Three Miles East

"A 6-24 bomber, on a routine training flight, crashed at 4:30 p.m., three miles east of the base. It is believed the entire crew of ten was killed. The plane was completely destroyed by fire. . . . Names of casualties are withheld until next of kin can be notified." So announced Gowan Field, Idaho.

This flight had seemed no different from any other. The huge Liberator thundered down the concrete runway. The nose lifted, and she gracefully soared a couple of hundred feet. She swung sidewards, on one wing, and onlookers thought it was a bank; but suddenly there was a roar.

Flames shot into the air. Bullets began zinging around the heads of the spectators on the field--"as if some berserk machine gunner were trying to strafe the world," one spectator said later. A creeping curtain of flame covered the sagebrush desert for half a mile around the wreckage. Crash cars and ambulances stood by helplessly.

Flames and bullets and occasion detonations of bombs made it suicide to try to get closer. And, besides, there could be no help.

A man retched violently. A woman screamed.

The men aboard could not have suffered; the bomb load had seen to that.

Later, in the downtown club, the tall, handsome captain with a North Africa service ribbon on his uniform, was downing a stiff shot of brandy when a saucy, blonde WAC, an acquaintance, came up.

"We've identified them all now," she said with the proper degree of sadness. "It wasn't a pleasant job, though. We had to dig one chap's dog tag out of his throat, and another had his wallet driven into his abdomen and. . . ."

The captain's face was white. "For God's sake, shut up," he snarled.

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