The crew last night had told a story of the
death of a Fortress, and it comes back to mind.
It was a beautiful day, they said, a picture
day with big clouds and a very blue sky. The kind of day you see in
advertisements for air travel back at home. The formation was flying toward
St. Nazaire and the air was very clear. They could see the little towns on the
ground, they said. Then the flak came up, they said, and some Messerschmitts
parked off out of range and began to pot at them with their cannon. They didn’t
see where the Fortress up ahead was hit. Probably in the controls, because
they did not see her break up at all.
They all agree that what happened seemed to
happen very slowly. The Fortress slowly nosed up and up until she tried to
climb vertically and, of course, she couldn’t do that. Then she slipped in slow
motion, backing like a falling leaf, and she balanced for a while and then her
nose edged over and she started, nose down, for the ground.
The blue sky and the white clouds made a
picture of it. The crew could see the gunner trying to get out and then he did,
and his parachute fluffed open. And the ball-turret gunner—they could see him
flopping about. The bombardier and navigator blossomed out of the nose and the
waist gunners followed them. Mary Ruth’s crew was yelling, “Get out, you
pilots.” The ship was far down when the ball-turret gunner cleared. They
thought the skipper and the co-pilot were lost. They stayed with the ship too
long and then—the ship was so far down that they could hardly see it. It must
have been almost to the ground when two little puffs of white, first one and
then the second, shot out of her. And the crew yelled with relief. And then the
ship hit the ground and exploded. Only the tail gunner and ball-turret man had
seen the end. They explained it over the intercom.
Beside the no. 1 hangar there is a little mound
of earth covered with short, heavy grass. At 12:15 the ground men begin to
congregate on it and sweat out the homecoming. Rumor comes with the crew chief
that they have reported, but it is rumor. A small dog, which might be a gray
Scottie if his ears didn’t hang down and his tail bend the wrong way, comes to
sit on the little mound. He stretches out and puts his whiskery muzzle on his
outstretched paws. He does not close his eyes and his ears twitch. All the
ground crews are there now, waiting for their ships. It is the longest set of
minutes imaginable.
