The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-04-14
CHAPTER VII

AS QUICK as we cOulQ, we began
flying missions. Each Fortress had
brought out about fifteen men from
Del Monte, and they got to work
putting the planes back into shape.
But the missions were terribly long.
It was seventeen hundred miles from
Darwin back to Del Monte-almost
as far as from New York to Denver.
We'd leave Darwin in the morning,
fly all day, land at Del Monte after
dark to be safe from the Japs, serv-
ice the plane, eat, catch a little
nap, and then gas up in time to be
off for an early morning bombing
of the Jap invasion fleet off Luzon.
Then back to Del Monte-it was
daylight now and risky as hell, so
get in quick, gas up, load bombs,
and get the hell out fast and away to
an afternoon target, coming back
toward Del Monte in the darkness,
thank God, when no Jap pursuits
are hanging around, arriving about
midnight, a cat nap again, gas up,
and you're off for Australia.
''Think Of the pilots and crews
going through that grind day after
day. You might fly eighteen hours
straight and be out of the cockpit
for only one of them.
"And yet the thing we dreaded
most was Christmas. It was right
ahead of us now-Christmas in de-
feat and on this barren, hot, dusty
desert field, with no word or mail
from home and no way to get word
back to them. We'd send cables we
knew would never be answered, be-
cause we could give no address"
''I'n put my Christmas up against
the one you hadyp said Frank, going
on with his story. eve were all feel
ing low. We knew there would be
no letters or packages or even ca
bles for us, so it was natural that
on this hot, dry, dusty, sun-scorched
Christmas Day some Of us should
wander over to the Australians ra-
dio shack, just to see what little
word from home we could pick up
on the air.
81 should say that part Of us
were gone on mission into the
Philippines; two Forts, including
George Schaetzel, and they now
should be on that dreary, nine-hour
drag back to Bachelor Field. We
hoped none of them would be shot
down on Christmas Day.
"The Australians were damned
nice to us. They let us watch them
open their packages and handed us
their Christmas cards to read, and
then they'd say, What part Of the
States are you from, Yank?' so we
could tell them about our own fami-
lies and wives or best girls If we
wanted to-and most of us did. But
we kept wondering about that mis-
sion, although we didn't talk about
it. And of course we didn't know
they had run into serious trouble,
hit by Zeros at high altitude, and
that Schaetzel's plane during this
Christmas Day fight had been given
a burst of machine-gun fire right
through his radio compartment. Ser
geant Killian, his radio operator,
was shot through the top of the head
as he was helping the gunners re-
load-picking up new ammunition
cans full Of .50-caliber belts and
handing them up, and taking back
the empty cans, while the gunners
pounded away at the Zeros.
"Two others had been badly
wounded by the same burst, and
since this was at high altitude, it
was very serious. Because maybe
the boy topples over SO that his
oxygen mask falls off. There isn't
much you can do for a wounded
man during combat at high altitude.
When you have wounded men
aboard, you try to get down to at
least 10000 feet as soon as you
can, SO they won't be under the
strain of breathing through oxygen
masks.
ssBut there were Zeros still be-
low them. One of the Forts prime
defense weapons is altitude, and
George knew if he broke away from
formation and dived down alone, he
stood a very good chance of being
picked off.
$50 he did the right thing-stayed
with the formation, only it was a
hell of hard decision to make on
Christmas Day, with those poor
wounded men in back, fighting for
breath in the high air.
eve knew nothing of this yet, but
already we were feeling pretty low,
and the Australian radio operator
was twiddling his dials trying to get
us a program from the States so
we wouldn't be homesick. We hoped
maybe we'd get just a honely de-
scription of what kind of Christ
mas Day it was in typical Ameri-
can town that might be any Of ours,
and how the snow crupfhed Under
The Seet 81 the people walking up on