Andy Rooney_ 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit - Andy Rooney [25]
They said no.
The little lights on the instrument panel had been on a long time. No gas, they winked. No gas, no gas, no gas. Jersey Bounce Junior settled to the Channel, mushed toward the wave tops as the last of the engine’s power died away. They hit. The dinghies went out the hatches. Someone hoisted Vosler. Take care of Vosler, you guys. Right, got him. Take care. Take care.
Out on the wing of the sinking plane, the tail gunner, who had been wounded, started to slip down into the sea. Vosler was nearest. He couldn’t see, but he could hear the kid call for help, and finally his groping hand found the wounded man and held him for a long time until the rescue launch arrived and took them back to being warm and dry.
The doctors think that Forrest Vosler may be able to see enough but of one eye, the right eye, to distinguish the Congressional Medal of Honor they’ve recommended should be his for the day’s work in Jersey Bounce.
The gunners don’t like to think about what goes on in Dick Blackburn’s mind sometimes when he thinks about the targets that filled his ring sights the day of the Regensburg haul. Probably everything was all right. Probably . . .
It was on August 17, 1943, and the sun was hot and a big blob of flame up there with the formations of Fortresses heading for Regensburg and then on to Africa. In the tail of one B17 was Staff Sergeant Richard A. Blackburn, from Port Republic, Virginia.
There were fighters that day, more fighters than anyone in the Eighth Air Force ever had seen at one time. There were all kinds of fighters, though for the most part they weren’t the cream of the Luftwaffe, by any means. They were fighters from the inner ring of defenses, second-line fighters and third-line fighters. Somewhere along the route, as the Forts droned deeper and deeper into the Reich, the district luftfuehrer must have got worried. He must have figured this was an all-out affair. So he called out everything that could fly. There were Junkers 87 Stukas up there, and big four-engined Focke-Wulf 200s and half a dozen kinds of medium bombers.
It was rough, because there were such a lot of them, and it was a long way through the lanes of fighters, but the Fortress gunners were having a field day. And Dick Blackburn was having his share of the fun. For a solid hour and a half Dick tracked German fighters with his guns, opened up with short bursts as they came in, shot at single-engined jobs and two-engined Ju 88s and four-engined bombers pressed into emergency service. He sat there and shot at them and the squint in his eyes grew tighter and tighter because always there was that bright sun to stare up into and worry if it held more fighters.
Blackburn’s Fort got to Africa finally, and the crew had a hell of a time bartering with the Arabs, whom they learned to call “Ay-rabs,” and getting their tired plane ready for the trip back. But Dick Blackburn didn’t have much of a time. He didn’t say much, just spent most of the days they were there stretched out on his back in the shade of the B17’s wing, closing his eyes against even the reflection of the hot African sun.
When the ship took off for England, Blackburn was back in his tail position same as ever, but still not saying much. He didn’t have much work to do on the way to the target, an easy one, Bordeaux, and there wasn’t any enemy plane in the sky for hours.
Finally Blackburn saw what he thought was a German fighter bearing in on them. He started to press his microphone switch and then he wasn’t sure. It looked like one.
“Tail gunner to ball turret. Tail gunner to ball turret. Is that a Ju 88 coming in at five o’clock?”
“Are you kidding, Blackburn?”
“No. Is it? Is it?”
“Blackburn, that’s another Fortress just a little out of formation.”
When they were over the English Channel, and the danger was gone, Blackburn went up to the radio room. He picked up a package