On Wings of the Morning (21 page)

He heard a round of “Rogers” from the stations and porpoised the aircraft to indicate a change in altitude. The flight observed radio silence at this point in the mission. Otto advanced the throttles to full military power and pulled back on the wheel. The B-17 nosed upward.

It wasn’t enough. The cloud deck was building, and soon they were in a thick overcast. Damn, Otto thought.

“Pilot, tail. I’ve lost sight of everyone.”

“Roger, tail. Thanks. Let me know if you catch sight of them again.” They were somewhere beyond the front line over Nazi-occupied Europe in a cloud bank with three hundred aircraft loaded with fuel and explosives. Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed. He considered aborting the mission by firing off a flare but knew he would have to answer to that decision. Better to press on.

Otto held his course steady, and the clouds suddenly parted to an area of clear skies. The call came from tail: “BANDITS! BANDITS! 5 O’CLOCK HIGH!” The chatter of the tail gun was joined by the top and starboard waist. He could see the nose gun swivel to the right, loosing bursts of .50 caliber shells. The Me109’s tore past the bomber, tiny in comparison, moving so quickly, quickly, pulling Immelmanns and coming back toward Otto and his crew. Generally, they avoided frontal attack, but these guys were
good,
blasting away and then peeling off just as they entered the range of the American guns. A cannon shell struck the starboard wingtip and shredded it. Otto and Donovan pulled the ship back to port and adjusted trim to compensate for the additional drag and loss of lift. As he did many times every mission, Otto thanked God for the toughness of the Forts. He had seen some limp back to base with incredible damage, a dozen feet of wing torn away, stabilizers and rudders almost completely shot up, engines charred lumps of metal. But they still brought their crews back.

“HERE THEY COME AGAIN,” screamed Riley, and once again the gunners opened up. The ship shook with the recoil of thousands of shells pouring into the sky.

“Short bursts, lead your target,” Otto called out, uncertain whether anyone could hear him. They knew what they were doing, but in the excitement of being shot at, they might do anything. He just hoped no bomber was within their range. There were too many cases of bombers being shot down by friendlies.

The attacks came in wave after wave for the next twenty minutes. Otto silently cursed the lack of escorts. What good was it having P-47’s with drop tanks if they weren’t used? Someone had screwed up, that was for certain.

As suddenly they began, the swarms of black fighters fell away. Otto called for a crew report.

“Crew, damage report,” he called. The voices that came back were tense and higher pitched than usual.

“Top, right wingtip is shredded.”

“Waist one, a few holes in the fuselage here and there. Nothing serious.”

“Bombardier, a hole in the glazing.”

That was all. Everything considered, not too bad.

Ahead, a curtain of black puffs of smoke littered the sky. Flak. That meant they were near the target. The fighters had peeled off so they wouldn’t be hit by their own AA fire.

“
Into the valley of death rode the ten thousand…
”

It was Detwiler, the literature major. “Det, keep your Tennyson to yourself, will you?” Otto scolded.

“You got it, pilot. ‘We who are about to die salute you!’ ”

Otto and Donovan scanned what they could see of the sky. “Tail, who’s with us?” Otto called.

“Tail here. I see maybe a dozen a/c, and the formation is pretty ragged.”

Otto cursed silently. The other ships were supposed to form up in order to protect each other. Maybe they would after the bomb run.

“Pilot, nav, we’re at the I.P.”

Flak shells began exploding on either side of them.

“Bombardier, you have the aircraft.” Otto said, as he and Donovan lifted their hands from the controls. Detwiler, the bombardier, flew the aircraft from his Norden bombsite. The Fort had to fly a straight and level course for what seemed like an eternity but which was really only a matter of minutes. Otto kept his hands poised over the wheel, waiting for Detwiler’s call.

The bomber jolted and slewed to the left as a flak shell punched through the wingtip on that side, exploding fifty feet up from them. Shrapnel pinged against the fuselage. Otto could see Detwiler correcting with what control he had.

The last ten feet of the port wing was gone and the number one engine was smoking. “Shut down number one,” Otto called, and Donovan hit the “kill” switch on the panel to his right. The prop windmilled and stopped as Donovan feathered the blades.

Otto dialed in more trim to compensate for the damage.

“Bombs away!” Detwiler called, and the aircraft lurched upward, free of its load. The flak was so heavy that it looked like, as the saying went, Otto could have gotten out and walked on it. He grabbed the controls and firewalled the throttles on the remaining engines, diving down and to the left, headed into a U-turn that would take them away from the murderous AA all around them.

“Tail, someone’s hit. They’re going down.” There was silence on the intercom.

“Count the chutes, tail.”

More silence. Finally, “No chutes, Captain. Poor fellas couldn’t get out.”

The bomber rattled and shook as it was pounded by concussions from shells bursting all around.

Over the intercom: “O my God.”

Otto keyed his mic, grateful that Donovan had his wheel in both hands. “What is it?”

“One of our guys took a shell in the gas tank. He just exploded. There’s nothing left.”

God rest their souls, Otto thought. “OK, stay alert.”

The rest of the flight pulled ahead of them since they only had three engines. Otto watched grimly as the remaining ships formed up and grew smaller and smaller. Those were the rules. Don’t risk your ship to cover a crippled craft.

The flak bursts grew less and less frequent, but that only meant the fighters would make another appearance, having landed, refueled and rearmed. He could see them swarming over and through the formation ahead of them and knew they would pounce on his crippled ship.

“Overspeed on number four!” shouted Donovan. He reached up and killed that engine.

Crap, Otto thought. Slower and slower. “All right, crew, we’ve lost two engines. Jerry’s going to come after us with all he’s got. Check your chutes and be prepared to bail out if I sound the horn.”

Otto pulled out the flak jacket he sat on while over the target. Since most AA came up, the jacket did precious little if worn as intended. It probably wouldn’t do much anyhow, but it didn’t hurt to sit on it. He put it on.

He steered for a cloud bank ahead, but hadn’t reached it when top sang out, “Bandits! Twelve o’clock high! Jesus! There must be thirty of ‘em!”

Otto could hear shells perforating the aluminum skin of the fuselage. Detwiler called out, “Schmidt’s down. I’m checking him right now.”

Otto calmly replied, “You know what to do, Det.”

“Roger that. He’s hurt pretty bad.”

Otto thought quickly that he had never had a crew member injured. Well,
Mata Maria
was a lucky ship, but they weren’t flying her today. Damn the luck.

Machine gun fire rang from all stations as the Germans bore in time after time. The cloud bank was only a hundred feet away. The B-17 bucked and shook as if a giant fist has struck it. All the bullets hitting the skin sounded like a hailstorm.

“Damage report!” Otto called.

“Jesus, Lieutenant, a shell punched right through the fuselage! The hole must be three feet in diameter!”

Donovan was sweating profusely as he wrestled with the controls, which had gone mushy. Otto pushed into a gradual descent to keep from stalling. He didn’t know if he could recover from one if that should happen.

Wisps of cloud closed around them and then they were in the cloud bank, safe for the time being. Now if they could avoid running into another aircraft.

All Otto and Donovan could see was gray. At least the Germans couldn’t see them. The ’17 kept losing altitude gradually, so Otto had some hope of making the Channel. They could bail out and be picked up by the coastal patrol. He didn’t want to have his crew come down in German territory.

“Pilot, power’s out to the ball. We can’t get him out.”

“All right, Detwiler, take the fire ax and chop him out. Be careful not to chop him up when you do.”

Amidst the din of laboring engines Otto and Donovan could hear the ax ringing against the metal of the ball turret. After about five minutes, Detwiler called. “Pilot, we got him out. He’s white as a ghost.”

“Have him lie down. How is he?”

“Not good, sir. We need to get him some real help.”

“Stick him with a styrette. We’ll get this thing down as soon as we can.”

“Sir,” Donovan said, “Do we have enough altitude to make the Channel?”

“I don’t know, Donovan. Let’s pull up as much as we can. Watch for a stall.”

The clouds parted and they caught a glimpse of the Channel coastline ahead. A P-47 slid in beside them. Otto pointed to his headphone and shook his head. No radio. The ’47 pilot nodded and stayed just off their wingtip.

Otto made a decision. “Crew, prepare to bail out.”

Donovan didn’t move. “Donovan, that includes you. You stand a better chance by going into the Channel. SP will pick you up.”

“What about you, Otto?”

“I’m going to bring it in. If I can.”

“Sir—“

“
Move
, Donovan. That’s an order!”

Donovan undid his harness and stood. He clasped Otto on the shoulder. “Good luck, Otto. See you back at base.”

He went into the back where Otto could hear him arranging for a bail out order. They would send someone out with Schmidt and Riley. Maybe he should keep them on the aircraft. No, they would get medical attention more quickly if they bailed out. And landing in the water would be less rough than the crash landing he was about to make.

The Fort rattled and bucked as it came over turbulence created by the water of the Channel. Otto kept them at a thousand feet, but he was losing altitude faster than he liked. He punched the bailout horn and felt the aircraft lurch up slightly as each man jumped out the side hatch. He counted, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven . . . where was eight? Then he remembered that Schmidt and Riley had gone out with someone else. A good crew.

His thoughts flickered briefly to Alice and then to his mother and father and to Mata. He wrenched them back to the task at hand. Concentrate, Kerchner, concentrate. He had 35 miles to go to the airfield, and he wasn’t sure he could hold it up that long. He would have to. A straight-in approach.

He had plenty of fuel since only two engines were operating, even though they were at full power. He prayed that they would hold up, scanning constantly for potential landing sites. His altitude crept down gradually. He had to be trailing smoke, and surely the Jug in formation with him had radioed ahead about his predicament.

The crew had by now been recovered from the Channel, provided they landed all right. He would find out later. The CP did an amazing job of plucking fliers out of the water.

He saw the airfield from about twenty miles out. Five hundred feet. Otto kept his hands and feet busy, right at stall speed, which was about all he could manage. He didn’t have the bomb load, but he had more fuel than he wanted.

Four hundred feet. He was about fifteen miles out. Too soon to shoot the flare that would indicate to the ground that his radio was out and he was coming straight in on an emergency.

Three hundred feet. He had the controls wrenched all the way over to starboard and the big aircraft still wanted to pull to port. He was practically standing on full right rudder to keep what marginal control he had. He pulled the throttles back and the Boeing started to nose up into a stall. He rammed the levers back to full power. If the engines quit entirely it wouldn’t be a pretty picture.

Farms slid by, with farmers harvesting what looked like wheat or hay. They used horses. Otto idly wondered what his mother and father and Mata were doing at this hour. It would be about 8 AM in Wisconsin, and they would have been up for hours.

Two hundred feet. He had the field in sight, straight ahead. He dropped the gear, hoping that the hydraulics weren’t shot out. The light for the port gear came on. Ah, crap. No starboard gear. He’d have been better off leaving the gear up and making a belly landing. He toggled the gear switch. The light stayed on. Stuck. Crap!

One hundred feet. Time for the flare. As if they couldn’t tell he was in trouble by looking at what must have been a smoking, tattered wreck.

Gott in Himmel
, help me now, Otto breathed, opening the side window and sticking the flare gun out into the slipstream. He was at 100 knots. Needed to slow down to land. He popped the flare as the ’17 slid off to the left. Otto dropped the flare gun outside the window and slammed his hands back on the column. The aircraft wallowed and came back to a mushy, porpoising path. He pulled the flaps lever, to no effect.

The ground rushed up to meet him. He held the plane off the ground as long as he could to bleed off speed, and felt the port gear touch. The aircraft bounced, once, twice and then he was down, jouncing along on one wheel, trying to hold the wings level as long as he could. He could see an ambulance and a fire truck rolling toward him. He chopped the throttles and braced himself.

The starboard wing quit flying and fell to the grass. The Fort wheeled around the pivot point created as the stub of the wing dug into the dirt. The field whirled dizzily by. Otto thought of the ride at the county fair which twirled riders around and around. The aircraft slid around twice. Right before it came to rest, Otto heard the sound of metal tearing. It was probably the tail breaking off. He hit his head on the instrument panel.

Half conscious, he heard an explosion from behind him and then smelled smoke. He was on fire, but he couldn’t stir himself to move. He needed to undo his harness and get out, but he was sleepy…so sleepy…