Maria, Pull the Trigger and Kill (a World War II adventure)

D-Day

5:30h in the morning on the 6th of June 1944 I got woken up by Keith who had just entered the A-29: "Get up Maria! The attack on the Atlantic Wall is in full swing. I just received the pre-briefing and we need to fly reconnaissance and provide live report via radio."

Even though it was way before my wake up time, I was right awake within a second. Attack on the Atlantic Wall. So finally, it happened. That's why they wanted as many an airmen as possible ready by the end of May. The airfield was very busy already, aircraft were starting on a continuous basis.

Keith looked on his A-11 wristwatch and informed me: "Our time slot for starting is in 2 minutes."

"Are you crazy? In two minutes? How shall I do the pre-flight check?"

"Well, you were not in the pre-briefing, so don't blame me. Now get in the pilot seat and start the engines!"

Unfortunately, he was right. I peeled myself out of the sleeping bag, jumped into the pilot seat, dressed in my underwear only, still having a bad breath coming out when I opened my mouth and dutifully I started the engines. Today, it had to do without pre-flight check. In school, we had learned safety first. OK, maybe I should do a pre-flight check and then screw the whole take off schedule? Ah, nay, the plane had been flying OK all the way over the Atlantic, why should there be anything now? OK, I could do some checks, while rolling to the runway. The ground crew had filled up the tanks during the night and I hope they had also checked the outside for bullet holes. When I reached the beginning of the runway, I announced that I would be taking of now, on the radio. Dunkswell airstrip, was comparatively small. It did not have a tower and ground control. The planes managed their departure and arrival by themselves. In order to make that work when all aircraft took off, one had to stick to the time-table given during the pre-flight-briefing. I did not see any other aircraft in my way, throttled the engines up and the plane gained speed and took off.

When we were over the channel, I called Keith who was submerged into his maps: "Keith, please bring me my jacket. I'm freezing."

It was June, we were on low altitude, but the weather was bad and it was thus cold, as such flying an aircraft in one's underwear was not very enjoyable.

Keith handed me the jacket and looking at my half-naked body said: "This is quite a site. I will make a report that I spotted Mexican curves over the channel right now!"

"Don't you dare! Go, tend to your maps again, man!" I quickly put the jacket on and with a big grin, Keith did as instructed and tended to his maps.

A little later, he informed me: "We have to report the status of the attack on a stretch of the Normandy coast line with the code name Omaha-beach.

I rebutted: "But Nebraska is inland, it does not have a beach?"

Keith knew better: "Well, Omaha is at the Missouri and the Missouri has a few nice sandy beaches on its bank."

"So is this about taking a nice bath and swimming? It is summer after all."

Keith got nervous: "I'm begging you do your best to avoid taking the aircraft for a bath. The water of the channel is cold, very cold. I'm sure, Mexicans are not used to such temperatures."

He had a point in that.

Our jokes soon turned into despair, when we saw the horror already unfolding on Omaha-beach. Some of the landing craft had sunken in the rough waters of the channel that day and the soldiers were drowning, getting pulled down by their heavy gear. Others landing craft crashed into each other, when by the heavy wave action played tricks on them and those, which correctly dropped their soldiers off, let them run into the fire of the mighty Hitler's Scythe, the MG-42. It was the Grim Reaper's day. The GI's died there on the beach like flies.