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Show Flying Fortress Dishes It Out By Capt. Clyde D. Walker (WNU Feature Through special arrangement arrange-ment with The American Magazine.) We were carrying some mighty heavy stuff for Jerry in our big Flying Fortress. Leaving our home field in England Eng-land at six o'clock in the morning, our objective was the submarine pens at Lorient, France. As we approached, somebody yelled "Flak!" and the anti-aircraft shells broke around us. At the same time the ball turret gunner shouted "Wolves coming up!" He had sighted a dozen German fighters, fight-ers, Focke-Wulf 190s, climbing fast from downstairs. I held the ship steady on her course. A few seconds later Bombardier Bentinck pressed his bomb triggers. The giant bombs hit exactly where he had aimed them, in the middle of a platform between two submarine subma-rine pens. "Bull's-eye!" he whooped over the intercom. I never heard anyone any-one sound so jubilant. Those were the last words Bentinck ever spoke. The next second, everything hit us at once. Things started happening much faster than I can tell them. FW's Take Us On. We were raked from end to end with flak. At the same time a swarm of FW's dived out of the sun. They came in like hornets, with 20-millimeter cannon and machine ma-chine guns wide open. One burst of flak ripped into the nose. It killed Bentinck instantly. The same burst wounded Navigator Smith and knocked him unconscious. A second burst ripped away the .. doors of the bomb bay. Another burst sprayed around Co-pilot Bill Reed and myself. That wasn't half of it. Krucher, in the tail, had been hit. A cannon shell had torn a big hole in the ball turret. Radio Operator Frishholz had a flak hole in the back of his head, and the radio room was on fire. No. 1 Engine Is Out. The first broadside of flak smashed the drive shaft of No. 1 engine. The No. 2 had been hit on top and was throwing oil. It might catch fire any second. Flak had knocked a big dent in the propeller of No. 3, and No. 4 had a big hole in its base. I carried on with 3 and 4. The ship staggered . and started falling behind the rest of the squadron. I put the nose down and dived steeply steep-ly for the cover of some clouds far below us. FW's Close In For Kill. Seeing we were badly hurt, the FW's closed in for the kill. Then the boat really lived up to her name of Flying Fortress. We took plerty during the next 60 seconds, but not half as much as we dished out. My waist gunner, Bill Stroud, took care of the first one. It was so close that he could see the back of the pilot's head. Stroud poured a stream of bullets into him. The FW went into a spin, and Stroud followed fol-lowed him with burst after burst. A moment later another Jerry Jer-ry came under his sights. He poured steel into him, saw him break up. Right waist gunner Berring was pumping 50-caliber slugs at range. He, too, got a "probable," "proba-ble," a red-nosed FW which spun down and out of sight. Meanwhile the wounded tail gunner gun-ner got a chance. While he was lying ly-ing back there losing blood, an FW roared in to finish him off. Krucher took steady aim and rapped out one long burst. It literally sawed the German's wing off. He went down in flames. With the wind shrieking through the flak holes, we raced down, down, for that beautiful layer of clouds. We made it The remaining FW's didn't attempt to follow us into the clouds. Somehow or other, we limped home on our two engines and landed at an English airport near the coast. Our wounded went to the hospital, and have now recovered. Bentirutk as great a bombardier as ever served in any man's army was gone, but the other nine of us will soon be flying again. Our trip back was as big an adventure ad-venture as our fight with the FW's. Coming out of the cloud cover, we were down to 600 feet when we saw the ocean again, then a large town, which I recognized as Brest, one of i the most strongly fortified places in France. I pointed the ship straight over Brest. We were so low that we could see people staring up at us, but there were no fireworks. Crossing the harbor, we passed right between two German destroyers destroy-ers at anchor. They could have blasted us to blazes. |