The last mission, p.1
The Last Mission, page 1
HARRY MAZER is an acclaimed author with numerous novels to his credit, including Snow Bound, Who Is Eddie Leonard? (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults), The Island Keeper, and Someone’s Mother Is Missing. He and his wife, novelist Norma Fox Mazer, are the authors of The Solid Gold Kid (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and an IRA-CBC Children’s Choice) and Bright Days, Stupid Nights. Harry Mazer is also the editor of the short story anthology Twelve Shots (an ALA Quick Pick), for which he wrote the story “Until the Day He Died.”
The Mazers have four grown children and divide their time between Jamesville, New York, and New York City.
ALSO AVAILABLE IN LAUREL-LEAF BOOKS:
WHO IS EDDIE LEONARD?, Harry Mazer
SOMEONE’S MOTHER IS MISSING, Harry Mazer
SNOW BOUND, Harry Mazer
STOTAN!, Chris Crutcher
THE CRAZY HORSE ELECTRIC GAME, Chris Crutcher
RUNNING LOOSE, Chris Crutcher
THE ISLAND, Gary Paulsen
THE CROSSING, Gary Paulsen
BRIAN’S WINTER, Gary Paulsen
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New York, New York 10036
“There’s a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere,” words and music by Paul Roberts and Shelby Darnell: © Copyright 1942 by MCA MUSIC, A Division of MCA, Inc., New York, N.Y Copyright Renewed. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
“Comin’ In on a Wing and a Prayer,” words and music by Harold Adamson/music by Jimmy McHugh, 1943. Used by permission.
Copyright © 1979 by Harry Mazer
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eISBN: 978-0-307-53660-0
Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press
v3.1_r2
For sharing their memories with me, I’d like to
thank these former Eighth Air Force flyers:
Bob Peel, Bob Welter,
Harry Grey, and Bill O’Malley
To the men I flew with in the 398th Bomb Group
of the Eighth Air Force during World War II,
and to my crew, Godfathers, Inc.
For the living: John F. Schmid,
William D. O’Malley, Jr., and Harry Grey.
And in memory of those who didn’t return:
PILOT Second Lt. Allan H. Ferguson, Jr.
COPILOT F/O John R. Halbert
NAVIGATOR Second Lt. Howard U. Feldman
ENGINEER Tech. Sgt. Joseph A. Heustess
TAIL GUNNER Staff Sgt. Byron O. Young
RADIO OPERATOR Tech. Sgt. Michael J. Brennan, Jr.
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Part I: The Crew
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part II: The Missions
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part III: Bail Out
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part IV: Home
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
PART I
THE CREW
“There’s a Star Spangled Banner waving somewhere” (Words and Music by Paul Roberts and Shelley Darnell, Leeds Music Corp., 1942.)
There’s a Star Spangled Banner waving somewhere
In a distant land so many miles away
Only Uncle Sam’s great heroes get to go there
Where I wish that I could also live some day
I’d see Lincoln, Custer, Washington, and Perry
And Nathan Hale and Colin Kelly, too!
There’s a Star Spangled Banner waving somewhere
Waving o’er the land of heroes brave and true
If I do some great deed I will be a hero
And a hero brave is what I want to be
There’s a Star Spangled Banner waving somewhere
In that Heaven there should be a place for me.
1
(October 1944. Alexandria Army Air Field, Louisiana.)
Jack Raab knelt in the shadow of the big bomber. It was early, but hot, and there was no shade anywhere on the airfield except under the wings of the plane. The six crewmen sprawled out under the B-17 were waiting for their officers. They were here for the last phase of training before going into combat. To Jack, the other enlisted men were everything he wasn’t—older, tougher, self-confident. None of them seemed nervous.
Jack rapped his feet together, pleased with his boots’ soft dark shine. You’re in the Army now, the boots said to him, and it came over him like a shock, the way it did each time. Fifteen years old, and in the United States Air Corps.
Jack pulled his coveralls away from his sweaty back. They’d been waiting for nearly an hour. He blinked against the gritty Louisiana wind and wiped the dust from his boots. Ankle-high, brown, laced-up, round-tipped GI boots, A solid size 12, double E. He moved his feet so the ox-blood polished surface caught the light. The night before he’d broken them in, GI’d them. Scrubbed them with a brush and a strong yellow soap, then let them dry to the shape of his feet, and finally polished them with ox-blood polish.
He had never really believed he would fool the Air Corps this long. The only reason he had was his size. He had always been big for his age. At fourteen he’d been taller than his older brother and nearly as tall as his father, who was just a hair under six feet. Jack had never been sick a day in his life, but his brother, Irv, had been sick a lot. Irv had been born with a rheumatic heart. Their mother was always after Irv to be careful. Not that she had anything to worry about: The only things Irv liked to do were read and argue.
Jack liked action. He was on the street all the time, playing games—stickball, handball, touch football, and war games. Ever since the war started Jack and his friends had been playing commando, dividing into two teams, the Nazis and the commandos. Jack was always a commando, and when he got one of the “Nazis” he really knocked him around.
Jack had been ten in 1939 when the Germans occupied Poland. His parents and their friends had cried. Hitler’s name was a curse. For years Jack’s mother had sent presents and packages of clothes to their relatives in Poland—aunts, uncles, and a raft of cousins. Their pictures were in the family album—poor people with wrinkled clothes, the women with scarves around their heads.
After the Germans marched into Poland, his mother’s letters and packages all came back marked Addressee unknown. Moved. No Forwarding Address. “Hitler’s rounding up the Jews,” Irv said. He was the oldest of the three of them, the expert on everything. “He’s driving the Jews out of their homes.”
“He calls us a sub-race,” Marcia, the youngest, said. “He doesn’t think we’re human.”
“I hate Hitler!” Jack clenched his fists. “I curse him.” As long ago as that he’d started dreaming about fighting Hitler.
He had nightmares about the Nazis coming to get his family. He’d hear them in the hall outside their apartment, their black boots striking the floor like the clop of horses’ hooves. He’d wake up in a sweat, his heart pounding, feeling as if he were suffocating. He could only stop the terror by imagining that he was ready for them.
He was waiting behind the door, feet spread wide, knees bent, arms apart like ice tongs. His hands had awful power. His fingers would snap Nazi necks like green beans.…
It was after the Army rejected Irv because of his rheumatic heart that Jack decided he was the Raab who had to go in and fight Hitler. One morning, after everyone had left the house, he took Irv’s birth certificate out of the bureau drawer and went downtown on the subway, to Grand Central Palace. He put the birth certificate down in front of the recruiting officer.
“Irving Raab?” the officer said, studying the paper.
“Yes, sir.” Jack stood tall and stifflegged, thinking it was good his father had taught him to say “sir” to his elders. “But everyone calls me Jack, sir.” He smiled, but he was scared.
“All right, soldier, in that line for your physical.”
Jack wasn’t worried about the physical. He was in perfect health, his feet weren’t flat, and he had 20-20 vision. He was only afraid that just by looking at him the doctor would know he was fifteen. But he passed every test that day, and the next day as well.
When his notice came, he got it from the mail
Later, waiting in Penn Station with the other recruits, every one older than he, Jack knew he was going to do something great in the Air Corps. He didn’t know what, but it was in him, an expanding feeling that made him throw back his shoulders and stand tall.
He had six weeks of basic training in Miami, a week sitting around in San Antonio while the Army decided what to do with him, then ten weeks in Nevada learning to be a gunner on a B-17. Now he was in Louisiana for eight weeks of intensive crew-training.
“Got a butt?” Chuckie O’Brien tapped Jack on the arm. His copper-colored hair was streaked black with sweat. Jack produced the pack of Camels he kept in his breast pocket, and they moved away from the plane to smoke.
Jack carried a pack of cigarettes with him at all times. It made him feel older. Taking a smoke, even taking the cigarette out of the pack, was something he was careful to do exactly right. Clip a corner of the new pack so just one or two cigarettes popped up above the top. Strike the match, cup the flame neatly between his hands, bend, light, inhale.
He lit Chuckie’s cigarette, then his own. He took a deep drag and let the smoke slowly out of his mouth. Smoking that way made him feel hard and tough. Commander Raab took a slow drag on his cigarette. Raab’s band of Jewish volunteers, mere boys, but all with hearts like lions, were deep in Nazi territory. Their mission: Destroy Hitler.
“Think those officers will ever come?” Chuckie said, fanning his flaming face.
When Chuckie and Jack met in gunnery school near Las Vegas and found out they were both from The Bronx, New York, they had become friends. Chuckie was short, red, and freckled all over like an Irish Setter, while Jack was tall, blue eyed, dark haired, and high colored. Chuckie came from the west Bronx, Jack from the east Bronx. Chuckie’s people had come here from Ireland, Jack’s from Poland.
“I swiped my first cigarette from my old man when I was ten years old,” Chuckie said. “If he knew, he’d have belted me good. But he never found out I was smoking till I was fifteen. He raised holy hell, but he couldn’t stop me.”
Jack nodded. He and Chuckie were alike in a lot of ways. “Nobody stops me when I make up my mind, either.” He wished he could tell Chuckie how he’d gotten into the Army, and what his real age was. What if he just came out with it? Hey, Chuckie, by the way, I’m fifteen years old. What do you think of that?
It was tempting, but better not. Too dangerous. Even if Chuckie meant to keep his secret, he might let it slip by accident. If the Army found that he’d lied to them, they wouldn’t just boot him out and send him back to his family. Maybe in the beginning, but not now, not after all the training they’d given him, and all the money Uncle Sam had spent on him. No, they’d throw him in jail and toss away the key.
A Jeep was approaching. “They’re coming,” Chuckie said.
“About time—” Jack started to say, but suddenly he couldn’t speak. What if the officers took one look at him, and knew he was a fake?
The first officer, the shortest one, came out of the Jeep like a jack-in-the-box. Behind him was another officer built like a bear. The last one, wrinkled, rumpled, and squinting as if he’d just gotten out of bed, came around the back of the Jeep.
All the enlisted men were on their feet now, lined up in front of the plane, not exactly standing at attention, but not slouching, either.
“I’m your pilot, Gary Martin,” the little whip of a guy said. “My copilot, Lieutenant Milt Held.” The bear smiled. “Our navigator, Lieutenant Sam Seppetone.” Lieutenant Seppetone raised his heavy lids. Lieutenant Martin looked from one enlisted man to the other, his eyes lingering for a moment on Jack.
Jack wiped his hands down the sides of his coveralls, reminding himself of other times he’d been scared and nothing had happened. The day he enlisted—that had been the scariest day of his life.
“This is going to be my first and last speech,” Lieutenant Martin was saying. “We’re a crew, at least we’re going to be one before we’re done. We’re going to fly combat together. All of us are in the same boat. I know there aren’t going to be any goof-offs on my crew. No screw-ups, no gold bricks. I don’t have to be an iron pants. None of you has been dragged into this. We’re all volunteers, and that means we’re here because we want to be. The Air Force only takes the best.” He stopped and looked at each man. “And we are going to do our best. We’re going to get everything we can out of our training missions.”
He counted off on his fingers. “Formation flying. Target practice. Practice bombing runs. Navigation practice. This is combat training. Everything is here, except the enemy. Every one of these training missions is vitally important. What you learn could mean the difference between life and death.”
Jack felt as if Lieutenant Martin were talking directly to him. Okay, let’s go! he thought. He’d forgotten his fear, he was all fired up. He couldn’t wait to get up into the air and start training. He was going to know his job as waist gunner inside and out. More than that!
He’d take Lieutenant Martin’s place if he had to. Every chance he got he’d stand behind Martin in the pilot’s compartment and learn how to fly. Just in case they were ever hit in combat and both pilots were hurt, Jack would step in. They’d be flying on just one engine, but it wouldn’t matter. He’d bring the big ship down to a safe landing.
We owe our lives to you, Jack Raab! Lieutenant Martin would insist the Air Corps make him a pilot. The newspapers would write up the story of the untrained Jewish kid who, alone, brought a B-17 down to a safe landing and saved his entire crew.
“Any questions?” Lieutenant Martin said.
The Jewish Kid straightened up proudly. No questions. All clear and ready to go, sir!
Lieutenant Martin crushed his officer’s cap back on his head. “You want to say anything, Milt? Sam? Anybody else?” He looked around. “Who’s my waist gunner?”
Before he could stop himself, Jack raised his hand. Kid stuff. He had to watch that. “Waist gunner, Jack Raab, sir,” he said, snapping to attention.
Lieutenant Martin looked him up and down. “You’re a big one, Jack.”
Jack started to laugh, then tightened his lips. He thought he laughed too much, something else he had to watch.
“Who’s my tail gunner?” Paul Johnson, a sharp-faced kid from Saginaw, Michigan, clicked his heels together smartly. There was a little smile on his face. Jack was sure Johnson was mimicking him.
Chuckie was the radio operator. The nose gunner was Fred Pratt. Old Man Pratt looked older than anyone else on the crew.
Dave Gonzalez, the ball-turret gunner, was from San Antonio, Texas. The other southerner was Billy Eustice, the flight engineer.
“Okay, you guys, let’s go,” Lieutenant Martin said. “Eustice, go over the plane with me. I want to get out of here, pronto. Too damn hot to hang around.”
Jack helped Dave Gonzalez pull the props through, then stood by with a fire extinguisher as each of the four engines was started. When the pilot gave the signal he ducked around the propellers, into the prop wash, to pull the chocks from the wheels.
In the plane he went forward to Chuckie’s radio room for takeoff. The three rear gunners always came forward for takeoff to ease the weight on the tail. Lieutenant Martin took the plane up smooth as silk. Jack caught Chuckie’s eye and made the V for victory sign. Lieutenant Martin was an ace pilot!
Once they were in the air he went back to the waist in the big middle section of the plane. Dave Gonzalez went down to the ball through the waist. Chuckie’s radio room was directly forward of the waist, and if Jack squatted down he could see Paul Johnson all the way in the back kneeling behind his tail guns.
There was a big window on either side of the waist, and a .50 caliber machine gun on a swivel set squarely in the middle of each window. Jack’s job was to operate both guns.
Jack plugged in the intercom and pushed the button. “Waist to pilot.” He wanted to do everything right. “Waist to pilot, over.”
Martin’s voice, thin and reedy, filled his headphone. “Pilot to waist, what is it?”
