to be any picnic. One Thunderbolt went down, slashed open by a cannon shell. No chute blossomed out beneath it as it twisted and rolled toward earth.

There were too many Me's and Focke-Wulf fighters. They were everywhere, stabbing and diving, slashing at the bombers and ganging up on the fighters. Stan realized that his flight should have had at least thirty planes in it, and he began to suspect someone back at headquarters had marked this down as an experiment, figuring upon losing only six planes.

Another Thunderbolt went down and then another. O'Malley was still taking care of himself and Stan was doing all right, but his gasoline gauge was leering at him and its needle was rolling steadily around. When the fourth Thunderbolt broke into flames, Stan knew it was time to go home. He probably would not make it, but there was a chance.

"O'Malley! Stan calling. Head for home!"

Looking through the smoke and the bursts of flak, Stan saw nothing of O'Malley. The Irishman had been in the midst of a fight a few minutes before, but now he was nowhere to be seen. He checked the bomber flight. It was going in for its bombing run and the batteries on the ground knew just where the automatic pilots would take over for the run. They were putting up a box barrage at that point.

The Forts and the Libs rode into that blazing inferno of fire without wavering or shifting formation. Stan saw bombs dropping, sticks of big fellows. A Fort directly below him was plowing ahead when a puff of smoke enveloped its tail. The smoke swirled away and there was the Fort without any tail at all, only gaping holes where the rudder and the high tail had been. The Fort sagged over and went into a terrible dive. One after another chutes blossomed out until Stan had counted six. That was the number alive in the Fort, the others were dead.

Stan laid over and made a sweep, ducking in and out of the flak. The Jerries had pulled away and gone back to their fields for more ammunition and more gasoline for the interception of the Forts and Libs on their return trip.

Looking about, Stan saw nothing of O'Malley's ship. He headed for home with a grim frown on his face. Everything went well until he reached the channel. He met no German fighters and had a fair tail wind. But his gasoline supply was very low. The needle kept bouncing off the empty peg, riding clear, then dropping back. The English coast was a long way off.

Stan was flying at 

 Prev. P 21/95 next