Lt. Russell Schleeh, one of his best pilots, has told an amusing story about a dark and foggy morning when they were taxiing out to the runway for takeoff. The fog was so thick they could see only a few feet in any direction. LeMay told Schleeh, who was in the copilot’s seat, to keep his flashlight trained on the right-hand edge of the taxi strip. If they could stick close to that one side, they wouldn’t have to worry about rolling off the narrow strip of pavement into the mud.
- taxiing: 비행기가 지상에서 스스로 움직이는 것. 차고지인 주기장에서 활주로까지 이동하는 과정을 뜻한다.
- taxi strip: taxiway라고도 불리는 이 길은 비행기가 taxiing하도록 포장된 좁은 길이다. Runway는 실제로 활주하는, 이착륙하는 활주로이고, 그 활주로로 오가는 지상에서의 길이 taxi strip.
But alas, despite Schleeh’ concentration, the plane suddenly rolled off the pavement and sank struts-deep into the mud.
- 조심했는데도 비행기가 굴러 떨어져서 struts깊이의 진흙으로 빠졌음.
- struts: 항공기에서 착륙장치(랜딩기어)의 지지봉이다. 기체와 바퀴를 연결하는 금속 지지대이다.
LeMay, in seething fury, turned to his copilot. Before he had time to say anything, however, Schleeh said to him, “Damn it all, Colonel, you ran off on your side.”
- 르메이는 끓어오르는 분노 속에서 그의 조종사를 향해 몸을 돌렸다. 하지만 그가 무엇인가 말을 하기 전에 Schleeh가 르메이에게 말했다, “젠장, 대장, 당신 쪽에서 (도로 밖으로) 벗어났잖아요.”
- run off (the road/strip): (도로/포장된 길에서) 벗어나다, 굴러 떨어지다.
- The car ran off the road and into a ditch: 차가 도로를 벗어나 도랑에 빠졌다.
He wanted his men to feel the outfit was not his but theirs. “I never said ‘I,’” he later recalled, “I always said ‘we.’”
- outfit: 군 부대나 부대 조직을 뜻하는 비격식의 표현이다. 특히 작은 단위의 부대(squadron, bomb group, unit)를 지칭할 때 자주 사용된다.
[there were two vexing problems haunting LeMay]
The difficulties of his still-inexperienced navigators in finding the targets and the difficulties of his bombardiers in recognizing them even when they saw them. He had already concluded that neither the navigators nor the bombardiers could be blamed for this. They simply didn’t know enough about the targets or the routes to them or the recognizable features surrounding them. And considering the number of targets there would be as the war progressed, there was no way any one navigator or bombardier could become thoroughly familiar with more than a few of them.
- The difficulties of his still-inexperienced navigators in finding the targets and the difficulties of his bombardiers in recognizing them[=targets] even when they saw them[=targets]. He had already concluded that neither the navigators nor the bombardiers could be blamed for this. They simply didn’t know enough about the targets or the routes to them[=targets] or the recognizable features surrounding them[=targets].
- And considering the number of targets there would be as the war progressed, there was no way any one navigator or bombardier could become thoroughly familiar with more than a few of them. 전쟁이 진행됨에 따라 있을 타깃의 수를 고려하면, 어떤 항법사나 폭격수도, 타깃 몇 개 이상을 철저히 익힐 수는 없었다.
If each navigator-bombardier team, however, could become expert in recognition of one potential target and the route to it, that team would be ready to guide the whole group whenever the target they had studied was chosen for a mission.
As this idea took shape in LeMay’s mind, he gathered his most trusted aides around him, particularly Joe Preston and John de Russy, and tried it out on them.
- try – out on ~: -을 ~에게 시험해보다, 반응을 살피다.
- 르메이는 그 아이디어를 그들에게 시험삼아 말해보았다.
- cf. try out a new theory: 새로운 이론을 시험하다
- try it out on the team: 팀에게 먼저 시도해보다, 또는 팀에게 의견을 구하다
[작전 구역을 쪼개 촬영하기로 보냄]
“When that target was flashed on the screen at Briefing,” LeMay later recalled, “it wasn’t a surprise to at least one or two of those bombardier-navigator teams. They had soaked it up. They knew it well. They were the people who led the mission that day.”
- 브리핑 시간에 타깃이 스크린에 번쩍 보일때flashed,
- they had soaked it up: 그들은 그것을 완전히 흡수했다. 즉 완전히 숙지하고 있었다.
This was the first step toward another LeMay innovation that developed into what were called lead crew schools.
- ‘lead crew schools’이라고 불렸던 것들이라는 의미이므로, ‘were called’
It was now becoming more than ever imperative that LeMay improve and conserve his group. Since the Eighth Air Force had begun attacking Germany proper the losses were increasing sharply. Yet because of the demands of the North African Campaign, which had begun in November 1942, the Eighth was now getting enough new planes and crews to replace its losses. He fully realized now how fortunate he was to have Ben Fulkrod as his chef engineering officer.
- Germany proper은 ‘독일 본토’를 의미한다.
Besides being an expert on the workings of the B-17s, Fulkrod was like the latter-day fictional wheeler-dealer, Milo Minderbinder of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 in his ability to find, scrounge, or promote useful items.
- wheeler-dealer: 비공식적이고 수완이 좋은 거래꾼, 잔머리를 잘 쓰는 협상가, ‘수완가’ 내지는 ‘이득을 잘 챙기는 거래꾼’이다.
- B-17 작업에서 전문가였던 것과 별개로, Fulkrod는 후일 소설 속 wheeler-dealer인, Joseph Heller의 Catch 22에 나오는 Milo~와 같았다.
Before leaving the States, LeMay had sent his flight surgeons out to dig up several footlockers full of whatever medicines they thought might be useful but scare in combat.
- flight surgeons: 항공작전을 수행하는 조종사, 항공 승무원의 건강을 관리하며 항공 의학적인 문제를 전문적으로 다루는 군의관이다. 비행 관련 의학에 전문지식이 있는 군의관이다.
He[Ben Fulkrod] got hold of every kind of tool that could possibly be useful in maintaining and repairing B-17s, including even a lathe with raw stock for duplicating parts and, most amazing of all, a set of wing reamers, which were absolutely essential to secure tight fits in replacing damaged wings.
- lathe: 금속이나 나무를 회전시키면서 칼날(tool)을 대어 형태를 깎아내는 가공 기계. 항공기 부품을 제작하고 복제할 때 잘 쓰였다. 부러지거나 마모된 축, 핀, 실린더, 나사 따위를 정밀하게 다시 제작할 때 썼다.
- raw stock: 원자재. 원형 금속 덩어리, 막대기 형태의 기본 자재를 말한다. 여기서 ‘lathe with raw stock’이라고 하면, lathe와 제작에 사용할 원자재까지 준비된 것을 말한다.
- wing reamer: 금속에 뚫린 구멍을 정밀하게 넓히거나 매끄럽게 다듬는 특수한 드릴 도구이다. 특히 날개를 교체할 때, 리벳이나 볼트가 들어가는 구멍을 아주 정밀하게 맞춰야 단단하게 고정되는데, 이때 손상된 날개를 교체하면서 빈틈없이 꼭 맞게 부착하도록 하는 공구이다.
With no replacements arriving and planes becoming more precious every day during those first months of 1943, Fulkrod and his tools performed miracles of maintenance to keep the 305th in the air.
Clever as he was, however, Fulkrod could hardly compensate for the fact that most of the replacement planes from home were going to North Africa, where the need was immediate and almost desperate.
- 그가 영리하기는 했지만, 그 역시 본토(미국)에서 오는 대체용 비행기 대부분이 North Africa에 가야 한다는 사실을 만회할 수 없었다. = 이 말인 즉, Fulkrod가 열심히 수리하고 똑똑한 일을 해주었지만 비행기가 다 북아프리카 전선으로 보내지니까 보충하는 데 한계가 있었다.
Eaker was trying desperately to stem and reverse the continuing depletion of his force.
- Eaker도 절박하게 그의 군대가 지속적으로 고갈되는 상태를 바꿔보려고 했다.
- stem: (흐름, 확산 등을) 막다, 저지하다
- cf. We must stem the flow of illegal weapons.
- The government took emergency measures to stem the spread of the virus.
[Eaker’s letter to General Arnold in Washington]
The two heavy groups we were supposed to get in Feburary have, as you of course know, been sidetracked to the Twelfth Air Force[in Africa]. We have been told that there will be no shipping in March or April. This makes it appear that we are not to build up an increased force of heavy bombers to be available this spring.
We have to date received but 24 replacement crews and 63 replacement aircraft. We have lost 75 planes and crews in 2,206 sorties. We feel therefore obliged to save our force for days when we can deliver maximum effort under favorable conditions, until we can get a larger force, and until the flow of replacements matches expenditures. We never had and never will let one of these days pass without operating at maximum effort.
- sidetrack: 원래 목적에서 벗어나 다른 곳으로 가다, 전용하다
- 우리가 받을 예정이었던 heavy groups(중폭격기 부대)가 아프리카의 12공군 쪽으로 전용되었다.
- no shipping: (유럽 전선으로 보내질) 선적은 없을 거라고 들었다.
- replacement crews는 조종사와 승무원 팀 단위를 말하는 것이고, replacement aircraft는 보충된 새로운 비행기를 뜻한다. 여기서는, 현재까지 보충으로 받은 게 24개의 승무원 팀과 63대의 비행기라는 것이다.
- sortie: 군사 용어, 단일 작전 출격을 의미한다. 예컨대 폭격기 1대가 임무 수행을 위해 출력하면 1 sortie이다. 2,206 sortie라면, 2,206대의 개별 폭격기 출격이 있었다. 여기서 75대가 손실되었던 것이다.
Hill, a big, unflappable New Englander who didn’t believe anything until he saw it, was assigned to fly with LeMay’s mission leading 305th Group which that day was under the command of Maj. Joe Preston.
- colonel, major, general 누가 제일 높아?: General > Colonel > Major
- Preston은 LeMay의 부하 장교로서, 보통은 하나의 bombing mission에서 리더십을 발휘하는 lead pilot 역할을 맡음. 그 휘하의 전투에서 르메이가 전체 그룹 리딩하는 게 아니라 그냥 참가자나 관찰자로 탑승.
- unflappable: 침착함을 잃지 않는, 쉽게 동요하거나 당황하지 않는 =calm, composed
[after flight with LeMay, Hill filed a dispatch for AP news]
At a U. S. Bomber Station Somewhere in England(AP): From the cockpit of the plane which led the American air armada in the third attack on Germany today I watched Flying Fortress bombs blast docks at Wilhelmshaven, one of the Nazis’ prime naval bases.
- Wilelmshaven[빌헬름스하펜]
- air armada: 스페인어에서 유래한 단어로, 대규모의 해군 함대를 뜻한다. 여기서는 공중 함대라는 뜻으로 수십 대 이상의 전투기 및 폭격기로 구성된 공군 집단을 말한다.
- blast: 폭파하다, 날려 버리다
Yet I was standing a few inches from the officer directing the whole operation—Major Joseph Preston of Elgin, Minn.—and he was less spectacular, moving the control column and quietly enunciating decisions into his throat microphone, than an average conservative motorist out for a quiet drive in the United States. . . .
- Minn.: Minnesota의 약자
- Elgin: Minnesota에 있는 도시 이름
- less spectacular: 담담한. 눈에 띄지 않는. 화려하지 않은. 드라마틱하지 않은. 뒤에 따라오는 than과 이어지는 구조이다. “그는 ~하면서, 미국에서 조용한 드라이브를 즐기는, 평범하고 신중한 운전자보다도 덜 눈에 띄었다. = 미국에서 조용한 ~ 운전자만큼이나 차분했다/담담했다.”
- enunciate: 또박또박 말하다
- control column: 비행기 내부에 있는 스틱과 같은 실제 조종 장치
Your first view of an attacking German fighter has an odd impersonal quality like watching a visiting expert at an air show.
- odd impersonal quality: 공격해오는 독일군 전투기를 처음 볼 때 이상하게도 비인격적인 느낌이 들었다는 것. ‘나를 죽이러 오는 사람이다’하는 인간적인 기분이 아니라, 감정이 배재된 채로 보는 것과 같은 인상을 받았음을 전달한다.
- air show: 항공기들이 묘기 비행, 전투 시험을 보이는 에어 쇼를 의미.
It’s only when you hear the rat-tat-tat of your own guns, sounding like a man knocking on the door with a pneumatic drill, and see the tracer bullets lofting down at the attacking planes like tennis balls—although actually going 2,700 feet a second—that you realize it’s war.
- pneumatic: 공압의, 공기의 압력을 이용하는
Do you get scare on a raid? The answer is No. You may have qualms if you stop and reflect on the possible hazards.
- qualm[kwɑːm; kwɔːm]: 꺼림칙한 느낌, 불안감, 양심의 가책, 불쾌한 예감
The fist big kick came when, after breakfast in the moonlit darkness at 4 a.m., we piled into the briefing building to learn the target and discover it was going to be a big-time raid.
- pile into: 우르르, 떼 지어 급하게 들어가다
Then two crammed hours while ground crews did the final tuning on engines and we climbed into several hundred pounds—it seemed—of paraphernalia necessary for high-altitude flights; fur-lined leather jacket, pants, boots and helmet, a “Mae West” life preserver, parachute harness, oxygen mask, earphones, throat mike.
- paraphernalia: 특정 활동에 필요한 용품
- a “Mae West” life preserver: 2차 세계 대전에서 비행사들이 착용했던 구명조끼를 가리키는 속어로, 구명조끼를 입으면 가슴 부분이 부풀어 올라 유명 배우 “Mae West”의 체형에서 유래해 붙은 이름이다.
- life preserver: 일반적으로 구명 조끼를 뜻할 때도 많지만 구명 튜브(Life buoy)일수도 있다.
- we climbed into-: 직역하면 “우리는 -속으로 기어들어갔다”인데, 이 문맥에서는 무겁고 복잡한 장비를 몸에 걸친 것을 묘사하는 표현이다.
The biggest kick of the whole trip was the moment of takeoff when the pilot gunned the engines said with finality, “We’re going.”
- the biggest ‘kick’에서 ‘kick’은 아주 짜릿한 순간을 말한다. 이 전체 여정에서(출발 준비하는 여정) 가장 짜릿한 순간은 조종사가 엔진을 쏘는(gun) 순간이다. 엔진 출력을 급하게 올리는 것, 엔진 소리가 ‘우르릉’ 울리는 것을 gun the engine이라고 한다.
Directional radio beeps on the earphones echoed it like the last words you hear when you go under ether: “We’re going we’re going we’re going,” as we zoomed off the runway. . . .
- ether: 에테르. 수술 전 마취제로 쓰이던 휘발성 약품이다. 마취를 위해서 이 걸 흡입하면 현실에서 멀어지고 꿈결처럼 소리가 희미하게 들리는 상태가 된다.
- under ether: 마취 전에 당신이 듣는 마지막 단어같이 울렸다.
- as we zoomed off the runway: 우리는 활주로를 떠나 이륙하며
The first German fighter swooped up as we spotted a large convoy plowing along the Frisian islands.
- swoop up: 새, 전투기 등이 급강하하거나 급습하다. 여기서는 아래에서 위로 확 치솟는 맥락에서, 급상승하는 것.
- convoy: 호송대, 수송 행렬, 호위를 받으며 이동하는 선단이나 차량 행렬
- plow: 쟁기질하다는 의미가 여기서는 물, 눈, 땅 등을 가르며 천천히 나아간다는 의미에서, 힘겹게 저항을 뚫고 전진하는 이미지를 전달하는 동사이다. 보통 큰 선박, 차량과 함께 쓸 때 이러한 맥락에서 쓰인다.
- a large convoy plowing along the Frisian islands: 프리슬란트 제도를 따라 힘차게, 꾸준히 전진 중인 대규모의 호송 선단.
“Enemy aircraft at 2 o’clock,” co-pilot Captain Clinton Breeding of Waco, Tex., stated matter-of-factly over the interphone, and our gunners trained on it[enemy aircraft] until it came within range and then started banging.
From then on it sounded like a mouse-chase in a kitchen: “There’s one! Get him! He’s coming in at 9 o’clock. Let him have it, top-turret! . . .”
- trained (a weapon, camera, eyes) on ~: ~에 겨누다, 조준하다, 주의를 집중하다
- mouse-chase: 쥐 잡기. 정신 없고 빠르게 움직이는 추격전을 묘사한 것이다.
As Major Preston eased the formation over the target, the finger-like set of docks loomed up through the clouds just like in the aerial photographs.
- finger-like set of docks: 손가락처럼 (손바닥이 육지이고 손가락이 부두 하나하나인 셈으로) 뻗어 나온 부두들
Lead bombardier Lt. Charles Malec of Omaha drew a bead with his bombsight, and it wasn’t until he called back to the major to resume full control of the ship that I realized our bombs had gone.
- draw a bead: (장비를 이용해) 조준하다. ‘bead’에 총이나 폭격기에서 목표를 조준할 때 쓰는 작은 점 혹은 그 앞의 조준기라는 뜻이 있다.
- bombsight: (in 1910s, below)
- call back to the major: 소령에게 연락을 다시 했다 (무전으로)
- resume full control of the ship: (임시로 넘겼던 조종권을) 다시 완전히 컨트롤하라고
[Back at the base] Lt. Harold O’Neil of Graceville, Minn., brought “Madame Butterfly” in despite a fire in one of her engines. Lt. Hugh Ashcraft of Charlotte, N.C., landed “Southern Comfort” in one piece with a third of his rudder shot clean away.
- 기지에 돌아와서, 중위가 “Madame Butterfly”를 가지고 왔다.
- in despite a fire in one of her engines: 엔진 하나에 불이 났음에도 불구하고.
- 여기서 왜 in despite를 쓴 것인지? – 그건 바로 ‘bring in’이라는 표현 때문이다.
- bring [the plane] in: 기체를 착륙시키다, 귀환시키다
- 비행기를 여성으로 받음.
- Hugh Ashcraft 중위는, “Southern Comfort(기체 이름)”을 착륙시켰다.
- land in one piece: 큰 피해 없이 무사히 착륙시키다. 통째로 관용표현이다.
- cf. Despite the storm, the pilot managed to land the plain in one piece; We just prayed we’d come down in one piece.
- with a third of his rudder shot clean away: 그의 방향타의 1/3이 총격으로 완전히 파괴된 상태에서
- rudder: 방향타, 아래 이미지 참조
The third of the stragglers had disappeared in the clouds over the North Sea. (This meant the group had lost three planes.)
- straggler: 집단에서 떨어져 나온 사람이나 물체를 뜻하는데, 군사적으로는 편대에서 뒤처진 비행기를 말한다. 여기서는 낙오된 비행기이다.
- 낙오된 비행기 중 세번째가 사라졌다는 건, 세 대를 잃었다는 말이 된다.
It was a relief to climb out of that claustrophobic cockpit and shuck off all the equipment, which by now definitely weighed a full ton.
- claustrophobic: 폐소공포증을 유발하는, 비좁고 숨 막히는
- cockpit: 조종석
- 비좁고 숨막히는 조종석에서 나온 건 정말 안도가 됐다.
- shuck off: (껍질, 겉껍질 따위를) 벗기다, 벗어 던지다
- 모든 장비들을 모두 벗어던진 것 역시(비행이 끝났으니까) 안도가 됐다.
- 이쯤 되면 무게가 1톤이나 되는 것처럼 느껴지는 장비들.
The station commandant Col. Curtis LeMay of Columbus, Ohio, walked up the runway and said to Major Preston, “Well, Joe, what happened?”
“Well,” Preston said, as thoughtfully and laconically as a Vermont farmer, “we dropped some bombs on Wilhelmshaven.”
- laconically: 무뚝뚝하게, 말수 없이
The solidity of our formation from the takeoff to the landing emphasized the strength of heavily armored, heavily armed, high-altitude daylight bombing.
- heavily armored: 두껍게 방탄 처리된
- 우리 대형의 견고한 유지는 (이륙에서 착륙까지) 두텁게 방탄 처리되고 중무장한, 고도에서의 주간 폭격의 위력을 강조했다.
While he either preferred to keep his deepest feelings hidden, or simply found it difficult and embarrassing to expose them, he revealed a surprising side of himself in a note to his wife in early March. The note was written beneath a copy of a letter found among the effects of one of his men who was shot down during a March 6 mission to Lorient.
The man’s letter was addressed to a comrade he was thus designating as administrator of his estate in the event he was killed. The “estate” consisted of his uniforms and toilet articles, several photographs, a “heavy mackinaw,” four pounds owed to him by another comrade, and the money in his wallet, enough to pay his only outstanding debt, his laundry bill.
He also had a wife and a two-month-old daughter whom, he hoped, his administrator might some day be able to pick up in his arms. Would he please tell her that her father loved her and that he wanted her to grow up to be exactly like her mother?
In conclusion, he hoped that, whatever happened to him, his comrades would continue giving the Nazis hell until the “last sparks” of their “barbaric tyranny” had been extinguished.
LeMay was so deeply touched by this letter he wanted his wife to see a copy of it. But the note he scribbled at the bottom said as much about him as it did about his fallen airman;
“This letter was left by one of by boys shot down over Lorient. I am constantly amazed at the heights these kids rise to when the big test comes. I sometimes wonder what I have ever done to deserve the command of an outfit like this. You have always complained about me not being sentimental enough. I think sometimes I’m too soft to properly fight a war. After training these kids from pups and leading them against the best pursuit and antiaircraft defenses in the world, and having them come thru the way they have, it hurts like hell to lose them. –Curt.”
(There was, incidentally, a happy ending to the story of his man who was shot down, a lieutenant named Tom Mayo. He landed safely by parachute in France underground, spirited to Spain, and returned through Gibraltar to England—all within two week. And the first thins he said to the “administrator of his estate” was “I suppose you’ve already drunk that bottle of gin I left.”)
- administrator (of one’s estate): 사망한 사람의 재산을 정리하고 분배하는 책임자. 군인들은 미리 자신이 죽는 경우 유품을 정리하고 돌려보낼 사람을 지정해둔다. 여기서는 이 병사의 전우를 뜻한다. 개인적인 유언 형식으로 유산을 정리해줄 것을 부탁한 것.
- toilet articles: 위생용품
- mackinaw: 두꺼운 울 외투
- spirit: 동사로 ‘누군가를 몰래, 빠르게, 안전한 곳으로 빼돌리다, 탈출시키다’는 뜻.
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