Read The Bomber Boys for Free Online

It was all abstract until you had experienced it firsthand. Tony also pondered if it would matter if the flak was light or moderate, if it was accurate.
    After the general briefing, the crews broke up into specific briefing sessions. Pilots grouped with pilots, navigators with navigators and so on. In each briefing, the men received details of what to expect on the mission and what was expected of them.
    A little later, Chart’s entire crew piled into a truck for the short ride out to the aircraft. The chill in the predawn air helped shake off any lingering sleepiness. Tony’s mission report indicated their aircraft for the mission was number 037. (The 305th used only the last three digits of a bomber’s serial number, for operational purposes.) She was a lethal beauty with seven machine gun positions, and she was sitting low from the weight of a full bomb load. Tony scanned 037’s armament again to reassure himself.
    Two single-barrel .50 caliber machine guns defended the nose—these would be manned by Tony and the bombardier. The nose was additionally armed with a twin .50 caliber chin turret. On top of the bomber’s fuselage, a few feet rear of the cockpit, twin .50 caliber machine guns protruded from a Plexiglas bubble, accompanied by a single .50 caliber poking skyward from the radio room. On each side of the aircraft, single-barrel .50 caliber weapons awaited their waist gunner. Beneath the B-17, only inches off the ground, was the sturdy Sperry ball turret with its twin .50 caliber machine guns. One more set of twin fifties stuck out of the tail section of the aircraft.

    Tony knew, in theory, that with the B-17G’s thirteen guns he and his crewmates could protect their bomber from enemy fighter attack in any direction. Of course, the pilots of the Luftwaffe had their own tactics and theories, not to mention some very advanced aircraft.
    One after another, each of Chart’s rookies climbed aboard and found his combat position. Jerry Chart would be sitting in the right-hand seat of the cockpit, serving and observing as copilot for this first mission. Carl Robinson took his place as flight engineer, directly behind the pilot and copilot. Climbing in the side door, Ken Hall went to the radio room. Tom Christenson assumed his waist gunner’s position, and Bill Goetz climbed into the tight quarters of the ball turret. Another crewman crawled through the little tunnel that led to the tail gunner’s space. George Wisniewski and John Cuffman were not on board for the December 24, 1944, mission.
    Tony waited for the toggler, John Stiles, to board, and then he pulled himself up through the little hatch under the nose of the bomber. Stiles went to the very front of the airplane’s nose compartment. Tony sat down at arm’s length behind the toggler at the navigator’s desk, which was really just a small wooden table that was attached to the left bulkhead. It was tight quarters, even for Tony. He and Stiles settled in and took in the view from the Plexiglas nose cone.
    The first 305th bomber lifted off from the Chelveston runway and disappeared into the foggy predawn sky. Thirty seconds later, another B-17 followed. Not until all the other Fortresses in the 366th Squadron had taken off did the pilot of B-17 number 037 rev the bomber’s four engines and point her nose down the runway.
    Tail End Charlie, Tony thought. Last in the formation. The new guys . . . the worst position. Dead last! It gave the term a whole new meaning.

    In General Curtis LeMay’s combat box formation, each squadron had a designated position to fly—lead, high or low. The last airplane in the low squadron was also the last airplane in the entire group. Tail End Charlie.
    The German fighter pilots preferred attacking either the lead aircraft (to disrupt the bomber formation) or the very last airplane because it was the most exposed. Tail End Charlie was an unenviable position that a crew could only graduate from by surviving there until an even