We all get caught up in the excitement and activity of the coming summer, city or country folk included. There is seasonal work in progress at the farm that includes replacing rotted boards on the deck and slashing back the aggressive entwining green growth of the land that wants itself back. Eugene and his family are doing the former and Big Mike is going to hack at the latter. I am happy to know and trust them. There are memories of other summers, of course, and that always takes me aback.
For reasons best known to others, a horrendous bad memory cloaked the Memorial Day topic of sacrifice. For those who were lucky to know him, our memories were drawn instead to the great sea battle near Midway that our pal Admiral Mac Showers remembered. The pictures from his last visit to Hawaii to commemorate the 70th anniversary circulated among those who were there for that physical contact with living memory.
There is competition in memory space, of course. We were all Pacific sailors of one kind or another, and the memories of what Mac’s generation did in the blue vastness evokes a powerful response. The national memory is normally about the amphibious landings on this day in 1944. The young men were flung across the English Channel to land on the beaches of France. Their sacrifice was made at the cost of ten thousand casualties, half of them killed. Their foes in deep concrete bunkers paid as well.
The magnitude of the operation is staggering, intricately planned and with diversions scheduled to divert attention. Communications were intercepted and twisted into offensive use by the Allied command. The idea of being 19 years of age, hoisting a ruck sack and running from a landing craft toward a sandy hill bristling with angry guns is something to contemplate this morning.
There were heroes that day. In our family, it was Uncle Dick who represented us there. He married our Aunt Barbara and brought his own magic with him. Like many, he knew trouble was coming for us all when the world went to war. He learned to fly airplanes, and joined the Army to be taught to fly the way the Air Corps wanted. He was ready, and he was good enough to be one of the first crews to fly to England- literally via South America and then east and north to avoid the Germans. He was a lead pilot, deemed suitable to lead a flight of a thousand roaring bombers to strike Hitler’s Heartland.
On this day, this morning, 77 years ago, Captain Gile walked the pre-flight circuit of the B-24 Liberator bomber he was tasked to take on a flight across the channel and strike German targets behind the beachline. Interdict reinforcements of tanks. Protect the kids who were wading up out of the surf and into the chaos of the guns.
The pre-flight routine was acceptable, and with the dozens of other aircraft began to rumble in line to launch point on the runways to deliver safety and salvation to some and death to others. Systems set to go, Dick pushed the throttles for the four engines, released the brakes on the shuddering powerhouse that his crew called “Buzzin’ Betsey.” The take-off roll was good, and loaded with ordnance the great machine gained speed, got successfully to rotation, and lifted off over the rolling green fields of East Anglia.
Angling off for formation integration there was trouble. One of the four Pratt & Whitney air-cooled engines slung beneath the high wings failed with muttered cursing in the cockpit, his co-pilot and engineer struggling to save it, the rest of the boys in back alert to the fact that something was wrong. Normal flight procedures would have been to declare “emergency,” proceed east over water, safely dump the load of bombs, orbit until fuel levels lowered to safe landing weight and recover, saving the precious aircraft for re-use against the enemy.
Below Betsy, the waters of the Channel teamed with tens of thousands of others headed to action. Dick considered the recommended options. The failed engine was shut down and props feathered. And Dick decided to proceed to target anyway. Men needed his crew to perform for a higher purpose. Dick chose them before himself and his crew.
The Command analyzed the decision later and could have cited him for unsafe flight procedures. Instead, they awarded him a Distinguished Flying Cross. But that was not the point. 77 years ago, this bright morning, he was needed and he considered the mission essential and worth his own life if that was the cost. And he and his crew went east.
Bless his memory, and those of Buzzin’ Betsey’s crew. And bless his gift of courage to help bolster that of all of those who struggled below.
Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com