To Kingdom Come by Robert J. Mrazek

second flare burst over the Thurleigh control tower. It was the signal for the Fortresses to taxi to the runway, forming into the takeoff line ordained at the premission briefing.
    When the ground crew removed the wheel chocks from in front of the tires, Est Nulla Via Invia Virtuti began rolling slowly off the hardstand onto the perimeter apron. Beyond the left wing, Andy’s ground chief was walking alongside the plane, gazing up at him like an apprehensive father worried about his son’s first solo trip in the family car.
    Andy gave him a reassuring wave, his fingers still sticky from Liewer’s blood.
     
     
     
    Buckinghamshire, England
High Wycombe Abbey
Eighth Air Force Bomber Command
0430
     
    For the operational planners at High Wycombe, the task of organizing a maximum-effort mission against Germany was akin to assembling a gigantic jigsaw puzzle in the sky.
    Zero hour for the Stuttgart mission had been set at 0720, the precise moment when all sixteen bomb groups participating in the attack on Stuttgart were expected to be in their respective positions in the twenty-mile train of bombers, each squadron in its assigned position within a group, each group in its designated place within a multigroup combat box formation, each combat box formation in its assigned position within the two bombardment wings, the entire armada of heavy bombers ready to depart for the enemy coast.
    The combat box formations were critical to their chances for survival.
    Colonel Curtis LeMay, who now commanded the Fourth Bombardment Wing, had created the concept of the combat box after flying a number of missions as commander of the 305th Bomb Group in 1942. It was as important to the development of the modern air war against Germany as the creation of the British square had once been in defending against a French cavalry charge.
    LeMay’s combat box formation began with an individual bomb group, which for a maximum effort consisted of twenty-one Fortresses divided into three squadrons, with the lead squadron out in front, the high squadron following closely behind and to the right at a slightly higher altitude, and the low squadron tucked in behind and beneath the lead squadron on the left.

    LeMay’s multigroup box formation utilized this same configuration on a larger scale. It typically consisted of three bomb groups, with the twenty-one planes in each group flying in the same staggered formation. The box was stacked by altitude, with the lead group in front, the low group below it, and the high group above it.
    If the pilots were able to maintain a tight formation, the LeMay combat box created the maximum opportunity for massing the combined power of the Fortresses’ .50-caliber machine guns in interlocking fields of fire.
    The staggered formation in the combat box also contributed to better bombing accuracy. Once over the target, the groups were able to release each plane’s bomb payloads in a concentrated pattern without endangering the Fortresses flying at lower altitude.
    For the Stuttgart mission, which entailed the largest force to ever be sent against a target deep inside Germany, the assembly of the air armada in the skies over southern England was a mission in itself.
    If all went well, it would take nearly two hours to put the train of bombers together. Since it would also be the longest mission ever undertaken, conserving fuel would be essential. It was vital that the assembly take place smoothly.
    At the sixteen American air bases near medieval English villages like Bury St. Edmunds, Thorpe Abbotts, Molesworth, Grafton Underwood, Thurleigh, and Knettishall, the pilots of 338 Fortresses sat in their cockpits and watched the minute hands of their synchronized watches ticking down to the takeoff times that were set for them at the preflight briefings.
    For the 388th Bomb Group in Knettishall, the first set of Frag (fragmentary) orders for the Stuttgart mission had arrived from High Wycombe on the group’s Teletype machines