Chapter 9

Infinity

Cindy

Christmas is an especially wanting time for the lonely. Cindy Jenkins is alone in the bygone room, and as she stares at the high ceiling and faded images of the past, it enhances her sullen emptiness. It all seems so unfitting for Christmas, which is a time of happiness for most. Harold Akers is visiting his son and family, and Christmas is one of the few times Margaret Taylor spends a few days with her son and his family. All through the week, she was so looking forward to being with them and spoke of it constantly.

Cindy's thoughts turn to Arnold Gray who in the past few weeks, has spent quite a lot of time with that fancy woman he met in Rich's piano department. Of late, she seems all he cares to think about, and if his portrayal of her favors accuracy, they're an improbably blend, to say the least. Regardless, meeting her has brought with it an observable change in Arnold's nature. He's much more cognizant of his appearance, has let his hair grow a little fuller and has bought quite a few new clothes; but on the other hand, he would have needed a new wardrobe anyway based on the admonition he recently received from his employer.

Just after he represented himself as a door to door music teacher, he began dating her at least once a week and since then, something has come over him. He is distinctly a great deal happier and even more enthusiastic about his job.

The other night at the evening meal, he was boasting how he had been approached about entering the Rich's department manager training program, and it seemed to have given him a certain amount of pleasure in declining the proposal that only a few weeks earlier, would have seemed beyond his reach. As he explained to Rich's and to those in the boarding house several times, his base salary and commissions were far more than he would make as a new department manager and considering such a change would not be practical. When he said that at the supper table one evening, everyone looked at one another and each of didn't need to speculate on what the other was thinking. Arnold had never seemed an especially practical person, but he's so different since he met Angela Jennings. He didn't turn down the management idea until after he had discussed it with her, and as he recounted her advice at breakfast the other morning, "People in marketing are the real money-makers and need to leave the paperwork and tedious detail to the losers. Pointless administration cuts down on productivity."

Cindy and Blanche are the only ones in the old house on Christmas night, but an hour or so ago, Blanche was too tired to stay up and went to bed or "hit the hay," as she often put it. Looking around the room at the decorations conveys an emptiness comparable to what she feels in her heart. Euclid Avenue is quiet and no car has passed in 10 minutes. Cindy looks through the foyer and out the dining room window at a few scant decorations in some of the other old houses along the street. There is a small Christmas tree here and there, and a few houses have a single candle in one window. Children have long since disappeared from the timeworn street and thus, for Blanche and many others in the neighborhood, this day could only offer memories of happier times when families were together, there was love and understanding and Christmas was a very special time. For Cindy, however, there is no happier times to which to compare this night, and from that perspective, her loneliness is perhaps less melancholy and in a cynical way, might offer a small degree of solace in knowing she has lost no happiness.

Cindy felt so close to Blanche when she presented her with her gift of the matching towels and drop rug for her bathroom. At first, she had thought of matching doilies and scarves for the living room. Woolworth's had them for $3.98 each, but they could have never replaced those that Blanche's mother had made so many years ago. She looks at the discolored, dingy doilies on the backs of the chairs, and her eyes wander about the room. There is a little Santa Clause that must be all of 50 years old under the window. The crystal bowl on the table by the front window is filled with Christmas tree balls that all have the color peeling off. The light bulbs emit a tiresome, yellow ambiance through the shroud of the old, tasseled light shades that doesn't seem nearly bright enough. She stares at the pictures of Charles, Blanche and Mary Wilson, and her eyes finally come to rest on the picture of Loren Wilson, Charles and Mary's son, in the middle of the long, narrow table at the back of the room. It is an 8" x 11" photograph in a dark, wooden frame and was taken just after he had been promoted to 1st Lieutenant. He is in a khaki uniform and wearing his dress hat with the profile eagle officer emblem. The propeller and wings insignia of the Army Air Corps is on his left collar. He was a very handsome man with a square, masculine chin, brown hair and dark, brown eyes. The broad smile on his face transmits the intuition he was so completely happy the day it was taken. Blanche speaks of him so often - sometimes as though he were her own son.

A soft smile comes to her face when she thinks what Christmas must have been like when they were all together in this very room.

Loren

The B17 banked out of the formation of 28 airplanes and slowly descended through the floating, cumulus clouds. The English countryside seemed quite pleasant to its 10 man crew as it prepared to land at Grafton Underwood in the late afternoon of 15 July 1942. American planes had been arriving in England since 1 July, and the Army Air Corps groups being spotted throughout England were the only Americans in that part of the European Theater.

Loren Wilson looked down at the newly constructed runway and remembered the first time he landed that little yellow Piper Cub at Candler Field. He had wanted to be a pilot since he and Carl Manning played with their little toy airplanes in the alley behind their houses on Euclid Avenue. He thought of Carl for a moment and wondered if he was in the Pacific, North Africa or back in the States. As young boys, they had been friends but drifted apart as they grew older. Loren had been so in love with flying, but Carl hadn't seemed to have much interest in anything except "bedding as many women as I can," as he would put it, both in those words and sometimes more graphic - especially after he had "poked them and nailed them to the bed." It was always especially pleasing to him when he had violated their virginity or "got their cherry."

He remembered the day after the Nazi invasion of Poland when he had told Carl he was entering Army Flight School and how disapproving Carl had been when he laughed and said, "Damn, you must think we're still playing in the back alley. I thought you had more fucking sense than that."

He looked over at the co-pilot, Ronald Lacy, who reminded him very much of Carl. Ronald was an athletic looking, well built man with dark, blonde hair and piercing, blue eyes. Like Carl, he was very much a lady's man.

Newton B. Tillman, the navigator, was huddled at his station doing what he always seemed to be doing- fumbling around with a mass of paper and stuffing it into the bulging briefcase he always carried, no matter where he went. He was a tall, slender, red-headed young man with a very light complexion. His short hair lay limp on the top of his head and had a very precise part on the left side. He would so often speak of going back to college to get his PhD. His briefcase was filled with all sorts of books. He was constantly studying but somehow lacked the knowledge of for what he was studying or even what type career he wanted after all his years and years of education.

The planes began to circle in a landing pattern, and Loren looked at his wingman, Leonard Grimek, who had become the same type of friend as Carl had once been. Both of them loved flying, but Ronald sometimes showed a degree of contempt for both of them for "taking this shit too seriously." From his viewpoint, Leonard was the "pinnacle of mediocrity," and he always was entertained by making  fun of his dead-end civilian job as a hardware store clerk. He referred to Leonard's 4 room house, wife and small son as "the types of things men with balls run away from" and really didn't believe for a fleeting moment Leonard's insistence he had enlisted "because it was the right thing to do."

The B17s landed one by one under the critical view of the British pilots, who immediately recognized some of the inexperienced pilots' landings were less than perfect, and disapproving grimaces came to their faces as they watched the less than textbook exhibitions of how to land an airplane.

The airplanes taxied down the runway and were motioned by the ground crews into their parking positions close to a series of cheaply constructed wooden buildings. The crews deplaned and began to walk around their aircrafts, curiously gandering at the British pilots who began pointing at them and whispering among themselves. Lieutenant Tillman, as usual, had his briefcase had his briefcase tucked under one arm and hardly gave the impression of a combat-ready airman. His uniform was too big, which made his boyish appearance even more glaring. Lieutenant Lacy's cap was sitting far back on his head with his hair protruding under the bill, his jacket was not buttoned and his hands were in his pockets. He looked at Leonard Grimek's plane and crew in the slot next to them and with an amused gesture, said, "Look at those silly bastards."

Leonard's crew was very systematically checking his airplane, looking at the landing gear, checking below the engines for oil leaks and carefully scrutinizing its fuselage. 

With a snicker, Ronald said, "Why are they always monkeying around like that? Oh, I know - they've lost their balls and are bucking to become a ground crew." He looked at Newton and continued, "Me and Newton have got more important things to do. We're gonna reconnoiter the area and see if we can't lay some pipe in some of these British women." He slapped Newton on the shoulder, started to laugh and blustered, "Ain't that right, professor?"

Newton seemed embarrassed and looked rather comical, standing there in his loose-fitting uniform with his oversize briefcase under his arm. Before he could respond, Ronald began to laugh even louder, turned and started walking towards the 3/4 ton trucks waiting for the crews and said, "We'll have to find some Girl Scouts for you Newy. I don't think you're quite ready for a full-grown."

Leonard ran up to Loren and said, "They want us all in the briefing room," and pointed to a long, narrow building adjacent to the barracks.

There was a spring in Loren's step as he and his crew walked towards the waiting trucks, and a tingling enthusiasm ignited every cell of his body. His previous flying experience had placed him near the top of his class in flight school and being among the first American pilots in England was just another carefully planned step in the flying career he had dreamed of since he was a child. When he had first received his private license, those dreams had come true; and when it was obvious war was coming, everything fell into place. Becoming an Army pilot was logically the next step and a perfect way to log more flying hours and do what he felt was his duty at the same time. He felt such an opportunity was most opportune. He inhaled, looked into the clear sky and glanced back at the airplane he had just landed. He was glad he was there and that he had seized the opportunity to add another dimension the career he was so happy to have.

The greeting the flyers received was cordial but not altogether encouraging. The British briefing officer announced the Royal Air Force had discontinued daylight bombing due to unacceptable losses, and there was a strong implied reservation regarding the Norden Bombsight of the B17s. The crews glanced at one another and found it very disquieting that the Allied Command was not even in agreement as to what time of day or night was the most effective time to strike the enemy.

Shortly, after the briefing, Loren, Newton, Ronald and Leonard sat in the officer's mess, observing the subdued overtone of the conversations and the perceptible change in temperament written all over the mass of faces. There was none of the "grab-ass" joking so prevalent during training, and they were all quietly discussing what the briefing officer had told them. Training had infrequently addressed overall strategy and largely had dealt with flying techniques and the properties of the B17, which were represented as the best in the world, but now method seemed as much a consideration as firepower and armaments.

Ronald had both elbows on the table, and his head was bent down about 6 inches from his plate. With one side of his mouth full of mashed potatoes, he asked, "Why is it I don't feel they know what in the fuck we're supposed to be doing over here?"

Leonard was annoyed and snapped, "Is it you or them that doesn't know? Who do you mean by 'they' anyway?"

Newton was very properly sitting with one hand in his lap and the other extending to his plate and said, "Don't start that....."

Before he could finish, Ronald blurted, "Start what? Shit, they think we're some kind of equipment at the disposal of scientific minds of the learned who are supposed to use us like some kind of laboratory rats to prove or disprove all those theories you just heard about."

With that, Leonard became more indignant, dropped his fort into his plate and coldly said, "Rats, hell! You sound like you should wait until the Germans are goose-stepping down Main Street....."

Ronald swallowed his potatoes and immediately retorted with a ridiculing and singing inflection in his voice, "Well, get off your high horse, Mr. Perfect. Shit, look at the facts. How long did it take the British to learn they could not bomb during the day? Why in the hell do you think they started bombing only at night- because they think the Krauts are afraid of the dark or something?"

Loren and Newton's attention alternated between the 2 of them until Loren hurriedly said, "They don't have a plane like we've got."

Ronald slammed both hands down on the table and said, "You must not have paid attention during class. This damn miracle plane we've got has heavy armament and long range capability all right enough, but what sort of bomb load can it carry?"

No one said anything for a moment until Newton uttered in an almost frightened voice, "Four thousand pounds." It wasn't obvious if he was shaken by Ronald's intimidating mannerism, the implied skepticism of the briefing, or both.

Ronald leaned back in his chair, and in a somewhat calmer tone, said, "Well, I'll tell you what it means – it means we'll fly twice as many missions as the British to deliver the same bomb loads. And another thing, damn it. What in the hell kind of target do you think all that fuel giving us this wonderful range is going to give the Luftwaffe? Those fucking things are flying furnaces."

Leonard was becoming progressively more disturbed and quickly interjected, "What good is it to deliver twice the bombs and not hit the target?"

Ronald already had mouth open for one of his patented, profane articulations, but Loren held up his hand. The 4 of them looked around, saw everyone glaring at them with rather peculiar expressions and so with that, they all thought it better to cease the debate.

____________________

Such conversations, with varying degrees of politeness, were being held all over England at all levels of command. In the few years since World War I, the technology of war had made vast strides away from the fixed position trench concept, but there remained those who refused to realize the impact of increased firepower or simply refused to rethink their former training, which had quickly become obsolete. The use of aircraft seemed at the top of the register of conflicts. The Pacific commanders wanted close ground support from the air, while those in the European Theater favored attack on industrial targets but there, the conflict was even broader between the theories of "area targets" and "precision targets."

Traditionally, both during World War I and then, the German logistical system moved troops over short distances by foot and moved both men and equipment over long distances almost exclusively by rail. No one denied the logistical system provided many inviting targets, but the emerging conflict brought many varying ideas as to specifically how such an undertaking should be waged.

Conflicts existed in Berlin as well in that the Luftwaffe was built around medium range bombers and fighter aircraft intended for ground support. The Germans had not then accepted the strategic idea.

The Allied concept in Europe was the correct role for an air force was to attack the enemy's rear, to strike the industrial system and put the enemy air force into a defensive posture, thus limiting its offense capability.

At the beginning of World War II, both sides in the European Theater observed a reluctance to attack the other's populated areas except Hitler had made a convenient but not altogether impractical exception to this concept in attacking Poland in 1939 and Rotterdam in 1940, perhaps not out of tactical necessity but simply because there had been no ability to retaliate. In the early stages of the Battle of Britain, Hitler insisted civilian targets not be hit, but after several mistaken attacks on East London in August 1940, organized bombing of Germany had begun in the winter of that year. The initial results only intensified the debate as to overall tactics. The British had no long range fighters, thus the bombers had to over-fly France, Belgium or Holland where there was a solid screen of fighter and antiaircraft weaponry, which inflicted losses so great that the idea of daylight bombing was abandoned. As a result, the concept of "area bombing" ensued, and this was done only at night, but poor navigational equipment failed to guide the planes adequately in the direction of their targets. It seemed only 1 in 5 planes was bombing within 5 miles of the intended targets.

Churchill insisted the new targets must be the German homeland, and population centers were then included in the target lists with the hope that making their working class suffer would generate some sort of rebellion similar to the Russian Revolution, but this never happened.

All the while, technology continued its advance with the development of the Gee Radar System, which transmitted 2 pairs of radio signals, allowing a receiving aircraft to plot its precise position on a grid chart and to release its bombs at a predetermined point. Later, the H2S Radar System gave navigators a picture of the ground beneath their aircrafts, identified landmarks and made it easier to remain on course.

By early 1942, the British began to use large formations of Sterling and Manchester bombers in a series of successful attacks on the cities of Rostock, Lubeck and Cologne.

Still, on that day in 1942 when the untested American crews touched down at their hastily constructed bases for the first time, air warfare remained a new science. Theories of "area bombing" and "precision daylight bombing" would have to be proven or disproven and often, the deciding factor as to the practicality of such concepts was the number of planes and crews that returned to their bases.

____________________

It was 1549 hours on the afternoon of 17 August 1942 when the eighteen B17s taxied down the runway at Grafton Underwood. Loren almost felt relieved the long period of training and waiting was finally over and was eager to face whatever lay ahead. His feeling on that day was one of gratification in knowing he was precisely where he should be in the profession he had chosen, although there was no question he regarded himself first as a pilot and second as a military airman.

The day was clear and warm, and the meteorologist reports were the same for the target, which was a locomotive depot and rolling stock repair shop at Rouen, France. As the planes came to a momentary stop on the runway, Loren glanced down in his lap and quickly went over the flight plan, which was to take the group some 160 miles due southeast across the English Channel.

The control tower issued the signal for the planes to begin their takeoffs, and as Loren's plane gained speed, he felt the excitement building within him. His hands grasped the yoke firmly, and when the plane lifted into the air, he looked over at Ronald who also seemed taken by the moment. The objects on the ground became smaller and smaller as the B17s gained altitude, and Loren remembered everything looked exactly as it did during his very first flying lesson at Chandler Field. His thoughts must have been on that little Piper Cub, because the B17 felt heavy in the air. Hurriedly, he check the gauges but then realized this was not Chandler Field and he was carrying a full bomb load for the first time. There was a pacifying relief that quelled his uneasiness.

The group has just ascended to 23000 feet when Ronald pointed through the Plexiglas cockpit panels and said, "There they are at 2 o'clock," referring to 4 squadrons of Spitfire XIs that were tacking onto the top and sides of the bomber formation, and a broad smile came to both their faces.

Loren held the intra-plane communications buckle to his throat and confidently said, "Gunners, mount your weapons," and then glanced back at Newton who had been very serious during the briefing but then seemed absorbed in his navigation charts. He was carefully plotting the coarse and every few minutes would specify exactly where the formation was, how far it was from the home airfield and how close it was to the target.

Ronald kept saying, "Damn, he gets on my nerves."

The bombers and escorts leveled off at their cruising altitude, and Loren leaned back in his seat. He looked across the clear sky and listened to the authoritative rumble in the air. The vibrations seeped through his body, building his excitement and confidence. The flight time to the target would be only 90 minutes, and Loren looked over the clear, azure sky and down into the Channel, which seemed miniature. He thought of the soldiers on the ground in North Africa and also of the draftees he had known on the bases where he had received his training. They had all seemed to dread the travail of training as a foot soldier, and he felt sorry for those who were without commitment. He was glad that in his component of the service, there were no dirty uniforms, no sweaty bodies and no aching feet from monotonous marches and that his part in the war would be something he had loved and trained from since he opened his first flight manual. He had always put his heart into becoming a pilot, and he knew he was uniquely qualified.

The nose gunner's voice broke everyone's thoughts, which were widely separated between old girlfriends, families and fear when he said, "French coast dead ahead."

Loren and Ronald both leaned forward to look down at the landscape that looked very much like a roadmap before Loren transmitted the order, "Gunners, test your weapons."

Each of the 17 heavy machine guns in the B17 fired a brief burst as Loren and Ronald scanned the sky but saw nothing but the escorting Spitfires. Loren glanced at the altimeter and pressure gauges, looked back at Newton, who continued to deliberate over the charts, and asked, "How long to target?'

"Seven minutes," was the immediate response.

Ronald shook his head and said, "Ask him how long it's going to take until I fuck that redhead I met the other night." His mood quickly changed when he grabbed Loren's arm and asked, "What in the hell are those goons up there doing?" pointing at 3 aircraft flying some 1000 feet outside the escort formation.

Loren looked up and could scarcely make out their box-like cockpits and long noses and was intrigued as he answered, "Those aren't Spitfires, Ronald. There're ME-109s."

Ronald's head jerked back towards Loren for a moment and then back at the enemy Messerschmitts. The escorts never broke formation, and it wasn't clear if they even saw them, but all the while, there was the implication of inquisitiveness on the part of the enemy pilots in seeing a formation of bombers in daylight.

Suddenly, puffs of black smoke began to appear in the sky dead ahead of the flight path, and immediately over the plane to plane frequency came the undoubting voice of the mission leader, "Leader to all units. Begin a 5 degree evasive descent and remain on course."

The formation gently dropped on a slight angle, and Loren watched the altimeter fall to 21000 feet. The flak was no longer visible, and then came the command, "Level off for bomb run.'

The air speed was 150 miles per hour when Newton began mumbling to himself and then progressively louder, "We're off course....too close to target to correct!"

Loren looked out across the sky and saw some of the B17s were severely out of formation, and the pilots seemed more intent on regaining their positions rather than the bomb run.

All at once, Ronald exhaled with an air of disbelief and blurted, "I'm a son of a bitch," and pointed at the lead squadron and the mission commander's plane, which was releasing its bombs. It was a good 15 seconds later when the disoriented sound of the mission commander's voice came over the plane to plane frequency, "Release bombs! Release bombs!"

Loren immediately gave the command for the bombardier to release the bombs, but some of the other planes continued to fly on an irregular pattern with some still having their bomb bay doors closed. By the time all the planes had released their ordnance, they had overflow the target and Loren's bombardier was peering through his bombsight, giving a rather unconventional summation, "Shit, that's not even close!"

There was no more flak and no fighters in sight, but the formations was still scattered all over the sky. Then, came the subdued but disgusted voice of the mission commander, "God damn. What a royal fuck-up" Begin a 90-degree turn and get back in formation."

Loren pressed the rudder pedal and pulled the airplane into a perfect turn with the left wing tilted at the proper 30-degree angle, just as he had learned from his first flight manual. He glanced down and saw smoke from the bombs rising in no regular patter all over the French landscape, and it appeared only about half the bombs had fallen reasonably close to the target. He could see what looked like railroads tracks and small specks, which must have been buildings. There were a few clouds of black smoke directly within the target area, suggesting something had been hit but there was a tone of disgust in the mission commander's voice when he simply transmitted, "Watch for fighters.

The Germans were no doubt unimpressed with the attack, because they sent up no fighter and even ceased the flack as the straggling B17s regained their proper positions, and the formation assumed a course back towards England. It was just past 1800 hours when the runway came into sight, and there was an uneasy feeling in Loren's stomach as the airplane slowly floated towards the ground. The first mission had been non-eventful with little resistance and poor results.

As soon as the plane touched down with one of Loren's exemplary landings, he saw a group of olive drab staff cars on one side of the runway and a group of ambulances on the other. Both the staff officers and hospital crews stared at them while they were taxing to their parking positions. The medic's stares were rather noncommittal, but the staff officers were obviously displeased at the preliminary reports at the less than spectacular results of the mission.

The crews began to deplane. Some were happy and joking as to how their crew had clobbered the target, but others walked aimlessly around their planes and sheepishly looked at the others. It was easy to speculate which crews had flown the bomb run properly.

The ambulance crews remained in position for a few minutes and appeared to be waiting to be called to attend the wounded but the only redeeming feature of the poorly flown mission was there were none. Finally, they drove around the B17s in a wide circle and unceremoniously made their way back to the hospital while bomber officers began to crawl into the waiting ¾ ton vehicles which took them to the G2 building for debriefing.

Loren entered the G2 building and saw a long line of desks, all manned by very businesslike looking officers of varying ranks. Various documents, folders and maps were all neatly arranged on the desks, and the scene reminded Loren of the recruiting station where he had first enlisted. He sat down in front of an Army major, and the first thing Loren noticed was he was not wearing wings and in fact, didn't look at all like a soldier of any description. His uniform was very neat but he had a very small neck and a soft, pudgy midsection that lapped over his belt. He was impatient and in a somewhat non-authoritative and effeminate tone, snapped, "Sit down, lieutenant." He paused, folded his hands on the desk for a moment before reaching down to his briefcase, pulling out a pad and pencil and saying, "The initial reports are the mission inflicted only little damage on the target. What seemed to go wrong?" Very abruptly, he looked up and his eyes were fixed on Loren.

There was a silence, as Loren tried to reconstruct the events of the mission in his mind. He started to speak very deliberately. "We encounter light flak and took minor evasive action." He paused and glanced down the row of desks, looking for Newton and Ronald. "The formation became separated, and all the planes didn't see the lead squadron release its bombs. I didn't hear any confirming orders...." He stopped, because it suddenly occurred to him that he was affixing blame on the mission commander.

The briefing officer took on something of an inquisitive appearance, leaned forward and pointedly asked, "How heavy was the flak?"

"It didn't seem very heavy. I don't know. This was my first mission, and I didn't have anything to compare it to."

The major dropped his pencil, and his mood became rather prying, as he pressed, "Do you think evasive action was even necessary?"

Loren felt an immediate resent building within him, which was reflected in his voice when he looked directly at the major and snapped, "I said this was my first mission. How do you expect me to know?"

The major leaned back, and a disapproving grimace came over him. He began to shake his head and said, "Let's summarize. There was no fighter attack, only light antiaircraft resistance, minor evasive action and no coordination of bomb release due to a separated formation and oh yes, no radio communication over the target."

Blood began to rush through the veins in Loren's neck. He loosened his shirt collar, leaned forward and responded in curt words. "Yes sir, that's all the facts, but you seem to have made some unfounded assumptions...."

No, I haven't," he snarled. His unmanly appearance and blunt disposition were totally at odds with each other. "It seems glaringly obvious that you went into evasive action after you passed the initial point, there was no time to make course corrections and as a consequence, were beyond the target before half the group even realized where it was. That's all, lieutenant."

Loren jerked his hat from the desk, abruptly stood up and began to walk from the building where he came across Ronald and Newton who were in the course of a rather unpleasant conversation with each other. Ronald was pointing back in the direction of the debriefing officers and raving, "What in the hell do those pencil-necks know about flying!? Hell, half of them aren't even pilots. Do they expect us to fly directly into a flak pattern? Why the hell did we spend 3 weeks in training learning evasive action?"

Thus, the first daylight American bombing raid had proven nothing. No planes had been lost, but the Germans had not put up a fighter challenge; and although a certain amount of panic on a first mission was understandable, Loren was infuriated by the critique, however, his enthusiasm was undaunted, and he was all the more determined. 

Additional planes were arriving in England everyday, and more test missions involving small bomber forces with fighter escorts were flown into France with even some short penetrations into Germany. Reasonably successful daylight raids followed on Amiens-Longuean, Rotterdam, Letrait, and Meaulte and Courtrai, but the question persisted. With limited fighter range due to fuel limitations, could a formation of bombers fly 100 unescorted miles into Germany and if so, could a target be accurately struck while the bomber formation was under heavy antiaircraft fire? Could formations originating from many separate fields assemble and organize into intricate defensive formations? All the while, the British seemed content with night bombing and expressed little interest in the American idea of precision daylight bombing.

The summer passed so slowly and each day seemed like all the rest, except when there was a combat mission, and the repetitious practicing of flight mechanics came to be viewed by most as tedious and nonproductive. All realized that only combat missions could be expected to condition one's reflexes to the effectiveness needed to correct errors noted in the initial missions. At least, this was the theory held by many of the senior staff officers, some of whom had never flown a single mission, but such a supposition was later to prove itself only true to a point, because beyond that point, fear began to rule the individual. Complicating the various theories was the fact that one man's breaking point often had no relationship to another's, and the resultant 25 mission rotation idea was arbitrary to say the least. Some were to reach their breaking points before that while others would not.

Six September 1942 was a cool, misty sort of day. An intense mood ruled the airmen as the 21 B17s climbed through the scattered overcast and were joined by 20 others from another home base before reaching the French coast. Loren felt confident as the planes roared through the air and he watched an additional 13 bombers break away to fly a diversionary mission on the German airfield at St. Omer. He had gained valuable flying experience in the earlier missions and had little of the Luftwaffe or antiaircraft batteries and was thinking of the Wilson Shipyard raid a few days earlier. A group of 12 B17s had been attacked by 25 Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulf fighters, and although several B17s had been severely damaged, all had returned to base. Confidence in the B17 and the concept of precision daylight bombing was growing both among the crews and command echelon.

As the formation crossed the French coast, the mission commander's voice over the plane to plane frequency reflected the same confidence. It was calm and reassuring. "Mission leader to all units. We are approaching the French coast. Come into...."

Just then, another voice, far from reassuring, came in over the frequency, "FW-109s at 10:00 o'clock!"

Some of the mission commander's confidence immediately waned. His next transmission was perceptibly labored. "Stay in close formation. Gunners, when they attack, fire short bursts except at very close range.

"It looks like about 30 of them," Loren observed in a very calm and analytical voice, glancing through the left window and pulling the plane higher and closer the wingman.

The German fighters were flying in 3 separate single-file formations about 1000 feet above the B17s and broke into 3 separate single-file groups as they began to descent on the top of the bomber formation. Loren could only hear distant cannon fire as the gunners in the top squadron began to fire on the attackers. The 3 squadrons in the bomber group each covered about 750 feet of air space, and none of the planes in Loren's squadron were firing.

When the fighters began to come into range of the bottom 2 squadrons, Loren was puzzled, looked at Ronald and asked, "Why aren't we firing?" He quickly grasped is communications buckle and with some loss of composure, inquired, "Pilot to turret. Why aren't you firing?"

The confused and frightful response was short but fully delineative of the unexpected dilemma. "They're coming down straight above us...If I fire, I'm gonna be firing directly into the squadron above us!"

The fighter escorts had broken their formations to engage the enemy before they had broken into the separate groups, and quite a few of the enemy fighters had found their way into the bomber groups, unchallenged by the escort fighters. The enemy was darting through the bombers at sharp 90 degree angles, spurting bursts of cannon fire before swerving off to one side. What few gunners that were firing were firing into the open air, because the enemy pilots would only remain in their dive patterns for a few seconds. By the time the bomber gunners could begin firing on them, they would abruptly seer away. While the enemy planes were firing, they were directly above the cockpits of the B17s, spraying rounds across the top of the fuselages and wingspans, giving them a very long aiming point for their brief period of fire with the added benefit such a firing maneuver was likely to hit both the pilot and copilot.

From somewhere in the airplane came the matter-of-fact voice, "B17 on fire at 2:00 o'clock"

The damaged B17 began to lose altitude and fell out of formation. Immediately, 3 109s alertly swarmed under it and began pumping fire into its wings and engines. The plane fell about 500 feet with large trails of black smoke coming from 2 of its engines. The bottom turret gunner was not firing, and Loren knew he must be dead.

"God damn. Look at that!" Ronald gasped as the fighters' cannon fire chewed large pieces from the B17s wings. It went into a slight spin before falling at a 45 degree angle directly in front of Loren's plane.

Ronald strained to look up at the top squadron and heaved, "There's another one going down!"

Loren was astonished at what he saw. Quite unlike the first plane that had been lost, all the engines of the second one seemed to be running perfectly. It had very little visible battle damage and was simply flying on a very regular path towards the ground. At first, Loren was bewildered by the strange sight, but suddenly realized while the airplane was conditionally airworthy, all of her crew must be dead.

Only 3 parachutes had emerged from the first B17, and as it disappeared from sight, Loren wondered if the other crew members were dead or too severely wounded to bail out of the doomed airplane. 

Loren' awe was soon disrupted by Ronald's startled voice, "Look out!"

A single FW-109 darted from nowhere and made a sweep with its cannons blazing directly below Loren's wing. He was so startled, he jerked back in his seat, pulled the yoke abruptly towards him, and the plane veered up and sharply to one side. When the 109 zoomed underneath, there was a menacing sound of sharp cracks as the enemy's rounds ran the full length of the fuselage.

"Damn!" Ronald exclaimed as his head turned to follow the enemy fighter and slammed against the cockpit panel due to Loren's tugging at the yoke.

Loren gradually steadied the plane, felt more embarrassed than afraid but didn't say anything.

A very concerned expression flowed over Ronald's eyes, as he ran his hands under his oxygen mask and looked up into the air where, thankfully, no fighters were seen. He adjusted his mask and with a synthetic snicker, said, "Those fuckers have got some pretty good pilot, chief."

Strangely, that thought had never occurred to Loren. He had always been so consumed by his own love for flying, he never stopped to consider that others might well have an ambition such as the one that had ruled him for all those years. It was then that an unsettling realization began to bleed through his mind. The enemy fighters were not simply object flitting through the air with no mind of spirit behind them. They were piloted by living, breathing men who in all probability were much like him and the other men of is crew. There were those in their homes who loved and worried for them, just as his family worried for him. His awareness of the enemy had changed almost instantly as his eyes remained fixed on the open sky and his hand slowly pressed his communications buckle to his throat. He managed to regain a degree of poise and in a firm voice, transmitted, 'Pilot to crew. Report any damage or injuries."

A shimmer of relief struck him when one gunner responded, "Waist gunner to Pilot. No visible damage. No casualties."

Loren glanced down at the instrument panel, just as he began to hear the punft-punft-punft-punft sounds of flak. The Germans had developed a new tactic and would wait until the bomber formations were reasonably close over the antiaircraft batteries before beginning to fire, thus allowing little time to design evasive action. The black puffs of smoke speckled through the full lengths of bomber formations, and every few seconds, a faint ting-ting-ting could be heard at a number of places in the airplane.

Expecting to hear the order for evasive action at any moment, Loren looked in the direction of the mission commander's airplane, but the frequency was silent and all the while, the flak grew thicker and thicker. Blending within the roar of the bombers' engines and ominous sounds of flak, Loren could hear the sound of engines having irregular RPMs. A chill went down his spine, and his tongue felt as thought it were swollen. Hurriedly, his eyes traversed the instruments and glared at the fuel and oil pressure gauges. None of the warning lights was on but all sorts of imaginations clouded his alertness each time there was a flak burst ahead of him. His body drew tight each time the shrapnel particles struck the plane, and impatience ruled him. Over and over, he was repeating in his mind, "How much longer to target....?"

Finally, he could make out the faint outline of Meaulte, France and at last, there were the words of the mission commander, "Leader to all units. Open bomb bay doors. Release on my lead."

Loren paid more attention to the thick flak pattern and only made jerking glances at the lead squadron. The airplane began to tilt to the left. He gently pressed the rudder and brought the airplane into an uneasy stability just as bombs began to fall from the lead squadron. His hand slapped at is communications buckle, and he almost shouted, "Now!"

Fortunately, the bombardier grasped the meaning of the inconclusive transmission, because there was a dragging sensation due to the open bay doors and bombs falling from the airplane. For a moment, Loren's attention was diverted from the flak, and he transmitted over the interphone, "Pilot to bombardier. What does it look like?"

A feeling of relief seeped over him, as he exhaled and closed his eyes for a moment with the bombardier's report, "We hit it....We hit it good!"

When a formation went into a turn pattern, it always seemed as though it were standing still – especially under heavy flak. The bombers leveled off and sharp, knife-like touches of fear began to streak through Loren's body. He knew the fighter escort had turned back just before the formation reached the initial point and that the enemy fighters would be waiting just outside the flak pattern.

The dull din of the motors, high altitude and hours on oxygen had caused his head to ache, and there was a hollow feeling in his stomach. The flak wasn't as heavy, he began to feel something resembling ease and entered something of a tranquil daze governed by the light flak pattern. He only sporadically glanced over the gauges but then came the frantic radio transmission, "FW-109s at 10:00 o'clock!"

He jumped erect in his seat, as though suddenly awaken from a sound sleep, although his uneasy, trance-like glare into the open sky had hardly been sleep. He studied the formation of some 30 or so fighters and in a calculating voice, transmitted over the interphone, "Gunners, be alert. It looks like they're attacking the top squadron."

Unexpectedly, some rendition of confidence began to return. The Germans seemed to always follow a very predictable attack plan and would strike the squadron at the highest altitude with the idea apparently being a concentrated attack against a segment of a formation would defeat the organized defenses and heavy firepower of the entire group. Strangely, however, the fighters did not attack but trailed outside the effective range of the top squadron's gunners, suddenly increased their air speed and disappeared ahead of the bomber group.

Ronald began to laugh and said, "Those cock-suckers have had enough for one day.'

A fearsome anxiety clutched at Loren's stomach as he responded, "I don't think so." Uncharacteristically, a brief chuckle found its way from his throat. "They're flying straight towards England – just like we are. I can't believe the pilots who showed us the flying they did back there don't know east from west."

For the first time in some while, Loren began to scan the bomber formation, and what he saw only fed his uneasiness. Small trails of smoke were flowing from Leonard's number 2 engine, and the Plexiglas panels of his wingman's top turret were shattered. The plane to plane frequency was ominously silent, and it was painfully obvious everyone was waiting for something to happen.

Then, Loren saw them. "Oh my God," he uttered, as small specks dead ahead of the formation gradually came into view. There was little question what they were. The enemy fighters were flying abreast of one another on a collision coarse with the bomber formation. With that came the harrowing disclosure the German high command was developing new tactics – the same as the Allies. What was to follow would be viewed by some as a test of method and basis for further refinement of precision daylight bombing. 

The mission leader's transmission was one of surprise and shock. "Enemy fighters on intercepting coarse! Stay tight...."

The transmission suddenly ceased but at that precise moment, it occurred to everyone that it wasn't immediately certain whether a tight formation would be an advantage or disadvantage, because it wasn't clear what attack plan the enemy pilots would follow. When they were about 3000 feet away, they very fluidly broke off into 3 groups, each speeding straight towards the noses of the bombers. The enemy planes offered the bomber gunners very small aiming points, as their whole fuselages appeared hidden behind their nose cones and their wings looked like broom straws. They were impossible targets and came streaking towards the bombers with their wing cannons sparkling with orange flashes, spitting their rounds all across the bombers flight paths.

Without thinking what he was doing, Loren dropped the plane some 500 feet, and the top turret immediately picked up the belly and wingspan of one of the approaching fighters. The gunner had a full 10 seconds of uninterrupted fire, turning the follow the FW-109 and all the while, pumping .50-caliber fire into its wings and fuselage until it burst into flame and separated into 3 parts. A section of the plane's wing slammed into the propeller of one of the other fighters, and it began spinning out of control before slowly tapering off into a controlled downward glide path, just as the pilot ejected and his parachute began to float leisurely towards the ground.

Loren labored to pull the plane back into formation, and in the midst of all the confusion was momentarily relieved to see he was not the only one who had broken formation. The bombers were scattered, and the fighters were darting through the gaps created by the surprise of their new maneuver and the resultant reactions of the surprised bomber pilots.

All sorts of disorganized transmissions cluttered the radio frequency. "Fred, there's one behind you!" "One coming in at 3:00 o'clock! Pick it up, George!" "FW-109 out of control at 4 o'clock!"

Finally, the mission commander's voice prevailed. "Keep this frequency open, damn it! Get back in formation!"

Loren could hear, mingled in with the mission commander's communication, what must have been enemy fire as well as the dull reports of the .50 calibers on the bomber. He managed to get his plane back into formation and searched over the battle space until there it was – the mission commander's plane was hanging in the sky with only 2 engines running. There was no fire in the disabled engines, and the plane was holding its airspeed and altitude.

The change in the German's attack method had caught the Americans completely by surprise but gradually, the planes regained the proper close formation, the gunfire began to taper off and then again, there was only the humming of the motors. The fighters had disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.

Ronald's voice was rather timid as he asked, "Where'd they go?"

Only then did Loren notice the cold sweat under his oxygen mask. He glanced across the sky and said, "There they are," pointing out at 10:00 o'clock.

There were about 25 fighters, all flying in a V-formation and out of range. They remained there for quite a few minutes until 5 of them peeled off and swooped down in a staggered, single file and headed straight towards Loren's squadron. His unsteady hand clutched his communications buckle, and in something less than an authoritive  voice, said, "Gunners, 5 FWs at 3:00 o'clock! Pick them up on the right side!"

The top turret and right waist gunners began firing, but the fighters abruptly changed course, making a 30-degree turn towards the bottom of the squadron. Before their gunners could react, the enemy planes riddled the 2 bombers of the outside of the formation. Small pieces were torn from their fuselages and began to fall through the air like confetti at some festive occasion. Loren watched it all in awe as the squadron held together in close formation while the sky glistened with the flashes from the B17s' weapons when at last, they began to pick up the enemy speeding across the top of their configuration.

Suddenly, orange columns of flame began to pour from the engines of one of the bombers, the whole right wing section exploded and the plane stopped dead in the air, before fluttering to the earth like a dead leaf on a late autumn day.

The enemy fighters quickly gained altitude, lingered above the bombers for a few moments and then turned back towards France.

There was no radio communication from the mission commander's airplane which by then, had sustained considerable damage, was chewed up and smoking. Loren stared at it, hanging there like a yo-yo with the string tangled, and began to speculate, 'His radio must be out....Oh no, he's on fire!"

The plane began to loose altitude. Someone was flying it and holding it reasonably steady in the air, as one by one, the crew began to bail out. Three, four, five chutes opened, and Loren and Ronald were both glaring at the disabled airplane as it went into a spin as disappeared from sight – presumably manned by whoever was trying to fly it and 4 dead men.

Very few words were uttered on the return flight. Each man was absorbed in his own thoughts, and Loren's emotions were in conflict. He was relieved the air battle was over but he felt a latent fear within him each time he reconstructed the images of what he had just seen. He remembered how he had felt when the bombers flew directly into the flak space, and he was haunted by the lingering sounds of the flak and enemy rounds striking his airplane. There was the ruling, helpless feeling when the enemy planes had flown directly into the formation and the constant fear that at any moment, the plane would explode or start to go down from battle damage. When he saw the home field ahead, he went through the preliminary landing procedure without thinking what he was doing. With his eyes fixed on the runway, he gently lowered the airplane and reduced his airspeed but then, was distracted by 2 red flares fired through the waist gunner's window of the plane landing in front of him. All over again, his fear began to rebuild, because he knew the crew was signaling that wounded men were aboard. He scanned over the airplane and noticed both waist guns were still mounted in the windows and had not been removed before landing.  A chill ran through his throat, and a cramp came into his stomach. Somehow, he knew both of the waist gunners were either dead or seriously wounded and at that moment, the other crew members were laboring over them, trying to save their lives.

One by one, the planes touched down. As always, the ambulances were positioned all along the runway. Two of them frantically moved alongside the plane that had fired the flares. It reduced speed and pulled off the runway before reaching the parking area. When Loren reached the parking area, he turned his head away from the ambulances, remained in his seat for a few minutes and never heard what Ronald said when he left the airplane. Slowly, he rose from his seat, looked back through the B17 and saw everyone had deplaned, but his eyes caught the tail gunner, who was still seated in his cramped compartment. Loren called out to him, "Fred....Fred," as he walked towards him.

The man was still firmly grasping his machine gun. He continued to call out, "Fred....Fred," before bending down and touching his neck. He felt a thick, wet sensation on his fingertips and looked at his hand that was covered in blood. The man was stone dead, and in the heat of battle, none of the crew had even noticed it – not even in the preliminary landing procedure.

Loren gently lifted him out of the compartment and laid him flat on the floor. Red lung tissue was hanging from one of the 3 gaping voids in his chest, and the sternum was fully exposed and caked in dry blood. His forearms were stiff and still reaching forward, as though he were still gripping his weapon. Loren kneeled on one knee and gazed down at him for a moment. He couldn't have been more than 23, his pale face was expressionless but somehow conveyed the impression of innocence. Although the dead man looked nothing like his father, Loren was reminded of the last time he had seen his father, lying in his coffin in front of the alter at Sacred Heart Church. He too had been a casualty of war, but his life had lingered for years after his wound. Fred's death had been instantaneous

Loren walked to the door, glanced back at the young man and wondered if life had left him without his ever realizing what had happened or had there been a fleeting, horrible moment when he had known he was drawing his last breath. He lowered himself down onto the runway, walked along the side of the B17 and a cold, shimmering feeling ran through his stomach when he saw the 3 rows of punctures in the skin of the fuselage. He walked back to the tail section and saw it was jagged from top to bottom and had apparently been struck by flak without his ever knowing it. He wasn't sure if that was what had killed the tail gunner, but judging from the appearance of his wounds, he decided it must have been the fighters.

He looked back across the runway where medics were the other plane had stopped short. The medics were carrying 3 men on stretchers and carefully placing them into the ambulances. Two were lying completely still, and it wasn't obvious if they were dead of alive. The other one was being lowered from one of the waist gunner windows. His weak legs reached out for the ground, and he collapsed in the arms of the medics. Bandages covered his neck and right arm, which hung limp in a sling in front of his chest. He barely made it to the stretcher where he sat for a few seconds and then, fell straight back. The ambulance hurried away towards the hospital but the one into which the others had been placed remained at the side of the airplane. Loren knew they were dead. He motioned to one of the empty ambulances as it passed by his plane and never looked at the medic or even returned his salute. He just pointed to his plane and said, "There's a man in there. He's dead."

The next few days brought foul weather, which Loren welcomed, because the bomber groups stood down. He couldn't get the sounds of droning airplanes and cracking gunfire out of his mind and began to dream of the flaming B17s and FW109s separating in the air. It all haunted him to the point he wished he were not on flight status; but after a few days on the ground, some of his self-possession returned or at least, his fear was provisionally overruled by his love for flying.

It was a few evenings after the Meaulte mission when Loren and Leonard Grimek were sitting in the officers' club building. Somehow, Leonard was unfeigned by it all and showed none of the changes so obvious in many of the other flyers. Loren had come to esteem his friendship, because he seemed such a genuine and unselfish person. On that night, he looked perfectly relaxed, a disposition Loren had not experience for quite some while. For the first time he could remember, Loren didn't want to talk about flying – in fact, he wanted to expel it from his mind. "How do you stay so relaxed?" he asked.

Leonard began to laugh but quickly stopped when he saw Loren's serious expression. He thought for a moment before his eyes fell to the floor, as he said, "Everyone's afraid. Some just show it more than others. It's strange, I don't fear the battle nearly as much as when I think of what my wife and child would do without me. Even worse, I afraid what it would be like for them, if I came back disabled." Quickly, his eyes closed, a grimace came to his face and he quickly added, "I shouldn't have said that. I forgot your father was an invalid after the First War."

For a few moments, Loren's thoughts turned away from himself, and he remembered the last words Blanche had said to him there in the house on Euclid Avenue the day he left for overseas. "I wish Charles were here. He would be so proud of you."

His father, and indeed his whole family, had always encouraged him in his flight lessons and seemed so pleased he had a definite goal for his life. He was, however, experiencing a troubling revelation – sometimes, when one has achieved a goal, it doesn't seem nearly as important as when it was only a dream. No doubt, he still held a passion for flying, but when he had enlisted, he never imagined his passion could not override any other emotion, but the fright of aerial combat was simply more than he had anticipated. Of late, he had come to realize he was nothing like his father who had been a rather simple man such as Leonard Grimek. His home and family had always been the most important things in his life, and he didn't seem to have anything like Loren's driving ambition to "make something of myself" as he would so often put it when he was explaining the self-oriented ambitions for his life to someone he perceived wasn't driven by the same presumed lofty ideals.

His father, even when his health began to fall so rapidly, would always ask him how his flight lessons were going. After he was confined to his bed, he still seemed more concerned for Loren than himself. His father's role in the First War had been entirely different from where Loren found himself in the Second War. Charles Wilson had been an artless and unstudied foot soldier, always in a dirty uniform and sometimes, didn't even know, or care to know, what day it was. Conversely, Loren slept in a clean bed every night, his uniform was always neat and he viewed himself as the proprietor of a skill that would be wasted in anything such as a trench of World War I France or the present day, steamy jungles of the South Pacific. His skill as a pilot had rightfully elevated him above all that, and the often-misused term " an officer and gentleman" was befitting someone such as he who had always pursued a dream and had immediately came forward to apply his skill – even before the war had started.

"What are you thinking about?" Leonard asked. 'You look like you're a thousand miles away".

Loren leaned back and straightened his tie. "I was thinking about my daddy." His eyes fell to the floor. "I never knew him as the man he was before he received his wounds. Towards the end, he...he didn't exactly suffer but for the first time, he spoke of his friends in the trenches quite a lot." He slowly began to shake his head and felt a tint of tears in the corners of his eyes. "He never complained or tried to blame anyone for what happened to him. I've already bitched a lot about unescorted missions over enemy territory but so far, haven't received a scratch."

Leonard had always been much more sentimental and not nearly as pragmatic as Loren. He perceived their situations were similar, but from and entirely different perspective. Both of them were thinking of their families, but Loren's father was dead and flying seemed to have always prevailed as Loren's first love. He thought very carefully before saying, "I know what you mean. I can see the faces of my wife and little son out there in the sky every time we take off. I love everything about them. I can see the little baby just as if he were sitting here now, with that innocent smile on his face, reaching up for his mother. Since you're a bachelor, you've probably never had a feeling like that."

Loren thought for a moment. "No, but I've felt a different sort of love, looking down at my father on his death bed and knowing he had such little time left. It was such a pathetic feeling, knowing he realized that himself. I suppose when anyone goes through an experience such as that, he realizes there's so much more he could have done to make a loved one's life happier." He quickly brushed his hand over one eye to wipe away the tear. "When he died, a part of my mother died with him. She was never the same. I'm not sure what I felt for them was love or pity."

"She still had you," Leonard quickly interjected. "I know she must have been proud of you – I mean, how determined you were to become a pilot and all."

"I hope so," Loren said, as he finally took his eyes off the floor to look across the room and out the window at the dark runway. He could see the image of her smiling face the day he got his first job as a cargo pilot, and he remembered her letters when he was in Army Flight School. How had she put it when he received his wings? "I'm so happy and proud of you, son."

Leonard saw the need to change the subject and quickly said, "I'm not the same person I was before I met my wife," and with that, began to think of her and not Loren. "Meeting her was what brought me to repentance. I can't say I ever stopped to think what it meant to be a loving and giving person until she came into my life."

Loren valued Leonard's friendship very much but at that particular moment, wished to avoid hearing anything of the fundamental views of a born-again Baptist. Although he didn't realize it at the moment, his thoughts of his mother and father as well as his fears resulting from his last several missions were contending with reason in his mind. His voice must have been slightly contentious when he said, "Catholics don't believe in a bolt of lightening, on the spot repentance. Even back in grammar school, the sisters told us those who have the proper communion with God gradually form into righteous persons all through their lives and never approach anything like complete repentance until near the end of their lives." He stopped a moment and looked about the room where some groups of airmen were laughing while others seemed to be having soul-searching dialogues such as he and Leonard. "I hope that's true," he continued. "Since all this started, I've realized there's a thing or two about myself I'm not especially proud of."

Leonard wanted to ask him what he meant but thought better of it. He also glanced about the room and noticed the officers exhibited every mood imaginable. Some were joking and laughing, some sitting with blank expressions on their faces, just string at the walls. He reached out and touched Loren's arm and said, "Look over there," and pointed to a table where Ronald and Newton were seated.

Within the past several weeks, the 2 of them had befriended one another and made the most unlikely combination. Newton, as always, has had briefcase with him and several books were lying on the table in front of them. He seemed to be conducting some sort of tutoring session with Ronald who would look down at the books for a few moments and then, nodding, would glance back at Newton.

Loren and Leonard stared at them for a few moments until Newton closed his books, tucked them away in the briefcase and with various gestures of his hands, appeared to be giving a recapitulation of whatever he had been talking about.

Ronald pointed to Newton's briefcase, and Newton pulled out a pencil and piece of paper. He gave them to Ronald, who started to draw some sort of diagram on the paper and unexpectedly, seemed to be educating Newton on some unknown subject.

With identical investigative expressions, Loren and Leonard looked at each other. Loren said, "Let's go over there."

As they walked across the room, Ronald continued his lecture, and Newton sat with one hand under his chin and began looking at the paper on which Ronald had drawn a diagram that resembled the lower part of a person's body. He moved the pencil around the paper, drawing arrows here and there as he said, "The external genital parts of the female are called the vulva, Newton." He drew another arrow towards the center of the diagram and continued, "The clitoris is a small erectile organ right here, and behind it is a column called the vagina." He put one elbow on the table, began to gesture with the other hand, and Newton intermittently glanced down at the diagram and then, back up at Ronald, who resumed, "Most younger women only have sexual feeling in the clitoris and due to this fact, some of them are difficult to satisfy or at least, it takes them much longer to get their rocks off than it does the man. You can tell when they're hot when the clitoris and the nipples of their breasts become erect. When the walls of the vagina begin to lubricate and they begin to pant, you'll know you're doing the job right. Just remember, controlling your own response is just as important as effectively arousing a woman."

Newton sat there for a moment with his chin still resting in his hand as though he were deliberating over some equation of higher mathematics. Presently, he tore the diagram from the pad and very carefully, put it into a folder in his briefcase.

With somewhat puzzled and intrigued faces, Loren and Leonard stood and watched them as they both got up and walked out of the building, still absorbed in deep conversation.

____________________

Loren began to count his missions and with each one, hoped more and more for the day he would reach 25 and could get off flight status. Only a short while before, he had never conceived himself as not wanting to fly, but each mission was becoming more frightful than the last. There was the second mission on the Avoins Potez factory at Meaulte when the bomber formation been attacked in force by fighters had with yet more new tactics being developed by the enemy. The fighters had begun attacking in groups of two, speeding directly towards the B17s but suddenly, one would bank away towards another bomber, leaving the other with its sights directly on the first B17.

The locomotive factories and steel plants at Lille, France had been good targets for precision daylight bombing, and in the briefings and critiques, the airmen first heard the term "acceptable losses," which tended to be rather misleading. On the Lille mission, a combination of 108 Flying Fortresses and Liberators had started the mission, but 15 aborted before reaching the target. Even though an "acceptable number" of bombes and crews were being lost, many of the planes were sustaining battle damage, not to mention the wills of the crews, making it easier to abort a mission at the slightest hint of mechanical failure.

As winter approached, fog either kept the bombers on the ground or caused them to be diverted to secondary targets and gradually, the Germans were beginning to take the concept of precision daylight bombing more seriously. A notable example was the mission against Romilly-sur-Sein 65miles southeast of Paris on 20 December 1942, which was the deepest penetration to that point into German occupied territory. Of 100 B17s, 6 were shot down, 2 were badly damaged and crash landed and 29 others were damaged.

The first mission over the port city of Wilhelmshaven introduced a whole new series of perils for the bombers. The temperature was so cold the turret mechanism froze. The fogged windshields and bombsights made it difficult to see the enemy fighters as well as the target. One man in Loren's crew received what would have been a minor wound under more moderate conditions. The other crewmembers stopped the bleeding easily enough, but he went into shock and froze to death on the return flight. That had been Loren's  25^th mission, and as he left the debriefing building on that gray, overcast day, he didn't care if he ever flew again – he felt alleviated, he had done his duty and it was then time for someone else to look after the air war from then on.

Loren, Leonard, Newton and Ronald went their separate ways. Unsurprisingly, Leonard elected to remain on flight status. Newton's academic qualities were finally recognized and he was assigned as a navigation instructor somewhere back in the states. Ronald was faced with a big surprise when the woman, or one of them, he had made a vocation of bedding became with child. As it developed and to his complete dismay, the group commander was something of a religious fundamentalist and gave Ronald the alternative of either marrying her or being court-martialed. With some hesitation, he decided on marriage, found a one-room apartment in the village and was assigned some subservient task in the adjutant's section. Thus, he became everything he professed to detest or "pinnacle of mediocrity" as he would so often describe other people. After the baby was born, he couldn't absolve himself of the responsibility he felt and was hopelessly bound to a woman he did not love and in a confinement he never imagined.

The Casablanca Conference of January 1943 had produced the "Casablanca Directive", which simply stated the British would continue "area attacks" at night and the Americans would continue "precision raids" by day against single source components of the German economy. The winter of 1942-1943 was severe and few missions were flown, but when Loren officially went off flight status in March 1943, strategy of the high command was the most remote thing from his mind. He felt relieved, as if a terrible affliction had been purged from him and he didn't even express a preference for a new duty assignment. Quite by chance, he was assigned to the G2 section as a debriefing officer.

With few missions being flown, he didn't do much of anything for the first few weeks, and that gave him time to sort out things in his mind. At first, the non-flight status had given him an impeccable asylum from all that had made him so afraid, but when the weather began to improve and the number of missions were increased, his feelings were at odds. Once again, he found himself reminiscing about his first flight lessons at Chandler Field and recalling sitting there in his bedroom on Euclid Avenue, studying his flight manuals. Sometimes, he would walk out on the runway and just stare at the airplanes, remembering the interest his mother and father had always taken in his governing determination to become a pilot. That brought a torturous uneasiness within him, which in a strange sort of way, was more punishing than the fear that had ruled him before.

It was the afternoon of the attack on the harbor at Kiel on 13 June 1943. The debriefing desks were perfectly aligned in the G2 Building, and the debriefing officers looked very businesslike, sitting there with their charts and maps all neatly arranged in front of them. Loren stood at the window, looking up and down the runway and remembering the first time he had ever taken off. A negligible smile came over his face, but it quickly dissolved when he remembered pulling that tail gunner out of his compartment and laying him there on the floor of the airplane with the man's hands cupped as though he were still holding his weapon. He remembered standing on the runway after his 25^th mission and relishing the festive aura within him, because he had just completed his last mission. The images of the medics removing the man who had froze to death on the return flight would be in his mind for as long as he lived. He had felt so sorry for the man as his lifeless body passed by him, but even that could not prevail over the alleviation he didn't have to fly any more.

He slowly walked back to his desk and picked up pieces of the other men's conversations. Some were talking about the mission and some were about a variety of other things, be he couldn't help but notice the number of times he heard the words "I" and "me." As he sat down at his desk, he looked at the maps, the other officers and then again started to stare out onto the runway. Gradually, a thought began to seep into his mind, which finally was beginning to reach the actualization that had evaded him for all those weeks when his emotions were contending with the fear that reigned over him. The troubling ambiance started to bleed over him, bringing a benumbing sensation to his throat and fingertips. His neck began to tingle, and minute beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. He really hadn't enlisted because it was "the right thing to do" as he like to hear himself say. His first thought had been his enthrallment with flying, and the war had only been a matter of convenience for him to further the image he had created of himself. He began to feel squeamish, loosened his tie and didn't notice the other men when they began to stir about the room.

His self-imposed abstraction was finally broken by the short, tense voices about the room. "G3 just called." They're coming in." "Two went down in the Channel."

He walked back across the room, inquisitively looked out the window and noticed quite a bit of activity around the hospital. The medics were frantically running out to the ambulances, and in a few minutes, near everyone on the base was hurrying towards the runway. Most of the others in the debriefing building walked outside and began looking into the sky, but Loren went back to his desk, sat down and began staring at the clock on the wall until he heard the droning of the bombers approaching from the east.

Everywhere, men were counting. "Two, three, four." "Eight, nine, ten." "God damn, look at that tail section! How is he keeping that fucking thing in the air!?"

Loren never moved – he just sat there as the planes circled the field and began their landing approaches until finally, he looked up and out the small window. He eyes caught 3 planes about 200 feet from the ground. Simultaneously, each of them fired a flare, signaling wounded men aboard. Quickly, he turned his head back to the desk and started sorting out the maps and debriefing logs.

Sitting there, listening to the B17s as they taxied down the runway reminded him of the first time he had soloed and how thrilled he had been when the little single-engine airplane had touched down on the runway but now, that same sound brought an ill feeling into his stomach.

One by one, the motors stopped. There was a few minutes of silence but then, he heard the distant sound of men's voices. "Bring the stretcher." "We need a doctor here." I think he's dead."

Presently, the ambulances began moving towards the hospital and passed right by the window next to Loren's desk. He head slowly turned and he watched the olive drab, van-type vehicles with the red crosses beset with the bright, white field. He jerked his towards the opposite wall, but there was another window overlooking the runway, and he immediately saw 4 empty spaces in the row of parked B17s. He saw the tops of 2 of the ambulances still sitting out on the runway, stood up, walked towards the window but stopped about 10 feet from it when he saw the 6 bodies lying on the concrete behind the row of planes.

He lost track of how long he stood there looking at the B17s and the medics as they lifted the bodies into the ambulances with a noticeable lack of urgency, but yet with the gentle esteem always afforded to those who had met an honorable death.

Someone was impatiently calling him. "Lieutenant. Lieutenant."

He looked around and saw the officers from the mission were filing into the room, and there was a very haggard-looking captain sitting in the chair beside his desk. He looked to be at least 45 years old, was short, stocky and almost completely bald. His large, flat nose and round cheeks didn't convey the impression he was especially intelligent, and something about his flight suit didn't look exactly right. It was clean and fit him reasonably well, but somehow just didn't enhance his appearance, which was the opposite of the romantic, dashing type Loren had always correlated with flying.

"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't notice you," Loren said as he hurried back to his desk.

All at once, the room was alive with dialogues and explicatory gestures. Some were rather heated and embellished with exaggerated motions with the hands and arms while others seemed quite refined and analytical.

Loren began ineptly shuffling through his papers and logs until he finally found the map with the flight plan overlay. Without looking at the captain and no real organization of his critique, he asked, "Where did you encounter the first fighter attack?"

Immediately, he realized he had begun the interview at the wrong point in the mission.

The captain reached out to the map with his fat hand and pointed with a trembling finger that looked to be only about 2 inches long and said, "About right there."

Loren's stare dropped down to the scale at the bottom of the map. "Two hundred miles before the target?" he asked in a voice implying disbelief.

The captain began to nod very rapidly, drew his lips tightly together but didn't say a word.

Loren's inept feeling continued, partially due to the captain's rattled appearance and partially because he had given no thought to how he should conduct the debriefing. The first thing that came into his mind was, "How many were there?"

With a snicker and expression suggesting intolerance, the captain exhaled before he snapped, "I don't know lieutenant. I didn't have time to count them."

"What sort of scheme of attack did they follow?" when he finally looked directly at the captain for the first time and noticed his eyes were fixed on Loren's wings. He remembered the debriefing officer after his first mission and how he had felt a ground officer didn't have the perceptiveness to critique a mission. He wondered what the captain was thinking about him at that very moment.

The captain seemed to sense Loren's uneasiness. He leaned back, folded his hands in his lap and peered out the window for a moment before slowly beginning to relate the enemy's attack method. "The first attack hit us just after the 4 groups had joined together. I was surprised they waited until then. Maybe they were trying to conserve fuel. I don't know. There must have been about 50 of them, all coming down from higher altitude towards the top group. I couldn't see exactly what they did, but after they made their first pass, some of them came down in a wide semicircle into the middle 2 groups and squared off on a line just under our right wings. The top ball turrets had trouble picking them up. The damn wings were in the field of fire, and the belly gunners had only a few seconds to fire on them before they would veer off. They were firing directly into the nose glass, almost as if they were trying to hit only the bombardiers." He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. "We stayed under intermittent fighter attack until we reached the flak space. I'm not sure how many planes were lost to the fighters but the ground antiaircraft units seemed to anticipate our evasive action. We thought they had the formation bracketed, but when we started our evasive action, we flew into flak heavy enough to walk on. Obviously, their firing patterns were well-planned." He leaned back, folded his arms again and started to shake his head. "As soon as we released our bombs and began our turn, the flak immediately stopped and the fighters hit us again, right in the middle of the turning pattern. It was just as though every fucking airplane was out there alone. I don't know how many went down over the target. Maybe those screwballs at G3 think we can do more damage by crashing airplanes than we can with bombs. We had no coordinated firing patterns until we finally got back into some degree of organization after the turn."

"What sort of damage do you think you did to the target?" as he searched for the proper paper to record the captain's response.

"I don't know," he replied with a rather provoked expression, and his eyes again fell to Loren's wings.

Without realizing it, Loren's inflection became pointed and his interview technique intrusive as he asked, "Didn't you ask for a report from the bombardier?"

After a moment of silence, the captain said, "The bombardier was killed during the first fighter attack. Aren't you paying attention to what I'm telling you? Hell, they've got these damn formations we're using figured out. What do those fuckers who're coming up with all this brilliant ideas think....?" He suddenly stopped, leaned forward, put his elbows on the desk, and in a much more restrained voice, said, "I'm sorry, lieutenant. We shot quite a number of them down. I don't have any idea how many, but target damage or not, all we proved up there today is that some planes can reach the target and come back. How many did we lose?"

"The initial report is 22," Loren said, glad that someone had finally asked him a question to which he could at least provide a conditional answer. "Sixty planes flew the mission without aborting."

The captain seemed shocked. 'Twenty-two? Are you sure?"

Nodding, Loren saw a need to alter the direction of the conversation and again said the first thing that came into his mind which was, "How many missions have you flown, captain?"

The captain's gaze alternated between Loren's eyes and his wings. "Thirty," he finally responded.

Loren lost all thoughts of his maps and papers. He was intrigued and quickly asked, "What made you decide to stay on flight status after 25?"

The captain's head snapped up, and he glared directly into Loren's eyes. "Because I'm a pilot," he said with an unmistakable tone of pride and implied degree of surprise that Loren had even asked the question. "Those son of a bitches didn't think someone my age could fly one of those things. They just wanted to look at some facts on figures on some stupid paper when I tried to enlist right after Pearl Harbor. None of their papers could show how I poured my soul into getting my license. I wanted to be a pilot from the first time I saw an airplane." A deriding smile came over his face. "Well, damn it – I guess I showed them. I'm a pilot, and nobody can take that away from me."

Loren looked straight into his eyes as he was speaking, and what he saw was a sincere love of flying as well as an unmistakable resentment for anyone who would attempt to disclaim he had mastered the art. With that, the interview ended.

Loren watched him as he left the building, walked straight out onto the runway and began checking the damage to the airplane he had just landed. He looked at the flak damage to the fuselage and carefully checked the ground under the engines for oil leaks. He might not have even realized it, but he was already getting ready for the next mission.

For the next few weeks, Loren thought of the pride and determination he had observed in the over-age captain who, like himself, had developed a love for flying early in his life. He had been noticeably shaken when he first sat down at the desk, his hands had been shaking and that insensible look produced by fear had been written all over his face. However, he had been equally determined, first not to loose confidence in himself and then, resolute not to be influenced by others' lack of confidence in him.

Loren remembered his initial zealousness for the Army Air Corps and how fear had eventually eaten it all away, consigning him into something of an imitation airman but more precisely, someone who had turned away from the love of his life. His thoughts turned back to that night when he and Leonard had been in the officer's club and how he had said that back in grammar school, the Sisters had taught that a person's repentance was a lifelong process. He never stopped to seriously attempt to recognize what it all meant and had supposed repentance to be some sort of automatic evolution resulting from one's appearing in church with some degree of regularity, putting an ample offering in the collection basket and trying to remember some few points of the homily until the next Mass.  How had that old Sister put it? "Life is the best teacher." He never knew what she meant until he began to see the faces of the men from his combat missions and some of the other things he had seen, such as the terrified look on a man's face when he asked a medic, "Am I going to be all right?"

Often, he would think of the old captain, sitting there at the debriefing desk with his hands still trembling from the mission, and once again, be began to feel the unyielding resolution he was a pilot and nothing could change that. He began to consider that the possibility that the teachings of the Catholic Church surely must be right – what type person one eventually becomes is governed largely by his experiences in life, or more accurately, what sort of effect a person permits those experience to inflict on him. Disappointment seemed only to build the determination of some, while it turned others towards resent and defeat, using their failure as an ample justification for what life had made of them.

He thought a lot about his father, who had not permitted the fact he was in invalid to turn his concern only towards himself and away form those who loved him. That day when he first received his pilot's license, his father had propped up in the bed, reached out to him with trembling hands and tears in his eyes as he said, "I'm so proud of you, son. You made up your mind what you wanted, and you did it." Somehow, the determination his father had spoken off that day seemed no different than he observed in some of the other airmen, such as the old captain, but no longer in himself.

His mother had been standing behind him there at his father's bedside, and she also started to cry, but Loren never stopped to think if she had been crying because she was sorry for her husband or proud of her son.

It's so easy to case away the dreams of one's life and blame it all on fate, circumstances or even someone else. Loren was clearly unhappy – not only in his duty assignment but also with what he had allowed circumstances to enact upon him. He began to think of all the men he had met since enlisting. He had admired some and had a profound distaste for others, but what was it that made some of them obliging and understanding while others were selfish and unreliable – possibly even sinful? Isn't everyone supposedly born into this world innocent? How then is it that some developed so differently from the others? Experiences in life had to be the answer. He thought how sad it was for men to grow up under trying conditions causing them pain and quite understandably, installing resent within them. Those same men in different environments quite possibly would have developed into altogether different types of persons having goals, ideals, dreams and all the things those with the 'proper upbringing profess to bear. It seemed exceedingly unfair the very nature of some men's lives was almost warranted to produce what many would refer to as a "sinner and a failure" without ever stopping to reason why.

Conversely, there were those who had been so fortunate to have had those who loved them and looked after them, quite naturally yielding an individual who had known none of the pains and fears of the less fortunate. When such a person reaches the point in his life when he finally realizes how fortunate he has been, often it is too late to go back and correct all the worthless deeds he is only then coming to recognize. Such a phenomenon can either fabricate a resolute effort to correct of one's way or simply conclude it's too late even to say, "I'm sorry."

Once a person reaches such a determination, he often desperately reaches out for whatever instrumentality is available to try to change the pattern of his life and without explanation, someone who has come to see himself as he really is will select a medium to his supposed redemption that affords a certain amount discomfort and inconvenience upon himself. With that, a certain degree of self-righteousness proceeds the reconciliation, if the reconciliation comes at all. It was something of that order that precipitated Loren to reach the decision he did on that foggy, cool afternoon when he found himself standing outside the S1 building, watching the groups of high-ranking officers going in and out. There were a few enlisted men puttering about the building doing various yard bird duties, and they looked like jack-in-the-boxes, constantly dropping their rakes, jumping up and down to salute the officers.

As Loren unenthusiastically moved towards the building, two distinguished looking colonels with briefcases tucked under their arms came out the door, and he gave an exaggerated salute, as did the yard birds, who were raking around the building or "putting lines in the dirt" as the lower enlisted grades would so sarcastically describe it.

Loren's conversation with the studious-looking captain began as one of a possible change in duty assignment, and Loren hadn't fully admitted to himself what he would ask for until the interview had lasted some few minutes. Almost immediately, Loren got the impression he had made the wrong decision upon observing the expression of disbelief on the captain's face and the somewhat astounded tone of his voice when he said, "Are you sure want to go back on flight status?" After a lengthy, inquisitive stare, he thumbed through some papers in Loren's 201 folder and finally said, "Your Flight School and mission records are impeccable. It should take only a few days to cut the order. We've got more planes arriving all the time and right now, crews are a bigger problem than equipment."

Loren wasn't exactly sure what he meant. He could have been speaking of casualties, but surely even an administrator would not be so unthinking as to express personnel management in solely numerical terms.

The captain took out a form from his top drawer, wrote a few words of instruction on it, clipped it to the personnel folder and dropped them into a basket on the clerk-typist's desk. He sat back down, folded his hands on the desk and with a quizzical whine in his voice, asked, "What made you decide to go back on flight status? You completed your 25 missions months ago."

As he rose to his feet, Loren immediately thought of the old captain back in the debriefing room. He rendered a restricted sort of salute and quietly said, "I'm a pilot."

____________________

Even before the sun began to rise on 17 August 1943, Loren could see it would be a perfect day for flying. He stood outside his BOQ, looking up at the half-crescent moon, and as the sun expelled the chilling darkness, faint orange rays outlined the row of B17s out on the runway. The eerie scene induced a chill in his neck and fingertips as he walked back into the building and began to put on his flight suit. There was that familiar faint feeling in his head when he bent down to put on his boots with trembling hands that betrayed his inferred, newfound feeling of positive direction. No one in the building uttered a word, and all that could be heard was the sound of men moving about, boots dropping to the floor and wall lockers opening and closing.

Loren sat on the side of his bunk for a few moments and was preoccupied with the other airmen in the room. They all seemed to be moving so slowly and were opening and closing their lockers ever so gently to make as little noise as possible. They must have felt exactly as he did – as if the slightest noise, the most trivial irregularity would deplete what little self-possession they retained.

Breakfast wasn't especially appetizing. No matter – his stomach was in no condition to receive any grade of food and especially not the powered eggs, powdered milk and burnt toast he saw displayed on the metal plate, greasy to the touch, he saw displayed before him. Again, the mess hall was unusually quiet, as each man was consumed with his own thoughts and with eyes readily proclaiming fear stared at various objects around the room.

Loren didn't know any of the crew in the airplane to which he had been assigned, but that didn't concern him. His whole cognizance was dominated by the ruling fear of nearly everything that lay ahead. There were those who insisted being surrounded by friends made the trauma of aerial combat more bearable, but he had found fear was fear, regardless of by whom one was surrounded. His mind was congested with images of flaming B17s falling from formation and the sounds of wounded men crying out in pain and fear. He began to conjecture that the fear of a wounded man surely must be quite different from the overshadowing dread he felt at that moment. His fear was of something that might happen, and he wondered how such an emotion compared to the fear of something that had indeed happened. He decided the fear of a wounded man surely must be more punishing. He wondered if it what he was feeling was anything like what his father must have felt, waiting in a trench before some mindless frontal assault on a nameless objective.

The morning air was humid, but there was an edgy coldness to his skin as he walked through the group area to the briefing building. He glanced at the ordnance crews, rolling the bombs on the dollies to the waiting airplanes. He stopped a moment and watched the maintenance crews hectically laboring over a few of the B17s damaged in previous missions, and that did little to build his confidence.

There was a dull hum in the briefing room. Most of the men were in their chairs with their heads leaning forward and very close together, speaking in whispers and every few moments, peering towards the platform in front of the room where a map was covered with what looked like a tablecloth from the mess hall.

Loren was startled when the gruff, "Tench hut!" from the back of the room abruptly broke the quiet. There was some general from the G3 section striding down the aisle, followed by a procession of several other officers of assorted rank and perfectly positioned in descending rank, all in step with the general. When the aggregation reached the front of the room, the same gruff voice sounded, "Seats!"

The general stood before the group with his hands behind him for some moments, almost giving the impression he had forgotten what he was supposed to say. Finally he said, "Good morning, men."

In typical, although not altogether enthusiastic military custom, the flyers responded in unison, "Good morning, sir," but then a constrained hush fell over the room. Loren never understood the ritual of such greetings, which more closely resembled an upper class social gathering instead of preparing someone for what might well be the last few hours of his life. Finally, the general began to speak in a very eloquent, yet somewhat arrogant style. "Probably, no one has been counting, but this morning, the 8^th Air Force flies mission 84 against the enemy, and today's mission is especially significant for several reasons. It will mark the largest number of planes we have yet put up on a single mission and also will be the deepest penetration into Germany. The target, once again, will be the industrial heart of the German war machine. The specific components of today's mission are anti-friction bearings and airplane factories." He began to pace back and forth in front of the map and continued, '

"Intelligence estimates one of the targets produces 45% of all Germany's bearings, and with the whole theory of Nazi tactics built so closely around mechanization and speed of attack and counterattack, I don't need to relate to you how vital it is that this segment of their industry be destroyed."

He moved to the map and looked at the tablecloth with a disapproving frown before punctiliously unveiling it. Instantly, the room was pervaded sounds of seeming shock and implied displeasure, with all eyes focused on the flight plan drawn in red and black grease pencils across the overlay. Initially, no one's concern was with the specific identities of the targets, as all were overwhelmed by the 2 lines extending hundreds of miles into Germany.

The general seemed to lose his composure and momentarily was lost as to what to say next. He was noticeably relieved when Colonel Grimes, the group commander, stood up at the end of the platform and uttered, "Be at ease," in a voice that intimated it was more of a suggestion than a command.

Acknowledging the colonel's intervention with a thankful nod, the general picked a pointed stick and held it at the end of the red line on the map. "Three-hundred eighty-six airplanes will be in the air. The 1^st and 2^nd Bombardment Divisions will strike the bearings factories at Schweinfurt in central Germany and will return to England." Pointing the stick to the end of the black line, he went on, "The 3^rd Division will strike the aircraft factories at Regensburg, 110 miles south of Schweinfurt and continue on its way, flying across the Alps and Mediterranean Sea to land at advanced bases in North Africa."

Another brief stir rustled through the room.

Loren's could feel his heartbeats in his throat when Colonel Grimes assumed the podium and began to recite the flight plan for the group that would strike Schweinfurt. There would be 5 formation joining points where other bomber groups would tack onto the main formation, and the full armada would assemble over northern France where each group would come into the Combat Box Stagger and continue on to Schweinfurt. By the time the announcement of no fighter escort was made, there was no longer a murmur within the room – only surprised gapes written across the faces of everyone.

Two ground officers circulated through the room and distributed the flight plan, and it reminded Loren of his days at Sacred Heart School when the Sisters would pass out the test papers, just as the officers were doing. He had always been nervous then as well, but it nothing to what he felt when he looked over the times, altitudes and formation instructions. He was a good pilot and knew it, but he probably felt just as afraid as someone who had barely made his way through flight school. Walking out of the building, he remembered something his father had told him about intellect not being all someone needed to be successful. He hadn't paid much attention to him at the time and had to think a moment as to exactly how he had put it. It was, "Education in your heart is wonderful but in your head, it isn't any good at all."

The ¾ ton trucks slowly conveyed the officers through the billet area, past the maintenance hangers, and as they moved onto the runway, all eyes were fixed on the waiting B17s. Loren didn't hear the young lieutenant sitting next to him until the second time he extended his hand and said, "I'm Lieutenant Fowler, the copilot."

Managing a brief smile, Loren nodded and with a weak handshake, said, "Lieutenant Wilson." He started to ask the lieutenant what had happened to the previous pilot but decided he really didn't want to know – probably less than Fowler wanted to tell him. Instead, statistics began to register in his mind. Quite by coincidence, he had returned to flight status on the first day of the second year of the strategic bombing campaign against Germany. Eighty-three previous missions had been flown, and although the benefits of the campaign were unmistakable, the costs had been brutal. Four hundred and eleven bombers had gone done and 4000 crewmen had been lost with them. Scores of other planes had barely made it back to their home bases and never flew again. Amidst it all, the dead and wounded in the returning planes had numbered in the hundreds.

The rest of the crew was waiting in front of the airplane and as Loren introduced himself and shook each man's hand, he barely heard their names and only saw a sequence of anonymous faces, all very young and still with a latent suggestion of innocence. Perhaps without justification, they all seemed reassured upon learning Loren would be flying his 26^th mission, but he had come to believe proficiency did not necessarily ensue from repetition. 

As he went through the pre-flight, he tried to conceal his trembling hands from the copilot, who would be flying his 7^th mission and in all probability, was just about at the stage when his presumed fixation with flying would be reclaimed by the reality he might not live through the day. When Loren started the engines, it sent a nauseating tremor through his body, and as the 18 airplanes taxied down the runway in single file, his emotions were a troubling contradiction. He was an experience pilot many more hours than most of the others, but he was much less sure of himself than he had been on his first mission. What was it that had dominated his mind for the past few months? Was he not the reasonably principled and dedicated person he had always thought himself to be?

One by one, the planes accelerated down the runway, and Loren's heart seemed to beat faster and faster as his plane sped down the gray pavement. The trees, buildings and vehicles appeared only for a few seconds in the corners of his eyes before he pulled the yoke back, and the airplane gently lifted into the air. The open sky, to some extent, annulled the reality of the articles of war that were everywhere – on the ground, in the air and ingrained in his mind. The clear, blue sky and floating, white clouds seemed to momentarily purify it all and if but for only a few brief seconds, Loren felt the thrill that had been the love of his life. He glanced to either side and admired the smooth symmetry of the ascending airplanes, the blocked letters and numbers on their tail sections and the white stars and VE markings on their fuselages. He looked down at the altimeter and transmitted over the interphone, "Pilot to crew. Ascending above 20000 feet. Go on oxygen." Looking down at his watch, the obsessing dread reclaimed him when he estimated the flight time to the French coast.

The group was flying 130 degrees due east, and after 30 minutes of looking over the unstained sky and listening to the hum of the engines, he began to feel an unexpected but welcomed feeling of composure. Without explanation, his thoughts turned to Euclid Avenue and the years just before the war. In the sky ahead, he could see the gentle and smiling face of Grace with her light brown hair tossed to one side and her clear, brown eyes. He remembered the soft texture of her skin and that there had always been the impression of innocence about her from the very first time he had seen her sitting there in Miss Hall's 2^nd grade class at Sacred Heart. She had been wearing a white dress, white socks and black, strap-on patent leather shoes. He had been so taken with her even then. There was the thrill he had felt the first time he held her hand and the eager anticipation of their first date, which must have been in the 8^th grade. By the time they graduated from high school, there was no doubt she was so very special.

For a while after that, she had been the foremost thing in his life, but then came his infatuation with fling or a "rewarding career" as he would call it each Friday night when they would go out, usually to the Euclid Theater or some event at Sacred Heart. Flying was all he ever talked about, and he simply thought his fulfillment radiated something of the same feeling to her. Very infrequently did he even ask her about her job as a sales clerk in the women's department at Davidson's Department Store and felt such a job would not generate or require a passion such as his own for flying. It had always been very comforting to him that her passion seemed for him and nothing else.

Autumn had been the favorite season for them both, and he remembered those clear Sunday afternoons when they would walk hand-in-hand down Euclid Avenue to Springvale Park. As they would walk along the small creek running through the center of the park, he would gently place his arm on her shoulder and happily relate to her how many hours he had flown the previous week and where he was scheduled to fly the next week. Her interest in him and his attainment of the life he had always wanted combined to make his life so completely happy and rewarding. Perhaps he had taken too much for granted and had never stopped to think of her own dreams that surely had extended beyond listening to his recounting his own accomplishments – that is until that Sunday afternoon when he had found her so excited when he picked her up.

Loren looked out across the sky. The perfectly positioned B17s strangely induced a setting of serenity, as his thoughts reached back, back to that quiet afternoon on Euclid Avenue.

Grace

It was towards the end of October, and the afternoon was unusually warm for that time of year. The sky was crystal clear and only an occasional, docile breeze blended among the yellow and red leaves, relishing them a gratuitous reprieve from the approaching winter and the fate all living things must someday face.

He was thinking of the 3 cargo stints he would fly the next week; and as he walked up the creaking steps of Grace's front porch, his thoughts were especially on the night flight that would be particularly challenging and make his flight book look all the more better. He was thinking night flying instruction had been the only thing that had given him much of a challenge in his flight lessons and hardly heard the raspy sound of the doorbell when he twisted it but immediately was taken by the sparkle in Grace's eyes when she flung open the door. She was holding up a section of the Sunday paper and with a radiant smile, said, "I've got something to show you."

She reached out to hold his hand, and there was vigor in her step as she led him to the sofa in the sitting room. Her hair was drawn back in a ponytail, just like she had worn it in high school, and she was as pretty as he had ever seen her. The tan blouse, black pleated skirt, white socks and black and white saddle oxfords depicted the uncommon blend of a very attractive woman who still retained a degree of her childhood innocence.

At the time, he didn't feel it important to decide if her hands were trembling out of nervousness or simply because she seemed so happy. There was a clear statement of love written all over her face, so it must have been happiness. She seemed so clearly happy when she held up the newspaper, dropping a few pages to the floor, and said, 'Look what I found. Some of those little houses over on McLindon Avenue are being remodeled." She reached out to hold his hand and seemed to become more thrilled the moment she touched him. She excitedly held the paper in her lap as they sat down on the sofa and said, "It doesn't say how much they cost but look, it says they're a real bargain for the first time home buyer."

He immediately felt the need to discourage her, because becoming a first time home buyer was the most distant thing from his mind and in fact, it was something that had never entered his mind until that ever moment. He didn't want to disappoint her, but there was a troubling feeling within him as they drove through Little Five Points and down McLindon Avenue. All the while, she was constantly talking, glancing at the newspaper, looking up into the clear sky and remarking what a beautiful day it was. Between all that, she was looking at him with that naive and unaware expression, oblivious to what was going on in his mind.

It was that moment that he realized what was really important to him. It wasn't that he didn't love her, but at that stage in his life, his career and flying were simply more important to him than anything else, and at least for some while, he could not visualize being in a family setting such as the one in which he had grown up. With clear goals and ambitions, such an ordinary orientation somehow seemed passé, antiquated and something he felt should be years away.

The closer they came to the little row of houses, the more excited she became. With a big, broad smile, her brown eyes glared towards the bottom of the hill and then at him as he stopped the car. He looked down the street, his eyes stopping for a few moments on each house. They all looked exactly the same and had all the imagination of a shoebox with white paint, green shutters and small front yards only half-covered with grass. The back yards were slightly larger, had even less grass and were surrounded by identical, rusted wire fences.

She got out of the car and eagerly ran ahead of him, excitedly peering through the windows, looking back at him; and like a little child, beckoning, "Come on! Come on!"

Then it struck him. He had always taken her so much for granted, had never doubted she loved him and that her heart had been completely his own. For the first time, he realized she had assumed very much herself and thought they would be married as soon as they could piece things together to a reasonable measure of stability.

Still with that innocent and unsuspecting smile, she ran back to him and babbled, "Don't you think its perfect?" She looked back at the house and started to laugh. "I knew about them before I saw the add in the paper today. I came over here yesterday and fell in love with that one," pointing to the house that seemed to Loren the worse of the lot. She reached out and clasped his hand, which remained open and did not close around her soft fingers as it always had done before. Her smile began to disappear as she glanced down at his hand and then up into his eyes. Her expression was one of disappointment and immediate hurt – almost as though she suddenly knew exactly what he was feeling.

Gradually, she released his hand, and her gaze fell to the ground. She turned back towards the house and could barely hold back the tears, as she said, "Loren....I thought that....I mean...."

A strange feeling rushed over him. Love and pity under any conditions were an unsettling coalition, especially when one's passion was so clearly divided between something such as flying, which had been very demanding, and her devotion to him, which had always been so completely accommodating.

She stood there for a few moments before clasping her hands in front of her and starting back towards the car.

He ran up behind her and said the first thing that came to him. "Grace, there's going to be a war."

She stopped and looked at him with eyes glinting in tears. She was so hurt and almost instantaneously, a protective veil of mistrust came over her. She whimpered, "The Germans and Russians just signed a non-aggression pact."

His first reaction was surprise she was so well informed. He began to stutter. "Grace....it's....just not the right time."

She pulled a handkerchief from her pocketbook, began to wipe her eyes and said, "I thought I knew what you wanted."

Loren

Loren stared at the squadron ahead of him in a trance-like gaze as the thoughts of that day weighted heavily on his mind until his troubling memories were broken by the crackling radio communication, "B17s at 10:00 o'clock and 2:00 o'clock." Within the next several minutes, scores and scores of planes were orbiting in wide patters around the "Splasher" radio compass beacon until at last, the entire attack force of some 250 airplanes was assembled.

Lieutenant Fowler, with a boyish grin, tapped Loren on the shoulder and both of them looked out on both sides of the group at the lordly armada extending far across the sky. A novel invigoration stirred through Loren's body and his confidence, a feeling he had not experience for some time, began to build.

Then came the order from the group commander, "Leader to all units. Come into attack formation."

All over the sky, the separate groups began to move into the Combat Box Stagger and each of the three six-plane squadrons of each group assembled into two flights of three planes, each flying abreast of the others with the middle plane slightly forward of the other two. The second flight was positioned directly behind the first and at a slightly higher altitude. The three squadrons of each group were staggered from left to right, occupying some 750 feet of airspace with the bottom squadron flying at 24750 feet and top squadron at 25100 feet. From a top view, each squadron formed a tightly packed box for massed usage of the firepower of the heavy bombers. A side view of each group showed the squadrons forming a horizontal V and stacked slightly above and to the side of one another.

As the entire attack formation completed its configuration and made a slight course change to 150 degrees, it wielded itself into a commanding image of authority, thundering through the sky with a deafening roar. Each man's heart began to beat faster. Eyes watched the sky. Men restlessly glanced at one another.

The formation drew closer and closer to the target, and Loren's heartbeats were throbbing in his throat and temples but then, he had the momentary sensation his heart had stopped when he heart the startled radio report, "ME-109s at 2:00 o'clock."

Loren jerked to the right and saw about 30 enemy fighters peeling off from 30000 feet and rolling straight into the squadrons at 25000. Immediately, the sound of many machine guns erupted and promptly expelled the solacing benefit that had ensued from his wistful memories of Grace and Euclid Avenue, discordantly sweeping him back into the cold and threatening reality of what was about to happen. His hands began to tremble, his feet grew numb and that same clammy sweat broke out under his oxygen mask. His arms were taut as he squeezed the yoke, trying to stop them from trembling but he was quivering all over when he saw a countless number of black gray specks directly ahead of the formation. He could barely hold his shaking hand to his communications buckle as he transmitted over the interphone, "Pilot to crew. Prepare for head on fighter attack. Gunners, fire in short bursts. Aim for the propeller and cockpit sections."

Steadily, the sounds of the air battle mounted. It was almost like listening to static on a radio while the volume was gradually increased. Then, there was the nose gunners startling transmission, "God damn! They're coming straight through!"

Everywhere, entire fighter squadrons were striking in javelin-up groupings and rolling through the B17s at point blank range. The American gunners were literally blowing some of the attackers apart. ME-109s and pieces of ME-109s were twisting out of control and swiveling wildly downward. The radio frequency was littered with every manner of verbalisms and making it even more terrifying, German voices could be heard, mixed in with the Americans – "I got him!" He's going down!" "Those fuckers can't break this formation!" "Herr Gott Sakremant!

By then, the inescapable fate began to unfold. The top ball turret gunner gasped into the interphone,"Oh no!" just as two ME-109s darted from below the group and riddled one of the B17s in the upper squadron with cannon fire. No one even saw them until they banked sharply out of the firing patterns of the bombers, just as the B17s number 3 engine exploded. There was a brief orange flash just before the outer section of the wing was ripped off and it began to tilt to the right side, rapidly losing altitude.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the fighter attack ceased. Some momentary degree of composure filtered through Loren's body as he looked at Lieutenant Fowler whose face was pale. Without saying anything, the young airman raised his hand and tentatively pointed out a 3:00 o'clock where two more B17s were on fire. Parachutes began to appear everywhere directly below them, and as Loren scanned the sky, there seemed an equal number of the white American chutes and the light yellow-tinted cloth used by the Germans.

Weakly, Fowler asked, "Do you....think that's all of the fighters?"

"When they see what's coming, they'll put up everything they've got," Loren said, as he shook his head and looked out through the formation where several squadrons were drawing closer together to compensate for the losses already suffered. He saw only one plane in his group had been lost, looked down at his watch and transmitted over the interphone, "Pilot to crew. Forty minutes to target. Report any damage."

Thankfully, no one reported anything but just as a mutated relief struggled to challenge the jagged blades of his nerves that had been eating their way through his skin since he saw the long lines on the briefing map, one of the planes in the squadron ahead began to trail black smoke from its number 2 engine. It began to toss from side to side and impulsively, Loren began to talk to himself. "Cut fuel....Pull to left....Too much rudder."

Frantically, the pilot's voice quivered over the group frequency. "Two SF1 to One SF1. Number 2 engine damaged and losing airspeed. Request permission to abort.

The group commander's immediate reply reflected both surprise and admonition. "One SF1 to Two Sf1. We're too far into enemy territory to abort. Stay in formation as long as you can. You'd never make it alone through the fighters."

Loren couldn't believe the seriously poor judgment of the other pilot in suggesting he abort. The plane wouldn't have lasted a minute outside the formation. He and Lieutenant Fowler watched the stricken airplane as it continued to lose altitude. As he stared down at it, Loren caught the shocking sight of what appeared scores of German fighters climbing from several directions. He mumbled in a frightened voice, "Good God, I knew it!" The plane began to rock from side to side because his hands again started to shake, but he did manage a rather unmanly transmission. 'Three SF1 to One SF1. Large number of enemy fighters all across the clock at lower altitudes."

Again, the group leader's response was immediate. "One SF1 to Three SF1. Which groups are they headed for?"

"Three SF1 to One SF1. There's so many of them, it looks like they're all across the bottom formation."

Loren impatiently waited for Colonel Grimes to transmit some measure of instructions to the entire group, but the next thing he heard was from the descending B17. "Can't hold it! Can't hold it!" The plane was rapidly falling and was some 500 feet below the group. The pilot was clearly struggling with the controls, because the airplane was pitching up and down. He must have thought he was transmitting over his own interphone, but his transmission was going out to the whole group. He was breathing heavily and there was a clear desperation in his voice, which by that time was screaming, "Gunners, pick them up!"

The sound of the doomed airplane's guns came booming over the radio frequency and drowned out the frenzied voice of the pilot. The plane was rocking so wildly in the air the gunners couldn't zero in on the fighters darting towards it, and at least 10 of them were only 100 yards away and pumping uncontested fire straight into it. First, the B17s tail section was completely blown away before two large breaches appeared in the lower fuselage, separating into 3 pieces. It was pointless even to look for parachutes.

Loren was stunned and transmitted no order at all within his airplane, but both waist gunners and the lower turret began firing constantly. Empty casings clanked against the floor of the airplane, and the mounting sounds of battle, like a well-rehearsed orchestra performing some tragic overture, ruled over everything. Radio communications could scarcely be heard, and even the roar of the engines was swallowed by the outcry of the desperate struggle to survive what was surely the largest air battle in the history of warfare. Seemingly emitting no sound, the B17s gave the ghostly appearance of just floating in the air, waiting to be blown from the sky at any moment.

Fire and smoke erupted from yet another bomber in the group directly ahead. The plane was hanging at an oblique angle and smoke and flames were pouring from both waist gunner's windows. It plummeted into a helpless and uncontrolled dive, but somehow the pilot pulled it level in the air. Loren murmured, "Why don't they bail out?" but the plane just hung there irresolutely for several minutes with fighters all around it until the smoke abruptly stopped, it regained its position in the formation and continued on the target as thought nothing had happened.

Lieutenant Fowler managed a brief speculation. "Damn. They must have put it out with the extinguishers."

Two FW-109s darted into the group ahead in a frontal attack, and smoke immediately began to trail from another bomber. The enemy pilots saw that group had already suffered several losses and concentrated their attack towards that glaring weakness. Two of them broke away in half rolls and turned at a high rate of speed directly into Loren's squadron. His B17 trembled to the recoil of the nose and ball turret guns, and pieces of the fighters began to fly through the air until the wings separated from their fuselages and they quickly spun out of sight.

Not realizing what he was doing, Loren found himself in the middle of an interphone transmission. "Fire short bursts. Its 30 o