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"But that wasn't the end. The German pilot, attempting a suicidal collision, came straight in toward our plane. Frost gave him another burst and the Messerschmitt crumbled apart in the air. 'That got him for sure, sir,' Frost said. Then he added: 'I've been shot, sir.' . . .
"Sergeant Breeding cut off Frost's trouser leg, stripped off the blood-soaked sock and applied a tourniquet to his leg. My fingers were numb from the cold and the first-aid kit was flaked with frost. Iodine swabs were frozen solid. Frost smiled and asked for a cigaret." Sergeant Norman Frost was not hurt seriously. Two men were scratched. Worst hurt was the Witch herself: "The superchargers were shot away, the automatic steering device was ruined, hydraulics damaged, an aileron knocked off and the self-sealing tank had been hit once. The engineer said he believed we had a flat tire."
The Witch and her pink sisters broke formation and headed for home, leaving behind them four Axis fighter planes destroyed, two Axis transports shattered.
The sun set in the Mediterranean. Winds, strange to U.S. flyers, pushed some of the bombers north as a moonless night closed in. From Major Kane's plane all that Newsman Kennedy could see in the blackness were the stars:
"The storm had raised dust from the land and blown in the mist from the sea. . . . Then we see the lights we are looking for ... put the plane down in the neatest landing on the darkest field I ever saw. We go to dinner. To the airmen, it was just a day's work."