Evening star., 1941-08-20

MeLemors. few distinguish
ing landmarks. It looks the same
all over to me. You know. blue and
wet and salty and all wrinkled up
with ripples that have the same
profile and fingerprint.
In the second place. even if I
knew where I am the Navy Depart
ment wouldn't let me tell you. A
man with a hard face and lots of
gold braid told me to keep nv
whereabouts to myself and he said
1t so yehemently that even if I we're
cast away on desert island on this
trip. I'd give the wrong address in
writing home for help.
am taking this trip because 7
want to get working view OF a
sister plane Of the one that tracked
down the Bismarck and led the
British ships in for the kill The
British have criticized some of the
planes We have sent them, but the
Ply, which they have termed the
Catalina, has received nothing but
praise.
The ply is about the size of a
house that politicians like To be born
in, big enough to have comfort but
not large enough to have airs. II
is between log cabin and bungalow
in size, and if parked on corner
lot it would mark its owner as one
who gave his family the comforts
but not the luXuries.
The ply is one of those planes
that inspires confidence. You get in
it-with feeling that you are coming
back. 1t doesn't get off the water
as fast as some of the other Navy
ships do, but you feel deep down
inside, as it cuts the water for take
off, that it definitely is going to get
up and that once up 1t will stay up.
It may not have the pickup of
gull but it has the dependency of a
pelican, and that is what you want
in patrol fights that sometimes last
as long as 80 hours.
At the moment I am sitting in
the machine-gun blister" near the
tail of the ship. There is a gunner
on my right and a gunner on
my left. The Navy asked me not
to tell you the caliber of the guns,
so will oblige by simply describing
them as of about the same size that
the tanks I saw at Fort Benning
carried. And that they make
whack of a racket when fired. About
two paragraphs ago (which may
partially explain my jerky prose
style) the gunners cut loose at an
imaginary enemy for practice, and
with the first outburst of rat-a-tat
my first impulse was to drop to ths
floor and yell "kamerad' or what
ever it is that you yell when you are
scared to death at 10000 feet.
l watched the ply in action. Her
gunners swept the skies above and
below; The big ship dipped and
darted with the maneuverability OF
a Pursuit red-hot
There was sudden dive and the
bombs on her wings swung from
their racks and plummeted toward
the sea.
During all this the ply rode as
steadily as a transcontinental trans
port, and even when the battle"
was at its height a hostess could
have walked the length of the ship
with cup of chocolate for pas
senger without fear of being thrown
off balance
To show means of escape from
enemy tormentors the ply dropped
down from her path in the strato-
sphere to within Is feet of the ocean.
She rode so close to the waves that
felt that I could lean from the
gun blister" and drag my hands in
VIC "dGCI dS IL L were IluIIR III
rowboat, The big ship is safer near
the water. At 25 feet no enemy
fighter can get beneath her, and she
is vulnerable only from above. Even
if hit and badly hurt, she has only
to sink few feet to ride the waves.
We're heading home now. To
what base do not know. But am
keeping a sharp lookout for any
possible conferences at sea. Aftet
what happened last week, there is
no telling who is meeting out here.
Who knows but what Ickes and all
the filling station attendants are
out here somewhere in the Atlantic
on secret conclave to think up an
other measure to increase gasoline
consumption.
tReleased by McNsuSht Syndicate, IncJ