The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-06-23

| Of the money his chief had left in
the bank. '.-.-.as, ~, ss.~.'r-,---
''Now asking our Colonel for a ra-
| dio operator was like asking him for
his right arm. But Java was caving
in, the situation was tense. Our Colo
mel hesitated, and then said that
while he couldn't order anyone on SO
dangerous a mission, he thought,
even after we explained clearly what
1t was, we could get volunteer.
"And we did. We told the men
the mission was most dangerous but
Of the greatest possible service to
our country. And out Of the line
stepped clean-cut, alert-looking kid
called Sergeant Warrenfeltz. Only
after this did I tell him of the Ave
thousand-dollar bonus. We let War
renfeltz 60 down and look over the
ship, loaded with surgical equip
ment, food, drugs, and three hum
dred thousand rounds of .30-caliber
ammunition, so that she was practi-
cally floating bomb. He talked to
the captain "a Swede) and looked
over the Negro and Chinese crew.
There were two-one for topside
dressed like Javanese natives so the
Japs might mistake her for fish,
| ing trawler. Then Warrenfeltz came
to me with written orders from the
bomber command and I told him
the ports of call. They were to
slip out at night, down the north
coast of Java, through Lombok
Strait, then along the Netherlands
East Indies, then cut up east Of
the Celebes, running the Jap block
ade into the Philippines till they
came to Manila Bay entrance,
where they would be challenged by
the Rock. And he was to answer on
the radio with the proper signal.
"Then he asked what were the
other ports of call. So told him
tit makes me creep to repeat it)
they were then to run the block
ade through the Jap-mandated is
lands past Guam (now held by the
Japs) to Honolulu.
What else?' asked Warrenfeltz,
| grinning. He was game for any,
thing. And I told him his third and
| last port of call would be New York.
And then what? he wanted to know.
I told him if he got that far, he was
to have himself some fun, and I
was sitting down now to write him
out an order for thirty days leave.
"He knew what he was getting
into. We'd been flying over those
waters for months; he knew just
how thick the Jap surface ships
were, and also that they had hardly
a fifty per cent chance of escaping
| being blown up by Jap mine just
outside the breakwater. Why did
he do it? To help those poor devils
in the infantry, dying on Bataan.
He'd seen the cargo. And then the
money-he told me exactly what to
do with that, and the message I
must send, but we'll come to it lat
er. Of course it was all pretty If
regular, paying a man for heroism.
| Maybe when peace comes, some
body in a swivel chair in Washing
ton will start writing us letters ask
ing us why we did it, and don't
know what we'll say. And then it
all ended happily for us, because
the money Warrenfeltz was sup
posed to receive for trying to do
what he did was never paid. But
that comes later.
Meanwhile we had other things
| to worry about. The Japs had put
| l., ncha %fnNp
island sixty miles north of Surabaya,
and taken over its radio station.
"They hadn't told us yet" said
the Bombardier, "but we smelled it.
Rumors were running all over the
place that we might evacuate any
time now. Madiun, where I was
based, was being bombed every day
now-we'd 60 out on mission and
| always come back to find craters in
our runways. When we'd land, i'm
mediately there'd be another alarm
and we'd have to hop off the field
without servicing the planes or load
ing more bombs.
"Also, instead of going out to tar
gets in formations, we now were
going singly. AS soon as we'd get
one ship on the ground long enough
to get it gassed and bombed up,
we'd take off by our little lonesome,
lodging Zeros to pick just any target
from the countless transports that
were swarming off Java. In the
| last week I got light cruiser and
a transport-blew the end off the
transport.
"Mostly we were flying in men
tai fog. Rumors! Every day they'd
say no, we weren't going to evac-
uate, because more reinforcements
were going to land on the field any
| day now-even our own maintenance
crews were about to land by boat.
Then we'd hear their boat had been
sunk tit really went on past us to
India) and that we were pulling out.
Nothing was sure, except the fact
that all those Jap ships moving to-
IL -