by John Lester

June, 1946 - 103 years After Base Divergence

In his words:

" The Navy pickets gave us 45 minutes' warning of an inbound Nazi formation, and we needed every second of it to get to altitude. We were scrambled just because every other squadron in the northeast was, not because we had any hope of stopping the inbound bombers. This was our first combat sortie since transferring from the Dixie front, where the squadron had spent six months working up.

Our gaggle was directed to a point north and east of Long Island and told to stand by, pending developments. Our stated mission was to prevent any enemy aircraft that might leak through the principle defenders from striking the City.

We sincerely hoped the P-80s would down the incoming nazi bombers long before our humble services were ever needed, though. Our jets may have been adequate to handle the Junkers bombers in use with the Rebs, but they would be all but useless against the latest Heinkels.

So you can imagine my surprise when the voices on the tactical net switched first to amazement, then to alarm. Apparently there were more bogies inbound than previous attacks - and they had escorts. We made lazy circles in the sky, listening to the increasingly frantic chatter and watching our fuel guages plunge while our GE jets sucked gas tanks dry. I was thinking I would soon find out how well this brick could glide when the ATC started squaking our codes.

The nazi bombers were jets, and they'd broken through the P-80 screen. My squadron was to slow them down while everything on the right cost was flung into the air. We were given a compass heading and altitude toward the bad people - fortunately for us, they were well below us.

We traded that altitude for airspeed, starting a shallow dive in the general direction indicated and scanning the sky for bogies. Al, my wingman, (Capt Albert Garza) saw 'em first - specks on the horizon moving far too fast for anyone's comfort. Those specks rapidly resolved into 8 ragged vics of 3 planes each. Even faster, we could tell they were something we'd not seen before - triangular, bat-wing beasts with 6 jet engines on their backs. Then we saw more specks weaving between them.

The skipper came across the radio and broke the squadron into 4-ship elements, directing us against "thirds" of the Nazi formation. My element got the right-hand planes. We were still about 8,000 feet above, so we used that altitude for what little it was worth, diving head-on into the nazi formation. I aimed for the lead bomber in my "third" and goosed the throttle all the way forward. My ship was shaking like a dog [passing] razor blades due to the speed, and I tried to compensate by filling the sky with a cone full of lead. It worked - I saw my 37mm stagger across the fuselage of the nazi bomber, accompanied by sparks from my .50s. I banked hard right just before the first airplane exploded - right into the path of the formation on his left. I grabbed the trigger like a drowning man thrown a life ring - and was rewarded with a fireball in my face. I had no choice but to fly through it.

On the other side, I thanked God I was still alive. Then I saw both engines were out and realized the issue was still in some doubt. Ignoring everything else - including my wingman - I put my ship in a spiral and tried to restart the powerplants. I had just got my port side going when I felt the impact of cannon shells - and saw something that looked like a Fw-183 zoom past my canopy. Without thinking, I stabbed down hard on the trigger switch - and his wingman exploded in front of me. I got to fly through that mess too, on one engine this time.

I radioed that I was out for this dance, but got no response - no doubt the cannon slug embedded in my transceiver had something to do with that. It was a grim trip back - there was no sign of my wingman, and I could see smoke rising from spots all around Manhattan. The aircraft was almost uncontrollable, and I doubted I could bail out safely the way it was shuddering around the sky.

Somehow, I managed a wheels-up landing. It was only after I got back to sweet, sweet Mother Earth that I found out how lucky we were. My plane was so full of holes she would not be flying again. My wingman had been forced to hit the silk, his jet having been shredded by one of the enemy fighters, but was picked up by a Navy destroyer after only an hour in the water. Best of all, only three enemy bombers had actually broken through to the city, and despite the fires they started, no one on the ground had been killed."

The Model

This is the new Hobbycraft P-59A kit, built mostly stock. I replaced the wheels with True Details resin, as the kit's vinyl tires look bad (you can't get rid of the mold seams) and will eventually 'eat' the styrene hubs. I planned to put a pilot in to disguise the really spartan cockpit (if you build this kit, get the Cutting Edge resin set!) - and explain the dropped flaps - but ran out of time. The model is a big-time tail sitter, and even the lead weights I put in the nose were not enough to get it down on the nosewheel. I added an MV lense in the nose to simulate the landing light and replaced the pitiful guns with lengths of hypodermic needle filed to size.

The real plane was underpowered, unmaneuverable and a poor gun platform. As a result, it was mainly used in the training role, to accustom pilots to the new-fangled jet aeroplanes. Boring. I used Starship Modeler 'cheesecake' decals for the noseart, and made stencils and victory markings on my ALPS (they're barely visible in these images, but the plane wears two Japanese and one Confederate flag, denoting the pilot's previous aerial victories.