HIDDEN DROMES
Stan sat at Colonel Holt’s desk along with O’Malley. It had taken them just twenty minutes to get from the operations room to the colonel’s office. Holt had called in Major Kulp of the photography wing and General Ward from the command staff.
“When I came in to check the wrecked planes,” Stan said, “I was able to see how they do it. They have a screen on tracks. It is covered over with brush and leaves and looks from any angle, except squarely in front, like the side of the hill. They just roll it out and it covers the planes.”
“You wrecked quite a few of them on the ground?” the general asked.
“We must have smashed at least half of them,” Stan answered. “But the part that interested me most was the underground hangars. The screen is only a temporary camouflage. The planes are snapped back into the underground hangar. I say we got about half of them, because the wrecked ones were still out under the screen. The others had been pulled back.”
“We can bomb those hangars out,” the colonel said.
“I don’t think so,” Stan said. “I judge there’s a full forty feet of earth over them as a roof, and I suppose there’s at least ten feet of concrete under that.”
“That would make them safe. Have any any ideas for handling them?” General Ward bent forward eagerly.
“Yes,” Stan replied. “We could skip-bomb them.”
“Skip-bomb?” Major Kulp asked.
“Bounce our bombs right into the open end of the hangar,” Stan said, grinning.
“It might work,” Colonel Holt said.
“The P-51’s carry bombs, and I’m sure the boys could rig them so that we could fly at the right angle to bounce them into the hangars. If we went across once, they’d have the ships pulled back in and we’d get most of them.”
“We’ll try it,” the general said. “Wilson, you will have charge of the flight.”
“It will be tough going. We lost Jones today and O’Malley and I were just lucky. We both had our ships shot up badly.”
“Chances we have to take,” Colonel Holt said gravely. “Are you sure Jones was killed?”
“I saw his ship hit by what looked like a rocket shell,” Stan said. “I went into the smoke and did not see it until I flew over it on the ground.”
Silence followed this remark. Finally the colonel spoke. “We’ll report him missing in action and hope for the best.”
“Sure, an’ I’m thinkin’ the Jerries were plenty mad,” O’Malley said grimly.
“The thing to do is to check with bomber operations and locate the spots where they run into the most fighters. Then scout those areas with low-level flights. When we locate a set of runways near a hill, we’ll check. After the data is in we’ll try Lieutenant Wilson’s skip-bombing tactics. But we want to make a clean-up, for once we let them know how we do it they’ll rig up a defense.” The general rose to his feet. “I’ll let you know, Colonel, what plans my office makes.”
“You have pictures of the hangars?” the major asked eagerly.
“I’m afraid I forgot all about your cameras when I came in over the runway,” Stan replied. “I was really looking for Sim and O’Malley.”
“You fighter pilots always forget the cameras,” the major said sourly. “Well, we’ll check what you did get.”
“’Tis about time to be eatin’,” O’Malley put in anxiously.
“In that case, Colonel, we’ll run along,” Stan said with a grin.
Colonel Holt looked at O’Malley sternly. “Food is a secondary matter right now, but you may go.”
“Thank you, sor,” O’Malley said. “It’s very important to me.”
The colonel looked at O’Malley’s lank and bony frame and smiled. He turned back to his desk, and Stan and O’Malley hurried away.
“I thought you had to have water to do this here skip-bombing,” O’Malley said when they were outside.
“It can be done on land, too. Our boys can rig a delayed fuse and we can roll the eggs right back into the nests,” Stan explained.
“We’ll have fun,” O’Malley chuckled. “In no time at all we’ll be over Berlin.”
During the next week, scouting flights from the Eighth Air Force field and from other fields near by were made on a pattern. Long-range P-51’s and swift Mosquito bombers went out. They searched a wide band of enemy territory and made many photographs. Every landing strip, even though it appeared to be only an emergency runway, was checked and photographed. Then the boys were called in. The fields had been spotted and their underground hangars located. It was time to strike.
Stan and O’Malley sat in the operations room looking at a big map. Colonel Holt stood before the map with his staff. The men leaned forward eagerly. For several days they had been practicing a new type of bombing with fighters, a skip method. The colonel pointed to the map.
“There are many flights going out at daylight. Ours is just one of them, but we have been assigned to destroy the largest of the fighter bases near Berlin. You all know the tactics. There will be thirty planes in your flight. This is a teamwork job.” He paused and looked over the eager faces before him.
The men began to breathe easier as the colonel went on. They knew what they were up against. There would be a long flight during which they would avoid fights in the air. Then there would be a sudden attack to be staged just at dawn. That attack would be rugged going and a lot of them would never come back.
When the briefing was over, they crowded out of the room and into the mess for hot coffee and sandwiches. There was little talking. This was the hour of tension. Weather still had to come through with reports and the men had learned that Weather often let them down. Being let down after getting keyed up for a dangerous mission was worse than going out.
But Weather did not let them down. They got their clearance without delay and headed for the ready room. Eagerly they scrambled into their outfits, then barged out into the night. Stan and O’Malley walked side by side.
“We fly the tail slot,” Stan said. “That means some hot going.”
“’Tis as good as any,” O’Malley answered as he headed for his plane. “See you at breakfast.”
Like huge night birds the P-51’s took off and headed east. Stan watched the flare of their exhausts as they flamed down the runways and lifted into the dark sky.
“O’Malley ready, Wilson stand by.”
Stan adjusted himself and checked his instruments. He eased down against the shock pad and waited. O’Malley went knifing away and he wheeled in behind. Hoiking the P-51’s tail he sent her off and up.
Quickly the big fighters, each with a bomb load tucked in where ordinarily extra tanks would nestle, closed into formation. The flight leader, Colonel Wellman held them in tight formation.
As they roared along Stan thought back over the past few days. He had been offered the flight leader’s job but had turned it down. When Wellman got back he would be ranked up a notch and shoved into a job where he could fly only occasionally. Already his record and his rating kept him at base most of the time. Stan grinned. He did not want anything out of the war but a chance to fly in action.
They moved across the channel, high up in the cold sky. Roaring toward Berlin in arrow-straight flight, they slid over the Netherlands. There were to be no roundabout evasive tactics tonight, not with bombs in the place of extra gasoline.
Stan checked his instrument panel and his clocks. They must be over Germany now. The country below was blacked-out entirely. There was no flak and no lights below. Darkness still filled the world, but dawn was not far away.
A buzzer signal in his headset told Stan it was time to settle down for low flying. Light had begun to show in the east. Down went the Mustangs, and as the dawn began to lighten the low country below, they roared across the German countryside. Now they were greeted by a few bursts of fire, but no heavy flak came at them. Because they were hedge-hopping at a terrific speed, the German warning systems were not spotting them in time to allow gunners to get set.
“Tactical formation, Red Flight.” Colonel Wellman broke the silence with that crisp order.
The Mustangs spread out and made a circling sweep. They had been headed straight for Berlin and would be spotted as a nuisance raid group of Mosquito bombers. No fighters would try to intercept them. The Berlin defenders would depend upon flak, as fighters were useless against the fast Mosquitoes. By swinging sharply east the Mustangs would hit the fighter hangars.
The light was good as the boys roared along at treetop level and spotted the landmarks they had been briefed to expect. They flew in perfect formation. Stan was flying the tail slot along with O’Malley. They were in a mopping-up position.
Stan saw the runways flash into sight, then he saw the lead Mustangs go in with their wheels almost touching the runways. A second later there were many flashes of flame and rolling clouds of dust. At the same moment the earth began to erupt fire and smoke and steel. The second wave of Mustangs disappeared into the inferno. Stan saw two of them blow up, then go bouncing and tumbling along the ground. That was all he had time to see. With his hand on the bomb release he went in.
The smoke and the firing was so intense Stan could make out little. He judged his distance and released his bombs when he caught a glimpse of a yawning tunnel ahead. He saw O’Malley cut his load loose. O’Malley was wing to wing with him. Then the Irishman’s Mustang stuck her nose into the ground and went end over end down the field like a wrecked kite. Stan pulled up hard and as his P-51 lifted, he felt something hit her. It was as though he had slammed into a stone wall. She staggered, let down one wing, then nosed over. Stan felt the ground slap her and heard the ripping and tearing of metal as something exploded almost in his face. A blinding flash of light stabbed at his eyeballs and blinded him.
The Mustang rolled over and over, her sturdy fuselage refusing to crumple. Stan’s one thought was of fire. He pawed aside what was left of his hatch cover and heaved himself upward and out. Staggering free of the wreckage, he found himself enveloped in a choking pall of smoke. Off to his left, a heavy explosion shook the ground. Dirt and sticks and bits of metal peppered him and the smoke surged away before the concussion of the explosion. Stan staggered back and as he did so, four soldiers leaped at him out of the smoke.
One of the men lunged at Stan from the side and two from the rear. He felt a solid impact on the back of his head and felt himself slumping forward, then everything went black.