Don’t Sass Your Mamma
We called him Mother. He was the landing officer aboard our carrier steaming through the south Pacific in search of the fleeing Japanese fleet. He was our guardian angel and guided us in for the immensely difficult carrier landings. More planes and pilots were lost in carrier landings than in combat in WW II. It was 1944 and our flight of eight ancient and obsolete torpedo-bomber-fighters had taken off for the battle of the Philippine Sea. These outdated aircraft were all we had to throw at the Japanese at the time. That day American fighters shot down more than 600 of their carrier based planes in the Marianas Turkey Shoot and sank three of their carriers. Our stunning victory was gained not without paying a price, though. I was the sole survivor of my squadron as the other seven planes of our flight were lost to enemy fire. So much for our clumsy, slow, lumbering torpedo planes. I began frantically searching for our carrier after leaving the attack and dogfight. Through the broken cloud cover, as the sun sank slowly in the west, I saw only a vast empty ocean. No place to land my damaged and airplane; moreover I was nearly out of fuel.
There! Wait, over there–to starboard. There in the distance was the wake of a ship. A carrier. Must be her, my carrier, my home base and hopefully, there would be Mother standing on her fantail waiting to bring me in. I dropped down to sea level, leaned up the gasoline mixture and throttled the engine down to conserve fuel. I was concerned about running out of gas and having to ditch in the black, threatening ocean. The needle was near empty. They would never find me in the dark if I ditched in the ocean at night.
I followed the wake of the carrier until I was only a mile from her stern. Breaking radio silence, I called for help. Breaking radio silence was a real no-no; there were enemy submarines in the vicinity. “This is Red Fox leader. I’m desperately low on fuel, have a damaged aircraft and will need some deck illumination for a night landing. This is an emergency. I request a priority landing as I don’t have the fuel to proceed into a standard landing pattern.” The sun had already set and no moon was visible behind the cloud cover.
No reply. Nothing. Was my radio working? Didn’t they hear me? Why no reply? Again I attempted to raise the carrier. “Red Fox leader attempting a landing with a damaged aircraft low on fuel. Please give me thirty seconds of deck light that I might make an emergency landing.”
And again, no reply. Silence. I thought to myself, under no circumstances am I going to ditch in the ocean. They’ll never be able to find me in the dark. I’d rather crash on deck than ditch and drown in the sea. I continued my approach toward the fantail of the carrier as I began the landing checklist in my head. Wheels down. Flaps down. Hook down, Canopy back. Seat restraints loosened for quick exit. Throttle back. The plane began to flutter and waver just maintaining enough speed to prevent a stall. The engine began to miss and cough. I was running on fumes.
As I approached the stern, there was Mother, the landing officer with his paddles, frantically waving me off a landing. The landing officer is responsible for deciding if a landing aircraft is “in the groove”, and is capable of landing safely. A fiery crash on deck can jeopardize the entire ship and its crew and it is Mother’s responsibility to allow only safe landings. He waved off any plane that might crash and burn if it threatened the safety of the ship. It was drummed into us in flight school that one never questions or disobeys Mother’s orders; in this case, a “wave off “of an attempted landing. Never sass yo’ Momma.
Waved off landing, I was not sure if I had enough fuel to do a turn around; I gunned the throttle and banked to port, avoiding the carrier’s bridge island as I again lined up with the wake of the carrier. It was black as the inside of a burned out gun barrel. On the radio, I announced, once more, “I’m coming in momma, wave off or no. I will not ditch in the sea. I can’t swim. I have enough fuel for one more try and I’m going to land or crash on deck, one way or another.”
The engine began missing and sputtering as I throttled down. Wheels down, Flaps down, Hook down, Canopy back, Restraints loosened, I approached the carrier’s stern. There was Mother, again waving his landing paddles frantically, trying to wave me off. As I cleared the stern, just ten feet off the deck, the engine sputtered and quit. The Avenger flies like a brick when she loses power and I dropped heavily to the deck. My plane bounced once as I missed the first and second restraining cables. My tail hook caught the third wire, jerking to a stop just in front of the barrier at the end of the flight deck.
Perspiration beaded my forehead and face as I pulled off my helmet, goggles, oxygen mask and throat radio as I stood up in the cockpit. I thought to myself, Thank you Lord. I’m down. I’ll probably get a court martial for disobeying Mother’s wave offs and orders not to land. Yet, just possibly they’ll give me a commendation for a difficult night landing and saving this pilot and this aircraft. Not likely, but just maybe.
At that moment, a man in a yellow garrison cap bearing the rising sun red ball of the Japanese Navy, scurried from under the wing, looked up smiling toothily and said,
“Ah so, American Pilot, you make a very good night landing.”
Posted in Short Stories
Reilly Maginn's debut novel, BIO, a medical action thriller is a truly frightening tale of Jihadist bioterrorism. A story of weapons of mass destruction that could happen here in the US. Set in the south Pacific, a volunteer American physician/surgeon faces off against not only a deadly virus, but also the radical muslim terrorists who developed it. There is a fittingly appropriate conclusion. The novel is a real page turner and soon will appear on the big screen.
