68th
Coast Artillery
North
Africa
Dear
Mom:
You
get to know, Mom, why millions of dollars are spent everyday, why
there are high taxes and why the government asks you to buy war bonds
and stamps — you get to know this, Mom, when you see an enemy bomber
blasted out of the sky.
It
came at 4:30 in the morning. The clouds were low and it was raining
a bit. This was just right for us. It meant the planes had to dive
below the clouds and some of them never pulled out of their dives.
They were blasted right out of the air.
The
alarm sounds. The gun crew jumps to the guns. Everyone knows just
what has to be done and where to do it. The searchlights go on, one
by one, and search the skies hurriedly a second or so. Then in one
of the beams appears a silver object. It's a bomber and it isn't coming
on a friendly visit. Thousands —yes, thousands — of shells, Mom, suddenly
fly into the air. Tracers from smaller guns travel on their course
to the plane. Straight and true they travel.
The
plane tries its darndest to get out of the beam of light, but not
a chance. The boys know every trick and are always one jump ahead.
More planes. Other searchlights pick it up and stay with it. Others
take care of others.
All
hell breaks loose now as gun crews pour everything they've got into
the sky. Now the first plane's bomb bay doors open. It's getting ready
to drop its load. It comes in on its bomb run, a straight level
course in order to get on its target. Hundreds of shells fly at it,
burst all around it and rip into it. But that plane's crew is determined
to drop its load of death.
The
bomb bay doors are open wide now. But the bomber doesn't drop its
load. Its number is up. A shell bursts right under its open bomb bay
doors. The plane rocks heavily, then a second later it explodes, and
the plane is no more. One less foe to bomb us.
All
this happens in less than five minutes. The regiment has gotten its
first taste of warfare and its first kill. The boys are on the ball.
They get the range on the other planes. Tracers criss-cross. This
time a smaller gun gets the range on a plane and pours shell after
shell into it, riddling it from tail to nose. It flies on a second
or two, then starts to plunge to the ground. Number two for the fellows
and he didn't have a chance dropping a bomb either.
Then
we hear that loud whistle of a bomb on its way down. Where it will
land no one knows but it's coming. No one gives a damn. The crew sticks
to its guns. The lights stay on and the bombs fall but the guys fight
on. The enemy is determined to drop its bombs and the regiment is
determined the enemy won't get away alive.
It's
finally over and two-thirds of the enemy planes are down. There's
the last one — like a duck hit while in flight, first absorbing the
shocks of the shells, then pouring out a black smoke trail, finally
plunging to the ground in a mass of flames — the grandest sight.
