The Valour and the Horror

MARY MOORE:

I heard one of my father's friends say: "We shot down 20 today, and only lost six. " As if it was a cricket match. Just numbers , not men dying. I got so furious about that. So I joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. First I learned photographic interpretation for bombing and then I was posted to interrogate pilots after they came back. 425 Squadron. Canadians. As I got out of the car arriving, I got the most gorgeous wolf whistle from somebody, and I thought, ha, this is going to be alright.

Mary Moore fell in love with a French Canadian tail gunner.

"He was a trapper with eyes like a cat at night. Pierre told me he'd never seen a train, or seen a car. But he'd seen an airplane flying over and he wanted to fly. He trekked over miles to join up. We went swimming once and he taught me how to paddle like a beaver with my nose sticking up out of the water. Pierre loved the wild. He knew how to cure thongs for snowshoes for long winter trips. For him being a tailgunner was like fighting off a pack of wolvesfrom an overloaded sledge, with the huskies tiring.He was infinitely tragic. He figured the end would be like dying in a forest fire."

They left in the thin wind of the early evening, their faces in the little windows looking white and pinched. The trapper was the tailgunner.They said: "Bye bubbles, we'll see you in the morning."

I rose at dawn and on my way to the operations room I heard about the skylarks the sound of a kite in trouble. The fire engines and ambulances lined the tarmac as she came down, engines all ropy and wing drooping. C for Charlie. She slew off the runway and came to a stop like a big wounded bird. I ran over. The medics carried off men still in flying jackets, round toed boots sticking out the end of red blankets. The tail turret was gone. The skipper had a deep gash across his cheek.

They had sucessfully bombed the target when the trapper called out: "Three Messy Smits at three o'clock." He yelled: " I got one!" And there was a burst of gunfire and the whole rear turret blew off....the trapper....gone to eternity.