It’s been a while since I’ve been in the cockpit.
In fact, it’s been more than just “a while.” The years of flight training are thankfully still stored, and the muscle memory helped somewhat. But knowing my combat edge had softened since I last wrapped my hands around a flight stick and throttle, I felt it best to have the Captain run me through a few refresher runs.
I climbed into the Spitfire and ran through some basic maneuvers for the Captain, to assure him I still remembered the difference between an aileron and the elevator. Then I flew over to the designated firing area to practice on dummy balloon zeppelins. Orders then came over the radio to help dispatch a group of Nazi bombers that had clumsily found their way too close to Allied airspace. The bombers put up little resistance, and even less defensive maneuvering, and quickly succumbed to our fire.
Back down on the tarmac afterwards, I felt a bit better about once again being in a cockpit. Still not knowing where I wanted to be reassigned for the war, I asked the Captain if I could run a sortie with the nearby USSR crews having trouble with encroaching Nazi fighters. After a short train ride and a few cups of coffee, I was climbing into a Russian kitted P40 in a frozen field with little more than ice for a runway.
I managed to get the P40 airborne without killing myself or my compatriots in the process along the ice-laiden ”tarmac”. We climbed to 3500m and followed our sweeping patrol of the countryside. A little over halfway through the patrol, my squadmates found and engaged several Messerschmitts. I engaged as well, though only lightly wounding one aircraft. With only one enemy actually downed, all parties were forced to disengage after the ammo wells ran dry.
Suffering mostly cosmetic damage to my P40, I followed my squad back to the airfield – field being the most appropriate term. One poor sap crashed on landing; I still have not heard if it was due to equipment failure from the engagement. On approach, my flaps jammed for one reason or another – perhaps the law of Murphy. I touched down with little other incident, and thanked God for my return once again.
Upon reporting back to the Captain, I noted to him my decision was to remain in the European theatre of operations and requested to be reassigned here. The thought of at least having dry land when ditching a plane was more comforting to me than bailing out over the Pacific ocean.
