much disappointed.

Stan peeled off and banked steeply. Laying over he rolled into position
and cut out an Me. As the Jerry flashed past his sights, he opened up
and his Brownings sawed a wing off the fighter. He was over and the
Jerry was gone before he was able to see what had happened to the enemy
ship. As he came up he saw that O'Malley was celebrating. He was doing
mad loops and dives that threatened to drive the six Me's out of the sky
before Allison could tangle with one of them. Allison's voice came in,
crisp and exasperated.

"I say, you Irisher. Lay off and let me have a chance!"

"Come on in!" O'Malley yelled back and he stalled and dived after an Me.

The three ferry pilots were finishing off the Jerries when a flight of
six Lightnings and three Airacobras slid down from upstairs and joined
in. There was only one luckless Me left. Three had been shot down and
two had fled. The outnumbered Jerry dived and headed for home.

Allison and Stan closed in beside O'Malley. Their leader called over to
them.

"There's a big fight on down there on that beach. Looks like the boys
needed some help to keep the Stukas away."

"We're under your orders, Commander," Stan answered.

"Sure, an' you birds stand trial right alongside o' me when we get
back," O'Malley shouted back. He dived and his pals went with him.

Down they went over the invasion beach-head where sky battles raged as
German and Italian fighter bombers tried to strafe or bomb Yank and
British landing craft.

Stan leaned over and looked down. The scene below was a stirring one.
Three battlewagons of the cruiser class lay offshore. In closer, a line
of destroyers was blazing fire and smoke as they blasted the shore
batteries of the enemy. A group of torpedo boats darted in and out,
tormenting an enemy ship. Toward the shore and moving from four big
transports came the landing barges: the personnel barges, the tank
carriers, the mechanized armament barges. In swarms they were pouring
toward the shore. In the air above, Yank and R.A.F. fighter pilots
struggled to keep the dive bombers and the torpedo planes from getting
at the ships. This was the zero hour for the boys in the barges. Either
they established a beach-head or they failed at terrible cost.

Stan forgot that he was supposed to be a ferry pilot. He spotted a Stuka
slipping in behind a screen of smoke rising from a burning freighter.
Nosing down, he went after the Stuka. He caught a flash of