The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-04-07

:
Monte Field, where the planeless
aviators were being assembled for
evacuation to Australia, where we
would get safely back into the air
again.
81 got to Del Monte on March thir-
teenth and we were all ganged up on
the field, where we were expecting
BITS to carry officers and men to
Australia. At p. m. we heard the
motors of plane and turned on our
landing lights. But it didn't see
them and kept on going. We didn't
know it then, but we didn't have AL
priority, for those planes that night
were intended to take out General
Macarthur and his party and their
baggage and records-only the Cen
eral hadn't yet arrived. But we
supposed the planes were for us.
"About II p. m. we heard another
plane and snapped the landing lights
on, and this time it saw them and
landed. Out of the Fortress stepped
Lieutenant Pease of our own 10Th
Bombardment Group. He told us
the other plane we had heard was
Godman's-it had got mixed up and
bumped into the sea.
"But Pease was Immediately
called over by General Sharp, who
told Pease that General Macarthur
had been delayed, and that the plane
should wait over a few days until he
came.
"Now Pease didn't want to wait
over for a single hour of daylight on
Del Monte Field, for by that time
the Jap planes were swarming over
the place. Pease knew the Air Force
was trying desperately to hang onto
what few Forts they had left, and
he realized that if he stayed over the
next day the infantry would make
him quite comfortable in a foxhole
at the edge of the field, where he
could watch his plane become the
prize for a Japanese turkey shoot,
for Del Monte by this time was as
unsafe as Clark had been, fact the
infantry didn't seem to have quite
grasped.
$50 Pease explained to Sharp 1t
would be all right with him, provid-
ed General Macarthur understood
what he was getting into, that he
had a fine plane here except that it
had just come from the Java war
and was slightly out of repair. It
was too bad, for instance, that the
superchargers were out, but he
hoped he'd be able to clear the rum
way on the take-off and not slip off
into a cartwheel at the end of it,
spilling the Generals party and all
that baggage all over central Minda-
mao. And then, if he did take off,
there was the little matter of his hy-
draulic system, which had gone bad
on him, so when he came to land the
brakes wouldn't work, and he might
not be able to stop when he came
to the end of the runway.
"Well, General Sharp decided that
it certainly wasn't suitable, and told
Pease he'd better get started back
to Australia before dawn.
'Pease,' I said, I'm goin' with
you. You don't know it, but you got
a new navigator for this trip. Be-
cause I'm not goin' to stay in this
damn place no more
"Well, Pease agreed to let me
work out my passage that way, and
also said he could take off fifteen
other planeless aviators if they didn't
mind the risk.
1--WE all got in, and discovered
Pease hadn't been Dragging a bit
about his plane when he talked to
the General. 1t was in just as terri
BILE shape as he had said it was; in
7 fact, he had been overly modest
about it.
'Now take look at us in Austria
liza. Exactly forty-eight hours after
! we arrived the Australians told us
Radio Tokyo had broadcast, 1T is
now understood the American Fly
ing Fortresses are operating from
Bachelor Field near Darwin and
| they were one hundred per cent
right.
''Iow they knew it we never
learned for sure-probably from Jap
pearl fishermen, who had been
thinly scattered along this Austria
Ian coast and who when war broke
out went back and hid in the bush.
The RAAF (Royal Australian Air
Force) boys would spot their camp
fires at night and try to track them
down, without much luck. Probably
they had radio senders, and even
a layman could count our four en-
gines and recognize us as Flying
Fortresses.
"The country itself is as desolate
and sparsely populated as the worst
parts of West Texas and New Mex
leo, and the most important town
for a thousand or so miles is little
Port Darwin, with seven or eight
thousand people, sitting there on the
rim of Nothing-at-All. 1t has wide
streets-like one of those Midwestern
towns built in the boom of the eight
ies-a good hotel which is subsidized
by the Qantas Anyways and reminds
YOU of the one on Wake Island, a
band which plays in bandstand in
the park, and zoo with few
| --.,.. Lanooro0c and k0ala hoarc