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24. Nürnberg
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Nurnberg Meanwhile, on October 3, we flew to Nlirnberg carrying frag bombs, the kind that were bound in clusters by straps and that became armed when a small charge broke the straps after release. Nobody liked them. You had to tiptoe around the airplane before you got in. I can't remember why we even had them. Maybe it was to crash a party, a reunion ofthe ghosts ofHitler Youth at the Nazi Stadium in Nlirnberg where they used to whoop it up back in 1938. It was a routine mission. The weather was clear, the flak was soso ; all pretty routine except that we blew a tire on takeoffand veered off the runway. The gear didn't collapse, but we got rather deeply mired down. We all carefully, very carefully got out and tiptoed away. Who knew, maybe those frags were hanging there loose. I didn't envy the armament guys who had to unload them. Out went the rest of the group while we were carted off to a distant hardstand where a spare B-q was kept for just such an emergency . It had a load of 250-pounders, which I f~lt a lot better about. Also it had been gassed up and guns installed. It didn't have a mickey, but no matter; it would be clear all the way. We got a substitute ball gunner, and Strong stayed home. Mter a brief conference with the Operations officer, we climbed aboard. I think Locher was our guest copilot. My problem was to calculate where the group 155 Return from Berlin would be out over the Channel by the time we could get there. I still have the log of that flight, and one entry says, without elaboration, "after Lowestoft, circling to wait for formation." We landed at 1604 with surprisingly little battle damage for such a prestigious target, and after formalities, I had a quite decent chow at leisure. Except for the blown tire and the fragbombs, that morning, nothing had happened during the day to strike fear in my heart. I caught a jeep ride back to the squadron area and found that I had not been posted, nor had I expected to be. I'd flown no missions back to back as lead. It was already well into fall at that latitude, but an Indian summer day, if you could call it that in England. Most of the clouds had moved east, and after awhile there would be a red sunset. I'd not been to the Landscape for over a month, not since Lispeth had gone to Kettering to be "happy as a lark." But today the fall colors would be golden, a good way to remember the place, and I was thinking of endings, though perhaps prematurely-there would be five more missions-but the solipsism seemed to have worked its magic so far, and clearly my ARMA had been correctly foretold. Occasionally a crew would go down on its last mission; a bad roll of the dice, but if I shook mine carefully, and spit on them, they'd land right. I shuffled through the tall yellow grass past Yokehill Farm to get to the hillside where I used to sit and watch the wind waves in the barley, and to be "surprised" by Lispeth. The field had been harvested , but the breeze moved in the autumn weeds, and there was an exceptionally nice sunset. It soon got chilly in the twilight, the kind of chill that comes before you notice it, and suddenly you'd hunch your shoulders and zip up your jacket and think about a scotch at the club. The next morning I got up at a reasonable hour, it must have been about 7:30, and went down to the mess hall for a leisurely breakfast. There had been a mission sent off early, and some of the stuff was 156 Nurnberg warmed-up leftovers. Porter and John, who still lived with us, had been given the flashlight wake-up call at about 2:00, and Russell was still sacked our, so I was on my own. I seldom saw Lewis on our off days, and we did little socializing. After breakfast I wrote a letter to my mother. I tried to do that once a week to assure her that I was still of this world, although she would have gotten one ofthose telegrams from Ulio ifI'd have come to a misfortune. The weather...