer said.

Despite having been introduced to him just ten minutes earlier on the tarmac, I couldn’t remember his name.

“Check,” Matthews said. “And then switch to the inside port fuel tank.”

“Will do, Cap.”

I looked down past the flight engineer’s feet and could make out the outline of our bomb aimer. His perch was underneath the controls in the very nose of the plane in a little glass bubble. I wasn’t afraid of heights—I
liked
heights—but still, staring down through nothing but glass held in place with a few strips of metal seemed a little much even for me.

Directly behind me, the navigator—Mike—sat at a little table, his maps and charts spread out in front of him. Behind him, past a little curtain, I could see both the wireless operator and the legs of the top gunner, hanging down from his turret. Lost from view at the very back of the plane was the tail gunner. His turret was a bubble like the bomb aimer’s.

I turned and looked down the tarmac. If I’d wanted to, I could have counted two or three dozen planes, all waiting, preparing, getting ready to go into battle. There was something so incredible about being here in the middle of it all.
I was here
. I was going to take part in what I’d read about, heard about, watched on the newsreels. Maybe I wasn’t going to be the pilot—heck, I wasn’t even going to be the navigator—but I was finally going to strike a blow against the Nazis. It felt good, and unreal, and amazing, and unnerving.

I was feeling hot. Between my sweater, leather jacket, life jacket, and harness, I was sweating. I knew it was supposed to get cold up there, but I couldn’t imagine I’d need to wear the wool hat and gloves I’d been issued. Actually, for the navigator, wouldn’t gloves make it difficult to do the calculations?

Anxiously, absently, I played with the straps of my harness. My parachute—which would be hooked to the harness if needed—was just off to the side in a neat pile with those of the pilot, flight engineer, and navigator. The other crew members’ parachutes were closer to where they were stationed—and by their escape hatches. In an emergency, they wouldn’t be able to travel the length of the plane to retrieve anything. A few seconds could mean the difference between life and death …

Death
. I let that sink in a little.

Tonight, on this mission, people could die. People
would
die. That was all but guaranteed. I knew in some theoretical, abstract way that it could even be me, but the lack of reality almost protected me from thinking any deeper.

“Is this your first bombing mission?” Mike asked. He had a thick accent—not British, maybe Australian or South African.

“This is my first time in a Lancaster.”

“Really? What were you flying in before?”

“A couple of different things.” I didn’t want him to know that those things were small planes piloted by my father.

“The Lanc is a good plane,” he said. “Very stable platform. She flies so gently, it’ll practically rock you to sleep.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be doing any sleeping.”

“Good. Maybe that means I can catch a few extra winks along the way.”

“You don’t actually fall asleep, do you?”

He laughed. “Not likely. But I do close my eyes and think about being somewhere else … usually someplace that’s warm and sunny.”

“Contact!” Matthews said.

One of the engines—the outside starboard—flickered, sputtered, and then puffed out a cloud of smoke and came to life with a tremendous roar.

“Contact!” he yelled again.

The outside port engine responded and the noise increased.

Matthews and the flight engineer repeated their words and actions until all four engines were firing. The noise was unbelievable and the whole plane shook.

“Purrs like a kitten, don’t she?” Mike yelled over the din of the engines.

“Sounds more like the roar of a lion!”

“Nah, it should sound more like music to your ears. It’s when you
don’t
hear the engines that you need to get worried!”

The plane jerked slightly, rocked, and then started to roll forward. I looked out through the canopy, past the pilot and
flight engineer. In front of us were two other planes already moving down the tarmac, taxiing into position for takeoff. I turned around. Behind us, the other planes were falling into line. This was all becoming more real by the second.

Mike had put on headphones and handed me a pair. I slipped them on and the noise was partially blocked out and—

“We can talk on the intercom,” Mike said.

“Good … good.” I was relieved that I could hear him so well despite the overwhelming noise of the engine.

“Just not too much chatter,” Captain Matthews said, cutting in. “And definitely no singing.”

Almost instantly, a voice started singing and two others joined in until there was a choir chirping out a song that I didn’t know. I wondered how the captain would feel about the men disobeying his order not to sing. I looked up. He was one of the choir members. They finished the song and there was silence.

“There’s the signal,” Matthews said.

Mike leaned in closer to me. “The Aldis lamps on the runway turn green when we’re good to go.”

“Okay, boys, hold on to your hats!”

I stood up and leaned against the flight engineer’s chair so that I could see everything inside and outside the plane.

With his right hand Matthews pushed all four of the throttle controls forward and the noise of the engines became even louder. The plane started to pick up speed. The tarmac wasn’t nearly as smooth as I’d thought it would be, and the whole plane was shaking and vibrating. The ride got even bumpier as our speed increased. It felt like either the fillings in my teeth would fall out or the wings would fall off. Faster and faster, but we weren’t getting off the ground. The
end of the runway was up ahead and beyond that some trees and a church … Why was there a church steeple at the end of a runway?

I felt a rush of anxiety. Were we going to make it? Was the plane going to lift off or were we going to crash into the forest or—