Mission

“They look beautiful, don’t they?” I mumble under my breath.

Polzin, the navigator, front gunner, and bombardier, looks up at me from his seat in the front of the plane.

I pretend not to notice, as my head almost bumps against the glass cockpit window.

Half the flight is there, tapered back from our port wing. Three DB-3Fs and two SB-2s lumber in formation on that side, while on the starboard side another five bombers keep in a rough V formation. We’re making our way toward Osovets, just under sixty kilometers from our heavily damaged airfield.

How many of us will make it back today? Will we have enough fuel left for a second mission?

The eleven of us, all that remains of twenty bombers and the same number of fighters from our recently attacked base, are carrying out one-fourth of the mission we were assigned. Clearly, as if presented on a movie theatre screen of my cornea, I can see the orders as they were typed, just as I did when I read them the first time more than a half hour ago:

Bomb German positions in Osovets, Visna, Belsk, and Kleshchelye.

How can they expect us to bomb four cities with eleven lumbering bombers and no functional fighters?

“Keep a sharp eye out for Nazis!” I yell over the radio.

A sharp eye won’t stop them from tearing us apart, but we may take one or two down with us as we go.

Polzin turns away from his gun to talk toward me. “I saw we have a new gunner aboard.”

“Yes, he’ll be useful to cover the ventral hatch.” I reply, hoping to end the conversation there.

“Can never have too many gunners, I say!” Polzin offers with a yell so loud Gorostayev, our turret gunner, and the new kid can hear.

Smiling, I turn so I may see Goro in his turret. He’s not there.

He must be working with the kid to show him how to use the machine gun in the ventral hatch.

“Finish the lesson and get your eyes out!” I yell back to them in as friendly, yet commanding, tone as I can muster with an unseen smile on my face.

The kid did not have to volunteer to come with us.

Goro calls back “Yes, Comrade!” I look back toward his turret, where he’s taking up his position; he's smiling.

“We’re nearing Osovets,” Polzin blurts out over the comms.

YES, we’re actually making it to our target. Where are the Germans?

“We should be two minutes from the town,” Polzin declares.

We’ll have to pick out a target to bomb. Maybe we can find a German convoy or storage depot.

“Pol, any sign of a target?” I ask, hoping for a quick answer that will allow me to rapidly target, thereby reducing the chance the Germans will catch us before we’re able to do some damage.

“Line of vehicles 30 degrees starboard” he says, almost as I finish asking.

“Planes 4 o’clock!” Goro yells out.

Damn, let us at least get a few bombs off first!

Rapidly banking the bomber, I change our heading so we’re in line with the vehicles. The other pilots should follow me in on their own.

Machine gun fire erupts from behind me.

At least one kill, that’s all I ask!

Focusing on the vehicles, I yell, “Try to hit the lead!” hoping that Polzin heard me.

AAAACCCCCKKKK, AAAACCCCKKKKK, AAAAACCCCKKKK thunders behind me.

Suddenly the plane feels lighter, more responsive to my controls.

“Bombs away!” Polzin yells.

I bank up and to the left, hoping to give the kid a chance to fire at a German. As I do so, a Messerschmidt streaks across my line of sight, the gray and white cross of the Luftwaffe behind a black silhouette clearly visible on his green-bean-colored wings.

“There are hundreds of them!” the kid yells.

I hope you get to kill one before we’re done!

Craning my head to look back at the convoy, I can see a flame rising from where our bombs must have hit. Other flames, probably from the bombs of the other planes, begin to rise like spires of fiery duty above the small wood buildings making up Osovets.

ZZSSCCHHWWWIITTTTZZZZ

Metal begins ripping away from our starboard engine; small chunks of debris flying off in every direction as shell after shell begin finding their way into our right wing.

Here it is.

I swivel my head so that I can see across the horizon and above me.

There are only three others left.

We may not conduct another mission.

“I got one!” the kid yells. “Urrra!”

“Bragging ain’t gonna win the war, kid” Goro replies, probably figuring he pumped at least as many rounds into that Nazi as the kid did.

I’ll keep us up here for as long as I can, maybe distracting a few Germans from following what remains of our flight back to the base.

“Keep bagging’ em!” Polzin yells while manning his front mounted machine gun.

The starboard engine is flaming.

How much longer can I keep her airborne?

YYYAAAAAZZZZPPPHHHHHKKKKK

Blood explodes across the front of the plane, inundating my lower body.

Shells slam against the now shattering glass of the cockpit.

“KEEP FIRING! KEEP FIRING!” I scream.

Round after round careen across the cockpit as machine gun bursts echo from the rear of the plane.

Keep firing, Goro. Keep firing, Kid!

*****

Ilyushin DB-3F

http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/1940-1941/1940-41.html

Tupolev SB-2

http://www.lasecondaguerramondiale.org/aerei/aviazione-sovietica/497-tupolev-sb-2.html

This may sound familiar, as it’s related to the previous story (Orders).

The crews of the slow Soviet Ilyushin and Tupolev bombers stoically and honorably flew from their bases without the expectation of returning alive. None of the planes made it back from this mission. Luftwaffe Field marshal Albert Kesselring was quoted later as saying that shooting down the Soviet planes was as easy as infanticide. Within twenty-four hours, the Soviets had lost more than 2,000 of their front-line aircraft, including all their bombers. Kopets, at this point without an air force to command, committed suicide rather than face Stalin. The Germans lost 35 planes.

A Little Something

Between coughs she softly offers, “Make yourself at home, Sweetheaaart” from chapped lips complementing a face that could be young, yet looks aged by experience. Wrinkles fail to hide under a thin layer of cheap powder, with cheeks made falsely red by who knows what means.

She’s perfect!

Walking the darkened streets of a run-down, working-class Paris neighborhood on the Left Bank, I met Edith. She is among the many haggard looking and hardworking women striving to make a living from whichever occupying army’s young men happen to be in town.

As she closes the door to her room, she unwraps a red shawl from her shoulders, revealing winter-dry skin pressed hard under the straps of a revealing lingerie bra. Ripples of fatty tissue betray cooperation and accommodation to any and all who may offer calorie-rich foods in exchange for services.

“Please utilize the basin to clean,” she suggests while removing first her left, then her right black high-heeled shoes. Red stockings fit tight over her bulging legs. From a few tears protrudes more fatty tissue, as if trying to escape weaved imprisonment of fine fabric. 

Where would she have gotten such stockings?

Making my way over to the washbasin, I can’t help but look around the small cold room nestled on the fifth floor of a dilapidated walk-up, missing some units from bombs and other war damage. The structure matches its inhabitants. On the way to this room, I saw others in the hall: broken men, working women, starving children, all of them lice ridden, and coughing. Peeling wallpaper, dirty sheets on the bed and a crack in the ceiling tell a story that could be the same story Edith tells about herself: A once beautiful object ruined by the touch of war.

This may work!

Moving toward me from where she had been undressing, she twirls her red shawl atop the one light bulb centered in the ceiling. Its white hue quickly changes to reddish, illuminating the room in a soft seductive tint. Her approach slows as graceful strides offer a glimpse of a sensual and cultured past.

What was she before the war?

She reaches out her right hand to mine, grasping the cloth and my hand to help me wash my now bare chest. Our faces brush gently. She turns her eyes toward mine, stares at me directly, and coughs in my open mouth, coating my tongue with phlegm, which I quickly swallow.

“How sick would you like to be, my dear?” she asks while moving the damp cloth down to my left thigh.

How sick would I like to be? I wanted to get something to take me out of the war, but how much?

She sees I’m thinking, debating, contemplating. Removing the cloth from me, she runs it with force between her legs.

“Would you like to be out of the line or blind?” she offers, as if I were choosing a bottle of fine wine.

I don’t want to be blind, but getting out of the line should be good enough.

“Out of the line,” I declare with a sense of urgency as she raises the cloth toward my face.

She lowers the cloth before handing it to me.

“Rub this upon your genitals. That should do the trick.”

Looking down at the damp and soiled cloth, I wonder if my fingers are already contaminated.

I’ll have to wash my hands right away.

Her stare catches my pause.

“It’s alright my dear, it doesn’t hurt a bit,” she says as her hand guides mine toward my genitals.

She stares into my eyes while hand-in-hand we rub the damp cloth on my soft skin, making sure to cover the area as thoroughly as possible.

This feels surprisingly good.

Blue radiance emanates from her sensual touch and milky eyes.

I could love such a woman.

She coughs again; this time not on purpose. Phlegm falls upon my cheek, wetting my face before it drips down to my collarbone.

“That one is on the house,” she jokingly declares.

*****

Poster meant to deter soldiers from distractions

http://worldwartwo.filminspector.com/2013_08_01_archive.html

In war, people often take steps to protect themselves they would not otherwise have even considered. During World War II, a thriving trade in venereal disease plagued all armies. Men on leave would often prefer the companionship of infected prostitutes rather than healthy ones since soldiers could use illness to evade service at the front.

In 1944, the U.S. Army struggled to shut down the trade in coughed-up phlegm used to infect soldiers with Tuberculosis. The most grotesque problem, though, was the trade in gonococcal pus, which soldiers smeared into their genitals in the hope of ending up in the hospital. Those who were desperate rubbed it in their eyes, which often led to lifelong blindness. It wasn’t just American soldiers who participated in this trade, but those of all sides. Beyond the soldiers, there was a thriving black market for these items, as well as a solid supply base of desperately hungry women left behind by the ravages of war. War touches us in ways we’d never imagine, and sometimes would prefer to forget.

Hatikvah

“Gli Ingliesi son arrivati!”

Shouts coming from the street penetrate our crowded dark dust and soot covered basement cellar where I wait, nervously, with my sister and parents.

We look at each other through quiet eyes, too scared to make a sound.

“Gli Inglesi son arrivati! Gli Inglesi son arrivati!” echoes down to us again.

Small boys yell through streets where, just moments ago, German troops funneled through, on their way to battle.

Could it be a trick?

I look at my father.

His eyes reveal nothing in the almost pitch blackness of our cellar.

A streak of light flashes across his shadowed face from the crack in the wall revealing the sun-soaked day beyond our little make-shift bunker.

“GLI INGLESI SON ARRIVATI!”

They are nearby, it’s getting louder.

Straining my body so I may place my face next to my father’s, I ask in a whisper “What do you think?”

His eyes dart toward me.

Then, without a word, his head nods up ever so slightly; almost imperceptible in the darkness.

I head his order.

Without thinking because thinking would make me not want to do this, I begin to rise.

Moving my body toward the stairway, I step gingerly, hoping to make as little sound as possible as I peak my head out from the cellar entrance.

Could the English really be here?

Could the Germans really be gone?

As I creep up the stairs I see a man in a dark brown uniform crouching behind a makeshift barricade just beyond the cellar entrance.

A BRITISH SOLDIER!

Turning back to my parents and sister, I motion toward the soldier, whispering “Inglesi!”

Smiles rush to their faces.

We’re saved!

Just as I turn back to look again the soldier also turns, revealing a blue six-sided star on his left shoulder.

He is a Jew!

I gingerly rise out of the cellar, keeping my eyes on the soldier.

Perhaps I can connect with him, even though I do not speak English.

What would he know?

As I rise above the cellar, I begin humming the first few bars of Hatikvah, a popular Jewish poem turned to song I learned before the war.

“Daa Da Da Daaa Daaa Daa Daa Daa Da Daaaa”

He eyes me instantly, initially raising his rifle, then lowering it as I rise.

He begins humming along.

A shot rings out in the distance, which doesn’t phase him.

I flinch, but keep up the tune.

Together we hum “Daa Da Da Daaa Daaa Daaa Daa Daa Da Da Daaaa ”

After the first few bars the soldier begins talking to me in English.

I look at him, lost.

He keeps going, not recognizing I do not speak English until I begin humming again.

“Daa Da Da Daaa Daaa Daa Daa Daa Da Daaaa”

Then he stops.

My father rises from the cellar, saying something in yiddish I do not understand.

The soldier responds in yiddish.

They can speak to each other!

This English soldier and my Italian father, speaking yiddish, chat to each other as bullets crackle in the distance.

My father smiles, laughs, reaches out his arms, and hugs the soldier.

Other British soldiers begin peering out of crevices and from other street barricades.

They all have blue six-sided stars on their arms.

We are liberated by fellow Jews!

The shots become less frequent as the hugs and cheers grow.

Yiddish rushes forth from mouth to mouth as the soldiers talk with my dad.

I sit down next to the soldier, I first saw, looking up at him in awe.

Can this be how our war ends?

My father looks down at me, a smile on his face.

Yes.

Many Italian civilians were caught up in the battles to liberate Italy from the Italian Fascists and Germans during World War II. Among these civilians were a good number of Jews. In one instance, being Jewish is what enabled an Italian family to connect with a British soldier of the Jewish Brigade, as the Brigade liberated part of Florence. As quoted from Road to Valor by Aili McConnon:

On Via del Bandino, it was announced by hopeful shouting of local boys, “Gli inglesi son arrivati!” “The English have arrived!” Sitting in the cellar with his parents and sister, Giorgio Goldenberg crept cautiously out to investigate. He was startled to see a British soldier standing right on the street beside his building. On the soldier’s shoulder, he saw a Star of Daivd. Giorgio didn’t speak any English, but wanted desperately to communicate with this man whom he recognized as an ally. So he started singing, at first quietly and then loud enough so that the solder could hear him. He sang the melody of the Hatikvah, a popular Hebrew song that would later become the national anthem of Israel.

The solder recognized the song and burst forth in an excited flurry of English that Giorgio did not understand. Giorgio dashed downstairs to find his father and bring him to street level. His father and the soldier began to speak together in Yiddish. Giorgio watched them happily, a feeling of relief washing over him for the first time in years. “For me, this was the end of the war,” he said later.

Hatikvah later became the national anthem for the newly founded state of Israel.