The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-07-14
CHAPTER Xxx

| Kan tIiS SCIiGIui SLOIG StkOhSu OVSA,
and we began to talk.
Had any trouble around here?'
! asked him.
NO. he said. Jap planes come
over once in a while. Over here,
sometimes over Wyndham and Port
Hedland too, they say
What do you mean, once in
while?'
The last one was just last night,
since you mention it, he said. Came
over very high, early in the morn
ing
$50 at breakfast / mentioned it
to the officer in charge of the field
"a new man, just out from the
States). Did you know, sir, the Japs
had rocco plane over last night?'
And went on to say that we had
quite bit Of stuff here, and while
Of course the crews were terribly
tired, maybe it should be moved out.
'He listened, and because I was
on edge, his hesitation somehow an
noyed me. But he finally said may
be had point there. And think
ing about it, he finished his break
fast. I was glad when we got out
of there after breakfast for Mel
bourne"
'We worked most of the night on
the brakes, and then went to sleep
in that hangar shack. I slept fit
fully-woke at five, to get an early
start. 1t didn't seem healthy to me
or to any of the rest of us. After a
makeshift mess-hot beans and cof-
fee plus field rations-we went out to
the ship at six and stood by.
''Skiles had asked the officer in
charge when he could take off. But
he gave Skies to understand we
were evacuees just like the others.
When we were given our passenger
list, we could go.
$50 we stood around the plane
from six o'clock until 9:10, waiting
for that list and those orders. At
this minute Sergeant Britt happened
to look up and hollered: Make a
run for it, fellows-here come some
| Zerosl' Five of us who were stand
Sng back Of the plane dropped into
hole about fifty feet away.
Zone Zero peeled off and strafed
the Fortress with incendiaries. It
caught fire Immediately, then the
Zero went on down and strafed
B-24, setting it afire. Then it turned
and, coming in directly over our
hole from the rear, strafed them
again. It repeated this six times,
also firing 20-millimeter cannon at
us, which caved in our hole and COW
cred us with dirt.
"When Sergeant Britt first hol-
Tered out, big B-24 loaded with
twenty-six people had just cleared
the runway. When the Zeros hit, it
was out over the ocean headed for
Perth. It had hardly had time to
pull its wheels up-and there was no
room in there for them to swing a
gun in their own defense-when
Zero caught up with it and dropped
it in the sea.
1.-TWO sergeants managed to get
out. They swan for thirty-two
hours, one of them giving up in
sight Of shore. The other told us
what it had been like inside there
when those bullets came smashing
through that packed crowd, and
few seconds later when those dying
and wounded were all struggling not
to drown as the water came in.
"That day the Japs got another
B-24 on the ground Git had been the
one General Brett himself used),
three Forts, a DC-2 and a Dos,
Lockheed-but the worst were the
nine Dutch flying boats they caught
out in the harbor. About forty or
fifty people were killed on them,
mostly women and children.
81 saw one Dutchman swim
ashore dragging his wife by the hair.
The whole lower half of her face
had been blown away and she
was dead. saw another woman
standing on the wing of one of the
planes which was burning. She had
a child in her arms, and was ready
to jump and swim ashore, when
cannon shot hit her in the back and
broke her into halves. They both
fell forward into the water, but the
arms on the top half which held the
child never let 60 of it.
s'The men who were left were al
most crazy with rage. One Zero was
shot down by a Dutchman who stood
in front of the hangar holding a 30
caliber machine gun across his arm.
The gun got SO hot it scorched right
into his flesh, but he never noticed
it. 1t turned out that Broome's anti
aircraft defense consisted of just
this one .30-caliber gun. The Japs
did the whole job in thirty minutes
didn't leave thing.
Finally the officer in charge told
us: We expect planes in between
now and midnight, but we don't
know how many. We're compiling