The cab she had arranged for was waiting in the driveway and she allowed herself to be assisted in entering by the cabbie and sank back in the soft seat making herself comfortable for the long ride ahead. The cabbie turned on the radio and the music, as it filled the cab, caused her to let her thoughts wander back to the beginning.

***

The "Jelly Bee”, was one plane of a huge formation of B 17's, and was preparing to get back into formation after having dropped it's bomb load on an industrial target in Germany. Just at that moment it was struck by flack in the two right engines and this caused it to lag behind the formation.

Soon German fighters were after the wounded bird and Mike Dolan, the ball gunner, soon exhausted his ammunition trying to fight them off. He rotated the turret so that he could reenter the ship feeling like a sitting duck with nothing to fight back with. No sooner was this accomplished than he heard the order to bail out.

Quickly he snapped on his chest pack and followed the two waist gunners into the clouds that surrounded the ship, pulled the ripcord not even having time to think of what might happen when he hit the ground.

Fortunately the field he landed in was soft from recent rains, and he quickly collapsed his chute, unsnapped the harness and headed for a small group of trees several hundred yards away.

Was he still in Germany or where? He could not judge since he did not know how much time had elapsed since the bomb run. During this summer of 1943, intelligence had informed all air crews to head for Spain if they were forced to bail out over German occupied Europe. now what was he to do?

His thoughts were interrupted by a shabbily dressed girl of perhaps 13 years who ran up to him from out of nowhere and asked him to follow her.

He hesitated, the thought occurring to him that she might want to turn him over to the enemy and then it dawned on him that she had spoken in English. "First, tell me who you are and where you will be taking me?" he demanded.

13