That’s foolishness, Clint thought with disgust. I’ve got no right to be thinking that way of Carol. She’s true as steel. Forcing the idea from his mind, he sat down and wrote her a letter, putting as many encouraging things as he could in it. He sealed it up, and had started out of the barracks when he heard his name being called. “Hey, Clint—” Looking up he saw Moon Wilson walking rapidly down the line of Quonset huts, his face alive with excitement. “Did you hear about the new pilot?”
“No, have we been assigned a couple?”
“Well, one anyhow. Don’t know anything about him, but a buddy of mine in headquarters said that he’d come in.”
“That’s good; I hope he’s a good man,” Clint said.
“He won’t be,” Moon said philosophically. As his custom was, he reached into his pocket and unwrapped a Moon Pie. The source of these delicacies was a mystery to everyone. They were not for sale in England, only in the States, as far as Clint knew. He himself thought they tasted like candle wax, with the same sort of texture, but he had grown accustomed to Wilson’s addiction to them. “Whoever we get will be a dud; you can bet on that.”
“No, I don’t believe that, Moon. I’ve been asking the Lord to give us a good pilot—somebody that can help us, that we can support.”
“Well, trouble with that is God doesn’t make these assignments. Bomber Command makes them, and they got our name in black up there somewhere. Every time a dud comes along, somebody says, ‘Well, here’s another one for the Last Chance.’”
Clint shook his head and slapped Moon on the shoulder. “We’ll be all right. Let’s go tell the rest of the guys. We may be flying sooner than we think.”
All day long the crew waited anxiously to meet their new pilot. They talked about him endlessly. Cisco Marischal said, “I wonder if he’s any good at formation flying?”
“He’d better be!” Manny Columbo nodded. He was cleaning his fingernails with a long switchblade knife he carried in his hip pocket. It was a wicked-looking affair, and he waved with it, gesturing emotionally. “You know what happens to B-17s that are flown by guys who don’t know what they’re doing.”
“That’s right, those Germans can spot a new crew on their first circle around the formation,” Cunningham said. The ball turret gunner was barely large enough to make the air force height limit. He was considered a ladies’ man, at least by his own admission, and had interrupted one tale of a romantic liaison with an English lass in order to join the conversation. “They’ll tear into our rear ends on the first pass, ’cause they can always spot the easiest sports to knock down.”
A silence fell over the group, and Clint said, “I wonder how they can tell which ones are the green crews and the new pilots?”
“That’s easy,” Moon asserted. He was sitting on his bunk, leaning back, and looked with disgust at the rest of the crew. “Green pilots can’t stay in tight formation. They throttle jock back and forth—might as well flash a neon sign, Come and Shoot Me Down.”
They were still shooting the breeze when Lieutenant Schmidt stuck his head in the door and said, “All right, your new pilot’s here! He’ll be here in a few minutes, so try to get your act together!” He looked at them with disgust and said, “It would take a miracle to get you guys to fly a raid without messing up.”
“I love the confidence they got in us,” Asa Peabody grinned. He kept his eyes on the door, as did the rest of them, and when it opened and an officer stepped in, they all came to attention.
The officer who entered had his cap pulled down over his eyes so that Clint could not see his face for a moment. They all saluted, and Clint studied the man as he pushed his hat back, and then a shock of recognition came to him. Without volition, he spoke, “Adam!”
Indeed, it was Adam Stuart who had stepped inside the Quonset hut! His eyes met Clint’s, and he thought it strange for cousins to meet under such circumstances.
Clint said, “I’m sorry, Sir—I was just so surprised to see you.”
Adam had stiffened with surprise but recovered quickly. “I’m Lieutenant Adam Stuart, and I’m glad to see I’ve got a relative here. How are you, Clint?”
“Just fine, Sir. I’m pretty surprised to see you, though.”
“Why don’t you introduce me to the rest of the crew, Sergeant Stuart?”
“Yes, Sir, of course!” Clint went around the small group giving the names and combat stations of the rest of the crew. He was aware that several of them were giving him strange glances, and he was a little flustered. He finished the introductions and said, “We’re very glad to have you, Lieutenant Stuart.”
Adam looked at the men, who were staring at him with raw curiosity. He well knew what they were thinking. They’re all wondering if I can cut it, he thought. Their lives will be in my hands, and they don’t look any too happy with what they see. Aloud he said, “I’ve just arrived in England, so I don’t have the combat experience that you men have. How many missions have you flown?”
“Three, Sir!” Clint said quickly.
“Well, as soon as we get a second pilot, I expect we’ll be taking off. In the meanwhile, I think we can take a flight right now to get acquainted with each other.”
“You mean right now, Lieutenant? This very minute?” Moon Wilson asked with surprise.
“Why not?” Adam said sharply. He had already known that the crew would have more experience than he himself. This would be a detriment, but he had purposed to throw himself into the work with everything he had. “Let’s talk frankly. I’ll be frank with you, and you can be frank with me. Do you have any questions you want to ask me, first of all?”
“Yes, Sir, I have one question,” Moon Wilson said. “How much formation flying time have you had?”
“Thirty hours.” Adam saw dismay wash across the faces of the men. “I know it takes seventy hours of high-altitude formation experience to be a fair pilot, but you’ll have to take what I’ve got.” There was almost anger in his voice, and he said, “You can check me out, and I’ll check you out. From what I hear, the Last Chance is just what it sounds like. You’ve got a bad reputation in the group. I even heard about it coming over. The transport pilots talked about how sorry this crew is.”
Clint said quickly, “Sir, I’d like to suggest that we just begin from scratch. I’m sure you’ll be a fine pilot. It’s just that the men are nervous about tight formations.”
There were good reasons for the nervousness of the crew, for a tight formation was essential to standing off German fighter attacks. A bomber could not concentrate much fire power against a fighter except on tail attacks. The Germans knew that, so they hit mainly with a frontal charge. A single Fortress could only bring to bear three guns in a head-on attack—the nose gun and the two top turret guns. The navigator could only fire if the attack were approaching at an angle to the nose. The tighter the formation, the more fire it could bring to bear against the enemy. Therefore, a tight formation was the ultimate defensive tactic of a bomber force sent beyond the range of fighter escorts.
Adam Stuart stood with his back straight. His light blue eyes were cold, it seemed, and there was a harshness in his voice as he said, “I joined the Air Corps for one reason, to kill Germans, and I will do my job! If any man doesn’t do his job, he gets the worst I can give him. If I don’t do my job, I invite you to do the same for me!” He spoke coldly and for some time, then finally said, “We’ll fly in one hour. Sergeant Stuart, check the airplane out.”
Turning on his heel, Adam left, and a silence fell over the room—but only for a moment—then they all began talking. Marischal stared at Clint saying, “That’s your cousin? Can’t say much for him!”
Peabody snorted. “It’s bad luck, that’s what it is! We’re not going to make it with him!”
“Wait a minute, you guys. Give him a chance, will you? He may be the best formation flyer in the whole Eighth Air Force,” Clint protested.
“I’ll have to see that!” Manny Columbo said. His eyes narrowed, and he ope
ned his switchblade knife and clicked it shut again, then slammed it into his pocket. “Well, let’s go see if he can fly an airplane!”
Three hours later, the crew was piling out of the aircraft. Columbo glanced around to be sure that the pilot was out of hearing, then said reluctantly, “Well, I’ll give him this; he seems to be a pretty fair pilot.”
“Pretty fair!” Clint exclaimed. “He’s the best you ever saw, Manny, and you know it.”
“We’ll see how he does when we get over Germany. Lots of guys are good when there’s nobody shootin’ at ’em,” Cisco said. “Lots of bullfighters are pretty good until they get in the ring, then they take one look at those horns, and boom, they’re gone.” His eyes were filled with doubt, and his mouth twisted as he said, “We’ll see what Lieutenant Adam Stuart’s like when the flak hits and the Focke-Wulfs start coming in!”
Adam flew every day with his crew but had gotten to know none of them personally. He kept to himself and was strict and businesslike in all of his affairs. Clint wanted to say, “Loosen up, Adam, you don’t have to be so tough,” but felt it was out of place.
Adam’s first mission came on October 9. General Eaker had been waiting for his first one-hundred-bomber strike and had chosen locomotive shops at Lille in northern France.
The mission suffered ill fortune right from the start. Various mechanical problems forced nineteen Fortresses to abort and return to England. Ten out of twenty-four Liberators also turned back. The remaining seventy-nine bombers pressed on and were met by an estimated force of sixty FW 190s that screamed down through the Allied fighters’ screen to attack the Forts and Liberators. As they approached the target, Adam said to the new copilot, a tall Texan named Tom Smith, “Keep your eye out for fighters, Smith, and pass that word along!”
Smith was a nervous individual and began at once chattering over the loudspeaker, “Watch out for fighters!” And almost at once Peabody yelled, “You see them coming at ten o’clock high? Watch ’em; here they come! Shoot ’em down, knock ’em down!”
Instantly, Adam broke in, “Peabody, I told you a hundred times not to shoot when they can’t hit us. That fighter is rolling away from us. Stop wasting your ammunition. We’ll be out before we get to the target! Don’t shoot ’til you can hit ’em, then don’t waste a single round!”
Over and over again, Adam kept telling the gunners to save their ammunition. He insisted that when a fighter quit firing the gunners were to forget about him and concentrate on the next ones.
Adam searched the sky and saw a Fortress over on the starboard side of his aircraft get hit and catch fire. Flames streamed beyond the tail, and down it went.
“Nobody got out,” Smith said, his voice shaking.
“Don’t think about it!” Adam snapped. “We’ll get in and get this thing over with!”
The enemy planes began to come in furiously. Clint was thrown all over the airplane, and his ammunition flew out of the ammo cans and got fouled up. Once the Last Chance almost collided with a fighter. Clint saw one ship catch five fighters and it went down. “Poor guys,” he said aloud, and turned to see that Red Frazier was pale. “I wish I was out of this,” Frazier said. “It’s worse than any fight I ever had in the ring.”
The plane set down at Ridgewell Airdrome, and the weary, beaten crew got out. Adam sat in the aircraft after the others had departed and analyzed what his feelings were. He had been able to meet the danger of combat coldly. It seemed as though something had taken over, driven out the fear, and he wondered if this were common. He decided that it was not, for he had seen enough fear in his copilot to know that he could expect little help from him. He got up and made his way out of the airplane and went to interrogation. The interrogation was long and detailed. He discovered that the Eighth Bomber Command had taken a frightful, shocking loss—sixty B-17s shot down, twenty-seven of the Fortresses damaged too severely to be repaired.
After Adam sat through it all, then left with the rest of the crew, Smith approached, saying, “Come on, let’s go have a drink, Stuart. I need one.”
“You go ahead,” Adam said, and he turned and walked away. Clint was standing nearby and did not comment, but later on he said to Lieutenant Smith, “You did a good job, Lieutenant; we’re going to have a good aircraft here.”
Smith was staring down at the ground. “I was scared out of my wits,” he murmured. He looked up and shook his head. “Adam Stuart’s a relative of yours?”
“Yes, Sir, a cousin.”
“Well, he wasn’t scared. He flew right into that bomb run like—like he was driving on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of town! That man’s not human!”
“Yes, Sir, he’s human,” Clint replied slowly. “He’s just afraid to show it.”
In the days that followed through October, Clint tried desperately to get close to Adam but could find no way to do it. Adam kept to himself, was strictly business, and replied coldly. Even when Clint mentioned family matters, Adam turned him away. Naturally there was a great gap between an officer and an enlisted man. Still, Clint knew that some officers in the other aircraft were much warmer with their crews. He could not justify the cold, machinelike behavior of Adam for the rest of the crew and soon had to give up trying. The instant he began to defend Adam, the crew was down his throat.
Cisco Marischal had been castigated by Adam for his poor navigation on the raids and had learned to hate the pilot. “I don’t care if he is your kinfolk,” he said. “I’d trade him off for a man with a little human feeling in him! He’s just like a machine, and that’s what’s going to get us killed. Maybe he’s not afraid, but some of the rest of us are!”
Strangely enough, this was the feeling that Clint had. Courage was one thing, but Adam’s behavior was something else. The pilot flew mechanically, almost perfectly, but he never wavered, never took evasive maneuvers, and above all, he never encouraged his crew in any way. It troubled Clint deeply, and he spoke of it in a letter to Carol.
I wish that Adam would loosen up. It’s as though he has put some kind of a stopper in any kind of emotion he’s got. He never smiles, he seems angry, and the rest of the crew hate him. They think he’s a dangerous man to fly with, and as much as I hate to admit it, I think they’re right. He could be a great pilot, perhaps the greatest, if he would just bend a little bit, but he won’t do that, it seems. So, just keep praying for us, Sweetheart.
In return to this letter, he received one from Carol in which she said,
I wish you had another pilot. It sounds like Adam isn’t the man you would have chosen. I am so afraid for you, and I feel so alone. Dad had a bad spell last week. He’s in the hospital now, and the doctors don’t give me any encouragement. Oh, I’m so afraid and wish you were here. If it weren’t for the encouragement that Harry Bledsoe gives me, I don’t know how I’d make it.
It was one week after this that he got another letter from Carol, containing only a few lines, which said,
Dad died last night. I can’t write about it right now; I have to see to the funeral arrangements. Harry has been good enough to help me, and your parents also. I’ll write later, but right now my heart is broken.
Clint was terribly disturbed by this, for he knew how much Carol depended on her father. “I ought to be there to help her,” he muttered, “but there’s no way.” He did not share his burden with anyone, for a bit of frustrating news had come to the group. The British-American High Command had instructed General Eaker to concentrate on submarine pens in French ports. These pens were roofed with twelve-foot-thick reinforcing concrete, and everyone knew that it would be the most thankless and dangerous of all the objectives assigned to the Eighth in its first operational year.
On October 21, Adam came in and took one look at his crew. “All right, we’re going to Lorient. Escort will be provided only part of the way. It’s out of fighter range. I want every man to be in top shape.” He glanced at Manny Columbo and said, “Columbo, you stay sober, or I’ll see you in the guardhouse. The rest of you, mind y
ourselves!”
“That was quite a pep talk, wasn’t it? Makes a fella feel real good,” Asa Peabody said after Adam left. “This ain’t gonna be no good day for a raid.”
“There’s never a good day for a raid!” Red Frazier complained.
“It’s gonna be worse,” Peabody grunted. “I killed a spider this morning. Should’ve captured it and put it outside. It’s bad luck to kill spiders!”
“That’s enough talk about luck,” Clint said sharply. “Let’s go over our drill as well as we can and trust in God, and we’ll be all right.”
But the raid did not go all right. Heavy clouds covered the Atlantic, and only fifteen Forts of the most experienced group made it through. Fortunately, the Lorient flight crews were caught napping, and the B-17s dropped thirty one-ton bombs on the submarine pens. Before the Forts could get away, however, the thirty-six FW 190s of a crack Luftwaffe unit came swarming after them.
Adam kept his place in the formation and directed the fire of his guns. He had discovered that he had the best eyesight of anyone on the aircraft, but he could only see ahead and forward. His voice crackled constantly to Asa Peabody, the tail gunner, and to Beans Cunningham down in the ball turret.
Finally the formation came together, and Adam glanced up to see something white floating by. It was a parachute with no one in it. Pieces of wings, tails, and fuselages littered the sky. Where there had been several aircraft the moment before, now there was nothing but empty space and falling debris. Adam caught a brief glimpse of one ship going down. The fuselage had torn off flush with the trailing edge of the wing, all four engines were still running, and the ship was revolving rapidly—the way a rectangular piece of paper will do when released in the air. All fifty men, Adam thought, shocked out of his steady frame of mind for a moment, fifty men in a few seconds. He gritted his teeth and glanced over at Tom Smith, the copilot, and saw that the Texan was pale as paper and his hands were trembling. “Smith, you see any more fighters?”
Winds of Change Page 17