When We Were Young: Bombing Trilogy, #3

By Wesley Harden III

The final chapter in the Bombing Trilogy. The story of the air war over Germany. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wesley Harden III
• Release date: Oct 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9780988880610

Wesley Harden III

Wesley Harden III is a retired surgeon living in Northern Virginia with his wife, Debbie, and their two dogs, Milo and Odie.

Book preview

When We Were Young

a memoir by

Bedford Sullivan

PROLOGUE

Ilooked up at Hollis from the passageway. I could see he was struggling. Our eyes locked. Even behind the blood-spattered goggles, I could see his blood was up. If he took notice, my eyes probably reflected resignation. Or sadness. The bomber, conveying its dead, was in shambles, falling apart around us, emitting short tongues of flame, bouncing and rattling like a truck on a hundred miles of bad road.

I touched his leg as it jerked up and back on the rudder pedal and he pointed his index finger down. My signal to go.

Out I went. The force of the wind hitting me was unexpected. I was free of the infernal machine, dropping through space like a stone in a bottomless well. Other bombers surrounded me. When I cleared them, I pulled my ripcord. The force of the jolt stunned me.

Even though it was October, France looked surprisingly green.

As I drifted down, I could still smell the cordite in my mask.

My name is Nathan Bedford Forrest Sullivan, and, to the best of my recollection, this is what happened.

They call me Sully. I am the great-grandson of slave owners although I never admitted that to anyone. I graduated cum laude in English from the University of Virginia. I recently terminated my employment with the government of the United States of America. I was a bombardier.

I do not have a right leg. When I finish committing this memoir to paper, I think I shall kill myself as my hope and vitality were left behind with my limb.

John Hollis was the finest man I ever knew, but I did not like him. He was a moody, humorless introvert, critical and demanding. But he knew how to fly the plane and he took good care of us.

Bombing people from 5 miles up was a sterile, remote, industrial way of delivering death. Were it not for the fact they were trying to kill me as I was trying to kill them, it might have become routine. It was anything but.

Yet against a calculating and ruthlessly efficient tyranny, it was a noble purpose.

In my brief career hunched over the bombsight, I never thought I would get to see a place I had tried to ruin. When I saw the Nazi rocket factory we had tried to pulverize in Watten, I was disappointed.

BOOK ONE

Odyssey

CHAPTER 1

VIRGINIA

Igrew up in a cottage with my parents and three sisters, on the plantation owned and operated by great grandfather Wilcox Timor Sullivan. He was a very industrious man and oversaw a large tract of land near Front Royal. He farmed corn, acres and acres of the crop, and large forests, which he used to support a lumber mill. Two actually, but one burned down just before the Great War and was never rebuilt.

He owned slaves to run the place until he let them go in 1865. Most ran off to seek their fortunes. But two families stayed behind knowing they were better off staying where they were despite their emancipation.

I was born into the warrior tradition that dated back to the Civil War. While I despair their cause, slavery, one cannot dispute Rebel gallantry or sacrifice.

Wilcox Sullivan was a Confederate soldier. He served Braxton Bragg in the Army of Tennessee. At the Battle of Chattanooga, he was wounded and furloughed out for his convalescence. He returned to Front Royal and recovered, eventually marrying my great grandmother, Esther. Later, as a major, Wilcox returned to service with Dodson Ramseur’s Division, which drove the Union troops back in the Battle of Bethesda Church. Wounded again, this time near-fatally, he returned home a second time and never left. Promoted to colonel in anticipation of soldiering a third time, he was sitting in a rocking chair on his porch sucking on his pipe when word came of the surrender down the road at Appomattox; his fate in the lore of Northern Virginia sealed for all time.

The rocking chair held a sacred place in the mansion’s living room and no one was permitted to sit in it except on the anniversary of the Lee’s surrender when, for a moment, all the members of the clan, standing in a hierarchical line, took the opportunity to plant their ass on the seat to commemorate the ignominious defeat of the Confederate States of America. A tragic episode in history to be celebrated by all.

I often wondered what went through the mind of the Negro maid as she ran her feather duster over the rocker. Maybe, when no one was around, she sat on it and broke wind.

Everyone descended from the old man was named after a renowned Confederate hero or heroine. Perhaps, not surprisingly, my grandfather was named Thomas Jonathan Jackson Sullivan. My father was Robert E. Lee Sullivan. My older brother, who died shortly after birth, was named John Mosby Sullivan. I was named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a dashing, ruthless, cavalry hero in the South, a war criminal in the North. Fortunately for me, I could carry the nickname of Sully. I was never called by any other name. Should I decide against ending my life and find a woman willing to bear my off-spring, I shall break the tradition of naming my son after any Civil War participant, no matter the élan or circumstance of his fame. I find nothing redeeming in either the tradition or the cause. Although Beauregard has a certain ring to it. I have conjured a defense for my familial blasphemy should I need it. But my future is limited, and I will not likely require it.

Eventually, grandfather passed, and my family moved into the big house. It was also a hierarchical system. My aunts and an uncle either remained in their own cottages or moved out of the plantation, as in the case with one aunt and her husband, to Florida.

I petitioned my parents to let me continue to live at the cottage. I was a fiercely independent fourteen. After much discussion, they relented and, except for my extended travels to the University, abroad and with the Air Corps, I have called the cottage my home ever since. It is difficult to get around with only one intact leg and a Government Issue prosthesis, but it is manageable, and I have adjusted.

As I write this at my desk, I can look out over the fields. It is mid-winter and the mountains of the Shenandoah in the distance, the cathedral of my youth, now largely denuded of trees, wreathed in low, scudding, gray clouds, talk back to me. They mock me for they know I cannot climb or hunt or hike to my favorite trout stream or stroll through the hilltop pastures seeking inspiration or peace.

Wilcox Sullivan’s Colt Dragoon sits on the table patiently waiting beside my typewriter. All six chambers are loaded. But I will need only one round.

I had never been to England, but I had been to France. As an exchange student in the fall semester of my junior year, 1938, I went there to study the great masters of French Literature and Philosophy at the University of Paris. It was a tumultuous time. Irritatingly decadent. Bourgeois this, bourgeois that. After a time, it was like listening to screeching cats. Even at that late date, it did not dawn on them who Hitler was and what his plans were. They were so charming in their naiveté. In this avant garde bubble of self-important isolation no one even noticed; the Spanish Civil War and Guernica notwithstanding. Outrage was quite fashionable when required but, by morning, quickly dissipated.

It was in Paris, I learned about sex. Not the kind upon with which love is adorned, but the other kind. The raw, physical event.

Experiencing a country as a student is one thing. Encountering a country as a bombardier in an alien air force is quite another. Sitting in the back of that truck with nine other comrades-in- arms, the novelty of a foreign land was nullified by my fear that I would never see Virginia again: a recurring concern in my life.

High school was an interesting time for me. Most of my male friends pursued athletic endeavors. Baseball, football, basketball depending of the season and their sporting proclivities. I preferred the pursuit of more cerebral activities. The Debate Team and the Creative Writing Club. Student Council. Yearbook Committee.

Girls were an interesting distraction. The pretty ones dated the athletes. The really pretty ones dated the class officers who were also athletes.

Being thoughtful, reflective, and intellectual did not hold an attraction for them. My eventual girlfriend was Rebecca Towle. She was the daughter of the town’s druggist. She wanted to become a pediatrician. By the time the junior promenade came around I was surprised how attractive she had become. Long, shoulder-length auburn hair. A genuinely fetching smile.

The spring before graduation she finally became relaxed enough to allow serious petting. No penetration, but she clearly relaxing her moral code enough to allow me to take third base standing up. I did not like baseball and amused myself trying to think of another term for home plate. I came up with happy, very happy, very, very happy and ecstatic. We never reached ecstatic. Perhaps she thought if she rewarded me by surrendering her virginity, I would think her a tramp. Or worse, she would get pregnant and I would have to marry her, spoiling any opportunity to go to college, write the great American novel, and become the next Faulkner. Or Hemingway. Perhaps it was just as well, as her deflowering would be a Rubicon neither of us could uncross.

I came very close to crossing home plate on the night of our senior promenade. As if Fate had willed it, ecstasy was within our grasp but alas was not to be. Despite the stroking and kneading of various aroused body parts, the back seat of my Dad’s Ford was not to be christened. Or desecrated, depending on your point of view, despite the release of various bodily juices. The consumption of gin helped grease the skids, but neither of us was drunk enough to ignore our moral compass. The next morning, I was not sure if I was happy or disappointed. We stayed out on the porch on the big swing in our formal wear and watched the sun rise. I am sure we were both happy, though neither mentioned the close call. She kept her virtue and we both kept our dignity. To this day, I can still feel her hot breath on my neck as I worked her wet little marble between my thumb and fingers. Oh Sully, she gasped. Several times, as I recall.

In June 1936, we graduated from high school. Rebecca went to William and Mary and I went to Charlottesville and the University of Virginia. To my surprise, she kept in touch. We exchanged letters once or twice a month. I thought her interest would gradually wither but it did not. We saw each other on holidays. We dated though much of the passion we enjoyed in high school did not recur. I was disappointed but not surprised. Passion was replaced by a warm, sustained friendship. If this was to be the natural evolution of my relationships with women, I ruminated, I was in for a long haul.

I started to sow the seeds of my future career as a writer. I majored in English and minored in History with a special emphasis on the history of the South, particularly Virginia, a subject I came to realize was already saturated with prose, much of it romanticized to fit the narrative. It was about this conjunction of interests that I wrote a short treatise entitled Were Washington Alive in 1860. It was cleverly conceived and flawlessly executed. I published it in the Virginia Quarterly Review: reflecting the calm thought of the best men—who think through things and have some quality of expressing their thoughts in appealing and arresting fashion.

It was panned. I drew the conclusion that George Washington, the only Founding Father to emancipate his slaves (upon the event of his death, I might add), would have supported the Union cause and served with the Federal Army. Perhaps, I concluded, even commanding it.

I reasoned that George would be conflicted by the theory of state’s rights, the necessity for revolution against tyranny, a battle he knew better than anyone. The holy mission to protect the original experiment, these United States, paid for with the blood of patriots, was the only choice he could make and still preserve his honor. Honor, in those days, was paramount.

The paper was regarded as heresy. Virtually everyone who read it was surprised the VQR even published it. Perhaps they thought it a humor piece. A practical joke or word play.

It was my first encounter with reshaping history to suit a prejudice. It would not be my last. At least no one criticized the punctuation. Maybe that should have been enough.

I should have majored in History and minored in English. The words creator and critic both start out the same.

Upstart, one of them said. I was neither arresting nor appealing. To say my spirit was crushed is an understatement. Rejection can be so painful.

So, when the opportunity to leave for a semester in Paris was offered, I took it.

CHAPTER 2

LAST DAYS OF PEACE

In the several months I was away in Paris, the University of Virginia was transformed into a different place. The politics of war and peace were unavoidable. The campus was splintered by and into two factions separated by many people who were mainly very confused. On the one hand, was the group whose outrage at the horror in China and the brutal, Nazi reality that was Germany led them to advocate intervention by the United States preemptively, before things got any worse. We were, after all, the last great bastion of freedom and democracy on the planet. I told my fraternity brothers in bull sessions or over coffee in the student union or anyone who would listen that the opportunity to crush Nazism had long been lost. Just as Churchill said in 1919, The foul buffoonery of Bolshevism must be strangled in its cradle, the same could be said for Hitler and his beer hall rowdies.

The contravening opinion of the Isolationists felt this was none of our business; let the Europeans and the yellow races sort things out for themselves. No American blood should or would be spilled over two regional disputes, one Asiatic, the other European, conducted by people and in places few could even name.

I was ambivalent. I saw firsthand the complacency and confusion of the French. If they chose to ignore the signs of impending disaster who was I and, by extension we, to come to their aid with blood and treasure? We had done that twenty-two years earlier leaving deep scars in the land and millions of people dead. It settled nothing.

Nonetheless, I was deeply troubled by what was being done to the Chinese and the anti-Semitic tyranny of Hitler and his Nazi thugs. I felt if anyone could bring a halt to this madness it would be us. Who else was capable? Who had the tools? Who had the will? Apparently, not us.

My heart ached with indecision. My father, whose counsel I often sought, was no help. He was not an intellectual, yet I still valued his wisdom for the two qualities were not the same. He was as conflicted as I was; as everyone was. Finally, when pressed, he sided with the Isolationists saying with something less than conviction, that it was not our problem.

I always thought the nucleus of his thinking was that he had a son who would likely be among the first to go.

By spring of 1939, his position reversed. If not us, who? If not now, when?

As time passed, the signs grew more ominous. In March 1939, Hitler reneged on the Munich Agreement and the Nazis marched into Prague. The magnificent piece of diplomacy hammered out by Chamberlain and Daladier was erased by pique. I thought they were stupid and naïve to think they could negotiate with the Devil. There would be no peace in our time. In April, Mussolini invaded Albania and France grew more schizophrenic. The die was cast.

In August, we packed the car and drove down to Kill Devil Hills, not far from where the Wright Brothers had experimented with powered flight. My parents rented a cottage on the beach. My sisters played in the sand, fashioning castles with moats, racing construction schedules against a rising tide. We stayed for nearly two weeks. It was the last summer of peace. I lost myself in my reading and writing. I finally finished The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It had taken me years to complete. I spent hours on the beach on a canvas chair watching the surf and the gulls with nothing cluttering my brain but thoughts of Byzantium, Old Virginia, chivalry, sacrifice, and love. It would turn out to be the last, happy, unaffected summer of my life.

Edward Gibbon’s words still haunt me now: As long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters. History is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortune of mankind.

Shortly after we returned to the plantation, Hitler invaded Poland. The perverse infant in the cradle had grown into a monster.

When I returned to Charlottesville, the mood on campus had grown more serious and polarized. Some followed the daily progression of the war. Others successfully ignored the conflict, which, for the time being, appeared to be a struggle for territory in Poland and engagements between the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine. Poland, we were told, had been the aggressor. I didn’t believe that. I am not sure who did. Maybe the war might not amount to anything. It was easy to become complacent, even apathetic to the violence oceans away. I was uncertain what consolidation of Germanic tribes really meant.

And there were a few who were noticeable by their absence. They joined the service so they could make an active choice of their destiny instead of waiting for chance or conscription to do it for them. With some college education, the likelihood they would become officers was quite high. A better fate than that of a doughboy or ordinary seaman. That was my thinking.

My father got a big contract for his high-quality timber to be used for battleship and carrier decks; probably for export, he said. He hired more people, mostly Coloreds, for logging, and soon the mill was humming in two shifts. The corn could not be grown fast enough.

I threw myself into the Virginia Quarterly Review and wrote a regular column for the campus newspaper, the Cavalier. Mostly opinion pieces. I followed the developments in the war. Christmas, 1939, was particularly poignant for me as I felt this would be the last one we might all celebrate together.

On May 10, the Wehrmacht blitzkrieged into France ending the ‘Phony War.’

Shortly before graduation, my parents came to me with an offering, a choice I did not expect. They knew of my love of writing and my desire to become an author of great works. They also knew I wanted to stay in the cottage unencumbered by the need to earn a living. Perhaps they figured if I stayed low, out of sight, the Draft Board would take no notice.

The deal, which I found eminently reasonable, was that I could spend the year in the cottage writing and they would continue to support me. I could do some nominal activity, such as bookkeeping for the mills but would not draw a check.

Their real motive, I think, was to keep me from getting some wild idea about volunteering for the paratroopers or Marines. It worked. But they did not know, nor did I tell them, that I had no desire to become an active participant in any conflict anywhere short of Front Royal.

That did not stop me from following the news. France and the Benelux countries were rolled up and Britain routed off the Continent. I saw the newsreel of the German soldiers arrogantly marching down the Champs Elysees and the huge Nazi banner unfurled beneath the Arc de Triumph above the very spot I had stood not two years earlier. The summer brought the bombings and great aerial battles over Britain. At any moment, the Germans would invade England and all of Europe would fall into another Dark Age that would last a thousand years. It was hard to imagine. If the Brits were smart, I thought, they should call a truce and make the best deal they could with Hitler before it was too late.

Roosevelt gave material support and encouragement but little else. I feared it would be too little too late. Few in this country had the stomach for intervention.

Then, as England clung to life, the Congress of the United States passed the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. This was the first peacetime draft in American history. It required all males between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five to register for Selective Service. Inductees had to serve twelve months in the Army; just long enough to get the hang of it before mustering out.

So, in compliance with the law, I went down to the Front Royal post office and signed the necessary forms. It was then I realized I was a pacifist. I had no penchant for war. Especially combat. I amused myself with the thought that I was a chicken and intellectually superior to those ranks required to do the fighting. It was ignoble to concede oneself to be yellow, but it did make the choices easier. Screw the Southern tradition of derring-do for a lost cause.

December, FDR declared the U.S. to be the Arsenal of Democracy. Lofty words, I thought. Sometimes it was difficult to push back cynicism.

Then, as 1941 matured, the situation stabilized. Against all odds, England held on and, for the moment, disaster had been averted. I thought summer was good invasion season. But the Nazis hesitated. Meanwhile, conscription was extended to eighteen months.

I worked hard on a series of short stories with the theme of romance denied, but I had not gotten anything published. It was an omen. In April, I received my draft notice and had to report for induction. It was painful, tragic, to contemplate that my Bohemian life had come to an end. I did not have enough self-respect to declare myself a conscientious objector for, in doing so, I would declare my hide special and above the ordinary rank and file who would defend freedom and the way of life we so comfortably took for granted. I did not think myself a coward. But I also knew I would never be able to look into the eye of someone who had taken my place and suffered for it. Still, this sense of nobility was not foreign to me, disguised in great tales of Confederate valor and sacrifice in the face of a blizzard of Federal musketry.

Standing in line, a mere towel wrapped around me to shield my privates from prying eyes, eventually it was my turn. My imagination had me bringing down a tank single-handed, drowning in a flaming, oil-covered sea or falling from a fiery, disintegrating aeroplane as it hurtled downward to rejoin Earth. I broke out in a sweat. I felt ill. I wondered if those around me might notice. Or care. Fucking college kid.

I stepped behind a curtain, a feeble concession to modesty, and stood in front of the doctor. He made me drop the towel and proceeded to shove a finger, which felt as big as a rolling pin, up my testicle telling me to turn my head in the opposite direction and cough. Turn my head the other way and cough again as the rolling pin impaled my other nut. Satisfied, he took my penis in his hands with the same detachment and roughness a mason might display examining the next brick. He had me pull back my foreskin and swiveled my retracted little member one way then the other. No trace of VD. He inspected my eyes, and ears, felt my neck, and listened to my heart, no doubt seeing if he could find one. He had me cough again. He poked my belly as if he were looking for some trace of backbone and then, making me stand up, pushed back his stool staring down at my feet.

Okay, he murmured. I see.

See what?

That.

I don’t understand. I thought maybe the crack of my ass was not truly vertical.

You have flat feet.

The implication was lost on me.

He snatched the clipboard from my hand, scribbled something totally illegible, and told me to precede to the last station in the line. I did as I was told and stood behind three other guys, also discretely covered with towels. They each in turn stepped up to the clerk and were told to get dressed and go home

When they told me the same thing, I asked what this meant.

Flat feet. You can’t be in the Army with flat feet.

Deliverance. Even though they didn’t look flat to me. I climbed all over the Shenandoah Valley with these feet, how much harder could a jungle be?

I returned home with mixed emotions, conflicted by the fact that I had been found defective, but happy I would not be storming some God-forsaken beach. I wondered how many members of the Army of Northern Virginia had marched to Chancellorsville on feet that were flat.

As April turned to May, the war news was mixed. Throughout the winter and spring England had been hammered by bombing raids. Casualties were high and the destruction significant. But, the Royal Air Force gave back in kind. If they kept this up the United Kingdom would not succumb. I was no military genius, but I knew the opportunity for the Germans to invade England had been lost.

On May 21, the U.S. freighter Robin Moor was sunk by a Nazi sub. The country was shocked. Our neutrality had been violated. FDR was sufficiently outraged to declare a national, unlimited state of emergency. I am not sure what that meant. I was slightly bemused at the charade of our neutrality as we had been openly assisting the Brits with Lend-Lease for months if not surreptitiously for years. It all seemed a fait accompli as Roosevelt had announced that one could not reason with incendiary bombs. It was the moral, if not entirely legal, thing to do. No one should have been surprised when torpedoes punctured the little merchantman.

Then, a few days later, Hitler, in a fleeting, conspicuous moment of insanity, attacked the Soviet Union. England was saved. Once and for all. It was, by all accounts, a cataclysmic, if illogical and strategically stupid, turn of events yet entirely within character.

Everyone who understood the implication was jubilant. They saw it for what it was: a catastrophic blunder. They said for Germany the war was lost. The Germans wanted to turn Russia into something akin to the British Raj. Limitless resources, natural and human. Most said it was a political decision, the antithesis of National Socialism was communism. I never quite understood that. It was really about race and resources.

In the beginning, I did not share the view that Russia, its vastness geographically and ruthlessness politically, would prevail. The centralized government could be quickly decapitated, and the masses subdued by uncompromising brutality. Bonaparte had tried it and failed although, I do not think Napoleon was as indiscriminately murderous. The Russian winter would be the great neutralizer. I was glad it was the Russians and not us. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Summer progressed into a sultry August that was punctuated with violent thunderstorms and the Atlantic Charter, which codified once and for all our allegiance to the British.

In September, the U.S.S. Greer, a destroyer on convoy duty in the North Atlantic, belonging to a neutral nation flying a neutral flag, was fired on by a Nazi submarine. It was only a matter of time before a stupid act, a mistake or brazen demonstration and the US would be drawn into the European war.

I reached the point where I withdrew and chose to remain ignorant of evolving history. I had flat feet. What did it matter to me anyway?

On Halloween, a U-boat sent the U.S. destroyer Reuben James to the bottom. A hundred sailors were blown to pieces or drowned. War was unavoidable. It would be a matter of months. Perhaps weeks. Maybe no more than a few days.

CHAPTER 3

WAR

Ifinished a couple short stories and a few poems as the leaves fell from the trees outside my window. I could not tell you the titles now, but I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first heard Japanese bombs had detonated on Pearl Harbor. People ran to retrieve dusty atlases to figure out where the hell Pearl Harbor was. I wasn’t exactly sure either.

The outrage and outrage at the ‘dastardly and unprovoked attack’ on a territory of the United States and the destruction of the greater part of its Pacific fleet was electric, sending flocks of American men to stand impatiently in long lines outside recruiting offices across the country as if in panic that, if they did not act immediately, they would be left behind and somehow lose the opportunity for revenge. I was one of them.

I showed up at the one in Front Royal insisting that I become a soldier. I did not mention my flat feet and they did not ask. The recruiter suggested, as a college graduate who didn’t wear glasses, that I might be interested in becoming an officer and would I consider Aviation Cadets? I said I would. I was told to go home, and I should hear from them soon; a medical exam and aptitude testing would be scheduled shortly.

After nearly a month, the notification came. I was to report to the National Guard Armory in Winchester. When the day arrived, I was placed in a room with a dozen others and given a battery of tests. Since they were geared toward the lowest acceptable common denominator of intellect, I figured I had passed with flying colors. My fear was the medical exam. Again, I passed without defect or notice of my arch-less feet. Apparently, that did not disqualify potential aviators.

At the end of the day, I was handed another notice saying I would be contacted, wondering why I had so impulsively volunteered for the Air Corps. I had never flown in a plane before.

As bad news followed bad news, I expected to be called any minute. Again, it was a month.

I pushed Wilcox Sullivan’s Colt Dragoon to one side, swung myself out of the chair, and mounted the crutches. I had become rather facile and dexterous in their use. The Government Issue lower leg prosthesis was cumbersome and painful. It hinged at the ankle, which took some getting used to. My stump had not yet grown accustomed to the contours of the socket. Besides, my leg ached and felt as if my foot was still attached. In an unguarded moment, the sensation made the desire to stand on my absent leg irresistible and I would fall. I had come to suspect there was an influence of barometric pressure on my stump as it began to predict the weather.

The afternoon is beautiful but gray clouds are drifting in. The air is cold and crisp, so I went for a walk. I struggled to climb my favorite hill. I enjoyed the view; it is as I remembered despite the large bald patches where the timber has been harvested. I can see my breath and the air was heavy with the potential for snow. The stump knows.

It was March when I finally got a certified letter from the War Department to report to an induction center in Nashville. The sense of urgency I expected about the war was lacking, especially considering the dramatic defeats the Army and Navy had suffered. The Japs had summarily thrown us off numerous islands in the Pacific and MacArthur’s Army was being rolled up and trounced in the Philippines. The General managed to escape along with his wife, son and entourage on PT boats in the dead of night. The daring escape struck me as cowardly even though it was hailed as an extraordinarily heroic event. (The country was desperate for heroes anywhere it could find them. Were it up to me, I might have picked someone else.) I could not imagine how the doughboys on Bataan felt watching him motor over the horizon in those little speed boats. His defense of the Philippines was a disgrace. Those he left behind would be summarily shot, bayoneted or starved. As I sit here typing, I think we might have been better served if the General had been martyred alongside his troops. But ego and desperation would not allow it.

I began to wonder if the Jap hoards could be defeated. They seemed invincible, having perfected the art of killing on millions of Chinese. It would not be long before they invaded the West Coast. It was hard for me to separate reality from hyperbole. I am sure that was true for a lot of people.

So, I packed a large valise with a change of clothes, fresh underwear and socks along with a few personal items and a couple books. My folks took me to the train station.

Mom gave me a peck on the cheek and I exchanged a hardy handshake with my Dad. He said, Make us proud, son, or something to that effect. I think he was disappointed the Army had disbanded the cavalry in favor of gasoline-powered tanks. No more opportunity for the rush and glory of a magnificent cavalry charge against insurmountable odds tearing through the woods covered with our glory. I figured he was joking, but the further I got away from Front Royal, the more I understood what he meant. Although he seemed wistful, circumstances didn’t seem to conspire in his mind that I might not come back. It was as if I was off to college or catching a boat to France.

Before I left, I tried hard to contact Rebecca Towle but she was nowhere to be found. I left a note with her folks. They promised to pass it on. I don’t think they liked me.

For March, it was cooler than I thought it would be when we detrained at the station in Nashville. There was a sergeant in olive drab waiting for us. He held a clipboard and directed us to a small group of other candidates who looked cold, tired, and uncertain. They had suitcases of various shapes and sizes at their feet and hands deeply placed into their pockets for warmth.

Finally, we were all collected into buses and taken to a hotel where we were put up two to a room. Ostensibly, we were still civilians but that didn’t stop the few officers and enlisted men from barking at us as if we were buck privates. Perhaps they were getting us ready for what lay ahead.

The next morning, we were again divided into groups; one had their turn at the physical exams while my group sat all day in a makeshift classroom to take the written aptitude tests. Again, I found them unchallenging, although this time there was more emphasis on mechanics, mathematics, and science. Synonyms, antonyms, which way was the final wheel turning in a series of ten, interlocking gears? If train ‘A’ left one station and traveled to the next at fifty miles per hour and train ‘B’ left the same station and headed at the next station at twenty-five miles an hour, how much longer would it take train ‘B’ to get there? The question would have been more challenging had they asked what was on the menu in the club car or the color of the conductor’s hair.

I was left with the impression that the hill of mental acumen required to become an officer and pilot was not very steep. I looked around and wondered how many of these yokels had been to the Sorbonne? No, the real issue was how many of these guys would drive his plane into the maw of a flaming, ack-ack-filled sky and refuse to deny the target? Or how many would grab his rifle and charge a machine gun nest with no hope of survival because his friends were dying all around him? Where was that question settled on an aptitude test? Or by mashing on my testicle to detect a hernia?

My imagination, not for the first time in my life, humbled me.

I looked at their faces, hunched over their papers, locked in analysis, and wondered who among us would dive his pursuit ship into a dozen Zeroes and not give consequence a second thought? Facing imminent, certain ghastly death? Against this, knowing which direction the last gear was turning seemed inconsequential.

I started at the beginning making sure I had answered each question correctly.

I had never participated in any kind of competitive athletics. I was an excellent shot with both pistol and rifle and fierce with a fly rod. Nonetheless, the physical aptitude tests were no problem for me. I could balance on one leg and close my eyes and touch my nose with each index finger. I could pat my head with one hand and rub my tummy in an opposite, circular motion with the other. I could line up two posts on parallel rails using two tethers until they were side by side as many times as they asked. My vision was perfect. Twenty/twenty without astigmatism or a hint of color blindness.

The next morning, those that remained were assembled in formation in a hall and, as our names were called out, we were given orders. For some, they were orders to return home and a train ticket to do so. They were told the Army would be in touch with them. The others were given orders to head to Aviation Cadet training. I was one of them. I was given a contract which stated that, if I successfully completed all phases of training, I would be commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army.

CHAPTER 4

PREPARATION FOR WAR

The start of my career as a bombardier, (not my original choice, we all wanted to be pilots; I never saw anyone who wanted to be anything else) began on a cold, rainy day at Maxwell Field in Birmingham, Alabama.

I, along with hundreds of other men, organized into squadrons and were housed in drafty wooden barracks, humiliated and endlessly harassed by people we all considered our inferiors. We were abused physically with calisthenics, running, and endless marching. We were told when to speak, when to sleep, when to write home. Their goal was a simple one: tear us down, make permanent our divorce from civilian life and turn us into officers, gentlemen and aviators. It was an exercise in natural selection. It worked. The Air Corps wanted only the best and their standard was very high. Those who could not meet that arbitrary standard were removed, sent to the regular army.

It was at Cadet training that I experienced the greatest thrill and the most devastating disappointment of my life.

One warm, sunny morning, we were taken to the flight line and introduced to the miracle of flight. One by one off we went on a twenty-minute orientation flight in the open front seat of a primary trainer, a PT-19. The instructor sat in the seat behind us. We felt like aviators the instant we put on the helmet and goggles and strapped on the parachute.

I had never flown in an airplane before. It was the most exhilarating experience of my life. We flew above the clouds. We did some aerobatics. I was in love with flying. Virtually everyone else was, too. Even the several who puked their brains out mid-barrel roll.

Two days later, many weeks into our primary training, the squadron was told to fall in before supper. No one quite understood what was up as everything had been going well for those of us who remained.

The captain ordered us to count off every fourth man who was then to step forward. I had a bad feeling as I was one of the ones who stepped forward. Those still in the original line were dismissed, dutifully returning to the barracks no doubt relieved at having dodged something untoward. Those of us left standing were paralyzed with dread. These many men were not required just to police cigarette butts.

Those of us remaining were ordered to fall into a smaller formation according to height. We shuffled around until we were in proper

The next morning, we were marched off as a group to breakfast after roll was taken. We then marched back to pack while the ‘pilots’ went off to class. When we were done, we fell out into formation, crestfallen, with orders for our next assignment. descending order. I noticed the tallest to the shortest comprised about a foot in elevation.

Ok. Now count off by number. We did starting with number one and ending with number twenty-seven. I was odd.

I was very worried.

Ordering us to break formation, he pointed in one direction and said, Odds over here, evens over there.

All you, he continued, who are odd will be going to bombardier training. The evens are going to navigator school.

This news was greeted by a flood of groans and curses. We select few had just been fucked over.

Give your name and serial number to the corporal and be packed by 0700 tomorrow morning for orders. Anybody who fails to report will be dismissed from the Cadets and sent to infantry training. Or MPs. Whoever has an opening. Dismissed.

Whoever has an opening? Jesus Christ, twenty-three hearts had been broken as easily as if they were choosing up sides for a touch-football game.

We returned to the barracks, despondent, dreams dashed. Being washed out for cause was one thing. Selected by fiat was another. Some vowed to protest. But to whom and say what? We had seen our first evidence of the capriciousness and inequity of war. We could not yet and may never know how our fates had taken a pivotal turn.

The next morning, we were marched off as a group to breakfast after roll was taken. We then marched back and packed while the ‘pilots’ went off to class. When we were done, we fell out into formation, all our earthly possessions in duffle bags at our feet, crestfallen, with orders for our next assignment. In my case, it was to become a bombardier.

I spent the next eighteen weeks training to be a proper bombardier. Knowing this would be my role in the war, I dedicated myself to becoming the best bombardier I could. The first six weeks were spent at Tyndall Field in the Florida panhandle learning how to defend my bomber using machine guns mounted in the nose. It was important, we were told, because until the bomber was over the target I was just another gunner. Facile in pistols, rifles and shot guns, the whole exercise came easy to me. I found it odd that Kentucky Windage was not a natural skill in most of my classmates.

Then I was transferred to the bombardier school at Midland, Texas. There, in twelve weeks, I obtained the skills necessary to place a bomb in a pickle barrel from five miles up. All of this was done during a time when, except for the Philippines, the Doolittle Raid and off Midway, as far as I knew, not a single bomb had fallen from an American bomber anywhere in the world.

Did I think I could protect my aircraft and my crew from fanatical, marauding enemy fighters? No.

Did I think I could successfully aim a bomb from a bomber at twenty to thirty thousand feet above earth, in paralyzing cold, scared shitless with a mask pressed to my face so I could breathe, hunched over the vaunted, highly-secret Norden bombsight in a bomber being tossed around the sky by turbulence and evasive action, over a target obscured by smoke and cloud, in a sky filled with great, roiling clouds of deadly flak, under constant attack by enemy fighters with near-suicidal purpose?

No, I did not.

Precision bombing was an oxymoron. In combat, it was about as precise as a Ouija board. Anyone arguing otherwise was delusional.

I was pinned a second lieutenant and fully qualified bombardier in the Air Force of the United States of America and sent off to my fate.

I went home on a brief, two-week furlough and then sent to my new assignment.

Of course, the war continued around the world unabated. Before leaving Bombardier U, we had excellent news that Flying Fortresses out of England had bombed a rail yard in Rouen, France. It was the first All-American bombing mission for the fledgling Eighth Army Air Force. We all took this as a milestone that outweighed any tactical result.

Elsewhere, the war was not going so well. Repeated efforts by the Japanese to push the Marines off Guadalcanal had thus far been thwarted. There were several major naval engagements in the waters surrounding the Solomon Islands with considerable loss to our Navy. Elsewhere, U-boats continued to sink prodigious quantities of Allied shipping; the Russians were reeling, having been driven back to Stalingrad and there seemed no hope they could stop the Wehrmacht from reaching the Pacific. The Secretary of Agriculture announced the high likelihood of meat rationing, raising the specter of one meatless day a week. I had no doubt this would foster a new and great interest on the part of my father in animal husbandry. He always took the position that growing trees and corn was easier than growing livestock. Knowing my father, he was reconsidering his position.

Before departing Midland, we were all given our orders. I figured with my good showing in the skills of bombardiering, I would be headed to a bomber squadron in England or the South Pacific. My disappointment could not be measured. I was ordered to report to an anti-submarine squadron at Geiger Field, near Spokane, Washington.

On October 1, 1942, I arrived in Leesburg, Virginia. Then took a bus to Front Royal.

CHAPTER 5

HOMEFRONT

Iwas happy to be home after six months away. The world had changed while I was gone. And so had Front Royal. The ordinary, tree-lined, sleepy, little Virginia town had become festooned with patriotic posters and taped notices in store windows letting shoppers know what rationed goods they were out of.

The homestead had been transformed as well. Not only were the leaves changing, but the place was far busier than I could ever recall. Mother started hoarding soap and sugar. Because of his war work, Dad had an ‘A’ gas ration card. My father was more preoccupied with the various activities on the plantation than I had ever seen him. One of his lead foremen had been put into uniform and Dad had to pick up the slack. Everyone had become intensely patriotic because of the zeal generated by propaganda but also because of simple economics. Further, since I was on active duty and as a sign of respect my mother hung a blue star in the window.

When I arrived home, Mom was off collecting animal fats. It was needed, Mom later explained, to extract glycerin for the manufacture of explosives. Each morning she went and did their patriotic duty as defined by public discourse, newspapers and Democrats. I was greeted by all as if I had spent a year in bloody combat. They made a big fuss and we went around town with me in my second lieutenant’s uniform, so they could show me off like some prized bull. In an earlier time, I would have been embarrassed by the exuberance. Now I was an officer and qualified bombardier in the Army Air Force and I enjoyed the attention even if I had not yet dropped a bomb on hostiles.

It was good to be in civilian clothes again yet strangely awkward. One morning, I took the rifle and traipsed through the woods to see if I could hit something other than a bombing range pylon or sheet mounted on an unmanned jeep. I did okay. I hit a couple fat squirrels and took them home to be skinned and fried

I read the paper and sat by the fire talking with my dad. He pulled out a bottle of bourbon and we drank most of the evening. For a man with limited formal education, he was astute. He read the papers and listened to the radio every evening. Dad attended the University of Richmond for three semesters but, he found the experience tedious and unenlightening. He returned to the plantation where hard work made him happy.

How do you think the war is going? he asked as if I was in the Joint Chief’s inner circle.

Okay, I guess. You might know better than I.

I thought the balance was tipping in our favor even though I had a limited basis for saying so. I explained that, for the Japs, expansion was blunted at Coral Sea and halted at Midway. As brave and spectacular as the Doolittle Raid was, the Japs likely viewed it as an aberration, a stunt, that they’d take great pains not to see repeated. The Japs, I believed, knew they were doomed when the Marines landed on Guadalcanal, took it—and, so far—kept it.

Things were different with the Nazis. I expected the Soviets to fall in defeat. There is no moral basis for their way of life. No abiding thread of history. Nothing to defend. The Soviet Union was built on the blood of its own people, many tribes forced under one flag, and their economics were faulty. They were corrupt, agnostic, and unprincipled. For that matter, the same could be said for the Nazis. A clash of ugly, pathologically amoral, ideologically-driven giants. A clash to the death, I added. Like two scorpions in a jar. It was hard to know who to root for.

Anyway, it looks like Britain was going to be okay with our support. The Nazis blew their chance. American bombers were dropping bombs on Nazi targets in Occupied France. Soon they would be pounding Germany proper from an unsinkable aircraft carrier. I smiled. They tell us the Air Corps will win the war.

By 2 am, the bourbon was gone, and we had exhausted the affairs of the world and the conduct of the war.

I tried to track down Rebecca Towle, but she was still away at medical school. Her parents chatted with me briefly and suggested I should write her.

I went hunting again and bagged a doe. I pulled the carcass out of the woods and took it to the barn to be butchered. Mother loves venison.

I spent time alone in the cottage. I read and wrote some things in a diary. They told us early on not to keep diaries. I never saw the logic behind that. We were young. There were things we would want to recollect when we grew old. Things we wanted to tell our grandchildren.

At the end of my two-week furlough, I kissed Mom and Dad goodbye and left.

I boarded the Chesapeake and Ohio from Winchester before noon with doubts that I would ever see Virginia again. I was instantly overtaken by melancholia.

The train pulled into Chicago Grand Central Station a little after lunch. My next train did not depart for eight hours.

I stepped out onto the street and there must have been a strong wind off the lake because I nearly lost my hat into the wet, filthy gutter. I turned east on Harrison Street toward Lake Michigan. Passing some shops, I noted patriotic placards in windows, storefronts festooned with American flags, ads for Victory Red lipstick manufactured by Elizabeth Arden and notices imploring people to save waste fats. Store windows displayed signs reading Remember Pearl Harbor! with an eager, handsome, bare-chested sailor manhandling another shell into the breach of a naval gun. Others with soldiers marching in compact ranks for as far as the eye could see behind a billowing American flag that seemed too big to be held by a single man. I noticed there were no signs saying, Remember Poland! or Remember Nanking!

I walked past a bookstore that looked old enough to date back to Gutenberg. I stepped inside. It smelled of old musty bindings with books on shelves to the ceiling and stacks of volumes that looked as if they hadn’t been moved since Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus was a best seller. It was magnificent; a bibliophile’s heaven.

When the bell rang announcing my entrance, a thin, be-spectacled old head popped up above a stack of boxes like a prairie dog out of a burrow. The man, I assumed the proprietor, smiled and asked, Good afternoon, young man. How can I help you?

Well, sir. I’m heading west and looking for something to read on the journey.

We specialize in old editions, son. Out of print. But we have a few recent selections as well. Anything in particular?

No, but I’m open to suggestions.

He stepped from behind the boxes. Officer, I see.

Yes sir. Air Corps.

Well, come on in. We’ll have a look.

I walked further into the store and recognized the names of books on the shelves, although it was dusty and poorly lit. Curiously, there was no order to them. No Dewey Decimal System here. Pure random assignment to a place on a shelf. I tried to figure out if they were cataloged alphabetically by title or author. It was impossible. I was certain this old man could find in an instant.

Any suggestions? I asked.

Well, what are you interested in, son?

Not really sure, sir. I’m a writer by profession. I have yet to publish anything of note but it’s early.

A writer, yes. Hmm. I think I have something you might like.

He reached behind his desk and pulled out a book handing it to me.

"The Hobbit," I said aloud.

Yes, a very interesting book. A mystical land in Middle Earth with wizards and dragons and reluctant heroes.

Sounds like the Air Corps.

I bet you’d like it. It’s a first edition.

I’ll take your word for it. How much?

Before we talk about price, I was about to make some tea. Would you care to join me?

I would.

He ushered me to the back where he had a hot plate, a kettle and several cups and saucers. He carefully poured some hot water over tea leaves in a small strainer filling each cup in turn.

Here, Lieutenant.

I took the steaming cup and waited for him. He toasted me and to my success. I sipped the hot liquid and burnt my tongue. It was good tea once I got past the scalding. He asked me where I was headed and I told him I could not say but it was out west to a bomber squadron. I am a bombardier.

He asked me how I thought the war was going, a universal question to anyone in uniform, as if I had daily chats with the General Marshall. I told him we were winning even though, at this point, it might be difficult to discern.

He nodded. He asked me where I went to school, and I recounted my biography. I would not have been so forthcoming about my past, but he seemed genuinely interested and questioned me about my choices. Interrogating a perfect stranger, I might have been the only person in his store all week.

After another cup of tea and conversation, an intensely enjoyable hour had passed, and I was hungry. I told him I needed to get back to the train soon even though this was a lie.

"So, about The Hobbit. How much do I owe you?"

It’s a first edition. It would go for fifty dollars, but you can have it.

He handed it to me again and I took it.

I don’t have fifty bucks.

No, son. You can have it. I want you to take it.

I can’t take this.

Yes, you can. I insist.

I turned the book over and looked at it. opening it to the title page.

I thank you, sir.

You are welcome. And lucky.

How so?

To make up for it, the next copy will go for one hundred dollars. Generosity in time of war knows no bounds.

I smiled and thanked him. I shook his hand, turned and left. As I passed through the door and, in synchrony with the bell, waved. He waved back.

I leaned into the wind, continuing down the street for a place to grab a sandwich.

After walking a block or two, I turned north and came upon a cafeteria. I sat down with a roast beef sandwich, a bowl of corn chowder and coffee. I started reading.

To my surprise, an attractive woman asked if she would mind if I shared my booth with her. Of course, I replied. I noted there were plenty of empty tables.

She sat down placing her food on the table. I smiled politely. She smiled politely. Finally, when we finished eating in silence, at times snatching glances at each other over our meals, she asked me how long I would be in town and would I be interested in a brief date.

A whore. I knew it.

I briefly thought about saying yes. Her full, Victory-red lips were very inviting. Her smile seductively demure. She had green eyes. I figured by the time I showed up at Geiger Field I would have a roaring dose of the clap or great hordes of crabs sneaking around my crotch like a battalion of Japs through the jungle. They had gone to great pains to warn us about the scourge of venereal disease—flies breed disease, keep yours shut—enough to make me decline her offer. I smiled. She winked and left. There were sailors around. The Great Lakes Navy boot camp was close by. I suspected she should have plenty of targets of opportunity.

The wind picked up and it looked as if it might snow. October in Chicago.

I headed east toward Lake Michigan. I had never seen a Great Lake before and I didn’t want to come all this way and not at least set eyes on one. Who knew when I would get back this way?

I walked down to the shore line through a park and reached a curb which looked down over some rocks upon which the water lapped roughly, yielding spray in various directions. The stiff breeze was whipped up whitecaps. I could see Navy Pier in the distance. I did not see any naval vessels moored there