Bombs Away

by John Steinbeck

  “Clear,” the ground sergeant said. The three-bladed propeller turned jerkily, once, twice, fired and caught and Joe idled it back. “Clear number two,” and number two caught. Three and four started. Abner sighed with nervous relief. Bill put on his earphones and lifted his microphone. He got his clearance from operations. He taxied the ship to the runway, set the brakes, and reversed each engine while the ship strained at the brakes. Then Joe called the tower and reported himself ready and was cleared. His hands pushed the four red-headed throttle handles forward, the engines strained to get away and could not, so they took the ship with them. The great ship thundered down the runway, 60, 70, 80 and at 90 Joe pulled back gently and the great brown bomber lifted into the air. Abner came forward and pulled the levers which lifted the wheels into the slots in the wings.

  Now Allan and Bill climbed through the narrow passage from the bomb bay to the nose. The navigator’s table was there and a swinging chair for the bombardier. Bill leaned over his bombsight and glanced up at his instrument panel. Allan laid out his maps on the table and took the cover off his compass. Now the gunners took their places. Al crawled into the tail gun turret and the second gunner stepped across the catwalk and took his place in the glistening, transparent top turret. The third gunner stayed close to the belly turret. If he could put the cross hairs of his sights on an enemy and pull his trigger, two streams of steel would pour from his guns into the enemy ship. This was their first flight together. They made a short navigational flight out over the Gulf of Mexico.

  They were to get used to their ship and to each other. Below them on the smooth sea they could watch the cargo ships moving and they knew that submarines were waiting somewhere. Their orders were to fly a hundred miles out to sea and then to turn and make twelve bombing runs over a floating target. The position of the target was given, but Allan had to find it with his instruments. He sat at his table looking worried and now and then calling a direction into his microphone to Joe.

  Sitting in the glass nose of a bomber, the navigator guides the ship in its over-water patrol

  The ship flew easily without much noise. The copilot was leaning forward watching the gauges. The altimeter showed 10,000 feet and that was on their orders. Suddenly in the earphones came Bill’s excited voice.

  “Joe, look down about 127 degrees and see what you think that is.”

  Joe put the ship into a turn so he could look down from his window. Far below he could see a little trail of white water and under it a long, thin shadow. Joe lifted his microphone. “Harris,” he said, “get the tower, report a submarine.” The little wake was far behind now. Joe cut his motor and he began to lose altitude. He heard the voice of the squadron radio operator saying, “Hold it, one moment,” and then his squadron leader.

  “We have no submarines in the area. If you’ve got live bombs go after it. What’s the position?” Joe gave him the position. “Okay, we’ll send the depth charges, you try them with bombs.”

  Joe said, “Wilco,” but his voice was tight. “Did you hear that, Bill?”

  “I heard it.”

  “You better come in as low as you can, I’ll drop a salvo.”

  Joe said, “You better hit him, we’ve only got one chance. He can get down like a flash.” He called the tail gunner, “We’re going after a submarine, watch as we go over. You might give him something if we miss.”

  “Okay,” said Al.

  The ship made a turn, and with motors idling dropped quietly towards the little splash of wake in the distance. From the nose Bill directed the flight.

  “A little left now, hold it, hold it.” Then he cried, “I think they’re coming up.” The copilot leaned forward tensely. Abner stood holding on to the structure of the top turret.

  “Get down,” Bill called. “Get down another thousand feet.”

  The ship settled fast. They could hear the bomb bay doors slide up like the top of a roll-top desk. Bill’s voice was cracked with excitement.

  “Two points left, hold it steady right there now.”

  Then they heard the metallic spit as the salvo went out and Bill shouted, “Bombs away.” And it was hardly shouted before the explosion came and the ship lurched under the air pressure. The tail gun was banging away behind. Joe whirled the ship up on its side to see. There were pieces of superstructure still in the air when he looked and Bill was shouting:

  “He was coming up! We got him!”

  Joe speeded his engines, gained altitude, and continued the circle. The spot on the sea was still torn with white water and a spread of shimmering oil was edging out from the disturbance.

  Joe lifted his microphone. “Bill,” he said, “if you’d missed, we’d have killed you. Harris, call the squadron and report a direct hit and the submarine sunk and repeat the position.”

  A moment later he heard the squadron leader, “Good work. Continue on your mission. Any bombs left?”

  “No, sir, we dropped both racks.”

  “Well, make four dry runs over the target then.”

  “Roger,” said Joe, and he hung his microphone on its clamp. His hands were steady but he seemed to be jumping and pulsing inside. In the nose Bill turned and smiled happily at the navigator and then he leaned over and kissed the bombsight.

  When they came in—when Joe let the ship down on the squalling wheels and dropped in the protesting nose wheel—they had gotten themselves in hand enough so that they could be nonchalant. It had been pure luck, they knew, but they liked pure luck. So many people speak of luck disparagingly, as though it weren’t a good thing to have. This crew was quiet about the submarine. Each one of course under pressure would tell about it, would tell his version of it, but the most important thing of all was that this crew was now a crew. In one action it had welded together. Very strange ties had been established. These men would not be apart again. On the surface the pilot knew he had a good bombardier; the bombardier knew that he had the best of pilots. But beyond this there were bonds of relationship extending through the whole ship. The submarine belonged to the crew. The team was a unit.

  On the ground Bill packed up his bombsight and marched it away under guard. The crew, all except Abner, walked in with the parachutes. There was something they wanted to do now, something bomber crews usually do when they come back from a successful action. They would go into town and have dinner together, all of them, but with no one else. They would drink a few glasses of beer and then they would sit back and discuss the action, but no stranger would be there, just the crew.

  They had to wait a while for Abner. He was all over the engines with a ground crew. He thought the landing gear had been slow coming down. He was sure he had heard a complaint in number three engine. While they waited for Abner, Joe made his report and turned it in. Finally, there were clean, fresh uniforms and they rode a bus into town. They went to a restaurant and got a private room and when they were seated, Bill raised his beer glass. “Well,” he said, “well, here’s luck.”

  The crew soon found that the lucky finding and sinking of a submarine is not air warfare. They went up in group flights. They flew in echelons of units. The missions were long and constant. They went out on patrol, flew over Cuba and Haiti and back by way of the bulge of Yucatan. The trips were very long. The gunners soon learned to sleep until they were called. Flying low in the hot Gulf air, they took off most of their clothes, and flying and bombing, from 25,000, they wore sheepskins and masks, for the temperature was 40 degrees below zero, and the air was thin.

  The missions were exact representations of active warfare. The flights were planned and carried out with every attention to detail.

  Living and working together, they played together too. On the beach in their free time they played football and swam in the warm water of the Gulf. Pilot and copilot, bombardier and navigator rented a house near the field and cooked their dinners there sometimes. In the quarters Harris and Abner were studying aerial navigation at night. Daily the missions grew more complex. Exact attack conditio
ns were given and there really were submarines in the Gulf. Night missions and day missions, practice at finding and bombing an enemy fleet. The orders would be something like this:

  A bomber crew returns from a mission

  “Intelligence Estimate of the Situation. Mission No. 4, the date. 1. Enemy situation—Enemy submarines were sighted off the coast of Cayo Romano at an approximate position of North 22 degrees latitude in the old Bahama channel. A fleet of enemy surface craft were reported to be further to the Southeast in battle formation. 2. Mission—to track down any enemy craft, surface or submerged, and destroy upon sight. 3. Formation and route—the——group will proceed in vee formation of two ships per element from——Field with the——bomb squadron leading. At 25 degrees North latitude and 80 degrees East latitude, the vee formation will give way to an extended search formation and fly down the San Paren channel. Where the San Paren meets the Nicholas channel, the formation will make a 135 degree turn to the East and proceed down the old Bahama channel to the general vicinity of Cayo Romano. At this point the formation will execute a turn of 180 degrees and proceed up the old Bahama channel into Nicholas channel. Before crossing the 81st meridian of latitude, the formation will make a 115 degree turn and head straight North to Florida. Upon sighting land the search formation will go back to the original vee and proceed to the home base, where they will stand by for further mission.”

  “On the beach in their free time they play football . . .”

  These would be the orders for a mission and on the return of the formation, a report would be made that went something like this:

  “At approximately 0915, the ships took off from——for the scheduled mission. After circling the field, the ships fell into vee formation and proceeded upon a Southeasterly course (135 degrees true course). This was followed for approximately 150 miles until the base point (25 degrees 00 minutes North and 80 degrees 00 minutes West) was reached. Just before reaching the base point, a coastal air patrol plane was spotted some 15 miles from shore and headed landward. The ship was a yellow, single-engine monoplane flying at 2500 feet engaged in observation. It was sighted at approximately 1045.

  “The base point was reached at 1054 and the formation broke from the conventional vee to extended search formation. The flight continued in this formation until mainland was again reached on the return trip.

  “At 1015, a B-17E was sighted flying over the formation at an altitude of 2500 feet. Its marking was reported to be No. 1002 and the ship flew at an approximate course of 300 degrees.

  “A single-stack steamer was sighted at 1059 to the East of the formation. The ship sailed on a course of 340 degrees at an approximate speed of 20 knots. All the coral reefs (Dog Rocks, Damas Cays, and the Auguile Isles) sighted along the San Paren channel were reported by the formation.

  “The flight continued on the scheduled route, but no enemy submarines nor surface craft were sighted anywhere in the vicinity of the designated area.

  “At 1220 the formation made a 180-degree turn at Cayo Paredon and proceeded back by way of the old Bahama channel and Nicholas channel. Sailboats were reported to be in the area of Cayo Coco, Cayo Caiman, and Cayo Fragoso. From 1315 to 1330, three Navy ships were sighted off the coast of Cayo Hical and Crisco. Reports conflict as to their type. The majority of the reports seem to indicate the ships to be Navy tankers.

  “At 1400 a rendezvous was held 8 miles Northeast of Oyster Key to enable all the ships from the search formation to fall into the conventional vee formation. Home base was sighted at 1458 and the ships of the——bombardment squadron left the remainder of the ships of the group to proceed to their home base for further operations. Approved by the squadron commander.”

  Such was the report of a mission and it contained all the information necessary, but it did not tell how they flew over the sighted ships while the Naval gunners watched them and the crews waved at them; and the report did not tell how, when they flew over the little green islands, they could see children rush out of the houses to look up at the bombers, not in fear but in pride. The crews of the bombers peered down, trying to see the shape of a submarine in the water. They knew that they had to look for little more than shadows, for submarines in these waters are painted white so that they may lie on the sand bottom unobserved in the daytime.

  It was a working crew now and it was rapidly learning its business. One day an alert was ordered and gas masks issued. It was very hot. Even the gas masks were hot against a man’s side. Al the gunner left his mask in the squadron room and walked out on the field when the gas raid came. A flight of ships went over and thoroughly drenched the field with tear gas. Al ran for his mask trying to hold his breath, but he could not make it and he was choking and weeping when he got to his gas mask and weakly put it on. The raid was necessary. No one would ever forget his mask again.

  The crew had learned the ship now and they had named her Baby, had painted the name on her nose. Bill designed a picture for the nose, a plummeting figure, half bomb and half bathing girl, speeding downward. Baby was their ship and they felt that in some ways she was superior to other ships, just as they felt that their crew was a little bit better than other crews. They were real bombardment men now. They scanned the news- papers. Reports were beginning to be published about the work of American ships already overseas in action.

  A bomber crew learns how to identify all types of airplanes

  Midway was their battle now and the Coral Seas and Tobruk. They knew that ships like Baby were flying out of England already to bomb the production of Germany. Often they discussed the question of where they would be sent—to Australia to carry the war to the Japanese, to Africa to break up Rom mel’s supplies, to England to strike out at Germany. If they had had free choice they would have chosen two targets, Berlin and Tokyo. But these were token places and Baby’s men knew now what air war is. A munitions plant destroyed is more important than a capital bombed. They knew the mathematics of destruction. Guns and ammunition and food that do not arrive are more important than a bomb dropped in the Wilhelmstrasse. Perhaps the Germans could stand the bombing of Berlin and perhaps they could not, no one knows. But neither Germans nor anyone else can fight without food and ammunition. That we do know.

  A B-24 is gassed up for a mission

  Joe wondered how he would feel when anti-aircraft was firing at Baby and when the fighters jabbed at her. He didn’t know. He knew that other pilots were doing very well and he thought he might not fall too far short when the time came.

  The time was coming soon, they knew that. The tempo of training was stepping up. The squadron leader grew more and more critical of everything but perfect bombing. Since Baby’s crew had come they had seen two squadrons leave, at least they had heard them leave, for they disappeared at night and left no word of their destination, and new squadrons had come to take their places in the training.

  All of the training was pyramiding toward this point of departure on real mission. Mission became almost a mystic word. Mission was the reason for all the complex and complicated training they had been through. They were a unit now, tighter knit than any group they had ever known.

  MISSIONS

  Before describing various missions assigned to the bomber team whose training we have followed in these pages, it might be well to look into the organization of the Air Force units and so understand how missions are planned and from where orders for them are issued.

  To most people the units of the Army are well known, the corps, the brigade, the regiment, the battalion, the company, and the squad are very familiar. Perhaps the units of the Air Force are not quite so well known. It might be well here briefly to describe those units. The largest unit in the Air Force is the Wing and it would correspond roughly to a brigade in the land Army. It is the largest air fighting unit which one commander can efficiently control and directly supervise. In Winged Warfare by General Arnold and General Eaker, the following explanation is given of the organization of the Air Force. Of the Wing, the
y say: “It is a tactical command as differentiated from an administrative command. The Wing Commander supervises the training and tactical operations of his groups and is not concerned primarily with administration and supply. These latter functions are performed by air base groups which are housed in peacetime on air bases with the tactical groups and which perform their administrative, supply and housekeeping functions for them.”

  The next unit under the Wing is the Air Force Group which is usually composed of three squadrons. Again quoting Winged Warfare: “It was conceived as the largest air unit which one leader can efficiently control in the air. Tactical Groups are for the most part heterogeneous in that their three component squadrons will be of the same tactical type, that is fighter or bombardment. The Group corresponds to the regiment. It is both a tactical and an administrative unit. Its commander is generally of the rank of Colonel or Lieutenant Colonel and is always an experienced flying officer who is capable of leading his unit in air combat as compared to one who directs his command from the ground. The bombardment group, for example, is composed of 60 officers and 800 men. It has attached small units of ordnance, signal, and medical troops for service in the field. In addition, forward echelons of the air base units perform its housekeeping and airdrome functions when it is in the theater of operations. While stationed at a permanent air base, the air base group for that station performs these service functions for the combat group.