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the high altitude towards the unforgiving ground. The anxious eyes of the squadron saw one, three, five then six parachutists fall away from the smoking wreck before the burning bomber passed out of sight downwards. The captain of Fartin' Martin whispered a silent prayer for his buddies, four of whom definitely would not show up as captured, but just ‘missing in action', then spoke over the intercom, "Okay," he said, "if the next shell has our number, there ain't a lot we can do, but iffen' we have to make a break, make sure that all the parachutes are hanging ready and clear, and dog the hatches back between the bomb bay and the waist, O.K. Juan?" The flight engineer nodded, unclipped his intercom and seat straps, grabbed the portable oxygen pack lying clipped at his side, nodded to the navigator who piled up to give a hand, and checked back for the emergency equipment storage area. These had all been checked before the bomber had commenced it's take-off roll, but there was no harm in reassurance. The ships closed up, and moved on, ‘Lazy Daze' and two other ships were consigned to the memory box where fliers went but rarely, the machine which was the collective consciousness of Bombing Mission niner-eight-four looked forward towards Southern Germany and Schweinfurt.

The sudden warning blatted out into every ear which had a set of ‘phones on, "Fighters, twelve-o-clock, low!" China White, seated at his alternate place from the bombsight, the forward gunnery station, stiffened every sinew as he strained to see the first glimpse of the opposing fighter force. As Fartin' Martin was about half-way back in the huge armada, he knew he wouldn't see something which was maybe twenty-odd miles away, but was determined never to be taken by surprise. He spotted the small black specks against the blue sky as a finger-four of ‘109's whipped through the side of the formation, zooming up and firing their cannons at a vic-formation about a mile away. The tracer return fire from nine bombers almost seemed to hesitate as it wavered towards the formation which was travelling at twice the speed of the laden bombers. The German fighters broke apart into their traditional ‘Rotte' or ‘gang' of two pairs of two aircraft, sped away from their first targets, then reversed course and came twisting back in once again. The yellow spinners on the propeller boss of one fighter stood out, and made a great target marker for one top turret gunner who lead off nicely, bided his time, then loosed off a three second burst at the second fighter as the pair came zooming past from the attack on the starboard ship in their group of three. The result was instantaneous, as the black oil streamed back from the engine sump as it gushed out through the hole in the crankshaft casing created by twenty-five ‘fifty calibre bullets. The propeller windmilled to a stop, the fighter