The Paper • Page 9 • April 24, 2014
HUGE SPORTS LOUNGE!
Watch NBA, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL UFC, HOCKEY, SOCCER
52 BEER ON TAP! S
760.746.4444 www.MikesBBQ.us
days later the man is watching TV when his wife bashes him on the head with an even bigger frying pan, knocking him unconscious.
Upon re-gaining consciousness the man asked why she had hit again. Wife replied. phoned'
'Your
horse
‘Flying Machines’ Cont. from Page 3
attack did I understand how hard it had been for those kids 70 years ago. Twenty thousand feet above a hostile country, they defended their thinskinned bombers from the Luftwaffe’s savage fury. The skies over Germany were a deadly web of black flak bursts and falling planes.
I closed my eyes and saw only the past, felt the heaves and twists of the huge plane as it flew towards its target, heard the muffled ‘whump!’ of exploding 88mm shells and felt the impact as red-hot shrapnel sliced through the aluminum skin. I felt and heard the heavy chatter of the machine guns and calls of ‘Coming in! Three O’clock low!’ over the interphone.
Out the starboard window I saw the Mustang flying beyond the wingtip. I felt like saying ‘Hi little friend! Go get them!’ Leaning forward I saw the long, graceful wing with its two mighty radials thrumming out their combined 2,400 horsepower to move the B-24 at 160 miles per hour. 3,000 feet below the landscape of Southern California rolled past in a carpet of tan and green. But again my mind went back to August 1943. The hills and
fields of central Romania swept past in a blur only fifty feet under the belly. Ahead were the smokestacks and towers of the Ploesti refineries. Far off on both sides were more than 170 other Liberators wingtip to wingtip. It was only the B-24 that could fly the nearly 1,500 miles between Benghazi and Ploesti. The Liberators drove their way through a sky alive with hot metal and black smoke.
When the 16-hour flight was over, 53 bombers had been shot down, taking more than 400 men with them. Operation Tidal Wave had been a disaster, but it made the Liberator famous.
I headed back to the tail turret and imagined being the last man in the plane, guarding it from pursuing Focke-Wulfs and Messerschmitts. It was small and cramped, a tiny Plexiglas and metal cocoon armed only with machine guns and one young life. Passing through the long bomb bay, I held the twin ropes strung along the catwalk. The wind screamed past me until I made it to the forward bulkhead. Above me was the flight crew, calmly shepherding their huge charge on its course. Seventy years ago other men, much younger, guided other B24s to places like Bremen,
1356 W. Valley Pkwy.
N
wy
Escondido
Aut
oP
kwy
5
Open Daily at 11:00am
Great Food Great Drink Great Fun
I-1
Dine-In or Take-Out
FAMILY RESTAURANT
Pk
ESCONDIDO All Natural Mesquite Grilled Ribs, Chicken & Steak
‘Chuckles’ Cont. from Page 8
(5) 12 Foot Big Screen TVs Throughout the bar, Plus New 18’ Screen! You Will Not Miss a Moment of Action.
y
L EVE SPECIA PARTIES, Y A BIRTHD MEETINGS, S S E BUSIN TRONIC ELEC ADS OVERHE LE 60 PEOP
le
BOX OWNER NTS,
W .V al
‘Local News’ Cont. from Page <None>
The Action Is Always On!
9th
Ave .
Wilhemshaven, Naples, W e i n e r - N e u s t a d t , Schweinfurt, Regensburg, Berlin and Ploesti. Place names hardly pronounceable to the farm boys and city kids of the Great Depression, they have long since been burned into the collective memories of the ‘Greatest Generation.’
In Liberators that flew from Pacific islands, Libya, Italy and England, men like Killer Kane, Addison Baker, Lloyd Hughes, Jimmy Stewart, Louis Zamperini, Bob Cardenas and thousands more became legends in life and death. Above and behind the pilots the upper turret mount scanned the sky overhead for German fighters.
Under the flight deck I crawled past the retracted nose wheel into the forward compartment, the domain of the bombardier. Here, seated uncomfortably behind his Norden bombsight, a young officer waited for the shuddering bomber to pass over the target. When he saw the crosshairs intersect the building or railroad yard, he flipped a switch, releasing four tons of high explosive from the Liberator’s belly. At that moment, the ten brave boys had done their job for Uncle Sam. Now they were flying for
‘Flying Machines’ Cont. on Page 10