C'est La Guerre (That's War)

By Ron Hamby

After surviving the winter of 1943-1944 by begging, stealing and even killing, these growing numbers of maquisards had been brought to the attention of Winston Churchill who became convinced of their value as guerilla fighters and employed “...the RAF and two Liberator squadrons of the U. S. Army Air Forces...” who flew 759 missions to air-drop supplies and about 5,000 regular officers of the former French Army and Allied agents to arm, train, and discipline underground civilian soldiers to commit sabotage and harass the Germans in preparation for the invasion of France.
“In France alone, SOE air-dropped more than 650 tons of explosives, 723,000 hand grenades, and some half million small arms, including 198,000 Sten guns, 128,000 rifles, 20,000 Bren guns and 58,000 pistols.” (p.60) Also air-dropped were radio transmitters and receivers, clothing, bicycles, tinned food, coffee, chocolate, and tobacco.
“Instructions for carrying out the invasion plans were contained in 325 ‘personal messages’ to be broadcast by the French-language service of the BBC on the eve of D-Day. Each message, meaningless to the Germans, was the go-ahead for a specific maquis or Resistance group somewhere in France. Through the long months of April and May, 1944, the French waited, tuning in their radio sets to the BBC every night, listening for a few words that would change their lives and help decide the fate of their nation.”

American airmen flying combat from England over the continent had only an amorphous knowledge of what was occurring in France. To these airmen, the Germans, their targets, were there, occupying the country, and the conquered French people were forced to submit to the whims of their conquerors. To go down, alive, meant only that one was on one’s own, hopefully away from where the Germans were, still able-bodied enough to run and hide, and fortunate enough to encounter a friendly Frenchman who would help contact the underground. The odds were appalling to contemplate, and one usually did not, because crashing, being blown to bits, or burning in one’s plane seemed ever so much more probable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ron Hamby
• Release date: Oct 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301239474

Ron Hamby

Ron Hamby retired from the USAFR after forty-one years. He completed 96 missions over Nazi occupied Europe in WW II as squadron commander, and then spent the last two months of the war at the front in Germany as a forward air controller. Lt. Col. Hamby died February, 2012 He is interred at the Barrancas National Cemetery, Pensacola Naval Air Station.

Book preview

C’est La Guerre

(That’s War)

By

Ron Hamby

RNW Services/Baytree Publishing

The 20 year old author, Ron Hamby, in the cockpit of his P-47 Thunderbolt before a mission from Etain AF France, November 1944. He completed 96 missions as squadron commander, and then spends the last two months of the war at the front in Germany as a forward air controller.

Ron Hamby retired from the USAFR after forty-one years. Lt. Col. Hamby died February, 2012 He is interred at the Barrancas National Cemetery, Pensacola Naval Air Station.

Combat fatigued Captain Jeffrey Hampton kills two Me-109’s before being hit and bailing out of his burning P-47. An escape line, mostly of beautiful women, moves him toward Spain at night. He and the last girl fall in love, and, as D-Day occurs, he joins resistance fighters until the invasion of Southern France frees him. After a mandatory leave to the States, he returns to France for a second tour in order to find his beloved.

C’est La Guerre (That’s War)

By Ron Hamby

Published by RNW Services/Baytree Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Ron Hamby

All the characters in this historical novel, with the exception of those who were subjects of recorded history

WWII, are purely fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Acknowledgements

This novel had a long gestation period. I did a rough draft of it in 1947 when my wartime experiences and their emotional accompaniments as a Combat Fighter Pilot and a Forward Air Controller during the last year of the war with the Germans were still a major portion of my preoccupation. Thus, I had this documentation of the worldview of the youth and the global wartime culture which nourished it to keep them from fading over sixty years of earning a living. I owe that youth a debt of gratitude for staying with me for the birth and development of the novel.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to two WWII Time-Life books, Alexandria, Va.: The Resistance and The Liberation, by Russell Miller and Martin Blumenson, respectively, and the Editors of Time-Life Books. The former book is quoted and paraphrased extensively in the preface and provided a factual account of the atrocities committed by the Commanding General and his 2nd Panzer Division as they traveled North from southern France to help defend against the D-Day invasion at Normandy. Both books provide much information about the actions of the Resistance in France and their value to the Allies, and provide the factual basis this novel is built on. The Liberation was invaluable in providing dates of many events reported in the novel and help justify its claim to being a historical one. While the Author was flying overhead in support of the ground forces during the period, he did not record dates of the events mentioned.

I also am indebted to Scott Judice, an aviation enthusiast, for his help in providing the photograph, on the front cover, of the P-47 in just the right perspective to mesh with the tracer bullets destroying the Me-109s and killing their pilots.

Further, I wish to thank and am very grateful to the Graphics Department of Valdosta Technical College, particularly Marilu Wentworth, Michael Feese, and Nikki Stubbs, for taking my crude layout and designing the book’s cover which I find very pleasing and hope you do, also.

Ron Hamby

Preface

In The Resistance, World War II, Time-Life Books, 1979, Alexandria, Virginia, by Russell Miller and the Editors of Time-Life Books, it is stated: All told, the dozen or more escape lines in western Europe between 1940 and 1944 had returned several hundred soldiers and an estimated 3,000 Allied airman. For this contribution to the Allied war effort, the escape workers paid a high price. The official records of MI 9 listed the names of some 500 courageous civilians who died for their participation in escape lines. According to James Langley of MI 9, hundreds of other escape-line workers unconnected with his organization disappeared without a trace in Gestapo prisons and German death camps. Langley estimated that one escape-line worker lost his life for every fighting man who was led to safety. (p.113)

Miller et al indicate that there was much public indignation over laws passed by Prime Minister Laval and the puppet French government in Vichy requiring medically-fit men between 18 and 50, and all single women between 21 and 35, to be available for work that the government judged to be ‘beneficial to the overall interests of the nation’. (p.82)

Because of these laws providing forced labor to the Germans, more and more young men joined those who had already fled into mountains of southeastern France to avoid the draft. These draft dodgers became known as maquis. Most lived very austere lives in their hideouts and were cold, hungry and hunted by the Germans and French collaborators.

After surviving the winter of 1943-1944 by begging, stealing and even killing, these growing numbers of maquisards had been brought to the attention of Winston Churchill who became convinced of their value as guerilla fighters and employed ...the RAF and two Liberator squadrons of the U. S. Army Air Forces... who flew 759 missions to air-drop supplies and about 5,000 regular officers of the former French Army and Allied agents to arm, train, and discipline underground civilian soldiers to commit sabotage and harass the Germans in preparation for the invasion of France.

In France alone, SOE air-dropped more than 650 tons of explosives, 723,000 hand grenades, and some half million small arms, including 198,000 Sten guns, 128,000 rifles, 20,000 Bren guns and 58,000 pistols. (p.60) Also air-dropped were radio transmitters and receivers, clothing, bicycles, tinned food, coffee, chocolate, and tobacco.

Instructions for carrying out the invasion plans were contained in 325 ‘personal messages’ to be broadcast by the French-language service of the BBC on the eve of D-Day. Each message, meaningless to the Germans, was the go-ahead for a specific maquis or Resistance group somewhere in France. Through the long months of April and May, 1944, the French waited, tuning in their radio sets to the BBC every night, listening for a few words that would change their lives and help decide the fate of their nation. (p. 184)

American airmen flying combat from England over the continent had only an amorphous knowledge of what was occurring in France. To these airmen, the Germans, their targets, were there, occupying the country, and the conquered French people were forced to submit to the whims of their conquerors. To go down, alive, meant only that one was on one’s own, hopefully away from where the Germans were, still able-bodied enough to run and hide, and fortunate enough to encounter a friendly Frenchman who would help contact the underground. The odds were appalling to contemplate, and one usually did not, because crashing, being blown to bits, or burning in one’s plane seemed ever so much more probable.

In memory of my three older brothers, also veterans of WWII:

A.J. Hamby, ETO

Kenneth Hamby, ETO

Wayne Hamby, South Pacific

My father, a veteran of WWI:

Alex Hamby, France

And my son, a veteran of the Vietnam War:

John Hamby, SEA

Chapter One

Captain Michael Flinn, Squadron Flight Surgeon, sat at his small field desk, intent on medical records of his fighter pilots. Although he had the pot-bellied heater red hot, it barely warmed the Nissen hut enough to allow him to get out of his trench coat. He felt a mass of cold damp English air displacing his precious heat upward. What the hell? He turned to see Staff Sergeant Wiggins in the doorway.

Come on in, Sergeant Wiggins, and shut the damn door! Suddenly, he remembered the sergeant had been out in that cold for several hours getting his plane ready for the early morning mission. He felt ashamed. He lowered his voice. Please?...The Squadron get off all right?

Dr. Flinn, I think something ought to be done about Captain Hampton!

Flinn felt relief that the sergeant hadn’t heard his curt remark. Or maybe he was just ignoring it. Wiggins was Hampton’s crew chief, and Hampton was leading the Squadron this morning. Flinn knew this sergeant to be a quiet, unassuming man, always calm and deliberate in his actions, not like the man now twisting his cap in his grimy hands as he waited uneasily for Flinn to respond. Wiggins was feeling guilty for betraying a superior and friend, Flinn thought. Wiggins also probably knew Hampton would be pissed-off if he knew it.

"Why do you think so, Sergeant?’

Well, Doctor, he’s been coming to our plane the last few missions and things just ain’t right. He’s in a daze. I have to help him in, put his straps on, and tell him to start his engine. He don’t fly but about once a week now that he’s leading the Squadron, and I don’t ever see him between missions, like I used to. He used to come by to look the plane over and we’d talk. Even before a mission we’d talk and laugh about things while he checked the plane. He’d ask me about the wife and kids and tell me about his girl and stuff like that, and he just don’t do those things anymore. He just walks around like a zombie. Doctor, he don’t even check the plane anymore!

At this, the Sergeant paused, almost out of breath, and stared at Flinn. The man was very upset. Hampton must have done or said something this morning that greatly alarmed or worried his crew chief.

Flinn’s thoughts rushed on. He’d thought something should be done about Captain Hampton for some time. He’d done his best to get men in Hampton’s condition sent back to the States as routine rotations. He’d recommended until he had become weary of it, but weakness of mind was too intangible or too noxious for Colonel Matthew D. Lust, called Mad Dog by many behind his back, to accept. This twenty-eight year old West Pointer’s mind had been conditioned to the military since childhood, for he came from a long line of professional soldiers of the West Point variety.

Sgt. Wiggins started fidgeting and Flinn guessed his slowness in answering was making the man even more nervous.

Doctor, he’s flown ninety missions and shot down three planes and we don’t even count locomotives and motor vehicles anymore! Ain’t that enough?

He stared at Flinn until Flinn squirmed. This man who loved Hampton like a brother deserved an answer. If anything happened to a pilot, it happened to some extent to the crew chief. He found it difficult to look Wiggins in the eye, for he could not reveal what he knew.

Okay, Sergeant Wiggins. I’ll see what I can do. Thanks for coming in.

Now, that was a hell of an answer, he thought. See what he could do, indeed. And the Sergeant thought it was a hell of an answer, too. He could see it in the man’s facial expression. Oh, why hadn’t he stayed in obstetrics?

Flinn walked to the door with the Sergeant and gently placed his hand on the man’s shoulder as he left. He was five foot nine and the Sergeant was shorter than he, and much lighter. It rather surprised him. The man’s manner made him seem larger.

Flinn stood outside his clinic, gazing at the gray sky. It was March, 1944, not that the year mattered. The ceiling could not be more than five hundred feet-typical. If he ever returned to Europe after the war, it would not be in March-maybe not even in winter.

He pictured what must be going on in Captain Hampton’s mind as he flew out there across the channel, leading a squadron of youngsters who, though lacking in the experience and skill which he possessed, were eager for action, for fight, and who would be disappointed if he didn’t find them one. And he would know this. And he would find them one. And another. And another. And finally one would get him, or he would break down. And this might be soon. This might be today.

His body jerked involuntarily as his mind drew back. What to do now was the problem. He’d talked to the Squadron Commander who had passed him on to the Group Commander, the Old Man, and the Old Man had called Capt. Hampton in, as he had the others, and both of them had heard Hampton’s vehement and convincing assertion that he wanted to fly. Yes, as long as the decision was left to the man, and the man had the will, he would insist that he wanted to fly, to fight. But, when he no longer had the will, he no longer had anything; he was through, washed up, humiliated, and probably for all time.

Flinn knew that other flight surgeons in Europe had similar difficulties. But, he knew, too, that in a few groups, not commanded by fearless zealots, men were rotated when a tour was completed or on the flight surgeon’s recommendation, and few breakdowns occurred. Pilots were not allowed to extend. His own group had shot down more enemy aircraft than most other P-47 groups in a like period of time, but it also had sent more combat fatigue cases to the hospital.

Suddenly, he was aware of the cold and went back into his dispensary. He put on his trench coat. Then he went back to his desk and found Hampton’s chart. He studied the young man’s picture which was stapled inside the folder. The tough-looking oval face showed nothing, and this was deliberate, he thought. The nose was rather long and narrow, and deviated mildly from some injury. It was a rather handsome face, but impassive. The perfect dead pan.

Artifice! That’s what it was...yes. Some things naturally appear to be what they aren’t. Most people take such appearances at face value. But, as medical students, they were taught to be on guard for such false appearances in arriving at their diagnoses.

Flinn lit a cigarette and sat back. Many other things, especially of a social nature, are made to appear what they aren’t, he thought. By artifice.

These young men like Hampton were using artifice as an adaptive technique, not just to hide their fear from others, but to turn it into its opposite. They had rushed into the stress of warfare before they had even learned who they were and yet had to cope with the world as though they were self-aware individuals. So, they played roles; they adopted characteristics they thought reflected masculinity, with all its emphasis on external toughness and bravery. And when sufficiently practiced, a set of characteristics became habitual, their own personal artifices. The sham, artificiality, pretense, or affectation was not recognized by them for what it was-artifice, even though or perhaps because they had a compulsion to be true to that self-image in all their behavior.

Flinn poured himself a cup of GI coffee from his thermos. Perhaps he would call Hampton in again, if he returned from this mission. Maybe a check-up would reveal something concrete enough to allow him to ground the man. If not, he would observe the officer closely until his next mission; then he might have another talk with the Old Man.

After he had held sick call, he heard planes approaching the field. By pre-arrangement, he met Dr. Hall from another squadron and they walked out to Sweater’s Hill, a large mound of earth located in such a way that observers could view both perpendicular runways from it. It was here that men gathered to sweat-out takeoffs and landings.

The ceiling had lifted to about two thousand feet and there were holes in the overcast. As the first returning squadron circled the field, Col. Lust drove up in his Jeep, with the VHF radio loudspeaker turned up on the Group’s frequency. He stepped out of the Jeep, six feet of physically-fit manhood, and slapped his leg with his swagger stick as he climbed the mound. Just as he joined them, the 15th Fighter Squadron, led by Capt. Hampton, flew across the field in tight formation, peeled off in flights of four, and then came across again in loose string formation for some to do victory rolls.

Now that’s a damn sharp looking outfit! declared Col. Lust in an authoritative voice to the dozen or so men on the hill, slapping his leg with his crop for emphasis.

Flinn noted that the Colonel acknowledged no individual there and that his voice was loud enough for all to hear above the roaring engines.

Then Hampton’s plane barrel-rolled just above the ground. His number two man did not roll. Number Three rolled once, then again. Before the second roll was completed, everyone’s attention was sharpened by Lust’s strained voice.

Look out, you fool!

The plane had begun to lose altitude in the roll-out of the second roll. At first it looked as if a crash were inevitable, but the pilot saw his danger and added power as he quickened the rate of roll. For a fraction of a second, it looked as though he would make it, and a collective moan escaped the watchers. But this moan was hardly started when the left wingtip of the plane went through the top of a tree at the edge of the field, and the moan grew in intensity as the wingtip was pulled off. Then the moan became low and drawn out as the plane roared with full power and staggered along the treetops.

As suddenly as the action had started, it was over. The plane began to climb. The remaining planes passed over the field in turn, but few of the onlookers saw the subsequent action, for they were too busy discussing the close call with each other.

Flinn felt weak in the knees. I’ve had enough, Don, he said to Hall.

That makes two of us, Mike, replied Hall, grinning ruefully. I think you and I are too old and too far removed from this way of life to really empathize with these youngsters.

Flinn didn’t reply as they left the mound but looked back to see Col. Lust the center of a boisterous group of pilots and enlisted men, all carried away with the excitement of the near crash.

It always strikes me as odd, said Flinn as the two walked back toward the operations hut, the different ways people react to things like that. I almost feel sick. I was sure another kid was about to die. They lead such charmed lives. Or, at least most do.

Yes, was the only comment of Hall as he offered Flinn a cigarette and light.

They walked on and smoked in silence.

Chapter Two

Hampton tensely completed the victory roll he’d worried about since leaving the coast of France. He disliked low altitude acrobatics. The rule was that all that sky above you was wasted. As he began an orbit to the left, Boyles’ voice came over the radio.

Wacky Red Leader, Red Three here. I just tore off my wingtip in a tree.

A nervous shock surged through Hampton. God, he’d feared something like this or worse was going to happen one day, but he’d expected it to happen to him. Yet, he’d allowed the attitudes of his fellow pilots to bluff him into doing his victory rolls as low as five hundred feet.

He had the impulse to join up with Boyles and check the damage but quickly squelched the thought. He had to take it easy--stay calm. Boyles’ wingman could assess the damage. His task was to get these planes on the ground so the emergency crew could be free to help Boyles. He pressed his mike button.

Wacky Red Leader here to Squadron; get a little altitude on those rolls and watch yourselves. Get some altitude, Boyles. Let your wingman check the damage and then see what she stalls at.

Roger. Red Three, out.

Hampton increased his bank sharply so he could observe the other planes as they pulled up from the pass over the field.

Quit messing around, you guys! Get back in close formation! Mad Dog...uh...the Old Man may be watching and I don’t feel like getting my tail chewed out today. Wacky Red Leader out. Now if he could just land this thing safely.

Red Two popped into position on his right wing and he mentally acknowledged the skill possessed by this relatively new man. Back a little and to the inside of his orbit, Yellow Flight was almost in formation. Blue Leader was just pulling up, and his three planes were in good position for a fast join-up. He wondered just how calm they all were.

Wacky Red Three, Red Four here. Structure looks okay. Looks like you just lost a little sheet metal.

Roger, Red Four, Red Three here. Thanks.

With relief, Hampton again pressed the mike button as he dipped his right wing, signaling for right-echelon formation.

Smorgasbord, Wacky Red Leader here. Pancake, he said in his calmest tone of voice.

Roger, Wacky Red Leader. Smorgasbord here. One six. Over, replied the tower, designating the runway.

Hampton glanced at the windsock. Wind right up the runway.

Roger. One six. Wacky Red Leader out.

He looked back. Yellow Flight was tucked up close underneath his two planes and Blues four were moving in close behind and underneath Yellow. He was approaching runway one six for his peel up when Boyles called.

Wacky Red Leader, Red Three here. She stalls at about a hundred per. I’ll bring her in hot. Over.

Boyles sounded remarkably calm. Hampton was proud. Roger, Red Three. Let Red Four land first, he said as he crossed the end of the runway a few feet above the ground.

Smorgasbord, Wacky Red on break!

Hampton hauled back on the stick, banking slightly to the left, and, as the plane approached the limit of its climb, dropped wheels and flaps and chopped throttle, allowing the nose to fall through the horizon toward the end of the runway while maintaining airspeed at about twenty-five mph above stalling. Careful now. Mustn’t screw up and crash, after all that’s gone on today.

He rolled out of his bank over the end of the runway about a second before his wheels touched down. He looked in his rearview mirror. Red Two touched down. Yellow Leader had peeled up his flight just in time to take up the same interval behind Red Two that Red Two had set and Blue Leader was peeling at that instant to take up the same interval behind Yellow Four. Red Four peeled up then to follow Blue Four closely. They all looked great. And he was still alive!

He raised his flaps and rolled back the canopy as he turned off the runway, watching the landings as he yawed his P-47 down the taxiway. When he’d gone far enough to allow everyone off the runway, he stopped to watch Boyles’ landing. In sequence, the others stopped. All who had gone on the mission were down safely but Red Three. Then Boyles came across the end of the runway, higher than the others had been, and banked cautiously, making a much wider pattern than usual.

Hampton looked toward the fire truck and ambulance and saw they were ready to roll.

Boyles was beginning his rollout. Steady Tom, he muttered. He found himself moving his own plane’s controls as though he were landing Boyles’ plane. He inhaled deeply, held it, and then exhaled slowly with relief as Boyles set his plane down smoothly, though faster than usual, and rolled to the end of the runway with the fire truck and ambulance trailing him closely.

This was his eleventh mission as squadron leader and he’d brought everyone home safely each time--even himself. He shook his head. It was incredulous.

Hampton then gunned his engine and taxied to the parking area where Sergeant Wiggins, a broad grin on his face, directed him into the revetment. He chopped the engine as he spun her around, and suddenly his body went limp.

The same old feeling, he thought. Done for! Pooped! But still alive! And he could have sworn he wouldn’t be, as he could have sworn on every mission.

Sgt. Wiggins’ grin was still wide as he scrambled onto the wing. Switches off, Cap’n? he asked.

Hampton flipped off the switches and called, Switches off!

Got us another one, huh, Cap’n? asked Wiggins.

Yeah, Man!

Tell me about it!

Let me fill out these forms, and I’ll give you the blow by blow description. Hampton noticed Wiggins surveying the plane and added, Quit worrying, Sarge. I didn’t get hit. You know the only time this jug gets holes in her is when some other driver takes her out.

Boy, you can say that again, Cap’n, said Wiggins as he watched Hampton fill out the Form 1.

Well, let me get out of this hole, Hampton said as he replaced the Form 1 in its case.

He acknowledged to himself that here was another sign he was slipping. At one time he hopped out of the cockpit