The Bomber Boys Read Free Page A

Someone pointed Tony in the direction of the Navigators Barracks.
    Walking through the doorway, Tony noticed little difference in the inside temperature and the winter chill outside. He dropped his bag and gently placed the navigator’s case on the rough plank floor. A row of over/under bunks lined each wall of the hut. In the center of the room, a few veteran airmen were warming themselves in front of a blackened metal stove. A box of coal nearby was nearly empty. Tony guessed correctly that the one little stove could never adequately heat the entire room.
    When no one seemed to notice his arrival, the new navigator walked over to the group at the stove.
    He introduced himself with his usual friendliness. “Hi, I’m Tony Teta.” A couple of the men nodded acknowledgment, but nobody spoke. Tony ended the uncomfortable silence:
    “Well, can you tell me which bunk is mine?”
    With an expression that was neither a smile nor a frown, one of the airmen stopped warming his hands and turned to point to an empty bunk.
    “You can take that one, if you want.”
    Tony was about to thank him when the man motioned to another bunk.
    “Or you can have that bunk there . . . and there’s two more over there. Take any of them that’s empty. None of those guys are coming back.”
    The new navigator looked around the room. He counted eleven empty bunks. The 305th had, in the past few weeks, made raids on Schweinfurt, Cologne, Hanover and Berlin, four of
Germany’s toughest targets. The bomb group had lost eleven of its aircraft, almost a full squadron, and nearly one hundred of its airmen had been killed or were missing. Eleven of the casualties were navigators.
    Somehow the room seemed even colder to Tony now. He mumbled, “Thank you,” picked up his gear and stored it next to the closest available bunk. It had been a cramped and slow voyage across the Atlantic, followed by a long and bruising ride in the troop truck from Scotland to Chelveston. He was dead tired. When he lay down in his bunk and finally rested his head on the pillow, Tony should have felt relief. All he felt was alone.
     
     
     
    It was more than fate that had brought Lieutenant Anthony Teta to the cold and lonely barracks of Chelveston, England. It was a desire to fly that had been inside him for as long as he could remember. As he lay in his bunk, he recalled a warm summer day in 1935.
    He was barely nine years old that summer, but he told everyone he was ten. The sand felt hot and comforting beneath his bare feet as he ran at full speed along the little road that led to the Hamden, Connecticut, airfield. Most of his friends were choosing up sides for a pickup game of baseball about then, and on most Sundays Tony would have been there too. He was a small kid, with a small strike zone. He drew a lot of walks, but he could also hit. And he was fast—a good base runner, especially in the late innings when the other boys were getting tired. Tony never seemed to get tired. His constant energy amazed everyone who knew him, including his mother and father.
    On this Sunday, Tony would miss the baseball game without the slightest regret. Somewhere far overhead he could hear the sound of an airplane engine, and it heightened his anticipation. This was one of those rare Sundays in Hamden when the barnstorming
biplanes came to town. Tony had seen them once before. There were two planes, one bright red and the other yellow. His dad had even paid to take a ride in one of them. Tony had been simultaneously proud and jealous of his old man.
    Finally Tony reached the edge of the airfield and slowed his pace to a fast walk, once he realized he was on time for the show. A large crowd of people of all ages was scattered along the edges of the field, which was perhaps a thousand feet long and a hundred feet across. Climbing into the bed of a nearby pickup truck, Tony got a good view.
    In the center of the field someone had made a circle with lime chalk. The circle was no more than