Bombs Away (9 page)

Three cadets and an instructor were going in each ship. On the line the twin engines of the AT-11 began to turn over. The echelon lined up and received its orders and marched out to the planes. They were beautiful ships and, being trainers, they were silver. On their sides and on their wings they had the new Air Force insignia, a white star on a blue field. This is more easily seen than the old red-centered star, and besides the red center was very easy to mistake for the Rising Sun of Japan. The greenhouse—transparent, plastic nose of the ship—shone in the sun. Bill and two classmates and their instructor climbed to the door and settled themselves on their parachutes. It is forbidden to take off or to land in the nose of a bomber. If the ship should nose over, a man would be needlessly hurt. Bill loosened the straps of his parachute where they cut into his legs. There is a good feeling about a parachute, a nice feeling of safety. There is only one time when a parachute is hateful. No guardhouse is provided for cadets who have little difficulties with rules, but sometimes an error in judgment will be punished with an order to walk a given post wearing a parachute.

The parachute case hangs out flat, one edge against the buttocks. It shifts from side to side with each step. No care in walking will keep it still. Thus after ten minutes of walking post, the area where it slides becomes a little tender, and in half an hour sore, and at the end of two hours perhaps a line of blisters has formed and the erring cadet has been truly spanked by proxy. Every step is painful and there is no dignity in the pain. Further, in some posts, any cadet can quicken your step simply by whistling “Yankee Doodle” in a tempo faster than you are walking and you are required to keep step with his whistling. Gradually your parachute ceases to be your friend and becomes your executioner.

In the plane the metal door slammed shut and, waiting in turn in the line, the bombing trainer moved out and taxied to the runway. The three cadets adjusted their safety belts and their eyes found each other’s eyes and they smiled a little self-consciously. The ship bounced and rattled along. The metal walls did not turn aside the noise of the motors. Bill sat rigidly on his little seat. Then the plane stopped and in turn the motors roared and then the brakes were released. Bill saw the pilot push both the red knobs of his throttles far ahead. Bill’s weight was threefold against his back as the ship rushed down the runway, and then it lifted gently and the noise of motor and vibration became less. Bill felt rather than saw the steep turn and they leveled away toward the bombing range. The instructor motioned him forward. He clambered to his feet and edged his way between the empty bomb racks. He climbed past the copilot’s feet, down into the nose. From his seat he could see in all directions, up and down and sideways, and by leaning over he could even see down in back. He was suspended over a slowly moving world. The bombsight was in front of him. The seat and position were familiar to him because of the ground trainer. Automatically his hand went out to the microphone of the communication system and draped it by its cord over his knee. The instructor nodded approval. On the trainer there had been a dummy microphone of wood hung on a rope. It was there so the cadets would automatically use it from the first. Bill settled his head phones down over his ears and plugged into the system. They were flying at seven thousand feet now. Far ahead Bill could see the target on the ground, three concentric circles, and in the center a little white building which was the bull’s eye—his first dry run over his first target. The instructor’s voice was loud in his ears, “Take over the run.” Bill was frightened. He looked into his sight and found his target. He checked altitude and drift and in the microphone he called directions to the pilot. He was amazed that he knew what to do and that it worked. He felt that a great deal depended on his first run. His face was tight and his lips pinched as he worked the knobs. He heard the instructor say “Relax, you’ll burn yourself out.” The target was ahead and drifting near when he set his release. He lifted his phone to his lips and for the first time in a moving plane he shouted “Bombs away.” The instructor squinted through the sight just before the release and he nodded and picked up his phone. “Try another from the northwest,” he said.

When Bill came back from his first dry run he climbed out of the plane feeling much older than when he had gone. His parachute bounced on him impudently. He hadn’t dropped a single bomb yet, but he had found a target on the ground on the crossed hairs of a bombsight. It was his first little graduation and he felt very good about it. He felt so good about it that he and another cadet took a bus to town that evening. They had not been away from the camp since they had come to the bombardier school, and once out of the camp, standing on the street, they felt deserted and lonely. Civilians looked strange to them, even a little funny. Bill had never noticed clothes very much, but now his eyes saw how many colors in neckties there were and he looked at shirts and cuts of civilian clothes and hats and they seemed odd and outlandish.

Before he had been in the Army he had not noticed girls in great detail. There were pretty ones and homely ones, well- and badly-dressed ones. He had lumped them in generalities, but now it was nearly a month since he had see any girl and his eyes noticed things he had not seen before—how differently they were made, how differently they walked, and he saw expressions that he had never seen before. But mostly he felt alone and unprotected. He and his companion walked along the street and looked in store windows. They bought some post cards and addressed and mailed them. On a corner there was a little beer and dancing place, a bar, a small dance floor, a juke box, and some tables. They went in and ordered beer and sat down. It was a very gaudy place. After a while they danced with some girls and talked to them. They forgot the time.

It was Bill’s first run-in with military law. On the record sheet in his squadron room, three gold stars were pasted opposite his name and for each star he contributed 50 cents to the squadron fund; and the next evening Bill and his friend walked post for three hours, a hundred yards up and a hundred yards back. Their parachutes jerked about and rubbed tender places on their backs. Back and forth they marched for three hours. And Bill heard in his ears again the captain’s voice, “It may remind you to look at your watch,” and when Bill said lamely, “I did, sir, but my watch must have been wrong,” the answer was final, “There are no wrong watches in the Air Forces. There are no excuses,” the captain went on. “We’re not trying to baby you. You’re going to be an officer. You’ll have to control yourself. That is your responsibility. You can do what you want in your free time but you must obey the rules.” And he added, “Just a little advice. Don’t ever use that wrong-watch business again. That doesn’t bring out the best in me or in anyone else. Three hours to walk post.”

Bill felt disgraced. He walked dolefully back and forth with the parachute banging behind. In the morning he was not only sleepy, but very sore.

No one seemed to remember his disgrace afterward. It was over and done with. Classwork continued with more work on the trainer and dry runs over the target every day. Bill was getting used to the equipment and his scores were getting better. Now a new process was started.

In the mornings he and his echelon went out to the skeet range. With 12-gauge shotguns they fired at the little clay plates that came flying out of the towers. Instruments are only as valuable as a good eye makes them. The skeet shooting developed timing and lead.

In class they studied the nature of errors in bombing, errors due to variation in altitude, speed, and drift, and how to compute the amount of these errors in feet. And on the ranges they practiced shooting a .45-caliber automatic pistol.

On the twenty-third day, Bill dropped his first practice bombs. These are built exactly like real 100-pound bombs. They are metal shells and they are filled with sand. They weigh exactly one hundred pounds. In the tail of the bomb there is a little bomb of black powder and a firing pin to set it off when it hits the ground. There is not much explosive force in a practice bomb, but it makes a flash at night and a gray smoke in the daytime and it makes a loud bang. The cameras which record the scores and photograph the smoke or the flash create a permanent bombing record on film. Now, every day, Bill went on actual bombing missions over the target and the bomb bays were open when he ran in to the target. Before the take-off he inspected the blue-painted practice bombs slung on the racks and in flight he pulled the safety pins. There are two pins on a bomb—one, a cotter pin, is removed when the ship is in the air, but the bomb still cannot fire for its other pin is a wire, one end of which is fastened to the bomb rack and this one is pulled out automatically when the bomb falls free.

Now Bill had something really to drop on the target. As he made his approach, the bomb bays were opened; he found his mark, made his corrections, and set his release and then the bomb scraped metallically as it was released. It seemed to hang in the air under the plane for a moment, trailing horizontally, and then slowly it nosed over and began its curving flight toward the target. The bomb struck and a flash and a puff of smoke showed the score. He dropped single bombs with the wind and against the wind and in cross winds, checked his results on his score sheet. And he learned to drop trains of bombs, that is, evenly spaced so that a line of explosions walked over the target. And he dropped salvos, that is, all the bombs in one rack falling at once. The practice was constant.

In the classroom the echelon began the study of tactics, the reasons for formations. They learned the difference in objectives and what effective weight of bombs would be necessary to destroy different objectives. The training went beyond actual bombing. They learned the use of aerial cameras, maps, map reading. They studied codes and ciphers and the shapes and insignias of all planes. With models, they learned to identify the aircraft of other nations, both of our Allies and our enemies. Classwork, athletics, and bombing practice went on every day. They studied meteorology, clouds and fog, air current, smoke, haze, and dust. All of the changes in the air which may affect aircraft were considered and they are very many: icing condi tions, rain, snow, mist, sleet, hail, together with the condition of the air before and after each one—thunderstorms and air turbulence. The weeks were running away rapidly. The class was given a short course in basic navigation with the principles of taking bearings.

Bill bombed a lighted target at night and sometimes a low-flying plane dropped powerful flares on parachutes over a dark target and Bill bombed from a higher altitude.

Bill was becoming a bombardier but he was becoming a soldier too. His walk had changed and his posture. It seemed years since he had been a civilian, so long that he could hardly remember how it was. The person who got up late and had days to himself was a stranger. By now Bill had a group of friends in his echelon. They went to town together and they didn’t forget the time. They had met some girls with whom they danced and had dinner in their free time. Bill was hard now, his muscles didn’t hurt any more. He had gained ten pounds. The time was coming close for his graduation as a bombardier and his commissioning.