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93 Chapter 10 It’s Not All Combat . . . October–November 1944 The Darden crew had started flying their combat missions in the number seven position, often called “tail-end Charlie,” at the extreme back end of their box. They flew about as close to the other aircraft as they had practiced back in the States. No one had criticized their formation flying, and they had been moved farther up in the formation to where they were generally flying in the number three position on the left wing of the lead aircraft, so they assumed their formation flying was satisfactory. However, they were somewhat disgusted when early one morning Corporal Cutler came by their tent just as they were preparing for a lot of work in connection with the building of their stone house. Cutler looked uncomfortable as he delivered the news. They were scheduled for a practice formation at 1030; be sure to be on time, because Major Mason was going to be personally leading the formation. More close order drill. Lamar turned to Darden. “Darden, I don’t know about you, but I am getting mighty tired of this practice formation bit. If we don’t know how to fly formation by now, we are never going to learn. Let’s fly so close to Major Mason today that he will be afraid to fly in the same formation with us again.” Darden grinned. “Okay, Partner. We can do that, for sure.” Airborne, Darden and Lamar eased their heavy bomber alongside the left wing of the lead bird flown by Maj. Keith Mason, the 760th Operations Officer . Over the radio came the call to “Close it up, close it up. Keep it tight.” They grinned at each other, and finessed the cumbersome 24’s right wing to within ten feet of the fuselage of Mason’s Liberator. They were not flying high enough to require oxygen masks, so Lamar could easily see the expression on Mason’s face. Lamar remembered he usually had a smiling face, but today he was not smiling. 94 The Final Mission of Bottoms Up They saw the pilot look over his left shoulder, and continue to do so for the next two and a half hours as they made large, ungainly turns in the bright blue air over southern Italy. They chuckled and snickered in gleeful appreciation of his discomfort at always finding them glued to the same hair-raising distance. Eventually, the formation spread out to land back at base, and the two lieutenants anticipated the call at debriefing for more air between the aircraft. But for several days, Lamar heard nothing from Mason. Finally, he asked Darden if he had heard anything from the ops officer about what they considered the foolishly close formation flying. Darden shook his head. “Not really. I did see him over at the Panther’s Lair the other evening and he said to me, ‘Do you fellows like to fly that number three position?’ I told him as far as I was concerned it was all right with me. He said, ‘Fine, we will leave you there, you are the only crew that can fly it right and we will just leave you there.’” Lamar was deeply disappointed. Fortunately, that was the last practice formation he and Darden were to fly. They were given other, more enjoyable, flying jobs.1 For a week and a half after the Salonika mission, the 460th Bomb group had a bit of respite. Weather and other factors kept the heavy Liberators on the ground for the most part. The Darden crew picked up some new flying duties, tasks which built up their flying time without exposing them to the hazards of combat. Presumably, every hour in the Libs increased their proficiency, their familiarity with the myriad systems of the complex airplane, and ramped up their odds of survival. It was a good theory. Darden and the crew were assigned to test-hop arriving replacement aircraft . This was not bad duty. Since the airplanes had essentially been test-flown for many hours from the U.S. across the Atlantic and North Africa before arriving in Italy, it was largely a pro forma task. Each system was tested, the engine performance noted and recorded, and the suitability for combat judged. Minor discrepancies were listed on the Form 1-A. All in all, routine work but enjoyable . No mission credit, but they were never shot at, either. A more enjoyable new duty to which...

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