Jake's Writing Blog

February 5th, 1942 (02/05/42) For the second time today, Priya Chawla disassembled a prototype Merlin V12 Rolls Royce engine.  At 11,000 parts, these powerful engines propelled the Supermarine Spitfire and Avro Lancaster aircraft which were crucial in the ongoing war with Hitler’s Nazi Germany. She was the only woman out of the 20 people in the test disassembly area, a slim figure with chestnut brown shoulder length hair and soft dark brown eyes.  Sweat beaded on her forehead and under her armpits as she carefully unbolted a fuel line. She wiped her forehead brushing a few loose strands of hair out of her eyes. The warm and stuffy conditions inside the testing warehouse made any physical movement toiling.  Unfortunately there wasn’t any sort of air conditioning to cool down.  Priya was looking forwards to the end of her shift which gratefully, was in less than ten minutes.      She couldn’t however be too caught up in how uncomfortable she...

Prologue: 1942, France The steady humming drone of the dual-engine Whitworth Whitley bomber broke through the cool night air. The moon glimmered between the grey asperitas clouds, reflecting dully against the bombers’ metallic fuselage.  Francis Poulter crouched above a gaping hole in the bomber’s floor, wearing his full body beige jumpsuit and a parachute on his back. Through the hole he could see the ground, a thousand feet below, rushing past at high speed.    “You all set?” yelled the stern faced Royal Air Force (RAF) dispatcher over the cacophony of noise.  Francis gave the man a thumbs up. His black wiry hair whipped in the breeze. Francis tried to ignore the dryness in his mouth and the nauseating churning in his stomach.  “Landing site is coming up, it’ll just be a few seconds now,” the dispatcher said giving him a nod. Francis looked to the circular glowing red light mounted near one of the cabin’s blacked out windows. It’s light source dous...