"How many did you get?" O'Malley asked.

"Six for sure," Allison answered. "The real fun started when we headed for home. We had been plowing through flak as thick as a swarm of bees but we had been lucky. Two of our flight went down flaming and we saw the boys bail out. I thought we were slipping through pretty nicely when an Me winged us with an explosive cannon shell. After that we got hit plenty. We picked up a shell which went off inside our outboard engine. It started rolling smoke but no flames. Then a shell smashed the intercom system and communications went dead." Allison bit down hard on his pipe.

"Must have been tough," Stan said.

"We couldn't hold our altitude. We lost about a thousand feet a minute and nothing the copilot and I could do would hold her up."

"Sure, an' you did a good job of it gettin' in," O'Malley praised.

"When I couldn't talk to the crew I turned the controls over to the copilot and went aft. I got to the top turret man and told him to get the gunners together in the radio compartment. I figured we'd smack right down into the channel." Allison fingered his pipe and stared into the fire.

"I went back to the copilot and we fought her head. She sagged in over the coast and came right on home, smoking like a torch. As we came in, we found we had a belly landing on our hands, so we skidded her in. Poor Old Sal is a mess right now."

"Anybody hurt?" Stan asked.

"Bombardier got a piece of flak in his leg. The tail gunner had his greenhouse blown into his face and is in the hospital. I forgot to say we dumped our guns and everything else we could pry loose. I guess that saved us." Allison leaned back. "When you fellows going to shift over? This is the real thing."

"Sitting duck stuff," O'Malley snorted. "You jest sit there an' take it. You never fired a gun on the whole trip."

"No," Allison admitted. "But we bagged six Jerries and there was plenty of shooting. You should see my boys work those 50's."

"We aim to stir up a bit of excitement," Stan said.

Allison frowned at him. "You birds better remember this is modern warfare, not the Battle of Britain or the Pacific. They'll bounce you high and quick for breaking rules. This Eighth Air Force is big stuff now."

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