Jeff Sherratt - Detour to Murder

Capt Raymond Haskell, squirming in the B-17 pilot seat, pinched his throat mike. “Watch it, Earl! Coming at you at nine o’clock,” he said to his waist gunner.

“I see the bastards!” Two black specks in the sky at the nine o’clock position relative to the gunner’s sights grew larger by the second. “They’re coming fast!” The clattering burst of the .50 caliber machine gun was Earl’s next statement.

S/Sgt Earl Lee Sims, the right waist gunner, swore wildly. He stood facing out the opening on the side of the plane, swiveling his machine gun from side to side, trying to get a bead on the enemy aircraft. He saw the popping flashes, like the rapid blinking of an incandescent eye, coming from the fighters as the Kraut pilots fired their guns, the hot lead zinging around him like angry mutant wasps. He fired another short burst, missing completely.

“God damn, three more at twelve o’clock, high!” another voice shouted urgently, his voice coming through the interphone.

“I’m on ’em,” Sgt. Al Mathis, the top ball-turret gunner responded.

“Two more at ten o’clock, low. You see ’em, Jake?”

The planes whizzed by at 350 miles per hour, firing their cannons, before vanishing beyond the horizon.

T/Sgt. Jake Shapiro, the gunner in the ball turret, which hung from the belly of the plane, hadn’t seen the two fighters coming at the B-17 from below. He was dead. His body had been shredded, cut to pieces by the exploding rounds of the 13 mm machine guns fired from the previous pair of ME-109G’s that had made a run at the bomber.

Capt. Raymond Haskell, pilot and commander of the Flying Fortress, oblivious to the chaos, steadfastly held his assigned course-82 degrees to the IP, then veer left to a heading of 312 and proceed fifteen miles directly to the target, the Messerschmitt factory at Augsburg.

“Heads up, men, we’re going toe-to-toe with those Nazi bastards. And for God and country we’re gonna send them all to hell.” “Toe-to-toe!” Haskell announced to the crew.

The other five planes in the lead squadron and the fourteen planes in the low and high squadrons behind him would follow his course. No snafus, or the mission would fail; all twenty bombers would miss the target. Each warplane carried 6,000 pounds of armor-piercing and incendiary bombs. If the mission was a success, they would level the enormous airplane plant and what was left of it would burn.

The heavy bomber shuddered and jerked violently to the right. Two more German fighters scored several direct hits, projectiles from their 200 mm cannons blowing out the B-17’s right outboard engine. The loose play in the rudder pedals and the uncontrollable gyration at the tail of the aircraft indicated the horizontal stabilizer had been severely damaged, as well. But the plane labored on incessantly. Several more ME-109 strikes hit home. Each one sent shockwaves through the plane, jolting it like a hard earthquake.

“I think the belly-gunner’s been hit. Jake’s not firing his guns,” the captain said. “Garcia,” he added, addressing the radio operator, “check it out. If he’s dead, take his position.”

“Roger, Cap.” T/Sgt. Alex Garcia left his radio table and made his way through the crawl space to where the belly turret was located. He almost puked when he opened the turret hatch and saw what remained of his crewmate.

Earl Lee Sims felt the bitter cold on his face as he peered out through the large gun opening on the side of the ship. He could see the gut-wrenching flames streaming from the blown out engine. His throat mike transmitted his voice: “Hey Cap, we’re on fire! The engine’s blazing and the wing is glowing red. We gotta turn back!”

The plane swung slowly to the left, back on course, a straight line to the initial point.

“Hook your chutes and prepare for flak. We’re at the IP,” the pilot announced, ignoring Earl’s warning. “Pilot to bombardier. You got the plane, Joe, it’s all yours,” he said, as he set the auto-pilot, linking it to the Norden bombsight. He then leaned back and removed his hands from the yoke.

They were now on the bombing run. The bombardier, 1 stLt. Joseph Capuano, squirmed in his seat located in a plastic bubble at the nose of the plane, one level below the cockpit. From now until the completion of the bomb run he would, in essence, be flying the plane.

As the heavy bomber bounced and jerked from side to side, Capuano peered through the eyepiece of the bombsight, zeroing in on the target as the city’s buildings and roadways raced across his line of sight 20,000 feet below. By manipulating several knobs attached to the device he could control the heading and altitude of the big war bird. The auto-pilot held the airspeed.

Capuano took his responsibility seriously. Earl knew that the bombardier would feel a tinge of guilt when he thought about the civilians that had to die today because of the duty he performed. But so what? Earl also knew Capuano would not turn tail. He’d steer the plane directly over the Messerschmitt factory without hesitation. He would fly straight and level and would not deviate even one degree from his course until the bombs were away. There would be no evasive action. Capt Haskell demanded that they keep moving toward the target no matter what. The son-of-a-bitch would keep on going until they were blown out of the sky.

Earl gripped the twin handles of the Browning with both hands. His body shook and rattled from the recoil as he fired the gun haphazardly, until it ran out of ammo. If by a miracle they did get back, Earl swore he’d get even with Haskell somehow, somewhere, some dark night…

The German fighter planes now turned away and the crew suddenly became silent. The interphone chatter stopped as the nine men watched the hundreds of deadly puffs of black smoke fill the daytime sky. Anti-aircraft shells exploded in the midst of the formation.

Every few seconds a piece of shrapnel tore through the aircraft’s fuselage, ripping jagged holes in the thin aluminum skin. But the plane didn’t falter. It kept moving toward the target.

The noise was deafening. Earl could feel every vibration and every pounding beat generated by the remaining three engines in his bones. His ears were filled with the screech of tearing metal and his nostrils took in the acrid stench of burning aluminum.

With both hands covering his ears, Earl screamed in a terrified voice, “We gotta turn back! To hell with this bullshit.” But no one heard him, of course.

Scared out of his wits, he turned to grab his parachute.

Across the way he saw the left waist gunner, a guy named McKee, braced against his gun mount. Sgt. Bernie McKee stared at Earl with wide eyes. He clutched his torso with his hands, covering the place where his stomach should have been, his guts seeping through his fingers. The plane bounced in the turbulence and the gunner fell forward, dead.

Earl dropped to his knees. How much more could he take? The air quivered when another large chunk of hot metal blazed over his head and tore through the fuselage, blowing a basketball-sized hole in the side of the plane as it exited.

He closed his eyes tight, and as the bomber lumbered through the sky he could almost see the German ack-ack guns on the ground firing at the formation of bombers-shell after shell, endlessly exploding all around them.

He looked out again. “Oh God, there goes Luscious Lady ,” he said into his throat mike. Luscious Lady , a bomber in the high squad, was named by the pilot, Bobby Buck, as a tribute to his lovely red-headed wife, Irene. They’d been married two days prior to his induction.