In World War Two, no test of courage was greater than the one undergone by the men of RAF Bomber Command.  These crews suffered appallingly high casualties: 55,573 were killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew, a mortality rate of almost 45%. The men knew how slim their chances were of surviving an operational tour (typically on average 30 missions). And yet they flew anyway, in machines which, for all their size and power, offered little protection against the elements, anti-aircraft fire, and above all from German fighter planes. 

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Many of those who survived are gone now. Some of the planes they flew in remain intact.   

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He flew on until there was no more flying to be done, until the war was over and no one had any more use for such overblown instruments of death and destruction, no matter how well engineered they were. The crew demobbed and their aircraft became obsolescent, overtaken when the propeller gave way to the jet engine.

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He passed many years as a display in the grounds of an old RAF base (the ebon sheen of his metal skin eroded by wind and rain) and when that closed he was moved to an abandoned airfield full of discarded planes. Slowly he felt himself sink into the ground, borne down by his own weight, like a sword dropped on a battlefield and trodden underfoot.

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He sleeps now in the corner of that field, strangely immortal, his dreams filled with the memories of by-gone days. A forgotten monument to aviators whose voices can still be heard inside the plane, murmurs inside a sea-cave, echoes of an age now long past.

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“Hey, Skipper, how many more times do we have to do this?”

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“Any news about Billy? Is he really AWOL?”

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“Didn’t seem the type to me.”

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“Cut the chatter now. Enemy coast ahead. Keep your eyes peeled for night fighters. I want to bring this kite back in one piece.” 

           

And so they did.      

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"Night Flight" from the short story collection, "The Painted Sky." 

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