You just had to be there.....
The 352nd was called out early to fly a ground attack mission against German targets in the Alps facing north near a town called...... Berchtesgaden. The night before, a young rookie, callsign “Oscar”, had arrived via the Replacement Squadron and he had been welcomed at Jinkers Pub in the normal 352nd fashion....plenty of Scotch and late into the evening. That being said, everyone rolled out, dragging their butts to their planes, but no one appeared to be very happy about the briefing they had just received. Hell, some of them slept right through it; which will become important a little later.... Aircraft were manned and taxied to position as required, with the rookie asking all kinds of dumb questions and constantly interrupting the CO and XO. Off they went, in groups of three. Right from the start it was “Where are we going?”, “What’s the heading?”, “Who’s in the lead?”, “Where’s the CO?”, “What’s the target?”, “What should I be running for Prop and Pitch?”; an endless stream of banter. Both the CO and XO showed the patience of Job and answered each question in turn..... After a while, the target came in view and the CO called out the attack pattern. He might as well have been talking to the dash in this plane, but, somehow, the group gathered it up and proceeded to demolish the target just like they’ed been trained over and over to do. As the group rolled off the target for the trip home, RJ called out he was gliding a rock toward the near by body of water; he was out of fuel! Why was that you asked? Because one of the less attentive pilots in the group decided it would be a good thing to check fire his guns right after takeoff.....and put a couple of well-placed rounds right through the right wing of RJ’s plane! About that time, one of the pilots hollered out “How can I tell how much fuel I have left?” To this, someone responded “...it’s at the heals of you feet.” The next thing we heard on the radio was the sound of breaking glass, and “Damn, I just stepped on the gauge and broke the glass...!” Several pilots immediately started laughing.... The XO, couldn’t help himself and was wobbling all over the sky laughing and as he keyed his mike, everyone could hear the unmistakeable sound of a beer bottle rolling around the floor of his plane! Well folks, it all went downhill from there..... Once everyone had landed, the new rookie was taxing past the CO and XO’s parking area and he told everyone he could see the XO chunking beer bottles out of his cockpit out past the left wingtip of his plane....
Like I said, you had to be there.....
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