Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [35]
I will never forget Brooks’s pleading and bewildered eyes as he stared up at me. I grabbed him by the wrists, and thanks to my weight training and a burst of adrenaline, I soon had him on the flight deck just below the upper turret.
The bomb bay was covered with thick reddish purple oil, meaning that cannon fire had penetrated the area on the starboard side and knocked out our hydraulic system. That’s why the doors wouldn’t shut. I realized then that we wouldn’t be able to raise or lower our flaps or landing gear, either, except by hand. And our brakes wouldn’t work.
I manually shut the bomb-bay doors and attended to Brooks, who babbled incoherently. When I looked at his back I knew why. Shrapnel had penetrated his sheepskin jacket and his head, leaving him bloody to the waist. I gave him a shot of morphine, put an oxygen mask on his face, set it for ten thousand feet, and did what I could to stop the bleeding.
Another crash above me sounded like cannon fire hitting the radio compartment. Then I felt something wet and warm trickle down my neck. I looked up at Sergeant Pillsbury in the upper turret; the shells had crushed his foot and peppered his leg with shrapnel. Twelve inches lower, and the metal fragments would have caught me in the head, had I not been kneeling over Brooks. What was left of Pillsbury’s toes dangled through his shoe. Blood spurted and dripped down on me. But Pillsbury didn’t cry out in pain. Instead, he screamed angrily and swung his gun toward the Zero as it made another pass, then madly triggered his twin .50s. Flames spurted from the Nip’s cowling, and he slumped back. I followed his plunge until he hit the drink.
The Zero pilots were almost like kamikazes, coming in so close. They couldn’t miss us and we couldn’t miss them.
I grabbed a medical kit, gave Pillsbury a shot of morphine in the leg, put a sulfa drug on his foot, and bandaged him. Then another round of fire shook us severely and Phil almost lost control. It took all the strength and expertise he and his and copilot, Lieutenant C.H. Cupernell, had to keep us airborne as shells ripped into the B-24’s waist.
More cries for help arose after the burst that had hit Pillsbury also shot-locked the flight-deck door. I gave it a couple of mule kicks, and it gave way. I hurried down the catwalk, then stepped into the waist section again. I thought I’d seen the worst of our situation, but no. The carnage was stunning. Four airmen—Douglas, Lambert, Glassman, and third pilot Nelsen, were all torn flesh and exposed innards, a blood-spattered scene. Douglas and Glassman, though critically wounded, still manned their guns as a resolute Zero pilot made a very close return pass over the starboard side. Glassman caught him coming in, and Douglas nailed his aft end as he passed over. The Zero went into a long spiral and then straight down as he entered Davy Jones’s locker. Thank God this was the last Zero. One more hit and we’d have joined them.
It seemed to me then that our battle with the three Zeroes had taken an hour, but in reality it probably took less than ten minutes. It was a fast-running game of staying focused on staying alive.
Staying alive…I had too many wounded men to take care of myself. I called Phil on the intercom and said, “This is more than I can handle. I need help.”
“I need Cup here to keep the plane from stalling,” he replied.
“This is important,” I shouted, and described the situation. Phil said he’d use his knees as well as his hands on the yoke to stabilize the plane, and Cupernell came aft. His eyes widened with disbelief as he took in the blood and guts, but he immediately tended to a lieutenant lying on the deck with his stomach ripped open. He was our extra passenger who had asked to come along to “see the fun.”
“Is he dead?” I asked.
“Not yet,” said Cupernell. He worked on Douglas’s leg while I treated Nelsen’s ripped stomach.