american-1

Bombing Mission niner-eight-four Group Call Sign ------- Liberty Bell

Target Schweinfurt Germany

Crew B-17G Fortress Fartin' Martin

The sixty bombers from Three Group had fallen in together to their formations, and Fartin' Martin was perched in the centre of a spread of B-17's, the command pilots were busy guiding their formation into the stack prepared by the other two Groups. The fliers of the Third group saw the other two sections of sixty aircraft apiece, the massed bombers carefully swung up and in behind the leading set of sixty, and saw with relief the fighters of their escort formation as they glinted in the morning sunshine. The fighters were able to escort their charges only part way, as they just did not have the fuel to stay with their unwieldy charges for the full trip, but they were welcome anyhow. Through the radio net came the word from the lead bomb aircraft, named ‘Sioux City Sue', and piloted by a full colonel. "Okay, folks. All set! Remember, if you can't take a joke, ya shouldn't joined. Let's go and kill ‘em all!" As the massed formations rose into the thin air, the tell-tail condensation trails streamed back from every aircraft in the big group.

Inside Fartin' Martin, the flight engineer was monitoring his engine dials, checking the results of the maintenance routines which had cleared away some minor wrinkles on his forehead. The pilot sat relaxed in his armchair, the auto-pilot engaged for the run across France, as the Luftwaffe rarely attacked before the German border. The co-pilot was checking the position of the bomber relative to the other ships, ensuring that they did not creep ahead, or lag behind, their close compatriots. The navigator was cross-checking his route with the signals he received from the now-distant radio transmitters back in England, and taking ground sightings to double check his conclusions. They were taking a different route to the feared target, with a double dog-leg south through France, over the Alps skirting Switzerland, and then nearly due north towards the town where the ball bearing factories were the target. The crew were all set up to switch over to oxygen, with them all shrugging into the flak coats which were standard issue for the flyers. All the gunners had been at their stations shortly after leaving the British side of the Channel, with guns tested and ready for action. The top turret gunner, Tom Duffy, turned his gun platform round while saying, "Say, Captain, how far are the fighters convoying us today?"

"About another hundred miles, Tom. Makes you feel real lonely when they go, don't it?"

"Kinda' miss the little guys, especially over these real friendly places like Bremen or Schweinfurt!"