Opening Moves

He did, as did the navigator of the PO-2. No bullets hit the vulnerable biplane. Seven hit the Black Widow; or rather, five hit her and two hit flesh.

Whilst not dead, Washington had a very nasty and prodigiously bleeding head wound and was not in a position to contribute further that night, collapsed senseless on the floor of his gunner’s station as he was.

The other was in Lassiter’s right shoulder and it damn well hurt.

Considering it had been a wild burst, the female gunner had done a good job, as flares suddenly erupted next to Mackenzie. Fire invaded his position, damaging the radar, destroying his maps and burning his legs. The fire extinguishers did their work as he battled to beat down the flames, choking himself and the unconscious gunner with the toxic fumes. In agony, the plucky operator twisted and tried to put the oxygen mask on his gunner, as flames fired up again, adding burns on top of burns on his legs.

The PO-2 had missed its target, over flying in an attempt to evade the Black Widow and now turned, heading for home directly over Forstenneder Park.

‘Night Reaper’ weighed nearly twenty-three thousand five hundred pounds in her stockinged feet and was built to American specifications; heavy and robust.

For Lassiter the decision was instant and irrevocable, cutting through the pain and focusing him.

He dropped his starboard wing and described a curve, judging his approach perfectly, accelerating, and calling out to Mackenzie to hold tight.

A point approximate five feet from the end of ‘Reaper’s’ starboard wing came into high speed contact with the rim of the PO2’s rear cockpit area. Metal versus canvas and wood. Metal won, carving through the position and separating what was left of the navigator from the front of the aircraft, which fell from the sky and blossomed into a fireball on the ground as bombs armed for dropping exploded on impact.

That was not something Lassiter had considered and the thought left him cold.

One bullet had hit the radio and the Radar Operator was desperately trying to fix it, despite the fact that he had dislocated two fingers on his left hand when the impact happened. Try as he might, transmitting was beyond them, although they could hear more successes from their comrades.

Feeling sick, cold, and bleeding like a stuck pig, Lassiter turned for his new home, leaving the Cajun and the Pole to finish the job, which they did very efficiently and at no cost. The pair left only two PO-2’s to return to relate the horrors endured by the Night Witches.

In three years of combat against the Luftwaffe many of them had died, but never had they suffered such losses in one single night and it would take them a long time to recover.

None of their highly decorated female officers in the air that night survived the encounter with the 416th.

Lassiter executed what he considered to be a passable landing on return, considering Mackenzie was not feeling too confident in his navigation and his own vision was not all it could be.

His commanding officer begged to differ and rode out in a jeep to chew the Captain out for such a poor landing.

No transmissions to warn their base, no red flares on approach to mark wounded onboard, the surprised Colonel was greeted with a burned Mackenzie passing him an unconscious Washington and soiling his Commander’s pristine Number One uniform with blood and soot.

Shouting for help, the Colonel assisted Washington to the ground and then helped Mackenzie down, trying not to touch his badly burned legs.

Smoke gently wafted from the open door as something started to burn once more.

The Colonel may have been a martinet but he was no coward and he plunged into the aircraft to get Lassiter as the flames started to build.

The airfield fire crews arrived and tackled the internal fire and both men were assisted to safety, one choking and coughing, the other unconscious from his loss of blood.

Base medics were all over them in seconds and the four were rushed away to the hospital tent on the north side of the strip.

Working hard, the docs got bloods and fluids into all three aircrew and by the end of two hours hard labour they were satisfied enough to assure the smoke blackened Base Commander that all three would live, and two would fight again, Mackenzie the probable sole exception.

Wheezing and taking his fill from the oxygen at his side, the Colonel wondered what the hell had gone on that night and couldn’t wait to hear the story of ‘Night Reaper’ in full.

Some of what had happened had been filled in by an excitable Cajun pilot who was in sickbay having his hand stitched after cutting it climbing out of his aircraft, but there was clearly so much more to hear.

When the Colonel eventually learned of the full events of that night from Washington, Mackenzie, and Lassiter, he was amazed and congratulated them all.

On reaching his office later, he firstly composed himself, and then composed his formal recommendations for the Medal of Honor.