Scratch

I need to right a short story for school as part of my Language Arts. I wanted to know what the community thought. I apologize for the terrible spacing. I can't really do anything about it. The scratch forum doesn't quite match the Microsoft Word format, does it. 

If you have no interest in world war two, don't read this.

                                         My Promise on Black Thursday
I was a just a 2nd Lieutenant, only 14 months out of West Point, when I was assigned to a          B-17F squadron in the 91st bomb group during World War Two. I arrived at an airbase in England in September of 1943. I had a great crew, some with past combat experience. They were Bill Coleman, my co-pilot from southern Ohio; Jim Dale, my navigator from Rhode Island; Andre “Lenny” Le’Mon, our bombardier from St. Louis; Krik Phillips, our top gunner from Burlington Vermont; Bob Ermey, our ball turret gunner from North Platte Nebraska; Michael Wallace, our port waist gunner from New York; Nick Daniels starboard waist gunner from California; and John Strank, tail gunner from Pennsylvania. Our radio man was Jack Miles, and he was hit in the chest by a flak fragment on our fifth mission, so he was sent home and we got him a replacement. We received Tommy Bates as our new radio man, and there was something about him that always got my attention.

He was 17, an E-1 Private with no stripes yet. A very decent kid from northern Indiana, he was good mannered, obeyed orders well, and almost never cussed; which was a rarity in the Army. But I noticed something about him: he was always nervous. Every time we got in the airplane he would sit silent and stare at the floor unless he was spoken to, and he would reply stammering. He’d bounce his leg up and down, chew his nails, and sometimes shiver. I began to wonder if flying wasn’t his thing. I’d usually ask if he was all right when I passed him by on the plane. He’d respond with “Oh yeah I’m just cold”, or “Nah it’s alright I’m just a little tired”. But one day he responded differently.

It was Thursday, October 14 1943. We piled into the conference room at 05:00 as always. General Wurzbach gave us the dope on the coming mission. We were to bomb a ball bearing factory in the German industrial city of Schweinfurt. The ball bearing plant there produced 20% of ball bearings for industries in that part of Germany. The place had been bombed before with little success in August, and the guys who were there all said it was flak city. We knew what we were in for. I looked towards Bates when we got the news, but couldn’t see his face.                 
We boarded the airplane. I went through the compartments talking with each member of my crew. I reached the radio compartment. Bates looked anxious as always, and I asked “You okay Bates?” He answered “No sir. I’m scared like the devil”. I tried to make him feel better, “Isn’t everyone on their first mission?”, “I don’t think so sir. Not as scared as me.” I stopped for a second to think of something to say. “Well, our chances of getting shot down are 300 to 1, and we’re not on the point, so I doubt any fighters will get to us. Besides, you have several inches of solid metal between you and the outside to protect from a bullet” It didn’t really do anything. “I’m still scared sir. The Jerry’s have to hit someone. How do you know it won’t be us?” We paused. Then he continued, “Sir, can you promise me something?”, “Sure”, “Promise me I won’t die.” The request baffled me for a moment. I never thought someone would ask me such a question. “Bates, I promise I won’t let you die. I won’t let any of us die.” He just thanked me and continued to stare at the floor. The exchange of words wasn’t very climactic and didn’t mean anything to me at first.

We started our engines, taxied down to the tarmac, waited our turn, and took off. We climbed and soared over southern England, and eventually reached the channel. Our flight commander gave us the usual words as we crossed into the Netherlands: “Button up, we’re in fighter range”. Then those other words popped back into my head; “Promise me I won’t die” and they kept ringing. I began to get distracted from flying the plane, as I kept hearing Bates voice, “Promise me I won’t die”.                                                                                                                                                     Then memories of friends who had been killed ran through my head. Suddenly, I realized how important this was. I thought “What would I tell his mother? Or his old man? How would they take it?” These thoughts hadn’t occurred to me before. As a soldier, we never thought of these things, as our job is to kill.  We didn’t have a care in the world for what we were doing. We just knew the Nazi’s attacked France and Poland, and bombed Britain, and had also teamed up with the Japanese, who bombed Pearl Harbor.*                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

But then it occurred to me, how young we all were. The average age of a crew member was 20, and dozens of them were younger than 19. Few had gone to college, and most had come straight from home, hardly qualifying as a man, with both parents still worrying about them. We were all young, still boys, and we were bombing factories and airports. I realized war wasn’t a sport for men, but a necessary evil, run by old men while using boy’s lives. In ancient times, two men battled between nations, and when one dies, the “war” is over. Now, here we are in modern times, thousands of 19 year old boys, dropping bombs from the sky to level buildings and entire towns.

I began to think of ways on how I could keep us safe. Maybe I could ask permission to take up the center point in the flight, where fighters might be less likely to attack. My thoughts were interrupted by another bomber commander shouting over the radio; “ME’s twelve O’ clock high!”                                                                                                                                                                   
*Today, people almost always forget that the Nazi Holocaust wasn’t a factor among troops, and was completely unknown to any American or Western European citizens, until the war was over. The reason we were fighting was to get even with the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor, and the Germans who tried to invade Britain.                                                                                                                                                                                         
Out of the blinding sun swooped about 14 German ME 109 fighters. Guns blazing, they flew right threw the bomber formation. Our gunners opened up, and the tracers went flying. Then, another 25 or so fighters popped out of nowhere on our port side. In seconds, we saw two B-17s smoking, and then spiraling slowly to the ground. That was 20 men gone in a second.                 Guns were blazing, and three more bombers went down in a minute. Our P-47 escort fighters were doing their best to keep them off of us, but the German 109 outperformed the 47 in several aspects. More and more bombers started falling around us. It wasn’t long before it was our turn.                                                                                                                                                                   A German fighter popped out from behind another bomber and came directly at us from the front. He opened up his guns, and we saw the white tracers fly over our heads, and he zoomed away. I thought he missed us. But just then our top gunner, Phillips, fell straight down out of his gun port. Apparently the bullets that went over my head ended up in the turret dome on top of the bomber. He had three bullet holes in his head, and we declared him dead. But we had to keep flying.
Eventually the fighters left. Our group had lost 13 bombers.                                                                                                                We rested Phillips body in the navigator compartment beneath the cockpit. Everyone was hit hard by his death. Phillips was one of the more liked members of our crew. But we kept flying.                                         Finally, we reached the German border. Then the flak started coming up. Little black clouds appeared all around us with a thump, thump. We started to bounce around. We watched as the bomber ahead of us was hit in the port engine,. He started smoking, and turned around to head back to England, hopefully flying long enough to ditch in the channel. Another bomber took a direct hit in the bomb bay and was obliterated in a massive explosion that sent debris flying in all directions. We heard as chunks of metal slammed into the fuselage of our plane.                                      We reached the target. The flak intensified. We waited for the lead bomber to line up his sights and drop. Eventually he did, and we let our bombs away. We then watched as bursts of dust and smoke went flying up out of the ground, setting some things aflame. We turned back for England, not knowing how much damage we had done.                                                                                     On the way back, we met more German fighters. They flew straight at us. The white tracers were flying again. Suddenly, our tail gunner yelled “We got one coming straight for us!” A fighter came at us from behind and a little left, and opened up. He skimmed past us, and his bullets tore into the side of the plane, hitting our waist gunner and Bates. The shout came over the intercom, “Bates and Wallace are hit!” I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I told our navigator, who had some medical experience, to run back there and help. He told me that Wallace had taken a hit the side of his stomach, but appeared okay, and Bates was hit on the side of his lower back and bleeding profusely. I thought fast. Navigator told me he might not make it back to base. I thought maybe we could bail him out, and hopefully he’d land in a German hospital. But we had no clue what they would do to him. Some argued they would shoot him, others said they would hospitalize him. I had no clue.                                                                                                        “Bill,” I asked my co-pilot, ”How much fuel do we have left?”,                                                                           “Half a tank. Why?”                                                                                                                                                                                    “I want to put it in full throttle and get us back to England before Bates dies.” He looked at me puzzled. “We’re already at 70% throttle, 100% won’t make the biggest difference.”,” Yes, but if we dive we could gain about 150 miles an hour”                                                                                    “Are you sure this thing can take 370 miles an hour?”                                                                                                           “I’m willing to bet our lives on it. A friend of mine once dove at 350” He was concerned, but agreed. I asked permission to break formation and get out. The group commander was puzzled and at first denied, but then agreed after some speculation. So we punched the engine into full, and dove about nine thousand feet. We only got up to 340, but it was still fast. I flew as best I could at 12,000 feet across German held territory. Suddenly, a lone fighter came out of the clouds, ready to snatch a kill. He dove on us, and guns blazing tore up the topside of the bomber. But then, as he zoomed over our heads, our navigator jumped into the top gunner position where Phillips had been, opened up, and after using up all his ammo, brought down the lone fighter. He was awarded the Bronze star when we got back.                                                           

I kept flying, and eventually we were back over the channel. Our fuel was dropping. We flew over the English coast, and our fuel was almost gone. We had 20 miles to go. Finally, our fuel was gone, and began to lose our engines. We were now looking for a place to crash, not to land.                                                                                                                                                                                 Then, to my great luck, I spotted an active airfield. It appeared to be a fighter strip, and there were P-47’s parked on the edge. I glided in, with no engines. I ordered Bill to let the landing gear down. We were getting lower and lower, and we still weren’t close enough to the runway. Then, just as we were about to make contact with mother earth, we soared over the pavement, and came down with a bang.  We skidded down the runway, and I realized our landing gear never came down! We came to an abrupt stop in the grass. All of us sat in bewilderment. Finally, I got out of my seat, and went to the back of the plane where Bates was. He had lost a lot of blood, but was still conscious. Before disembarking the plane, I said to him “I kept my promise”. Bates was rushed to a hospital, and after a blood transfusion healed a few weeks later. He had a received a million dollar wound, and was sent home.                                                                                                           

Our attack on Schweinfurt was unsuccessful, and we later learned all we hit was the houses nearby (at the end of the war, we learned we hadn’t actually killed as many civilians as we thought, as they had received an early warning, and most got out). 59 bombers had been shot down, 590 guys declared KIA. 18 more bombers were damaged beyond repair and scrapped. It was the worst bombing raid of the war, and it was declared Black Thursday.

I don’t believe there is any such thing as a good war. I believe there are wars that are necessary for the protection of others, but no war will come without great loss of life. Our bombings of German industry inflicted serious damage to their war machine; however it came at the cost of thousands of our men’s lives.

Last edited by militarydudes (2011-01-13 17:20:02)