The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-07-13
rHE BLUFFToN NEWS, BLUFFToN, OHIO

ing. and down here on the field was
our solitary Fortress - our last
chance to escape-sitting in front of
God and everybody (including those
Japs) mother-naked and defense
less. How long I held my breath,
staring up into the sky, I couldn't
say now. But for some reason they
hadn't dived on us yet, and then
when one rolled up to let the other
take a picture I realized it was only
a recco fight, to take the damage
they'd done a few hours before.
81 began loading the boys into
that plane. But I did one final thing.
I couldn't forget Captain Anamaet,
standing there on that Gnoro Field
watching us pull out, and If I'd
wanted to, the others wouldn't have
let me. So with the Dutch haison
officer there at Jockstrap, we made
arrangements that if tomorrow night
we could get any planes through
from Australia, they would circle our
old bomber field at Malang. The
Iaison officer was to notify Ana
maet, so that if his Dutch fighter
pilots could get there, and Malang
wasn't by then in Jap hands, they
would light bonfire on its field as
a signal that it was safe for our
Forts to come in and pick them up
and take them out to Australia,
where we'd have another chance to
fight the war together.
1--WE kept the date. The next night
Captains Bill Bohnaker and Eddie
Green slipped through to Malang.
For forty-fve minutes they circled
our old field. But there was no
bonfire. Maybe Anamaet's boys had
died during the day, giving their all
for Java. Maybe they'd got to the
field just ahead of the Japs and
were now prisoners, unable to light
their bonfire but listening in the
darkness as Bill and Eddie circled
and circled above them. What hap
pened we never knew. But I'm
glad we couldn't have foreseen that
darkened field at Malang as we all
climbed into our own Fortress,
turned off the Jockstrap field, and
headed east for Australia, flying into
a rising moon.
Nothing much was going to hap
pen on that flight to Australia, con-
tinued Frank, although we couldn't
know it. All had to cram forward
for the takeoff, of course, for with
that big load in the rear we'd never
have got her tail up. We manned
battle stations, and only after we
were halfway across the ocean did
the gunners leave their turrets. /
rode up in the pilots compartment,
us there, three sitting on the floor
"At two o'clock in the morning we
sight the coast in the moonlight,
which gives it a ghostly hue. It's
just fiat desert, but finally we find
the little town of Broome. We cir
Gle it and finally flare path breaks
out below-they'r tossing kerosene
flares out of moving auto to show
us the runway, SO we circle and
come in.
"In peacetime a little airline
makes monthly trips up to this field
there are no railroads, ard sea
voyage from Melbourne takes weeks
SO part of US slept in its hangar
shack, and the rest il. the plane. That
hangar and field reminded me of
the Middle West in the old barn.
storming days of the twenties.
"I couldn't sleep. The mosquitoes
were making me groggy, and also I
was thinking of our planes circling
Malang Field for Anamaet. After
a while l got up and looked out the
hangar door. The first pale dawn
was breaking over Broome. which
| could now see consisted of gen.
eral store, gas station, two houses,
and this hangar shack-perched out
here on the edge of nothing, where
the red sand desert of Australia
meets the blue salt desert of the sea.