The Savage Sky: Life and Death in a Bomber over Germany in 1944 by George Webster

Author:George Webster [Webster, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2009-02-01T09:02:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Wonderful Respite

'arch begins as gloomy as February. Rain and cold wind sweep .across a sodden airbase. Water pelts my face while I peer from the hood of my green poncho and trudge down the road to the combat mess. Around me, low buildings huddle beneath rolling masses of gray clouds. Winter is not going to give way readily, and that means hazardous flying before the Germans even get a shot at us. Still, the combat mess is warm and bright and filled with the aroma of food. I'm amazed at the ways the cooks devise to serve Spain.

On the first of March, I see good news and had news. On the good side, I'm alive. Of the ten missions on which I flew, we destroyed ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt, factories at Brunswick, and the German airhase at Chateaudun, and we tore up the submarine base at Wilhelmshaven. I guess the two missions with the captain to the Pas de Calais were also useful, whatever it was that we did. The other missions ran afoul of bad weather. On the bad side, my friends are being killed, one after another, and I know that my probability of dying is increasing with each mission. I take barbiturate capsules and amphetamine for nightmares, paregoric for chronic diarrhea, and I have a headache so bad that it makes me sick.

The Eighth Air Force has a new commander, Major General James Doolittle, called Jimmy in the press. He was a stunt flyer and air racer during the 1930s. He returned to the air force as a colonel and shocked the Japanese in April 1942, by leading a group of B-25 bombers from an aircraft carrier to bomb Tokyo and fly on to China. Most of the bombers were lost, but Doolittle survived, and now he will lead us.

More fliers in my building have jitters. Many go out and get drunk as often as they can. I understand. Some scream or cry out during the night. I notice that more take sleeping capsules at night and amphetamine in the morning, so I don't feel that I'm the only flyer having trouble.

Group headquarters calls a dozen flyers, including me, to a ceremony where Colonel Brousseau shakes my hand and gives me an Air Medal with an Oak Leaf Cluster. The Air Medal is pretty, with it royal blue and gold ribbon, but I would trade it in a flash for something to stop my splitting headache. Except for the time with Jane, I've had it for more than three weeks. Aspirin doesn't help.

I go back to the medics. A doctor agrees that it needs treatment. He gives me an envelope of white capsules. They stop the headache wonderfully, but they put me to sleep. I can't keep my eyes open after I take one. When I return and tell the doctor, he frowns and nods his head.

"I hoped the medication wouldn't affect you that way, but drowsiness is a frequent side-effect. I wish we had better drugs than aspirin to treat headache.

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