Bombers Moon

Chuck regains consciousness amidst the roar of the anti-aircraft guns.

The ground was trembling in successive explosions, as far as the eyes could see were raging fires, black smoke covered the originally clear sky like a thick curtain, the sunlight was distorted, and there was a gloomy look unique to rainstorm days. dark gray.The port is like a pot of boiling soup, the tilted ship is sinking slowly but irretrievably, and the small figures are struggling, running and shouting.

He touched the wound on his head, and his hands were sticky with blood.He was trapped in the gap between a prefabricated concrete slab and the wall. If the brick wall hadn't supported the weight of the cement slab, he would have been photographed as meat sauce.Chuck crawled out on all fours and took cover.There was an anti-aircraft battery surrounded by sand in the distance. Chuck took a few deep breaths and ran towards that side. However, a low-flying Mitsubishi fighter jet spotted him and swooped in. Machine gun bullets swept densely on the concrete floor behind him. .Chuck jumped behind the sandbags, and the fighter jets whizzed overhead, looking for other prey.

A corpse fell on the anti-aircraft gun, half of its head was cut off by shrapnel, and it was impossible to tell who it was.Chuck pushed the body away and tried to adjust the angle of the barrel, but the shaft had been blown crooked and remained motionless.Chuck swore and ducked back.

It is about 200 meters from here to the tarmac, and there is no shelter, but two warehouses caught fire, providing a dense black smoke screen.Chuck glanced at the sky. The shadows of the fighter planes were still there, but they were raised to avoid the smoke.Dust fell lightly, like dirty snow, and Chuck crawled out from behind the sandbags, ran in the blood-red firelight, and stopped as soon as he saw the tarmac.

There was no bomber fleet anymore, every Flying Fortress and Liberator was burning, and a P40 fighter was overturned at the end of the runway, leaving only a charred skeleton.The only structure left intact is the ammunition depot, yet a bomber hits it right in front of Chuck's eyes.

The fire soared into the sky.

-

At 12:7 on the morning of December 09, the signal of the all-clear sounded, sharp and long, like a death knell, echoing in the thick smoke and ruins.

-

Chuck found Jody and Leo late in the evening, both unhurt but as dusty as he was.They fled into the nearest bunker after being awakened by the air defense siren, but a high-explosive bomb collapsed a small underground passage, and the soldiers trapped inside had to dig for more than two hours with bare hands before clearing a gap like dirt. Get out like a mouse.

Most of the people slept that night in open spaces riddled with bomb craters because the buildings were either in danger of collapsing or had already collapsed. Some telephone lines were repaired, but water and electricity were still cut off.The storehouse where the timber was stored was still burning, and there was nothing to be done but block it until it ran out of fuel on its own.Chuck leaned against the half-burned broken wall, watching the orange-red flames illuminating the night sky from a distance.Someone was crying in the dark, not knowing who it was, and he didn't want to know.

"I want to go home," Jody said suddenly.

Chuck didn't answer.

December 12th was still shrouded in smog, and many swollen corpses in the port were not disposed of in time, floating in the seawater polluted by engine oil.Engineers were busy filling the craters on the runway so that transport planes with supplies from the mainland could land.Chuck didn't hear Roosevelt's speech to Congress because he and his squad had been ordered to bring the only B-8 bomber that had narrowly escaped death back home by noon.Except for this lucky steel bird, the heavy bombers on Oahu were basically wiped out, and it was no longer enough to form a squadron. However, in order to fulfill Roosevelt's promise of reinforcements to Churchill, the newly established Eighth After weeks of indecision, the Bomber Group finally relented and agreed to send at least "some" planes to England. On February 17, 1942, Chuck, Jody, and Leo, as crew members of the "some" aircraft, departed from an aircraft carrier in the Atlantic Ocean for the base at Beacon Hill.

When the coastline appeared on the left front, Jody left the tail turret and went to the cockpit to look around: "This is the first time I have seen this place, I mean, you have always known that this island exists, and you have always wanted to come , but I didn’t expect to come in a bomber, do you understand?”

"You talk too much," Chuck replied casually.

"I was born here," Leo said.

The other two stared at him, and finally the Heavy yelled "What?"

"I lived in London until I was 12, then my mum remarried and I moved to America with her. My dad still lived in London and died in the air raids in 1940. Nothing special."

"Nothing special?" Jody asked back. "It's just a serial novel. The title is "Road to Revenge" or something."

"Please don't yell in my ear, Jody," Chuck said, turning his eyes back to the distant, unfamiliar shore. "I'm sorry, you know, about your father."

Leo nodded slightly.

"Is that why you joined the army?"

The navigator shrugged and said nothing.

The Beacon Hill base is in southeast London. It was bombed by the Nazi Air Force the summer before and was completely shut down. The scars left by the time-delayed bombs are still clearly visible.The Hurricanes and Spitfires were scattered on the tarmac, not in formation, and far apart from each other, a typical wartime arrangement, in case they were destroyed at the same time when attacked. The B17 bomber landed on the runway closest to the hangar, and a man in the dark blue RAF uniform waited on the grass.Jody pushed Chuck to the front, and the big boy from the middle tobacco fields straightened his back and walked up to the British officer, pretending he had experience with it.

"Good afternoon," said the Englishman, looking at Chuck's new epaulets and rough army uniform (*01), he was shorter than Chuck and had to tilt his head slightly, but taller than Chuck by twenty centimeters in attitude , his eyes looked gray-blue in the damp south-east England sun, "I'm afraid I must first apologize to Captain Millston, who left for London today and left me to receive friends from the New World. My name is Nice to see you, Louis Linden."

"Charles Sinclair." Chuck reported his name, hesitated, and added "sir."

"Sergeant Sinclair. My previous understanding was that our generous allies would send 'some' aircraft over, plural." They all glanced at the B17 parked alone on the runway, "Your bomber squadrons should not arrive at the same time ?"

"No squadron, sir, just us."

"Can I ask why?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Maybe your superiors don't understand the urgency of the situation."

"I don't know what my superiors think, sir, I'm just following orders."

The Englishman didn't answer, but raised his eyebrows slightly.Chuck was beginning to hate this man, from the sharp uniform to the vaguely arrogance.Had the conversation continued, Chuck probably couldn't help but say the thought directly.Fortunately the ensign turned his attention to Jody and Leo, politely asked their names, thanked them for supporting the RAF, and offered to show them around.

"I like him," Jody announced an hour later, leaning against the window, watching Lieutenant Linden walk toward the headquarters like an excited little dog. "Did you hear what he said? He said 'Nice to see you Happy', not 'very happy', but 'very happy', like a movie line."

"Proves he's got a stuffy wooden head," Chuck said.

"You're just jealous."

Chuck frowned: "What do I have to be jealous?"

"I bet you can't spell the word 'pleasant'."

"Of course I would, hell. Why are you speaking for the Brit? You've only known him for an hour."

They looked to Leo for him to settle their differences, but the navigator was already in bed and asleep, his back to them, his coat still on.Chuck shook his head, pulled some uniforms out of his backpack, and stuffed them into the camphor-smelling locker.

The world seemed to be deliberately trying to make things difficult for Chuck, who had to meet Lyndon once a day for the rest of the day.Because of some - in Jody's words - "decision made out of the ass" at the Anglo-American Combined Command, Chuck also had to double as a backup fighter pilot, supporting the ever-short-handed Spitfire team led by It just so happened that it was the no-nonsense second lieutenant who trudged with Chuck every afternoon to the out-of-the-way spare hangar and taught him to fly a very tired-looking Spitfire I.

"Why is it pink, sir?"

"Camouflage, Sergeant, this is a reconnaissance plane."

"No offense, sir, it looks like it should be in a playground."

"I will submit your opinion to the command, maybe they will use gold next time."

"It's a joke, isn't it, sir? I don't see it, because you always look the same no matter what you say."

The other party shook his head, showing half a specious smile. Chuck didn't expect this reaction, so he couldn't help staring at him for a while.Louis patted the steel plate of the fuselage and motioned him to close the hatch: "Treat it well, Sergeant Sinclair, don't crash."

Most of the reconnaissance planes with special paint are stored in the backup hangar, and there are also two old dreadnought fighter jets. Chuck poked his head into the cockpit curiously. No one has touched it for years.Louis didn't stop him from exploring, leaning against the door, answering Chuck's questions from time to time, most of the time he was distracted, looking at the boring winter wilderness, as if he was looking for something that Chuck couldn't see.There was a small slope not far from the hangar, on which were perched two rows of crosses. Chuck casually asked if this was the cemetery of a nearby village, but Louis did not answer.

"It's not what I thought it would be," Chuck said on the way back to base, breaking the long silence.

"What are you imagining?"

"To blow up the German submarine base. But I've been here almost two weeks, sir, and haven't been farther than the mess hall."

"We need at least twenty B17 bombers, plus about three times as many escorts, Sergeant Sinclair." Gray dark blue, the color of the strait in stormy season, "I believe you are an excellent pilot, but if there is only one 'Flying Fortress', you are an ideal target at sea."

"A pessimistic thought, sir."

"Practical thinking."

"You can call me Chuck."

"I wouldn't call you that, Sergeant Sinclair," Louie said, in a matter-of-fact tone, the way people talk about non-stop rain.

"Just to be friendly to you, sir."

"This is an air force base, not a pool club."

"In our—"

"You're not in 'your place.' Better get used to that soon, Sergeant."

"Can I speak the truth, sir?"

"I can't possibly stop you."

"You are an arrogant cold-blooded animal."

Louie stopped and looked at Chuck, not annoyed, just curious, like one examines a new species that one has never seen before.Chuck stared back, determined not to show weakness.In the end it was Louis who looked away first.

"Would you like a piece of advice, Sergeant?"

"I can't possibly stop you."

"It's easier to be a cold-blooded animal here."

Chuck wanted to ask him what the hell it meant, but the two had already made it to the radar station, where they always parted ways, and today was no exception.Neither of them said goodbye. Chuck strode towards the dormitory for a while, and couldn't help but turn around. The second lieutenant had disappeared.The Hurricane fighter squad that was on patrol that day just returned home, three of them landed in the setting sun with their engines roaring, dragging long shadows.

Note 1:

In the early days of the Army Air Corps, there were no uniforms, and pilots wore Army uniforms.