House of Ghosts

by House of Ghosts (epub)

  The slow Southern drawl belonged to First Lieutenant Shep Peterson of Lufkin, Texas. “Foley is in the hospital and is going to be sent home. Crane and Heeler went down in Romania two days ago.”

  Paul played with the mosquito netting suspended around the cot, wanting to take back the question. It was a rookie mistake. The cardinal rule was never to ask about the missing. He changed the subject. “Nice digs,” he said, closing the lid on his trunk. “Uncle Sam sure knows how to spoil us.”

  “It isn’t so bad, kinda reminds me of camping with my grand dad.” The big Texan, six-one and two-twenty, took a liking to the kid with the funny Brooklyn accent. For Peterson, anyone not from Texas had a funny accent. “This is sure a first, a fly boy from Brooklyn and a Jew to boot,” he whooped loudly. “I reckon you could use some chow.”

  Paul and the other replacements landed at Amendola just after the noon mess closed. The balance of the afternoon was spent processing interminable forms, taking an umpteenth medical exam, and a pep talk by the base commander. “My stomach is going to sue my mouth for non-support.”

  “Take off your gold bars so we can slip into the enlisted mess. The quartermaster there barters stuff with the locals—candy and smokes for fresh fruit and vegetables. The dumb ass who runs the officer’s chow palace says he won’t stoop to deal with the farmers around here.”

  A short walk of a hundred-fifty yards brought them into the mess and recreation areas. The common area was a sea of mud after three days of rain. “Be careful where you step,” Peterson cautioned. “This Italian mud is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Back home we have some ungodly earth when it gets soaked, but it doesn’t compare. Shit, a five-ton truck will sink to its axles if it should run off the roads.”

  Peterson was correct about the enlisted men’s mess. It was the best army chow Paul had eaten in months. “Put your bars back on, we’re going to pay a visit to the officer’s club. The guys spend down time in The Cave. I guess booze is more important than food, because the liquid served is par excellence.” Peterson sidestepped a mud puddle. “Can’t say enough about, excuse the expression, Yankee ingenuity. The Italians have been mining limestone for centuries around here, leaving a slew of excavated caves. They’ve had various uses. The Italians used the caves as wine cellars, followed by the Germans who housed prisoners and horses. When we got our turn, Chaplain Allen saw their potential. He suggested converting them to enlisted men and officers clubs. Another was adapted into a theater for shows and movies. One of the sergeants hung the name Rock Fella Social Center on the theater. I kinda like it.”

  Paul followed Peterson into The Cave, which was cool as though it was air conditioned. A twenty-foot mahogany bar and twenty round banquet tables were liberated from a hotel destroyed in the ground fighting done by the grunts of the 5th Army. One of the replacement pilots held court in the far corner, regaling his new cohorts of his abilities with a B-17. “Who the hell is the hotshot?” Peterson asked. “He hasn’t flown one mission and already considers himself top dog. Well, he’s going to get his chance tomorrow. The weather guys say this rain is going to lift from here to Ploesti. We’ve been there three days in a row, and I doubt that we’re going to get a break. Grab a seat, and I’ll get a couple of beers.”

  Paul found a table with two vacant seats and introduced himself. Immediately he was asked about the new loudmouth. “That’s Jake Graham. He’s a legend in his own mind,” Paul informed them.

  Peterson returned with the brews. “I was telling my new tent mate that tomorrow his buddy over there is going to get his chance to shit his pants if we catch what they threw on the past three trips.”

  Ploesti, Romania, the main oil refinery servicing the Nazi war machine, was the third most heavily defended target on the continent, producing tremendous losses upon attacking formations of Fifteenth bombers. It was on these raids that the former residents of The Alamo were lost.

  “Briefing at 04:30,” Sergeant Barney Buckley yelled through the flap of The Alamo, shining his flashlight on the sleeping faces.

  Sleep was difficult most nights for Paul. Before his first mission, it was impossible. He looked at the radium painted dial on his Hamilton—02:00. He hadn’t caught more than two hours. The chatter among crews the previous night was Ploesti. A betting pool was giving 1:3 odds that it was still high on the target list. Thinking about flying into the man made Hell churned his stomach.

  Peterson buried his head under his pillow. “I’d like to find the brain who ordered missions times before the roosters get up.” He ripped the mosquito netting to the side, swinging his feet into his boots. “The target ain’t going anywhere. It’ll be there at 12:00.”

  Paul lit the kerosene lamp. “Make sure you have nothing on you except your dog tags,” Peterson counseled. “They’re going to check your pockets for personal stuff anyway, but you don’t want to look like a rookie.” The Texan tidied his cot, carefully tucking in the blanket. It was a ritual among pilots to make their beds, indicating their faith in returning from the mission.

  Paul gamely followed suit. The two dressed in silence, hit the latrine and made their way to the officer’s mess hall for the traditional pre-flight breakfast of eggs, flapjacks, and coffee strong enough to remove the corrosion on a propeller.

  Conversations were short and muted. Paul barely choked down two forkfuls of eggs and a quarter mug of coffee. Getting sick wasn’t an option.

  Peterson worked on his second plate of eggs. “You better eat something. These missions keep gettin’ longer and longer. Seven hours is a long time to go with nothing in your gut.”

  At 04:15, pilots, navigators, and bombardiers dumped their meal trays. Unrelated curses broke the silence of the pre-dawn quiet as the procession totaling ninety-six made its way to the mission briefing in a Quonset hut next to squadron headquarters.

  A dozen six-by-sixes waited to take them to their planes. Peterson eyed his pasty looking tent-mate. “You worry me pardner. Not a good way to go into the wild blue yonder.”

  “I’ll be alright,” Paul said with a shrug as they filed through the entrance guarded by a pair of MPs.

  “I’ll see you after the briefing,” Peterson said, joining his crew members.

  Paul squeezed between his co-pilot Tom Hornish and his bombardier Monroe Ellington. Navigator Will Dalrymple nervously twirled a red grease pencil between his thumb and index finger. Captain Lindsey Bradford, the group’s intelligence officer, stood at parade rest on a raised stage. Covered by a black sheet, a map detailing the route to the target challenged eyes that didn’t want to look but couldn’t resist.

  Paul glanced around. Everyone sat at various positions and postures. Some were ramrod straight staring at the back of the heads in the row in front. Others had taken advantage of the lull by catching a few moments of sleep. The high octane coffee fueled sparse animated conversations between seatmates. He could feel the fear of death in the room.

  “Ten-hut!” rang out. The assembly jump to its feet.

  Colonel Raul Wullien, the Second’s commanding officer and his adjutant, Major Austin Dexter, strode up the center isle to the stage.

  Wullien spent his forty-seventh birthday writing letters to the families of crews lost in the raids against the dreaded Ploesti oil installations. The prematurely gray West Point graduate knew full well what his crews were being asked—fly the most advanced aircraft in the United State’s arsenal with training that would have been laughed at prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1938, the requirements to be a B-17 pilot were seven to eleven years of commissioned service, over 2,000 hours logged as a pilot, and ratings as a dead reckoning and celestial navigator, and to be an expert bombardier and gunner. By 1942, pilots with barely more than 200 hours of flying school time and less than one year of military service were moving directly into the B-17 cockpit and in one or two months were aircraft commanders. “Be seated,” he ordered.

  Armed with a clipboard, Dexter began roll call, calling the twenty-four names of
each crew commander in alphabetical order. Paul felt his heart pounding through his shirt. “Rothstein!”

  Paul’s throat felt like a desert. He couldn’t answer.

  An Ace during the WWI, Dexter left his managerial position at U.S. Steel to regain his commission. His reputation of possessing a heart as cold and hard as the product made in the Pittsburgh plant followed to the 2nd Bombardment Group. “Rothstein!” he shouted, glowering at the neophyte pilot from New York.

  Hornish tapped Paul on his knee. Paul stammered, “Pres-sent.”

  Dexter continued to stare at Paul, and then turned toward Wullien. “All present and accounted for.”

  Captain Terrance Flannery, a Boston cop in civilian life now serving as the group’s security officer, stepped forward. “Do not talk about the mission once you’ve left this room, and this also applies to the scrubbed target. Make sure your dog tags are around your neck and your G.I. shoes are on your feet. Do not wear any insignia. Carry your name, rank and serial number, and no billfolds, pictures or letters. No one will be permitted to leave this briefing until dismissed.”

  With a magician’s swoosh, Bradford removed the sheet. Red yarn pinned to the map stretched from Staz Di Amendola to Blechhammer, Germany. Groans and curses reverberated off the metal walls. The target wasn’t Ploesti, but it was just as bad. “God-damn sonofabitch. This is my last mission,” spat one of the pilots named Kranz. They’d been there before. The bombing result was poor; the enemy’s resistance was deadly. Inside the hut, the temperature seemed to jump ten degrees. A faint haze rose to the ceiling produced from body heat and sweat.

  Bradford flicked a wooden pointer at the map. Those lounging and daydreaming straightened on their chairs. Their lives depended on information from the thirty-something holding a doctorate in philosophy from Yale. “This is a deep penetration raid of seven-hundred fifty miles.” A collective groan was emitted. The round trip would take a minimum of seven hours. Bradford paused, looking over his gold wire rims resting on the edge of his nose. “Flak should be light to the IP, then it will become real nasty. Enemy fighters will be numerous and fierce on both sides of the target. They will try to break up the formations with head-on attacks. Panicking and trying to evade them will leave you wide open for attack. If someone ahead gets out of the formation, move into his place. He’s either hit and will go down or he’s straggling.”

  “Peterson will lead the mission,” Wullien announced, receiving the pointer from Bradford. He moved to the rear of the stage where a projector screen was lowered from the ceiling.

  Paul glanced sideways at Hornish. They both knew that with Peterson leading the mission, the 20th squadron would be the first to get jumped by German fighters. It would be one hell of an initiation to combat.

  “Slide,” Wullien ordered. An aerial surveillance photo of the target appeared. “The gas generators are your primary target,” he said, pointing to the towering structures. If destroyed, the plant will be inoperative for a minimum of six months and 250 tons of oil will be denied to the enemy. Our last trip to Blechhamer prepared us for today. Keep your wits about you. I can’t emphasize enough that maintaining group integrity is the key to staying alive. Good luck.”

  The assembly snapped to attention. Wullien, Dexter, and Bradford stepped from the stage, exiting the hut without looking at the numb faces. The rows emptied into a quay plodding to the double doors opened by the MPs. Cigarettes were lit at the threshold, inhaled and finished in the one minute walk to a wood framed building housing the “ready room.”

  Assigned lockers holding electrically heated flight suits, fleece lined leather jackets and gloves, and steel combat helmets were opened. Paul pulled a heavy woolen sweater over his head, fighting the worst thought that a pilot could have— who would be eating in the mess hall that night? He finished dressing. “Let’s go,” he said to his crew in a measured tone, determined not to ever repeat his bad showing in the briefing room.

  A trail of emotions paved the way to the trucks. Paul jumped as a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. “It wasn’t pretty the first time we went to Blechhammer, but I’ll get you there and back,” Peterson said.

  Paul managed a weak, “Sure thing.”

  They climbed into the rear of a truck. The three mile trip to the airstrip passed in a blur. Dawn was peeking over the horizon. The sun would be up by the time the planes were cleared for takeoff.

  Mechanics worked through the night preparing the planes for combat. Stopping at the edge of the airstrip made from steel mesh plates laid on grass and mud, the crews sprinted to their aircraft. Emblazoned across the nose of plane numbered 42-102908 was the Brooklyn Avenger. The seven crewmen searched Paul’s face for a hint of what lay in store.

  Hornish said, “I’ll get the pre-flight checks going.” He disappeared through the lower hatch.

  “Gather round and listen up,” Paul announced. “We’re going to Blechhammer, Germany.”

  “Is that good or bad?” waist gunner Vincent Sapienza asked. Vinnie swapped his typewriter for a .50 caliber machine gun when one of the Avenger’s gunners fractured his arm before shipping out from the States. Paul questioned the fortuitous timing, sensing Jake’s hand in placing the former Brooklyn enforcer in his crew.

  “It’s not Ploesti, but it isn’t going to be a cakewalk,” Paul said. Giving the details of the group’s previous experience with the target wouldn’t have boosted the crew’s confidence. He handed his radioman Harold Jones the frequencies that were going to be used for the mission. “We’ve got a lot to do. Move!”

  Paul circled the plane inspecting the tires, landing gear, and the external body. He pulled himself through the belly hatch and maneuvered along a six-inch wide walkway in the bomb bay and opened the door to the radio room. Jones, busy setting up his radios, didn’t look away from his codebook. He entered the cockpit.

  “Systems are a-okay,” Hornish reported.

  Paul eased into his seat. One-hundred fifty-six gauges and dials stared back from the instrument panel. “Let’s run through the list.” Pre-flight checks took an hour. He leaned out the slide window indicating that the plane be plugged into the external generator, the run up to starting the four engines. One of the maintenance crew stood behind engine Number One armed with a fire extinguisher. “Lt. Hornish, start Number One.”

  Hornish flipped a series of switches on the instrument panel then hit the start button. The three blade propeller at the end of the left wing began to spin. Two massive puffs of exhaust belched from the Pratt and Whitney turbocharged engine. “Oil and manifold pressures are satisfactory,” Hornish said.

  Paul flashed two fingers out the window. The fire extinguisher was moved to the second engine. “Start two.”

  With engines Number Three and Four running, the noise was so loud that it was hard for Paul to hear Hornish. He put on his headset, switching the intercom to the in-plane mode. “Vinnie. Flap check.”

  The right wing flaps were raised and lowered. “Ready, lieutenant,” Vinnie replied.

  Paul repeated the procedure for the left wing flaps. “We’re ready to go.”

  A green flare broke the dawn. The ground crews removed wheel chocks up and down the line. Peterson’s aircraft rolled from his station. Paul increased thrust on engines Two and Four. The Brooklyn Avenger taxied to the runway. He touched the intercom. “Prepare for takeoff. Make sure everything is secured.”

  The B-17 immediately ahead lifted off. Paul opened the throttles on all four engines. The Brooklyn Avenger quickly picked up speed. Hornish called the M.P.H., “50, 60, 70…120.”

  Paul pulled back the yoke, barely clearing the trees at the end of the runway. “Landing gears up.” Climbing to 5,000 feet, The Brooklyn Avenger joined the circling dance over Foggia as the 2nd Bombardment Group assembled into four squadrons. It was 06:30. Peterson began to climb.

  At 28,000 feet, Paul set the trim tabs, reducing the strain on his legs and shoulders in keeping the plane level. He rolled a condom around the microphone in his
oxygen mask to keep it dry. At altitude, the temperature inside the open plane plummeted to -50 Fahrenheit. He squeezed the mask to prevent ice from clogging it. “Clear your guns,” he said. The report of the Avenger’s fourteen machine guns cascaded into the cockpit.

  “The sun is blinding. The German fighters are going to dive right out of it,” Hornish said.

  “They’re the least of the problem. Flak over the refinery is so dense and accurate that Peterson says you can get out and take a walk on it,” Paul said. To that point, the run was smoother than a training mission over South Dakota. “What’s the ETA to the target,” he asked Dalrymple.

  “Thirty-four minutes, skipper.”

  “Bandits at two o’clock!” Vinnie crackled over the intercom.

  The top turret and tail gunners yelled simultaneously about bogies and bad guys. Machine guns barked in sustained bursts. Hundreds of shell casings bounced on the floor and rolled around the fuselage. “Fighters in every direction!” Hornish yelled.

  Forty to sixty Me-109s, FW-190s, and Me-120s attacked. 20mm German rounds split steel plate above Paul’s head. The concussion of the exploding shells knocked his head to the side. Pressing his gloves against his ears, Paul tried to stop the ringing. For a moment he thought he would lose control of his bowels. He was in a world foreign to anything he trained for or ever experienced. Flashes of light twinkled a thousand yards in the distance. Cannon shells, aerial mines and rockets seemed to explode everywhere. “Conserve ammo, don’t waste rounds,” Paul ordered.

  Two cracks in the windshield on Hornish’s side of the cockpit appeared, coinciding with the co-pilot’s steel helmet flying off his head. “Holy shit!” Hornish yelled, kicking at a baseball-size piece of metal lying on the floor.