Unbroken_ A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption - Laura Hillenbrand [47]
Louie rotated the dead turret by hand and Mitchell climbed out. The gunners kept firing, and Super Man trembled on. There were still two Zeros circling it.
——
In the top turret, facing backward, Stanley Pillsbury had fearsome weapons, twin .50-caliber machine guns. Each gun could fire eight hundred rounds per minute, the bullets traveling about three thousand feet per second. Pillsbury’s guns could kill a man from four miles away, and they could take out a Zero if given the chance. But the Zeros were staying below, where Pillsbury couldn’t hit them. He could feel their rounds thumping into Super Man’s belly, but all he could see were his plane’s wings. Fixated on the nearest Zero, Pillsbury thought, If he’d just come up, I can knock him down.
He waited. The plane groaned and shook, the gunners fired, the Zeros pounded them from below, and still Pillsbury waited. Then Louie saw a Zero swoop up on the right. Pillsbury never saw it. The first he knew of it was an earsplitting ka-bang! ka-bang! ka-bang!, a sensation of everything tipping and blowing apart, and excruciating pain.
The Zero had sprayed the entire right side of Super Man with cannon shells. The first rounds hit near the tail, spinning the plane hard on its side. Shrapnel tore into the hip and left leg of tail gunner Ray Lambert, who hung on sideways as Super Man rolled. The plane’s twist saved him; a cannon round struck exactly where his head had been an instant earlier, hitting so close to him that his goggles shattered. Ahead, shrapnel dropped Brooks and Douglas at the waist guns. In the belly turret, two hunks of shrapnel penetrated the back of Glassman, who was so adrenalized that he felt nothing. Another round hit the passenger, Nelson. Finally, a shell blew out the wall of the top turret, disintegrating on impact and shooting metal into Pillsbury’s leg from foot to knee. Half of the crew, and all of the working gunners, had been hit. Super Man reeled crazily on its side, and for a moment it felt about to spiral out of control. Phil and Cuppernell wrenched it level.
Clinging to his gun as the shrapnel struck his leg and the plane’s spin nearly flung him from his seat, Pillsbury shouted the only word that came to mind.
“Ow!”
——
Louie heard someone scream. When the plane was righted, Phil yelled to him to find out how bad the damage was. Louie climbed from the nose turret. The first thing he saw was Harry Brooks, in the bomb bay, lying on the catwalk. The bomb bay doors were wide open, and Brooks was dangling partway off the catwalk, one hand gripping the catwalk and one leg swinging in the air, with nothing but air and ocean below him. His eyes bulged, and his upper body was wet with blood. He lifted one arm toward Louie, a plaintive expression on his face.
Louie grabbed Brooks by the wrists and pulled him into a seated position. Brooks slumped forward, and Louie could see holes dotting the back of his jacket. There was blood in his hair.
Louie dragged Brooks to the flight deck and pulled him into a corner. Brooks passed out. Louie found a cushion and slid it under him, then returned to the bomb bay. He remembered having turned the valve to close the doors, and couldn’t understand why they were open. Then he saw: There was a slash in the wall, and purple fluid was splattered everywhere. The hydraulic lines, which controlled the doors, had been severed. With these lines broken, Phil would have no hydraulic control of the landing