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It contained an inch-thick book. Clete flipped through it, then handed it to Delgano, who read the title aloud: “‘Pilot’s Operating Manual, Lockheed L-049 Constellation Aircraft.’”

Delgano then looked at Frade, who handed him a small note that had been paper-clipped to the book.

“Constellation? Is that that great big new airplane? The one with three tails?” Pelosi asked.

“It has three vertical stabilizers, Tony,” Frade said as he read the note.

When he had finished reading the note, Delgano looked at Frade.

“Again?” he asked.

“I have no idea what this is all about,” Frade confessed. “If I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”

[FIVE]

Sidi Slimane U.S. Army Air Force Base

Morocco

1250 4 September 1943

Captain Archer C. Dooley Jr., USAAF, commanding officer of the 94th Fighter Squadron, studied the runway behind him in the rearview mirror of his P-38, saw what he wanted to see, then looked to his left, saw that he had the attention of First Lieutenant William Cole, smiled at him, raised his right hand, and gestured with his index finger extended, first pointing down the runway and then in a circling motion upward.

When Cole had given him a smile and a thumbs-up gesture, Dooley put his hand on the throttle quadrant and pushed both levers forward to take off power.

This caused the twin Allison V-1710 1,475-horsepower engines of his P- 38 “Lightning” to roar impressively and the aircraft to move at first slowly, and then with rapidly increasing velocity

, down the runway.

He lifted off—with Cole’s Lightning perhaps two seconds behind him—retracted the gear, and retarded the throttles to give him the most efficient burning of fuel as he climbed to altitude and to the rendezvous point over the Atlantic Ocean.

Sixty seconds later, two more P-38s roared down the runway, and sixty seconds after they had become airborne, two more, and sixty seconds after that, two more, for a total of eight.

“Mother Hen, check in,” Captain Dooley ordered.

One by one, the seven other P-38s in the flight reported in, starting with “Chick One, sir. All okay.”

When Chick Seven had been heard from, Dooley went on: “Pay attention to Mother Hen. We’re going out over the drink on this heading, our speed and rate of climb governed by our concern for fuel consumption. Think fuel conservation. Better yet, think of what a long swim you are going to have if you don’t think fuel conservation. We are going to eleven thousand feet, which should put us above Grandma. Everyone, repeat everyone, will monitor the frequencies you have been given for Grandma’s squawk. Everyone will acknowledge by saying, ‘Yes, Mother.’ ”

The responses began immediately: “Chick One. Yes, Mother.”

Two of the Chicks were unable to keep the chuckles out of their voices. They tried. The Old Man could be a real hard-ass if he was crossed.

Captain Dooley had been the valedictorian of the 1942 Class at Saint Ignatius High School in Kansas City, Kansas. He still was not old enough to purchase intoxicating spirits—or, for that matter, even beer—in his hometown.

He had become an aviation cadet, been commissioned, been selected for fighter pilot training and graduated from that, in time to be assigned to the aerial combat involved in the American invasion of North Africa, flying P-51s for the 403rd Fighter Squadron of the 23rd Fighter Group.

Four weeks and six days after Second Lieutenant Dooley had reported to the 403rd and flew his first mission, the Squadron First Sergeant had handed him a sheet of paper to sign:

Officer promotion policies within the 23rd Fighter Group were quite simple:

16. In the case of a combat-caused vacancy, the next-senior officer will temporarily move into the vacant position. If no replacement officer of suitable rank becomes available within seven (7) days of such temporary assignment, the temporary assignment will become permanent, and the incumbent will be promoted to the rank called for by the Table of Organization & Equipment without regard to any other promotional criteria.

When Dooley assumed command of the 403rd, eleven of the pilots who had been senior to him when he had reported for duty as a second lieutenant with the 403rd had been killed or otherwise been rendered hors de combat.

At just about the time Archie became the Old Man, the United States achieved aerial superiority over the battlefield, and the 403rd didn’t have very many—almost no—aerial battles to wage. The mission became ground support and logistics interdiction. The latter translated to mean they swept low over the desert and shot at anything that moved. Locomotives were ideal targets, but single German staff cars, or Kübelwagens—for that matter, individual German soldiers caught in the open—were fair targets.

Captain Dooley had dutifully repeated to his pilots the orders from above that even one dead German soldier meant one fewer German who could shoot at the guys in the infantry. But he confessed to his pilots that he himself had very bad memories of a Kraut Mercedes staff car he’d taken out when he’d come across it as it moved alone across the desert.