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But on the other hand, there was no point correcting their belief that because of his wound, he would no longer be required to go in harm’s way. So he had not let Sarah know that he was now back on flight status, despite the still-stiff knee.

The funny thing was that leaving Sarah and Joe turned out to be difficult, more difficult than Ed had imagined.

While he wasn’t madly, passionately in love with Sarah, he respected and admired her more than any other woman he had ever known. She had character. She’d handled the shock of her pregnancy, for instance, in a really decent way. She’d accepted her share of responsibility, and told him straight off—and he was sure she had meant it—that he had no obligation or duty to marry her.

He had accepted, of course, his duty to legitimize his child, and would adhere to his wedding vow to “keep only to her, forsaking all others.” For her part, Sarah had agreed not only to an Episcopal wedding ceremony but also to raise Joe in the Christian faith. She was a splendid woman and a splendid mother, and she loved him.

On balance, their marriage was a good thing for both of them, even without considering Joe.

Ed had come, and this was rather unexpected, to really love his son.

That experience, in fact, was one of the reasons he was sure he didn’t love Sarah. He had never felt for her anything like the emotion he felt when his son smiled at him or gave him a wet kiss. Such things really made Ed melt. With Sarah, he never melted. Yet marriage seemed a very cheap price indeed for having a son like Joe.

Ed’s new assignment was incredible good luck: He was getting back in harm’s way, and this previously had seemed out of the question. Up to now his only reasonable expectation was to spend the war as a staff officer, a shoreside staff officer, far from action. He was a crippled aviator, who stood virtually no chance of passing a flight physical again. And alas, he was a very good staff officer. Very good staff officers are usually much too important to send to sea. A very good crippled staff officer was a double kiss of death.

As the work he was doing for Admiral Hawley had become less and less important, his feeling of frustration had grown. When he first went to work for the admiral, the disaster at Pearl Harbor had still been a bleeding wound, and the assignment of Naval Aviation assets had been critical. There had been neither many planes nor the spare parts and support equipment for them. Thus the appointment of these throughout the world had been very much like an intensive, indeed, deadly, game of chess.

As aircraft and equipment had trickled from assembly lines, daily decisions—based on losses—and educated guesses—based upon less than complete understanding of war plans—of requirements had to be made. A wrong guess—or estimate, as it was called in the trade—was at the time a genuine threat to the conduct of the war. Sending more aircraft, or fewer, than the tactical situation required could have lost more than a battle.

But that situation had changed. Everybody was still screaming for more aircraft; but in point of fact, the major problem for the last several months had been scrounging shipping space rather than equipment to ship. The trickle had become a flood. Aircraft manufacturers who had been delivering four aircraft a day were now delivering twenty. Or forty. The Naval Flight Training Program, vastly expanded, was delivering a steady, and steadily growing, stream of pilots.

Bitter knew that his job could just as easily have been accomplished— perhaps been better accomplished—by one of the directly commissioned civilians who had entered the Navy in large numbers, men from automobile and furniture factories, grocery distribution, railroads, even five-and-ten-cent -store executives. These people were skilled and practiced in moving “supply line items” from Point A to Point B in the most efficient manner.

The need for someone qualified to base the supply decisions on tactical considerations had ceased as soon as the American ind

ustrial complex began to stamp out airplanes with the same efficiency that it spit out automobiles and refrigerators.

As often as he dared, he had asked Admiral Hawley to have him returned to aviation duty or to a ship. He was a naval officer first and an aviator second, and he could hold his own on a ship, as executive officer or even as captain, with luck.

Admiral Hawley had always courteously but firmly refused. The Navy needed him most where the Navy had put him, the admiral kept telling him.

And, as things had turned out, the admiral had been proved right. He was going overseas, going in harm’s way, back on flight status, because that was what the Navy needed.

Four days after the DCNO marched into Admiral Hawley’s office, Sarah drove Ed to Anacostia Naval Air Station in the Cadillac, as she had fifty times before. The only difference was that this time he wouldn’t be back in a couple of days. Otherwise, it was the same routine. He traveled in a blue uniform, carrying two suitcases (his priority orders waived weight restrictions) and a stuffed leather briefcase.

Sarah clung to him when the public address system announced the boarding of the Air Force C-54, and the pressure of her breasts against his abdomen reminded him that he was going to miss that part of their marriage. Joe cried, and there were tears in Ed Bitter’s eyes when he kissed his son.

The plane refueled at Gander, Newfoundland, and again at Prestwick, Scotland, after fighting a headwind across much of the Atlantic, and then took off again for Croydon Field outside London, where it was scheduled to land at half past ten in the morning London time.

Chapter TWO

U.S. Army Air Corps Station

Horsham St. Faith

0185 Hours 6 January 1943

Major William H. Emmons, who was the commanding officer of the 474th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron of the Eighth United States Air Force, was more than a little curious about Major Richard Canidy.

Canidy was preceded at Horsham St. Faith by a telephone call from Brigadier General Kenneth Lorimer of Eighth Air Force Headquarters.

Mission 43-Special-124 was a photographic reconnaissance of the German submarine pens at Saint-Lazare, General Lorimer said. And it was being flown at Major Canidy’s request. Special-124 was a high-priority mission, he emphasized. Which meant that there was to be no delaying it or canceling it or getting around it except maybe for some overwhelming catastrophe (such as, say, the end of the world). Which meant that if Major Emmons had problems mounting it, equipment problems, say, it would be necessary to take an aircraft from another scheduled mission so that Special-124 could go.

Major Canidy himself would come to Horsham St. Faith to personally brief the flight crew (Major Emmons was always pissed when some chair warmer showed up to tell his people how to do what they were ordered to do) and would remain at Horsham St. Faith while the mission was flown. After the mission the film magazines would be turned over to Major Canidy, who would arrange for the necessary processing.

“Under no circumstances, Bill, is Major Canidy to be permitted to go along on the mission,” General Lorimer said finally. “You understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”