The Dud

1943 Bonn, Germany

The Pesch family, with father away at war, left Dusseldorf in 1942. The catalyst for the move was their home being destroyed in a nighttime air raid by the Allies. They resurfaced in Bonn, moving south putting distance between them and the front. Willy Pesch was nine years old.

Forever forward the family was understandably nervous whenever the air raid sirens rang out throughout the night. You could never be certain if your town was the target or if the 300 bomb-laden aircraft were merely flying through to unload at another destination. The rumbling drone of the bombers overhead. The endless defensive offering of the anti-aircraft flak into the night sky in a futile effort to slake the effect of yet another air assault. They combined for an awful discordant aural experience of growing up in World War II Germany. 

The family ran to the neighborhood bomb shelter. The air raids had been ongoing for months, a sure sign the war was not progressing as well as recent news reports claimed. Hours passed. The drone of aircraft and ack-ack of the anti-aircraft guns ceased. 

Returning from the bomb shelter, their home, thankfully, was undamaged. This had become an all too real concern after Dusseldorf. It was past midnight, the little ones were sleepy and went directly to bed. First light in the morning, however, brought much excitement.

Willy was always an early riser. Even more so after an air raid, which had become uncomfortably frequent, sometimes twice monthly. He and a neighbor friend were the first to find it. The thing was big, scary and beautiful, an unexploded bomb immediately outside the yard’s perimeter wall! A dud. The bomb was five feet tall and weighed 500 pounds.

As is usual after air raids the demolition crew would be en route. They were deployed to the affected areas to search through rubble for survivors and deactivate unexploded ordnance. A surprisingly high percentage of bombs were duds, more than five percent did not detonate. One such dud was within 100 feet from the Pesch house. The two boys were, naturally, very impressed with the device. They were standing arms length from it, admiring it as if it were a new bicycle. That’s when Willy’s mom came out looking for her oldest child, and found him admiring the bomb.

Willy was very smart and mechanically inclined, even at nine. His desk and storage chest under the bed looked like contents one might accumulate after a sweep of unattended bits and parts from a laboratory, an electronic research laboratory to be more precise. He would read books and magazines on electronics, when he could find them, to learn how to use the pieces he’d managed to compile. When the world around you is being regularly bombed and destroyed it was not difficult to obtain loose wires, motors in varying stages of disrepair from different kinds of machines that had been partially blown up or crushed due to a structure’s collapse. Even sometimes he and his pals could successfully get their hands on a small amount of gunpowder to blow up an already blown up shed or burned out automobile. With that thought coursing through his head admiring the bomb he heard his mother calling to him. She was calling to him with no more alarm in her voice than if she saw him standing before a mud puddle and wanting him to step away. Concern for such things had been blunted by years of war.

“Willy, please come inside until the soldiers have removed the bomb.” Backing away, after a few moments of hesitation, without taking his eyes off it, he reluctantly complied.

He spent the next two hours, until the demolition crew came to dismantle it and haul it away, telling his mom about the electronic projects he had in mind and how the parts from the bomb would be especially useful. Of course, she said, “No,” it’d be nuts to otherwise imagine a nine year old boy with parts from a real bomb, even a dud. Explosive components remained, it was only the detonation portion that had malfunctioned.

She said no, but she listened with feigned disinterest, but she did listen, as if he was discussing the culinary arts and the wonderful dishes he could create if he only had the proper array of tools or proper ingredients.

The demolition crew arrived and Willy went to watch from the window. It was a chilly morning but he opened the window to catch what he could of the crew’s work. He saw, then, his mother approach the demolition crew.

“Missus, do not come any closer. It’s dangerous here. Go back in the house,” he called to her from 50 feet away.

This was no way to have a conversation from such distance. So she approached closer until one of the soldiers put out both hands impelling her to stop and much more loudly calling out, “Lady, stop. You see there’s a bomb here. It may explode, yet. Go inside until we’re done.”

Willy’s mom had it in mind to try to convince the demolition crew that they should let her boy have the detonation device. Not the bomb, of course, not the explosive, just the detonation portion. “My son likes playing with electrical wiring and such clever things,” she explained.

She stopped but was not done making her case. Could she convince the crew to allow her boy to have a piece of the bomb, he won’t hurt himself, she thought. Willy was a good boy, mommy’s favorite, although she could not say so aloud on account of hurting the feelings of the other three children. 

“Will you let my son have that? He’s very smart and knows how handle such things,” she said.

“Lady, this is a bomb,” he countered, scrunching up his face confused by the inanity of the question.

“I know, yes, he found it this morning with a friend. Can he have the detonation piece after you make it safe, please?”

“Look, no, we need to bring all unexploded ordnance back to base, intact. We need these for research and to put them back into the war effort,” replied the soldier.

“It’s just the one, you can’t spare that one part, without the explosive,” she asked feebly and sweetly.

“Missus, no, go back to your home and close the door until it’s safe.”

“Can I send my son out to watch you, then? You can give him some of the wire,” she said hopefully walking back to the house.

“No, we can’t do that. We’ll let the neighborhood know when it’s safe again,” hoping this bizarre query was now concluded.

Willy had been at the window listening to the entire exchange. He loved his momma. He beamed at her, smiling largely when she came back into the house. She didn’t know that he’d overheard. He loved and admired his mother. The war years had been exceedingly difficult on her, as one would imagine, worrying about the safety of four young ones, providing food and shelter in an increasingly more dangerous and depleted world.

[Inspired by one of Opa’s anecdotes growing up in World War II Germany. His mother, after an air raid, purportedly tried to convince the demolition crew to allow her son to have a portion of an unexploded bomb.]

-klem

Fireman’s Descent

Alhambra, CA

Fall 2012

His Christian name was Emmett. A good guy, this one. His momma lived in her home of six decades in Alhambra with full-time live-in help. He cared deeply about his momma and something needed amending at home, the task in need of mending pertained to bees. An inchoate beehive had burgeoned forth under the second floor eave overlooking the patio. What if mom were to get stung, he worried? So, with an important impetus as this he made a special trip to spend time with her, enjoy a light lunch of soup and engage in the obligatory conversation one must make with an aging parent before getting down to it. But get down to it he would, and did.

His friend from next door, Tim, saw Emmett’s car parked out front and dropped by for a hello. Having exchanged pleasantries the two boys went to the garage for the extended ladder and the recently purchased bee spray. With Tim holding the ladder at ground level from the patio Emmett began his ascent.

He was not afraid of the bees, he was also not overtly agile, so he was deliberate with each move. Having attained adequate altitude and proximity to the hive he drew up the chemical spray and was poised for his assault. One final deep breath, he held it and pull the trigger. That’s the last thing he remembered until awakening in a hospital bed.

“Good thing you’re not allergic to bees because you’d be dead. More than 30 stings,” his doctor said without so much as a courtesy chuckle to lighten the mood.

What exactly transpired during the black out, you’ll ask. To answer that we’ll start with Tim’s account.

Emmett was immediately enveloped in a cloud of angry bees. Then the amazing thing, he did a fireman’s descent from the second floor. As his blackout commenced, he dropped the bee spray, placed both hands on the outside rails of the ladder, did the same with his feet and performed an immaculate ladder descent that would have made any veteran firefighter proud.

His body, under the influence of stress-induced auto pilot, he ran inside, went upstairs to the shower, brushing bees out of his hair and shedding clothes along the way. Still getting stung but with decreased frequency. The bees’ counter-attack finally, and thankfully, petered out as the shower concluded. Without a change of clothes, still on autopilot, he shook out spent bee carcasses from his trousers, shirt and, yes, even his grungers, and put his clothes back on.

Tim’s dad, also next door, arrived at the front door as Emmett, still in a bee-sting induced stupor, came downstairs.

“Emmett, are you OK,” he asked with eyes wide open with concern.

“I’m fine,” responded Em calmly as he promptly passed out, collapsed into his neighbor’s arms who caught him, then issued a full dose of barf demolishing his neighbor’s trousers and shirt. The ambulance had by now pulled up in front of the house, paramedics hustled in to assist and drove Emmett to the hospital.

Emmett has, since the incident, developed an allergic reaction to bees. Bee-related emergencies have arisen twice since the fireman’s’ descent. On the bright side, the budding beehive was defeated.

[Based on a real life experience of my pal.]