s u m m e r
no exit
The B-25 has a sound all its own. Very unique. I was sitting just under the top turret when the pilot turned over the radial off our port wing. In the B-25 the engine coughs to life and breathes smoke, thick with oil, down through the engine nacelle, into the wing, and ultimately onto the flight deck. It comes out of the wing roots, thin and gray, and smelling curiously enough like...well...popcorn. The exhaust stacks on the B-25 are so short they fire at random, sounding a lot like small caliber rifle fire, and lots of it. Hell, the engine sounds like it doesn't want to run at all, sputtering to hold onto the life fed to it by old fuel lines and pumps.
But the starboard engine comes to life. The lower hatch is closed and we move. The air blows through the open cockpit windows and as the pilot moves the throttles forward the thin gray smoke is blown back over the bomb bay into the tail of the plane.
We wave at the crowd of people waiting to see this old bird fly again and then taxi out of sight. I can't see well at all from my position but I feel the takeoff roll start and I know the moment we've hit rotation and the wings rock ever so slightly. That's my signal. I can now move.
I used to think the hardest plane to get out of was the B-24. I used to think if you were up in that nose and something went wrong you'd never get to the gear door in time to get out. I used to think that. Now I know better. There is no exit from a B-25.
The pilots roll there seats forward and are locked into position. They might have a shot at getting out but let me tell you about the front of the B-25. You crawl under the flight deck, on your back. You pull yourself through by grabbing hold of two thin yellow rails. The crawl space can't be more than a foot and a half wide and maybe a foot tall. The plane was climbing when I was pulling myself through, so it was like pulling myself up a ladder, backwards. There is no light, just a little at the end of the crawl space, but you can't really see it so much as feel it. The space is maybe seven or eight feet long and dark as a coffin.
I pulled hard and my back slid easy on the metal floor. The gear was enclosed below me, not like in the B-24 where you have to climb by it on your hands and knees.
Finally I broke through into the glass nose. It's hot, noisy, isolated, and there is no way out; but it is the most beautiful view of the sky I've ever seen. The pilots were above and behind me. Somebody put the plane in a 45 degree turn and the side of the nose became the floor. My hands were pressed against the Plexiglas and my knees were tight against the fuselage.
I could see the mountains in the distance and far below I could make out the track we were following, the Yadkin river, snaking its way across North Carolina. I didn't know it yet, but in the coming weeks I'd cross that river several times, both in the air and on the ground.
After we rolled out of the lazy turn I just leaned back on the bulkhead and propped my feet up on the three .50 caliber machine guns on the right side of the nose and enjoyed the ride. I don't know how long we were up. The engines droned and popped behind me, their props huge and just outside the glass nose. At some point in time I took off my headset and listened to the wind.
It seemed as though I'd fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is hearing the gear come down and knowing I had to leave my perch and crawl back down through the coffin like hole, feet first, away from the beauty and the light and back into the bowels of the hot, dark airplane.
We touched down at just over 120 knots and rolled to a stop in front of the main hanger. On our right, a B-17. On our left, an AD-1. In front of us a dance had begun. A mock USO dance. They were serving up BBQ and hushpuppies and vinegar slaw. Somebody popped the hatch from under the plane and released the bomb bay doors. Light streamed up through the floor and I climbed down the narrow ladder behind the flight deck and once more reluctantly touched the ground.
You could see the heads turn in the crowd. You could see it in the eyes of the folks at the dance, watching us all climb out of the belly of the plane. "Lucky bastards," they thought.
If they only knew.
goodnight 6.4.99