Return from Berlin: The Eye of a Navigator

8. Leipzig I

Leipzig I July 7,1944, 0100 hours by my watch, the earliest yet, number eight; twenty-seven more after this one. I probably did the arithmetic while counting sheep. Jardine was really mad. "Gedowdahere," he roared at the flashlight, loud enough to finish the wake-up call, and Russell set him off again with the same old stuff. "Hey John, didn't they ever tell you not to volunteer?" It was a set piece for John. ''Aw, Lockhart, fer Christsake, knock it off," he groaned after blowing his nose. "Just one more time, and that's it." "That's what?" asked Russell. Considering the ridiculous hour, speculation suggested Munich, but it turned out to be Leipzig, way the hell and gone over there, almost as far as Munich and twice as bad. Munich was a sentimental place for the Nazis' founding fathers, like Philadelphia is for us Americans, and worthy of sharp-tracking flak. But Leipzig was big business; aircraft and oil, and part of the Merseburg ring, a whole different ballgame. Somebody wouldn't come back. The flak would be a thousand-gun box barrage with lots of105S that made explosions the size oftwo-car garages. 73 Return from Berlin Bombing strike, aircraft assembly plant, Leipzig. At the crew chief's tent I tuned out the grousing and fondled the thought of Leipzig as art; a late-medieval town with tall Gothic churches, one where Johann Sebastian Bach played out his final years and where Mendelssohn dug him out ofhis musical grave and presented him to the world; better a concert maybe than a bomb run. But our target was not actually Leipzig. We were going to knock down an aircraft assembly plant outside of town where they made parts underground and put them together in cheaply made sheds. The P-38 recon photos showed a nearby runway they used to fly them away; altogether a rather attractive job from our employer's point ofview. It was a midsummer's clear day, and according to metro it would be all the way across Germany. Forming-up would be painless, even pretty. Coast-out would be Lowestoft, with coast-in at Dokkum in the north of Holland, where the Dutch would certainly be cheering for us, but quietly, very quietly. 74 Leipzig I Leipzig is eighty-five miles southwest of Berlin, overland almost all the way, where they could spring all kinds of surprises on you, like a new jet fighter, the Me 262, first I'd ever heard of. It could fly circles around a Mustang, but didn't have much range. Even so, if your group was the one they were practicing on, look out! Our IP was at Stassfurt, thirty-five miles north of the target, and our formation was already good and tight both for fighter defense and a concentrated bomb strike. If our lead bombardier was hot, we'd really wipe the place out; ifhe wasn't, all our bombs would be in a cornfield a mile away. A loose formation would put some on and some off, but Bowman wouldn't settle for that. We were one of the top teams in the majors, and our leads had the best circular error rate in the Eighth. As promised, the flak was violent. The 105S could really scare you, but even the 88s, ofwhich there were more, could kill you with one potshot. Our formation was a group commander's dream, but risky in a way. If your neighbor took a direct hit and blew up, he could bring you down with him. But since our whole purpose for being there was to take out the factory sheds and runway, with nothing but our solipsisms making any personal promises, there was nowhere to go but forward. It was great-grandpa Henry Cruger's frontal assault at Vicksburg all over again. Jardine, since we were following the leader, kept his eye on their open bomb bay and his finger on the salvo switch and, after what seemed like a whole combat tour, bellowed "Bombs away!" We lost three plane; nothing horrendous, well within the normal range, which had a biological equivalent. The loss ofparticular individuals was an inconsequential consideration unless they exceeded a percentage that would threaten the survival ofthe species. And I should also tell you that we did get a "shack" which bombardier cadets called the little wooden structure at the center oftheir training targets out in the sands ofNew Mexico. That is to...