“Flying Fortresses could do the same job from a land base and do it better,” Chick Enders remarked. “We’ve done skip-bombing with Rosy O’Grady. The trouble is that she’s too big a target, and she cost a quarter of a million dollars to build.”
“Not only that,” Barry Blake put in, “but all the forts that can be spared for this job will be coming right in after us to hammer the Jap gun emplacements in the hills. That’ll be high-altitude bombing, if the weather is right.”
“The weather,” agreed Curly Levitt, “is the big risk. There has to be enough fog or low-hanging cloud ceiling to hide the carrier from Jap patrol planes, right up to the last minute. But over the island itself our forts and Liberators will need visibility unlimited. If the meteorologists have guessed wrong, it will be just too bad.”
That was true enough, Barry thought, but it didn’t worry him. The brass hats who had planned this secret attack so painstakingly must know what sort of weather they could count on. Meteorology was almost an exact science nowadays.
He caught sight of Glenn Crayle talking with his co-pilot at the other side of the room. Barry could not hear what they were saying, but Crayle’s cocksure manner suggested his familiar, boastful line. Probably the sleek-haired pilot was thinking of this Amboina job as offering a splendid chance to make the news headlines. At any rate, thought Barry, the fellow must be a first-rate pilot, or he’d never have been picked for such a mission.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
OUT OF THE FOG
Flanked by two cruisers and four destroyers, the big flat-top plowed through rain and fog across the Arafura Sea. Her speed was low, since the weather front was moving slowly. She must stay behind its dark curtain until the moment came for her planes to take the air.
Since the B-26 bombers were not fitted to return to her decks, there could be no practice take-offs. However, everything possible was rehearsed. A special catapult had been built to insure each bomber flying speed before it reached the end of the flight deck. The engines were checked and tested and tuned until their engineers could swear to their perfect condition. The new bomb releases were objects of especial care. At the last crucial second as they swept toward the target, nothing must go wrong.