killing Hitler, and, best of all, now had his own B17 and was now flying in formation with a hundred other bombers over Germany.
At first he’d been annoyed that mousy little Phips had gotten all the glory and the publicity while he, his copilot, the man who’d actually urged him to drop the bombs, was basically forgotten. When the crew went on a bond tour, it was Phips who got the cheers while the rest got polite applause. When women threw themselves at the scrawny pilot, his faithful copilot got the leftovers, which, he’d laughingly decided, wasn’t all that bad a fate. That life, however, quickly bored him.
Bill Stover, age 24, basically was not a jealous man and, when logic took over, he sincerely wished Phips good luck. All Stover wanted to do was get back in a B17. He’d volunteered for the air force so he could fly and fight, not hustle war bonds from civilians. He’d pestered his superiors and finally gotten his wish. He was back with the Eighth Air Force and flying a B17, the sweetest bomber in the world.
This was his third mission over Germany and he’d laughingly told his new buddies that it was two and a half more than he’d had in the Mother’s Milk ’s historic one and only bombing run.
The morning’s briefing had raised a concern. Intelligence had apparently picked up indications that the krauts were going to try something new. As a result, the number of P51 fighter escorts had been increased. Stover felt quite comfortable with that idea, and, regardless what happened, he’d vowed that he would never break formation like the incredibly lucky Phips had. Germany was below him and bombers were arrayed on all sides of his plane.
He stiffened. Something was happening. He focused his concentration on the increasingly strident radio chatter from the escorting fighters indicating that a small number of German fighters was headed for them. “Holy shit, look at them,” a voice said in a not very military manner.
“Jets,” another voice said and Stover’s blood ran cold. He’d heard that jets existed and that they could fly at incredible speeds. His own plane’s machine guns started chattering at something he couldn’t see. And then he could, and then it was gone in a shrieking second. At the same time, his plane shuddered. It’d been hit. His outer left engine had been shredded, pieces were flying off as it and his left wing were disintegrating.
Slowly and with apparent dignity, the wing collapsed and the plane began a slow death spiral. Stover ordered everybody to jump, but it was almost impossible as centrifugal force pinned them to the hull. Finally, Stover clawed his way to a hatch and pushed two of his men out into the wind. He couldn’t see the rest of his crew. He hoped they’d gone. He couldn’t wait. The ground was coming up far too fast.
Stover jumped and felt the blast of cold air grab him and spin him. He missed the bomber’s tail by a few feet. Seconds later, he opened his parachute and watched as his bomber sped downwards and corkscrewed itself into the ground. The bombs exploded with a mighty blast. He looked around as he descended. The rest of his formation was disappearing and the German jets, if that’s what they were, had also vanished.
He landed awkwardly and he felt his right leg snap. He screamed and was dragged by his chute until he managed to overcome the agony from his leg and free himself. He lay there for a few minutes fighting off the waves of nauseating pain and trying to compose himself.
Stover heard voices and, a few moments later, several German civilians were gathered over him. “ Bitte, ” he said. He thought it meant please. “ Kamerad, ” he tried again.
The civilians glared at him with undisguised hatred. Here was one of the American murderers who was savaging their cities and massacring innocent family members.
One of the German men leaned over and spat in his face, and a woman kicked him in his obviously injured leg. Stover screamed and they laughed. A man with a pitchfork stuck it into his other thigh and twisted. Stover writhed and tried to evade further jabs. It was futile and the pain from repeated stabs nearly made him unconscious. He screamed some more and the German civilians cheered. “Now you suffer like we do,” one of them said in English.
An authoritative voice stopped them. A man in a uniform, probably a cop, Stover thought, looked down on him with contempt. He barked some orders and the men picked him up without care for his injured legs and he screamed again. He continued to scream when they threw him in the back of a truck, and finally he passed out when they drove down the rutted road.
Miles away and thousands of feet in the sky, Lieutenant General Adolf Galland, “Dolfo” to his friends, flew alongside Major Walter Nowotny who commanded the ME262 squadron. It had been a most worthwhile test run. Of course, some would say that generals should not fly in combat, but Galland was sick and tired of desk duty and he’d flown the ME262 on test runs before.
This fine day, he’d bagged a P51 fighter and a B17 bomber without any damage to his plane and Nowotny had killed two fighters and damaged a bomber. The jet could go more than twice the speed of the Flying Fortress and a hundred miles an hour faster than the fighter escorts.
Sadly, it would be a while before the ME262 appeared over Germany in any great numbers. Aircraft manufacture of any kind had been slowed by the damned Allied bombers. The plane was designed to destroy the bombers and obviously could slaughter them in great numbers. There was a shortage of jet fuel, too, although there were more than enough qualified pilots to fly the few jets the Luftwaffe possessed.
Still, many of the best and brightest Luftwaffe pilots had been killed in the war and replacement pilots from service in other planes were scantily trained, little more than cannon fodder for the Americans who shot them down as fast as they went up.
Perhaps, Galland thought with a smile, the situation would require him to spend more time in a cockpit.
Beetle Smith was in his normal lousy mood. “Granville, please tell me you know what the hell is going on because nobody else around here does.”
Colonel Tom Granville took a seat and adjusted the folders he’d brought. He knew everything in them, but their physical presence reassured him. Smith was a harsh and demanding leader on a good day, and this wasn’t a good day.
“Regarding the jets, it’s easy, General. The ME262 is something we’ve known about for a long time. It was inevitable that the krauts would introduce it, and they have a number of other new planes being developed, including a rocket plane that’s a real pilot killer, the ME163 Comet, and another jet, the Heinkel 162, which they refer to as the Salamander. Of the group, the 262-it’s called the Swallow, by the way-is by far the most formidable if only because they are beginning to make them in numbers that are large for German war production, although quite small in comparison with ours. We picked up a message that Galland himself flew one of the planes involved in that attack on our bombers, and that he referred to the jet as an ‘angel.’ He also said it was worth five ME109’s. We should thank our lucky stars, or our air force pilots who have been bombing their factories, that the Germans are unable to produce them in any real quantity.”
“Shit. Tell me again what we’ve got in the way of jets to counter the ME.”
Granville sighed. “Not much. The British are introducing something called the Meteor, but it’s nowhere near as fast as the 262, and we’ve got the P80 but it’s a long ways away from entering the field. Apparently it’s killing more of our pilots than anyone likes.”
“Fantastic. So what is the air force going to do now?”
“They are going to saturate the skies with fighter escorts, mainly P51’s. The air force believes we will win a battle of attrition if only because we outnumber them so vastly.”
“And that will be a great comfort to the widows and other family members of those killed.”
“General, the air force does have other tactical plans. The German jets guzzle fuel, so they have to land and gas up fairly frequently. The idea is to follow them and either shoot them down when they slow down to land, or hit them on the ground, or bomb the crap out of the airfields so they can’t take off or land.”
“I guess it’s better than our boys lining up to be shot at,” Smith said, again grumpily. “Now, what the hell is going on with the French and what the hell are the Russians up to? All I’m getting is word that the French commies are rioting and that the Soviet advance is slowing and we don’t need either to happen, not for one damn minute.”
“General, we’re trying to pin things down, but nothing looks very good. In fact, it could wind up being real, real bad.”
