Cleared for takeoff, she gripped the throttles in her fist and gently moved them forward. She felt more confident in the plane as it began to jostle and bounce under her. They were familiar sounds and feelings.
As the Mayfair sped up the runway outside London, Barbara watched the airspeed indicator as the needle began to move down the circle, from 40, to 50, then 60 miles an hour. Keeping a close watch on the directional gyro compass, she was certain the plane was still on the runway.
When the plane reached 110 miles an hour, she pulled back on the control wheel and the Fortress's bouncing stopped. When the airspeed indicator reached 135 miles an hour, the bomber felt as smooth as if it were standing still. Soon she had the plane up to 1,000 feet and off the mainland. She really became excited when the Mayfair was out over the English Channel.
Only after taking the bomber into the night sky with the bright moon above and the dark sea below, did Barbara feel a wee bit lonely and vulnerable. After all, she reminded herself, she was flying at night over Europe and into a war zone for the first time.
There was no co-pilot sitting beside her, no navigator, or gunners manning the Browning machine guns or fighter escorts to protect the plane if it would be shot at by enemy fighters. If she encountered anti-aircraft artillery from the ground, she could take the plane up to 30,000 feet and out of gunfire range, but temperatures in the cockpit would be freezing at that altitude.
Perhaps most of all, she wished she could turn on the radio, but was instructed not to in case the enemy might pick up her signal. Without music to listen to on her solo flight to Vienna, she had her thoughts, and what she saw below.
Barbara had seen the devastation war had brought to England, but not until she crossed over the English Channel and began flying over France did she realize the extent of damage over Europe. Everything she saw below in the bright moonlight... homes, factories, churches, bridges, trains and even farms... had been demolished by bombs or fires.
Her route took her south, flying over what had been the center of France's champagne country, to the gravely damaged city of Rheims which dated back to the 5th century.
From Rheims she flew eastward into Germany and over the Saar Valley to Stuttgart, an industrial city that had been all but totally destroyed from Allied bombings. Then flying among rain clouds over Augsburg, she saw how badly the ancient Bavarian city dating back to 14 BC had been damaged because it had become a major Nazi railroad junction, and airplanes and motor vehicles had been built there.