Lucky Thirteen

The squadron has a tradition: the rookie pilot in the unit always gets the bomber that nobody else wants.

My hand me down was Lucky Thirteen. There was nothing wrong with her, technically speaking. She was an older gal, not one of the new B-29 super fortresses, but most of our unit still had a newer model of my B-17 back then. But pilots are a superstitious bunch, it had been decided that Lucky Thirteen was an unlucky bird. Before she was given to me, she had lost six pilots, and fifteen other crew members from gunners to bombardiers. On her previous mission, she lost both of her pilots, her navigator, her radio operator, and four out of five gunners. Out of ten crew members, only 2 had survived, her bombardier and her tail gunner. Surprisingly the two crew members recovered her, with only one engine remaining out of four. A plane surviving with almost all-hands loss without being destroyed is very unusual, but surviving two of these ordeals is so rare that I’ve never heard of such a thing before now.

Her hull number wasn’t actually 13. She wore a bright yellow B on her olive drab flanks, next to it was the Airforce’s roundel with a big white star, surrounded by a blue circle, while on the edges were two parallel white lines with a red line separating the between the two. But one of the grease monkeys had found her assembly number plate while swapping out some fried parts one day, and the news made the rounds that the unlucky bird’s serial number was 13-02313. Not only did it have a leading and trailing 13 in it, but all the digits of her serial number also added up to 13. So branded, she was named “Lucky Thirteen”, and pulled off to the side as a spare plane until they needed an airframe for the new Second Lieutenant. Then they dusted her off, updated the avionics, and handed me the keys.

She came with a new crew chief, Staff Sergeant Craig. I met him for the first time when I walked to the storage park to inspect my new ride. He was busy with her, checking and changing all kinds of hydraulics in her bowels. When I walked around Luck Thirteen for the first time, I noticed he had already painted my name onto the fuselage underneath the cockpit window: “2LT Hogan”.

“I took the liberty,” Sergeant Craig said when I ran my fingers across the stenciled letter of my call sign.

“Hope you don’t mind, sir.”

“Not at all,” I told him. “She’s really yours anyway. I just get to take her out every once in a while.”

He smiled, obviously pleased to be assigned to a pilot who knew the proper chain of ownership of a bomber wing.

“Don’t let the talk bother you. About her being unlucky, I mean. She’s a good ship. I checked her top to bottom, and she’s in better shape than some of the other birds.”

“Talk doesn’t bother me, Sarge,” I told him. “I’m not the superstitious kind. It’s just a machine.” 

“No, sir,” Sergeant Craig replied, and the smile on his face morphed into a bit of a smirk.

“She ain’t just a machine. They all have personalities, same as you and I.” 

Lucky Thirteen did have a personality, all right. Fortunately, it meshed well with mine.

I’ve flown dozens of B-17 Bombers, from the small bi-plane PT-17 trainers to the newest models of the T-6 Texans that were for advanced training. That was so unique for today’s standards that they should have their own class name. None of them had the same responsive controls as Lucky Thirteen. The flying fortress has always been sluggish in any version-- you have to fly them with both hands at all times because they’re so heavy as a bomber the control input is a lot heavier. No flying fortress likes a light hand on the yoke. Lucky Thirteen was completely different. She handled like a fighter plane, very twitchy like a mustang but with the power of a Clydesdale. Once you had her figured out, you could pull off maneuvers that most new pilots would consider physically impossible. Something about Lucky Thirteen was just right. Maybe it was the harmonics of the frame, maybe the way her parts had worked themselves into synchronicity with each other-- but flying her felt like you were an integral part of the plane, not just her driver.

Thirteen and I had five weeks to get used to each other before we had our first bombing mission over Nazi Germany. We were part of a 450 plane bombardment group divided into twenty-one plane wedge shape formation, tasked with bombing coast line bunkers on the northern end of France. By the time we were crossing the English Channel, the German Luftwaffe was coming to greet us. At 35,000 ft, the Jerry’s met us 5 miles off the coast of France. Armed to the teeth with their Focke-Wulf Fw-190, 70 German fighter interceptors dove down above the bomber group and began picking off the bombers. 

“Jerries! Spotted 10 o-clock high” One of the gunners said. 

“Alright boys, the fight is here, Stay frosty,” Sergeant Craig said over the headsets, “They’re going to come in fast and hard,” as my crew chief said this, I began to ready myself against the Iron Knights of the skies. 

Moments later the fight started within the wedge shape formation. The B-17 that was on my left-wing experienced the first wave of the attack. The Fw-190 had 20mm and 30mm canons as their main armament. As the German fighter shot at the bomber with rounds of the size of golf balls. The after-effects of each of the high explosive rounds were devastating. They would penetrate the bomber’s fuselage with a golf ball size hole and leave a hole the size of a basketball. With just one strafe of the German fighter, the B-17 was crippled.

As the fighter came around for a second time the whole bombardment group had opened fire. As Lucky Thirteen flew over the coast of France, the group were nearing their target. In the heat of the dog fight between Jerry’s and the Yanks, my bombardier opened the bomb bay doors, ready for the drop. 

Moments later: “BOMBS AWAY!” the bombardier said.

I replied, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” While doing so, I took control of the yoke of the bomber and started turning towards Britain.

Out of the 21 bombers that were in my squadron, only 16 returned. Lucky Thirteen was one of them. Surprisingly with the bad reputation that Lucky Thirteen has, all of the bombers had some sort of damage towards their birds and or their crew. Yet, Lucky Thirteen didn’t even receive a scratch from the bombing mission. Of the 350 bombers that returned from the mission, Lucky Thirteen had no damage at all. 

But the first time some jackass First Lieutenant from HQ told me off out of resentment from not being hit once back in France. So I punched him in the nose and hit him with his own meal tray for a good measure. It was an almost cathartic experience, and well worth the forty-eight hours in the cooler.

I flew nineteen more bombing missions in Lucky Thirteen after that. I bombed cities and factories from Normandy all the way to Berlin, ferried commandos and spies into France by parachute, and delivered supplies to the resistance. In all of that time, I didn’t have a single casualty in my plane. Three times out of nineteen, my Lucky thirteen was the only airworthy bird in the entire squadron at the end of each mission. She brought us home safely every time, even when the flak was so thick that you could have stepped out of the cockpit and walked across the sky on shrapnel shards. After my tenth mission in a row had passed with my plane remaining unscratched, the other pilots actually started to mean it, when they called her “Lucky Thirteen.”

Then came the day we got a pair of fresh off the floor B-29 Superfortress, so new that their pilot seats were still covered in paper. Normally, a pair of brand new ships in the squadron triggers a complex series of trickle-down upgrades as the senior pilots claim the new birds and pass their old ones down the roster to the junior pilots. This time. Lieutenant Colonel Klink came to me and offered me the brand new B-29 he was slated to receive if I let him have Lucky Thirteen in exchange.

It was a singular pleasure to decline his offer.

The squadron has another tradition: once you find something that works for you, and you get attached to it, you end up losing it.

Lucky Thirteen died on a cold and sunny day out on the English Channel. She didn’t get blown out of the sky or get shot down by a German Ace. I killed her myself.

The Lucky Thirteen streak of being hit had ended. While flying over Berlin, the flak was extremely thick. So thick that the Luftwaffe couldn’t even fly in the area because of the risk of being hit by their own flak. As the German flak fired away at us. The bombardment group continued to fly towards our target. Which today was a German tank factory. As we bombed our target, successfully. A loose round of flak broke through the ceiling of flak and exploded near Lucky Thirteen. 

“Holy Sh*t,” 

After the bombardment group bombed the factory, our squadron started to turn to return home. While flying back towards England, I noticed that our fuel gauge was moving faster than normal. As I noticed this, I gambled that Lucky Thirteen would make it back to England but, I knew based on current fuel levels at that moment that it wouldn’t reach our squadrons airfield. 

What had happened was that a loose round of flak had punctured one of the fuel tanks of Lucky Thirteen and we were losing fuel at an unnerving rate. Knowing this I addressed my crew of the next events that were to come.

“Aye boys, we got a problem up here in the cockpit, as a result, we’re going to be bailing off the coast of England, into the English Channel. So prepare to jump, make sure your parachute is set, and get the life raft ready for the cold water ahead.'' As I said this, I knew bailing out of a plane is very difficult over the ocean. I knew that there was a good chance that I wouldn’t see some of my crew ever again, and I knew for certain that I wouldn’t be seeing my guardian angel “Lucky Thirteen” the plane that has protected me since I joined this war. She will be missed.

As we neared the end of our fuel, I told my co-pilot to take command for a minute. I got out of my seat, climbed down the ladder towards the door, and pulled out my knife and started unscrewing Lucky Thirteen’s assembly number plate. On the plate it said, Boeing in big bold letters, then under the name, it was manufactured in Dayton, Ohio then under the factory’s location it stated the serial number of Luck Thirteen on a little strip of steel: 13-02313 stamped and welded into place onto the plate. 

I bit my lip and slipped the number plate into the pocket of my leather flight jacket, without saying a word.

We safely landed in the water and escaped onto the inflatable life raft. A few hours later a royal navy torpedo boat picked us up and delivered us to a local port.

Lucky Thirteen was unlucky at the beginning with her first two crews, yet by the time I picked her up, she was the best bird you could’ve ever asked for. After safely flying twenty-four missions without a scratch despite a five percent survival rate. I couldn’t have asked for a better bird and or bomber to fly. 

Two months later, they gave me a new bird, of course. I got a brand new B-29 Superfortress after all. It’s a fine plane, the newest and most advanced version on the heavy bomber series, twice as powerful and four times as capable as my old bird.

Still, I’d trade it off in a second if I could get back Lucky Thirteen for a little while.