"K For Kitty."
In the "Flying Officer X" series, an Australian pilot has come to "know, trust, and finally get fond of" his Stirling plane. The plane and crew are nearly destroyed in a raid but land safely, only to have the plane literally fall apart; long afterwards, the pilot stands with "the attitude of a seaman who looks across empty water, for the last time, and sees his ship no longer there." The title refers to the military's method of naming the planes by letter of the alphabet. In News Chronicle (March 9, 1942), The Greatest People in the World and Other Stories (1942), Jerusalem Radio Forum (October 16, 1942), There's Something In The Air (1943), Something In The Air (1944), The Stories of Flying Officer 'X' (1952). A section of the story, with alterations, was published under the title "The Risk" in Wings of War: An Air Force Anthology (London: B.T. Batsford, 1942).