Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1943-06-11


cloud right over their own field,
waiting to let them have it.
He said after the bombing they'd
managed to piece together out of the
wreckage about ten per cent of the
planes they'd originally had A week
later he'd cracked up landing on a
soft spot on the field-a bomb crater
that hadn't been properly filled-and
here he was.
1.-THE next time the skipper here
dropped in on me, he said that was
the dope he was getting-that we
had only six P-40's left. Soon it got
down to two; we called 'em the
Phantom and the Lone Ranger.
"And said, My God, what's
going to happen to us?'"
II told him l didn't know" said
Buckley, "but that I'd been talking
to the Admiral, who'd said that we
couldn't possibly hope to hold the
Philippine Islands, that Singapore
and Hong Kong would fall too. I'M
less help arrived-and soon. And
probably the Dutch East Indies.''
"Well, that floored me-" said Kel-
ly. $50 l asked him how they were
going to use the NTH s-wouldn'
they let us go out on any offensive
missions? He said he'd been trying
to get the Admiral to let him go to
Lingayen Gulf on a raid. Eighty
Jap transports were up there land
ing troops, and our coastal batter
les were having to fall back because
of Jap air superiority-Jap fighters
diving on the batteries and machine
cunning them until no one could
take it.
"Then I asked the skipper how
the infantry was holding Not worth
a damn he said. The strafing is
just cutting them to ribbons. Not
only that, but the Japs are landing
tanks-a hell of a lot of automatic
weapons which are just what we
need and haven't got By the time
he left, was as low as he was.
"That night Peggy, who was on
night duty, got few minutes off
about one o'clock to come in and
shoot the breeze with me. She'd
been picking up lot of stuff, and
she said bunch of our tank-corps
boys had just been brought in. She
told me what they'd been telling her,
and finally said she guessed it
wouldn't hurt if 1 went in and lay
down for half an hour on an empty
bunk next to them, so l could hear
it myself
They'd walked two hundred kilo-
meters barefoot. Four tankloads of
them had been sent in to head off
a Jap landing near Batangas-they
were to 60 ahead of four columns
of infantry and pave the way for
retaking little fishing village held
by small Jap force.
1.-The boys said their major had
assured them the Japs had nothing
bigger than 50-caliber machine guns
of course their armor would stop
that. So they started on in, when
all of sudden-Bam! The Japs
had waited until they got within good
range, and then opened up with an
antl-tank gun which knocked the
doors off the lead tank, and then,
because the road was too narrow for
the rest to. turn around on, they
knocked the treads off all the 9TH
ers except one.
"'Well, then what did you do?'
I asked the kids.
Fired about two hundred rounds
of 50-caliber and four rounds of 81
millimeter cannon
Which way were you shooting?'
Every which way. You see, it
all happened so fast we could MT
tell where the Jap fire was coming
from. At the end of five minutes,
three of those tanks ended up in
the rice paddy-they we're fourteen
ton light tanks-two of them with
the doors blown off, and in one of
these, the Jap machine-gun fire had
cut the legs. off the lieutenant in
command. The others were riddled
with holes. Our tank was the only
one that wasn't hurt
so what did you do?'
Tried to turn it around and get
the hell out of there. But the road
was too narrow, and then the tank
got stuck in reverse, and ended up
on its side in the rice paddy
What did the infantry do?'
Ran like rabbits
Didn't they have any guns?'
Only rifles-not a machine gun
in the crowd. Maybe they didn't
have anything else to give them,
but anyway the major said all they
would find up there was rifles, and if
there were any Jap machine guns,
the tanks would deal with that. So
there they were, being cut to rib
bons by concealed machine-gun fire.
and nothing else to do but get for
cover
Didn't all this-sending those
tanks into trap without scouting
ahead-seem like a damn-fool ma
neuver to your asked him.
Well the kid said, the major
and the lieutenant had worked out
the same maneuver at armored
school back in the States. 1t had
worked there; they thought it was
pretty good
$50 l asked the kid why he
thought it hadn't worked this time.
Maybe because the Japs were