The guard gave Harry a thick greatcoat hanging up behind the door. He told Harry to walk to the road, a kilometre or two to the east, where there was shelter by roadside. When his shift was finished, Luis would meet him there and take him on to Bilbao.
CHAPTER 32
December 18th, 1943
Luis had driven Harry to Bilbao and dropped him a street away from the British consulate. From here arrangements had been made to have him returned by boat to England. Four weeks later he found himself at the main entrance to Kirkstead Air Base, just as dusk was falling.
It seemed unreal. He had made it back for the week before Christmas. And, as the carol promised, the snow lay crisp and even over the base and the flat fields of Norfolk. Snow did wonderful things to any landscape, even the muddy and dreary Nissen huts of Kirkstead. Everything looked so beautiful in the late afternoon light.
He was eighteen now, his October birthday literally forgotten in the strange blurred weeks of his escape. In his heart he knew he was no longer the boy who had arrived here on that late summer’s day. Now he was back he felt like a hardened veteran.
As he walked towards the main ops room to report his arrival, he was surrounded by unfamiliar faces. What was it someone had said one night in the canteen? ‘You don’t see dead bodies in this job, just empty beds.’ He had seen both now.
His thoughts quickly turned to the rest of his crew. John, especially, was never far from his thoughts. One of the first things he had promised to do when he got back was to write to his friend’s family, and his girl, Shirley. Then he thought of Corrales, and how much the lanky tail gunner had made him laugh, and the other guys he knew for sure were dead – Holberg, Dalinsky, Skaggs, Cain … He hadn’t liked them all, but they still felt like brothers. They had been through a lot together. He felt his throat close up and his chest grow heavy. Back in Kirkstead his dead companions surrounded him like gossamer spectres.
A hearty shout jolted him back to the real world. ‘Haaarrrrryyyy!!!!’ It was Ernie Benik, who let out a great whoop of triumph. ‘Hey, fellas,’ he cried, ‘Friedman’s back!’
The other ground crew ran over to greet him, and Harry found himself borne up on their shoulders. Complete strangers joined in and the crowd around him grew to a swirling multitude. This was what Frank Sinatra must feel like when he was mobbed by bobby-soxers. Even Colonel Kittering emerged from the control tower to see what the fuss was about.
As the colonel approached, the mob grew subdued and everyone stood to attention.
‘It’s Sergeant Friedman, sir,’ said Ernie Benik. ‘From the Macey May.’
‘Goddamn it! We thought you were dead!’ Kittering cried. ‘Come and have a whiskey.’
Kittering took him into his office and poured a drink from a crystal decanter. Harry didn’t like whiskey but he took a gulp and swallowed the fiery liquid anyway. Again, he was flushed with a feeling of relief. He had made it home.
‘So, tell me all about it, son,’ said Kittering.
Harry told the colonel about the Resistance and his escape across France, who had died in the Macey May and how Holberg had sacrificed his life, holding the bomber steady while the rest of the crew had tried to escape.
Harry thought he had lost him when he talked about the crew. He realised the colonel spent his life hearing about men under his command who had died, and he could barely remember one from the other.
‘Friedman, I’m going to recommend you for a Distinguished Flying Cross,’ said the colonel. Then he turned serious. ‘Sergeant, we sent your kit back home. We posted you as missing, presumed dead. Look, we gotta get a telegram out to your mom and dad as soon as possible.’
Heart in mouth, Harry asked a question that had been haunting him ever since he arrived back in England. ‘So, sir, do I get assigned to a new crew?’
The colonel shook his head. ‘No, you’re off active duty. We never let downed airmen back over Europe. If you got shot down again, there’d be too much the Gestapo could torture out of you about all the people who helped you. We’ll send you back Stateside for compassionate leave, then you can stay there and train the new boys, or you can come back and train them here. You can make up your own mind, but I’d like you back here. It does the men good to see a flyer who came back.
‘And you’ll be in good company. I’ve got a surprise for you.’ Kittering stood up and called for his secretary. A young woman in Women’s Army Corps uniform appeared at the door. ‘Get this young man a coffee, Alice, and find him his mail. And have the major come straight over when his briefing is finished.’
Harry sat next to a warm stove and read through a handful of letters – two from his mom and dad, which stopped abruptly in the middle of October, when they would have heard he was missing. There was one from his cousin in New Jersey, and one without a stamp that had been hand-delivered. He guessed at once who had sent it, and he was right.
Tilly told him she had turned up at the dance and had been shocked to hear he had not returned from the raid – though they wouldn’t tell her where it was. She told him she had gone home that night and cried. Now she was writing, as an act of faith, as she was certain he would return, and when he did she wanted him to send a note so she would know he was back. ‘I’ve met quite a few of you boys from the base, but none of them have been like you.’
As he folded her letter, he thought he would ask for permission to go and see her as soon as possible.
There was a brief knock at the door and Harry looked up to see a familiar face. There in front of him was Bob Holberg.
The two hugged like long-lost brothers. ‘Harry! I was sure you were dead. I quit the plane just a second before she started to cartwheel.’
‘She broke up on the way down,’ said Harry. ‘Stearley got out too. Is he back yet?’
Holberg shook his head. ‘No word. I hope he’s OK. He’s probably found himself a cute little mademoiselle and is laying low for a while.’
‘What about the others?’ asked Harry, half dreading the reply he would receive.
‘Red Cross tell us LaFitte is in a camp in Saxony,’ said Holberg. ‘He’s pretty badly wounded, we’re told. They’re trying to get him repatriated. There’s no news of Bortz.’
That made Harry feel uneasy. Bortz had bailed out. Maybe they’d caught him and singled him out for special treatment because he was Jewish.
‘And you?’ asked Harry. ‘How did you get back?’
Holberg laughed. ‘Hooked up with the Resistance and they sent me back over the Channel. When you’ve unpacked your bags I’m taking you out for a drink and I’ll tell you all about it.
‘You know you’re off active service now?’ asked Holberg.
‘Yes.’
‘Come back here after your leave, Harry,’ said Holberg. ‘We need people like you and me around the base. Those guys that are flying combat missions – they need reminding that they can survive the war.’
Harry thought of Tilly and her note. He smiled and nodded. ‘I’m coming back.’
Then he asked, ‘Captain, who do I ask for an evening pass out of the base?’
Holberg laughed. ‘I’m a major now – I can write you an evening pass.’
Harry hurried down the lane to the village, his breath silver in the moonlight. If he was lucky, Tilly would be there at her grandmother’s house. If she wasn’t, he would leave a note. Either way, he would be seeing her soon enough. He didn’t mind a wait. He’d got used to that over the weeks of his escape.
As he breathed in the crisp, clear air, and looked up at thousands of bright stars in the sky, it really hit him. He thought back to his early days in Kirkstead, back in the late summer, when he was convinced he would never see his eighteenth birthday, let alone Christmas. He had been wrong. Here he was, thinking, breathing, existing. He had lived where others had died and the future was still his.
FACT BEHIND
THE FICTION
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
Where did you first get the idea for B
omber?
This book was inspired by family trips to visit my friends Matthew and Julia Ward, who live in a converted pub called the Green Man in Kirkstead, Norfolk. During the war this pub was frequented by American airmen from nearby Seething airbase. Whenever I visit, I am haunted by the thought of these young men drinking their ‘warm’ beer on the nights before their bombing missions, when many would have been blown to pieces over places like Berlin, Stuttgart or Schweinfurt.
How much of your book is based on real events and places?
The planes and airbase at Kirkstead never existed, although it is loosely modelled on the airbase at nearby Seething, which was home to Liberators rather than Flying Fortresses. I do like to weave real history around the fictional characters in my books. The raids on Schweinfurt on August 17, 1943, and October 14, 1943, are based on actual USAAF raids on that city on those days. The departure of Kansas Kate from Kirkstead echoes the famous story of the Memphis Belle, whose crew were lionised by the American media when they completed their twenty-five missions in 1943. Also, the passage in the book where Macey May’s chief mechanic Ernie Benik discovers a note from slave workers inside a dud German cannon shell in the wing of their B-17 is also based on real events.
What inspired you to write about a B-17?
The B-17 Flying Fortress is a fascinating aircraft. Although it had a reputation for toughness and durability, it never quite lived up to its name. Of the 12,731 B-17s built between 1936 and 1945, 4,754 were lost in action. Over 1943, when casualties in the air war were at their highest, it has been estimated that a Flying Fortress crew had a one in four chance of completing their twenty-five mission tour. Not all of the ten man crew would be killed, of course. Many airmen parachuted to safety, but those are still daunting odds.
Also, undeniably, the B-17’s art deco curves made it one of the most beautiful aircraft of the Second World War. Some B-17s can still be seen in museums in Europe and America, and a few are still flying.
Are any of the characters based on real people?
All my main characters are fictitious although I have tried to reflect as accurately as I can the thoughts and experiences of the United States Eighth Air Force crews in 1943, and the extraordinarily brave members of the French Resistance. I often feel grateful I have never had to conjure the reserves of courage required by the characters in my novels.
A few of the senior figures featured here, such as General Eaker and ‘Bomber’ Harris, are real people, and some of the incidents between the characters in this book were inspired by real events and reported conversations. For example, the Macey May crew’s conversation in the Green Man pub with the British pilots Gordon and Ray was inspired by a passage in Patrick Bishop’s book Bomber Boys. The American journalist Eddie Burnet is fictitious, but the incident in which he features was inspired by the death of a Life magazine journalist who was killed while flying with the USAAF over Germany.
How did you research this book?
I like to walk the same streets as my characters, so wherever possible I visit the places where I set my stories. The couple of hours I spent at Seething airfield were invaluable. I also went to the RAF Museum in Hendon, London, to spend a fascinating afternoon with my agent Charlie Viney. I watched the 1949 film Twelve O’Clock High, starring Gregory Peck, to try to get a feel for how American airmen spoke, and also scores of videos on YouTube, and read many books about the air war over Europe, and the French Resistance escape routes used by downed Allied pilots.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to Matthew and Julia Ward. On my last visit to their home in Kirkstead, Matthew took me to visit nearby Seething Control Tower Museum, where Jim Turner and his colleagues kindly allowed us to wander round, despite the tower being closed for maintenance. Do have a look at this website – www.seethingtower.org – and indeed, visit the museum if you are close by.
Thank you also to Patricia Everson, who very kindly agreed to talk to me at very short notice, and allowed me to look through her archive of photographs of Seething Air Base.
Thank you to my publisher, Ele Fountain, and my agent, Charlie Viney, who encouraged me to write this story, and my editor, Isabel Ford, who painstakingly moulded and polished these words with patience and perspicacity. Thanks also to Talya Baker, who copy-edited, Nick de Somogyi, who proofread, and James Fraser for his magnificent cover. And, as ever, Dilys Dowswell for her helpful comments on my first draft and Jenny and Josie Dowswell, who look after me and put up with my absences and odd hours.
NAIL-BITING TENSION, HEART-RACING ACTION…FROM PAUL DOWSWELL
PAUL DOWSWELL is a prize-winning author of historical fiction. Among other awards he has twice won the Historical Association Young Quills Award, and also the Hamelin Associazione Culturale Book Prize, and for non-fiction the Rhône-Poulenc Junior Prize for Science Books.
Paul is a frequent visitor to schools both in the UK and abroad, where he takes creative-writing classes and gives illustrated talks about his books. Away from work he enjoys travelling with his family, and playing with his band in the clubs and pubs of the West Midlands.
www.pauldowswell.co.uk
Also by Paul Dowswell
Ausländer
Eleven Eleven
Red Shadow
Sektion 20
The Cabinet of Curiosities
***
The Adventures of Sam Witchall
Powder Monkey
Prison Ship
Battle Fleet
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney
First published in Great Britain in May 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
www.bloomsbury.com
Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Paul Dowswell 2015
Cover photography, crew and plane details © Shutterstock 2015
Cover and endmatter design © James Fraser 2015
The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN 978 1 4088 5850 9
To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters.
Bomber Page 20