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Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Titel: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Laura Hillenbrand
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rich source of phosphate and an ideal base for air strikes.
    On April 17, upon returning from a run, Louie was called to a briefing. America was going after Nauru in a big way, sending
Super Man
and twenty-two other B-24s to hit the phosphate works. No one in the squadron saw a bed that night. They left just before midnight, refueled on Canton, and flew to Funafuti, the tiny atoll from which they would launch their attack. They found it jostling with journalists brought in by the military to cover the raid.
    At a briefing, the crews were told to approach Nauru at eight thousand feet. The altitude gave Louie and the others pause. That week, they had made practice runs from eight to ten thousand feet, and the potential for antiaircraft fire to butcher them at that altitude had alarmed the whole crew. “We only hope,” Louie had written in his diary two days earlier, “we don’t bomb that low in actual combat.” Pillsbury couldn’t stop thinking about something else that the briefingofficer had said. There would be ten to twelve Zeros waiting for them. He’d seen a distant Zero at Wake, but had never been engaged by one. The idea of a single Zero was daunting. The prospect of twelve scared him to death.
    Before dawn the next day, the men walked together to
Super Man
. With them was a lieutenant named Donald Nelson. He wasn’t on the crew, but asked if he could tag along so he could see combat. At five A.M. ,
Super Man
was airborne.
    ——

    Doglegging to the west to hide their point of origin, the planes took six and a half hours to reach Nauru. No one spoke.
Super Man
led the mass of bombers, flying with a plane on each wing. The sun rose, and the planes flew into a clear morning. The Japanese would see them coming.
    At about twenty past eleven, navigator Mitchell broke the silence: They’d be over the island in fifteen minutes. In the greenhouse, Louie could just make out an apostrophe of land, flat to the horizon. Below, there was a black shadow in the water. It was an American submarine, ready to pick up survivors if bombers were shot down.
Super Man
passed over it and slid over Nauru. Louie shivered.
    It was eerily silent. The first nine planes,
Super Man
out front, crossed the island unopposed. The air was very still, and the plane glided along without a ripple. Phil relinquished control to the Norden bombsight.
Super Man
’s first target, a knot of planes and structures beside a runway, came into view. Louie lined up on the gleaming backs of the planes.
    And then, shattering. The sky became a fury of color, sound, and motion. Flak hissed up, trailing streamers of smoke over the planes, then burst into black puffs, sparkling with shrapnel. Metal flew everywhere, streaking up from below and raining down from above. With the bombsight in control, Phil could do nothing.
    Something struck the bomber on
Super Man
’s left wing, piloted by Lieutenant John Jacobs. The plane sank as if drowning. At almost the same moment, the plane to
Super Man
’s right was hit. Just a few feet away, Pillsbury watched the bomber falter, drop, and disappear under
Super Man
’s wing. Pillsbury could see the men inside, and his mind briefly registered that all of them were about to die.
Super Man
was alone.
    Louie kept his focus below, trying to aim for the parked planes. Ashe worked, there was a tremendous
bang!
and a terrific shudder. Much of
Super Man
’s right rudder, a chunk the size of a dinner table, blew off. Louie lost the target. As he tried to find it again, a shell bit a wide hole in the bomb bay, and the plane rocked again.
    At last, Louie had his aim, and the first bombs dropped, spun down, and struck their targets. Then
Super Man
passed over a set of red-roofed barracks and an antiaircraft battery, Louie’s second and third targets. Louie lined up and watched the bombs crunch into the buildings and battery. He had one bomb left for a target of opportunity. North of the airfield, he saw a shack and took aim. The bomb fell clear, and Louie yelled “Bombs away!” and turned the valve to close the bomb bay doors. In the cockpit, the bomb-release light flicked on, and Phil took control of the plane. As he did, behind and below the plane, there was a pulse of white light and an orb of fire. Louie had made a lucky guess and a perfect drop. The shack was a fuel depot, and he had struck it dead center. In the top turret, Pillsbury pivoted backward and watched a vast cloud of smoke billow upward.

    The air battle over

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