Dave Dawson with the Eighth Air Force

by Robert Sidney Bowen

When he reached twenty he yanked the rip-cord ring and let his body relax. He was upside down then and looking toward the pale heavens, so he saw the pilot 'chute whip up past him, and pull out the silk folds of the main 'chute. And an instant later invisible hands seemed to grab hold of him, spin him over until he was feet first to the ground, and then jerk him slightly skyward. And right after that he was dangling comfortably at the ends of his taut shroud lines, and floating slowly toward the earth.

"Okay, Freddy, where are you, kid?" he murmured, and threw back his head to stare upward.

It was not until that moment that he realized that the Nazi fighters had come whirling back to try again to break through the Mustang umbrella and get at the bombers that were now some distance east of the Duisburg area. There they were, and there were the Mustangs, too, zooming and whirling all over the sky with guns yammering and pounding, and tracer smoke making a crazy crisscross pattern in the dawn air.

No more than a couple of seconds after Dawson stared upward he saw a Mustang explode in a tremendous flash of blood-red light as a dozen Nazi pilots caught it in a withering cross-fire. In nothing flat all that remained of the Yank fighter plane was a shower of bits smoking earthward. Icy fingers curled about Dawson's heart; and he slipped his 'chute this way and that in a frantic effort to get a look at that patch of sky directly above him but blocked out by the spread of his own 'chute envelope. By slipping his 'chute, however, he managed to get a look at it a section at a time. And when he had seen it all his heart seemed to stop beating, and become nothing but a solid chunk of ice in his chest.

For there was not a single sign of Freddy Farmer floating down by parachute anywhere in that tracer bullet and flak burst-filled sky. There wasn't even a sign of a Mustang plunging earthward. His own had struck solid earth by now, but there was no other Mustang, that might be Freddy's plane, diving earthward. There was nothing but the showering debris of that one Mustang he had seen blasted into oblivion with his own eyes.

"Freddy!" he choked out. "Freddy, boy, was that you? Did they nail you as you rolled over to bail out? Oh, dear God, please, no! Please, no!"

Hot tears stung the backs of Dawson's eyes, and for a moment or two everything was just a great swimming blur before him. He ripped up his goggles, brushed both eyes with his hand, and peered at the air above and about him. He saw two Nazi planes, and one more Mustang, go hurtling earthward in a mass of flame, but there was not a soul in the air, save himself, floating earthward by parachute. All the other pilots, Nazi and Yank alike, had been killed in their pits, or so wounded that they were unable to throw themselves clear of their blazing planes.

"Freddy, boy, where are you?"

Dawson's own words echoed back to taunt him. In that moment he felt as though a part of him had actually died. And presently it took all the courage and will power that he would ever possess to stop scanning the heavens for a sign of Freddy Farmer, and give all of his attention to himself. He was close to the ground now, and if he was to carry out his end of the job, and touch earth close to that large factory, he would have to forget all about Freddy Farmer's fate and concentrate on himself.

In spite of his determined efforts to do just that, it was quite impossible. No man on earth could have given every thought to himself, had he been in Dave Dawson's shoes. A memory picture of that single Mustang exploding into bits was constantly before his eyes. In the matter of seconds countless memories of Freddy Farmer paraded across his brain. It all seemed to sap the strength right out of his body; to turn his muscles to rubber, and his bones to jelly.