posted 09-11- 12:20 AM            

We were about to partake on a high profile bombing mission this day. I don’t know why we should have to bomb the hell out of one of the most beautiful places on earth but if it weren’t for the Germans I guess we wouldn’t have too. The German Alps were a site to behold.
I am the copilot on a B-17F Flying Fortress and this is one of many missions that I’ve been on, so quite uninteresting to me. We were flying number two of two bombers on this mission this day and everything is running smooth as ice. All four engines roared to life like a beast from hell, well I guess that’s what the Germans thought too when they heard us coming.
The crew was leaning against their guns like they were watching their baseball team loose another game, they were just bored I guess, like me. I can’t help but think that it’s just a way for them to not show their fear, for me it’s chewing the hell out of a piece of gum.
“Ten minutes to target” the Captain barks over the com. Ah! Ten minutes and we’d be heading back. That’s the best time, not going to but coming from. That meant beer, a lot of beer and some cherished reminiscing about home. When I say home I don’t mean the airbase, I mean home!
Everything was quiet now, which was odd. To be this close to a target and not get any eighty eights toss up at ya was odd. With that thought the sky became dotted with the familiar black bursts and then the “boom” of AA. They had zeroed in on the lead plane but it looked like they were getting through good enough. Flak accounted for more Allied bombers and crew than anything else the Germans had. The ground units were a precision group of solders that knew their job and did it well. Also the 88’s were as deadly a round as any. We would get back from a run and the skin is riddled with shrapnel. Leaking engines leaking tanks and leaking crew, that was hard to take. Planes could be replaced but friends’ brothers could not.

Then I hear “bombs away” over my head set from the lead plane, we were to count “one hundred thousand” seven times and let loose with our twenty four one hundred pounders. I know, not much of a bang but the target wasn’t the entire base, it was a single Spitfire parked on the runway that the Germans had captured.
With that the Bombardier thumbed the release and let go with the eggs. We then turned following the lead bomber and just as I looked up I see a flak burst that must have been only a hundred feet from the cabin of the lead. She starts to descend slowly at first the faster until I couldn’t see her over the nose. I knew that at least the entire front part of the plane had died in an instant with that burst but I also saw the tail gunner shooting at an Emil as the plane was going down.
He must have known that he would die, he just wanted to remain shooting at that 109 for whatever reason, maybe anger.
As the 109 pilots saw that the lead bomber was mortally wounded and going through her death throws they turned their attention to us. My right cheek gunner and ball turret gunner made a spectacular shot on one of the approaching Emil’s, blew him in half before he was within six hundred yards of us. I was just hoping all of my gunners were on today because that was only one of three. They quickly got on our six and began pounding us with 20 MM’s and 7.9 rounds. All my gunners were doing all that they could to keep the 109’s off of us. I thought with what I’d just seen with our lead plane along with the flak and now the 109’s we were not going to make it back. Then I hear over my headset, “I got one, I got one” I looked to the top turret gunner and he pointed in the direction it was going down. I looked out of one of the Navigators windows and sure as shit I see a smoke trailing 109 going down to his death.
Now just one more and some fading flak to get through and we were going back to the safety of the airbase. Then I hear what sounds like a dozen trash cans crashing together, but garbage cans don’t ricochet, I thought. It was 20 mm’s ripping through my plane, I hear a yell over the headset, “He’s dieing, they got the tail gunner!” If we could have just made it through one time without loosing a guy I would have been dumbfounded! Another flag to the states in place of a son…
The top gunner was turning the barrels red on his twin fifty’s when I hear more trash cans, this time the plane lurched and began to nose in, he’d hit all the tail controls. No rudder, no stabilizer, no trim, no nothing! Just then some bastard on an eighty-eight got lucky with a very distant shot, a piece of the flak hit the Captain in the head killing him instantly. I was covered in blood and brains of a guy I had trusted to get us home for over seventeen missions, now he was dead.
I grabbed the stick but there was nothing there, only ailerons, so at least I could rotate the crippled Fortress. While I try to regain control of this massive beast I could now feel her true weight in my hands. I think I went blank for a moment, sounds and perception were not with me, and I went numb. I was so blanked that I didn’t hear the top turret gunner say “That’s it, that was the last one” He hit the 109 about the time I watched the flak burst that killed my friend.
I was really not trying to blank out, it just happened, all the shit that just happened was almost too much to take. I think my blood was in my feet, but I knew I had my work cut out for me just trying to get the other ten of us back safe and alive, it all rested on me.
I used the throttle and the flaps to get the nose back up but if I didn’t reset the flaps to zero the nose would rise to high and the 17 would begin to stall. I simultaneously used the flaps full and back to zero time and time again, it wasn’t really control but it was the best that I could do. We approached the airbase like some kind of porpoising bird that really didn’t know how to fly. I was at least thankful that none of our engines were hit and all four were taking all that I threw at them. I could see familiar landmarks now so I knew we were close. One of our Mustang escorts pulled up on my right wing and gave me thumbs up, to tell you the truth I needed more than that. I radioed the tower and informed them of our situation, they cleared us immediately and told me to come strait in. Believe me no one wanted that more than me. Sweat was running down my forehead and my hand was clinched so tight on the stick I couldn’t let go if I wanted to. I rolled the battered plane over to the left and gained more altitude for another attempt. I flew as far as I could so that this approach might be better than the last. I gave the instruments one more quick glance as I leveled her off for what I was hoping would be a decent landing. I was getting use to the porpoising but still couldn’t control it much. I eased off on the throttle and reduced the flaps, when the nose sunk I throttled her up and went to full on the flaps, the nose came up level with the horizon and I once again slid the throttle forward reduced the flaps and dropped the gear. We came over the end of the runway like we were taking off, way too fast. I reduced the throttle to almost idle and zeroed the flaps, she nosed down and we hit the runway so hard I thought I’d shit myself. The beat up bomber leaped back into the air, must have been a hundred feet. Knowing that we would nose into the ground after that bounce I jammed on the flaps and went to full on the throttle. I don’t know how we did it but the timing was perfect, we slammed the runway once again but no bounce this time. I cut the magnetos and the engines rumbled to silence. All I could hear was the chatter of this damaged airframe and the scream of the tires on the runway. I had both feet on the breaks and was pushing so hard I almost passed out. The old 1244 finally came to an abrupt halt and stood off of the tail wheel for a moment. When she settled in with a bang I hit my setback hard, but it felt good, I knew I had done it. We were safe and on the ground once again. I took a moment to look around and take in the beauty of the bluish smoke that enveloped the 17. I wiped the sweat from my eyes, took a deep breath and turned off my monitor. Not real life just another thrilling moment in SDOE

P

posted 09-11- 08:19 AM            

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