Bombing: Bombing Trilogy, #1

By Wesley Harden III

The saga of John Hollis, a reluctant warrior in the dangerous skies over Germany

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wesley Harden III
• Release date: Oct 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781453842881

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

Bombing

The Business of Killing

The Weak and The Strong

Prologue  Passage

Thursday, January 27, 1983

He awoke from a fitful sleep.  For weeks his bloated, ascitic belly had compromised his breathing and he could sleep only when sitting in a chair.  But tonight was different, he felt well enough to try sleeping in bed next to his wife.  Propped on three pillows, he chatted with her in the dark until she fell asleep.  Soon he dozed, too.

An hour or so later, he awakened and struggled to his feet, trying hard not to disturb his sleeping wife.  He slipped into his bathrobe.  It hung loose on his cancer-ridden body.  He could not resist an ironic reflection that the long, painful course of radiation treatments and chemotherapy had prolonged his life sufficiently to allow him to slowly suffocate.  He looked down at his beloved and long-suffering wife, studied the gentle rise and fall of her chest.  Holding the headboard for balance, he leaned over and, saying goodbye, kissed her cheek.

He went to the kitchen for a can of beer.  He took great delight in the knowledge that this would have given his oncologist apoplexy.  He thought the doctor was, deep down, a reasonable man and would understand.  Sipping the drink, he went to the front door and stepped outside.  It was bitterly cold and the night was as still, dark and clear as any he had ever seen, yet his state of mind made him impervious to the cold.  His breath made large clouds of steam which evaporated slowly into nothingness.  A fresh snow had fallen that afternoon making the scene peaceful and idyllic.  He recalled the neighbor kids digging out his sidewalk that afternoon and smiled. He looked up at the stars, spotting Orion, the Hunter.  It was his favorite constellation.  How many times in his life had he gazed intently at those particular stars?  He thanked God for this night.  It was how he wished to remember earth in his last moments.

He returned to the house and went to his study.  In a room crammed with pictures, mementos, medals and books on shelves from floor to ceiling he sought out a single, small, faded snapshot resting in a plain black frame.  The photograph was of a group of ten men kneeling and standing beneath the nose of an old army bomber.  Each man had long ago scribbled his name beneath his face.  All ten men grinned widely.  It was the grin of camaraderie, youth and innocence.  They were the finest; the very best America had to offer.  Ten stories, ten paths converging on one instant in time caught forever in a faded black and white photograph.  If America and democracy needed defending, it was fitting that these ten should be among the ones chosen to defend them.

He held it in his hand while he looked at the other pictures on the wall.  They were of his four daughters, their husbands and his grandchildren.  He sat on a leather couch and carefully placed the photograph on the coffee table.  He got up and went to a cupboard and pulled out an old wooden ammo box filled with brittle, ancient 78 rpm phonograph records.  The box was heavy and it took nearly all of his remaining energy to move it.  He carefully placed the box beside the photograph and returned to the couch.  He picked up the picture, studying every face in the soft light.  He knew every name without reading the signature.  He had pictures of their children and grandchildren on his wall, too.

He struggled back to his feet and returned to the wall and took down a recent picture of the same pose in front of a shiny, restored Flying Fortress in a museum.  It had been their last reunion before he had gotten sick.  Some spaces in the pose were missing, left empty by passage.  They grinned broadly as before, now silver-haired, heavier and bespectacled.  One was in a wheelchair.  His smile was a little feeble, but no less genuine. 

He sipped his beer and looked at the pictures for a long time.  His mind brimmed with thoughts and emotion.  He studied the outline of the old B-17, sleek and dark, beautiful and sinister; the new one pristine, and cleansed innocent by restoration and fading remembrance.

Revisionists with selective memories, he knew, would have him wear the mantle of an unrepentant destroyer, the murderer of innocent women and children, totally devoid of morality, particular in the abject brutality of his method.  He rejected this.  He did the job he had been asked to do in good faith, choosing instead to leave the morality questions to the collective wisdom of a higher authority.  Maybe it hadn't been a good war, but it had been a righteous one.  If he had been required to do penance, he had done none.  If he should feel guilt or remorse, he was unmoved.  He smiled to himself.  It was too late anyway.  Judgment was a few breaths away.

Finally, he laid back and rested the older photograph on his chest.  Contented with a life well-lived, he closed his eyes and fell asleep, sure in the knowledge that the grass in Europe grows especially green over the bodies of the missing and dead airmen who were his friends.  No one was there to mark the last beats of his proud, tired heart as he left this earth to join them.

Killing the Cow

Wednesday, June 3, 1942

The instructor stood still and erect, perfect in his military bearing.  He might have been a model on a recruiting poster for Air Corps pilots were it not for the black patch over his right eye and the tight, leathery scars blanched white on the side of his face.  He had been burned while being shot down in the Philippines during the first days of the war.  He was too smart and brave to be dismissed from the service because of disability.  His contribution to the war effort as a bloodied hero standing before a room full of Aviation Cadets far exceeded any residual value he might have as a pilot or a warrior.

What stood before the students was a man whose fighting spirit had been broiled away with the flesh of his cheek and his eye.  He spoke from a distance in a place few of these young men could yet imagine.  He spoke in monotones without making contact between his remaining eye and the eyes of his students.

Before them was a genuine hero, proven in battle, tested by fire.  They stared at him in awe.  He had been there already.  They could not know that he loathed his life, his survival and his betrayal of the dead by living, because he had been deprived of the necessary faculties and could not now exact his revenge on the savage yellow race.  Perhaps these young men might be infused with the same insatiable rage that consumed him and, through them he might yet obtain vicarious retribution.  Perhaps not.  Rage like this came from being seared and searing left few survivors.  Besides, youngsters resisted such rage as aberration.  Rage like this was acquired not taught.

The student to Hollis's left leaned over to him and whispered, Jesus, would you look at this guy.  What is this, some sort of circus freak show?  Bombing 101?

The instructor looked down and turned his head slightly to bring his good eye over the words on the slip of paper.  He spoke softly, there was a small droplet of spit glistened at the scarred angle of his mouth.  It was distracting and Hollis wished he would wipe it away with his finger.

"There are two kinds of bombing.  Tactical and strategic.  Tactical bombing is used against military targets usually, but not invariably, in direct support of troops on the ground.

Strategic bombing, on the other hand, is the large scale application of area and/or precision bombing to targets designed to break the enemy's will and fundamental capacity to wage war.  Such targets include vital industrial complexes where the instruments of war are produced, key military installations and population centers where the workers and their families reside.  We will explore the various facets of each of these forms of bombing and show how they can be used to win the war.  But, in its simplest terms, with tactical bombing you kick over the pail of milk.  In strategic bombing, you kill the cow.

Hollis stared at the patch and the clinging droplet of spittle in disbelief and foreboding.  He understood for the very first time what a monumental mistake he had made.

Rizzo  Reese  Dodge  Hulse  Quinn  Mollica

Sullivan  Hollis    Wychulis  Smith

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Book I

The Big League

It can't happen to me.  I'm too handsome, intelligent, in love...

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Chapter One    The Big Mistake 

Thursday, August 12, 1943

It was an ignoble, even anticlimactic, arrival.  They rode to their assigned airfield in the back of a GMC truck named Chantilly, smelling of damp, weathered canvas and gasoline, ten men seated on long wooden benches which ran along each side, their baggage, all they brought with them, piled in a huge jumble of foot lockers, Val-packs and B-4 bags, on the floor.  The second crew, Cahill's, rode in the truck behind them.  It was a warm, sunny day, not what they had been told to expect in England where they would find drenching rain and impenetrable fog.

Hollis watched his crew on their journey.  He tried to gauge their mood.  He expected excitement, but they seemed somber.  He expected curiosity, even; perhaps, eager anticipation that the long journey from peace to war each had made was finally over.  Instead, they seemed quietly absorbed in their own thoughts.

Everybody except Augie, the back-woods bumpkin from Mississippi.  He kept yapping like an annoying little dog, chattering things about which no one cared, flicking cigarette butts like tracers from the front of the truck out over the tailgate.  Perhaps this was his way of dealing with the uncertainty. 

Hey Lieutenant, he said, meaning Hollis because he invariably addressed the other officers by adding their surnames, I heard the whores in London will fuck you standing up.  I didn't think y'all could do that.  Jesus, this is gonna be great.  I ain't never done anything like that before. 

Sully, the bombardier, also a Southerner, replied, What's the matter, Augie, couldn't talk your sister into doing it that way? that caused everyone to laugh.  Even Augie.

Leo, their copilot, said, How'd you ever manage to get out of Dogpatch, Augie?

I was drafted.  This caused more nervous laughter.

Hollis drifted back behind a veil of thoughts as another ember zipped past, a foot from his nose.  He turned to look back at Augie who rocked back and forth with the shifting of gears, still smiling, his slow mind trying to sift through the insult to his sister. Hollis found himself on the fine edge of panic and despair, each moment carrying him closer to his destiny such that if one more butt flew past his head he was going to kill the annoying bastard with his bare hands.

Wow, Augie, Sully said, this must be quite a thrill for you.  Here you are in Merry Ol' England.  Y'all have to be sure and write your Maw and Paw and tell 'em about all the interestin' things you seen.

Leo, sitting beside Hollis, muttered quietly into his ear, Now why would he want to go and do that?  They probably can't even read.

Hollis smiled back at him.  Augie was one of those people God placed on earth to challenge the patience of the righteous, educated man.  A Darwinian anomaly.  Nurture versus nature is the biological argument.  Augie just happened.  A random mutation like a square Mendelian pea.  His hillbilly way and mannerisms were a curiosity and slightly amusing at first.  Like a precocious, if unruly, child.  More undomesticated than precocious.  His profligate use of the word 'nigger' and his distrust of personal hygiene made him almost intolerable. H-y, the navigator, couldn't stand him from the moment he laid eyes on him.  Hollis had heard about guys like Augie but he had never actually seen one.  Betcha he was a problem child.

Leo replied his agreement by snorting a laugh through his nose.

Sully, staring out the back of the truck, whispered just loud enough for Leo and Hollis to hear, Happy the nose that cannot smell a barbarian.

Leo nodded.

Hollis was perhaps the only person who knew Sully was referring to the Roman take on Anglo-Saxon hygiene.

Finally, the grinding of gears and bouncing along washboard roads came to a merciful end as the two trucks approached the main gate of the airfield.  The MP at the gate must have recognized the drivers because they were waved through without stopping.  The two corporals who had come to fetch the two crews from the Replacement Center could be spiriting a platoon of Waffen SS killers or two truckloads of prostitutes for all the guard knew or cared.  Delivering more lambs to the slaughter.  They had not been told their destination and the driver refused to disclose it despite their efforts to pry it out of him.  Station 167 is all they were told.  For all they knew that could be in outskirts of Copenhagen. 

They rumbled down a narrow lane, their journey punctuated by the frequent splash of a mud puddle. All eyes peered out the back of the truck as they pulled up to a cluster of single-story brick buildings and Nissen huts all connected to each other.  The truck screeched to a halt and the driver dropped the tailgate with a loud clang.  Headquarters Block, Gentlemen.  Unload you gear and report to the duty officer inside. 

Where the hell are we? Augie asked.

Ridgewell.  He returned to the cab of the truck and gunned the engine to speed the unloading along.  The pile on the floor of the truck became a pile on the grass in front of the large Nissen hut.

The crew started looking around, but mostly up into the sky.  On such a nice day, surely they were up, bombing something.

He glanced over at Cahill's crew as the second truck roared off behind the first.  They were looking up, too.  The reflex action of any airmen on any airfield.

Everybody wait here.  Come on, Leo.  Cahill followed them in and they stepped up to the counter and said to the sergeant, Hollis and Cahill crews reporting in.

Without looking up he said, Welcome to the 381st, sirs," and he pointed around the corner where there was another counter behind which, on the wall, stood a large blackboard with rows of names and numbers listed by squadrons.  There was a lot of chalk dust and names partially erased and written over.  The names, Hollis figured, were crews each named for the pilot and their assigned aircraft number.  It was a busy blackboard.

Lieutenants Hollis and Cahill.  We're here from the Replacement Center. 

The Captain replied, matter-of-factly, Welcome, glad you're here.  He turned to look at the board.  Uh, I don't have squadron assignments for you yet, but go grab some chow and come back in— he glanced at his watch—say, an hour and I will get you settled.

Leo whispered in his ear, Probably waiting to see who didn't make it back.

Hollis and Cahill exchanged glances.  They out now? Cahill asked.

Yeah, he said, bringing his eyes up to look at Cahill, they should be back in an hour.  When you get done eating, why don't you go out to the flight line and watch 'em come back.

Cahill nodded and smiled at Hollis.

Word passed quickly: They were on the way in.  Hollis and Leo scanned the empty sky.  The rest of the crew was waiting elsewhere.  In the distance, on the infield beyond a cluster of empty hardstands, Hollis could see the control tower.  The brass was lined up on top, leaning against the railing, their pant legs fluttering in the breeze.  After a few moments, he heard the far-off drone of approaching engines, like the low roll of distant thunder and saw a formation of planes, a cluster of slowly moving gray dots above the horizon.  Some seemed not to notice.  Others turned to look but quickly turned away.  They, apparently, were not Them.

Soon the droning diminished.  The sky was empty and silent again. 

This, no doubt, was the quietest time on a bomber field: when the planes were gone.  Today they had gone to Gelsenkirchen, Germany, the officers had been told.  Hollis thought the identity of the target was a secret, but then he realized the Germans already knew where the target was.  And soon they would return. 

The tingle of anticipation gathered in his loins, made the hair rise on his neck.  He had waited a long time for this moment.  A tremendous and unpredictable history was playing out around him, mankind's greatest calamity, and, irresistibly, he had become part of it.  For a moment, he felt detached, unreal and remote, the viewer of an historic chronicle enacted on a giant motion picture screen.  The War.  Everything up to this moment had been preliminary, anticipatory.  This peculiar reverie was eclipsed by the realization that from here on there was no going back.  Coincident with an arrival had been a departure, each with its own increasing gravity, centripetal pull.  His participation in this fantastic adventure was not without a price: his scrawny little neck.  This ambivalence had not escaped him.  It took the form of an ugly word: fear.  For the moment, however, the scales were unbalanced; the image of the black eye patch and glistening droplet of saliva compartmentalized below his awareness.  He was excited and he was, strangely, happy; his terror from a few hours back sequestered, unheard in a remote part of his brain.

Yes sir, he thought as he scanned the sky, this is it.  The real thing.  The Big League.  He had passed every test, done everything he was supposed to, weathered the cold scrutiny of his peers, survived the process of elimination that thinned the field of potential Army aviators down to an elite group and graduated into the left seat of a bomber flying with the Eighth Air Force out of England.  They called it The Big Leagues for a reason. He considered himself lucky to be here.  He could have been sent to the South Pacific where living conditions were more arduous, the medals came quicker and the missions were all escorted.  His crew was known by his name.  If there had to be a war and he had to fight in it, this was where he wanted most to be.  Strategic, geopolitical or patriotic issues did not concern him.  He fervently hoped that this had not been some monumental mistake, that now, facing the supreme challenge, responsible not just for the mission and the aircraft, but for nine other lives, he would not fail.  He had, after all, volunteered, seduced by the glamour and romance of being an Army pilot.

Someone in the crowd gathered outside headquarters yelled, Here they come! and a half dozen binoculars rose as one to a half dozen pairs of eyes all looking eastward.  Hollis heard them, but he could not see them.  The distant, rolling thunder returned.  Someone pointed.

There they were.  Hollis strained his eyes for his first glimpse: dark specks arranged in a loose formation which grew into a gaggle of Fortresses, not unlike geese returning to a pond.  The droning of the engines increased in intensity as the Group began a long, wheeling turn around the field, orbiting as each squadron broke off, plane by plane, for landing.  A single Fort broke from the pack, popped two red flares from the roof of the cockpit, and entered a steep bank bringing itself quickly over the end of the runway, engulfed in priority.  The sun glinted briefly off the propellers flashing four bright silver disks as it leveled off and descended.  Two more red flares arced up as the plane settled toward earth, flaps down, wheels extended groping for the ground, hanging on its broad wings in a picture-perfect glide onto the runway.  The big bomber flared and touched the concrete, two small blue puffs blossomed from the tires, the tail remained in the air briefly and settled gently to the runway.

He could hear someone from the gathering count slowly until the formation passed overhead and drowned out the voice.

A tech sergeant walked past and climbed into a jeep and started the engine.  Leo yelled to him, Hey Sarge, where you goin'?

He pointed at the Fortress finishing its roll out.  Can we ride along?

The sergeant jerked his thumb at the back of the jeep.

Leo said, Come on, let's see what's going on.  They ran over to the jeep and got in just ahead of a major wearing the Caduceus on his collar.  The sergeant gunned the engine and they tore off down the perimeter strip.  By the time they arrived at the B-17 it had pulled off the runway onto a nearby vacant hardstand and the engines were shut down. A crowd had gathered around the waist and two ambulances stood by.  A major leaped from a jeep as it screeched to a stop and the crowd parted as he quickly entered the bomber. 

Hollis surveyed the damage to the plane which appeared concentrated around the right waist and trailing edge of the wing.  Hollis felt a wave of nausea rise in his stomach, his excitement canceled out by dread.  There was a large, jagged hole in the thin metal skin near the waist gunner's window.  It was big enough for a man to climb through.  Behind the tail, a gunner was hunched over, vomiting.  Two medics passed a flexible litter up through the waist window. 

The next plane finished its roll out and taxied by, the roar of engines rose and fell and brakes squealed in protest as it maneuvered onto the perimeter strip.  The rest followed.  Some of the bombers appeared unscathed; a few had feathered props and blackened engines.  One was missing its rudder and the tip of the vertical fin was gone.  Hollis could see the faces in the passing bombers as they rubbernecked to get a glimpse of the damaged plane.    A jeep weaved between the passing planes and pulled up beside the parked bomber.  A captain hopped out and walked past.  Someone shouted 'how many?'  Three, was the terse reply.

Hollis watched the formation as it passed overhead again, and one by one, more bombers peeled off and turned into the downwind leg forming a single file.  There was some shouting from inside the bomber and soon the litter was gently handed out the waist window to waiting hands on the ground.  A bottle of blood and a bottle of water clinked against each other as they followed the litter out.  Small tubes ran down to the body held tightly in the embrace of a splint stretcher.  Hollis caught his first glimpse of the blood that covered the man's face and the brown leather of his jacket.  It had matted into the shearling collar and his hair.  Hollis felt queasy again, but he could not look away for, while the sight was grotesque, it was also irresistible.  The injured man moved his arm as if reaching for something only he could see.  They carefully lifted him into the ambulance.

Another bomber pulled up and stopped, the waist door fell open and a man stepped down onto the perimeter strip, walking toward the ambulance.  He held his right shoulder which was slick with bright red blood, his torn leather jacket flapped in the breeze created by the engines as the copilot gave a wave and the plane pulled away.  A medic walked over and guided him to a waiting stretcher and he, too, was conveyed to the ambulance which drove away.

A short time later, a second litter was handed into the plane and, after a few minutes, another body was passed out through the window shrouded in a blanket which was tucked carefully around the head.  The flying boots stuck out from beneath the blanket.  The major stepped out of the plane as the dead man was placed on the ground.  He was followed by a flying officer wearing a New York Yankee's baseball cap.  The major spoke to him and he was escorted to the second ambulance.  He was bloodied also, but did not seem injured.

Another bomber stopped and the nose hatch dropped open.  Its Plexiglas nose was shattered.  An officer holding a bloody bandage to his face lowered himself to the taxiway and stepped out in front of the plane, waved back at the pilots and trotted over to the medics.  The plane roared off.

When the last of the planes had landed, they loaded the body into the second ambulance and it, too, drove away.  A few men looked into the bomber, shook their heads and walked away.  The crowd thinned.  Hollis felt drawn to the damaged B-17 by a grim, obscene fascination.  He and Leo walked over to the gaping hole in the waist, its aluminum skin ripped open and peeled back by the impact of whatever explosive had detonated against it.  He stepped to the waist door and leaned in for a better look.  In the dim light of the waist compartment, he could see that the interior of the fuselage was spattered with gore.  Large pools of dark, dirty blood covered the black rubber mat pulled along by gravity in broad crimson rivulets on the sloping floor flowing over and around the hundreds of brass shell casings which littered the floor. Always analytical, Hollis realized that a few inches either way and the bomber would have been missed completely or torn in half.

Good God Almighty.  It looks like they've been slaughtering cattle in here, Leo said.

Hollis placed his hand on the inside of the doorway, bending his body to get a better look.  His palm and fingers touched something cold, wet and sticky.  It felt like cherry pie.  He quickly jerked his hand away and looked to see what he had touched.  It was a grayish-white piece of meat which Hollis recognized as brain matter.  He pulled the flesh off the metal to which it clung. Attached was a fragment of skull and overlying skin.  He noticed the eyebrow, an upper eyelid and part of the bridge of a nose.  He wiped his hand off on the grass and walked away.  Leo, who up until that moment had a comment for just about everything, was quiet.  They flagged down a passing truck and rode back to the Headquarters.

Before now death had been abstract.  A cold stiff aunt sleeping serenely in a casket.  A rising black pyre at the end of the runway, a training accident for someone else to clean up.  Or they simply vanished, disappearing over the ocean known but to God.  Hollis did not expect this.  He felt foolishly self-aware of his naiveté.  What did he think they were up to over here?  He looked at his fingers.  They had not come clean on the grass. 

Blood. In abstract terms of biology, blood is nothing more than a liquid.  A complex solution composed of billions of teeming red and white corpuscles, chemicals and lots of salt water.  It was a symbol of a body's integrity or lack thereof.  But blood can be deceptive.  Enormous amounts can be spilled from a relatively innocuous and unthreatening laceration of the scalp and yet a man could suffer an instantaneously lethal wound to a vital organ and not shed more than a thimbleful.  It was a matter of how big the hole was and how long the heart pushed blood out of that hole before there was none left to pump.  Somewhere between a pin prick and complete evisceration and dismemberment most combat injuries could be found.  It didn't matter.  A waist gunner in a B-17, an infantryman in a foxhole in the Kasserine or a gun tub on a battleship.  They said the blood was so thick on the Somme that it created a swamp.  It is the tearing of the flesh that elicited pain.  Blood loss is itself painless.  Countless millions of blood donors could attest to that.  It was also a simple fact of biology that the brain can think faster than blood can spurt from a broken heart.

He wondered what happened when you died instantly.  One second you are looking at the airspeed indicator or staring into an empty patch of sky then poof!  Whammo!  What?  Vapor?  Heat?  Blinding light?  Unspeakable, unimaginable pain?  Ecstasy?  Relief?  What?

They stepped into the Operations Room again and stood at the counter.  Cahill was already there waiting. I'll be with you in a moment, Gentlemen, the officer behind the desk said.

The captain they had seen drive up in the jeep earlier walked in and spoke to the officer behind the desk.  The officer took an eraser and brushed the name 'Cody' off the board and wrote in 'Hollis'.  He then erased 'Gruver' and wrote in 'Cahill'.  Hollis read the other names on the list: Ransahoff, Eisenberg, Selkirk, Cassidy.  They had been assigned to the 532nd Bomb Squadron.  There should have been nine names on the list.  Nine crews to fill in a squadron's compliment.  With the exchange of these two names there were six.  Hollis could not help but think that, with a scrawling of chalk his fate had been sealed.

The captain looked at the two pilots and, without changing his business-like expression, walked away.

Gentleman, a truck will take you to the 532nd Squadron office.  Report in and they will get you billeted.

Hollis gathered up his stuff, all his worldly possessions.  Except for his book collection and civilian clothes at home everything he owned was contained in that B-4 bag and foot locker.  The only things not Government Issue he had brought from home were a picture of his parents, a couple pictures of Jessie and a cherished, battered old copy of Gray's Anatomy given to him by Jessie's father on the day he told him of his desire to become a doctor.

On the blackboard in the Squadron headquarters, Hollis's and Cahill's names were already chalked in. 

Cahill, the billeting officer said, you're with Selkirk.  Hollis you're with Eisenberg.  Welcome to the Squadron.  We only have six combat crews in the squadron and our minimum strength is supposed to be nine.  You'll need a Class B pass to go certain distances from the field.  You will have a separate combat mess because your hours and diet will be so different from everybody else's.  A supply truck makes a daily run to Cambridge and there is train service from Great Yeldham, down the road a piece.

Hollis hauled his stuff to his assigned barracks.  Over the door was a hand-painted sign:

PILOT'S HOUSE

ENTRY RESTRICTED

SERGEANTS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT

The barracks was a one level wood and cinderblock building with ill-fitting doors at both ends.  It contained three rooms on each side of a central, dimly lit hall.  The floor was concrete.  It sat alongside a similar building.  They faced a road across which was a large cluster of Nissen huts, half-barrel-shaped structures of corrugated metal with brick ends sitting on a concrete pad all connected by a cinder path.  Hollis had stayed in one with other officers at the Replacement Center at Bovingdon and he felt glad about the slightly improved quarters.  The enlisted men stayed in Nissens further down the road.  The communal site for the squadron was nestled in a small wood.  Squadron headquarters consisted of two Nissen huts not far up the road.  The latrine facilities for the officers, he found out, consisted of a large Nissen hut on its own little cinder path about twenty yards away.  There was a hot water source for showers.  But, he also found out, fuel was in short supply and the availability of a truly hot shower was limited. 

Sergeant Beamis, the Charge of Quarters, introduced himself to Hollis and explained that he had a deal worked out with the squadron high command such that if he hoarded enough coke and could guarantee a hot shower at least once a week for the officers, he could use the facility for his own ablutions before the hot water ran out.  He also got to quarter himself in a small anteroom in the other cinderblock hut as long as he also kept the hot-water heater that supplied heat to the two buildings up and running.  Beamis pointed to the complex system of pipes and a tiny furnace that provided the heat.  He had converted the system from coal to waste engine oil to keep the twelve radiators in the two buildings primed with hot water.  He was obviously proud of his improvisational engineering, but he was sorry to admit that he had not been able to convert the shower to waste oil because he had been unable to scrounge up the necessary equipment.  Beamis reminded Hollis of a convict who maintained his status and improved his lifestyle by currying favor with the prisoner hierarchy. Or his jailers.

Explain to me, Hollis asked, how I ended up in better quarters than my copilot and the other officers?

You guys are the envy of the squadron, even the whole base, Beamis said.  "Only the Group staff live better.  When the Group moved in this site was assigned to the 532nd.  These two buildings were supposed to be torn down as they were not part of the original construction specifications by the Eighth Bomber Command.  The base was intended for use by the RAF. In fact, Stirlings with 90 Squadron were here for a week when we moved in, but was reassigned to the Eighth and we were only supposed to get those metal shithouses.  So don't complain about it.  It'll just piss people off even more. 

Now, to answer your question, Entwhistle, the CO, I guess you ain't met him yet, wanted all the first pilots together.  He never said why, but everybody figured it had something to do with cohesion between the pilots.  Entwhistle, Beamis went on, has a dim view of copilots, navigators and bombardiers.  Navigators could live in grass shacks for all he cared, Beamis added.

Beamis betrayed his contempt for Entwhistle by never once addressing him as ‘Major.’

Beamis directed Hollis to his room, but made no effort to help him with his stuff.  Hollis dropped his footlocker to the floor with a loud clump.  He looked around.  One side of the room was empty, the bed linens carefully folded in a small stack on the thin, bare mattress.  The locker at the foot of the bed, its door open, was also empty except for a few metal coat-hangers.  A small desk, nothing more than a wooden table really, stood by the window which was covered by a blackout curtain.  The desk was cluttered on one side, but had obviously been swept clean on the other.  The wall above the empty bed was covered with pinups in various stages of undress.  Vargas, Pettys, nudes in artistic poses clipped from photographic magazines, cheesecake and the usual assortment of pretty faces, some familiar, most not.  The other side of the room was well lived-in.  The bed was unmade, dirty socks and underwear were stuffed under the bed.  Gray towels were suspended on hooks nailed into the occupied locker.  Various personal items were strewn about, a tooth brush, a pair of sneakers, a baseball mitt, a beat up garrison cap.  The wall above the bed was naked except for a calendar from a New York delicatessen.

The floor was crusted by clots of dried mud.  There was the unmistakable odor of sweat, stale cigarette smoke and aviation gas.

Nice, huh? Beamis asked.

Hollis stared at the empty bed.

Who slept there?

Nobody.

Hollis turned to look at the sergeant.

Besides, it's probably bad luck to ask.

They exchanged glances in silence.

One other thing, Lieutenant.  Whenever you leave the hut, you have to carry your gas mask.  He pointed to the small musette bag hanging on a nail over the desk.  Another was hung beside it.

Base regulations.  Beamis tapped the back of the door with his fingernail.  There was posted the base regulations as well as what to do in case of fire, air raid, gas attack, invasion... 

"Slit trenches are out back. Don’t go pissin’ in ‘em in the middle of the night.

Oh, and one other thing.  You may be called upon to help me steal coke from the bin over at the 533rd.  For reasons I cannot explain, they seem to have a constant and reliable source of it.  I think they're stealin' it from somebody else.  They keep it hidden, but I know where.  You want hot water, you gotta help me steal the coal.  That applies to all the officers but Entwhistle, who don't know nothin' about it.  Beamis turned to leave.  Welcome, Lieutenant.  I hope you enjoy your stay with us

Hollis looked at the stark, vacant bed.  It probably wasn't even cold yet.  Wonder where the poor bastard is who slept there last night?  Fuck.

Suppressing the thought that he was violating some hallowed ground, Hollis began to unpack his belongings.  He opened his footlocker and took out the picture of Jessie and placed it self-consciously, almost reverentially, on the empty space on the table.  It was a portrait she had taken a few years back.  She was radiant in the photograph, beaming a beautiful, perfect smile, a string of pearls around her neck.  It was not done in color but had been shaded in by the photographer.  Her lips were red and her hair flowing blond onto her shoulders.  He took out the other photographs of his parents and a small leatherette folder which contained pictures of him in his uniform standing with his arm around Jessie and her arm around him.  It had been taken a few days before his furlough ended.  She was beaming in that photo, too.  His heart ached as he looked at the snapshot and rubbed its leather case with his thumb.  He wondered if she truly loved him.  Or was he a pity fuck for the war effort?  He should write telling her he had arrived at his final destination safely.  If the censors allowed it. He wondered what had happened to the third crew.  If their wives, girlfriends and parents had been told yet that they were missing and presumed lost over the ocean.

He spread his B-4 bag onto the bed and unpacked his uniforms, hanging them in the locker.  He took out his flying clothes, two summer weight flight suits, boots, leather jacket and helmet.  He had been issued a .45 automatic.  He took the holster and hung it on a nail in the locker.  He hadn't quite figured out what the gun was for or why he and the other members of the crew had been given them.  Maybe he was supposed to fight his way out if downed.  Maybe he was part of base defense, shoot anybody that looked German or had an accent.  Maybe they were all supposed to take turns shooting the Norden if they had to crash land in enemy territory.

When he was finished he made the bed and sat on it smoking a cigarette trying to make sense out of his predicament.  He smoked another.  He looked at the pinups taped to the wall behind him.  He recognized Jinx Falkenberg, Betty Grable, Chili Williams, and Ann Sheridan.  Rita Hayworth kneeling on a bed regaled in her black lace and satin nightgown.  And Jane Russell with her thirty-eight inch tits, stretched out seductively on that haystack saying to all the world Come fuck me with those dreamy eyes.  He thought of Jessie.

Chapter Two  Stan

––––––––

He stared at the empty, unmade bed, speculating on the fate of its occupant.  Was he still alive?  Hurt?  The last plane had landed over two hours ago.  Surely by now everyone had cleared interrogation. 

The door of the hut flew open with a loud, wooden bang followed by the unmistakable clumping of flying boots on the floor.  Hollis was startled to see a brown leather blur enter the room, fling a Yankee's baseball cap against the wall, slamming the door behind him.  He threw himself onto the bed making the metal frame rattle and clank against the wall.  The man coiled himself into the fetal position facing the wall and did not move.  Hollis noticed blood on the shearling cuff of the man's jacket and along the collar of his dirty, yellow Mae West, his muddy, booted feet tucked up against his rear end. 

Hollis felt awkward again as if his presence violated a moment of private anguish.  He contemplated leaving, but wasn't sure where he might go or what he might do when he got there.

Suddenly, he felt very sad.  He wanted to go to him, whoever he was, and say something, perhaps try to comfort him.  But he had no moral authority to do so.  Anything he might say would be inappropriate, patronizing.  Uncomfortable and perplexed by the whole situation, he would keep his mouth shut and wait for something to happen.

A soft knock shattered the stillness like a pistol shot.  Hollis leapt to his feet to answer the door before there were more knocks, but the door flew open before he could reach the knob.  A tall lieutenant took a step inside turning to the man on the bed, Hey Stan, want to get something to eat?

The body did not move.  The tall man paused for a moment and left without closing the door or giving any indication that he had seen or was even aware of Hollis's presence. 

Leo appeared at the door and looked at Stan.  Leo had the kind of face, round, cherubic, animated and predominately cheerful, that could give silent expression to every human emotion.  He seemed unmoved by what he saw. Let's go eat. I'm hungry.

Hollis dropped his cap onto his head and walked with Leo into the late afternoon air.  The evening was warm, but it was starting to cloud up.  In the distance, they could hear the approach of a truck. 

What gives? Leo asked as he nodded back in the direction of the hut.

Don't know.  I think he was the guy from the plane we went to see.  The one wearing the ball cap.  He came in and threw himself down and didn't say a word.  I couldn't even tell if he was still breathing.  He was giving me the willies.

One of the guys in my hut said the other gunner died.

They got on the truck and proceeded to ride the circuit to the Combat Mess.  Passing through the door, they saw an expansive room filled with men seated at long tables in various combinations of uniform eating quietly.  Above the door was the ubiquitous sign which read: Where the elite meet to eat.  Take what you want but eat what you take.

Hollis and Leo took their trays filled with mutton, boiled potatoes and beets and walked over to a pair of empty seats.  Hollis placed his tray across the table from a man who ate hunched over his food.  Without looking up he said, Don't sit there.  That's Lonnie's seat.

You can sit there, a captain sitting nearby said softly.

No, the Hollis said, that's OK.

It's alright, really.

That's Lonnie's seat I said.  Sit somewhere else.

I'm sorry, is Lonnie coming?  Hollis turned to look for Lonnie, who was probably on his way that very moment to claim his seat.

No, Lonnie won't be needing it, the captain said.

Don't sit there I said! and he picked up his tray of food and heaved it at the place where Lonnie was supposed to sit.

The captain motioned to the empty seat in front of him and told Hollis he could sit there instead.

Where's Lonnie? Hollis asked, shaken.

Gone, the captain said simply.

No one seemed to notice the commotion caused by the tossed food tray and Leo said nothing as he sat beside the captain who shortly got up and left.

Jesus, Leo. What have we gotten ourselves into?

I don't know, but it's put me right off my mutton.

Hollis returned to the room expecting to find Stan still curled up on his bed, but it was vacant.  He sat at the desk and took out some writing paper.  When he first arrived in England, because of censorship, he realized he didn't have much to say.  He had written letters while at the Replacement Center. All of it small stuff. They were specifically admonished about keeping a diary for reasons not made clear. The mail from home had not yet caught up with him.  He couldn't tell Jessie where he was or what he had seen.  He couldn't tell her what brains felt like to the touch.  Or how uncertain his future looked.  Or that he was completely scared shitless.  What had started out as high adventure had grown ominous and uncertain.  What not long ago seemed so glamorous had become grotesque and terrifying.  He did the best he could.

Dear Jessie,

I arrived safely at our new station, 'somewhere in England'.  They went out today and had a rough time of it.  I must admit to some apprehension about this.  Which he knew to be an extraordinary understatement.  But, God willing, I should get through this.  I know I am a good pilot and I have a good crew.  We have a few oddballs perhaps, but they are good at their jobs.  And when the chips are down I know they will pull together and get the job done.

I hope you are well.  I think of you always.  I think of the night we spent together before I left and I am restored.  I take solace in you; the thought of you in my arms makes me want to return home to you

He read what he had written and tore it up.  It was not what he wanted to say. 

He was about to start another when there was a knock at the door.  Another strange face

stepped into the room

You the new guy?

Hollis stood up and shook the man's hand, Yeah, John Hollis.

Hi, I'm Mickey Selkirk.  Put you in with Stan, eh?  Where is the little bagel-snapper? 

He was here earlier.  He looked pretty shook.

"Yeah.  He should be getting a package with some victuals from his folks.  He's due.

I really like that filter fish in a jar.  Tasty."

You mean gefilte fish?

Yeah, that's it.  Where is he?

Don't know.

"I came over to tell you Entwhistle wants you to report to the squadron office at oh-eight o'clock.

Tell your crew."

OK.

Wanna go over to the Club and get a beer?

Sure.  Hollis grabbed his gas mask and noticed that Stan's still hung on the hook in the wall.

As they walked along the gravel path Selkirk said, "They put you in with Stan, eh? 

They must be hoping some of his wisdom rubs off on you."

Did Stan's wisdom help the guy who slept in my bed last night? 

Selkirk turned to look at Hollis as they walked, but said nothing.  What happened to him?

Who?

The guy in my bed?

Whatcha carrying there? Selkirk asked as he tugged at the musette bag.

My gas mask.  Beamis told me to carry it at all times.  Base regulation.

And you believed him?

Well, yeah.

You seen anybody else carrying one?

Now that you mention it, no.

Selkirk grabbed the canvas bag from his shoulder and said, Here let me show you what to do with that.  He nonchalantly hurled it over his shoulder into a clump of bushes.

Hollis laughed aloud.  Leo, he knew, would have climbed into the bushes to retrieve it.  Where are you from?  What the hell kind of accent is that?

I'm from Vermont.  West Paulet, to be exact.  Had a nice dairy farm going when the war started.

You grew cows?

Yeah, big ones.  Holsteins.  Best dairy cows in the state.  Wife and a kid, too.

What the hell are you doing here?

I've asked myself that question a million times.

Being a farmer with a family you must have been able to get out of it.

The Selkirk's have been patriots who have fought in every war since Lexington.  I am my father's only son.  Somebody had to do it.  Tradition.

You're out of your mind.

If I'm nuts what are you doing here?

I wanted wings.  Mickey laughed.  So what's up with Stan?

Got shot up today.  Both waist gunners were killed by a flak burst.

That was his plane?  My copilot and I went out to see it.  It was a mess.

Stan took it hard.  He's a great pilot, best natural pilot in the Group and he's the most experienced man in the Group.  He was with the 91st until he was wounded.  While he was still in the hospital his crew went down.  When he recovered they didn't want him back so they sent him here as a replacement pilot.  He's two or three trips away from a full tour and a ticket home.  Lately, he's been takin' to brooding about his imminent demise. 

Poor Stan.

"Stan actually likes this stuff.  He considers himself an avenging angel for every aggrieved Jew since the Diaspora.  Not long after I joined the Group we went to Hamburg and the lead bombardier froze up on the bomb run and by the time the navigator realized what was going on we passed the release point and the whole Group toggled late.  The entire bomb train went over.  Everyone was upset about the wasted mission.  But not Stan.  He said no bomb dropped on a German is ever wasted.

"You know those Negroes in the Ordinance company wash off the bombs before they load 'em so they're clean and they'll fall true.  Not Stan.  Before they take off Stan puts a wad of gum onto the nose of one of the bombs.  He wants one to not drop true so it will either fall short or long and hit a hospital or an orphanage so he can kill more Germans.  None of this pickle barrel shit for ol' Stan. He says that God's true measure of a man is not by the big things he did with his life, but by the small things, the little evil things he did when he thought no one was watching.

He believes the only way to prevent future wars is to eliminate every German from the face of the earth.  They have been a war-like race since ancient, Teutonic tribes, Goths and Vandals defeated the Romans. Germans are racially and genetically a savage and remorseless people, noted throughout history for their brutality dating back to the Neanderthals.  Get rid of them.  Blow 'em all up.  Kill 'em all.  Every last one of 'em. At least that‘s what he says.

Interesting.  Hollis lit a cigarette and offered Selkirk one.  They continued walking, their embers glowing in the dark.

"Stan doesn't want me hanging around him anymore.  In China, the custom is that when you save somebody's life you are responsible for them for the rest of their life.  Ol' Stan saved me on my second mission and I wanted to show my gratitude, my being his friend because he ain't got many.  He keeps telling me to beat it, this isn't China. So don't pet him. He might bite."

"What’s that mean?"

He got into a fight in Cambridge right after Hamburg.  Some infantry captain said something anti-Jewish with which our esteemed Lieutenant Eisenberg took exception.  Stan broke his nose and tried to bite off his ear when Mattson and Watanabe pulled him off.  They thought he was gonna kill the guy.  Stan's got some sort of runt's complex.  Tries to be tougher than anybody else.  So don't make him mad.

Great...  Hollis could hear music coming from the Officer's Club up ahead.  He turned to Selkirk, How many did the Group lose today?

Three.  They never tell us, but we can count.  The Squadron lost two plus Stan's gunners.

What happened to the guy in my bed?

Who?

The guy I replaced.

Cody?  Gone.

Yeah, I gathered that. What happened to him?

We rolled off the target and the fighters jumped him.  He lost an engine, but kept up pretty good for a while.  Then he lost a second engine.  Stan and I closed in to cover him.  Gleason slowed the group down, but the fighters saw us getting strung out as we 's'ed along and they hit us with a vengeance and we had to leave him.  The FWs went to finish him off.  He tried to make a run for the clouds, but he couldn't get away.  That was the last we saw him.

Hanging around Stan didn't help him, did it?

Guess not.  But it didn't hurt either.

They entered the Officer's Club, a big room containing a piano in the corner and a fireplace, a long bar and clusters of lounge chairs and couches, a few card tables and a record player and radio near the bar.  The room was filled with music from the BBC and a great blue haze of cigarette, cigar and pipe tobacco.  Selkirk sidled up to the bar and Hollis followed.  He found Leo already sipping a beer.

Mickey, this is Leo Wychulis, my copilot.

Yeah, we met, Leo said. He was talking to us earlier.  Came by and told us not to unpack, we won't be here long.  He say the same thing to you?

Selkirk put his arm around Hollis' shoulder, handed him a beer and said, Ol' Hollis here don't need to be flakked up, he saw the inside of Stan's plane.

So did I, Leo said.

So tell me about the Group, Hollis asked.

Been here since early June, flew their first raid on June 22nd.  They been losing planes ever since, Selkirk replied.  Bomber Command has been rearranging things trying to get it right.

What do you mean?

"The original air exec, a guy by the name of Holt got sick and had to go back home.  TB, I think.  That's when Van Patten showed up.  Couple weeks later Garrett, the CO since the Group was formed back in January, was relieved and Van Patten took over.  No one knows what became of Garrett or why he was axed, but he was well liked apparently and they thought he got a raw deal bein' canned like that.  Then along comes that crazy Texan Gleason as air exec.  Turns out Gleason was with the 305th as a squadron CO until he got hurt.  He's loony as they come.  Dust ain't settled yet since that son of a bitch showed up.

"Whitewater Begay, Horace Duckworth, Buckley Bonner and Deke Cavanarro were all the original squadron commanders.  The Group ops officer, some guy I never heard of, left to become air exec at another group and they promoted Begay out of the squadron and brought in Entwhistle.

They're supposed to lead the Group on a rotating basis, Van Patten, Gleason, Begay, and the four squadron COs, but it seems like Van Patten and Gleason have been doing it all.  Maybe the Squadron COs are weak.  I know Entwhistle is.  Bombs on the target is all he ever talks about, but he's only flown one pissant little milk run since he got here.  Ransahoff hates him.

Somebody told me he's been here longer than anybody.

Yeah, maybe that's his problem.  He came over with the 97th, they were the very first Group.  They left for Africa with TORCH and he got shot up there and sent back here.  People at Wing sent him here when they pushed Begay upstairs.  He musta seen a lot of combat.  Maybe he's got combat fatigue.

Maybe he's just tired.

Yeah, he's been here a year.  But you gotta remember: only combat crews rotate home.  Squadron COs and above are supposed to be here for the duration.

Tough luck.

That's why they get the extra pay.  Besides, at the rate they fly it might take 'em a year to accumulate 25 missions. My advice, don’t become a squadron commander.

Hollis said nothing.

Selkirk continued, With Cody and Gruver gone Ransahoff and Cassidy are the only original members of the Squadron.  The rest of 'em have all been lost.  We're supposed to have nine crews.  We've been working with six for almost two weeks now.  Then we lost those two and they only replaced 'em they didn't get us up to full strength yet.  The other squadrons are in better shape than us.  Or so I'm told.  I'm just a pilot.  They don't consult me on command matters.  He smiled at Hollis and added, But if they did I'd let 'em know what for.  Tell 'em where they could stick their bombs and their targets.

Hollis had heard rumors that each bomb wing had its hard luck group and each group had its hard luck squadron.  It looked to him as if the 532nd was it.

How many missions you flown? Hollis asked.

"Five.  They say the odds of you gettin' to five is one in three, but if you do your chances improve a lot.  They figure if you get through five missions you've figured out enough to survive so they give you the Air Medal.  But they've been a tough five missions.  I been to Hamburg twice, Hannover, Kassel and Gelsenkirchen.  Or actually Bochum since Gelsenkirchen was socked in.  And actually the trip to Kassel was recalled over Holland and we brought the bombs back but we still got credit.  I ain't had a God-damned milk run yet.

Keep your wits about you and fly in tight, Selkirk continued.  Green pilots can't stay in tight and they throttle back and forth.  Jerrie can spot you a mile away.  Those tracers hit the 190s and 109s and bounce right off.  They keep coming no matter what you throw at 'em.  The big thing is an engine fire.  When you see that fire you got maybe thirty, forty seconds at the most before the explosion.  Selkirk lifted his beer in salute and downed it.  He dropped the empty pint to the bar, slapped down some coins, and walked away.

The Club was crowded, but the level of conversation was subdued.  No one wanted to talk to Leo or Hollis.  He also noted Cahill and his officers sitting by themselves in the corner near the piano.  They were being ignored, too.  Except for Selkirk, no one seemed to notice or care that they were here.  As he sipped his beer he began to understand.  They were officially members of the Group, but they were not yet members of the fraternity.  They had not yet been shot at and anyone who hadn't yet stared down the muzzle of a gun was not worthy of acknowledgment.  Certainly not admission to the club.  They were strange faces, untested newcomers.  There was nothing subtle about this.  He felt like an interloper.

Leo, of course, was nonplused by the