High Wycombe, England

April 1945

Kinch flopped down on his bunk and groaned. "It's been two weeks since liberation, and I feel more exhausted than I did at Stalag 13, after spending all night sabotaging a bridge! Those guys at headquarters are worse than the interrogators at Dulag Luft."

In the next bunk a soft snoring was the only response. LeBeau was sleeping off his own extensive debriefing session.

Kinch lifted his head to look across the room where Newkirk and Carter were engrossed in a card game. "Are you guys still at it?"

"Playing gin calms the nerves, mate," Newkirk assured him and drew a card from the pile in the middle of the table. He looked up at Carter seated across from him, and smiled a much-too-innocent smile.

Carter frowned at the cards in his hand. "I don't know what there is to be nervous about. I liked talking to those guys at headquarters."

"You probably wore them out," Newkirk said. "I reckon they were glad to see the last of you."

"I guess so," Carter said with a sigh. "They told me today that they don't need to talk to me anymore. I'll probably get shipped home soon."

There was a silence for a moment, punctuated by another soft snore from LeBeau. Newkirk laid his cards on the table, the game forgotten. "So that's it, then? We just go home?"

"Seems anti-climactic, I guess." Kinch folded his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling. "All of those months, years actually, of not enough sleep, constant fear of being found out..."

"Tryin' to keep one hop ahead of the Jerries," Newkirk said. "Worryin' about the people back home. Wonderin' if we'd make it out alive."

"Not enough to eat, especially the last few months," added Carter. "Not to mention freezin' to death in the barracks."

"All the while making plans for yet another bridge or railway destruction," Kinch murmured with a frown.

"And they expect us to be men of peace now, non?" LeBeau opened his eyes and rolled over so he could see the others. "How does one return to ordinary life after fighting a war?"

"It's not over yet," Kinch reminded him. "Germany hasn't surrendered, you know."

The door of the barracks opened at that moment and their commander entered, his attention on a sheaf of papers in his hand. "You're right, Kinch, it's not over yet. And we still have a job to do."

Newkirk jumped to his feet, knocking the cards to the floor. "What? You're having a bit of a laugh, are you, guv'nor?"

"Nope." Colonel Hogan waved the papers for emphasis. "One last mission, fellas. Remember the bombing run we did with General Biedenbender's plane?"

The four men stared at him, speechless. Finally Carter said cautiously, "You think we need some flyin' time again, Colonel? Now?"

Hogan's reply was serene. "Yup."

LeBeau sat up abruptly. "Mais, mon Colonel..."

Kinch sat up too. "Why us, sir?"

Hogan looked at his team and cleared his throat. "Because I requested it. General Butler has assigned us a B-17, and we'll be leaving as soon as the mission is approved by the High Command."

Kinch shook his head, dazed. "But, sir...we aren't nearly enough to make up a bomber crew."

"Don't need a full crew. In fact, the fewer men on board the better, in order to maximize the payload."

"But where are we going?" Carter asked, his face blank with puzzlement.

"Holland."

With one voice, the men protested. "We're gonna drop bombs on Holland?"

Hogan folded his arms around himself and gave them all a reassuring grin. "We're not gonna drop any bombs, fellas."

Kinch blinked. "Then what are we going to drop, sir?"

"Food."

A few days later, the Heroes arrived at the airfield in East Anglia where dozens of B-17s were lined up neatly in rows. The place was quiet, except for a few ground crew members scurrying here and there.

Hogan led the little group to one of the bombers, alongside which a huge stack of packages waited patiently. Flour, margarine, coffee, chocolate and more were all bound up in burlap sacks, ready for the impending drop. Kinch's attention went directly to the packages and he turned to his CO.

"Where are the parachutes for the drop? Gonna need quite a few, looks like," he said, one eyebrow arched.

Hogan shook his head. "No parachutes. There isn't the material available at this point, and this is just a tiny amount of the food that's gonna be dropped. We'll have to go in low and slow and drop the stuff directly onto the landing site."

The men all exchanged doubtful glances, and then Hogan saw their gazes go to the other bombers on the airfield, where there was a distinct absence of activity.

"There will be just us taking off here today," he told them. "Along with two Lancasters taking off from an airfield in the East Midlands. But there will eventually be hundreds and hundreds of bombers on this mission, starting tomorrow and for as many days as it takes to save the Dutch from starvation."

"We're the advance guard, then?" Kinch said slowly.

"More like a bloody trial balloon," Newkirk muttered.

"Yes to both," said Hogan. "The guys who planned all this are working hard to get an official cease-fire agreement from the German Occupation governor of the area, but he's dragging his feet. And the Dutch people are running out of time; too many have died of starvation already. So for now we're going by an unofficial agreement: that as long as we approach the area at a low level and follow a specific path to the drop zone, we won't get fired on."

"We don't know that for sure, though, do we?" Kinch said. "We'll be sitting ducks if the Krauts decide to ignore the agreement. Occupied Holland is still heavily fortified, isn't it, with anti-aircraft batteries ready to shoot?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"But if we make it through okay, then the food drop can really get going, right, sir?" Carter tried for a confident and optimistic tone, but he wasn't fooling anybody.

Hogan smiled. "Right."

LeBeau turned to look at Hogan. "And it is just us for this flight? No gunners?"

"No gunners," said Hogan. "At the altitude we'll be flying, gunners would be useless for protection and would just take up space on board, space that could be used for food."

He looked around at his men and added quietly, "This is an all-volunteer operation, fellas. No shame if you don't want to take the chance." His gaze focused on Carter, who was looking down at the ground and shuffling his feet. "Carter, are you scared?"

"I'm too frightened to be scared," Carter replied with unabashed frankness. "But I'm ready, sir. With all those people starving over there, it would be a rotten shame if we didn't deliver this food, just because we're scared."

Kinch's teeth flashed white beneath the neat mustache. "I'm frightened too, Andrew. But I'm ready as well."

LeBeau drew himself up to his full height of five feet and a bit. "The honor of la belle France is at stake, mon Colonel! I am at your service."

"What are we waitin' for, guv'nor?" Newkirk wanted to know. "Let's get this grub loaded, eh?"

Just as the last bundle of food was hauled aboard the plane, a man in USAAF uniform hurried up, out of breath. Hogan turned to him with a smile and a handshake. "Thought you were going to stand us up, Martin."

Captain Edward H. Martin grinned. "Wouldn't miss it for the world! And not least because it gives me the chance to act as co-pilot for the team that got me out of Germany."

Hogan grinned back. "Welcome aboard. Kinch, you and Martin take a look at the map. You'll be acting as navigator and he'll be my extra eyes in the cockpit. Our route to the drop zone is a pretty narrow corridor and doesn't allow for much margin of error."

Martin and Kinch put their heads together over the map for a few minutes and then Kinch nodded. "Right, Colonel. We're ready to go."

Carter jumped out of the nose hatch, having completed the pre-flight check. "All set, Colonel!"

"Not so fast," Hogan said. "Didn't you notice?"

They all looked in the direction of his pointing finger, and there it was, painted neatly on the nose of the bomber:

PAPA BEAR EXPRESS

The B-17 roared into life, taxiing smoothly down the runway and lifting into the air like a leaf on the breeze. Inside the aft portion of the plane, Carter reflected that at least they didn't have to wear thermally-lined gear to prevent frostbite or oxygen masks to prevent hypoxia, since they weren't flying at the usual cruising altitude of 30,000 feet. As he looked through the Plexiglas window situated over the empty gun turret, he realized they were flying so low that he could see the individual waves rolling on the North Sea below.

He gulped. Cruising at 30,000 feet hadn't bothered him all that much at the time. Right now, cruising at a few hundred feet toward an uncertain fate was worrisome. But then he saw the untroubled expressions of Newkirk and LeBeau, who shared the aft section of the plane with him, and he took a few deep breaths to steady his nerves.

Gosh, just think of all those cold and hungry people in Holland who had been waiting vainly for deliverance for five years now. The failed Market Garden operation last fall must have seemed like a cruel trick to them, offering hope and then snatching it away. He'd heard that the German occupiers turned their fury on the helpless civilians after that, denying them electricity, fuel, and food. Carter shivered as he remembered what a cold winter it had been, too.

The least he could do was to keep his chin up and help make sure this particular payload ended up where it needed to be.

Kinch's voice crackled over the intercom. "Nearing the corridor now."

"Roger," Hogan responded. He nodded to Martin and eased back on the throttle. This particular "bombing" mission was unlike any he had flown before, and he'd practiced cruising low and slow over the last few days to prepare for this. Still, that had been safely over England with nobody shooting at him. As the aircraft approached the coast of Holland he could clearly see the flak batteries below, all pointing straight up at his bomber.

Hell, at this altitude he could even see the faces of the men manning the big guns. He tensed in spite of himself and gritted his teeth as they buzzed over the dangerous area, but the guns remained silent. Breathing a sigh of relief, Hogan turned the B-17 north toward the intended drop zone, a long-abandoned racetrack not far from The Hague. He spoke into his microphone: "Kinch, keep an eye out for the first landmark."

There was a hiss of static, then: "There it is, Colonel. Hospital to the right, racetrack dead ahead."

Hogan cut the speed slightly and brought the plane even lower, skimming over the flat landscape at no more than fifty feet. "Bombs away, gentlemen!"

Inside the bomb bay, Carter and LeBeau had stacked the burlap sacks of food on top of the doors in preparation for the drop. Now Newkirk wrenched at the lever that released the doors, and the bundles tumbled out to the ground below. He closed the doors again and swung himself out of the bomb bay into the aft compartment.

"Did we hit the mark?" he shouted over the noise of the engines. LeBeau responded by waving him over to the Plexiglas window where Carter was standing transfixed.

Newkirk grabbed the gun turret for support as the plane swayed a bit and he gazed out the window too. "Blimey," he whispered.

There was a Panzer parked not far below and its own gun turret was turning toward their plane, with the barrel of its cannon pointing directly at them.

But it did not fire. And as the B-17 swung westward toward England, the three Heroes looked back on the drop zone where the sacks of food lay scattered hither and yon. Then it happened: people began to appear on the racetrack, moving tentatively at first, and then running joyously toward what was surely the most valuable payload a B-17 had ever dropped.

The Papa Bear Express would return again and again over the next nine days with hundreds of its comrades, and each time had its moments of tension and doubt. But day after day, the crowds of people came to gather the food, waving and cheering, and the German occupiers held their fire.

There would be no fuss, no fanfare, no commendations or medals for the Heroes as a result of this action in the very last days of the war. But of all the missions Hogan and his men had successfully performed over the last two and a half years, this was the one they would remember for the rest of their lives.

A/N: Operation Chowhound (American) and Operation Manna (British) took place from April 29 through May 8, 1945, providing over 11,000 tons of desperately needed food to the starving population of the occupied western part of the Netherlands. The British part commenced on April 29, and the American part was delayed until May 1 because of bad weather. But I like to think that the Heroes would have been the first ones in the air.