American
Cemetery

Dedicated to the men and boys of the First, Eighth & Twelfth United States Army Air Forces. The air & ground crews who worked, fought & died so that others were helped to live in
freedom.

"In proud and grateful memory of those men of the United States Air Force who from these friendly Isles flew their final flight and met their God. They knew not the hour, the day, nor the manner of their passing when far from home they were called to join that heroic band of airmen who had gone before.

May they rest in peace"

Little Hartswell Three Group base U.S.A.A.F.

Crew B-17G Fortress Fartin' Martin
Tail Gunner

Harry Loughlin Ryan, 19 years old, apprentice meat cutter in a Chicago abattoir until nineteen months previous, stretched himself as he woke from an exhausted sleep. Bremen had been it's usual nightmare, of thick 'flak following suicidal '109' fighter attacks. Four more B17's had gone down, seven had suffered both losses in men, and moderate to severe damage to the wings or fuselage, and his own aircraft, Fartin' Martin' had lost one waist gunner to fighter cannon fire. He rolled his head to the left, and his eyes picked up 'Shorty' Longman lying prone on the next bunk to his. Still unconscious, Shorty was snoring gently, his hair lifting with every exhaled breath. Harry's head flopped back on to the pillow, sleep still dragging at his mind. He pulled himself off the bunk, found his sandals and slowly made his way down the Quonset hut and out of the door towards the ablutions hut about thirty yards away. Squinting in the early morning sunshine, Ryan trudged down the gravelled path, nodding at the guys he knew before he entered the big hut and headed for the showers. Throwing his towels over the rail, he turned on the faucet and shuddered under the stinging pressure for two minutes, then swiftly soaped himself before rinsing down once more. Once dried, he peered at his reflection in the stained mirror, feeling the prickles of his beard's growth before unpacking his razor kit, the only souvenir he had allowed himself of his family, and attacking the day-old growth after sudsing up his chin and cheeks. He wished that the same privileges were extended to the Eighth Air Force as the Limeys had, of being allowed to grow beards after being granted permission, but knew that his pilot would shudder at the very question, never mind the Brass. Shrugging, his mind functioning in 'automatic' as he scraped another days growth off his face, he wondered 'where next'?

Once finished he combed his curly hair, a genetic gift from his father, before heading back along the pathway towards his billet. Shouldering the door open, Harry Ryan moved his six-foot length down towards his friend 'Shorty' and was just about to lift the blankets and tear him out of his sleep when one eye opened, inspected him and grunted, "Why me? Just leave me be! Iffen' you wanna be healthy and up with the goddamn birds, don't expect me to follow behind! Now shove off and let me sack out until I am good and ready, O.K.?"

Harry stepped back and grinned as he surveyed his buddy, "Now why even suggest that I would do something as nasty as that, Shorty? Have I ever done it before?"

"Every godamn week! It's just that I ain't never caught you before! Touch my bedroll again, and you are dogfood! They will take you down at the village store and sell you at fifty cents a pack for the local mutts!" Shorty snarled up at him before rolling over and closing his eyes. Harry shrugged and sat down on his own bed, reached out to his footlocker and picked out some fresh skivvies, socks and a shirt, then pulled his uniform khaki G.I. issue from the cupboard by his bunk. Fastening his collar before he looped his tie around his neck, he ambled past his prone buddy, and the other sleeping forms in the hut before heading through the hut door and turning towards the mess halls and the awaiting breakfast. He did not feel the anticipatory anxiety which was almost always with him on a flying morning, as he knew that a rest period lay before him and the rest of Fartin' Martin's crew. The roar of fifteen hundred young men's voices assailed his eardrums as he walked through the doorway, and aimed himself at the furthest serving lines, knowing from past experience that he would be served quickest at this area, as many others were just too damn lazy to walk the extra few yards to the nearly empty food lines. Grabbing a tray, he moved along the serving hatches, loading up with bacon, corn dogs and syrup, and beans. Finishing up by picking out a freshly-brewed coffee pot, he eased his laden tray over towards an empty table, deposited his breakfast and prepared to eat.

"How's it going, Harry?" The question came from a big, bespectacled man in officers uniform who had paused by the tail-gunners table.

"Hi, Padre," replied the young airman, wondering as ever how the preacher remembered all the names, AJust getting some chow after doing my bit for democracy!"

"Lose many?" came the stock question.

"We lost Al Storecki, the port waist-gunner. Couldn't tell whether it was a 109 shell that hit him or a 'flak fragment, but it kind of wiped him down without waiting. We were all wearing 'flak suits, but it hit him in the neck, and didn't stop! Didn't even know what hit him! I was in my turret when the other guys called out, but we were either shootin' or being shot at so it was maybe ten minutes before anyone could reach him. We don't get much protection from a shell, even with wearing the body armour and he got even less being exposed the way the waist-guns are in the open!"

The big padre, Joshua Fitzsimmons, looked down at the fresh-faced youth who had just told him, in a matter-of-fact manner, that another mother would be grieving this week as the Stalker had reached out and touched him. He sighed gently, remembering the small figure of the waist gunner as he strode cockily down 'bomber boulevard', "He was a nice guy, Harry, and I'll say a prayer for him this evening!"

"Thanks Padre, I'll tell the guys when they surface." Harry Ryan looked at the receding figure as he eased down the long passageway of tables, stopping here and there to bolster up the confidence of some other airman, and suddenly realised that the padre already had been briefed on the previous days' losses, and always managed to get the fliers to talk about their own crew tragedies as though it was all news to him. Ryan realised that the big minister was full of savvy as far as knowing how to deal with people, and by not being heavy on the religion line, always managed to get a quiet message across without using a verbal hammer. Ryan nodded in appreciation of the big preachers' ways, and turned back to attack his breakfast.

Slurping his coffee after his plate had been cleaned, Harry sat back, fished a pack of Luckies out of his pocket, flipped one out and lit it with his zippo. He sucked in the smoke of the 'first of the day', sat back and gazed at the long range of tables crowded with his fellow flyers and support crew. He idly remembered his Pop's purple face when he had finally admitted that he was enlisting in the Army Air Force. "You gotta be joking, son" Harry Senior had shouted, "Signing up to go and help get those goddamm' limeys out of a picklebarrel! Don't you know what they did to your Grandfather?"

His Pop's face had nearly curdled when his son's calm reply came back at him. "Pop, as far as I'm thinking, what happened then was a hell of a long time ago, and more than likely didn't happen like Gran'pa said. You know yourself he was little better than a Rummy, and he sure treated Gran'ma like dirt. I just do not know why you place such great store on the whisperings of a dead-drunken Paddy who happened to be your father!"

Harry's mother, who was standing in the kitchen preparing to wash up the dinner plates, slumped against the unit as she heard her only son go up against her husband for the first time. She rushed inside, and caught hold of her husbands arms, pleading with him not to start fighting. She looked across the table at her red-headed boy, standing taut and ready to take on his father, "Harry Junior, please don't!"

"Ma, it's always the same. He expects everyone to accept that he knows best, everyone has to bow to his prejudices, and everyone has to hate the English! Well, I've got a mind of my own. Our President has been around the houses long enough to know how many beans make three, and if he says that we ought to be fighting the Japs and the Germans, that is good enough for me! We didn't attack the Japs, They sneaked in and killed good men at Pearl Harbor! The Germans are fighting the Limeys, and the Japs are buddies with the Germans. I've signed up, and that's that! I'm old enough to be accepted, my name is already on the line, and if you don't like it, Pa, there ain't nutting' you can do about it!"

His father gazed back with fire in his eyes, but slowly relaxed and allowed his wife to sit him down in the chair once more. He nodded briefly, and that was the last that the two male members of the Ryan family had spoken together before the young soldier had shipped out for basic training in Texas. Harry regretted the break with his Pa, but instinctively knew that if he had weakened, he would never have heard the last of it from his bigoted father. He swung one leg over an adjacent chair, and relaxed against the wall, swinging his leg gently as he idly puffed on his cigarette. His mind wandered over the face and form of the young English girl he had met the previous week, while on a stroll into the local village a mile from the main gate. She was as dumb as any, and hadn't heard of any of the places that Harry was familiar with back home, but she was a friendly voice and a beautiful face, and that, while on a airbase which held two thousand odd hormone-stoked young Americans, was something to be treasured. He had managed to get a firm 'maybe' out of the girl to a follow-up meeting, but had to agree to the terrible ordeal of meeting her folks in return.

His lungs pushed out the smoke in a silent plume, and smiled as he remembered her smile as she said her name, "Felicity", and then his awkward question, "What does that mean, honey?"

"It stands for 'Happiness, or Good Luck' in Latin, my great grandma was called the same, and it has become something of a tradition." Felicity had smiled as she spoke, and Harry's heart, stomach and all other internal organs had performed a perfect loop with the effect that it had on him. She had pulled his hand around and started walking down the small street before he knew what she was doing, "All the neighbours are staring, Harry, lets just walk a while". They had wandered slowly along, going nowhere at all, in the time honoured moments of young people the world over when first meeting. Harry finally picked up his nerves, "We got a dance coming off on the base in just over a week's time, can you like, er but, if, it would be real cool if ..." Harry's voice tailed away as she nodded firmly.

"I won't be able to come with you if you haven't met my parents, they always like to know and meet the boys and girls that I meet. They aren't like, stuffy or anything like that, it's just that they worry, what with all the crowds of Air Force lads around, that I might mix with, you know?"

"Why sure thing, Felicity, I'd, er, meet your folks, er, why not, where, er, when,..." The normally loquacious American suddenly found himself tongue- tied and stumbling over a simple sentence. This vision was going to come dancing with HIM!! AFriday week, the dance that is, on the base. I'll be over to er, erm, meet your folks some time when we get off the flight line."

Felicity's eyes grew large, and Harry thought he just might drown in those big brown pools, "What do you do in the plane, sorry, bomber, Harry? Is it dangerous?"

"Well, honey, the whole idea is that we fly six or seven hundred miles over a country which is trying to kill us all, which some would call slightly scary to start with; then we drop a whole heap of bombs on some one that we have never met before, while lots of people from this other country try and shoot us down with fighters and guns and things, then we fly seven hundred miles back here again. I operate the tail turret gun. It ain't so bad, because while the Germans are shooting at us, at least I get to shoot back; done some good too! The boss, that's the pilot, marked me up as getting a '109 alone two weeks ago. It ain't what you people might call a cake walk, that's for sure. We've done eighteen missions on this bird, and we all fly together real good, the boss, that's our pilot Captain Lorenz, makes us practice things; like flying in close formation or solo over England. We all think that we are immortal, and it ain't gonna happen to us, and so far it hasn't" Harry spoke while holding Felicity gently by the shoulders, smiling to calm her nerves. "We just look on it as a job, and that's the only way to go."Then changing the subject he asked, "When can I come and meet your folks? Can I give you a call?"

"A call on what, Harry?"

"The phone, Felicity, I need your number."

"Oh, we don't have a telephone, but you can call the village store, and ask for me, because I work there every morning now."

"That's great, Felicity." The young American flyer ambled slowly down the green English path, side by side with his English girl, talking about everything and nothing, losing himself in the occasional shy glances the she cast his way. A jeep whizzed by, the occupants whistling out the back at the young couple.

'I wish they wouldn't do that!" said Felicity, Ait is so embarrassing."

" Honey, the only reason they do that is because they are all jealous of me being with a peach like you." Harry swung his arm around her shoulders, and edged her a little closer, and Felicity, not being averse to a strong arm around her, eased over into his side. They strolled into the shade of an oak tree which might have been a hundred years old, but the rapture of a first kiss obliterated the beauty of the tree altogether.

Felicity eased away first, knowing that this might be something important, and not wanting to spoil things, whispered quietly, "Oh Harry, I do like you."

The young airman placed his arms loosely around her slim waist, and smiled down into her eyes, "You know something, Felicity, I just decided that I really like England, because this is where you live."

The couple moved slowly on, unheeding the terrible nature of his profession, or the noises of war which were still heard just a few hundred yards away, as they were lost in each others company. In years to come, neither Harry nor Felicity could ever recall what they talked about in that next hour, but it was more important to them for that brief period of time than any other conversation that passed between them in the rest of their lives.

Harry's mind snapped back to the present, as he recalled the conversation with the big Padre, and the fact that the shell or shrapnel could just as well as had his name on, as it sliced into the waist-gunner. His mom wrote just about every week, and she knew the casualty lists the same as any other mother. 'There just was not enough fighter protection over all the long-distance targets' he mused as his eyes unseeingly swept the mess halls. He saw a familiar face heading away from the 'chow' line, waved an arm and the figure angled back towards him, then dropped the tray on the table and slumped down in front of Harry.

Crew B-17G Fortress Fartin' Martin
Radio Operator

Marius Zszewicki grinned at his buddy as he prepared to attack his loaded tray. "Why you always piss Shorty off, Harry? You know he is one mean son-of-a-bitch, and we all got to fly together! Give us all a break and leave him be, willya?" As the tail-gunner nodded while his face creased into the sunny smile that was Ryan's trademark, the radioman loaded his fork with the fresh food, and tore in as was his fashion. Five foot seven inches tall, but as he was prone to remark, every inch prime quality, the constant movement between the plate and his jaws did not cease until the plate was polished. Marius copied Ryan's moves in lighting a cigarette, and slumping back against the chair as he gazed around the big hall "They clean out Storecki's gear, Harry?"

"If they ain't cleaned up by now, it sure gonna be some sort of a record! Never known any part of this man's airforce to be as quick as the dead detail." replied Harry Ryan, as the dead waist gunner's face drifted in front of his mind.

Marius nodded, "Wonder who we'll get from the 'repple depple' for a replacement?"

"Dunno, but he'll have to get used to Shorty, like we all did," grinned Ryan. Zszwecki drew deeply on his smoke, and brought into his mind's eye the dead waist gunners features, and the exaggerated way he spoke to Shorty. "Can you remember when he got Shorty fooled into thinking the flight line call had already been sounded, and Shorty found that he was the only guy trying to shoehorn himself into the ball turret while just about everyone else was standing around laughing like drains? Dear god, I honestly thought that that little man would explode!" Zszewicki grinned in memory, before both young men remembered that their friend had died brutally less that eighteen hours prior. Suddenly quiet, Harry rose and left, while Marius stayed behind, silently smoking his own cigarette. The radio operator sat on, sipping his coffee and smoking for a while, before rising and strolling down the messhall towards the hut which for the B17 crew was their home. He turned in through the door, passed by the now empty waist-gunner's bunk, and flopped down onto his own, grabbing up a torn novel and preparing to read his way out of his own private nightmare. Marius was under the mistaken assumption that he was the only flyer who was nearly paralysed with fear every time the bomber took off for a run against the Germans, either based in the occupied countries, or the Nazi homeland. His whispered prayer as the four props pulled the huge weight of the aircraft from the ground was picked up by the sensitive microphones of the intercom, and into the ears of all the others, who had come to rely on the self-same words to stiffen their own resolve to get through the mission. His prayer, to the silent listeners, was not any sign of fear, but only of a resolve to fight as a team until their war was over, and was never ever mentioned by any to the radioman. He was in fact as brave as any, but mistook the signs inside his mind.

Marius came from a Florida background, from a family who owned citrus groves near Pensacola. His grandpop and grandma had emigrated from Poland, and after hard years near Chicago, had taken a friends advice and moved down to the western coast of the Sunshine state. His father had nearly given his mother a heart attack by spending just about all their hard-earned savings on land which then had to be cleared and planted, but by a mixture of luck at the track, being deadly with a pack of cards, and a willingness to work every hour that was given, had turned a big gamble into an orange goldmine. Marius' father had listened, along with his family and just about all America, as the sonorous tones of their President took their nation into war, and then had glanced at his son, shrugged and said, "Want a lift down to the base, son?" and saw his eldest boy become a man before his eyes. When their car had swung into the recruitment center's parking lot, his dad's own eyes had reddened as his boy joined the lengthy queue for enlistment. Two months later, Marius received his travel orders for basic training, kissed his Mom and sisters, wrung his brother and fathers hands, and boarded the train for Texas and the war.

On arrival at the training base, he found that the Army Air Corps training staff had long adopted the slogan 'round plugs for round holes', had seized on Marius's admission that he had dabbled with radio sets and short wave communications, and had slapped him straight into the radio operators school. As Marius had a keen intelligence as well as a mind which looked farther than the next beer and or payday, he could see no reason not to accept a full training in the arts and crafts of all types of electronic communication, especially when it was at the expense of his own government, and sank gratefully into the seats of the radio training system. Six months later, Marius' father picked up a soldier from the train station. Gazing across the car front seat, he smiled at his eldest son, saw the man that had emerged from the cocoon of boyhood, and knew that he had no need to worry about his son. Downing a beer later that day, he heard all about the life, times and sudden deaths which his son and heir had signed up for, remembered his own trauma in 1918, when he and thousands more marched down the roads of France and Belgium towards the very same enemy that his son now faced, and wondered why the guys at the top had done such a bad job of the peace after 'the war to end all wars'. Back in the world of another war, the young radio operator saw a hand drop a pile of paper into the basket by the door, the hand closely followed by their own boss, the pilot of 'Fartin' Martin.

Pilot and Captain

John Lorenz swept his eyes around the hut, and found all his men in except the tail-gunner, whose keen eye and lightning reflex had hacked down the '109 the other week. "Loosen up guys, the sheets in the rack indicate the items which are down for repair or replacement. I'm hoping to get all squared away by sundown, so we can have a practice flight tomorrow round about ten. I know that all you guys wanna do is get the hell away from that goddamn B-17 when we ain't actually flying or fighting, but you have to admit that once we do somethin' to the ship, the best way is to go on a test flight to prove everything is O.K.! Bud Reilly's ship went down over Bremen because his fuel transfer system didn't work, so he could not keep level and up with the rest of us, the 109's spotted him and sliced him up like a ripe banana! Mutt," looking at the navigator, "See that all the guys check on the listed items so we can organise a clear ship for the next picnic over our opposition." He waited for the nod from the navigator, then added, "Tell Harry Ryan so everyone is up to speed, okay? Er.., we're due a replacement for Storecki, he's due in sometime this morning. I want him ready to go when we're in the air, so one of you guys take him across to the armourer and introduce him to the fifty-calibres. Get some idea of lead-off into his skull, as well as how to relieve jams in the ammo! See if our own single 'fifties have been serviced and tested at the same time. Some of the newest 'repplles' haven't even fired a gun in training, never mind at anybody, so I want him to have some basic idea of what he is gonna' be doing to keep all our assholes in shape. I wanna start this cross-training idea that the Squadron is supposed to be looking at. The idea being that you should all, in theory, be able to handle everyone else's job is perhaps a little ambitious, but the idea that you might be able to lend a hand if someone is down is, for me, a good notion! O.K.?" Nods and grunts came from all sides of the hut, as all knew that their boss was just a little bit fussy about anything to do with how their B-17 operated and flew.

Lorenz passed his eyes around the hut one more time, nodded briefly and swung out the door, heading for the command building. Six foot one tall, lean built with steady gray gunfighter eyes, John Lorenz had taken command of his third B17 some four months back, and was fairly happy with his present crew. His previous two planes had each been so badly battered by enemy fire that they had been scrapped upon return to England, the first had just managed to roll into the dispersal area before everything collapsed, and the second had belly-flopped onto a golf course, much to the displeasure of the acting captain of the golf club, a mere stripling of seventy-seven. His crews had been equally badly battered, losing three from the first mission, and two from the second, The legendary toughness of the big bomber had been stretched to the limit on both occasions, and Lorenz was determined to remove any possibility of lack of preparation bearing blame for the loss of his big B-17 before it's time. A man who did not suffer fools lightly, Lorenz only knew that the responsibility of getting an overloaded bomber fifteen hundred miles over mostly hostile territory meant taking no chance with anything which could go wrong. If one of his crew was unhappy with anything on his craft, he had pounded it into them that they had to put it on the list, tell him, and then make double sure the offending item was removed from the shit-list. At the advanced age of twenty-four, he understood only too well that his crew were at an age when most of them would be either at, or just out of college, and as such had to have the need to work at base just as hard as over the Ruhr hammered into them. It wasn't the most popular way of getting on with his crew, but his reputation of accepting nothing less than the best for and from his crew had spread, and the ground engineering crews that serviced and repaired his aircraft knew that second best was not in the man's vocabulary. His mind focussed on the pages of the Pilot Training Manual, which he had almost memorised, and pondered as he walked on a page variation which he was intent on getting through for publication, and was therefore just ambling along with his mind three miles up in the air. He swung around the corner, and bumped straight into his only problem on the whole base area. She was five foot five tall, with bouncy blonde curls, a nose with a cute turn-up which might have been designed by Van Gogh, a figure which might have set blind men crying in frustration, blue eyes that one could drown in and seemingly a firm distaste for over-privileged, over-sexed and over-here Yanks who thought that they ruled the universe. Dressed in RAF blue, Nancy Carter should have been the answer to an Oregon man's dreams, but this particular Oregon man had struck out every time he had closed into combat radius with Warrant Officer Carter, part of the RAF liaison group to the East Anglia U.S.A.A.F. mission. "Um, er, sorry, Miss Carter, I guess I was walking without paying, er, attention. Please forgive me!" as he steadied her from falling on the ground,

"I hope you pay a little more attention to your navigation when over, say, Bremen, Captain Lorenz?" snapped Nancy Carter with her usual venom. She whipped past John Lorenz at speed, leaving the bomber pilot wondering what had hit him. He hung back from his own flight path, staring regretfully at the fast departing rear end of WO Carter. "I'd like to spend more than half a second with that gal," he murmured to himself, "Just to make sure she actually exists, and ain't just a figment of my imagination!" The pilot ambled back towards the command office, smiling to himself at his dreams, as he had done little more than dream about the little English girl who had just verbally pistol-whipped a man almost twice her size and weight without even bothering to break stride. He eased into the squadron office, nodded at the company clerks who sat in a loose formation down the sides of the big room, and finally found his squadron leader, conversing in low tones with three other pilots while standing around the big map table which dominated the room.

"Come over and join us, Johnny," called his flight boss, at twenty five a veteran of two sets of twenty five missions over Occupied Europe, "We were just talking about the dance on Friday night."

"Are there plans to import four or five hundred young women for our delight, or are we gonna see the old reliable ones that we see every time there's music?" grinned John.

"The group has outdone itself this time, Johnny. Wait until you see the buses rolling in on Friday," smiled the squadron leader, "there is gonna be more tail on the airbase than the average turkey farm. They've got a contact with three hospitals in the area, plus the British Liaison office has promised to import some girls from some university, so they'll at least know where America is, never mind why we are here!" The need to occupy the minds, and to a greater extent , bodies of over two thousand mainly young men was an ongoing activity with the officers on the station who had been tasked with the tricky subject of 'morale'. The last comment was a direct result of one of a bunch of young women, who had been invited to the last dance on the base, asking whereabouts in England Pennysylvania was. "Your girl Nancy Carter was just in here advising that her bunch have all confirmed that they will be here, so we should be seeing somewhere round about two hundred new female faces on Friday!" As it was common knowledge that Johnny Lorenz was badly smitten with W.O. Carter, the other pilots in the squadron had taken to a gentle ribbing of the Oregon man every time her name was mentioned. Lorenz, somewhat naturally, had got rather pissed with the constant reference to his supposed passion for the young British girl.

"She hasn't even given me the time of day, you guys; so why all the snickers every time her name is mentioned" asked Johnny. As his friends patted his shoulders in sympathy for his predicament, Bennett, the squadron leader came to his rescue.

"'S'okay, guys, our hero will return from the fray, and will be met by our blonde bombshell, maybe not this weekend, but soon, very soon! By the way, the colonel was telling me that he put out a general invite to the villagers to come along to the dance, seems like he wanted them to meet all the guys who had invaded their little corner of England."

As the conversation turned to flying, and the war, John Lorenz, who was truly cheesed with his friends and the slant towards the girl who did in fact inhabit his dreams rather a lot, determined that he would have to try and approach the Nancy factor from a different perspective. His father, who had worked the tall timber for fifteen years as a lumberjack, and as such had developed an almost uncanny empathy with the wild inhabitants of his chosen arena, had often said that if you wanted to catch a big salmon, or successfully hunt deer, you had to think like your target. "Trouble is," he thought as he idly listened to his fellow pilots talking about ideal bombing heights, "Who can teach me about the habits, thoughts and wants of the beautiful Nancy?" As he aimed himself towards the flight lines, and the raucous calls of the engineers and techs working on over seventy big bombers all at the same time, he found that he had to literally switch his thoughts away from the blue eyes of his English rose. As the nose and wings of Fartin' Martin came into view, he saw that rolling scaffold surrounded the two engines which he had highlighted for work, and mentally nodded in satisfaction. The huge inflatable cushions which would support the weight of the wings and fuselage while the landing gear was cycled and checked were already in place, as were the men who would be checking the bomb racks and release gear. His crew, as he expected, were close by all the time, so repairs and queries could easily be checked. His navigator, whose name was Jeff Morant, was leaning out of the cockpit window while waving at his boss, "Hi, Jeff, howzit inside?"

© James Michael Cunningham, April 2005

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