No ownership of the Hogan's Heroes characters is implied or inferred. Copyright belongs to others and no infringement is intended.
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The skies filled quickly with enemy fighters as the B-17s of the 504th approached Hamburg. Hogan tensed, tightening his grip on the throttle and sitting up even straighter in his seat. He had begun to feel the subzero cold of the cockpit, but suddenly that was replaced by the heat of fear and anticipation.
"Here come the Krauts," he said. "Bandits dead ahead." Hogan took a couple of deep breaths through his oxygen mask, as he heard Ingham instruct the other stacks to start moving out of their tight formation.
Two fighters came at them suddenly and quickly, bursting out ahead of their own group and taking a close fly-by swipe at Goldilocks. "Whoa!" called Montgomery, as he eased Goldilocks back into formation.
"That was a close one!" Bailey called from in front of them. "Did you know that fella has a mole on his left cheek?"
Hogan smiled automatically, but he was too busy concentrating on their surroundings to be truly amused. "Another pair coming up at two o'clock."
"Not for long, they won't!" Weller shouted from the flank. The sound of machine gun fire filled the plane. The noise of the guns, the thunder of the engines, the shouting of the men—by the time they arrived back at base, Hogan's ears would be ringing, and his hands would be sore from the tight grip he kept on the controls. It was always this way, especially when the encounters with the Germans were uncomfortably close. It was as though his grasp on the stick was the only thing stopping him from turning tail and making tracks back to England before the job was done.
Flak began to fill the air, thicker than Hogan had ever seen before. Some of it was wide of the targets, too high or way too low. But enough of it was accurate to cause trouble, and the stacks started breaking away from their pre-arranged plans in order to avoid the enemy fire.
More fighters came into view. Above, left flank, right flank. And a call from Kovacs told Hogan there were more behind.
"How far off, Martinez?" Hogan called.
"Still too far for an accurate drop, Papa. Another seven minutes to target."
Goldilocks shook as her guns started firing, spraying empty cartridges through the cabin. "That one coming in at eleven o'clock is a bit too close, Dicky; what's happening?" Hogan asked, starting to pull the plane away from the advancing Focke-Wulf.
"We're frozen, Colonel—guns are frozen!"
"Kovacs, what about yours?"
An experimental round of shots answered them all. "No problems, Colonel!"
Hogan turned the Flying Fortress so she had her tail turned to the aggressive fighter. "Go for it, then, Kovacs!"
"Yes, sir!"
Maneuvering Goldilocks that way, though, meant other problems. "Jerry at one o'clock high, and we're way off target now, Colonel!" called Anderson.
"Roger, Little John, we'll get her back on track."
More gunplay. Hogan couldn't help but notice what seemed like a concentrated attack on Goldilocks. Other planes in the group were being targeted as per normal, but this B-17 seemed to be of particular interest, and it was more than a little unnerving.
"Time to turn her back toward target," Martinez called. "All bombs primed and ready to drop, Colonel."
"Right," Hogan answered. "Trev, let's get her back in line. Martinez, we'll be handing down to you in two minutes."
"Roger, Colonel. Honing in."
"Correction of flight pattern, Papa, looking at point-two-seven degrees east," Bailey said.
"Correcting heading now."
The plane suddenly lurched to the left as a loud explosion roared nearby. "What was that?" Martinez called.
"Off course, twelve degrees!"
"Colonel! Colonel, we're hit!" called Doolittle. "Weller's got it in the chest! Guns are out on the right!"
"Bandits, four o'clock!"
Hogan turned to correct the plane's heading. He wanted desperately to turn back and see how badly off his right waist gunner was, but there was no way he could leave his seat now.
"Avoiding enemy advance," Montgomery reported, turning the plane so the tail gunner could try to take down the fighter approaching the area that Weller would normally take charge of.
"How is he?" Hogan yelled into the intercom.
"It's bad, Papa, the bleeding's bad!" Ingham answered.
"Pretty damned big hole in the flank, too, Colonel," Simmons called. "And more coming—Little John, up top!"
No one spoke in the Flying Fortress for what seemed like minutes on end. The cold from the machine gun bullet holes in the side of the plane was starting to penetrate past the crew's warm flight suits and settle deep into their hands, making movement difficult and sometimes painful. Dicky Doolittle's guns weren't the only ones freezing; Anderson reported sporadic failure in the ball turret guns, something that was quite clearly exhibited when yet more enemy ammunition peppered the flank of the B-17.
Hogan fought the gut instinct to pull away from his stack, knowing that it was in formation and in close approximation that the Air Corps planes were able to withstand the most. But he was hearing loud cries of pain from behind him; Weller was suffering, and Hogan had to shake his head to pull his mind away from what he could not change, to focus on what he could.
"It's yours, Martinez, yours!" Hogan announced what seemed like hours later. The bombardier took over the direction of the plane and aligned their position to drop their bombs over Hamburg's ball bearing plant. As soon as he heard the familiar clang of the bomb bay doors, and felt the jerking of the plane as it dropped its load, Hogan turned Goldilocks around and headed for home. "On our way now, Weller," Hogan called, unsure if the gunner could hear him. "We're on our way now. Hang in there."
The men had been shaken by this outing, too distracted by their own problems to pay as close attention as they normally would to everyone around them as well. They took stock of their own losses and tried to limp home. Hogan looked around, his head starting to pound with tension, to see several badly damaged planes, some smoking engines, and some holes in what would normally be three neat stacks of six planes. On quick survey, at least two were missing from one stack, and in another stack, two were hanging back out of formation, an invitation to the German fighters that remained to target them first. The weakest did not survive.
Some guns still frozen because of the high altitudes, Goldilocks herself was one of the worst off of the bunch. Hogan listened with something akin to grief when Simmons reported the tip of the left wing missing, and more holes than he could count were making a sieve out of the right side of the plane. Weller's groans were becoming less pronounced, a sign that worried Hogan, and there were still over two hours to go to get home. He tightened his already iron grip on the throttle, determined to push the Flying Fortress away from German fighters still in hot pursuit over skies still teeming with flak.
"We've got company," Montgomery announced suddenly.
Hogan looked to his right to see two Focke-Wulfs closing in on his stack.
"And more over here!" Doolittle added, worried now that his own guns were acting up.
"They're not giving up, damn it," Hogan cursed. "Come on, guys, give us a break; I need to get this baby home!" Hogan took a deep breath. "Okay, fellas, we'll have to fight and run. What's working?"
"Not much," Simmons replied. "We've got a tail gun, the right waist guns are history; the others are working when they want to."
"I told them they didn't get any time off till next Thursday!" Hogan joked coldly. "No one listens to officers any more."
"We'll have to give most of it to Kovacs," Montgomery said to Hogan.
Hogan nodded. Goldilocks started to bank so she turned tail on the fighters coming toward them. Kovacs started firing, and the other gunners did their best with intermittently functioning weapons to join in the battle. An almighty blast shook the plane, and Hogan could see trouble. Their number one engine had exploded in flame, a perfect hit from accurate flak below. The B-17 started listing. Hogan pulled hard on the controls to bring her back in place, but she was fighting the moves, hard. More gunfire from the fighters nearby left Goldilocks's rear left flank looking more like a colander than a bomber.
Another cry from behind made Hogan's stomach turn. "Colonel, another Kraut plane at three o'clock!"
Four—there were four of them now. Hogan could feel the sweat pouring down his temples. His oxygen mask was working but he was feeling deprived of air. "What's the gun status? What's going on back there?"
"We've lost both waist flank guns now," Simmons said. "And I think you're about to lose Kovacs due to frostbite!"
Hogan gasped. This was turning into a nightmare, only it wasn't the kind he could wake up from and try to forget about. The cold in the plane was always bitter, but the damage to Goldilocks had ensured that the men felt the freezing wind even more strongly. "Someone get back there and help him!" Hogan ordered. "Doolittle, pull into line!"
"Right, sir!" Dicky replied. But it took all his will to move away from Weller, on whose chest he was holding some bandages with as much pressure as he could manage. He brushed Kovacs aside to start firing on the enemy closest to them. Kovacs continued to shiver through his once-warm flight suit, shoving his hands underneath his armpits, and kneading his fingers, desperate to get them warm enough to start working properly as fast as possible.
"We're losing power, Colonel," Simmons reported. "Too much drag with one of the engines out."
"We'll have to kill number four to correct the balance," Montgomery said.
Hogan nodded, unable to answer. They would fall out of formation. They couldn't fall out of formation. How many times had that been drilled into their heads, from the very first day of training? Falling out of line from the others meant isolation.
And isolation meant death.
Hogan's flight training kicked in automatically, running roughshod over his fears. "Charlie, radio for help from the others." He glanced quickly around them. "Kanowski is okay. Get Goldenrod to cover us. Get her now!"
"Right, Colonel. Goldenrod, Goldenrod, this is Goldilocks. Mayday. Mayday. We are under serious enemy attack with weapons systems failing and heavy damage and need urgent assistance. Mayday. Mayday."
Static was their response. "Damn piece of junk!" Reed spluttered. "Probably been hit by the blasted Jerries, too."
A loud cry from the rear of the plane as Goldilocks rocked once more. "Oh, my God!" came Anderson's voice. Hogan couldn't help but turn around. Little John was looking at what was now a gaping hole in his left leg, as flak exploded on target and blew shrapnel into the B-17 through an opening that it created on impact. "God! God!"
Hogan could hear the man starting to panic. Shock was taking over, and Anderson just looked up at Hogan, unable to move, or even to think. "Take it easy, Little John," Hogan said calmly. "Grab the medikit."
"Weller's using the stuff!"
"There's enough for you, too. Grab it!"
Hogan watched Anderson's shaking hands reach for the gauze and dressings, but then had to turn around quickly as Goldilocks shuddered yet again. A cold blast of air hit him in the face, and as he looked toward Montgomery he saw that the Plexiglas inches from his face had been penetrated. He felt a sudden urge to vomit as his eyes rested on his co-pilot. The flak that had broken the glass had hit the man full in the head and chest. There was no hope of him being alive.
Hogan turned away, noticing blood on the sleeve of his own bomber jacket, wishing to God it would never have landed there, knowing what he was seeing today would stay with him forever, without needing the man's blood on himself to remind him. "Oh, God," he gasped under his breath, "God, just let us get home."
Despite all his efforts, the plane started to lose altitude. From the nose, Bailey was calling coordinates and trying to warn Hogan of enemy approaches. Hogan told Reed to keep trying the radio, but he knew that it wouldn't do any good. Martinez called out that another Allied plane was pulling around to come to their aid, but a German counterattack pulled it away from the task, and Goldilocks was on her own again. Four against one. Hogan couldn't understand the ratio. How badly did someone want them dead?
Another hit. The crew of the Flying Fortress was using whatever means it had left to try and hold off the enemy. But there wasn't much. One more direct hit, and Hogan fought a losing battle to correct the plane as Goldilocks started spinning. "No. No, damn it!" he cried desperately, his hands aching as he pulled back on the throttle as hard as he could. It made no difference. The old girl wasn't responding any more, losing heart as more and more gunfire pierced the hull, as yet another engine started spluttering to a stop, as flak laid waste to the solitary plane while her crew fought desperately for their lives, as their comrades in other planes, fighting for their own lives, could only watch helplessly, as Hogan's men had done so often before.
Hogan cried out as he suddenly felt an overwhelming, explosive pain, and he looked down to see that shrapnel had burst in from the left and was burning in his gut. He momentarily lost hold of the controls as he watched blood roll past the hand he pressed against his wound.
"Colonel! Colonel! Are you all right?" A desperate call as the plane started what appeared to be freefall without anyone at the stick.
Breathing hard, Hogan came back into himself long enough to realize that this mission was over. Four German fighters, one disabled Allied bomber. At least one man dead on board, and two engines out with one faltering. Isolated, out of radio contact, and already starting to turn toward the earth. Please, old girl, please don't give it up yet, he thought desperately. Pull up… Come on, damn, you, pull up!
"We've got a fire starting back here!"
That was the final straw. Hogan made three short hits on the alarm bell, then immediately followed with one long ring, as training had drilled into him automatically. Then he made the call he had hoped never to make. "That's it, fellas. Bail out. I can't stop her from heading down. Bail out. Do it now!"
A sense of unreality seemed to descend on the crew. At first reluctant to leave the bomber, they knew that staying in her meant certain death, while jumping out into the sky filled with enemy fire could still mean life below, no matter what type of life it was. And survival is a strong instinct. The uninjured helped the wounded on with parachute packs; no one would consider leaving anyone behind, no matter how badly they were wounded. But Hogan squeezed his eyes shut as he deliberately turned away from Montgomery's body beside him, and locked himself into his own parachute harness. They were almost out of time, even for themselves; they didn't have time to take his body with them in the hopes it would be returned to his family.
Even as Goldilocks aimed like an arrow straight for the earth, the Germans wouldn't leave her alone. Hogan could feel gunfire hitting home on all sides of the aircraft, and he prayed for them to have just long enough to make the jump before Goldilocks exploded in a ball of flame. He worked his way back to the throttle to try and level her out for even a moment, to make the ejection from the plane less complicated for them all. But it wasn't to be, and the autopilot also failed, so as soon as Hogan saw the bomber was empty except for Montgomery, he, too, made an adrenalin-soaked jump into the sky, leaving the shell of Goldilocks to complete her final mission without him.