On Wings of the Morning

by Dan Verner

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Flying—July, 1928

  Chapter 2

  Lessons: October, 1931

  Chapter 3

  A Change Comes to Pioneer Lake—August, 1934

  Chapter 4

  Pioneer Lake Airport—September, 1934

  Chapter 5

  High School Days—November, 1935

  Chapter 6

  Hidden Talent—April, 1936

  Chapter 7

  Flight Lessons—May, 1936

  Chapter 8

  Solo—September, 1936

  Chapter 9

  The End of High School—May, 1938

  Chapter 10

  Good Fences Make Good Neighbors—July, 1938

  Chapter 11

  Nazis and Spies—March, 1939

  Chapter 12

  Adjustments—June, 1939

  Chapter 13

  War—September, 1939

  Chapter 14

  Pitched Battles—1940

  Chapter 15

  Remember Pearl Harbor—December, 1941

  Chapter 16

  Last Days—March, 1942

  Chapter 17

  Basic—late March, 1942

  Chapter 18

  Advanced Basic—June, 1942

  Chapter 19

  Primary Flight Training—September, 1942

  Chapter 20

  Basic Flight training—December, 1942

  Chapter 21

  Advanced Flight Training—March, 1943

  Chapter 22

  Champaign-Urbana—June, 1943

  Chapter 23

  Intermezzo—July, 1943

  Chapter 24

  Across the Pond—August, 1943

  Chapter 25

  Set to Go—Mid-September, 1943

  Chapter 26

  First Blood—Late September, 1943

  Chapter 27

  Sweet Alice—Early October

  Chapter 28

  Building Time—Early February, 1944

  Chapter 28

  Day In and Day Out—Late February, 1944

  Chapter 29

  Come Live with Me and Be My Love—Mid-March, 1944

  Chapter 30

  Mission 23: 0603 hours Zulu, Late March, 1944

  Chapter 31

  Into the Mix—1027 hours Zulu

  Chapter 32

  Falling Fast—1227 hours Zulu

  Chapter 33

  The White Room

  Chapter 34

  The Burn Unit—April, 1944

  Chapter 35

  Conversations—April 8, 1944

  Chapter 36

  May 15, 1944

  Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me

  Chapter 37

  Going Home—Late July, 1944

  Chapter 38

  Fall and Winter—1944-45

  Chapter 39

  A Letter Arrives—February, 1945

  Chapter 40

  A Chance Encounter—early March, 1945

  Chapter 41

  Teach Me Tonight—Late March, 1945

  Chapter 42

  Unexpected News—Early April, 1945

  Chapter 43

  Life Goes On—May, 1945

  Chapter 44

  War’s End—August, 1945

  Chapter 45

  Northwest Airlines—November, 1945

  Chapter 46

  Serendipity—January, 1946

  Chapter 47

  M & M Airlines—June, 1946

  Chapter 48

  On the Wings of Eagles—December 14, 1946

  Chapter 49

  Flying—December, 1946

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  On Wimgs of the Morning

  By Dan Verner

  Copyright © 2013 by Dan Verner

  Cover Copyright © 2013 by eLectio Publishing

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (eLectio Publishing) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it to your eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This eBook is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  eLectio Publishing wishes to thank the following people who helped make these publications possible through their generous contributions:

  Chuck & Connie Greever

  Jay Hartman

  Darrel & Kimberly Hathcock

  Tamera Jahnke

  Amanda Lynch

  Pamela Minnick

  James & Andrea Norby

  Gwendolyn Pitts

  Margie Quillen

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  Chapter 1

  Flying—July, 1928

  Otto was flying. Seated erect in the co-pilot’s seat, he rested his left hand loosely on the throttles of the Ryan twin, peering into the darkness of the Pacific night. He caught flashes of lightning among the towering thunderheads, which illuminated the biggest storm cells well enough for him to steer away from them.

  In the pilot’s seat, Colonel Charles Lindbergh slept, exhausted from preflight preparations and rounds of interviews and picture sessions with the international press eager to get the story of the most famous aviator in the world and his attempt to cross the Pacific. This time Lindbergh was in a twin engine craft, and this time he had a co-pilot. Otto smiled as he remembered the questions about his qualifications.

  “Colonel
Lindberg, why are you taking along an eight-year-old co-pilot?”

  Lindberg fixed the reporter with his eagle eye. “Because Otto Kerchner is the best pilot available to help me make this historic trip.”

  That silenced all questions. There was only the pop and flare of flash bulbs as the photographers took pictures of the two aviators.

  A close cloud-to-cloud lightning flash brought Otto back to the present. He must maintain his alertness. Colonel Lindberg depended on him, and he would not fail.

  “Otto! Otto!”

  Someone called his name in a heavy German accent. He glanced over his shoulder down the fuselage filled with the giant fuel tanks which kept the twin Wright Cyclone radials running at full bore. There was no one there.

  “Otto! Otto Kerchner!”

  The voice came from somewhere below him, but that was impossible. There were only thousands of feet of turbulent air and storm down there. No human being could be suspended below their racing aircraft.

  “Otto! Answer me! It is your vater!”

  The night sky through the windscreen wavered and disappeared, replaced by the dusty dimness of a barn hay loft, illuminated by shafts of late afternoon sunlight. Otto knew where he was. He was on his father’s farm, hiding from the chores he detested, reading in the loft about his hero Charles Lindbergh. He must have been dreaming about flying with “Lucky Lindy.” He had to answer his father and quickly, or his father would take his books away from him.

  “Ja, Papa, I am in the hayloft,” he called.

  “Vell, come down here, you lazy kinder. There is much for us to do!”

  Otto sighed, and with his book in his hand, leaped to his feet and ran the short distance to the edge of the loft. He launched himself into the air. He was flying once again. At least for a while.

  Otto had jumped from the hay loft dozens of times before. He had not counted on the floor of the barn, packed by thousands of cattle hooves, being harder than usual because of the drought. It was, in fact, like concrete.

  He landed with one leg extended and both heard and felt it break. Something like an electric shock ran up his broken leg and he thought he was going to faint for an instant. The shock was like the one he received when he moistened his fingertips and stuck them on the terminals of the battery that powered their radio, only much, much worse. He lay there, unable to move, almost unable to breathe.

  His father ran over from the barnyard where he had been standing, calling to Otto. He knelt by his son, but he knew from his service in the German army during the Great War that the leg was broken. He held Otto down as the shock began to wear off, and the boy started squirming.

  “Gott in Himmel, Otto, how many times have I told you not to jump out of the hayloft? You’ve broken your leg. Some help you’ll be now! MARIA! MATA!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “It’s Otto! He has broken his leg. Come quick!”

  Otto’s mother and sister came on a run, his mother dropping to her knees as she started to cradle her boy. Hans shoved her back. “No, don’t move him until I immobilize the leg. Mata, go tear a board off the fence! Maria, go get some strips of cloth and then bring the truck around. This will require a doctor.”

  Otto lay there, staring up at the sky. His father put a hand on his shoulder. “The only thing we have to give you is whiskey and I can’t give that to a child. Doctor Carter will have something for the pain.”

  Mata returned, holding one of the fence pickets about the same time her mother arrived carrying strips of cloth. Maria dropped them at Hans’ feet and tore off for the Model T parked at the side of the garage. She barely knew how to drive, but Hans had showed her how to crank the engine without breaking her arm or thumb. She set the spark and the throttle, ran to the front of the truck, pulled the choke wire and then gave the crank protruding from the radiator a half turn. The engine caught, and she leaped for the driver’s seat, retarding the spark and the throttle. She put the truck into gear and slowly pulled it near Otto and Hans. Mata stood there, wringing her hands, almost in tears.

  “Mata! Make yourself useful,” ordered Hans, “and bind the strips of cloth around the board while I hold it in place next to Otto’s leg. Not too tight, now.”

  Mata made fast work of the bindings, and Hans carried Otto over to the truck and laid him in the bed. “Mata! Go get a blanket to cover your brother!” Mata ran back into the house.

  Hans went around to the driver’s seat while Maria slid into the back with Otto. Mata handed Maria a blanket which she placed over her boy. Hans made sure he was securely held by his mother and then put the truck into gear, rapidly accelerating down the unpaved road to the main highway, leaving streamers of dust in their wake. Otto was aware enough to see Mata grow smaller and smaller in the distance until he could not make her out at all.

  ***

  Maria hugged Otto, trying to keep him from bouncing around on the hard wooden boards of the truck bed and injured further. The boy’s face was gray, like the dirty dishwater she threw out the back door. He wasn’t moving and he had lost consciousness. She tried to cradle him without moving his leg, but the violent motion of the truck made that impossible. “Hans!” she screamed over the noise of the engine, “Slow down! You’re going to kill us all!” Ordinarily she never shouted at Hans and never questioned his actions or decisions. But this was her boy.

  Hans’ head whipped around. “Ve must macht schnell!” he thundered back. “Don’t worry! I drove an ambulance in the Great War!”

  Yes, but your son wasn’t on that ambulance, thought Maria as she clung more tightly to Otto’s limp frame and buried her head in his chest to escape the spumes of choking dust.

  They hit the pavement of the main highway with a hard jounce, and all three occupants bounced in the air. Maria tried to move her body under Otto’s but only partially succeeded. His leg came down on the hard boards and he emitted a small groan.

  “Hold on, mein liebes kind,” she whispered into his ear. She began to sing softly, one of the old German songs, a lullaby she had sung to him when he was a baby. Her voice was lost in the whine of the tires on the asphalt and the roar of the engine.

  Guten Abend, gute Nacht,

  mit Rosen bedacht,

  mit Näglein besteckt,

  schlüpf unter die Deck:

  Morgen früh, wenn Gott will,

  wirst du wieder geweckt,

  morgen früh, wenn Gott will,

  wirst du wieder geweckt.

  It was a long five miles to town, even at Han’s demonic pace. He darted partway down the main street, made a sharp left onto a tree-lined lane of larger and finer homes than those in the rest of town. He threw on the brakes, pushed the reverse pedal hard and skidded to a stop in front of Doc Carter’s house, which also housed his office in the front parlor room. Hans jumped from the truck and ran up the walk, violently shoving the door open. Maria could hear him shouting, “Doktor! Doktor! Kommen Sie! Es mein kinder!”

  Hans ran back through the door with Doctor Carter hard on his heels. They slid to a stop beside the Model T. Doc peered at Otto’s leg. The lower part stuck out at an odd angle.

  “I tink it is broken,” Hans said. “I vas in the Army during the Great War and…”

  Doc waved impatiently, “Yeah, we know about your service with the krauts. I was in the war too, and tried to patch up all those kids you goons shot and gassed…”

  Maria pleaded through tears, “Stop this! Stop it now! Help mein Otto!”

  The two men glared at each other for a brief second. “All right, Hans, you carry the boy; I’ll keep his leg still.”

  Hans took Otto in his arms while Doc gingerly held the leg. Otto groaned and his eyelids fluttered. Maria trotted alongside, smoothing his hair back. The four negotiated the short walk and carried the now-conscious boy into the examination room off the parlor.

  Hans carefully laid his son on the examination table with Doc easing the broken leg onto the white covering. Doc pulled open Otto’s right eyelid and peered into his pupil. He grunted
once and then turned to his wife, who acted as his nurse. “Rose, ether.”

  She nodded, stepped to a cabinet and pulled out a green bottle and a cotton pad. Doc turned to Hans and Maria. “Hans, you stay here to help hold him. I’m going to set the leg. Maria, if you would wait in the waiting room, please.”

  Maria backed out of the room. Doc shifted his gaze to Hans. “How did it happen? Farm accident?”

  Hans shook his head. “Nein. This foolish kind jumped out of the hayloft. I haf told him a thousand times, you cannot fly, Otto. Do not keep trying. But these kinder, they do not obey.”

  Doc listened impassively, then nodded to Rose. She stood behind Otto’s head and placed the ether-soaked pad over his mouth and nose. Doc looked at Hans, who held Otto by the shoulders. Doc grabbed hold of the leg.

  Outside, Maria perched on the large overstuffed sofa. Rose had furnished the waiting room with heavy dark pieces unlike the simple homemade pine furniture at their farmhouse. She began to pray, whispering, “Gott in Himmel, please take care of my son. He is only a boy, and sometimes foolish, but please heal him. Amen.”

  She stared at the pictures of European landscapes on the walls. One was of the ruins of a castle high on a hill above a river. It reminded her of where they had come from in the Rhine Valley. Ach, but that was a lovely place, she thought, shaking her head. It was too bad that the men with their fighting had ruined it all. She was so far from home, and letters from her relatives came only occasionally. She was a little lonely on the farm she and Hans had bought with a loan from the bank. It was not possible to buy such property in the old country. And now that she thought about it, there were her friends at church. Kochen, kinder, kirche. Weren’t those the essentials? And it was her kinder who was hurt.

  She watched the sun move across the carpet just a little ways, filtered by the curtains at the windows. The door swung open and Hans came in, followed by Doc. They looked tired but their expressions told her all she had to know. Otto would be all right.

  Doc spoke slowly. “It’s a bad break, but it set well and I think his leg will heal just fine. He’ll be on crutches for a while.” He handed her a piece of paper. “Take this to Fred over at the pharmacy—you’ll need it for pain when Otto goes home.”

  Hans began, “In the war…” but Maria shot him a look that silenced him.

  “Thank you, doctor. May I see him?”