You chose to drive your wife to her party.\n\nThe drive is peaceful as you both enjoy each other's company. Once you arrive at your mother's home, you greet your little sisters with hugs and shake your brothers' and brother-in-laws' hands. Then your mother banishes all males from the house.\n\nYou have a great time around Edmonds with your brothers. You compare stories with Leslie: pilot vs. MP. You tease 13-year-old Merl about his acne. Overall you enjoy yourself.\n\nUpon returning to Sand Point, a nickname you have used so often your family thinks it is the name of the base, you learn of the Japanese attempted attack on Oregon. You congratulate your squad mate on a successful solo mission, and feel torn over missing the opportunity but having one with your brothers.\n\nYou spend the next 25 years in the Navy and retire as a Lieutenant Commander. You then spend the next 20 years playing with grandchildren and great grandchildren.\n\nYou teach your three-year-old great niece to play poker in 1990, even though you were both supposed to be napping. You also tell her about all the wonderful things you did while in the Navy and after.\n\nYou die three years later, surrounded by children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.\n\n[[The truth of the matter]]\n

Start Page:\n\nFirst Draft of Shattered Flight. \n\nYou are Everett Ackley, USN. It is 1939 and you have a major decision to make. You, young man, are the second born of 8 children. Your elder brother, Leslie, is newly married. Your youngest sister, Willa, has just turned 3. And Tragedy has come to your home. Your Father has died of pneumonia. The Navy has given you the option of staying in the Navy and finishing your career or going home to take on the responsibilities of being the Man on the House. \n\n[[Stay In The Navy]] \n\n[[Go Home]]\n\n

Test Pilot:\n\nYou chose to be a test pilot.\n\nYour new wife joins you in Florida, where you spend the next two years flying jet-propelled aircraft. \n\nYou are testing a close flight maneuver with your squadron. The point is to fly wingtip to wingtip. Your left wingman bumps the underside of your wing. Both planes spiral out of control and you are facing a life or death decision. Do you bail out and let the plane crash, or do you try to regain control of the plane.\n\n[[Bail out]]\n\n[[Try to regain control]]\n

\nStay in the Navy:\n\nYou stayed in the Navy. Every payday you send most of your money home to your mother, who has had to leave her teaching job in order to care for your two brothers and three-year-old baby sister. At first, your entire paycheck is not enough to pay her rent. She tells you that she had to sell some family jewelry and borrow from her parents. \n\nYou work harder, gaining attention and accolades as a mechanic on the USS Arizona. You are promoted from Seaman to Petty Officer Third Class. Six months later, you are promoted again, Petty Officer Second Class. By 1941, you have reached Chief Petty Officer, and your mother no longer has to borrow money. You have started dating a nurse stationed at Pearl Harbor. \n\nDecember 7, 1941. \n\nSunday Morning. \n\n7AM. \n\nYou are asleep in your bunk, dreaming of your girl, and General Quarters is sounded. In your skivvies, you rush out of bed, throw open your wall locker to get your gear and an explosion rocks the ship. You rush towards the bow, and the rail guns and feel something sharp pierce your skull. Your world goes black as your ship sinks into the harbor.\n\nYou died.\n\n[[What Just Happened]]\n\n[[Start]]\n

You chose to wait for Thomas.\n\nHe stumbles around the corner. He has not weathered the lack of food or harsh conditions as well as you have. You help him under the fence as the guards change shift.\n\nThere is shouting behind you as you run. Gunfire follows the shouts and you feel a sharp pain in your back. Your vision blurs as you shove Thomas into the trees. You collapse as he continues running. He looks back at you and his head jerks. He falls, lifeless.\n\nYou've died.\n\n[[Start]]\n

You chose to fly for the RAF!\n\nYou didn't want to wait for space on a ship, so you went where pilots were needed now, England. The commander of your RAF squadron writes a condolences card to your wife and adds it to your file as you stand at attention in front of him. “It's just a precaution, mate,” he tells you, “Hopefully I'll be burning it.”\n\nYou are given one day to rest. At 0400 hours, you and one other pilot, Thomas Banson from the RAF, are sent over Germany. You are caught in a dogfight and zig when you should have zagged. The enemy shoots you both down and you are captured.\n\nYou are taken to a concentration camp and put to work. The condition of your fellow prisoners repulses you. They are naught but bones. The SS kills the weakest every night and forces you and Thomas to bury them. You plot an escape together. There is a weak point in the fence next to a heavily wooded area. You watch the guards to learn their shifts.\n\nYou have your chance to escape, but Thomas is late. You can leave now and try to return with help or you can wait and maybe miss your chance, or worse, get caught.\n\n[[Wait for Thomas]]\n\n[[Leave without Thomas]]\n

Rejoin the Navy:\n\nYou wait in the intake line after signing a new contract. You are tested for vision, strength, dexterity and overall health. You pass all tests and are approved for service. Because you have a pilot's license and two years of college, the Navy sends you to the Naval Academy School Of Flight. \n\nOne year later you graduate the accelerated program and the Navy gives you a new choice: Combat Pilot, fight in the war and avenge your friends on the USS Arizona, Or Test Pilot, helping the Navy develop lighter, faster and more powerful planes for the war effort\nYou are given 10 days of leave to make your decision. You and your fiancé get married during this period.\n\nYour ten days are done, Make your choice.\n\n[[Combat Pilot]]\n\n[[Test Pilot]]\n\n

You chose to take the watch \n\nYou wave as your GIB, your best friend, drives off with your wife and then settle in for a boring watch. \n\nThe phone rings an hour into your watch. You answer and are ordered to report to your plane. Oregon has explosives hovering over it, sent by the Japanese. \n\nYou report as ordered and are sent, alone, into the skies. There are ten balloons, and your orders are to shoot them down, or to detonate them in the air. They are over a forest so you shoot them down. \n\nYou return to base and are congratulated by your CO. Your wife is waiting for you, and the amount of stuff in your quarters has grown from the party. You laugh at stories of your family and fee satisfied for keeping them safe. \n\nYou spend the next 25 years in the Navy and retire as a Lieutenant Commander. \n\nYou then spend the next 20 years playing with grandchildren and great grandchildren. \n\nYou teach your three-year-old great niece to play poker in 1990, even though you were both supposed to be napping. You also tell her about all the wonderful things you did while in the Navy and after. \n\nYou die three years later, surrounded by children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. \n\n[[The truth of the matter]] \n

You chose to be discharged.\n\nYou go home to Edmonds. Your wife tries to help you, but with a baby on the way she can't do much. You tough it out through civilian rehab and regain 50% of your range of motion, then you quit because you have to work. You can't fly anymore because you can't move correctly. \n\nYou start drinking, but you manage to hold a job down for forty years and retire at 65. You are alone because, once your daughter graduated from college when you were 55, your wife left you. You drink too much one night and die in your sleep.\n\n[[Start]]\n

Everett Ackley was the second son of Carroll Maxwell Ackley and Ida Mae Toepke. He joined the Navy right out of high school and returned home after the death of his father in 1938. He had been stationed on the USS Arizona.\n\nWe are not quite sure how he heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor, but his reaction was explosive. He had been working hard at Boeing and had obtained his pilots license. He rejoined the Navy, and after completing his college degree and training he began test flying jet-propelled aircraft.\n\nOne day, during a wingtip formation, his wingman clipped his wing and both planes crashed. The other pilot and RIO or GIB were fine. Unfortunately Everett and his GIB were not. The man who had served as his GIB was dead and Everett had shattered his arm. He was put through extensive rehabilitation and moved to the Naval Reserves. \n\nHe was stationed at Naval Station Puget Sound, commonly called Sand Point, in Seattle Washington.\n\nEverett really was on his way home when the Japanese sent balloon bombs over Oregon. He lived a full life despite missing the call. I cannot call either [[drive your wife]] or [[take the watch]] failing options because both choices lead to the same conclusion.\n\nThe niece he taught to play poker? That was me, Amanda Cobb. We were both supposed to be taking naps. \n

Go Home:\n\nStay in the Navy or Go Home:\n\nYou chose to take care of your family. The Navy released you from your contract and you took your training as a mechanic to Boeing. For two years you work, go to college and attend flight school. You meet a good woman, who agrees to be your wife after a year of dating. \n\nDecember 7, 1941\n\nPearl Harbor is attacked, but you don't find out until December 8th. You storm into your mother's house, you see your little sister, without seeing her and you loudly proclaim,\n“They SANK my GOD DAMN SHIP!”\nYour mother comes out of the kitchen; she is wiping her hands off on a towel. You hand her the newspaper and inform her that you are returning to the Navy.\n\nYou have a similar, but calmer conversation with your fiancé, who agrees to wait for you to return from training.\n\n[[Rejoin the Navy]]\n\n

You chose to bail out.\n\nYou pull the ejection lever. With a loud thud you and your GIB are shot out of the plane. There are several dizzying seconds before your chute deploys. When it does the straps hit hard on your shoulders. Your head snaps forward.\n\nBelow you can see your plane crash into the ground. To your right you see your GIB in the air. He gives you a thumbs up.\n\nBack at the base you are questioned about the mid-air collision. Inquiries are made. You are questioned over and over about why you chose to bail out instead of attempting to save millions of dollars in US property. You are reprimanded and docked a month's pay.\n\nYou still have some friends with pull and you are offered a choice:\n\n[[Combat Pilot]]\n\n[[Join the Reserves]]

You chose to leave without Thomas.\n\nYou slip under the fence when the guards change shifts and run for the trees. There is shouting and gunfire behind you. You hear someone fall, and Hear Thomas' voice shout, “Run” before there is more gunfire.\n \nYou don't look back as you pick your way through the trees, marking each one with a sharp claw shaped rock.\n\nYou find Americans in the next village. They tell you about the invasion and you tell them about the camp. You lead them to it and they send you home. You have done your duty to your country.\n\nYou and your wife have children and you are forever haunted by that tattoo on your arm. But you keep it to remind yourself that you are alive. In 1984 you visit Thomas' widow and tell her of his heroism. She thanks you and you return home.\n\nYou die in bed in 1995.\n\n[[What did the Tattoo signify?]]\n\n[[Start]]\n

Shattered Flight

The tattoo that most holocaust survivors bear represents their identification number. The Germans, in the event of death or execution, used it for identification. Prisoners who were immediately sent to their deaths were not given a tattoo. \n\nEverett never flew for the RAF and he was never in this position. He did have brother-in-laws who fought in Germany while they were in the US Army. Thankfully for all of the family, the men all made it home.\n\n[[Start]]\n

Pearl Harbor\nDecember 7, 1941\n0700 Hours\n\nWhile the sailors stationed aboard the USS Arizona slept, the Japanese imperial fleet launched a massive, surprise airstrike against the Pacific Fleet. General Quarters were sounded across the fleet, but for most stationed aboard the Arizona, it was too late. The ship still lays in Pearl Harbor. She is the tomb of approximately 1000 men. \n\nThe USS Arizona still leaks oil into the harbor, a few drops at a time and there is a memorial above the remains of the ship. She was decommissioned on December 1, 1942. \n\nHad Everett really remained in the Navy, what just happened in the game might well have been his fate. Your first clue is that he instead chose to [[Go Home]] after the death of his father.\n

You chose to try to regain control\n\nThe plane is spiraling too quickly for you to pull up entirely. However you are able to slow your descent enough that when the plane hits the Everglades, right wing first, you don't immediately explode. \n\nNow there is a sharp pain in your shoulder, an excruciating one in your arm and your GIB is not responding to you.\n\nYou turn to look at him. His head is at the wrong angle and his eyes are glassy. He is dead. You cry as you await rescue. It takes two weeks. \n\nYou are in the hospital for six months followed by 18 months of rehab. For that you are sent to Naval Station Puget Sound. The doctor tells you that you will never have full range of motion in your right arm. He asks you to decide if you want to be transferred to the Naval Reserves or if you want to be medically discharged.\n\n[[Join the Reserves]]\n\n[[Discharge]]\n

After crippling the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Japan went on to have a great deal of success in the Pacific theatre of the war. The major turning point was the Battle of Midway, when the US Navy avenged Pearl Harbor and crippled the Imperial Fleet.\n\nEverett never chose to be a combat pilot. Try again?\n\n[[Start]]\n

You chose to be a combat pilot. \n\nThere are two air forces that could really use your services. \n\nYou can choose to fly for the British Royal Air Force (RAF) on loan from the United States Navy. You are a German-American, so the odds are that you will be flying against cousins that your grandparents left behind when they immigrated to the United States shortly before World War One. \n\nYou can choose to fly for the Navy. The South Pacific is really heating up, and the Navy can use all the pilots that they can get. If you can launch off of an aircraft carrier, the Navy wants you.\n\nThe choice is yours, Lieutenant Ackley.\n\n[[RAF]]\n\n[[Navy]]\n

\nYou decide to fly for the Navy.\n\nYou are sent to an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific. Before you can fly, the doctors load you up with injections. Three days later you are cleared to fly.\n\nIt is cloudy, so you double-check your radio connection with the ship. They give you the all clear so you fly your mission. The sun is setting when you encounter three Zeros. You target the large red circle on the first plane and fire. Its a hit and that zero goes down.\n\nNumbers two and three aren,t so easy, they are expecting you now and are fighting back. a dogfight ensues and you launch your plane up into the atmosphere. You feel the plane jerk as a spray of bullets hits it and reverse your direction. You are falling quickly but are determined to take the zeros with you.\n\nYou shoot one down and point your plane at the other. The impact knocks your teeth loose and you hit the ocean even harder.\n\nYour wreckage is never recovered and you are lost at sea.\n\n[[Battle in the Pacific]]\n\n[[Start]]\n

Lead Writer: Amanda Cobb\n\nStaff: Elizabeth Abbott, Cruz Fernandez, and Erich Donaldson

You chose to join the reserves.\n\nThe Navy puts you through extensive rehab and you regain 85% of your range of motion. You cannot reach above your head, but you can still fly. You are stationed at Naval Station Puget Sound in Seattle, Washington. Your wife is pregnant with your first child.\n\nYou are assigned with the task of training pilots to fly the new planes. You form a bond with your new squadron and the eight of you take each other's watch duties often.\n\nAfter six months your mother insists that your wife must have a baby shower. She plans the party and you are tasked with driving your wife to Edmonds. \n\nThat same day, your GIB comes to you with a request. He needs to go to Everett and he has watch. He offers to take your wife to Edmonds if you take his watch.\n\nDo you [[take the watch]] or do you [[drive your wife]] to Edmonds like your mother wants?\n