4/20/43 1350 Hours – Flight 99 – over Western France

The escort fighters and tankers of Flight 99 had just returned to their station for the return flight refueling. Bob scanned the sky for the returning fighters. He longed to go further east to give the Bomber escorts more time but each mile increased the risk of encountering German fighters. If his tanker planes were shot down all of the fighter pilots would also wind up in POW camps, victims of empty fuel tanks but if he stayed too far west they would run out of fuel short of his planes. Already he was fifty miles east of the assigned location, as far as he dared to go. He wanted to give the fighters every mile they could get. He knew these men, they would stay with the bombers as long as possible and would be short on fuel—hence his being further east would increase their chance of having enough fuel to return. This was it, the first chance to see if the refueling would make a difference.

That morning on the outbound flight Bob had refueled the fighters, going as far as possible, actually going an extra seventy five miles to top them off as far east as possible. He and his escort then pulled back over the channel and landed for servicing. Now they were ready for the second refueling, without which the fighters most likely would not be able to return home. In anticipation of the refueling of the returning escort Bob had just finished topping off his own escort fighters even though they had burned less than a quarter of their fuel. He wanted them ready and able to return if they were attacked during the refueling of the returning fighters.

The radio came alive, “Flight ninety nine, this is six one leader, do you copy?”

“Six one leader, flight ninety nine leader, we copy,” Bob responded.

“Ninety nine leader, I have two fighters very short on fuel. The rest of us don’t have much either. We had to drop off escort to make it here. We’re about one hundred miles east of point R and these two probably aren’t going to make it to point R with enough fuel to tank. Can you close on us?”

“Six one leader, we’re fifty miles east of point R, the radio just got a fix on you and we just turned straight toward you as fast as we can.”