The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-10-06

He's Col. Cecil F. Combs, lean, India Ar Task Force, former conn ing officer of the 10th Air Forces tee3-eyed 30-year-old command lnander of the famous 10th Bot1l- hartitnent Group in Java, who has not been back to his San Antonio, TSK home since he took off from San Francisco on oct 21, 1041.
 Since he led the first mission of the war against the Japanese, e heavy bomber attack against land- Ing forces at Vigan in Northern Luson on Dec. 10, 1o41, Combs has been uninterruptedly fighting the war, largely against the Japanese but withSa few weeks in the Middle East during the summer of 1o42 against the Germans and Italians. Now the War Department wants the benefit of his advice He whisked to Washington recently, but expects to return In about two months And he wants to tell them there, among other important facts, that Burma is ripe now for in- Vasion"
 Have Pounded Everything
 As result of the steady pound- | ing 1ndia.based D. s. Army Air | Force bombers have delivered on Burma, Combs thinks, 'The capa- city of the communications system there now is not a fourth of what it was when the British were forced to move out. We've hit everything we could find, ships, docks, railway fnarshalling yards, bridges, and lot of other things.
 T believe that Burma is ripe now for invasion. The Japs have chased me out of Q lot of places and I want to see them chased out of every damned one of them"
 Combs said he hoped things would be moving when he re- turned.
 '"The kind of operations we are doing are the kind that will work only fl we start moving. We knock out Q lot of bridges and other ob- jectlves but this really doesn't do much good unless 1t is followed up by an attack It's strategic bomb- lng, pure and simple
 Jap Shipping Stopped
 The Japs were clearing between 26,000 and 30,000 tons of shipping Q week at Rangoon Harbor until March when we started bombing Rangoon in force Today shipping there is almost zero This is largely attributable to our bombing"
 Combs highly praised his crews '"The way the boys have been flying during monsoon weather has amazed all of us. It's really rough over the Bay of Bengal and the Chin Hills during the summer but we've hard ly slackened our pace. And our mis- Sions are long ones-the heavies average 2O00 miles in missions south of Rangoon."
 The youthful colonel emphasized that although 100 per cent of the missions have been flown without fighter cover, only about 10 planes have been shot down in combat since operations started one and e half years ago over Burma. Thailand and and Andaman and Nicohar islands. He praised the cooperation given him by the RATS Bengal Command and said that the RATS work in Burma had been largely tactical, his out fits largely strategic.
 Combs said that when the Japa. nese smashed the Philippines i've were pretty impressed by their air power. They looked like big leaguers. But now things are going the other way and we're making them look like bush leaguers." But now things are going the other day and we're going the other way and were mak. ing them look like bush leaguers.'
 String of 'Firsts'
 Combs was co-pilot of Brig. Gen. Lewis Brereton on the firsht Amer. ican mission out of India, an at. tack on Andaman April 3, l042. Brereton, now a major general, is chief of the 9th Air Force in Cairo The followding night Combs led the first attack on Rangoon.
 Others of Combs bosses in this theater have been variousiy Maj.- Gen Clayton Bissell, former head of the 10th Air Force; Mat. Gen. Caleb V. Haynes, former chief of the India Air Task Force, and Brig