New Heavens (3 page)

Before entering the dive, I give a last quick glance upward and note the Marauder fIak ships flying through the bursts of fire from the 88mm guns. They continue on their course as though they are oblivious of the firing and I realize that there is not much they can do about it because they are much slower and less maneuverable than our Kittyhawks.

We make a sharp, wheeling turn to the left, and the squadron moves into echelon formation behind us. Without warning, we run into anti-aircraft fire; I weave wildly, changing direction and height every two or three seconds to dodge the gunners and their predictors. It's my good luck to be number two to the wing commander and to dive right behind him. It will take the ack-ack crews a few more minutes to get their sights set, and by then I'll be into my dive and climbing away.

With radio silence gone, my earphones snarl with orders and staccato phrases interspersed with the static. The bursting of the anti-aircraft shells all around us and the deafening shouts on the radio from the rest of my wing confuse me as I get ready to enter the dive. The flak now looks thick, but my fears recede as I remember that I have already flown forty-five missions and made it back to base every time. As the flak gets thicker, we weave violently as we try to confuse the German gunners below. Hell, I've never seen stuff like this before. And we have to dive through it all.

Through the haze and smoke of the flak bursts, I make out a large ship berthed at the dock with what looks like a big torpedo boat and a tanker on the outside of the pier with massive sheds and warehouses. We are to concentrate on the big vessel, the
Otto Leonhardt,
and to leave the tanker and the shore installations for the following squadrons of dive-bombers. Hopefully one of us will hit the large ammunition dump in the port area and cause great damage. I can make out some of the gun emplacements spread out around the target area and the flashes from their guns.

I see another quick signal with his fist from the wing commander on my left as he pulls up and rolls over onto his back and down into the long dive. I select full-rich mixture for the lower altitude, and with a quick glance at the red gun sight, I follow him down in a near-vertical dive of 8,000 feet.

I see him in his diving left turn right under me, and I see a big, black ship far below as I roll my Kitty into the long dive, stamping on the left rudder pedal as the increased air speed causes the craft to slew to the right. Despite the strong
pull to the right with the speed increasing furiously, I keep the black ball of the turn-and-bank indicator in the center. This is proof that I am not skidding to one side and ensures that my bomb will fall along the correct trajectory to the target. The Kitty shudders and shakes from the buffeting air, and the scream of the slipstream becomes so loud that I pay little attention to the flak bursting around me. Suddenly, there is an explosion nearby and my fighter lurches to the left. Another and another, and then a sickening thump as I feel a hit near the tail.

Too late now, I'll carry on the dive. I see the ship racing toward me, squat and ugly next to the pier and sheds. I keep the gun sight steady and slightly below the ship as I close in upon it. I pull back on the stick and edge the sight up through the center of the vessel, hold for perhaps half a second, and then press the bomb-release button. I feel a familiar lightening of the aircraft, and I pull back on the elevator with all my strength as she seems determined to stay in the vertical dive. Now I realize that my craft is badly hit, perhaps mortally. Knowing that the elevator controls have been hit, I pull back farther, one foot braced against the dashboard to gain increased leverage.

I am relieved as the nose comes up, though slowly and reluctantly. For an instant, I see masts ahead and I am shocked to see that they are above my eye level. I feel a tremendous, heaving lift as the bomb hits the ship, but far too close to my aircraft. My Kitty shudders from the blast of the explosives, and pieces of the bomb burst strike the belly and underside of the wings as I pass directly over the ship. Relieved to find I still have control, I begin to skid my machine
wildly as I zoom up and away from the flak. As I turn out to sea, the Kitty mushes upward but too damn slowly, emitting a stream of white glycol coolant liquid.

I doubt I can make it back to base. I am too far from our lines, and if I bail out, it will be over the freezing sea. If I head back to land, I will become a prisoner of war. I can reach the German-held coast, but I decide to head out to sea in the hope of ditching safely in the water and getting picked up by our air-sea rescue forces. I give little thought to the consequences, my only worry now is how to cope with the immediate task of getting out of the aircraft in one piece. I find myself leaning forward and straining against my shoulder straps as though to urge the Kitty to greater height and distance. I scan my instrument panel, and as the airspeed drops rapidly, I ease the nose gently forward from its near-vertical attitude to a more-steady climb.

Breathing great gulps of oxygen from my mask, I try to gain altitude. The cylinder-head temperature gauge creeps into the red, and I know that I have only minutes before I have to abandon the aircraft.

Keeping my voice as calm as possible, I tell the wing commander in the aircraft ahead of me that I have been badly hit and am heading out to sea where I expect to bail out. I am comforted when I see the other three aircraft of my flight peeling off overhead and approaching to take up positions on either side of me.

The flak fades as I head out to sea, with only an occasional burst of 88mm above me. My engine runs roughly but the engine revs keep above 2,300. I watch the instrument panel as we climb through 5,000 feet. The cylinder-head temperature is at the end of the scale and decision time is near. I take a quick look down at the land behind me. The shore to the north and south of my position is covered in a white mantle of snow, portending an ice-cold ducking when I bail out. I have little time to weigh these two undesirable alternatives and hastily opt for bailing out over the sea in the hope of getting back to our lines if I survive in my dinghy.

Smoke pours into the cockpit. The engine runs rougher as the coolant streams out. Aiming for least resistance to the airflow, I pull the throttle back and move into full-course pitch to feather the propeller. My eyes behind the goggles smart and stream, and now I see a flicker of flame on the side of the firewall. Any minute now the fuel tanks may explode. The altimeter needle shows that the rapid climb has brought me up to higher than 5,000 feet. I am thankful my Kittyhawk can take this punishment. I see the cylinder-head temperature rising, and the engine runs rougher, thumping loudly.

I call the wing commander and try to sound cool as I say, “Topper Red Two heading for the rendezvous point, but I have to bail out. Please watch me.” As I say this, the engine seizes up and I see the fire to the front and left of the windscreen. I keep the nose pointing to the southeast toward our front lines in the distance, all the while losing height. I know now that I cannot make it to our front lines. The smoke
from the dead engine obstructs my vision. I continue to breathe oxygen through my mask but have difficulty seeing my instruments. I cough and wheeze as fumes penetrate my mask. I breathe smoke mixed with burning oil vapors. When I realize there is no hope, I unlock the canopy hood and roll it back. I take off my helmet and from force of habit drape it over the stick. I take a last look at the hostile coastline to the east and see the burning warehouses of Mestre as I unlock the harness. I see the dashboard with its instruments and my oxygen mask hanging uselessly from my helmet. Outside my cockpit the wings with the camouflage paint and the RAF roundels fill the view of my trusted kite. The Kittyhawk shudders violently as she enters the final phase of her death throes, and I try to abandon the aircraft. A moment of panic comes when I find I cannot move, until I realize that I have forgotten to release the shoulder straps. A quick tug on the release pin, and as I put my aircraft into a slow diving turn to the left, I glance at the sea far below, looking calm and peaceful, almost inviting.

I leave all systems operating and hesitate for a few agonizing seconds before I abandon the Kitty. I grip the cockpit side and clamber over the left wall of the cockpit. Now, the sea looks dark and threatening as I dive head first into the gaping void 5,000 feet below and think,
Just let me miss the tail and I'll have a chance if the chute opens.
I feel a searing pain in my foot as it glances off the tail. My life now depends upon a piece of equipment I had been sitting on for many hours of flying, something I had slung casually over my shoulder and dropped on the floor like a sack of potatoes. I had treated it with no more respect than a pair of old
boots. I wish in those few moments of free fall that I had taken better care of my parachute. I wait a few more seconds with my hand on the cold metal parachute handle, delaying pulling the handle to ensure that the chute will not get entangled in the tail of the plane. Then a quick jerk on the handle and the chute opens above me, wrenching my body around but stopping my headlong fall.

After the frenzied tumult I have left, it is calm and an uncanny silence. I feel as though I am suspended in that huge sky, only the cool breeze blowing over my cheeks and upward through my hair, freed now of the leather helmet, which makes me realize that I am falling. The silence is broken by the deep thump of bombs and the sharper cracks of ack-ack over Mestre a few miles to the west. But at the same time, I have a feeling of utter loneliness as I look for my stricken aircraft. A minute later, I see the Kittyhawk plunge into the sea in one final dive, and as the sea closes around her, I feel I have lost something dear and close.

The big, incredibly beautiful canopy of the chute bulges above me as I sway gently below it. Over to one side below me but dangerously close, the docks of Venice exude clouds of smoke and dust with the sky above it peppered by antiaircraft fire. I am close enough to make out the campanile of St. Marks and the Lido. In spite of dread at the fate in store for me, I am glad we have succeeded in our mission to destroy the main Axis port in Italy.

My thoughts quickly return to my own predicament and I prepare to hit the icy Adriatic. I look at the sea far below.
With momentum gathering deceptively slowly, it seems to loom toward me, and I realize that I shall soon plunge into it. I turn the parachute harness button and hold my fist in front of it ready to hit it smartly for releasing, knowing how many pilots have made a safe landing in the water, only to choke and drown in the harness and shrouds. I inflate my Mae West life jacket with a twist of the lever from under the flap and note with relief the shiny yellow material swell as the gas fills the life vest. I decide to wait a little and continue to fall. God, it's a good thing I didn't release. I must still have been a thousand feet up. Then a sudden shock as I hit the freezing water. All at once I hear a ghastly sound of retching and groaning.

I look around in astonishment for the source of the inhuman racket, only to realize that the source is me as I spew water from my lungs, all the while pushing and dragging the parachute away from my head. When I finally get free of it—just moments ago my salvation but now a threat to my life—I search blindly in the water under my buttocks until I find the dinghy package whose hardness I cursed on every flight. By the time I find the inflation bottle, my fingers are numb. I remember Rusty who had bailed out six weeks ago into the same sea east of Lake Comacchio only to be found frozen dead inside his dinghy two hours later.

I grope in the water below me, trying to remove the safety pin so I can unscrew the bottle to inflate the dinghy. But my frozen fingers cannot even feel the pin. After one last desperate effort, I realize it's a losing battle. The more I try, the more frozen my fingers become. When I realize the heavy dinghy package is dragging me down into the depths
below I give up, unhook the dingy package, and watch it sink into the watery abyss beneath me.

As we started our dive on the ships, the radio silence ended and the racket in my earphones was overpowering. Now with my helmet and earphones gone, the wind blows gently through my hair and the peace and quiet around me seem unreal. The anti-aircraft guns booming from the nearby shore and the whine of the Merlin and Allison engines above form an uncanny background. I am completely alone immersed in what looks an endless cold ocean, with no contact to anyone who can rescue me. I see the yellow fluorescent dye from my Mae West staining the water around me. I pray my pal Tony above is keeping his eyes on my bobbing head in the slowly expanding patch of discolored water from my Mae West.

The three remaining Kittyhawks of my flight circle high above me as they try to keep me in sight among the waves. It is comforting to feel that I have not been abandoned, but I know that my chances of coming out alive are minimal. Apart from the paralyzing cold, which gets worse with every minute that passes, there is the virtual impossibility of being pulled out of the sea while under fire from the nearby German shore batteries.

As if someone has read my thoughts, I see vessels making for me at high speed, their wake churning the water into white foam. It must be the German E-boats we know are in the bay. My mind is in turmoil. Am I being left by our side to die in the cold or to become a prisoner of war?

I know my comrades' fuel is running low for they turn southward and become smaller and smaller, tiny specks in
the sky. Now I know that I am abandoned, and in utter desperation I prepare myself for the end in the freezing sea or in a Nazi prison camp. Moments later, I am relieved to make out six Spitfires taking over and circling high above me, affirming that I have not been left to die on my own.

When I hear the firing of machine guns above me, I realize there is no way that Jerry will be able to come out and capture me, for the circling Spitfires are diving down low toward the E-boats near the shore, firing their machine guns and cannons. When the Spits get to the bottom of their dives just above me, I realize how close the Germans are from the deafening staccato of the exploding shells from the strafing.