House of Ghosts (40 page)

Paul glanced around. Everyone sat at various positions and postures. Some were ramrod straight staring at the back of the heads in the row in front. Others had taken advantage of the lull by catching a few moments of sleep. The high octane coffee fueled sparse animated conversations between seatmates. He could feel the fear of death in the room.

“Ten-hut!” rang out. The assembly jump to its feet.

Colonel Raul Wullien, the Second’s commanding officer and his adjutant, Major Austin Dexter, strode up the center isle to the stage.

Wullien spent his forty-seventh birthday writing letters to the families of crews lost in the raids against the dreaded Ploesti oil installations. The prematurely gray West Point graduate knew full well what his crews were being asked—fly the most advanced aircraft in the United State’s arsenal with training that would have been laughed at prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1938, the requirements to be a B-17 pilot were seven to eleven years of commissioned service, over 2,000 hours logged as a pilot, and ratings as a dead reckoning and celestial navigator, and to be an expert bombardier and gunner. By 1942, pilots with barely more than 200
hours of flying school time and less than one year of military service were moving directly into the B-17 cockpit and in one or two months were aircraft commanders. “Be seated,” he ordered.

Armed with a clipboard, Dexter began roll call, calling the twenty-four names of each crew commander in alphabetical order. Paul felt his heart pounding through his shirt. “Rothstein!”

Paul’s throat felt like a desert. He couldn’t answer.

An Ace during the WWI, Dexter left his managerial position at U.S. Steel to regain his commission. His reputation of possessing a heart as cold and hard as the product made in the Pittsburgh plant followed to the 2nd Bombardment Group. “Rothstein!” he shouted, glowering at the neophyte pilot from New York.

Hornish tapped Paul on his knee. Paul stammered, “Pres-sent.”

Dexter continued to stare at Paul, and then turned toward Wullien. “All present and accounted for.”

Captain Terrance Flannery, a Boston cop in civilian life now serving as the group’s security officer, stepped forward. “Do not talk about the mission once you’ve left this room, and this also applies to the scrubbed target. Make sure your dog tags are around your neck and your G.I. shoes are on your feet. Do not wear any insignia. Carry your name, rank and serial number, and no billfolds, pictures or letters. No one will be permitted to leave this briefing until dismissed.”

With a magician’s swoosh, Bradford removed the sheet. Red yarn pinned to the map stretched from Staz Di Amendola to Blechhammer, Germany. Groans and curses reverberated off the metal walls. The target wasn’t Ploesti, but it was just as bad. “God-damn sonofabitch. This is my last mission,” spat one of the pilots named Kranz. They’d been there before. The bombing result was poor; the enemy’s resistance was deadly. Inside the hut, the temperature seemed to jump ten degrees. A faint haze rose to the ceiling produced from body heat and sweat.

Bradford flicked a wooden pointer at the map. Those lounging and daydreaming straightened on their chairs. Their lives depended on information from the thirty-something holding a doctorate in philosophy from Yale. “This is a deep penetration raid of seven-hundred fifty miles.” A collective groan was emitted. The round trip would take a minimum of seven hours. Bradford paused, looking over his gold wire rims resting on the edge of his nose. “Flak should be light to the IP, then it will become real nasty. Enemy fighters will be numerous and fierce on both sides of the target. They will try to break up the formations with head-on attacks. Panicking and trying to evade them will leave you wide open for attack. If someone ahead gets out of the formation, move into his place. He’s either hit and will go down or he’s straggling.”

“Peterson will lead the mission,” Wullien announced, receiving the pointer from Bradford. He moved to the rear of the stage where a projector screen was lowered from the ceiling.

Paul glanced sideways at Hornish. They both knew that with Peterson leading the mission, the 20th squadron would be the first to get jumped by German fighters. It would be one hell of an initiation to combat.

“Slide,” Wullien ordered. An aerial surveillance photo of the target appeared. “The gas generators are your primary target,” he said, pointing to the towering structures. If destroyed, the plant will be inoperative for a minimum of six months and 250 tons of oil will be denied to the enemy. Our last trip to Blechhamer prepared us for today. Keep your wits about you. I can’t emphasize enough that maintaining group integrity is the key to staying alive. Good luck.”

The assembly snapped to attention. Wullien, Dexter, and Bradford stepped from the stage, exiting the hut without looking at the numb faces. The rows emptied into a quay plodding to the double doors opened by the MPs. Cigarettes were lit at the threshold, inhaled and finished in the one minute walk to a wood framed building housing the “ready room.”

Assigned lockers holding electrically heated flight suits, fleece lined leather jackets and gloves, and steel combat helmets were opened. Paul pulled a heavy woolen sweater over his head, fighting the worst thought that a pilot could have— who would be eating in the mess hall that night? He finished dressing. “Let’s go,” he said to his crew in a measured tone, determined not to ever repeat his bad showing in the briefing room.

A trail of emotions paved the way to the trucks. Paul jumped as a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. “It wasn’t pretty the first time we went to Blechhammer, but I’ll get you there and back,” Peterson said.

Paul managed a weak, “Sure thing.”

They climbed into the rear of a truck. The three mile trip to the airstrip passed in a blur. Dawn was peeking over the horizon. The sun would be up by the time the planes were cleared for takeoff.

Mechanics worked through the night preparing the planes for combat. Stopping at the edge of the airstrip made from steel mesh plates laid on grass and mud, the crews sprinted to their aircraft. Emblazoned across the nose of plane numbered 42-102908 was the
Brooklyn Avenger
. The seven crewmen searched Paul’s face for a hint of what lay in store.

Hornish said, “I’ll get the pre-flight checks going.” He disappeared through the lower hatch.

“Gather round and listen up,” Paul announced. “We’re going to Blechhammer, Germany.”

“Is that good or bad?” waist gunner Vincent Sapienza asked. Vinnie swapped his typewriter for a .50 caliber machine gun when one of the
Avenger’s
gunners fractured his arm before shipping out from the States. Paul questioned the fortuitous timing, sensing Jake’s hand in placing the former Brooklyn enforcer in his crew.

“It’s not Ploesti, but it isn’t going to be a cakewalk,” Paul said. Giving the details of the group’s previous experience with the target wouldn’t have boosted the crew’s confidence. He handed his radioman Harold Jones the frequencies that were going to be used for the mission. “We’ve got a lot to do. Move!”

Paul circled the plane inspecting the tires, landing gear, and the external body. He pulled himself through the belly hatch and maneuvered along a six-inch wide walkway in the bomb bay and opened the door to the radio room. Jones, busy setting up his radios, didn’t look away from his codebook. He entered the cockpit.

“Systems are a-okay,” Hornish reported.

Paul eased into his seat. One-hundred fifty-six gauges and dials stared back from the instrument panel. “Let’s run through the list.” Pre-flight checks took an hour. He leaned out the slide window indicating that the plane be plugged into the external generator, the run up to starting the four engines. One of the maintenance crew stood behind engine Number One armed with a fire extinguisher. “Lt. Hornish, start Number One.”

Hornish flipped a series of switches on the instrument panel then hit the start button. The three blade propeller at the end of the left wing began to spin. Two massive puffs of exhaust belched from the Pratt and Whitney turbocharged engine. “Oil and manifold pressures are satisfactory,” Hornish said.

Paul flashed two fingers out the window. The fire extinguisher was moved to the second engine. “Start two.”

With engines Number Three and Four running, the noise was so loud that it was hard for Paul to hear Hornish. He put on his headset, switching the intercom to the in-plane mode. “Vinnie. Flap check.”

The right wing flaps were raised and lowered. “Ready, lieutenant,” Vinnie replied.

Paul repeated the procedure for the left wing flaps. “We’re ready to go.”

A green flare broke the dawn. The ground crews removed wheel chocks up and down the line. Peterson’s aircraft rolled from his station. Paul increased thrust
on engines Two and Four. The
Brooklyn Avenger
taxied to the runway. He touched the intercom. “Prepare for takeoff. Make sure everything is secured.”

The B-17 immediately ahead lifted off. Paul opened the throttles on all four engines. The
Brooklyn Avenger
quickly picked up speed. Hornish called the M.P.H., “50, 60, 70…120.”

Paul pulled back the yoke, barely clearing the trees at the end of the runway. “Landing gears up.” Climbing to 5,000 feet,
The Brooklyn Avenger
joined the circling dance over Foggia as the 2nd Bombardment Group assembled into four squadrons. It was 06:30. Peterson began to climb.

At 28,000 feet, Paul set the trim tabs, reducing the strain on his legs and shoulders in keeping the plane level. He rolled a condom around the microphone in his oxygen mask to keep it dry. At altitude, the temperature inside the open plane plummeted to -50 Fahrenheit. He squeezed the mask to prevent ice from clogging it. “Clear your guns,” he said. The report of the
Avenger’s
fourteen machine guns cascaded into the cockpit.

“The sun is blinding. The German fighters are going to dive right out of it,” Hornish said.

“They’re the least of the problem. Flak over the refinery is so dense and accurate that Peterson says you can get out and take a walk on it,” Paul said. To that point, the run was smoother than a training mission over South Dakota. “What’s the ETA to the target,” he asked Dalrymple.

“Thirty-four minutes, skipper.”

“Bandits at two o’clock!” Vinnie crackled over the intercom.

The top turret and tail gunners yelled simultaneously about bogies and bad guys. Machine guns barked in sustained bursts. Hundreds of shell casings bounced on the floor and rolled around the fuselage. “Fighters in every direction!” Hornish yelled.

Forty to sixty Me-109s, FW-190s, and Me-120s attacked. 20mm German rounds split steel plate above Paul’s head. The concussion of the exploding shells knocked his head to the side. Pressing his gloves against his ears, Paul tried to stop the ringing. For a moment he thought he would lose control of his bowels. He was in a world foreign to anything he trained for or ever experienced. Flashes of light twinkled a thousand yards in the distance. Cannon shells, aerial mines and rockets seemed to explode everywhere. “Conserve ammo, don’t waste rounds,” Paul ordered.

Two cracks in the windshield on Hornish’s side of the cockpit appeared, coinciding with the co-pilot’s steel helmet flying off his head. “Holy shit!” Hornish yelled, kicking at a baseball-size piece of metal lying on the floor.

A Me-109 closed to fifty yards of a B-17 monickered
Lovely Lady
, firing five bursts blowing a section off its tail. A second fighter fired a rocket into the midsection. “Get out! Get out!” Paul pleaded. Five parachutes fluffed into the sky forward of the bomb bay. He watched the bomber fall off to the left in a flat death-spiral spin. Maintaining tight formations was proving to be near impossible.

The surreal movie seemed to be playing in slow motion. It was if the
Avenger
was caught in aerial quicksand, slogging its way through steel splinters, fire, and red-hot chucks of metal. Pieces of wings, engines and tails disappeared. Paul wondered what was happening to the bodies riding in those planes.

“Fifteen minutes to the IP,” Crawford crackled in Paul’s ear. The IP was the initial point when the plane would begin its run to the target. It was the most helpless time for the pilot when the bombardier would be flying the aircraft from the bombsight and no evasive maneuvers could be made.

“
Old Willie
in trouble,” Hornish said, pointing to a B-17 in the 429th squadron.

Paul swiveled his head to the left. The B-17 had opened its bomb bay doors and was salvoeing its bombs. Engine Number Four was on fire. “Horton’s losing altitude.” Anything that could be jettisoned to lighten the plane was thrown out of the waist doors. “He’s doing a 180.” Enemy fighters were moving in for the kill. “Where are our fighters?”

As fast as the attack began, the enemy fighters were gone. Blinding sun and the extreme cold were once again the enemy. The machine guns ceased firing. “Keep alert,” Paul said calmly into his headset, belying his thumping heart. “It’s a lull in the action.”

In the distance, sharply rising black clouds rose over the target. “Smoke. They’re obscuring the target,” Paul said to Hornish.

Hornish pointed at the instrument panel. All the glass covering the gauges was cracked. The radio compass was shattered, and the other radios were hanging by their cables. “Everything is still working,” he said, rubbing the spot on the side of his head where the large piece of shrapnel dented his helmet.

“Report damage,” Paul called through the intercom.

Holes large enough to put a hand through marked the fuselage. To Paul’s surprise, no one was seriously injured. Despite his admonishments, the gunners had burned up more than half their ammo.

Crawford’s voice broke the silence. “Five minutes to the IP.”

Black puffs appeared in the formation. Peterson’s warning was proving correct. German flak batteries were accurately throwing exploding shells into the formations. “Blechhamer is on the horizon, but the heavy smoke completely blocks it,” Paul said to Hornish. The passive German defensive technique had proved
highly effective. Smoke pots were fired as soon as radar picked up the Fifteenth leaving their bases in Italy.