Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney

1 BLUE NOSED BASTARDS OF BODNEY BACKGROUND STORY You were born on April 6th 1921, in San Diego, California at Mercy Hospital. Your father served in the Navy, so growing up you were often left with your mother, a seamstress, and your 2 older sisters Catherine and Elizabeth. Consequently, you became a little spoiled by all the female attention, but in the meantime learned how to be the „man of the house” very Your family home in La Jolla, San Diego quickly. Your home at La Jolla was only a mile away from the beach, so you grew up with the Sun and saltwater in your hair, developing freckles – which would later become a great asset in your conquests of the fairer sex. Just like your musical talent that you inherited from your mother. The family spent countless evenings gathered around the kitchen table, your mom and you playing the guitar singing old folk songs with your sisters helping out with the harmonies. One day, at the age of 14, while hanging out with your friends at the beach you looked up and saw a giant seagull. When you took a closer look, you realized it wasn’t a living animal, but a man-made airplane without an engine, soaring silently over the cliffs so gracefully, that you just kept staring at it, blocking the sun with both hands, and the world around you ceased to exist. There was a steady onshore wind, deflected upwards by the cliff, and the skillful glider pilot used this updraft to stay in the air. He kept going back and forth with such ease, that you decided this would become your ultimate goal: to be where that pilot was, and look down at the beach from the seat of one of those gliders. An hour passed by and the wind gradually stopped. The glider turned around and seemed to be coming straight towards you, descending gently. The pilot made a beautiful landing in the sand, stopping a mere 30-40 feet from where you were standing. You ran up to the machine, longing to touch it as if to prove it was for real, and not just a figment of your imagination. It sure was for real. You were amazed how simple the construction looked, and how gracefully those wooden ribs and spars were put together, and covered tightly with canvas. After a few words with the pilot you soon learned that there was a glider airfield not too far called Torrey Pines Gliderport. That evening your mother gave you permission to sign up for flying lessons on one condition: if you get a job and make money to finance your new hobby. You wasted no time taking the deal, and started working at the grocery store of old Mr. Grisbow just around the corner. Your first flight in a glider was exhilarating: you felt suspended up in the sky, with nothing but some thin plywood and canvas between you and the empty blue, hearing nothing but the woosh of the wind. This was IT. This was everything you dreamed of, and everything you ever wanted Gliders soaring over the cliffs of La Jolla to do. You soloed after a month and finally earned your glider wings not long after your 15th birthday in 1936. 1 2 BLUE NOSED BASTARDS OF BODNEY No sooner had you begun your studies at San Diego State University to become an engineer than Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland, marking the beginning of World War II. The events in Europe didn’t affect your life much, but news started getting more and more worrying. On August 20th, 1940 you went to the theater to watch a western called „Carolina Moon” with a beautiful brunette called Betty Gallagher. You’d been seeing each other for a month, and things were getting rather serious. Before the movie begun, they showed some footage of British Spitfires peeling off, diving on German Stuka dive bombers, the leading edge of their beautiful elliptical wings ablaze with machine gun fire. That’s when the idea struck you. You can’t just sit around, drinking milkshake with your friends, when half of the world was involved in an epic conflict, and Britain, the last bastion of freedom in Europe stood alone fighting the Teutonic monster that marched through the rest of the continent in less than a year. The next day you packed up your bag, kissed goodbye to a weeping Betty, and took a bus to New York. Two weeks later a ship carried you across the Atlantic. It was on that ship where you met Jim Goldwyn, a cheerful fellow from Brooklyn. You soon discovered that you were both on that ship for the same reason: to join the Royal Air Force. Betty Gallagher When you arrived to London, you had to lie about your age, as the requirement was to be of at least 20 years of age and have at least 300 hours of certified flying time. This latter one you did have, albeit on gliders – a detail you chose not to share. After completing basic training, Jim and you were sent to No.5 Flying Training School at RAF Shotwick in the Northeast corner of Wales, not too far from Liverpool, to learn to fly the Miles Master, and later, the Supermarine Spitfire. Due to your experience on gliders you completed every task thrown at you with ease and style, getting nods of 2 3 BLUE NOSED BASTARDS OF BODNEY approval from your instructors. After keeping an aircraft in the air for hours without an engine, flying single engine planes seemed easy – barring of course engine management, which you had no problem learning thanks to your engineering studies. In November 1941, it was time for your first flight in the aircraft of your dreams: the Supermarine Spitfire. It was a chilly morning, the fog hasn’t fully lifted yet, and there she was: the unmistakable curved lines of the Spit, standing there, waiting for you, and only you to climb inside the cockpit and take her up above the clouds. You primed the engine, switched the mags on Miles Masters of No. 5 Service Flying Training School, flown by with your left hand, and shouted „Clear prop!” volunteers for No. 71 (Eagle) Squadron You pressed the starter and the booster coil button with two fingers at the same time, and the big three-blade propeller started turning. The starter whined for a couple of seconds, then pop-pop, the Rolls Royce Merlin engine caught to life with a throaty purring sound. You carefully taxied to the grass runway, made sure the aircraft – or „kite”, as the British called it – was trimmed correctly, and the prop pitch was set to fine. This was the moment of truth. You applied power slowly up to +7 boost holding the stick back, dancing on the pedals to keep the plane straight. 1470 horses pushed your back hard against the seat, as you eased the spade grip of the stick forward, slowly lifting the tail. The aircraft wanted to veer off to the left due to the gyro forces, but you expected this and compensated with a touch of right rudder. You opened the throttle to +12 boost and all of a sudden the rumbling stopped, and you were airborne. You raised the gear, closed the canopy, looked down and were amazed how far you’ve already gotten from the airfield. The speed and power of this thing was awesome. You climbed to 10,000 feet, roared through the valleys among the clouds, turned, climbed, rolled, and felt like you were the king of the entire world. On landing you bounced once, but overall you brought her down nicely. You switched off, jumped off the left wing, and just couldn’t stop smiling. Jim repeated your performance a few weeks later, and it was time for you to celebrate. The evening turned out to be something entirely different, though: News came that Japanese planes attacked the US fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, and consequently, the USA entered the war. In March 1942 both of you were assigned to No.71 Squadron, which later became the 334th Fighter Squadron of the 4th Fighter Group on September 29th 1942, being transferred from the RAF to the Eighth Air Force USAAF. Your first missions were a blur: sticking to your leader like glue, twisting and turning inside the cramped cockpit. Trying to make sense of the chaotic furballs was more than you could handle. Although you came nowhere near to shooting down enemy planes, fortunately you survived your first Pilots of the 4th FG standing by their Spitfires at Debden missions without being hit, which you considered a success. Every evening you 3 4 BLUE NOSED BASTARDS OF BODNEY made sure you spent half an hour in your Quonset hut, writing to your sweetheart. Yet, you had no idea how to describe these incredible events to Betty. How could someone who wasn’t there, who hasn’t experienced all this possibly imagine what it was like to flex your stomach muscles as you were turning with a fearsome Messerschmitt 109 at 25,000 feet above Abbeville, your oxygen mask sliding down on your sweaty face in the icy cold, seeing your friends go down in flames screaming in pain, or spinning down with half a wing. It was in such a melee that on November 14th 1942 a Focke- Wulf 190 carelessly wandered into your gunsight. He was only 200 yards away flying straight, having no idea how little time he had left to live.

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