The bartender handed the pint of lager to Frances. The young pilot had been visiting this pub since his squadron had moved to England. The regular guests at the pub were already used to the visiting pilots and aircrews. But this pilot was a bit of an exception; he kept to himself and usually sat alone at the bar.
Aircraft engines roared overhead.
“One of yours”, asked the bartender.
Frances listened to the engines.
“Yep”
He could easily recognize the typical sound of the Thunderbolt.
“When are you boys going overseas?”
Frances shrugged his shoulders: “When we are ready with training”.
The bartender moved on to the regular guests as he sensed that this young pilot was clearly not in a talking mood.
Frances thought back on the events of the past couple of weeks. They had arrived in England together with their P-47’s, immediately starting training in their new aircraft. For days in a row they took of, heading for the training area.
The British had been so kind to provide the USAAF with an exercise terrain, where their pilots could practice their bomb runs.
The terrain consisted of a fake village, with rows of trucks dispersed among the houses. Frances had flown several missions to the village, performing several bomb runs and missile attacks.
It was not uncommon to see explosions erupt throughout the village as Thunderbolts made run after run.
But what Frances liked the most were the strafing runs with machine guns. Plumes of dirt and debris were kicked up as the .50 bullets dove into the ground. Equipped with 8 .50 machineguns the P-47 was truly a Nazi nightmare. A concentrated burst of these guns could tear apart a Messerschmitt.
But they also learned to intercept enemy fighters and bombers. C-47 cargo planes would often act as unsuspecting targets. Ground control guided them to the cargo planes. There was nothing more amusing then hearing the C-47 pilots curse on the radio when they were frightened by a P-47 screaming by their windscreen.
But that was forbidden after one P-47 crashed into a C-47. Frances had seen it happen. The P-47 came in to fast and could not evade the crash. The ¨P-47 wing tore through the left wing of the C-47. Both planes lost one of their wings and tumbled into a deadly spiral towards the ground. Nobody managed to escape.
Frances finished his beer and headed back for the barracks. The guards let him pass after showing his ID. But as he approached the barracks, people screaming and slapping each other’s back left the barracks. They had obviously something to celebrate.
Oswald, Frances best friend, stormed towards him.
“Frances, have you heard the news?”
“No, did Hitler surrender and we all get to go home?”
“No, much better, we are going to be relocated closer to the coast. We finally are going to get to shoot some krauts!”
“That is mighty good news”.
Frances felt how his stomach shrunk when hearing the news. But like any young man he was eager to fight and quickly dismissed his fears.
“Oswald, lets drink to all the Nazis we are going to shoot down. They are going to regret the day they met the 361st”.
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