Chapter 7

The medics showed up to haul John to the nearest hospital. We three, still wearing our flying gear, piled into Jack's car and followed them the two miles to the field hospital. As soon as John arrived at the hospital, he was moved into the emergency care section and gone over with a fine-toothed comb. We tried to follow. A nurse stopped us and told us to come back in a few hours. It would take that long to do what was necessary for John—he was headed for surgery to fix that compound fracture.

There was nothing we could do but follow her instructions. It was easy to see that John was in a bad condition, and would need a lot of work if his arms and leg were to be returned to good shape. Jack drove us back to base and we gave our report on the raid on the two balloons. We also told what we knew about John's accident. Col. Handly sent a courier to the hospital to wait for news about John. Meanwhile, he sent us into town to forget our sorrows.

The other two picked up dates while I spent my time with Connie. I was really feeling low about what happened to John, and we spent a few hours after supper in our special place in those isolated woods. All we did was talk, and that was mostly about what we wanted to do after the war. Like most women of the time, Connie's ambition was to find the right man and to settle down into wedded bliss. Frankly, I did not know what I was going to do, but I did know that it had nothing to do with farming. I was thinking seriously about staying in the Army and flying if I could. However, I had no idea if the Army would even exist after the war was over.

Connie was ever the practical one, and she kept track of the time. She managed to get me back to base in her car, and the first thing we did when we got there was to try to find out about John's condition. The word was that he was in bad shape, but he was going to live. The doctors were able to take care of his broken bones with little trouble, but the last flight he made did do some damage to his spleen and one kidney. They were going to send him to Paris for X-rays of his insides because his spleen might have to be removed. The situation with his kidney was still open to question, and it might be as much as two weeks before they had an answer on that.

When I finally did get to bed, I tossed and turned for most of the night. I was not well rested when I got up the next morning, but I was still functional. We were issued a replacement for John and sent on another balloon busting mission. Those damned things were just too effective to be left alone.

The new man, Eddie Wolf, was not an experienced balloon buster, so he was assigned to fly cover for me until he learned the ropes. Jack and I gave him specific instructions about what he was to do to cover me before we took off.

Sgt. Alfred had checked and double checked my bomb racks to make damned sure that John's accident would not be repeated with my plane. I really couldn't tell if his main interest was in protecting me or protecting "his" airplane. I didn't care, because the result was the same. He did assure me before we took off that he and his crew had done everything humanly possible to insure that the bomb rack was going to work correctly. I believed him.

Because Eddie was a new man with our flight and pretty much a new man with combat over France, we were given a short mission on this day. We were going back to hit the place where we had made our first raid as balloon busters. The problem with this was that it was relatively near a German air base, so we could expect to meet D. VIIs when we finished our attack, if not before.

We had the advantage of good lighting from our point of view, so we were able to start our attack without being detected beforehand. Jack and Bill went in to attract the attention of the AAA crews while Eddie and I went upstairs. I had told Eddie exactly what I planned to do so that he would not be caught by surprise. I lined up my attack and went in as I normally did. I dropped two bombs from 800 feet relative altitude and pulled away.

For some reason, one of my bombs missed the balloon, but the other one did its job. There was a big plume of blue fire as I was getting the hell out of there. Eddie later admitted that he was startled by the size of the blue flame that erupted from the balloon, but I noted that he was not so distracted that he failed to see the eight D. VIIs headed in our direction.

Dammit, 8:4 is a good way to get killed. I was able to signal Jack what Eddie had spotted, and Jack pulled us out of the area as quickly as possible. It turned out that Eddie's quick spotting of the D. VIIs gave us enough time to escape. We would probably not all have made it home if we had actually gotten into a dogfight with all eight of those German planes. That was what got Eddie an enthusiastic welcome into our little group. That evening, Eddie was introduced to the ladies at the Red Cross canteen, and he had a great time.

I, too, had a great time because I spent the evening with Connie. She was back on duty that evening, so I stayed with her at the canteen while the other three and their dates went to see if anything had changed in the little town. Connie and I talked, drank coffee, and danced until her shift was over. By then, it was time to take me back to base.

The other men showed up before curfew, so we were in good shape, though Eddie was a bit tired from his date. The two of them had rented a hotel room for a couple of hours, and Janice had hauled more of Eddie's ashes than he knew he had. Yes, Eddie had a very joyful introduction to the services offered by the ladies at the Red Cross canteen.

We made four more trips to bust balloons, and we had developed a routine. Eddie was brought in to go with Jack as the diversion while Bill flew cover and I dropped my bomb. Up to this point, the Germans had not seemed to catch on as to how we were being so successful at balloon busting. We knew that they were not stupid, so they were going to figure us out before much longer. We were kind of symbolically holding our breath waiting for that to happen.

In the meantime, Eddie got lucky with his pass at an observation balloon and set it on fire before I had a chance to drop my bombs. I dumped my four bombs at my second-favorite target: the 75 mm AAA guns. I had no idea what kind of damage I might have done because we scampered out of there as quickly as we could fly.

Back home, Eddie was feted at the bar for his splendid luck with the observation balloon, and it was not long before the whole base knew of his accomplishment. Eddie was so elated that he wanted to become Jack's permanent partner during the attack. Bill tried to reason with Eddie, but that day's success had gone to Eddie's head, and he would not be dissuaded. Okay, let him be shot at for a few days and surely he would change his mind.

We normally got back to the airdrome in plenty of time to get a pass for town for that afternoon and evening. Jack still provided the transportation into town, and I had a lot of time to spend with Connie. That week of visits was functioning as an opportunity for intense courting on the part of both Connie and me. We had discovered that we made a matched pair, and we both wanted intensely to become husband and wife.

We approached our respective COs about a wedding, and we received permission. We had to wait a month for all of the paperwork to grind through the bureaucracy, but we finally had all of the official permissions. That was important to me because I wanted to stay on good terms with the Army. We had a big wedding as far as the number of attendees was concerned, but there were few decorations or that sort of thing. The wedding was held at the Red Cross canteen, and everybody who could get off from duty attended. Even a few of the local French townspeople showed up, I think out of curiosity.