Falling From The Sky

By Phillip Winberry

When American B-17 pilot Alex Kent isn’t struggling to survive World War II bombing raids in the skies over Germany he spends time trying to unravel a conundrum with even greater dangers: uncovering the lost legacy of William Kent, his great-grandfather seven generations removed. Alex knows nothing about his ancestor’s life prior to William’s arrival in 1740 colonial Virginia as an eleven-year-old indentured servant although Kent family folklore suggests William might have been the exiled child of an English noble. Over the generations, several Kent family members have tried to confirm that speculation. None succeeded. Some died trying.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483530543

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PART ONE

1943-1944

A PEEK UNDER THE SHROUD

CHAPTER ONE

Clawing at the late afternoon air to gain lift, Evergreen Belle accelerated down the icy tarmac at Royal Canadian Air Force Base, Goose Bay, groaning and squealing as she approached the end of the Labrador airfield’s runway. "Come on, Belle, Lieutenant Alex Kent coaxed as a dark mass of trees loomed ever closer beyond the endline, get your rear into the air."

With a shudder and a final bounce, the B-17 broke free from the restraints of gravity and began a slow rise toward the rapidly darkening sky to the west. That’s a good girl, Alex said, patting the lighted instrument panel. He glanced at his copilot Lt. Pete Stokowski, the latest addition to the bomber’s crew.

Two weeks earlier, Belle’s original copilot, Lt. Rick Dunn, had broken his leg during a flag football game at the Moses Lake, Washington, airfield where Alex and Belle’s crew had been undergoing the final days of flight training before leaving for England. Thirty-six hours after the accident, Pete had arrived from his previous duty station at Fort Douglas, Utah to take Rick’s place.

The jury was still out as to how well Pete was going to fill Rick’s seat. There simply hadn’t been enough time for him to become a seamless part of the command team. Could he be trusted to do the right thing in the hostile skies over Germany? Rick would have been because they’d trained together for several months. The cohesiveness between them had reached the point that when the Belle was in the sky they operated as one—a team. Neither had concerns about whether the other would automatically do the right thing when the shit hit the fan.

He glanced out the cockpit window, his thoughts turning back to Pete’s first hours at Moses Lake. Before breakfast, the morning after his late night arrival, the crew had assembled in a corner of the enlisted men’s mess hall to be introduced to the newcomer. That hadn’t gone particularly well. The minute he and Pete walked in, the faces of the other seven crewmen registered skepticism and dismay. Maybe it was Pete’s appearance. Standing next to Alex as introductions were made, he’d shifted his weight from foot to foot, his gaze cast down at the floor. A good eight inches shorter than Alex’s six-foot-two frame, Pete’s dark eyes and even darker hair, along with a five-o’clock-shadow beard, were a sharp contrast with Alex’s light auburn hair and hazel eyes. Or maybe it was his squeaky nasal tone, his New York accent and run together words—combinations that made it hard to understand what he was saying.

After a couple of minutes of strained conversation, the crew had fallen into the chow line muttering under their breaths. Alex had understood their obvious discomfort. He hadn’t liked the prospect of breaking in a new sidekick on such short notice either. But more B-17 crews and planes were needed desperately in England to step up the bombing war against the German heartland. They’d all have to make the best of a less than perfect situation.

For the next seven days, with the knowledge of what they would face in the skies over Europe as his mantra, he’d stashed his concerns and trained Belle’s crew extra hard. During long hours in the skies over eastern Washington, he’d come to understand that Pete was a damned fine pilot. Even so, there simply hadn’t been enough time for the two of them to mesh into a real command team. And that still concerned him. He hoped his qualms about the situation weren’t noticeable to the rest of the crew. They seemed to have gotten over their earlier misgivings, even starting jokingly to refer to the Belle’s pilots as Mutt and Jeff.

Scared we weren’t going to clear the end of the runway, were you? Alex said glancing at Pete, his voice raised to be heard above the drone of the B-17’s Wright Cyclone engines.

Nah, never had a doubt, Pete responded with a chuckle and a smile.

Well, you look a little pale at the gills.

I’m fine, at least mostly so. After freezing my butt off back down there waiting for the weather to clear—well, I think I’m coming down with a bit of the sniffles. He chuckled. That’s not the memory I was hoping to carry away from Labrador.

It was Alex’s turn to smile. I’m betting you were hoping to have memories about the cute brunette Canadian corporal that served our breakfast the past three days.

What a body she’s got on her. Pete whistled softly. If I could have gotten her alone, I sure as hell would’ve figured out a way to keep warm.

Alex nodded. I’m still cold—don’t think our flight suits are going to be worth crap in the fifty below weather they told us we’re going to face tonight out over the Atlantic.

I’m ready for that, I think, Pete said. I’ve got on two extra pair of long johns, three pairs of socks, and double silk liners under my leather gloves.

We’ll see if you still feel so comfy after that hot thermos of coffee your lady-friend corporal sent along is gone.

Pete grinned. She did seem sweet on me, didn’t she?

It’s your irresistible charm.

"Yeah, that and a sawbuck might get me a warmer flight suit. If I’m not careful I’m going to freeze my balls off. Now that would be a disaster."

Relax, Alex said as he flexed the cold, stiff fingers of his right hand. He too was wearing silk liners but had taken off his outer leather gloves to get a better feel for the plane’s control column. He was going to have to put the outer gloves back on. We’re not the first bomber crew to make this jaunt. There have been hundreds, maybe thousands before us according to what they told us at the start of our orientation stint at Moses Lake. And none of those crews froze to death on the way.

At least none they told you about, Pete said. Bet they didn’t tell you how many ended up down in the water, did they?

Doesn’t matter. That’s not going to happen to us. I promise.

I’m going to hold you to that.

Even so, Alex said, eyeing the instrument panel, I’d be a damned sight more comfortable heading out over two thousand miles of open water if the fog lifted so we could set down at Iceland to take on more fuel.

You know something I don’t? You heard the final briefing. That major said we had more than enough fuel to get all the way to Scotland, even if we can’t land at Reykjavík. ‘It’ll be a piece of cake’ I think is how he phrased it. You believed him, didn’t you?

Let’s just say I’m of the opinion that not accepting as gospel everything higher command tells us is the best way to survive once we start paying visits to Jerry’s heartland.

Well if we’d waited for Iceland to clear we might have found ourselves stuck in Goose Bay for the duration.

Alex smiled. And the problem with that would have been?

Even with that sexy corporal to keep me warm, Labrador’s still too damned cold for my blood. Besides, the sooner we get to England the sooner I can start looking for my cousins Artur and Stefan.

I thought your family was from eastern Poland, Alex said as the Belle continued her climb toward cruising altitude.

Yeah, they are. My father’s the only one that immigrated to America. The rest of the family still live on farms outside Lódz, or at least they did before the war started. When the Germans invaded in 1939, Artur and Stefan fought with the Polish Army. When their unit was overrun, outside Warsaw, they avoided capture and went underground. It took them a couple of months but they found their way to Gdańsk where they hitched a ride on a cargo ship. Somehow their ship made it past Jerry’s U-boats—landed at Liverpool in April 1940. My mom wrote that the last thing she heard was they’re working as field hands on a farm in someplace called East Anglia. Going to try and look them up the first leave I get.

Well, we’ve got to get over there first, Alex said, turning his attention back to the control panel, "so let’s get on with it. Goose Bay tower, Evergreen Belle passing through five thousand feet on heading two-seven-eight degrees true coming right to new heading zero-five-eight degrees true."

"Evergreen Belle, the tower acknowledged, turning from heading two-seven-eight degrees true to new heading zero-five-eight degrees true. That’s zero-five-eight degrees true. Good luck to you, Yanks. Give those Kraut bastards hell."

Roger that Goose Bay Tower, Alex said as he began banking the Belle in a slow arc back toward the murky black North Atlantic night. His stomach churned at the thought of the challenges that awaited him and the crew when they reached England. The odds of their surviving the required twenty-five mission tour were against them. He knew that, but he had to stay strong and project confidence. His men expected that. They were his responsibility and that was what leaders did. He’d fight to the last breath to see that they all made it home safely.

CHAPTER TWO

Pete unscrewed the cup top of his metal thermos and sniffed the aroma of coffee mixing with the engine exhaust smells filling the frigid cockpit air. He emptied the remaining contents into the cup and held it out toward Alex. Want to share the last bit of this joe?

No, thanks. I have any more and I’ll need to go back to the bomb bay to use the relief tube again.

Come on, there’s just a little bit left, Pete said, extending the cup closer to Alex. The caffeine will help you stay awake.

Alex nodded, took the cup and sipped. Christ, that shit’s awful. He thrust the cup back into Pete’s hand.

Pete raised it to his lips. You’re right, he said, after taking a swig, it’s crap—and cold. Bet if I left it sitting here by my seat it’d freeze up in no time."

Probably so, Alex said, grinning as he checked the clock on the glowing instrument panel. They were two hours into the flight and, if his reckoning was correct, they were almost 400 miles out over the Atlantic, closing in on the southern tip of Greenland.

Pilot to navigator, Alex spoke into the onboard intercom, we still pointed the right way, Bud?

Best I can tell, pretty much dead straight on the course set for us before we left Goose Bay, Lt. Bud Belson, responded from his cramped navigator’s station in the plane’s nose, just below the cockpit. At least that’s what the instruments were telling me before the stars disappeared. Looks like bad weather’s moving in ahead of schedule.

Pilot to radioman. You hear Bud? Alex asked.

Roger that, the Belle’s radioman, Sgt. Dick Stinson, called out from his confined boxlike area behind the bomb bay.

You been able to get any updates from Bomber Command on that storm coming down from the Arctic we were briefed about before we left Goose Bay?

Bud’s right on. Last word I got was that the storm’s drifting down into the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland faster than originally predicted. That was probably thirty minutes ago. I didn’t say anything at the time because they also said we should already be on the ground in Scotland by the time it becomes a problem this far south.

"Should be? Get back on the horn with whoever gave you that crap and tell them I said ‘should be’ isn’t good enough. If we’re going to have to dodge our way through an Arctic storm, I want to know when and where and I want to know it now, not when I’ve used up most of my fuel. And while you’re at it, try and find out if there’s been any change in the weather on the ground in Iceland that might allow us to set down there for a quick bit of fuel."

Roger that, sir. I’ll try, but in the last ten minutes or so I’ve been having trouble raising anyone. That last transmission from Bomber Command was interrupted by a burst of static. That’s all I’ve been getting since. Can’t figure it out, but I was just about to tell you to see what you made of it.

Sounds like maybe we have a problem, Pete said as Alex tapped the altimeter and then the air speed indicator. The Belle was cruising at eight thousand feet, her airspeed almost 175 knots an hour.

Don’t know, Alex said, frowning as he stretched back in his seat trying to relieve a cramp in his right calf. His long legs weren’t made for a B-17 cockpit. "Hope I’m wrong, but I’m beginning to get a bad feeling. The Belle’s range isn’t much more than twenty-two, twenty-three hundred miles at most—when the weather cooperates. If that front and its headwinds keep moving south faster than they predicted, we could find ourselves testing our life rafts after the fuel tanks run dry."

Not going to happen. Bomber Command wouldn’t let Goose Bay clear us to take off if they really thought that storm was going to be a problem tonight, Pete said. They need B-17s in the air over in England, not at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Probably so, but my gut tells me we’re flying ourselves into a shitload of trouble. Like I said earlier, I’m damned skeptical about most everything higher command tells me. I’d rather rely on what I can see, smell, hear or feel for myself. And right now I can’t see much of anything out there. He pointed at the black beyond the windshield. Let’s pray I’m wrong.

Pete chuckled. I’ve been saying prayers since the day I enlisted. Hasn’t seemed to help yet ‘cause I’m still sitting here strapped to my seat headed to war in a damned metal tube.

Well, let’s just hope we get you there dry and in one piece.

#

I’ll take the stick again, Alex said as he slid back into his seat after a visit to the radio compartment.

Good, my hands feel like they’re glued to the control column, Pete said, flexing his fingers. "Was Dick able to get any update from Bomber Command?

Alex shrugged. I listened for more than ten minutes while he kept trying to raise them. Nothing but static. I’m beginning to wonder if the Krauts are jamming us.

Can they do that this far out at sea?

Alex shrugged and cleared his throat. Wouldn’t think so, but something’s going on. Dick’s going to keep trying.

Let’s hope he gets lucky because with all the cloud cover up here, Pete said, We’re going to need all the help we can get to stay on course.

That is if we are on course. We’ve been in the air for almost nine hours, now. That puts us well past Iceland—probably. But who knows? If Bud can’t get a fix on the stars, there’s no way to tell for sure.

Maybe we should try to climb up above all this shit again. It’s been almost two hours since the last time we tried and we only took this baby, he patted the instrument panel, up to 22,000 feet. She should be able to get up to at least 25,000.

We’d waste a lot more fuel going that high. Probably guarantee we’d end up in the water before we reached Scotland.

Pete nodded. Not something I signed up for.

Me neither, not by a long shot, Alex said as he rapped the airspeed indicator with a gloved finger.

You know what’s weird about tonight? Pete said loudly as he rotated his neck in small circles.

There’s a lot that’s weird about tonight, Alex said in an even louder voice. The roar from the Belle’s engines seemed to be more deafening. Which weird are you talking about?

The part that says there’s not much we can do about any of this—the storm, the Krauts, the whole fucking war—that we’re at the mercy of whoever up there, he nodded skyward, is pulling the strings.

I’d like to think we have some influence on all of that, that our training prepared us to deal with anything that’s thrown our way. That was one of the first lessons I learned when I took up flying—be prepared for anything by anticipating the worst. That made sense and was a mantra I could use everyday, not just when I was flying an airplane. Sort of justified what I was doing.

Are you saying that becoming a pilot gave structure to your life?

Something like that.

But you couldn’t have known that would be the result when you started out. Why did you take up flying?

Alex silently stared at the instrument panel. Couple of reasons, I guess, he finally said as he leaned against his seatback, both hands still on the control column, the simplest one being that flying was something that wasn’t new to the Kent family. My dad’s brother, Walter, started it all when he went to work as a mechanic for the Wright Brothers back at the turn of the century. They taught him to fly after he’d been with them for a couple of years.

Your uncle worked for the Wright brothers. Wow! Was he at Kitty Hawk for the first flight?

No. He hired on with them the year after that. According to my dad, who was always talking about him when I was a young kid, Uncle Walter worked almost four years for the Wrights at their main facility in Dayton, Ohio. That ended when he died in an accident, in London.

What was he doing in London?

He’d been to France with Wilbur Wright promoting the Wright’s planes to the French public and government. Before they were to return home he managed to find time for a side trip to England for some research into our family’s history. He apparently thought we were descended from some sort of English aristocrat and thought he could maybe verify that with some on-site research.

He discover anything?

If he did it died with him in his accident.

What happened?

He fell off a subway platform and was run over by a train, Alex said as turbulence rocked the plane. He glanced at the air speed indicator. Airspeed is down to 165 and the wind gauge shows us flying directly into a headwind—almost ninety knots per hour.

That keeps up and there goes our margin for error—if we ever had one.

Pilot to radioman, Alex said, any luck getting London back on the horn?

Still just a bunch of crappy static, Leut. I don’t get it. There’s no way the fucking Germans can jam us this far out to sea. At least I don’t think they can.

Keep trying. I don’t like flying blind.

Roger that. I don’t like you flying blind either.

Silence settled over the cockpit as Alex and Pete busied themselves with a visual check of the instrument panel, both men frowning as they jotted calculations on the writing boards strapped to their right thighs.

By my reckoning we have enough fuel for five more hours of flying, Pete said.

Alex stared at the blackness out the window to his left, massaged the back of his neck and listened to the roar of the engines. Even though by the end of the flight he’d probably be hoarse from having to raise his voice to be heard above the noisy rumble, the sound was comforting. The engines were performing as advertised. Would that be enough? I agree. We’ve got at least five more hours of fuel, probably a bit more than that, he finally said. If the weather doesn’t get any worse we should be okay.

Pete wrapped his arms around his chest, tucking his hands into his arm pits. He twisted in his seat to face Alex. You said there were a couple of reasons you took up flying. Your Uncle Walter was one. What was the other?

Alex pursed his lips and glanced sideways at Pete as he considered the question. It felt bizarre to be talking about such a mundane thing when there was a growing chance they might fall out of the sky to the water below—and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it other than keep the Belle pointed in what he hoped was the right direction. On the other hand Pete seemed genuinely interested in the answer to his question. Maybe asking was his way of trying to keep their minds off the sheer terror of dealing with the present.

I started at the University of Washington in the fall of ’38, majoring in aeronautical engineering. He swallowed, trying to get some moisture down his throat. Thought my Dad might see that as a gesture to honor the memory of Uncle Walter. Hoped maybe that would smooth over the rough patch he and I had been going through for several years. He shrugged. It didn’t, but that’s another story.

At least your old man was there, Pete said. Mine had a heart attack and died when I was only two. The only father I’ve ever known was my step-dad who married my mom when I was nine. He didn’t have a whole lot of time for me.

Tough, isn’t it? Alex said. My dad was there, but it was like he wasn’t.

I’m not sure I understand.

My mom, Elizabeth, and sister were killed in a car accident in 1933. Dad was driving and had turned his head to admonish me and Alice for arguing in the back seat. That was the precise moment a drunk driver came across the center line and hit us head on. Mom and Alice died on the spot. The drunk, too.

How old were you?

Thirteen. It was devastating. My mom and sister were dead and my dad was in the hospital with two broken legs and a broken back. All I got was some cuts and a sprained wrist.

But your dad eventually recovered, didn’t he?

Not really. He still can’t walk, has to use a wheel chair to get around, and he still grieves for my mom, even after ten years. Alex exhaled loudly. After the accident, he became impossible to live with.

How so?

He needed someone to blame. With the drunk driver that hit us already dead, I became the best available target. His reasoning was that if I hadn’t been arguing with Alice, he never would have taken his eyes off the road and would have been able to steer clear of the drunk. Who knows? Maybe he’s right. Alex sighed and shook his head. Before the accident, he and I had been close. But as time wore on after the wreck he grew more and more bitter. He shut me out, except when he wanted someone to yell at. Then he was quite happy to summon me to his room. It took a while, but eventually I realized the anger was his problem, not mine, that the accident had broken more than his back. Once I figured that out, I pretty much ignored him. That was easy to do because I was busy finishing high school. The week before I started college, I moved out of the house and pledged my fraternity. Figured it was time to get on with my life, my dad be damned.

A fraternity boy, huh? Care to share the secret handshake with me?

Alex smiled. It seemed the best way to meet women. And it worked. I met Sally Peterson my first day on campus. She was a couple of years older than me with the most beautiful wavy blonde hair and a shape that every man that met her drooled over. For several weeks I was in lust, thought she was the love of my life. Turned out she was just great sex and pleasant memories. Alex paused and stared at the instrument panel. But our time together did have one positive result.

What was that, Pete said, aside from—I know, he chuckled—the great sex?

Alex laughed. She was the first girl, woman I ever slept with, so at the time it wasn’t just great, it was the greatest. But even more important than the sex was the fact the relationship gave me the chance to meet and become friendly with her father.

‘Friendly with her father?’ Come on, man, while I was growing up most of the girl’s fathers I met wanted to take a shotgun to me when they found out what me and their little princesses was up to, Pete sniggered as the Belle moaned and bucked from a sharp gust of windy turbulence slamming against her nose.

Alex shifted in his seat and tightened his grip on the control column. Carl Peterson was different. He was high up in management at Boeing Aircraft Company and liked the fact I was considering a career in the aeronautics. The summer of 1939, even though Sally and I had stopped seeing each other by then, he finagled me a maintenance job at the Boeing plant. By the time I went back to school that September I knew I wanted to be a pilot, fly one of the new bombers Boeing was building for the Army. That fall I joined Army ROTC and began taking private flying lessons. I had a private pilot’s license by the time I graduated in the spring of 1942.

Where’d you do your Air Corps training?

Basic was at Santa Ana Airfield in Southern California then on to Kelly Field down in San Antonio for advanced training, and finally to Hobbs Field New Mexico to learn to fly the B-17. Figured when I got done there I’d be on my way to England.

Pete nodded and rubbed his hands together. Sounds like my same old broken record. I did both my basic and advanced flight training at Aniston Airfield down in Alabama, just outside Talladega. After that I got orders for Hobbs. Kinda surprised we didn’t run into each other there, but I guess I was several weeks behind you. When I finished at Hobbs they sent me to Ft. Douglas to take command of my own plane. I sat there twiddling my thumbs for two weeks, waiting for my full crew to arrive so we could begin training. Pissed me off when they changed my orders and told me to report to Moses Lake as your copilot. Nothing against you, Alex, but I want a plane of my own.

Understood, Alex said, deciding to say nothing more. In Pete’s position he would have been pissed, too—probably wouldn’t have been as nice about it.

Yeah, well I just wanted you to know. But I also want you to know, I’ve got your back. We’re in this thing together.

#

Ninety minutes later the Belle shook violently as even stronger winds continued to pound the cockpit windows.

This is getting bad, Alex said, his gaze sweeping across the control panel. Air speed’s down to one sixty and the wind’s still coming at us dead head-on. That storm seems to have caught up with us. I can’t see a star in the sky.

Without the stars Bud’s going to have to rely on his dead reckoning skills to keep us on course, Pete said. I really do think we are going to have to try climbing above this mess.

Alex nodded. Don’t think we have much choice, but like I said earlier, that’s going to put a real crimp in our fuel reserve.

A burst of screechy static crackled up from the radio compartment.

Pilot to radio. Sounds like the situation hasn’t changed.

Nope, except for a few seconds ago when I got a short burst of code I think was a position fix. I’ll pass it along to Bud.

If it was a position fix it must have come from Bomber Command, wouldn’t you say?

Don’t know, Leut. It was just that one short burst, and then the static fired up again.

Pilot to navigator, Alex called out after waiting a couple of minutes to allow the navigator to digest the radioman’s data. Dick’s information any help with pinpointing where we are?