The Wild Banshees / Book 1

Whistling Death

by C. Scott Lannon

The Japanese named the F4U Corsair “Whistling Death.” The pilots of VMF-333 are starting to wonder what's doing the whistling. Major Declan “Mick” Corrigan takes command of a Marine squadron of orphans nobody else wanted, a handful of borrowed Corsairs, and a dirt strip in a coconut grove. He carries two names from a training accident at Jacksonville. He has promised himself he will bring every pilot home. Then the incidents begin. A woman's voice on an empty frequency. The scent of turf smoke in a sealed cockpit at 20,000 feet. A line chief who traces twenty-seven bullet holes and writes three words in the ledger. The squadron flew home that night. One of them stood on the flight line afterward. He did not walk away.