Casey Cochran's War

By Daniel Fleischhacker

It is 1943, and nineteen-year-old Casey Cochran joins the Air Force and enters World War II to escape his father's drunken abuse. In the cockpit of a Mustang, he finds his destiny. This is where he belongs, blasting the Jerries out of the sky in wild dogfights in the skies over Europe. With each kill, he is not only helping to destroy the German Luftwaffe, but proving his worth to the father he hates. He has four kills, and needs a fifth to be a fighter Ace. On the mission where he gets that fifth kill, he is shot down and parachutes into a beautiful valley, untouched by war, in the mountains of eastern France.

 He is hidden by a Frenchman, Jean-Albert, and his daughter, Solange. Both speak perfect English, a lucky break. The valley is another Eden—alive with a beauty that seems almost unreal, and under the spell of this magical place, Casey's soul finds peace, and with the gentle Solange, he finds love like he has never known.  They vow to love forever, and that she will wait for him to come for her after the war.

Reality sets in after he is returned to his base. None of his comrades believe him. Even an Army psychiatrist pronounces him delusional. Was it real, or a creation of his imagination? Did he really fall desperately in love? When he thinks of it now, it's like recalling a vivid dream.

The day the war ends, he sets out to find her. He searches desperately through the ruins of the war-torn mountains, but nothing is familiar. The valley is gone, and Solange is probably dead. With a heavy heart, he decides to give up the search, and then he makes a startling discovery that is as unbelievable as it is real.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Fleischhacker
• Release date: Jul 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386379799

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was a perfect morning for the kill. At 18,000 feet the air was thin as tissue paper and as icy blue as the eyes of an Arctic wolf. There wasn’t a wisp of a cloud for a thousand miles in any direction. Today, Second Lieutenant Casey Cochran, would get his first kill, and it sent a shiver of anticipation down his spine. It had rained for four straight days, and the flyboys had to stand down with nothing to do but listen to the radio, smoke and play cards. But today dawned clear, and they knew they would engage the enemy, and Casey would howl in triumph as the German Me-109 he hit dead center, would explode in a ball of fire and light the sky all the way to the deck. A fucking Jerry. Krauthead. German scum.

Flight Captain Chick Harris had briefed them as he did before every mission, in the locked room where nobody knew where the target was except Captain Harris and the pilots who flew that day. Casey liked Chick. Most the of brass were full of hot air, but Chick said it straight from the shoulder.  You’ve been trained to fly and fight, and danger will be with you every minute you are up there. But you fly and fight because every mission is a nail in the coffin of the German Luftwaffe. I know you’re pumped, but for God’s sake don’t go off half-cocked and get yourself killed. Wait until the moment is right, then attack. The enemy will come to you.

What Chick said was right, but Casey was a fighter, a hot head, always ready to throw the first punch, and Chick was looking at him when he said, I’m going to ask you to repeat after me the big three: clear head, sharp eye, quick thumb. Casey needed to repeat this over and over if he didn’t want to end up in a daisy field somewhere in Germany. His head was clear. He had slept well. His eye was sharp, continually searching the sky for the distant black specks that could quickly become enemy planes. His thumb was quick as it brushed lightly over the trigger on his stick, the trigger that fired six .50 caliber machine guns. The anticipation of what lay ahead made him jumpy, tight-gutted and over-eager, and he would feel like this until he got the kill, probably pissing in his pants as he watched the Me-109 hit the deck.

The flights of Mustangs flew high above the bombers that traced dark moving shadows over the surface of the sea, and trailed long white vapor streams behind them. The Mustangs flew in flights of four planes color named. Joe Dog Baker was flight leader of Red Flight, Casey’s flight, with Billy Bates as element leader, and Will Stephens as Bates’ wingman. Casey was Joe Dog’s wingman. The other three flights were color coded Blue, Yellow and Gray. There was safety in a tight formation, and as much as he wanted to make the kill, his first duty was to stay close to Joe Dog. A good wingman was never far from his leader. Joe Dog Baker would tell him when he could pursue.

The Mustang he was flying was a beautiful plane. Sleek, fast, and loaded, the best fighter plane in the world, engineered to outfly and outfight any German plane. Casey had flown many planes in his flight training, but the Mustang was superior. There was a gigantic rush of power in its engine, and a purity of flight that made him feel untouchable. This plane would bring him home triumphant again and again.

The bombers flying below also flew in tight formation, though in larger groups than four planes. They were stacked in a box with the first-tier low in the box and the second tier several thousand feet above them. The German Me-109’s pattern of attack, was to fly aggressively, headlong through a formation of bombers, firing as they flew. But with the tight formation of the bombers, the Germans exposed themselves to hundreds of machine guns. Each bomber had five machine gun ports.  

The B-17’s droned ahead, heavier and slower than the Mustangs, loaded with bombs for another raid on Kassel. The Mustang pilots had been briefed on the destination, but did not know exactly what target the bombers were going to destroy.

Earlier in the war, the bombers flew without fighter support. The Army Air Force didn’t have a fighter plane that carried enough fuel to make the sortie from England into eastern Germany and back.  The bomber crew losses were staggering. When one bomber went down, ten men went with it. Those that hit their target and returned home, were heavily damaged, many with only one pilot able to fly, carrying dead and dying men inside the crippled hulk. They wrote a song about it: Coming in On a Wing and a Prayer.

The Mustang was a life saver. It was able to fly to distant targets and still make it back home because it carried auxiliary gas tanks, so now the bombers flew with Mustangs escorting, and suddenly the Germans had a fight on their hands like they had never had before.

Casey knew that some of his buddies might not make it home, and he also knew that he might not make it himself. But the tightness in his gut was not fear. He didn’t care if he died. He could fly in the face of death and enjoy it, because in Lt. Casey Cochran there was a need to fight, a need to triumph, a need to kill. He could shoot a German plane out of the sky with the same feeling as one would shoot a crippled horse. He didn’t think of the Germans as fathers or sons or husbands, but a kind of vermin that needed to be destroyed. He hated Germans. Bring them on, the bastards. His thumb lightly grazed the trigger on the stick.

He had flown only two missions before this one, even though he had been at Foxton for almost a month. Day after day, it was heavily fogged, thick and dark, making it impossible to fly.  Those first missions were milk runs to targets in France, just across the Channel, and in both missions, they encountered no enemy fighters. What Casey wanted more than anything, was to join that select group of Ace pilots.  He had to have five kills to be an Ace, but with the Luftwaffe thinning, there might not be time left in this war to get those five kills.

They crossed into Germany near Wilhelmshaven then south and east toward Kassel. Flying into the sun would make it hard to see the enemy planes, and Casey knew they would be at a disadvantage. Below he saw farms and fields and villages. He had never heard of Kassel, and was surprised when it came into view, bigger than he imagined. Flak bursts suddenly filled the sky around the bombers. The Mustangs were flying high above it. Casey looked down as the black puffs appeared at random. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to the flak. It looked like they just set the range then kept firing, hoping to connect with one of the unlucky bombers. Radio silence was broken as the first German fighters were sighted.

Bogeys at five o’clock.

He took a deep breath. Here we go.

Drop tanks.

Casey released the auxiliary fuel tanks. That was the first step before engaging the enemy.

How many?

Can’t tell.

They’re moving in fast. I count eight.

Ten.

Damn. . . the sun.

Casey pulled his sun glasses down over his goggles. Now he saw them, small, like gnats far away, moving toward them.

Anybody still counting?

A dozen at least.

I don’t think they see us.

They see us. They don’t want us, they want the bombers.

Let’s get ‘em boys. And stay away from the bombers. They shoot anything that moves.

One string of German fighters headed for the lower bombers and one headed for the second tier.

Red Flight banked left as they dove until they were at striking altitude. Then they took a wide sweep and came up on the right side of the bogeys. Joe Dog radioed orders:

I’ve got the first one, Red four take the second.

Roger, Casey replied.

Joe Dog closed the gap and fired. The tracers streaked a white line directly into the enemy plane’s fuselage and the plane exploded. The second bogey broke and climbed. Casey followed and hit the trigger with three short blasts. Part of its tail broke off. The next three bursts caught him dead center, and black smoke streamed from the plane. The last two blasts sent him into a downward spin, flames streaming from the engine. Casey let loose a string of cuss words. You son-of-a-bitch dirty fucking kraut!   Scum!  Kiss my royal ass! Look at me now, Ray. Not such a coward now huh? You bastard!

And it felt good to curse his father with the same vehemence as he did the German pilot.

What the hell’s the matter with you Red four?

My first kill. God damn, my first kill!

Jeezuz, you’re a loose cannon. Reign it in.

Roger.

Bandit on your tail. Now that the enemy planes had been identified, they were bandits.

I see him.

Casey banked right and the bandit followed. Now there were planes everywhere, Mustangs and Me-109’s flying through smoke and pieces of airplanes that had been hit. Casey didn’t have any idea where Joe Dog was. Now he only wanted to shake the bandit off his tail.  There were twenty-eight fighter planes, darting, shooting, nearly slamming into each other. Casey always looked for the big white cross on the fuselage of the German planes. In the confusion of the battle, it was easy to misfire.

Quit jacking off over the kill, Red four.

Shit, I’m buzzing like a million bees.

Screw your fucking head back on straight. You got two on your tail.

Casey looped and came up behind the two bandits chasing him. They broke before he could fire, and he overflew them. Now they were after him again. Shit, this was sensational! He banked a sharp right, and they flew past. Coming out of the turn, he narrowly missed colliding with a Mustang.  There were planes everywhere.

For just an instant Casey flew free, climbed and looked down. Several parachutes floated below the scramble. Another Me-109 burst into flames. Another bandit was coming after him. Where the hell did he come from? If he climbed, the Me-109 would have him for sure, so he dove, banking a sharp left, and as the Me-109 over flew him, he gave chase. He was close enough to fire, and he hit the trigger with three short bursts. Pieces flew off the plane, and it dove fast. Casey wanted to give chase, take him out, but then his clear head took over and he let him go. It was hell up here. Smoke and flak took the blue out of the sky, and dimmed the sun. Where the hell was Joe Dog? It was easy to get separated in the wild scramble where planes seemed to pass in every direction. Fast. Everything was fast up here, the chase, the escape, another chase, tracers streaming, enemy and friendly fire inseparable.

When he located Joe Dog, he was pursuing an Me-109. Casey took off after them. The count of downed German planes flashed through Casey’s brain quickly—two downed, one by Casey and one by Joe Dog, a third that Casey saw explode, one flying out of the action, partially disabled that Casey didn’t pursue, two parachutes, not ours—made for six Me-109’s. None of the Mustangs had been hit.  

The first wave of bombers swept down and dropped their bombs. Huge plumes of smoke rose from the ground as the second wave followed the first. Joe Dog lost his bandit in the smoke, and Casey lost Joe Dog.

The bombers re-formed and turned to fly back to the base. As they re-formed, the Mustangs did the same, and Red Flight assembled along with the three others. The heavy smoke from the burning buildings below made it impossible to see anything. The Me-109’s didn’t pursue. Casey saw one of the bombers take a hit from flak. It wobbled, started to lose control, then righted itself. One of its engines was burning out, but it flew steadily. It was going to make it back.

Flight leaders, are we going for any targets on the ground?

What targets?

Whatever we see. Trains, water towers, troop movements?

What about outdoor shithouses? Joe Dog snarled. This ain’t a shooting gallery at the state fair. You don’t shoot whatever you feel like. We got no orders to strafe ground targets.

Flight leaders can okay it.

What’s the matter with you yo-yos? Didn’t get enough action over Kassel? Relax for chrissake and think about a tall whisky when we land.

Make it a double.

Yeah, and while you’re at it, a hot-assed chippie.

You want to get caught bare-assed in one of the hardstands?

Wouldn’t be the first time.

Yeah, you’re a stud. Hope you fuck better than you shoot. Lots of laughter.

Knock it off.

They were flying high in blue sky over the German countryside. They weren’t likely to meet any more German fighters, but still they flew in tight formation. They had been well trained. They were top pilots, some already with several kills. Casey had his first. Maybe they would fly tomorrow and he would get his second. It was one helluva good feeling.

Back at Foxton, they did the de-briefing in the Headquarters hut. Casey’s kill was verified. In all, nine German planes were destroyed or disabled and not one Mustang was lost. Casey Cochran’s war had only begun to heat up.

Chapter 2

The early spring English countryside was as green as Eden, with drifts of yellow daffodils lifting their trumpets to the weak sun. The jeep passed picture book villages of brick houses with thatched roofs and smoke rising from their chimneys, quaint as postcards. England looked like every picture Casey had seen of it.

The five officers riding to Foxton Air Base, were replacements for pilots who were lost in battle. They had all been through flight training together, and had been chosen to fly out of Foxton that housed only the very best pilots.

Wade Burton was tall, slim and handsome. He looked like Robert Taylor, the movie star. He was twenty and from New England, and had a superior manner that made him hard to like. Casey had no quarrel with Wade Burton. He wished he had been born with good looks. It seemed that good-looking guys always got what they wanted. But then, good looks counted for nothing in the air when you’re being chased by a German plane. You could be Quasimodo. In the war movies, the fighter pilots were always rugged and handsome if American, and dashingly elegant if British, and war looked pretty. And they were dead wrong.

Doug Perrish was a California boy, twenty-one, and married, with a baby boy. Doug was a doting dad who loved to pull out a picture of his son, and never for a minute thought that the whole world didn’t want to see it. In anybody but Doug, it would have been annoying, but he was so proud of that boy, and everybody loved his kid as much as they liked Doug. Doug was always smiling. Casey thought he was the happiest person he had ever met. When he fell one day in training, climbing out of his plane, he smiled and said, I think I just broke my ankle. Likeable, everybody’s friend, sweet to the core, Doug didn’t look like he would hurt a fly let alone blast a German out of the sky. But he did.

Willson Stevens was quiet, easy going, and gently religious.  He was twenty and Mormon, and didn’t drink alcohol or coffee, or smoke. Willson was the first Mormon Casey ever met. He had heard that Mormons could have more than one wife. Two? One wife would have pussy-whipped Willson with one hand tied behind her back. What would he want with two? What would any man want with two?  

Patrick McCoy was the brainy one of the five. He was twenty, and read every free minute he had.  He tossed around names like Dostoyevsky, Voltaire, and Nietzsche, and nobody ever doubted that he had read their books. He was thin and dark with prominent ears and a pasty acned face. Patrick was Catholic, but didn’t pay much attention to the banned books by the Legion of Decency. He said he had never kissed a girl, and that he didn’t believe in Hell. After one clash of deadly planes high in the sky, maybe Doug would find Hell above the earth not under it.

Casey was the youngest at nineteen, just shy of his twentieth birthday. He wasn’t smart like Patrick, or handsome like Wade, and he sure as hell wasn’t religious like Willson. He had fooled around some with girls, but they were all silly and wanted you to tell them all the time that they were pretty even if they weren’t. But he did have guts. One thing that could be said for Casey Cochran was that he never ran away from a fight.

All of these men, like Casey, had started as kids in love with airplanes, then had developed a deep love for flying that ultimately propelled them into the skies in the cockpit of a plane, knowing that they were one of a select group of the best pilots in the world.

The road they traveled ran along the outer edge of Foxton, past the hardstands where the Mustangs were parked.

Hey guys, Perry said with excitement. P-51’s. Mustangs! Look!

Stop the jeep, Burt called, and the driver pulled to a stop just yards from the planes. "Damn they are beautiful!" Burt said. Will whistled a long low whistle. The Mustangs sat in a row like perched exotic birds resting in the sunlight. They were as beautiful and sexy as a sheik’s harem, and the five men sat gaping.

I could look at them forever, Perry said. Remember, guys, get a picture of me sitting in one of those babies.

Casey knew he could fly any plane they put him in, but it was in one of these sleek, powerful Mustangs, just waiting for him, where he would burn as bright as the fire of the gods on Olympus.

The driver started up and drove them the short distance to Foxton’s gate. Foxton was a small base compared to some of the others in England. There were sixteen pilots there, four flights of four pilots, and Foxton pilots were the cream of the crop.

The base was a cluster of Nissen huts, England’s equivalent of the Quonset hut, half circles of metal anchored to concrete bases, where the men ate, where they slept, and where they went to get medicine if they were sick, and condoms when a raunchy picture and a hand weren’t enough.

They presented their orders at Headquarters hut, then followed a sergeant to one of the huts where they would sleep. Inside, there were sixteen cots, eight lined up against each wall, with an aisle between, the heads against the wall and the feet facing the center aisle. There was a small iron stove in the center of the hut that looked like it couldn’t give off enough warmth to heat a closet, which probably accounted for the piles of wool blankets on each cot. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling. There was a window in the wall with the door, hung with heavy black drapes, pulled at night to shut out any light. It was possible that German planes might do a strafing run on Foxton. Even a small spot of light could signal their location.

Although the day was sunny, the Nissen hut was dark and cold with a dampness and a penetrating chill which never went away. The men began unloading their B-4 bags of clothing and personal belongings: photos, books, playing cards, cigarettes, and gum. Will brought a small portable radio to listen to Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller and the latest songs of Ginny Simms, Dinah Shore, and the Andrews Sisters. Casey had none of that. No radio, no chewing gum, no raunchy pocket novels. Just his basic necessary items and his Lucky Strikes.

That night he fell asleep to the sound of grunts, coughs and snores of the men who would be called upon to lay their lives on the line with each mission they flew, and who slept restlessly on narrow cots heaped with blankets, far away from home.

Chapter 3

Casey had detention again. The third time this month.