The Forgotten 500

The Forgotten 500 by Gregory A. Freeman Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: The Forgotten 500 by Gregory A. Freeman Read Free Book Online
Authors: Gregory A. Freeman
struggled to maintain level flight as two of the four engines died. Just as with Musgrove’s crippled bomber, the crew of Orsini’s plane worried that a German fighter would find them separated from the protection of the pack, flying slow and low. Every so often the pilot would ask Orsini, who had been carefully plotting the plane’s progress, for an update on whether they could make it back to Italy at this speed and fuel consumption. Each time, Orsini replied that it would be close, but they could probably make it. A couple of hours went by that way, the plane slowly losing altitude and the crew deathly silent as they prayed for a good outcome and watched the skies intently for German planes. The quiet was broken when the tail gunner’s voice came on the intercom.
    “Fighters at six o’clock!” he screamed, indicating the sky behind the plane. “Fighters at six o’clock!”
    The gunners all tensed and prepared to fight off the attack, but then the tail gunner came back on the intercom about thirty seconds later and said, “They’re P-38s. It’s okay.” P-38s were American fighters, and these had spotted the B-24 limping home. They flew in alongside and escorted the B-24 as it continued descending, eventually reaching ten thousand feet, far lower than the twenty-one thousand feet where it had dropped its bombs. At that point, the pilot turned back to Orsini and asked him for a final assessment of whether they were going to make it back if they continued descending at that rate.
    “No sir,” Orsini answered. “There’s no way.” The continuing rate of descent had removed any optimism.
    The pilot was prepared for that answer and immediately called out on the intercom, “Abandon ship! Abandon ship! I repeat, abandon ship!” Orsini wasn’t surprised because he had contemplated that possibility for the past hour, and he knew the pilot was making the right decision. Better to bail out now instead of waiting until they were over the Adriatic Sea. The bailout bell was almost a welcome sound by then.
    The only problem was that Orsini didn’t know exactly where they were. He could tell from his calculations that they wouldn’t make it back, but he was missing several key maps that would have told him what region they were about to jump into. When he realized at the morning briefing that he was missing the designated maps, he had asked an officer for them. But the officer dismissed him, telling him not to worry because his plane would be number four in the formation and he only had to play follow the leader. Now Orsini was frustrated that he couldn’t give the crew any idea what they were jumping into. He had some idea that they were over Serbia, but he didn’t know they were in a very mountainous region called Ravna Gora.
    As Orsini prepared to jump out of the ailing plane, he suddenly wished he had taken better care of his parachute. Since it was issued to him nearly six months earlier, he had tossed it around nonchalantly, using it for a pillow and a football on more than one occasion. Now his life would depend on that chute opening.
    He had been trained to count one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three before pulling the rip cord, but Orsini was so anxious about whether the abused parachute would work that he couldn’t wait. He yanked the rip cord immediately and was relieved to see the canopy snap to attention over his head. After the brutal yank of the chute on his harness, everything became surreal.
    The sky was so quiet, with just a soft whisper of wind passing his ears. Orsini had been in the loud plane for hours, the constant rumble of the engines overshadowed only by the deafening booms of the antiaircraft fire. The sudden silence was unsettling.
    Orsini felt like he was suspended in space, as if he were not descending at all but just swaying back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The sensation, along with all the fear and dread that gripped him for hours already, caused him to

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