“May I join in?”
His new wing leader, Dave Chalmers, slid onto the bench in front of him.
“Yes, of course”
“Don’t take a heavy breakfast, we might still fly today”
“In such appalling weather?”
Chalmers smiled. “I just came from a meeting with the weather officer, he expects it to clear up by this afternoon”
Frances hated to fly in bad weather, but the chance to fly again was welcome news.
“Any news on targets”
“We will go after an airfield”
“What?”
Airfields were pretty dangerous, surrounded by flak; the Germans fiercely defended their airfields. Frances believed his wing leader got mad. Attacking airfields was an open invitation for a disaster.
“Just hear me out I have a plan”
Apparently Chalmers had thought this one out.
“If we arrive just as it clears up above the airfield, the Germans won’t have aircraft in the sky, so we can destroy them all on the ground”
“But what about the flak and anti-aircraft guns? They will shoot you to piecemeal”.
“Not if we arrive unexpected”
“But even if the first aircraft can drop its bombs, the rest will get a warm welcome”
“Not if they attack the flak and anti-aircraft artillery. You see that’s the beauty of the plan. The first two aircraft attack the parked aircraft. They will attract the attention of the gunners. While they are too busy aiming at the two lead aircraft, the other aircraft sneak up on them and blow them to pieces. Once the flak installations are gone, we can freely destroy every parked aircraft.”
“It sounds good but it remains dangerous”
“Are you in?”
Frances did hesitate, it was risky but if he did not do it another poor chap had to do the fighting and his parents had never raised him to be a coward.
“I am in”
A couple of hours later a four-ship formation of Thunderbolts crossed the channel. The weather had cleared up as predicted.
Frances scanned the sky around them. Like Chalmers had predicted the Germans were not expecting them. The sky was clear.
“Frances, you take on the Flak, while we attack the parked aircraft”
“Roger”
Frances was itching to try a new rocket attack technique. A British pilot had taught him a small trick to know when you are in range for your rockets.
First fire with your guns in a slow dive. If your bullets start hitting the target, fire the rockets. Usually you are by then in range of the target. The added bonus of firing your guns before the rockets was that the gunfire would already force the flak operators to duck and prevent them from returning fire.
“We are at the base, going in, watch our backs Frances”
Chalmers aircraft, along with his wingman dove towards the parked planes. Immediately gunfire erupted from the ground. Tracer fire reached from the ground up and like an angry snake it tried to reach the pesky birds that attacked the airfield.
But the tracer fire also revealed the location of the flak to Frances who trailed behind Chalmers.
Frances pushed the stick forward, putting the aircraft into a slow dive towards the flak installation. With a quick burst he assessed the distance to the target, too short.
A second latter, he pulled for the second time on the trigger. This time the bullets fell around the flak guns. The gunners noticed the dust being kicked up around their installation, but could not figure out from where the fire came.
A pair of rockets leapt away from underneath the Thunderbolt. The German gunners, still firing at Chalmers, stood with their back to the incoming rockets and never knew what blew them to pieces.
The other anti-aircraft gun operators had now noticed Frances and were turning around to fire at him. Amidst a hail of fire, Frances screamed across the airfield.
“Chalmers, I’ll make a run on the western gun.”
“Roger I’ll lure them away”
Frances flew low to the ground to escape from view, before turning around. He hoped, by attacking from a different direction from where he flew to, he would offset the aim of the gunners.
On the ground the Germans frantically searched for the American fighters. They could hear their engine roaring around the airfield, but had a hard time pinpointing their location.
Suddenly Frances appeared from behind the hangars. His rockets skimming over the fuel tanks, exploded right on top of the third gun emplacement.
“Two down, one more to go”
On the ground, German troops and ground crews hurried for the trenches. Already several parked aircraft had been destroyed.
As Frances overshot the airfield for the second time, the other Thunderbolts dove down on the airfield.
With blazing guns they sped towards the parked Heinkels. Helpless bomber crews, hiding in nearby trenches saw how the Thunderbolts sprayed their aircraft with bullets until they exploded into thousand pieces.
The fighters flew so low that the troops on the ground dove down, afraid of being hit by a wing or propeller.
Frances had turned around again and made his third and final pass. But the gunners at the third emplacement were prepared. They turned their gun around and fired with everything they got.
Tracers whizzed by Frances cockpit like angry bees. Frances fired his final rockets just as his aircraft shook with the impact of gunfire. The rockets flew harmlessly over the anti-aircraft gun and exploded behind the emplacement.
On the ground the German troops stood up as they watched how the American fighter was hit. Some of them took their guns and fired away at the aircraft.
Frances heard the pings of small caliber fire hitting his aircraft as he raced by the parked Heinkels.
“Chalmers I am hit”
Frances quickly dropped his bombs, probably killing some cattle around the airfield. The Thunderbolt did not make any strange noises but Frances could see several bullet holes in his right wing.
Chalmers joined up with him.
“I’ll fly around you to check for any leaks”
Chalmers flew underneath the Frances, checking for the tell tale marks of leaking fuel or oil.
“I don’t see any leaks, just a lot of holes. How does she fly?”
“I can handle hear, but I like to go home. I am not inclined to spend the rest of the war in a POW camp.”
“Roger, follow me, I’ll lead you to the nearest base”.
“Few, you have some extra air holes, sir”
Walter, the crew chief, scratched his head as he noticed the hole in the wings of Frances aircraft. The small caliber bullets had dented the belly of the aircraft.
“Lucky for you, the old lady can take a lot of damage”
Frances looked at one hole, which went right through the wing. He could see the ground through it and could easily fit in a fist.
“When will she ready to fly again, Walter?”
Walter looked a final time at the beat up aircraft.
“She will be ready by tomorrow, sir”
“Good, thanks for fixing her up”.
Frances walked away, still a little bit shaky but at least he would be up in the sky again by tomorrow morning. There was nothing that he hated more then being grounded, besides flak of course.
