Chapter 22

NEW YORK, NY AUGUST 1943

PENN STATION WAS WALL-TO-WALL with servicemen waiting for trains. Sleeping bodies formed an obstacle course on the waiting area floor. The railroads’ adherence to a timetable had become a joke. As the volume of military people increased, the percentage of trains on schedule decreased in direct proportion. It simply took too long to get the throngs on and off the trains.

For nearly two hours Paul had been waiting with his brother for the train to Chicago where he would change and continue to the state of Washington. On a ten day furlough, the days passed in a blur. Paul hadn’t seen his wife and the rest of the family for nine months. He managed to spend a few days alone with Sarah, who had become more and more despondent by his absence. Paul promised that he would try to bring her to his next base if accommodations permitted. Sarah couldn’t bear the sight of her husband boarding another train and chose to say her goodbyes at home. Rachel stayed with her daughter-in-law to console her.

“Don’t worry about Sarah, she’ll be okay in a few days,’ Jake said. “Ma will get her back to her normal, smiling self. You don’t look so chipper either. What’s biting you?”

“I’m afraid that I’ll wash out of the next phase of training. Dave got me in, but if I stink, there’s not a soul who can keep me there. I don’t know how to fly anything more sophisticated than a single engine cub,” Paul said, moving behind an overflowing garbage bin to get some privacy.

Jake kicked at a candy wrapper on the floor. “What are you worried about? You passed through the elementary and transition schools with top marks. Our problem isn’t with you, but with Cohen. I have my doubts about what he’s made of. His indecision drives me crazy.” He checked the surroundings for prying eyes. Paul followed Jake’s eyes. “You’ve been looking over your shoulder since we got here. What’s going on?”

“I’m becoming paranoid. I have the feeling we’re being watched. I didn’t want to say anything, but it started before the Garden protest.”

“I haven’t seen anyone who might be tailing us. Too much coffee,” Paul joked half-heartedly. “Just because Goodman swung Dave to Langley, doesn’t give him free reign. Besides, he doesn’t curry favor with the brass by being a Jew. Why don’t you stop breaking his balls and give him some credit. He got me into advanced training and managed to get Abramowitz into chief of operations.”

Annoyed, Jake waved his hand in the air. “You don’t know what I had to do to get him to cut your orders. The guy was afraid he was going to get caught. Maybe he just needs a little more time, but for Christ’s sake, it’s almost a year that he’s been at Langley.”

Paul walked to the arrivals board. Nothing had changed in the last hour. “What about Abramowitz? How many times did you want to kill him despite the fact he can smell when something is going to happen? If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be waiting a train to the end of the earth.”

Sheldon Abramowitz had picked up a delectable tidbit. A new air force was being created for the Mediterranean Theatre. It would be responsible for strategic bombing from Italy to targets in Poland and surrounding areas. Assembly of new pilots and crews was to commence immediately. The time frame fit perfectly with Paul’s graduation from transition flying school. Abramowitz notified Dave, and Paul’s orders were completed to transfer to the new Fifteenth Air Force.

Traveling across the breadth of the country was a series of detours to sidings waiting for traffic to pass in the opposite direction. For a kid from Brooklyn, the backwater towns were an eye-opener. Outside of the large cities, the rural population was still battling the Depression and towns were clamoring for the training grounds that would bring thousands of troops and needed dollars.

Ephrata, Washington was tailor-made for a military base. Land was cheap and plentiful. The location was remote to spies and saboteurs, and for pilots in training, the probability of causing damage to private property was low. The population had hovered around 1,000 in 1941, doubled with the establishment of Ephrata Army Air Field.

The trainman walking car to car boomed, “Ephrata! Ephrata Air Base!”

Paul silently said a prayer of thanks as three days of shaking starts and fits, and waiting on line for malfunctioning toilet facilities was ending. His back and neck ached. His gut began rumbling crossing the Rockies, something he attributed to eating a ham sandwich outside of Denver. Limiting meals to kosher food ended when he reported to basic training in Mississippi and stuck a fork into a plate of pork and beans after not eating for three days. Eating was vital to life, and the Torah teachings made dispensations for it, but his digestive track still objected.

He put Richard Tregaskis’ Guadalcanal Diary into his duffle. The best seller painted a harrowing picture of heroism in the country’s first victory on the ground against the Japanese. Unable to concentrate, Paul fought to finish two chapters of his purchase in Chicago.

The train shuddered to a halt. With his duffle bag in hand, Paul waited for a young woman to negotiate the aisle. A battered suitcase twisted in one hand as she held an infant to her chest. Paul had watched her for two hours since she got on at Sprague. With each mile, her beaming smile dissipated. The wedding band told a recurring story of a bride following her officer husband, traveling into the unknown. His stomach churned with each step. Maybe it wasn’t the ham sandwich. Washing out of B-17 training would be worse than flunking out of N.Y.U.

Paul stepped onto a platform constructed to receive the ever lengthening troop and supply trains. The old station wasn’t more than a lean-to shed that handled the once-a-week three car train from Spokane. Dirt, blowing off unpaved roads, stung his eyes. Preston tasted the brown film on his lips. All that was missing were tumbleweeds he’d seen in the five cent Saturday matinees.

Before the construction of the air base, Ephrata’s main street consisted of Lou’s All American Bar, Millie’s Family Café, and a no-name barbershop with a red striped pole. The population explosion brought a bowling alley and movie theater.

The woman with the baby stood alone fifty feet from the platform, using her cardigan sweater as a shield against the wind. A Jeep approached. Running a hand through her hair, she found her smile. The Jeep passed, stopping at the far end of the platform. She returned to her suitcase.

Two and a half ton trucks backed up to the train’s cargo containers as a contingent of black enlisted men scrambled to unload supplies for the base. Paul slung the duffle over his shoulder and took a set of wood plank stairs to the street. Unlike former postings where he arrived with other trainees, this time Paul was responsible for arranging his own transportation. The prospect of walking three miles held little appeal. Reporting to the command post on arrival, where billeting arrangements and group assignments would be found, was standard procedure.

A solitary deuce and a half, outfitted with benches in the cargo area, was parked at the end of the platform. Paul closed the distance. A staff sergeant, wearing flight overalls, rested against the rear tailgate as a dozen men loaded their gear and took seats.

Bent over in a fit of laughter, the sergeant snapped to attention. “Any chance you can tell me where I can get a lift to the CP?” Paul asked.

“That be me,” the sergeant said, adjusting his cap. “Hey one of you mugs,” he called to the guys already seated, “take the lieutenant’s bag. Lieutenant, you can ride upfront.”

“Cochrane, take it easy on the way back. I don’t want to spend the war in a hospital recuperating from a broken back like Davis,” one of the enlisted men called out.

The five-five Cochrane spit into the dirt, wiping his hands on his flight overalls. “He shouldn’t have been standing.”

Paul climbed into the cab. The sergeant depressed the clutch and turned the key. After a few choice muted curses and grinding gears, the behemoth moved off. A cloud of dirt trailed the truck as it made its way along three miles of unpaved road. “You cut it close with school starting tomorrow,” Cochrane said with a wink.

A squadron of B-17s approached a runway running parallel to the road. Their landing gears were down. “That’s right sergeant. It starts tomorrow,” Paul said.

“Your competition got in two days ago. The colonel remembers the brown-nosers who get in early and the stragglers who get in at the end,” Cochrane said. “Pilots who end up as navigators and bombardiers ask themselves why me?”

“I bet it’s because they cut it close,” Paul answered.

“That’s the first choice, but wrong,” Cochrane said, looking at Paul. “It’s because they fly like shit.”

Paul laughed. Cochrane took great pleasure in using the same routine with all the rookies. The truck caught a deep rut, dragging it toward a culvert on that side of the road. Cochrane fought to bring the truck back to the center of the road as unhappy passengers in the rear beat on the roof of the cab.

“Sergeant, did you learn how to drive in the army?” Paul asked as he held onto the seat.

Cochrane ground the gears as he shifted. “I’m a gunner on a Seventeen. Just doing the guys a favor by giving them a lift.” He was having fun rocking the truck side to side.

The lead B-17 decelerated over the runway, touched the asphalt with its wheels, then powered up and climbed. “They’re practicing touch and go,” Cochrane said. “Looks like fun, but nothings done for nothing. A pilot could save his crew and ship if he learns it right.”

“Amazing machines,” Paul said in awe of the B-17. The Flying Fortress was the next generation heavy bomber that replaced the B-24 Liberator as the main air weapon against Nazi Germany. A B-17 carried a crew of ten, 14 machine guns, 6,000 pounds of bombs, and enough fuel for a maximum range of 2,880 miles.

“You’re pretty…” The roar of the massive four engines powering the B-17s drowned out Cochrane as they flew over the truck.

“Didn’t catch what you were saying,” Paul yelled over the continuing roar.

The last plane in the group passed. “I said you guys are lucky being allowed to fly the prettiest girls in the air,” Cochrane yelled.

The squadron circled the base and prepared to repeat the exercise. Cochrane blew the horn three times as he approached the base’s main gate. Stepping out of a guardhouse, an MP waved the truck through. Cochrane smashed the accelerator, passed the command post, making a hard left turn. Catcalls from the rear of the truck brought a grin to his face.

Cochrane slammed on the breaks as they drew even with the mess hall. He yelled out of the window, “End of the line. Tips would be appreciated.”

A chorus of “Fuck you and your mother” was returned. Cochrane waited for the customary rap on the tailgate to signal everyone was off. He made a series of right turns between the clapboard barracks and returned to the command center. Sticking out his hand, he said, “Sorry I won’t be around to see you get a ship. My group is getting ready to shove off to England.”

Paul shook hands. “Take care of yourself.” He wondered what was in store for the happy-go-lucky sergeant. The air campaign based out of England was at a critical point. Losses were so high that the average life span of a B-17 and crew was fifty-five days. If one did the math, only an ominous conclusion could be extrapolated—every 180 days the entire Eighth Air Force would need to be replaced if the losses continued.

Paul stepped down from the truck. Cochrane honked the horn and drove away, spewing a cloud of dirt. Paul looked down at his black service brogues which bore little resemblance to the spitshine applied in Chicago. He wiped them off with the back of his pant leg and left his duffle outside of the command center door.

He straightened his tie. With his hand on the doorknob, Paul took a deep breath and entered to find the back of an enlisted man hunched over a typewriter. The barebones office consisted of one G.I. standard issue metal desk, a bank of file cabinets, two black phones, and a wood bench. “Lieutenant Paul Rothstein. I’d like to see the base commander.” The more than ample figure didn’t answer. “It’s customary to stand and salute an officer!”

“Hold your fucking shirt on! Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Paul didn’t have to see the man’s face—Vinnie Sapienza. “I don’t believe it.”

Vinnie moved around the desk to deliver a bear hug. “I’m glad to see another human being that speaks the same language. Take a seat, Colonel Thompson is exchanging pleasantries with one of the pilots.”

It wasn’t difficult to catch the tenor of the conversation taking place in the colonel’s office. A paper-thin wall separating the commander from the outside world was like a shade on an open window. “I don’t give a good God damn. You’re in the God damn army, not fucking Princeton. Get your papers from the sergeant and get the hell off this base.”

“Colonel, I…”

“Now,” Thompson ordered.

Paul did a double take as Clark Johnson came through the door. Paul expected to see dejection, but instead, the America First front man was grinning as though he had just won a date with Betty Grable. Vinnie held up an envelope between two of his sausage size fingers.

“Thank you sergeant,” Johnson said as he snatched the envelope. Still ruddy-faced but twenty pounds thinner, he glanced at Paul for a second. “Do me a favor and call me a cab.” He let out a belly laugh as he flipped the door closed with his shoe.

The wall shook with Thompson slamming his door closed. Paul didn’t let on that he recognized Johnson. “Pretty happy for a guy who just got chewed out.”

Sapienza plopped down in a chair behind the battered desk. “That guy has been nothing but a pain in the ass since he got here, bitching and moaning that he was born to be a fighter jockey not a bomber pilot. Christmas came early, he got his wish.”

Paul raised an eyebrow, knowing that it took heavyweight pull to get a transfer. He changed the subject. “When did they get the idea of hiring a gorilla to do the paperwork? And they say that the army is not creative,” Paul cracked. “How in the world did you end up in this place?”

Vinnie looked surprised. “I thought you knew I was in. I guess your brother kept it a secret. I got into a little jam and was given a choice, jail or this. I chose the latter, and told Jake that I wasn’t going to be around for a couple of deals that were on the fire. It was your brother who fixed it up.”

“And who fixed this up?” Paul asked.

Vinnie leaned back in the chair and put his boots on the desk. “A few bucks in the right place do a lot of good. Six months ago, when an opening came up for clerk, a guy boosted me for it. I hit it off with the old man, got my stripes and the rest is history.”

Paul sat down on the bench opposite Sapienza. “I heard this base was a shithole, but it exceeds the warning.”

“If you think this is bad now, you should’ve seen it when I got here. There were no barracks, just tents. We had more guys than we had space. The weather goes from broiling in the summer to arctic in the winter. When it’s not raining, the dust is blowing. The line mechanics have one fucking time maintaining the planes. That’s the idea, give us as much trouble as possible in training, and maybe when the real thing comes along we will be ready.”

“What do you mean we?” Paul asked. “I thought you’d be staying here for the entire war?”

“Listen Mr. Joe College, just because I was once connected to a bunch of unsavory types don’t make me a wimp no-fight-Quaker,” Vinnie said indignantly. “I want to kill those Nazi bastards as much as you do. As long as we are on the subject of Nazi bastards, how is your wife’s cousin, that crazy German broad Minnah?”

“Jake didn’t forget to tell you that I was married. Minnah hasn’t gotten over the loss of her family. It’s a sure bet they’re dead.”

Vinnie straightened papers in a file box on the desk. “As an officer you can bring your wife out here if you want, but finding a place to stay is the big problem. The local hotel only has forty rooms and at times has people sleeping on the floor. I’ll check things out and see what can be done.”

Paul thought of the woman with the baby sitting on her suitcase. “Sarah and I discussed her coming out, but we decided it would be wiser for her to remain in New York.” He motioned toward the colonel’s office with his thumb. “What about the colonel?”

Vinnie pulled himself to his feet. “I’ll get you back here when he’s cooled off. I have a bunk reserved in your name. Come on, I’ll get you situated.”