Evening star., 1943-04-25
Attack and Vengeance! The Story Of Torpedo 8

smoke. He hadn't the time to worry
about the dive bombers anymore,
just hope that they would be riding
their fly ball down into the glove
when the time came, and hadn't the
time to worry about the Zeros COM
ing up. That was his gunners' job,
to worry about them, and he'd know
soon enough that the zeros were
there when he heard the machine
guns working. That was one sound
he would surely hear, the soft in
sistent chugging of the machine
guns.
Swede steered straight for the
anti-aircraft fire. That would keep
the Zeros off. They'd run around
the anti-aircraft fire, he thought,
and wait to pick him up when he
came out of it. This anti-aircraft
fire was his funeral, he thought, why
should they stick themselves into it
and heard whiplike crack smack
viciously against his ears so loud
that the flesh there seemed stung.
The plane flew out from under his
hands. The tail went up, the. nose
down, then sideways, then up and
down at once, wiggling, as the con-
cussion from near burst tossed it
In its irresistible currents.
Swede fought the plane back into
control and waited single, endless
moment to see how it flew, whether
it was limping or not. 1t flew with
strange whistling sighings from
wind cutting itself in jagged shrap-
mel holes, but there was full
throated uproar in its going and it
flew straight and powerfully. like an
arrow. "Okay," thought Swede and
got the plane linking and cork
screwing again and wrinkled his
brow and thought, "Whew," and felt
sweat squash in the wrinkles.
The cloud to hide behind seemed
a long way off. 1t didn't seem to
be getting any closer SWede won-
dered, agonizingly, if the purple
colored air of the twilight had
thrown off his depth perception and
made him make mistake, if they
would not have had a better chance
going right head-on into the target
instead of swinging around and
coming in astern of it. But that
cloud had looked so good Maybe
that was what had happened The
cloud had looked so good, he had
wanted so much that it be in the
right place, his hunger for that
had thrown his Judgment off and
warped his depth perception, and
maybe even made him put cloud
where there wasn't any at all.
Dive From Clouds.
They were in the middle Of the
antiaircraft fire now. It was whip
ping and smacking all around them,
ahead and under and over and be-
hind them and Swede worked on
that. He threw his plane where
the last shells had burst, figuring
the gunners would correct their
aim to where he had been and did
that dozen times, each time being
right, and then suddenly was in
blank, utter quiet behind the cloud.
He looked around moment. The
rest of the planes were right behind
him, rubber-close in the attack for
nation they called ABC. ct would
be no service to Torpedo at the
present time to describe the attack
formation they favor and use most
often, but If you've ever seen
football backheld start moving for
a lateral play where the idea Is,
If one is knocked over, another
would be near him to take over the
ball, then you will have the general
idea of an ABC attack The Zeros
were out back somewhere, pouring
on the Goals and gaining.
Swede took all this in at glance
and took in the whole purpled-ove
peace of the air behind the cloud
and then wheeled steeplv into
screaming power dive and hurtled
into the clouds. The last thing he
saw was the flight wheeling with
him and, behind them a Zero with
its tracer bullets reaching out ahead
o fit like wildly flinging fingers.
Then the cloud closed around him.
The cloud flew up to the window in
streams of scud at first, then thick
ened and pressed against the win
dow and muffled the plane and thin
ned again, thinning out into scud
that raced like birds and finally.
abruptly was no more. They were
out in the open now and had hit
their approach right on the nose.
tTo Be Continued.)
(Copyrieht, 1a43. by the North American
Newspaper Alliance, Inc)