UNDER THE APPLE TREE

I try to post something every Fourth, to honor those who've served. So, please let the length of this little tale be a testament to the respect that I have for all of you. This is, in-effect, Pilgrim's Progress, set in World War Two. It takes our hero on the fraught journey from youthful naïveté to adult capability via virtues that everybody in the military understand, honor, courage, and commitment. The war crime at the center of this happened, even if the payback is in my imagination.

Wakey-wakey, today's the day you die.

The door of the Nissen hut banged open and a voice called, "Mission today." I slid gingerly out of my cot and scuttled over to stoke the remains of last night's fire. Once I got some heat going, I called across to my co-pilot Bobby, "Roll out, we're on."

Bobby's job was to rouse the rest, Eldon our, navigator and Whizzer Wiznooski our bombardier. The four of us lived in a gloomy, half-cylindrical corrugated-steel home, with two other 432nd crews. The 432nd was one of four B-26 Marauder squadrons that comprised the 17th Bombardment Group. We'd been based near Cagliari since the end of 1943.

There was very little talking as we pulled on long johns, wool shirt, trousers, and two pairs of socks, it's cold at 15,000 feet. My leather flight jacket had our squadron insignia on the front, a flying grim reaper, sickle in hand. On the back were two rows of ten bright yellow bombs and one of three, representing 23 combat missions, along with the name of our Marauder, "Beautiful Betty." As the pilot I had naming rights and I'd named mine after the love of my life, Betty Moran.

I had the usual pre-mission jitters. You have to believe that you'll get the job done and come home alive. But there were so many ways to die. It could be a blown tire on takeoff, or an engine failure, or a mistake in the clouds during assembly. We flew in tight defensive boxes.

Those were just the operational problems. There was always the flak. In my mind's eye. I could see the Marauder in front of me take a direct hit from an 88 and just disintegrate. The crew lived in our hut. I helped gather their personal effects for shipment back home.

Still, the B-26, could take care of itself. We had one fifty-caliber stinger in the nose. Whiz operated that. I had four forward firing fifties in blisters under the cockpit, and there were two tail mounted fifty-cals plus a dorsal turret with fifties. But the main advantage was the Marauder itself.

The B-26 was a medium bomber. Unlike the heavies, who carpet bombed from 25,000, we hit hard from treetop level, up to fifteen thousand feet. Legend had it that the Marauder was so accurate that she could deliver two tons of bombs into a pickle barrel.

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Dettagli