Vic Socotra

02 November 2006

Lucky Bastard

Sixty-two years ago today, the black smudge on the horizon over Germany was getting bigger.

Viewed from the cockpit it was an ink-print from an errant thumb, a curious little mushroom that contained tiny flashes. It was a man-made cloud, composed of the residue of high explosives thrown into the sky over the synthetic oil plant at Meresburg.

The Bomber Stream droned smoothly with the cloud offset to the right of their path. At the Initial Point, the turn would be made to bring it directly on the nose.

The Navigator was calculating the moment to turn into the cloud. He reported on the intercom, “two minutes.”

Dick nodded behind his oxygen mask, nothing to be said. The top turret gunner had finished placing the awkward armor on him and his co-pilot, and the steel helmet over his head. It was too bulky to wear in routine flight, but in the Cloud, forced to fly straight and level because of the bomb-aiming system, it might provide some protection and let him maintain control, even if they took a hit.

The gunner had no armor, and he climbed back to stick his head up into the plexiglass dome, covered only with his leather flying helmet. He had a better view than anyone did up there, but he was completely vulnerable.

The cloud grew. Dick thought it must be at least ten miles wide now, bottom at 25,000 feet or so, its top soaring up to 33,000 feet or so, much higher than his airplane could fly.

Dick rolled his neck, muscles tight. He was leading this part of the stream, thirty-five bombers flying tight on his wings. When it came time to pull into the target at the IP, he thought he could just keep pulling, drag his whole squadron around with him and dump the bombs, put the nose down and accelerate for home.

He could avoid the cloud. Put death behind them all. Put then they would make him do it again. There was no escape.

“One minute”

The knot in his stomach was flooded with adrenalin and an icy calm came over him. Hyper-alert, he scanned the instrument panel, counting mentally the seconds until the turn.

“Ten seconds,” said the Navigator. Then silence, and “Five, four, three, two, one.....”

Dick yanked the yoke of the control stick into a steep turn that placed Meresburg on the nose. The airplanes behind him turned on his lead, and the swarm rolled toward the cloud as one.

“Open bomb bay doors,” called Dick, and he felt the aircraft shudder as the doors cut into the slipstream. “Waist gunners, dump chaff!”

The bales of shredded aluminum foil were cut to a length that reflected the German radar beams and disintegrated in the air, falling gently like the leaves of autumn. It was supposed to confuse the German gunners by reflecting the beams in wild directions. It gave the waist gunners something to do as they waited to see if they would live.

Ahead, the sight etched itself into Dick's brain. The Cloud over Merseburg was spitting out airplanes, chewing up the bomber stream like a shredder.

The concussions began to pound the airplane like fists. Dick held the stick with a grip like cold death. The bombardier called “I have the airplane on PFF....thirty-six seconds...”

Throttles full, fuel mixture rich. Behind and above it all was the chaff, silver bits thrown from the aircraft ahead, dancing across the windshield and then floating gently down toward Meresburg.

The fuel plant was down there somewhere, but that was not Dick's problem. He was trying keep the Fort straight and level with the gyros of the Norden Bombsight.

“Twenty seconds.”

The sky grew suddenly dark, in the heart of the darkness flashed blinding white and awful red. Dick shook his head to clear his vision. There planes falling out of the formation at once. On one, the wing separated at the number two engine, drifting away in slow motion.

On the command channel were shouts and curses. Screams of horror and pain.

Dick hitched up in his seat to peer out the windshield as the aircraft shuddered, looking for parachutes to open far down below.

Some of them were going to land right in the target. Others were trapped in the planes the whirled crazily, pinning them against bulkheads, helpless to get out.

Shafts of light penetrated the top of the Cloud for a brief moment, and then it was gone and an eerie half-darkness enveloped them.

They danced with the lightning. In an instant there was complete white light, hot, loud, piercing in violent purity. Colored flashes ahead, above, below and on each side.

“Ten Seconds.”

Each blinding flash was a body blow, shrapnel whizzing through the air like tiny missiles, the airplane lurching sickeningly.

“Five.”

Down went the planes ahead and behind, veering off uncontrollably, tails ripped off, a sudden black mushroom that disgorged engines and props and a whole tail, all of it suddenly arcing down toward the rubble at the Leuna Plant.

“Bombs Away!”

It was his airplane again, he was in command of his fate. Dick yanked the stick as the Fort jumped up, suddenly lighter by tons of dead weight. The co-pilot jammed the button to bring the bomb bay doors closed as Dick put the nose down to gain speed and arc away from the grasp of the Cloud and the red, orange, yellow and white flashes.

The cylinder temperatures were well in the red, and he had to bring the throttles back, but not yet, not until death was behind them. Engines thundering, the bomber arced out of the Cloud, clawing for light.

The Command Channel was still filled with shouting voices from the crews still entering the target area. Dick called for a report on the Intercom. The crew checked in, one by one. He brought the throttles back to military setting, and began to peer around through the glass to see which aircraft had survived and were joining on him.

Free of the Cloud, the enemy fighters could operate safely, and the bandits would be back. The Group needed the mutual cover of their guns. There would be no friendly fighter cover for nearly an hour.

There were reports of Messerschmitts on the radio, but Dick saw none, though he peered intently. P-51 escorts checked in near Brussels to guard them, and over France there was no more flak. The battered Group closed up as best they could.

Stragglers with combat damage all alone were vulnerable, struggling to stay aloft. Easy prey for a prowling enemy fighter who could settle in behind and send a stream of cannon fire into the crippled bomber.

Some had to go low for oxygen, slowing them down and making fuel critical.

Some had wounded aboard. They raced the sunset going home, hours to the Channel, and dusk caught them as they found the field at Lavenham mercifully cloud-free.

Dick flew a good approach to a perfect three-point landing before taxiing off to the dispersal revetment.

When Betsey was turned properly, he shut down the engines and locked the brakes. The ground crew swarmed around, chocking the wheels as the rest of the squadron rolled off the active runway. Dick noticed his hands were shaking. As he left the airplane he saw there were puncture marks scattered the length of the airplane, where it had been peppered with white-hot steel.

Any of the whizzing missiles could have killed him.

The officers got a lift in a squadron jeep to the whiskey table, which was set up near base ops and the debriefing area. Thirty missions, he thought. He lived. He brought his crew home safely to England, and he was done.

Talk at the table was that Lieutenant Femoyer from the 447th Bomb Group was a hero, and they were going to put him in for the Congressional Medal. Someone else slapped Dick on the back, telling him he had made it, finished his missions and got the Lucky Bastard Certificate.

“Never again,” said Dick. “No one is ever going to tell me what to do again.”

The Air Intelligence Officer had the forms to fill out about the target. He wanted to know if the PFF gear had worked on the bomb run.

Dick looked at him blankly. “I wouldn't know,” he said. “Ask the bombardier. I was busy.”