Under a War-Torn Sky (4 page)

The plane needed a speed of at least 120 miles per hour to take off and not stall. “Hundred 'n' five…hundred 'n' ten,” Henry counted off as he watched the air speed indicator. “Come on,” he said again, more urgently. They were almost to the trees.

“Saint-Paddy, please,” muttered Dan.

“Hundred 'n' twenty!” shouted Henry. “Yes! I love you, Blue.”

Dan and Henry pulled back on the control wheels to tilt up the plane's nose.

Out of the Blue
hopped up and down off the pavement like a stone skipping across water.
Bounce, bounce, bounce.
She heaved herself up just in time.

Snap, swish.

Out of the Blue'
s landing wheels skimmed along the treetops as they slowly lifted up into their compartments.

“We're off,” Dan said. He patted the plane's control board lovingly.

Off on a seven- to nine-hour flight. Off to a land where people who feared and hated them pointed thousands of guns skyward. Off to deliver death or meet it themselves.

“Keep a look-out for planes,” said Dan.

“Roger that,” Henry answered. They were climbing through clouds and could see only mountains of grey. But both pilots knew there were already a dozen B-24s circling the very same air space they were. A dozen more were coming up fast. Henry anxiously scanned the sky for a glint of metal. He knew of two crews who had died in midair collisions while the group tried to assemble itself.

“Didn't the weather officer say we'd clear at twenty-five hundred feet?” Dan complained.

Wisps of clouds skimmed along the cockpit like thick cotton candy. Henry couldn't see a thing.

Four thousand feet. The clouds were aglow now with pink light.

“See anything?” asked Dan.

Henry strained his eyes left and right. “No.” Then he glanced up and shouted, “Look out!”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Dan jammed in the control wheel to make the plane drop like a stone. They'd come up right underneath the belly of Billy White's plane,
Battling Queen
.

The radio crackled and Henry heard, “You awake, farm boy?”

“I am now,” Henry radioed back.

Billy's pilot broke in. He was all business. His plane was group leader that day. The Luftwaffe might pick up any radio signals between their planes. “No more radio chatter,” Billy's captain ordered. The radio clicked to silence.

At six thousand feet the planes bobbed up into blue heaven, with a sea of fleecy white below. Henry blinked in the bright sun.

The top turret operator in
Battling Queen
fired off yellow-green flares, signalling the bombers to pull into tight Vs. Three planes formed a V, or element. That was the building block of any large formation. A second element of three planes would pull in about fifty feet behind, above, and to the left of, the first, lead V. Six planes total made up a squadron.

Today Henry's bomb group would fly in a diamond shape. That meant a lead squadron in front, a high squadron slightly above and to its side. A third, low squadron would be on the opposite side. And a fourth squadron would bring up the rear, in the slot position. Twenty-four bombers total.

Henry's hands trembled slightly. The air was thick with B-24s flying at 180 m.p.h., all trying to pull within a few yards of one another. Dan fought to keep
Out of the Blue
level as it flopped around in the prop wash of the other planes.

Dan pulled up to the left of
Battling Queen
. Because the copilot's seat was on the right of the cockpit, Henry could see
Battling Queen
better. “Controls are yours, Hank. Tuck her in.”

Slowly, Henry pushed the floor pedal forward to turn the B-24's black-and-white striped tail rudder. Easy, he thought to himself. If he pushed the pedal too far the plane could veer sharply into
Battling Queen
, killing them all.

“A little more,” Dan urged.

Henry pressed his foot forward another half inch. The very tip of his wing was about six feet over, six feet back from
Battling Queen
's.

“Nice,” said Dan. “I'll take a nap now. Tell me when we're in Krautville,” he joked.

Henry laughed. He appreciated Dan's ease with compliments. His dad had been so stingy with them. Dan will be a good father, thought Henry.

“We have a 6:15 a.m. rally point at Great Yarmouth right before the North Sea,” said Dan. “That's where we'll link up with the other bomb groups.”

“Roger,” said Henry.

They flew in silence. Henry kept checking his position. He had to react to crosswinds and turbulence that bumped his plane too close or too far away from
Battling Queen
. Keeping the pedal pressure just right on the tail's rudders took a lot of thigh strength. Henry often felt as if he were bicycling across Europe instead of flying, his legs were so sore after a mission.

“Ten thousand feet. Turn on your oxygen,” Henry called through the plane's intercom. He heard the crew grumble as they latched the rubber masks onto their faces. They all hated wearing them. They smelled horrible and the tubing got in their way.

“We're going to be flying at twenty thousand feet today, y'all,” Henry reminded them. “So don't forget to check your lines for ice.” At such high altitudes, their saliva would freeze. During the flight, Henry would constantly have to crush his mask to break up the ice. If he didn't, his oxygen supply would be cut. He could pass out at the wheel.

“There they are,” said Dan. Two diamonds made up of twenty-four bombers each were coming in from the west. Two more diamonds approached from the south, a third from the north.

That was only part of the American armada flying that day. One member of the ground crew had told Henry that today's mission was a maximum effort, involving almost every base in England. “Heard tell there were eight hundred bombers and fighters prepped last night, Lieutenant. That should keep you safe.”

For forty-five precious minutes they flew in peace. Nothing but water below and sky above – a mirrored world of soft blues. The ocean's white caps looked like small clouds. This is what Henry had thought flying would be like. For a few wondrous minutes, he was filled with an awed happiness.

But his peace didn't last.

“Flak.” Dan pointed.

Little black puffs of smoke dotted the sky ahead of them. It looked harmless, but Henry knew each burst threw countless pieces of jagged, burning metal into the air. A direct hit could cripple their plane or tear his flesh wide open. The Reich had lined the European coast with flak guns. One flak battery at the southern tip of Holland was so deadly accurate the fliers had nicknamed its German commander Daniel Boone after the frontier marksman.

Boom, boom, boom, boom
.

Flak came in bursts of four. Each explosion sounded like a huge door slamming. The first shot generally gauged the bombers' altitude for the gunners down below; the second shot measured air speed. The third and fourth usually hit dead on or close to it.

Ping, ping, ping
.

Shrapnel fragments skittered along the bottom of
Out of the Blue
, like gravel hitting a truck's underside. The plane shuddered.

“Any damage?” Dan called to the crew.

“No, sir,” was the answer. “They're having an off day, Captain.”

Henry hunkered down in his seat. He glued his eyes to
Battling Queen
's wing. This barrage would only last a few miles. The real flak would hit when they were over the target. What they really had to worry about now were the fighters. They were due to show up any second.

“Keep sharp for bogeys,” warned Dan.

Out of the glaring sun zoomed a swarm of single-engine fighters. They fanned out into pairs and swooshed in, closing at a rate of two hundred yards a second.

“Bandits! Two of them, two o'clock high,” called Henry's top-turret gunner.

“Fighters low at ten o'clock, climbing fast,” shouted the ball-turret gunner.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat
.

Firing their 20-mm cannons, the Luftwaffe fighters whooshed by the cockpit. Henry recognized the yellow noses of Focke-Wulf 190s. “Abbeville kids.” Henry muttered a curse. Fw 190s were based in Abbeville, France, just inland from the coast. They were Air Marshal Hermann Goering's most elite Luftwaffe squadron. They were absolutely the worst fighters to encounter – precise and relentless.

“Where are our guys?” Henry asked Dan.

“Little friends, little friends, we could use some help here,” Dan radioed for American fighters.

“Look out! They're coming in again.”

Six Fw 190s buzzed by the cockpit, arcing up into the clouds. They doubled back and rushed in from behind, where only the tail gunner had a clear shot at them. Henry held his breath and thought about their tail gunner, Jim Wilkinson. He was a little guy with a big grin. Henry always wondered how he could stand the tail's cramped compartment – he was so vulnerable to being shot to pieces.

Out of the Blue
reverberated with Jim's frantic shooting.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat
. Jim was breathing like a horse over the intercom.

BOOM!

One of the Focke-Wulf fighters burst into flames and exploded. The others veered off to avoid colliding with the debris.

“I got him, I got him!”

“Way to go, Jimmy-boy!” yelled Dan.

The fighters disappeared.

“Where'd they go?” asked Henry.

Dan pointed ahead. Their group was in the huge formation's second combat wing. The Luftwaffe was going after the lead plane, in the lead group.

A dozen Fw 190s swarmed it. One after another, the Germans raced out to a few thousand yards ahead of the formation's point, then U-turned and charged back, head-on, rolling. Henry could see their guns blinking. Their tracer fire singed the sky.

“Move, you guys,” Henry whispered.

The bomb group took evasive action. It swung itself in the opposite direction from the fighters' roll, hoping the manoeuvre would throw them off target momentarily. But the well-trained Luftwaffe pilots anticipated the move. Their bullets tore the lead bomber's wings open. One of its engines exploded, sending fire ripping towards the B-24's cabin.

The plane seemed to crumple. Then it exploded. Huge pieces of metal hurtled through the air. Half of a wing spun viciously through the group of B-24s. It hit a bomber one squadron back and sliced off its tail. One second, two seconds, three seconds –
BOOM!
The second bomber plane exploded, too. No chutes from either B-24. No survivors.

Two bombers and their deadly cargo destroyed. Twenty American boys dead instantly. It was just the domino effect the German fighters were after. Henry shuddered.

The Fw 190s whirred back to the B-24 bomber that had moved up the line to take the formation's lead position.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat
.

That B-24 plummeted.

At this rate, no lead plane would survive. “Just like foxes in a chicken coop,” swore Henry. “Where are our guys?”

Another WHOOSH on the left wing of
Out of the Blue
. A flash of silver wings, red-and-yellow chequers. It was a squadron of American fighters, P-51 Mustangs, on its way to protect the front combat wing.

The men of
Out of the Blue
cheered.

To the west Henry spotted another set of small black dots. They grew larger and larger as they approached. Enemy aircraft or Americans? Henry could feel himself sweat inside his flight suit, even as his face and breath froze in the subzero air. Finally, Henry could make out the colours of olive drab and yellow. Thank God, P-47 Thunderbolts.

“Glad to see you, Little Friends,” Dan radioed.

“Little Friends to Big Friend,” the Thunderbolt leader radioed back, “weather delayed us. The party will start now.”

German fighters broke off their attack on the bombers to face down the American Thunderbolts and Mustangs. Like falcons twisting and diving, the fighter planes went after each other. The sky lit up with orange explosions as the fighters' gas tanks burst into flames when they were hit.

Dan and Henry had to jerk their plane around repeatedly to avoid crashing into smoking, spinning debris. Then a pilot's body slammed into the glass window below the cockpit where Fred and Paul crouched.

“God Almighty,” Paul sobbed over the intercom. “That guy's eyes were open. He looked right at me.”

The air battle bled on. Each time a bomber or American fighter fell from the sky, the crew of
Out of the Blue
searched for parachutes.

“See any?” Dan would call.

Two here. Four there. One alone. Never all ten of a bomber crew.

Several planes near them were hit severely enough to drastically slow their engines or hobble their navigation. Unable to keep up their altitude or speed, they drifted out of the protection of the formation. In friendly territory they would be able to do a controlled crash landing, but here they became sitting ducks.

“The bogeyman is gonna get them,” muttered Dan.

“The Alps are ahead,” Fred called over the intercom. “Maybe those guys can make it into Switzerland.”

Switzerland was neutral. The Swiss interned Allied and German crews alike who landed there. But they were safe, in one piece. Henry kept his eyes on the disabled planes as long as he could until they disappeared into clouds below. He could only imagine how terrifying it would be to be left behind all alone in a sky full of German fighters.

“Let's hope they do, Fred,” answered Dan. “But right now we've got other things to worry about.”

More fighters had soared up from German bases below: speckled green-blue Messerschmitts and sand-brown Junkers with huge black Swastikas on their tails. There was also something Henry had never seen before: a group of four-engine, two-finned fighters. They hurtled past
Out of the Blue
on their way to the front of the bomber formation.