Part 32 (1/2)

I climbed tiredly out of the cabin and down to the booth on the hangar floor, wondering if it were another false alarm

It was the President His lips hite ”Carry out your basic instructions, Mr deFries”

”Yes, Mr President!”

The details had been worked out in advance and, once I had accepted a receipt and token payment from the Commandant for the dust, my duties were finished But, at our instance, the British had invited military observers froovernments of occupied nations The United States A

Our task group was thirteen bombers One such bomber could have carried all the dust needed, but it was split up to insureits destination I had fetched forty percent more dust than Ridpath calculated would be needed for the mission and my last job was to see to it that every canister actually went on board a plane of the flight

The extreht of dust used was emphasized to each of the military observers

We took off just at dark, climbed to twenty-five thousand feet, refueled in the air, and cli refueled thirty roups, and cut the thin air for middle Europe The bombers we rode had been stripped and hiked up to permit the utland, other flights had taken off shortly before us to act as a diversion Their destinations were every part of Germany; it was the intention to create such confusion in the air above the Reich that our few planes actually engaged in the serious work h in the stratosphere

The thirteen dust carriers approached Berlin fro to cross Berlin as if following the spokes of a wheel The night was appreciably clear and we had a low moon to help us Berlin is not a hard city to locate, since it has the largest square-mile area of any modern city and is located on a broad flat alluvial plain I could make out the River Spree as we approached it, and the Havel The city was blacked out, but a city makes a different sort of black fro over the city inthat the R A

F had been busy before we got there and the A A batteries on the ground helped to pick out the city

There was fighting below us, but not within fifteen thousand feet of our altitude as nearly as I could judge

The pilot reported to the captain, ”On line of bearing!”

The chap working the absolute altimeter steadily fed his data into the fuse pots of the canister The canisters were equipped with a light charge of black powder, sufficient to explode them and scatter the dust at a ti The method used was no more than an ancient expedient The dust would have been als, although not as well distributed

The Captain hung over the navigator's board, a slight frown on his thin sallow face ”Ready one!” reported the bomber

”Release!”

”Ready two!”

The Captain studied his wristwatch ”Release!”

”Ready three!”

”Release!”

When the last of our ten little packages was out of the shi+p we turned tail and ran for hoet ho I wanted to do I did not feel badly; I did not feelI felt like a one a serious operation; it's over now, he is still nuo home

The British Commandant was quite decent about it; he serviced and ave me an escort for the off shore war zone It was an expensive way to send one man home, but who cared? We had just expended some millions of lives in a desperate atteave the necessary orders absentmindedly

I took a double dose of Neet so serviced, but there was not overnment of the Reich had issued one official news bulletin shortly after the raid, sneering at thethat a major air attack had been made on Berlin and several other cities, but that the raiders had been driven off with only e The current Lord Ha started one of his sarcastic speeches but was unable to continue it The announcer said that he had been seized with a heart attack, and substituted sos of patriotic music The station cut off in theAfter that there was silence

I ed to promote an Army car and a driver at the Baltimore field which made short work of the Annapolis speedway We al was in his office He looked up as I came in said, ”hello, John,”