Pacifica Military History Free Sample Chapters.pmd

394 Pacifica Military History
who had been assigned to the 309th when we had come up from
Telergma, three weeks earlier. He was the first combat casualty of our
Panama bunch but certainly not the last.
The 308th had done well, bagging four of the attackers and getting
four probables into the bargain. Claude got one of the probables, which
bettered Doctor Tom’s claim of a damage three days earlier. I was feeling
down, having seen nothing and shot at nothing. One of our Panama
guys was going to get a confirmed victory one of these days, and I just
knew that it wasn’t going to be me.
Lying in my sack later that evening, I thought about the events of
the day and tried to sort things out. I could see one thing clearly: Flying
such close formation that I wouldn’t get lost or separated kept me from
doing my job, which was watching and keeping my leader’s tail clear. I
was going to have to loosen up and take my chances on staying with
him. I also recognized that, in the heat of battle, there was no time to
think about things. The time to do the thinking was on the ground. If I
didn’t do something instinctively, it wasn’t going to get done.
Anticipation was the thing. Be ready. I had to act without hesitation
when the time came. Get the gun and sight switch on with the first
bogey call. Get the tank jettison switch armed early so that the drop
tanks would be away a split second after the command. Be ready for a
hung tank. Be ready to go mixture auto-rich, full throttle, and RPM.
And above all, be ready to call a break instantly when bounced by enemy
aircraft, using the right call sign so I didn’t scatter every other flight in
the sky.
On the next mission—two days later—I was scheduled to fly on
Johnson’s wing as Green Four. I didn’t know whether I had been
graduated or demoted. No explanations or comments were forthcoming,
so I chose to believe that Thorsen had okayed me for general wing flying
and was taking on a new guy to fly his wing. Johnson had the reputation
for being a tiger in the air, so I knew I would not want for action. We
were going to Wiener Neustadt, a modern city near Vienna where Me-
109s were assembled. That probably meant that we were poking a stick
in the hornet’s nest. Vienna—or Wien, as it was known to the Austrians—
was 450 air miles from San Severo, almost due north. The direct route