Info on the story:
I made this after playing a round of a solitaire game, so some of it wont make sense, so just bare with it

There she was; the Alaskan avenger. I had been flying with her since her second mission after her original Co-pilot was shot up over the English Channel. The maintenance crew had just finished getting her ready for the next mission, and the pilot had just finished the checking the exterior of the plane. I was late, again. Mark didn't seem to notice, but he usually didn't care either. We got in the cockpit. Cameron, our engineer greeted us. Cameron had been with us since our 4th mission after our original engineer took some bad hits, killing him on our way back to base. Cameron was on his way to becoming the squadrons first ace, after getting 4 kills, 3 of which were in his second mission.

As we started our cross over the English Channel, we met up with our escort: a half dozen P-51’s; awesome, good fighter coverage all the way to Germany.
As the fighter coverage broke off and returned home, I had the feeling in my gut that, although we were in the middle squadron, AND we were the middle bomber, this wasn't going to be a cakewalk. Almost the moment we lost sight of our “little friends” we caught a glimpse of our first wave of fighters. Luckily, even though our guns missed them, the two interceptor fighters missed us as well.
Going into zone 6 we were hit by a wave of 4 109’s. Our port waist shot one down, while one missed us completely. The other two landed 3 hits on us each.
Our Bomb bay doors jammed up, and we realized that there would be no bomb run. Travis, our port gunner, said his suit heat had stopped working, and the port wing only got superficial damage, all other hits were superficial.
The pilot said we were going on to the target, so that we don't lose formation and have to deal with more fighters on our way back.
In the target zone we went into a tight formation as a wave of fighters hit us. Three 110’s came at us, Two missed, and the other was shot down by our tail gunner, Sam.
Then came the flak, it was medium, and we got three hits. We lost our port landing gear brakes, the tail gunners Oxygen got hit, but was still operational, and there was no fire. The last hit was superficial damage to the tail.
The trip home was the worst. We were hit by three waves in zone 7.
The first wave wasn't too bad. The two 109s were scared off by our starboard gunner and navigator, while the 190 registered 3 hits, the Pilot compartment, and the starboard wing twice.
As the shells riddled the compartment with holes, I heard an explosion from behind. Cameron was knocked out with blood all over his face and torso, the top turret had a huge hole in it, and the guns had been crushed. Two shells had hit our starboard wing; one of which was superficial, while the other had destroyed our starboard aileron. As the fighter came around, he was scared off by spray fire.
The second wave was the worst. A total of 9 hits registered, one of them walking hits/fuselage. Our navigator was killed instantly from a well placed shot to the head, while Mark, our pilot, got a serious wound to the gut. Before I could even think Mark was hit again and started coughing up a lot of blood. He was dead in seconds. The hits in the bomb bay were superficial, and so were the ones to the radio room. Travis was hit in the chest and died shortly after, while we lost our starboard elevator. The other hit to the tail was superficial. Another hit to the waist and a hit to the starboard wing proved superficial as well, however our port aileron got destroyed.
The successive attack was better, one was scared off, while the best thing the other could give was SF damage to the fuselage.
The third and final wave was small. A 109 attacking at 6 high; that was scared off by our radio operator.
Zone 6 proved just as fatal as the previous zone. We faced one wave of 4 190s, none of which were hit or scared off. 2 missed, while the other two scored a total of 4 hits.
One hit was superficial, while we got another superficial hit to the port wing, a no effect hit on our bombs, and our tail wheel was shot out. On the successive attack, only one registered any hits. Our bombardier who was about to help me fly the plane got a giant piece of shrapnel in his leg, narrowly missing the artery. Superficial damage to the waist, and my oxygen supply got hit. Luckily there was no fire. Its third successive attack was a total miss.
Zone 5 proved the easiest. I was able to get the radio operator to help me fly the plane while we flew the last leg of the mission. We laid the unconscious body of Cameron in the radio room while we stuck the lifeless body of Mark where the top turret once was.
We were hit by one plane only. Twice in the Bombay and once in the waist; we lost our rubber rafts, while the other two hits were superficial. It missed on its successive attack.
Just as we left the fighters behind, we saw our “little friends” the rest of the mission was uneventful and we made it back to base in good weather. As we touched down and came to a stop, we could hear some light cheering from the waist and tail. me and Trenton just looked at each other and let out a sigh of relief. we were back, we had lived. Little did I know, our bomber took the least amount of damage in the whole squadron. Two planes never made it back.

Crew:
Nathan (Bombardier): Purple Heart. Invalid
Chris (Navigator): Purple Heart (posthumous): KIA
Mark (pilot): Purple Heart (posthumous): KIA
Nick: (Co-pilot): No award: OK
Cameron: (engineer): Purple Heart: Invalid
Trenton: (Radio Operator): Bronze star: OK
Alex: (Starboard gunner): No award, same as co pilot: OK
Travis: (Port gunner): Purple Heart (posthumous): KIA
Michael (Ball turret): No award: OK
Sam (Tail gunner): no award: OK

Total damage points: 211.

For this next story, I highly recommend viewer discretion, it may not be too bad, but still
I made this a few months ago (I think December) It is to remind us of the horrors of WWI and what some soldiers had to go through. And to remind us that war isnt what it is cracked up to be.
This takes place in a hospital after a major gass/artillery strike against the British.

Ralph got up and looked around. He was in a dimly lit room, filled with beds identical to his. The only difference was that his was the only occupied one. He got up and started to walk around. Immense pain shot up his leg. He heard something. As he took steps closer to the sound, he kept hearing it, over, and over again. Louder each time. He turned a corner, and there, standing before him in the hallway, was another man. The man was almost grotesque in features. The man’s facial features were twisted and deformed; his ears looked shrunken and burned, while his lips were gone. His nose looked smashed in, and the hair on his hair was burnt off. As Ralph studied the man, the man studied him back. Ralph noticed the unnatural deformities in the man’s arms. Three fingers missing from one hand, with the other blown completely off. The man’s legs were skinny and burnt. One foot was half gone, with the other leg cut off at the knee a wooden leg supporting his body; the bandage was still fresh with blood. As Ralph moved toward the man, he noticed the man did so too, almost in sequence with Ralph.

“Hello?” cried Ralph to the man. The man simply moved his mouth with Ralph’s.

Ralph rushed to the man, and the man did the same.

Ralph hit the mirror with such force it shattered into thousands of pieces.

“No, no, no, no. NO!” Ralph screamed as he realized what happened, and who the man really was.

“NO! THIS CAN’T BE! Somebody help me! PLEASE!”

Silence answered his pleas; there was not a sound to be heard.

“Help me! Somebody! Please! Help me! What’s happened?”

The war veteran slumped against the wall, still crying out with every breath. He had survived the mud filled trench, only to be left alone to die in a place he had no memory of.

It was becoming harder and harder to cry out for help, for his throat was dry.

As Ralph lost consciousness, he heard the foot steps he had been waiting so long to hear. At least he wouldn’t die alone.

As I climbed the gangplank to the transport ship that was to take me to France, I though once more of everything I was to leave behind, my friends, my new car, and especially my father; who I hadn’t even told about me joining the army. I had no choice but not to tell him. He would simply stop me from going; I knew he would. After losing my mom, and my two older brothers, I was all he had left. I thought of the car he had just recently given me.

looking back at the harbor of Plymouth, I saw the car again, but only for a second. For at that moment a man shoved his way passed me and we both tripped over each other. He was about 5 foot 8, and well built with a short but earnest face, he had a dark moustache and looked as if he had just come out of the same place I had, boot camp. He looked at me for a second and hurried on, not saying a word.

It was early 1940 when the Nazis had stunned the world and invaded France. It was now April 11th, and I was boarding a transport to take me to France through the treacherous waters of the English channel. Were the U-boats lie in wait for their defenseless prey, were many a ship has been sunk, and many a more lives have gone down with the metal coffins in which they boarded, never to return, whether they be dead or breathing.

It was on one of these that I was boarding, and not wanting to run into anyone else, I hurried off to find the cabin in which I was to stay for the remainder of my “trip.” After being led by a crewmember to my cabin, I looked at the number: 104 “the irony” I thought with a chuckle. For on the 104th day of the year, I will be landing on the French beaches and fighting the enemy. If I can make it there before an enemy submarine causes my boat to flounder. I



paused a moment, then taking a deep breath, I opened the cabin door and entered the room. When I entered the room, I stood aghast, their, reading a book, was the very man which had ran into me.



I was able to choke out a surprised “hello” at that he looked up from his book, and exclaimed “ah! I was a’ wonderen’ when my ship mate might be walking through that door, I was just thinking to myself, ‘I wonder when that mate of mine ‘ll walk right through that there door’ I then decided to read my bible, it was right here, and I had only picked it up not two minuets ago. I then head the door open and heard you step in the room and say hello, by the way, you don’t happen to be the fella’ I tripped over goen’ up the gang plank? The names tom, yours is?”

He stuck out his hand. It was at this moment I noted with much respect that he was a sergeant, me being only a private instead of shaking hands, quickly saluted and replied “Andrew, sir, And yes, sir, I was. sorry for that, I was taking one last look at the shore.”

“ah, don’t be sorry, it was I who was doing the same, but while walking! And I can tell you’re a smart boy by recognizing me as a sergeant! Now, seeing we have just set off…..” tom babbled on and on, so I politely nodded in agreement with everything he liked, and shook my head at things he disliked. It was a full two hours later when he stopped. However, it wasn’t to last, for he soon summoned me over to a huge charcoal colored box with red letter stamped on the bottom of each right hand side corner that spelled Kodak. A camera! He opened the box, inside was another charcoal colored object. He picked it up and handed it to me explaining “now, be very carefu-aoh! Careful, this thing cost me a’ arm an’ a leg now, don’t drop it like you almost did now.”

I held it in my hands and studied it while tom rambled on about how his dad had given it to him not three weeks ago, for that was the last time he had seen him he explained. Eventually I had to put it back, and listen to tom babble about his expeditions as a child. It was at a very boring part that I interrupted, “Sorry to interrupt you, but are you worried this ship may sink by a u-boat and your camera would go down with this tin can?” at this he exploded “tin can! This here fine ship is not a tin can! This ship is the finest o’ her class!



She can go 24 knots a’ top speed! That’s twice a’ fast a’ any inferior u-boat! And, o’ top o’ that, if it were struck, she would surely not sink; this ship is sturdy enough o’ survive two torpedoes! an’ even if she did sink, I’d simply bring my camera aboard’ the lifeboat with me! Now tis getting late, lets o’ an’ grab a bite o’ eat before dinners over.”

I quickly glance at my watch, sure enough, it was 6:27. I got up and quickly dashed to the kitchen.



It had been two days since we had set out, and most of that time had been spent at meals and my cabin, listening to tom babble about his life, and his many “adventures” he had experienced. However, when I woke up on the 104th, tom was not in his usual spot in the bunk beneath me. Instead he was out on the deck looking at the shoreline of France and listening to the loud booms of the artillery in the distance. He jumped when I casually greeted him, when he turned and I saw his face it was pale, “Looks like we’ e’ fightin’ o’ keep our limbs intact fore’ the days up”

“Come.” I replied “and tell me of your adventures again.”

This seemed to cheer him, so we started down the stairwell. However, we had only gotten to the door of my cabin we hear the most defining of explosions.



As the torpedo hit, it felt as if the sea itself was exploding with an anger uncontrollable. The ship immediately listed to one side before another explosion shook the ship as a whole; however, it quickly began to list to the same side again. Tom’s face turned white, a whiteness I have never seen, and have not seen again. It was as if he had seen a ghost or a demon from Hell. As we climbed the ladder all my hopes drained from me, so did the color from my face, for water was quickly flooding a deck below ours. Just an we reached the top deck. Tom suddenly screamed out “My camera!” and disappeared below the deck. I went after him, but by the time I got to the deck above mine, I looked down in horror, the water had completely flooded it, and tom I knew, was down there.



As I got to the top again, I was suddenly trampled by about 50 souls, all running to the lifeboats. However, just as I reached the last one, it turned out to be full, and I, was left with over 100 souls to perish in the English channel, however that number soon dwindled for many a soul was jumping off the doomed transport. I was soon left with about 70 souls, some of which, I counted 20, went back to their cabins. Never to be seen again. I ran into someone, “Andrew? They’ve left us! Left us here o’ die! Now what am I o’ do?”



“How did you-“

“No time fo’ that, we must find a way off this metal coffin.”

“but tom, I though you drowned, how did you-“

“I swam out o’ an open port ole’, then climbed up a rope to the ship, just a’ they were jumping off, don’t let me die! Please don’t let me die!”

Tom was losing it; I quickly dragged him to the port stern, just then the ship stopped sinking. Just stopped. The fast moving elevator to the ocean had stopped, but cries of agony soon followed, for another torpedo hit the ship, exploding, and killing many a good man. I looked overboard; there was the sub, surfaced. The ship was sinking quiet swiftly now, the list had become more dangerous, and it took all my strength to hold on to the railings. I looked towards the bow in horror, the bow was slipping beneath the waves, and so was many a good soul. I soon realized that I might not live to see France, let alone my father. Then came something unbearable. Tom, who was already losing his wits, finally broke completely, and jumped off the stern into the still rotating propeller blades. I heard the scream that stopped with a suddenness that made my blood run cold. Tom was no more. I watched as the water quickly advanced to my feet, as I looked around I quickly realized I was the last soul alive on this steel coffin. This thought had barley been preceded when the cold water of the English channel reached my feet, then I was in the water and half drowned. As I got my head out of the water, I caught a glimpse of the smoking hulk of a ship that I had called home the passed three days, as it slipped beneath the waves. As I scanned the waves, I could find not one lifeboat. Then, I saw the submersible, the submersible that had sent three torpedoes into the transports hull, surface so her crew could scan the water for survivors, but all they would find would be the dead, and one lonely sailor from Britain.

1941 was probably the most traumatic year of my life. It’s the same year my parents died; I turned 18, the year I dropped out of collage, and the same year Pearl Harbor was attacked. I joined the military in 1942, but was not sent out to fight till June 6th 1944. Prior to that date me, my friend, and the rest of easy company trained for that date, or as it was called, D-day which means day of days, a military parlance used to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated.

Despite the name easy, it is not that at all, we have to run for a long distance, and yes we do have water with us, but we can’t drink it. On that run, someone did drink some and was made to do the whole thing over again, by himself.

When it was June 5th, we got every thing ready and went over everything one more time. When we were finally over Normandy on June 6th 1941 I was told to get ready to jump. (Yes I did say jump, I was about to jump from a plane that was getting shot at, release my parachute, and hopefully land safely on the ground.) When the green light went on, we jumped, or at least I did, the moment I left the plane got hit by an anti aircraft shell and exploded. I watched in horror as the plane plummeted to the ground. Because of this, my parachute didn’t come all the way out, and I hit the ground, hard.

I guess I hit the ground a little too hard, because the moment I tried to stand up pain shot up through my leg. So I slowly limped towards the burning wreck of my plane. When I got there I could not believe it, there were three survivors. The plane had apparently crashed close to a river, so the passengers where able to make there way slowly to the river to save them.

After the fire died down, the three survivors took shelter in the plane while I searched for things that could be salvaged, such as, food, ammo, and guns. After finding what I could I limped out side, but it was not long till one of the survivors yelled out to me, “What’s wrong with your leg, looks pretty bad the way you’re limping on it.”





I then told him the way I landed and let him inspect it. “Looks like you tore a couple muscles, sprained pretty good and might have cracked the bone.” He proclaimed after a thorough examination, “I think you should rest on it for two days, unless you need to walk.” I replied “ok” and quickly fell to sleep to the gunshots and explosions outside.

When I woke up my leg still hurt, but I could walk on it, the three survivors where still sleeping. So I looked at their burns, they weren’t to bad, just some second and first degree burns, except on one, he had some massive third degree burns, I then realized it was the man who had examined my leg. I went to get some water in my helmet for the man’s burns. When I came back, I noticed he wasn’t breathing.

After I buried him I was attacked by a small platoon of Germans. I ran for cover in the airplane and started shooting at the Germans. It wasn’t long till the other two survivors woke up, and after realizing I wasn’t practice shooting they picked up their guns and started shooting at the Germans themselves.

About five minuets into the battle it seemed as if the Germans were about to retreat, but that’s when the survivor next to me screamed “I’m hit!” then he fell over and died, shot right through the heart.

That’s when the Germans knew they could take us on. And it was not long till the man on the other side of me cried out as if in great pain then slumped over. At that moment it was me against a thousand. I then let them have it. I saw more and more men fall in front of me. But they just kept coming, that’s when I felt it, a great pain in the top of my right leg. I looked down though I knew where it had hit me, right in an artery; I only had minutes to live, so I started to bring down more and more Germans until I was too weak to hold the gun then I prayed. It was then I heard the exited shouts of the Germans, they where shouting the only word that I knew in German, “tank” I looked up half expecting to see a huge panzer pointing its huge barrel at me, instead I saw the Germans fleeing into the thick underbrush. Then I heard a few American shouts, I shouted “in here!” the best I could, that’s when I started to get dizzy so I shouted “get a medic!” in a few seconds there was one, then knowing I had a few breaths left I uttered these last words “thank you.”

“Robert! Robert!” Robert was agitated awake; around him were courtiers who could not stop flattering him. They looked oddly familiar, as if they were his retinue, as he looked towards the door, he saw a guard patrolling the room, and people who enamored him right outside. All this gave him discomfiture and left him agape when an emissary rushed in and told him that the queen would need to see him. As he left, the crowd started sniveling.

He greeted the queen with a salutation, who, after making a prediction, gave him the Medal of Honor. So quiet was the crowd that Robert could hear the purling brook outside.

Still wondering why he got the Medal of Honor while being dogged by a crowd, he stopped dead in his tracks when the paltry memory of the war that surpassed all others, the elfin sparks, nothing to eat but dried jujubes, the distended dead bodies, finding a farm and having a cloying amount of milk, gathering fagots, the ordeals with the Germans, the wheedling information from prisoners, hearing incredulous tales of dynamos burning their horse’s pedigree to keep them warm from the dastardly cold, fighting a man with a stiletto, getting stabbed. All these thoughts went through his mind, and he went on his way without another tremor in his step. Even though he was remembering the tandem platoon of Germans which he single handedly took out, and the look of the last man, whose face was full of pleading, when he pulled the trigger.