PT 2
ast of Le Havre. We were at about 2,000 feet. "Look out the back." Sid said.
I stayed like that for an hour. There was a real danger, sitting up in the open, that we would draw a Jem' night fighter. "Jesus, there's one," Sid said suddenly. He jammed the throttles forward.
I looked down. Sure enough, there was the red glow, the exhaust of a V-l. It seemed to be moving fairly slowly, poor judgement on my part. We went into a dive to get more speed. The Y-l was ahead of us. In the blackness, of course, all we could see was that small burning sun in front of us. Because the V-l was smaller than a plane, you had to get fairly close to get in a telling shot.
We were doing more than 350 mph by this time but we weren't gaining. In fact, we were dropping back a bit. In a minute or so, we had to face the truth that the damn thing was running away from us.
We had been warned about this too. Jerry mixed 'em up. He'd send one over at 500 miles an hour, which we couldn't catch, and then poop one off at 200 miles an hour. Whether this was deliberate or not we didn't know, of course, but it drove us crazy. We climbed back up to 10,000 feet: Sid was sore as hell. He took the two misfires as an affront to his flying ability.
Another hour went by and we were thinking of doing one more stooge before heading home, when we spotted a third doodlebug. "By God. this time." Sid said.
The speed went up as we went down. I looked at the clock. It read 350 mph. I looked out along the wing. It was flapping like a seagull working in a hurricane. My stomach gave another wrench. Christ, the wings will come off and we'll go straight in. I didn't take any comfort from what had happened to Tony Barker and Gord Frederick, his navigator. They hit the drink
was thrown hard against my straps because the cannons going off cut down the speed suddenly.
When the explosion came I thought I was going to be dead. The goddam thing went off right in our faces. I opened my eyes and caught a glimpse of things whirling around outside the window. Black things and blobs of smoke.
"I can't see," Sid said.
"OK boy,"I said. "Just keep her like that. You can cut your speed though." He throttled back. After those hours of darkness, he had been blinded for a few seconds by the flash. Why we hadn't been smashed up from all that flying debris. I don't know. We had flown right through it.
" I got too close," Sid said.
"I noticed," I said. Now that I found myself in one piece and the props still going around, I wanted to laugh and natter and be Jesus H.(for Hannah) Christ in a blue bottle sitting on the mantlepiece. "Boy, I bet we saved the life of some limey in London reading his paper about how all the doodlebugs are being shot down by ack-ack guns," I babbled.
"Yes. you're quite a little savior," Sid said. But he didn't fool me. He was pleased he had finally made a score, no matter how small, in his Jewish war against the Germans.
"Russ said to go to 10,000." I said. Russ Bannock, our new flight commander, and Don MacFadyen, had worked out some tactics for the V-l. One of Russ's pieces of advice was to climb to 10.000 feet and wait there for the V-l launching. The height would enable us to gain our maximum speed of about 400 in a dive. "Look out the back." said Sid. We climbed to 10.000 feet and stooged around, my neck getting sorer by the minute.
"There's another bastard." Sid said. He banged the throttles forward and stuck the nose down. The sudden dive lifted me up hard against the straps and my guts came up with a thud against my heart. Down we went like a bat out of hell. We wouldn't be too slow this time. We weren't. We went screaming by the bloody thing before Sid could get set for a shot.
so hard the cannons pulled them through the floorboards of the cockpit and clear of the Mosquito. They got into their dinghies and a rescue plane picked them out of the Channel two miles off the Dieppe beaches. It takes all kinds.
Down, down, down. We were gaining some because the fire coming out the ass end of the V-l was getting bigger. The Mosquito was screaming in every joint. Sid had both big, hairy hands on the stick. When he began to pull back. I thought the wings would never stand it. But we began to level out and the clock said 400 mph. Sid pulled and pulled and she kept coming out of the dive. I tore my eyes away from the shaking wing and looked ahead. It was just like looking into a blast furnace.
"We're too close," I screamed. I shut my eyes as the cannons began banging away. I
we got one." was all he said. •: -:k the pistol," Sid said. I did, then turned on the Gee box and got a fix on our position. We were nearly home. That stretch at 400 miles an hour had helped speed things up.
I gave Sid a course: "Three-four-eight." Then I checked the IFF and the gas gauges.
"I bet we're all blistered." Sid said. He was talking about the Mosquito.
We drifted in over the coast and pretty soon our circle of lights showed up. He did a circuit and landed and parked. A flashlight bobbed around under my wing, the door opened, a ladder came up and with it a blurred face.
"Where in hell have you been?" ; -.-.-Hal.
"We got a doodlebug."
"From pretty close."
"That's been mentioned." Sid said.
I climbed down the ladder. Sid followed and took Hal's flashlight and played it on the wings and nose. There wasn't an inch of paint anywhere. The Mosquito was black. No roundel, no number, no letters, nothing.