Escort Vanishes as the Swarm Attacks
ROSIE’S REVENGE A World War II B-17 Audio Drama in Five Episodes Formatted for ElevenLabs / Toon Bee. Every recording part is under 2,500 characters. • Words in square brackets, like [shouting], are ElevenLabs v3 emotion and delivery tags. • Lines in parentheses (SFX: …) are sound-effect cues. Add them in editing or leave them out of the recording. --- CAST • NARRATOR • SKIPPER: Lt. Jack Harlan, pilot • MORAN: Lt. Eddie Moran, co-pilot • WHITFIELD: Lt. Sam Whitfield, navigator • RUSSO: Lt. Frank Russo, bombardier • KOWALSKI: Sgt. Walt Kowalski, flight engineer and top turret • TATE: Sgt. Billy Tate, radio operator • BEAN: Sgt. Danny “Bean” O’Neal, ball turret • PRUITT: Sgt. Hank Pruitt, left waist gunner • ORTEGA: Sgt. Luis Ortega, right waist gunner • COBB: Sgt. Ray Cobb, tail gunner • LISLE: Sgt. Tommy Lisle, replacement left waist gunner, age 19 (Episodes 2–5) • BRIEFING OFFICER: Major Dawes (Episodes 2 and 5) • RESCUE PILOT: Flight Lieutenant Granger, British Air-Sea Rescue (Episode 3) --- EPISODES 1. Mission Nine 2. The Replacement 3. Ditching 4. The Turret 5. Twenty-Five ---
EPISODE 1: MISSION NINE
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PART 1 — Climbing Out
(SFX: Four huge radial engines droning. Wind screaming through the open waist windows.) NARRATOR:
[low, serious] October, 1943. Twenty-five thousand feet above the North Sea. The sky is a hard, freezing blue. Below, a white blanket of clouds stretches all the way to Germany. Three hundred B-17 Flying Fortresses climb in tight formation. Silver wings glinting in the sun. Long white contrails streaming behind them like chalk lines across the sky. Inside one of them, Rosie’s Revenge, it is forty degrees below zero. The men wear fleece-lined leather, electric heated suits, and rubber oxygen masks that freeze to their faces. Ten men. Most of them barely old enough to vote.
… SKIPPER:
[calm, firm] Pilot to crew. Oxygen check. Sound off.
COBB:
[casual] Tail, okay.
ORTEGA:
Right waist, okay.
PRUITT:
[shivering] Left waist, okay… [teeth chattering] my eyebrows are frozen solid, Skipper.
BEAN:
[cramped, muffled] Ball turret, okay. Hanging under this bird like a Christmas ornament.
TATE:
Radio, okay.
KOWALSKI:
[gruff] Engineer, okay.
WHITFIELD:
Navigator, okay.
RUSSO:
Bombardier, okay.
SKIPPER:
Gunners, test-fire your guns. Short bursts. Watch the formation.
(SFX: Short, thundering bursts of .50-caliber machine guns. Brass shell casings clattering onto the metal floor.) … MORAN:
[uneasy] Jack… number three’s running hot.
SKIPPER:
Keep an eye on it, Eddie.
MORAN:
[dry] Brother, I haven’t taken my eyes off it since England.
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PART 2 — The Escorts Turn Back
(SFX: Engines droning. A pair of fighter planes roars past and fades.) NARRATOR:
[tense] Off the right wing, the P-47 escort fighters waggle their wings in a final salute… …then bank away toward England. Their fuel tanks are nearly dry. They can’t go any farther. And every man aboard Rosie’s Revenge watches them go.
… ORTEGA:
[forced cheer] There go the little friends. So long, boys! Save us a beer!
PRUITT:
[nervous laugh] Save us the whole bar.
… KOWALSKI:
[low, uneasy] Top turret to crew… it’s too quiet out here. I don’t like it.
SKIPPER:
[firm] Knock off the chatter. When they come, call ’em out by the clock. High, low, or level. Keep it clean.
… NARRATOR:
For five long minutes, nothing. Just the drone of engines and the hiss of oxygen. Then the tail gunner sees them. Tiny black dots… dozens of them… climbing out of the glare of the sun.
… COBB:
[shouting] TAIL TO PILOT! BANDITS! SIX O’CLOCK HIGH! A WHOLE SWARM OF ’EM!
SKIPPER:
[urgent] How many, Ray?!
COBB:
[shouting] THIRTY! MAYBE MORE! FOCKE-WULFS! THEY’RE COMING OUT OF THE SUN!
BEAN:
[yelling] BALL TURRET! MORE AT FOUR O’CLOCK LOW! MESSERSCHMITTS! CLIMBING STRAIGHT AT US!
SKIPPER:
[shouting] HERE THEY COME, BOYS! EDDIE, TUCK US IN TIGHT ON THE LEAD!
MORAN:
[strained] TUCKING IN!
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PART 3 — Head-On
(SFX: Engines roaring. Distant machine-gun fire from other bombers.) NARRATOR:
[fast, intense] The German fighters scream in. Their wings light up with flashes, yellow and orange. Machine guns and twenty-millimeter cannons, all firing at once.