Defiant Heart (40 page)

On Monday, they were ordered back to Hamburg, and it was an exceptionally difficult mission.

On the way to the target, they were attacked by waves of German fighters. Over the target, the Germans set a heavy smoke screen, forcing the formation to go around a second time before dropping its bombs. It meant two deadly trips through heavy flak. Then, when they turned for home, they were hit again by enemy fighters.

In all, the Americans lost twenty bombers, three of which belonged to the 96th. The plane in which Jon flew, the Miss Medearly, was struck on the tail by a burst of flak that took out her rudder and badly wounded the tail gunner, a young man from Montpelier, Vermont named Harrison, who was on his very first mission. Jon left his position to come back and tend to the man. He managed to stem the bleeding from two deep wounds in Harrison’s back and leg. Then he administered morphine, bound the wounds, and made Harrison as comfortable as possible. For the remainder of the flight, Jon manned the tail gun.

The pilot managed to keep the Miss Medearly in the formation without a functioning rudder by carefully working the other flight controls and adjusting the fuel mixture and propeller pitch. It took a skillful job of flying, and Jon thanked his lucky stars that the pilot had been as good as he was.

As Jon gratefully jumped down onto the tarmac, he wondered if his string of luck had finally come to its end. He had three more missions to complete. The way he felt, they might as well have been thirty.

The crew of the Miss Medearly, with the exception of Harrison, who had already been taken away by ambulance, piled onto a jeep and drove to the operations building for debriefing. When they finished, Jon made his way to the door, prepared to walk back to Hut 51. With his hand on the knob, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see a corporal he didn’t know.

“Sergeant, you’re wanted at group headquarters.”

“Do you know what it’s about?”

The corporal shook his head. “Sorry, sarge.”

Jon trudged heavily down the gravel path, his mind filled with images of crippled B-17s falling from the sky. As he neared the headquarters building, he noticed an army staff car parked out front. Some big wig, he thought, had come out from wing headquarters. He stepped up and into the building. The corporal on duty looked up.

“Meyer,” Jon said. “I was told to report.”

“Yes, sergeant,” the orderly said, immediately, “Colonel Halliday would like to see you in his office.” He nodded in the direction of the hall that led back to the colonel’s private office.

Jon walked down the hallway, wondering why the group commander had asked to see him. When he reached the colonel’s office, he heard voices and saw the man seated at his desk, speaking to someone on the other side of it. Because of the position of the door, however, Jon couldn’t see the other person. He paused at the doorway, hesitated, then rapped lightly.

The colonel looked up, saw him, and said, “Sergeant, please come in.”

Jon pushed the door open, and the colonel stood, as did two other people who had been sitting in chairs across from him. The man standing nearest to the door, Jon saw immediately, wore the star of a brigadier general. This was the closest Jon had ever been to a general. Instinctively, he straightened.

Jon couldn’t immediately see the other visitor, who was shielded from view by the general. Then the figure slowly stepped back from the colonel’s desk and into view.

Jon drew in a sharp breath, and the rest of the world melted away. As impossible as it was, he found himself staring into Mary’s brilliant blue eyes.

He stepped forward as she threw out her arms. He reached for her, she fell against his body, and he gathered her to him. A wave of wondrous emotion broke over him. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to be swept away.

“Oh, Jon,” Mary said, quietly. He knew she was crying, and he realized there were tears spilling down his own face.

He couldn’t say how long they stayed that way. Time had stopped. Eventually, Mary leaned her head back to look up at him. She put her hands on his face, caressing him. Her eyes seemed to be soaking in every detail, as if she were memorizing them. She brushed back the hair from his forehead, and ran her hand along his cheek.

Suddenly, she giggled. “You have whiskers.” Then she again threw her arms around his neck and pressed her body to him.

Finally, Colonel Halliday coughed discretely. “Sergeant?”

Reluctantly, Jon straightened and turned slightly. But he did not let go of Mary, nor did she give any indication that she was prepared to release her grip on him.

“Sergeant,” the colonel said, “this is General Kimbrough. He was kind enough to give Private Dahlgren a ride up here this afternoon.”

He suddenly remembered he was in the presence of two senior officers, one of whom was a general. He turned toward the general, bringing his right hand down to his side and, in a way he hoped wasn’t obvious, gripped Mary’s hand. She immediately brought her other over and placed it on Jon’s, so that she was holding on with both of hers.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said to the general.

“No apologies necessary, son,” said the general. “I don’t get to do a lot of things in my job that I truly enjoy, but this was certainly one of them.”

The general glanced down at Jon’s side and said, “I would offer to shake your hand, but I see Mary’s pulled rank on me.”

“Oh,” said Mary, and she pushed Jon’s hand out in front of him, toward the general. She released it and shifted her grip to Jon’s upper arm.

General Kimbrough smiled, reached out and shook Jon’s hand.

“Thank you, sir,” Jon said.

The general nodded. Then he turned to Colonel Halliday. “Is everything ready?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” said the colonel. “We’ll do it in the conference room across the hall.”

The general turned back to Jon. He inclined his head toward Mary and said, by way of explanation, “When Mary asked me if I could locate you, I made some inquiries. This weekend, I heard back from one of my colleagues at the Eighth Air Force headquarters. I had a meeting with him this morning. In addition to providing me with the information I was looking for, he explained there was something that needed to be done here. When I learned what it was, he granted my request that I be allowed to perform the duty. And, for that, I’m going to ask that we all step across the hall. Colonel,” he said, glancing at Colonel Halliday, “would you mind leading the way?”

The colonel nodded and walked to the door. “Please follow me.”

The general motioned for Jon and Mary to precede him. Jon looked at Mary, but she shrugged. With Mary still clinging to his arm, Jon stepped out of the office. The colonel stood a short distance down the hall next to a door on the opposite side. He waved Jon and Mary in.

Four people were already in the room. Three were officers. The fourth man was a corporal, and he had an immense camera hanging from a strap around his neck. The general walked to the head of the conference table that dominated the room, looked back at Jon and waved him over. He and Mary joined him.

The general reached out and put his hands on Mary’s, gently prying them away from Jon’s arm. “Mary,” he said, softly, “I’m going to ask you to stand right over here,” and he led her a couple of steps away. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you have him back in just a moment. I promise.”

Mary complied, but her eyes did not leave Jon.

General Kimbrough removed from his briefcase a leather-bound folder and a small box. He placed the box on the table, opened the folder and cleared his throat. “Attention to orders,” he said, and the officers all came to attention. Jon did likewise.

“The President of the United States,” he announced, “in the name of Congress, has ordered that Jonathon Meyer, Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, Eighth Army Air Force, 96th Bomb Group, 598th Bombardment Squadron, be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I will now read from the official citation.”

Jon was stunned. No one had said or even intimated anything about this. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Mary. Her eyes were wide.

“For extraordinary heroism and courage above and beyond the call of duty,” he continued. “On 3 February, 1943, while he was serving as the radio operator on a B-17 during a bombing raid over the City of Bremen, Sgt. Meyer’s plane was struck and severely damaged by enemy anti-aircraft fire. The copilot and bombardier were killed instantly. The pilot was gravely wounded and unable to continue to fly the plane. With no previous experience flying a multi-engine aircraft, Sgt. Meyer nevertheless took control of the damaged plane, which, at this point, was flying on only three engines. Enemy fighters then attacked the plane and destroyed one other engine and damaged a third before Sgt. Meyer was able to guide the aircraft into cloud cover. Realizing that the pilot and the top turret gunner, who had also been gravely wounded, could not survive a parachute drop, Sgt. Meyer opted to stay with the plane and attempt to fly it to England after giving the remaining crewmembers the option to bail out. When he reached England, Sgt. Meyer ordered the crew, who had all remained with the plane, to bail out. Then, though he was down to only one remaining engine, and though only one of the landing gear had lowered and would not retract, Sgt. Meyer skillfully and successfully landed the damaged aircraft. Through his actions, and at the risk of his own life, he saved the lives of the pilot and top turret gunner.”

Mary’s eyes, Jon could see were still wide, and she’d covered her mouth with one of her hands.

General Kimbrough closed the folder and set it on the table. He picked up the box, opened it, and removed a long blue silk ribbon, from which dangled an impressively large gold medal. He stepped behind Jon, draped the ribbon around Jon’s neck and fastened it from behind. The corporal snapped several pictures with his camera.

The general stepped back around in front of Jon, put out his hand and said, “Congratulations Sergeant. And well done.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jon managed.

One by one, the other officers stepped up and shook Jon’s hand. Each had brief words of congratulations. Then Mary had her arms around him. She kissed him on the cheek and whispered in his ear, “You don’t need to be so brave all the time.”

Colonel Halliday ushered everyone out of the room, leaving Jon, Mary and General Kimbrough. He stepped out, closing the door quietly behind himself.

The general turned to Mary. “I’m going to ask Colonel Halliday to give me a short tour of the facilities. Unfortunately, we’ll need to start back in a few minutes. I’m sorry that’s all I can give you.”

Mary nodded. “I understand. Thank you.”

General Kimbrough turned to Jon. “I’m told you have an important birthday coming up.”

That caught Jon by surprise. He hadn’t been thinking about it, but the general was right. His birthday would be in a couple of weeks. “I do. Yes, sir.”

“You’ll be eighteen, right?”

Jon nodded.

The general looked at Mary and gave her a wry smile. “Mary?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Exactly how old are you?”

Jon saw Mary’s face flush, and she was suddenly having trouble looking the general in the eye. “Well,” she said, slowly, “I, um…”

The general put a hand up. “You know what,” he said, still smiling, “I don’t think I really want to know.”

He picked up his briefcase and walked to the door. He opened it, then paused and turned back. “Mary,” he said, “please meet me at the car in fifteen minutes.” Then he gave the two of them a long look. He shook his head and chuckled softly. “Amazing.”

When he was gone, Mary turned to Jon. He looked for the first time at her uniform and said, “How did you…”

She put a finger up to his lips. “We only have fifteen minutes,” she said. She put her hand behind his head, drew him to her, and they kissed.

17

On Wednesday, two days after his reunion with Mary, Jon went on his twenty-third mission, and it was the easiest one yet, what the airmen called a “milk run.” They were dispatched to bomb the marshalling yards in Rouen, France. British Spitfires provided fighter escort most of the way to the target and, again, on the way back. The flak was light and inaccurate, and no German fighters attacked the formation.

It was the twenty-fifth and final mission for Gooch. He became the first of the old Deuces Wild crewmen to complete his tour of duty. A few weeks earlier, Shim had spent time in the hospital with a mild respiratory infection, so he, like Jon, was left at the end of the mission two shy of the twenty-five necessary to finish up.

There were a lot of handshakes and backslaps when the planes returned to Stanbridge, and that evening several of the men who had flown with Gooch accompanied him to the enlisted men’s club, which was really just an oversized Nissen hut with a phonograph, a few tables and a bar. Gooch proceeded to get roaring drunk. He was hilarious, cracking jokes, readily allowing himself to be the butt of jokes and explaining in detailed and graphic nature all the things he was going to do with and to the ladies of Rochester, New York when he got home. Jon finally learned that Gooch’s first name was Étienne-Marie, and he had to acknowledge that Gooch had been right when he’d said it was worse than his last name.

Mary had given Jon the telephone number for the Staunton. It was a communal phone located in the first floor lobby, and they’d made plans for Mary to be standing by at seven o’clock each evening. To make calls off the base, one had to go to the group headquarters building and talk the orderly into letting him use the phone. Most of the guys who served in the headquarters outfit were decent sorts, and they could be convinced to look the other way for a few minutes if there were no officers around, especially if there was a cigarette offered. The arrangement made for short, awkward conversations, with the orderly sitting two feet away. But, for Jon, it still represented heaven to be able to hear Mary’s voice.

Jon received approval for another forty-eight hour pass to make up for the one that had been shortened the previous week. He and Mary arranged to meet at Victoria Station on Saturday. First, however, he had to fly his twenty-fourth mission on Friday. It was another maximum effort.