Evening star., 1944-02-27

center on that seaweed. Peter" No answer did you
get that Pete?" wasn't ordering him around. was
only telling him where to look.
Il see it, sure What the hell" he growled
That tone of his told me what would happen even
as banked off and then made my run for the weed.
You come down in long slanting dive in these
attacks. keeping straight on the target to give the
bombardier chance for his sight. The pilot has the
bomb bay lever opening the doors at the last moment
so their drag won't cut his speed.
The seaweed was in front of the planes nose then
beneath it. The bomb bay was open There was one
instant when the eggs should have dropped They
didn't, and we were swinging up high again, with Red
Harris looking back at the brown patch against the
blue water. He grinned at me. shaking his head.
There wasn't time to explain what knew. / called
Pete TRY it again. III give you better rn" Max
ing it sound as if the failure was mine
INSTEAD OF answering through the interoom he
stuck his face up from the compartment in front of
us and shouted, What the hell do you think you're
giving me. target practce?"
Tipped him down again with sudden jerk into
om dive This run was short Still it was long enough
for Pete to take his sight If he didn't WE'LL patrols
get monotonous sometimes And pilot should know
something about dropping eggs in case the bombar-
dier is out. He's got release button on top of the
control stick I'd had some practice with it and
learned a trick with this plane
Just before the last split second of diving with the
seaweed under her nose then at the leading edge of
the wing. hoped Pete would do his stuff Then the
last fraction of second came. My hand covered the
control top. Tex Hardy couldn't see it from behind
my back. Red Harris wasn't watching. No one saw
that it was my thumb that let the eggs 60.
We were close to the water, swinging up and over.
Ali at the surface looked like shattered glass.
Next instant white geyser and there some
thing in it that wasn't seaweed; then black oil slick.
Little Stevie yelled in the intercom from his gun
station: Man, Oh man! Have we got bombardierr'
Red Harris leaned down to shout into the compart-
ment, Good work. Pete!'
They kept up running line of high talk all the way
back to our base Pete didn't When we landed
I'm pretty sure he might have socked me if there
hadn't been crowd But the convoy patrol must have
seen the result of that attack. Word had come in
ahead of us, and our ground crew and even the
Colonel himself was there with hand for Pete.
He looked to me, though like bull ready to lower
his horns. got hold of him and roughed him out OF
the crowd. Keep your big mouth shut!' said.
He was mad, all right; but with confused feeling
showing in his face.
Away from the gang, talked before he could.
'Okay, go ahead and tell him! What's your story
going to be?" He stood there, blocked. Remember.
prodded him, you're going to spoil lot of fun.
Right now fight is damn proud of its bombarder."
But. you fool, l didn't -"
Maybe you couldn't hit a sub at three hun =
Three hundred! What's that? At ten thousand
I've hit -" He stopped.
grinned. That's what mean, chum. You could
have, sure You didn't because you were too sore at
me. What difference does it make this time. Next
time you will
OIR crew was waiting Red called Come on PeteH