PLOESTI

Usually I remember little or nothing of dreams, vague, black and white.  One exception, a very graphic dream that recurs every month or two since I was a young girl.
It starts in a briefing room, I'm Captain Robert E Lee Beauregard of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA, pilot of a B24, the bomber of six centuries ago.  It's August 1, 1943 and today we're going on a low-altitude assault on the oil refinery complex at Ploesti, Romania.
Even the logistics are staggering, forget getting much more than 2,100 miles on a fully-loaded trip.  Our round trip will be 2,700 miles, requiring an unbelievable amount of extra fuel and ammo.  Why the ammo?  Our nose gunners are gonna be busy 150 feet up over those 250 flak guns and unestimated number of machine guns.
The four engines on Everglade Erin are howling louder than I've ever heard; I'm fast running out of North African runway.  Finally, with zero to spare, it staggers into the air, sullenly.
Over the Adriatic, a plane ditches.  Nothing we can do; radio silence.
Only after did we find out why we flew over the flak train; the Colonel confused landmarks, turned 4 miles too early.  I order everyone I can spare forward, as we settle in at 150 feet; we're even using Thompson submachine guns.  Any who do pray, do so now.
Capt Culpepper of Dagwood the Dragon waves, I wave back.
We arrive at Astra Romana, the largest refinery, it's a sight.  Another group read maps wrong, already attacked this in error.  Massive columns of thick black smoke, huge flames, exploding buildings and flak thick enough to walk on, almost.
Somehow I gotta find my target building in all this soup.  As we exit a massive smoke column, wingtips barely skimming over the smokestack top, I spot it, undamaged naked to the bombsight.  Three second delay on our fuses to give us time.  Our bombardier lands em picture perfect and we turn for home.
Now the hard part, fighters.  Gotta fly really low so it's hard to swoop on you accurately.
I stagger in for the worst landing of my career.  Two engines dead, cornstalks stuck in my bomb bay doors, 8 of my 10 man crew dead and the other seriously wounded.
40 planes in our group, 21 didn't make it back.  Of the 19 who did, 10 are total writeoffs, beyond salvage, including mine.
Yeah, I know everyone has goofy dreams no big deal.  So what scares me?  I've looked it up in archives, accurate in every detail.  In fact, history books of the time show a very stark photo of Everglade Erin on final approach, taken from Dagwood the Dragon.
Finally, I drum up enough nerve to talk with a coworker who analyzes dreams.  After much questioning, she's convinced it's a genuine past life memory, as in reincarnation.
Well, doesn't that go against religious teachings?  Yeah, but gotta read up all the same.