Over Romania, December 31, 1942
“Bandits, bandits, 2 o’clock low” blasted into the ear of the pilot and squadron commander. His eyes glanced down and to the right for a moment. Black gnats were in the distance, clawing for altitude while getting ready for a heads-on pass. Some of the Liberators had managed to replace their nose .30 caliber machine guns with “recycled” .50 caliber machine guns. One crew had spent far too many hours trying to convince the mechanics that they could fit a 20 millimeter cannon that they had acquired from a sunken PT Boat. He had no time to think of the scroungers as his eyes checked back on the RPM gauges and he called out for the squadron to keep formation and hold fast.
The Romanian fighters were almost obsolete. They were dead meat against modern Allied fighters and the Soviet Migs and Yaks had a field day against the few front line Romanian squadrons that flew the modified Polish aircraft that were the bees knees in 1939 but by now, they were at best point defenders of the strategic rear. It would not matter, an obsolete bullet, if it struck, was still deadly.
The fighters were drawing closer and the machine gunners aboard the bombers were still scanning the sky even as every man kept an eye on the expected threat. Expected threats were seldom the deadliest threat. These veterans knew that hard learned lesson.
Eleven fighters steadied themselves and began their attack run. Three bombers were being targeted, one by each section. The bombers held tight, machine guns began to fire, short bursts with tracers arcing through the sky. None of the tracers crashed into any of the attackers. A few whizzed by cockpits, adding questions about courage to the attacking pilots.
The Romanian pilots held tight and a few seconds later, the fighters began to fire. The heavy cannons were being held in reserve, their ammunition limited but the 7.7 millimeter machine guns began to fire. The bomber squadron commander heard what sounded like hail hitting a tin roof as the light rifle caliber bullets pinged and ponged off of the bomber. He slightly jerked, moving the bomber thirty or forty feet skyward and then wiggled ever so slightly and the hail storm missed. By now, every machine gun that had anything that resembled a view on an attacking fighter was pounding away. The cannon shells that would have slammed into the cockpit an eighth of a second ago missed underneath the bomber by the length of a fullback dive on third down.
The bombers pushed on as the Romanian fighters broke off out of ammunition. They had claimed a single kill on the squadron’s tail end charlie but the gunners swore that they had splashed at least one if not two or three of their tormentors. Ammunition was still holding out as the gunners looked for more fighters as they approached Sofia.