15 Days to Freedom

Dave didn''t need any inducement. He flipped open his safety belt and started to move. For reasons known only to the Lord, the right leg strap on his parachute was hung up on the corner of the copilot seat. It took only a moment to correct this problem but when he turned back again, Bruce had pulled the bomb bay door emergency handle to the open position, was out of his seat and gone!

With the intercom out, Dick Embry, the engineer, had no idea what was going on. He was busy operating his turret and getting some good shots into several of the attacking fighters. Suddenly his safety harness was unhooked and a pair of arms were pulling him out of his position. Turning, he found himself eyeball to eyeball with his pilot who was screaming for him to bailout.

Now, the catwalk running through the bomb bay, was getting to be a busy place. Bruce was aft, screaming at Henry; Dick was next to him scrounging up the courage to make that step into nothingness; David was just entering and obviously in a hurry to get out of there. Although it probably seemed much longer, in a matter of thirty seconds, the place was empty!

Bobby sat back there in the tail very much alone. Prior to just right now he liked this position simply because the seat was similar to the one on his bicycle back home. A silly reason! Perhaps it was just a little larger. Now that he was looking down the sights of his twin fifties and firing on the ME 109 in the cross hairs, other thoughts were running through his mind. His lips were quietly saying, "Our Father, which art in Heaven."

"Pilot, this is Tail. God, there must be ten or fifteen coming in on us!" The quiet panic was in his voice. At just about the same time, all eleven of the plane''s fifty caliber machine guns cut loose.  The battle was on and 837 was fighting for her life!

The next voice on the intercom was quiet and almost pleading. "Pilot, this is Tail. Lt. Bradshaw''s ship just went into a spin. Oh God, sir, it just blew up!"

There was dead silence on the intercom until a voice came on and asked the one dreaded question, "Do you see any chutes?"

The Tail answered with only one word, "Negative."

All of the crew knew that they had just lost ten friends.

Bruce was having a little trouble controlling the airplane but it was nothing severe. Shortly after the report from Tail another wave of enemy fighters swept through the bomber formation. 837 was taking numerous hits. David looked back over his shoulder and shuddered. He promptly hit the intercom talk button. It was dead. The whole system was out! He leaned over and shouted to Bruce. "Number three is on fire!"

"It''s still giving us power, see if you can control it with the fire extinguisher!" he shouted back.

The third wave of fighters swept through. With this pass, the yoke came loose in Bruce''s hands. The control cables had been severed! Bruce reached down and hit the gang bar that activated the autopilot. Despite all of its problems, the airplane became stable.

"Hey, finally something works! Alarm bell on! Great, something else works, get the hell out of here--bail, bail, bail!"