Free Initiative (The Red Gambit Series Book 6) by Colin Gee Page B

fire, and soon the crew were overwhelmed with rescuers of all shapes and sizes.
    Ambulances opened their doors and Crail counted the boys in one by one, sharing hugs and handshakes with each and every man.
    When all but he and Nelleson were loaded up, Crail saw what had happened to his aircraft, appreciating for the first time how lucky they had all been.
    But there was something else that suddenly exercised him, and he ran as best as his sprained ankle allowed, closely followed by his co-pilot, moving towards the gaping hole that used to have a tail attached.
    “Oh my lord!”
    Nelleson shared the sentiment, the absence of either man quite apparent.
    Both of them turned to look back down the runway, barely acknowledging the low run of ‘Necessary Evil’, a gentle wing waggle showing their relief at the incredible landing.
    The tail section lay virtually upright, no more than a degree or two out of the vertical.
    Three vehicles were in position, and both men could see rescuers moving slowly, unhurried, and lacking in urgency.
    A USMC jeep screeched to a halt.
    “You two’s wanna see the rest of your plane?”
    No second invitation was needed, and the pilots hopped aboard as the jeep sped off towards the other bit of ‘Miss Merlene’.
    The reason for the lack of urgency was soon apparent.
    Blockridge was sat smoking a huge cigar, courtesy of a US infantry officer who, despite still being out of breath from his ‘olympic’ run to assist, had found time to produce a Cuban to celebrate the incredible survival of the two airmen.
    A navy corpsman was working on Blockridge’s broken left arm, fussing around and gently scolding whenever the Staff Sergeant moved even slightly.
    Hanebury, a non-smoker, was coughing his way through his first Lucky Strike, still mentally examining his body for missing pieces and surprisingly coming up with negative results.
    Both men were surrounded by rescuers who wanted nothing more than to shake their hand, touch their uniforms, or do anything to acquire a modicum of the luck that had preserved them.
    The USMC jeep came to a halt, discharging Crail and Nelleson, who immediately set about burrowing through the crowd.
    The two NCOs stood and gave formal salutes, which were returned by the two pilots. All observed by a mixture of Army, Navy, and Marine personnel who now had absolute confirmation that all airmen were completely gaga.
    An Army Air Force Colonel arrived and ordered the four survivors into an ambulance, which immediately sped off to the sick bay, where the crew of ‘Miss Merlene’ were reunited.
     

     
    USAAF senior officers had planned to present Tibbets with a DSC the moment he landed. That went out the window the second that Enola Gay fell out of line.
    So there was no immediate presentation made to the crew of the first Atomic Bomb mission, but that issue was addressed when General MacArthur himself flew in to the repaired Futenma Air strip two days later.
    On his orders, ‘Miss Merlene’ had not been bulldozed into the scrap heap, but Seabees and Air Force personnel had recovered her carefully, preserving most of her remaining structure and integrity.
    Assessments were still being made as to what would be done with the historic machine.
    Her crew stood in a rough line within the medical facility as Macarthur waxed lyrical about their success and how the end of the Japanese war had come closer with their efforts.
    For JP Crail, Richard Loveless, George Nelleson, Ralph Burnett and Art Hanebury, there were well deserved DSCs. For everyone else, including the dead Mario Piccolo and the missing Al Cannington, there were Silver Stars.
    Centerboard One had lost two aircraft, with twelve personnel killed or missing.
    In Japan, the devastated Kokura had suffered over sixty thousand dead.
     

1444 hrs, Wednesday, 29th May 1946, Office of the General Secretary, the Kremlin, Moscow, USSR.
     
    The first information had arrived with Molotov, through diplomatic