Cockpit BV-155 Yellow One, 43,500feet over Eastern France
Harmann screamed in rage and pounded the instrument panel with his fist. He'd seen the Fledermaus sweeping up to attack the enemy formation, seen it fire its rockets and miss. Then it had gone in to make its cannon attack. He'd hoped it would bring at least one of the monsters down to where the Vossies could get at it. But now it was a ball of expanding smoke where the tail guns on the bombers had brought it down. The bomber had shot it out the sky with casual ease. He'd hoped briefly to see a parachute but this high? That wasn't an option. The Fledermaus pilot had gone, had joined all the other thousands who had died today. And for nothing. The Ami formation was unscathed. Then Harmann narrowed his eyes. One of the aircraft, the one Schumann had tried to attack. The contrail behind it had changed. Instead of pearly white, it was now gray and black on the port side. And the aircraft was losing height. And speed. Perhaps there was a chance after all? He and the remaining BV-155s set out in pursuit.
Flight Deck. B-36H Texan Lady, 49,450 feet over Eastern France.
It was a pure female scream of agony that came over the intercom “He hurt me. He hurt me. Get me home. I want to go home. Take me home now. He hurt me” At another time the flight deck crew may have appreciated the impersonation but now they had too much to do. Martin had reported getting the kill but it looked like the fighter had got them. That desperation stall, flicking a whip-like stream of shells had scored. There was damage out to port, how much they didn't know but the engineer station was a sea of red lights and both pilots were fighting hard to keep control. Below and behind them Gordon and King were trying to isolate faults and work around damage so they could see what had been hit and what hadn't. Looking out to port, Dedmon could see that black smoke was trailing from number six engine, the outermost piston engine on the port wing. That one at least was on fire. Number five was trailing light gray but seemed to be running OK. He heard King dumping ethyl bromide into Number Six and saw the smoke thin and vanish. Fire was out but the engine was gone. What else had happened? They'd lost a lot of power, Texan Lady was drifting downwards.
“Sir, situation report. We have lost both jets and number six on the port side. Number five is hit but she’ll run smoothly at 50 percent setting. Number Four is undamaged. We have all the starboard side engines. We have skin damage on the port wingtip. How bad we don't know. Cut the speed, we're losing the structure.”
Dedmon cut power back and watched the altitude loss pick up. In addition to losing engine power, they also had increase drag from the damaged wing and, much more critically, had lost the lift from that area. That meant going downwards “Sixth Crew Member and Barbie Doll we have damage and are losing height. Continue on at this altitude and get home. We'll follow as best we can.”
“Sir, we'll come down with you, help screen you.”
“That's a negative Major Lennox. Come down with us and you’ll just be another target. Your priority is to get the data in your cameras and instruments back.” Dedmon flipped to another channel. “Mayday, Mayday. This is B-36 Texan Lady calling. We have been damaged by enemy fighter attack and are losing altitude. Our position is exactly 47 North 6 east. Altitude 49,300 feet. There are enemy fighters waiting for us we need escort Immediately.”
There was a click and crackle on the radio. Transmission conditions had been appalling ever since the bombing. Then a burst of static. “Texan Lady This is Foxtrot Hotel we are Navy F2Hs out of Valley Forge. We can be with you in 30 minutes. Our maximum ceiling is 43,500. Hold on until we get there.”
30 minutes, 43,500. Dedmon looked down at the engineering bay. ''What's our descent?”
'“Stabilizing at around 300 feet per minute sir, if my guess is right we'll be able to maintain 35,000 feet indefinitely.” That was OK; the plan had been to drop to around 30,000 for the return across the Atlantic, to get in under the Jetstream. But with those fighters hovering under them like buzzards, getting across France was going to be the problem. By the time the Navy F2Hs would arrive it would be too late.
“Texan Lady this is Colonel Trynn Allen in Guardian Angel. What is your maximum speed?”
“310 miles per hour. Any more than that and bits start to fall off.”
“Very good. We are orbiting Reims and will be closing on you at 410 miles per hour. That gives us intercept in 15 minutes. Can you hold out that long?”
15 minutes, they'd lose 4,500 feet. He quickly checked the instruments. They'd be at 44,800. How high could those fighters beneath them fly? “'Guardian Angel this is Texan Lady it’s going to be very close. The fighters behind us are long-wing Messerschmitts.”
“Don't sweat it. Call us if you-all get into trouble earlier. We can help sooner. Watch it though, the later we launch, the better it is for you.” Launch? What were these guys talking about? Dedmon couldn't resist it any longer. “Who are you guys Guardian Angel?”
“Three GB-36J. Guardian Angel, Sweet Caroline and Golden Girl, 509th Composite Group out of Stewart AFB, New York. Now come to course three-five-zero , say again three-five-zero. We are on reciprocal to you.”
Cockpit BV-155 Yellow One, 43,500 feet over Eastern France
Harmann was waiting patiently, the big bomber was coming down slowly but surely. For a wonderful moment he'd thought its wing mates were going to come down with her in an attempt to give her cover. B-29s had tried that, when one was crippled others would stay with it to protect it. Futile of course, just meant they all got shot down. No such luck here, the Ami cowards had left their crippled wing-mate to die. They'd stayed up where they were safe and carried on heading west while this one had turned north and slowed down. Another few minutes, five, perhaps ten at the outside, and his fighters would have her.
Harmann's head snapped around suddenly, above them a formation of Amis had arrived. More big bombers, flying well above his reach. So there were aircraft coming to escort the cripple. Couldn't be standard bombers, the Amis had shown they'd learned that lesson. Perhaps they were repeating another failed experiment. Back in '45 they'd tried bombers with extra defensive guns to help protect the formations. B-29s with quad turrets replacing the twins.
Hadn't worked then but these new big giants? But the new arrivals weren't coming down to fight. There were three of them, Harmann could see that now. What were they up to? Come to watch one of their own being destroyed? While he watched them lie suddenly realized they'd changed. They'd opened up underneath - God, the bomb bay on those things was huge. And they were dropping bombs. What was this? Air-to-air bombing?
Now nothing made sense, They'd dropped a large bomb each. Air to air bombing had been tried on the B-29 formations with only mild success. Marginal, even against big lumbering bombers. Against fighters? Futile. Harmann started to sweat, My God, were they going to drop Hellburners on us? Take us out and destroy the cripple as well so we can't learn from it?