In a ritual parting salute, our stripped-down Flying Fortress circled the Eiffel Tower and dipped its wing so that our
passengers could take one last look at Paris.

They were ground personnel from various stations of the 8th Air Force's Third Air Division, being returned to their
home bases after a three-day pass. Our one-plane airline, flying between England and Paris during the spring of
1945, was created by Division to provide non-flying personnel with a little of the Air Force's perks and glamour
before we all had to pack up and leave Europe. Everybody knew the European war was all but over, and the
unmistakable scent of victory had been in the air since winter and the collapse of the Germans' Ardennes offensive.

May 8, 1945, started out as just another routine return trip for the  flight crew, consisting of Capt. Louis N. Tilley, pilot,
and myself as navigator. We collected our returning passengers at the airfield at Villacoublay, took off, and after
completing our routine circle of Paris, set course for our destination in East Anglia, about an hour's flying time.

The course was always the same, Paris to Le Treport, across the channel to Eastbourne, then a wide swing west
around London before we turned back east to the Third Division bomber bases in East Anglia.

The sweeping course around London was more than important – it was life or death. For six years, London was
one of the most heavily defended cities in the world, and the air space above it was a forbidden death zone,
not only to enemy planes, but to our own planes as well, undoubtedly a precaution against wolves in sheeps’ clothing.

Course set for the routine flight, I next tuned in to the Armed Forces Network radio to hear some dance music and the
news, and the first thing I heard was the announcement of the German surrender. I immediately switched to intercom
and told Tilley the good news. After he had heard it for himself, he called me back and asked for a course to London
and informed me we were going to be the first plane to buzz Piccadilly Circus.

This did not seem to me to be as good an idea as it apparently seemed to him. We might instead become the first plane
to be shot down over London after the war because one lone anti-aircraft gun crew didn't get the word in time, or, instead,
did get the word, but after six years of ironclad defense of London, didn't believe it.

I had recently read Erich Maria Remarque's World War I novel, "All Quiet on the Western Front."  I  remembered the
way that story ended: the young German soldier, at 11 a.m., the moment of armistice, sticks his head above the trench to
reach for a butterfly and a French sniper picks him off. Apparently nobody had told the sniper that the war was over, or
maybe he was told and didn't believe it. Such things happen. Life is not a scripted event, and armies aren't precision
machines.

I looked at my watch and my map and was not cheered by my guess that we would be over London at about 11 am.
I plotted the course as ordered, and when the Thames came in view, we dropped to a lower altitude and flew up it
toward the city.

The pilot  knew what he wanted to do from that point. The fact that we had not been shot at yet was encouraging to me,
and as the, huge, four-engined Flying Fortress thundered over the city, just clearing the building tops at what seemed
like mast height, I found myself in the Plexiglas nose viewing the scene of a lifetime.

There were hundreds of thousands of people. It looked like millions. They covered the broad streets and filled the side
streets from wall to wall; they were swarming over the statues in Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. Some were
waving flags and banners and articles of clothing. It was as if you had kicked off the top of a huge anthill.

I could see their faces. They were all turned up toward us and they were shouting and laughing and waving their arms
wildly at us, and I was smiling and waving back. What a way to end the war!

I’d like to think we were the first plane to buzz London. Well, maybe the first bomber, or at least the first B-17.

I wonder if there are still some who were part of that celebrating mass of humanity in Piccadilly Circus who remember
the lone B-17 that saluted them – and the joy of being alive at about 11 a.m. on May 8, 1945.

RETURN TO STORIES                                                     This story and dozens of others can be found in
                                                                                                            The 388th Anthology, Vols. I and II