[Rain Man]

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B-17 #16 – Fire Below

Pilot BIG_DADDY (8)
Copilot Skip Towne (8)
Bombardier RedNeckRaider (8)
Navigator CHIEF4EVER (8)
Engineer Jcroft (8)
Radio Op. Misplaced_Chiefs_Fan (8)
Tail Gunner Over-Head (8)
Ball Turret Gunner bishop_74 (8)
Right Waist Gunner CanadaKC (8)
Left Waist Gunner bowser

Target: Rouen
Mid-formation horizontally, low vertically (high vulnerability)

Zone 1 Out: Britain

No enemy

Zone 2 Out: English Channel

1 Fw190 attacks

misplaced_chiefs_fan fires, misses
jcroft fires, misses
bowser fires, misses

Fw misses, breaks off attack

Zone 3 Out: Western Channel

No enemy

Zone 4 Out: France (Entering Target Zone)

1 Fw190, 1 Me110 attack – 1 Me110 is driven off by fighters

jcroft fires, misses
redneckraider fires, misses

Fw scores 2 hits
-superficial damage to port wing
-superficial damage to radio room

Fw circles, attacks again

jcroft fires, misses
bowser fires, misses
over-head fires, misses

Fw scores 2 hits
-superficial damage to bomb bay
-superficial damage to port wing
Fw circles, attacks again

jcroft fires, misses
bowser fires, hits Fw190

Fw misses, breaks off attack

Entering Bomb Zone
Good Weather
Heavy Flak – 7 close hits hammer the Fire Below!
-tail – over-head’s oxygen system is hit and explodes into flame. Trapped in the back, Over-head yells for help and CanadaKC comes running with the fire extinguisher. He empties the extinguisher but can only contain the fire. He can’t extinguish it.
-starboard wing flap is slightly damaged.
-starboard wing – inboard fuel tank is hit, but self-seals without a fire, explosion, or leakage.
-nose – chief4ever takes a light wound to the mid chest
-nose – a particularly close burst gives chief4ever a light wound to the left chest, and redneckraider loses his right arm at the shoulder with a serious wound.
-port wing aileron is out
-port wing – the inboard fuel tank is hit. A flame leaps out and the leaking fuel feeds it. The fire starts growing.

Misplaced_Chiefs_Fan runs back from the radio room with a second fire extinguisher and is spraying down the tail area. It looks like he’s getting it under control, but Big_Daddy sees with despair that the fire on the left wing is growing rapidly. The plane is at risk of explosion, so he hits the bailout alarm.

Chaos ensues as the crew tries to bail out. Big_Daddy dives the plane to attempt to keep the flames down, while Skip Towne leaves his post and goes down to the nose to help the injured redneckraider and chief4ever get out. Engineer jcroft grabs the final fire extinguisher to help over-head get out through the flames in the tail. Left waist gunner bowser also runs to the nose to help the injured fliers, while bishop_74 cranks himself up from the ball turret and gets his own parachute on.

The third fire extinguisher pushes the flames down enough for tail gunner over-head to hotfoot out of his area. While he’s getting out, radio operator Misplaced_Chiefs_Fan becomes the first to bail out of the plane. He lands safely, but with a German squad’s rifles pointed at him the last 200 feet of the descent. There’s no chance of escape for him. Thirty yards away and thirty seconds behind him, right waist gunner Canada_KC lands, with the same predicament.

Copilot Skip_Towne wishes the twice-injured navigator Chief4ever well and pushes him out the egress hatch, and then works with bowser to try to rig a way to keep redneckraider’s parachute onto him. Missing his right arm, redneckraider can’t keep the chute on, and is barely conscious as well.

Big_Daddy, alone up in the pilot’s seat, has leveled the plane at 9,000 feet and sees that fire growing quickly. “Out NOW!” he yells over the intercom. In what would later become his mantra, he adds, “She’s gonna blow!” He hits the autopilot and sprints toward his own egress hatch as the sky quickly blooms with parachutes.

Everyone gets out well except engineer jcroft, whose parachute opens prematurely. He gets blown into the starboard wing and is knocked unconscious, but at least his parachute is open, and he floats toward the ground. Less than a minute later, the crew watches Fire Below’s left wing explode, and the remainder of the plane tumbles to its demise.

Redneckraider was pushed out the hatch in an act of desperation. His chute opens, but the force of the opening makes his right shoulder slide through the strap. He hangs on with his left hand for a moment, but it’s hopeless. Weak from blood loss, he loses his grip and falls 9,000 feet to his death.

Tail gunner Over-head has his own problems, beating out a small fire on his pants leg as he parachutes down. He gets the fire put out with minor burns, but lands out in a large open field with no place to hide. Within 20 minutes he is captured and on his way to the stalag.

Navigator CHIEF4EVER (8) floats earthward until his parachute gets caught in a tree. Injured, he is unable to climb the parachute ropes and he’s too high to cut them, so he merely dangles. Unbeknownst to him, though, some French underground resistance fighters have watched the descents, and they have randomly selected his parachute to follow. Racing against the Germans, two young Frenchman locate chief4ever in a small copse of trees, and manage to lasso him and pull him over to the tree trunk. Chief4ever weakly cuts the lines and makes it halfway down the trunk before falling with a thud. He is scooped up by the Frenchmen, carted off to a safe house, and gets medical attention. Three days later, a British minisub rises out of the Channel and the Resistance rows Chief4Ever out to it. They trade addresses and promise to keep in touch after the war, and chief4ever vows to liberate France.

Engineer jcroft hits the ground unconscious in a small forest clearing and lies there for most of a day before he regains consciousness. He wanders lost for a few hours afterwards and finds a small farmhouse. The family there takes him in but then promptly turns him in to the Nazis, and he is taken prisoner.

Copilot Skip Towne (8) and Ball Turret Gunner bishop_74 (8) float to earth near each other and hook up on the ground. With a German halftrack in hot pursuit, the savvy veterans sprint into the woods and force the Germans to dismount. It takes almost an hour for the Germans to surround them and pin them down in a small creek bed. Rather than shoot it out with their survival pistols, the pair surrenders and takes a beating before being marched back out to the halftrack.

Pilot BIG_DADDY (8) and the rookie Left Waist Gunner bowser see each other hit ground and find each other in a dense plot of forest. They crouch down, assess their situation, and decide that they should try to head west for Spain instead of going back north. The reckon that the German presence will be higher if they head closer to England, and lower if they head toward Spain. Ditching their parachutes, they begin walking to the southwest, relying on stealth, their emergency rations, and stolen produce from gardens. For six days they evade detection, and the rise of the mountains appears before them. Alas, partway through the sixth day a local gendarme spots them walking alongside a country road and calls in their position. Soon a platoon of Germans is on their heels and the chase is on, with no chance for the two hungry airmen on foot. Only 20 miles from Spain and safety, they are captured and shipped to Germany.

No bombing run.

Aftereffects

With only one crewman making it back, Fire Below is no more.

Eligible for next mission

Pilot XXX
Copilot XXX
Bombardier CHIEF4EVER (8), promoted
Navigator XXX
Engineer XXX
Radio Op. XXX
Tail Gunner XXX
Ball Turret Gunner XXX
Right Waist Gunner XXX
Left Waist Gunner XXX

One is the loneliest number…