The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-04-28
CHAPTER TX

his bombs before dlo, nao al
ready started his turn to get off the
target a few seconds before me.
"The next thing I did was to call
down to the bombardier and the nav
igator to come on up and tell me
what we'd done to the Japs.
"They said it had been sight to
watch. A few of the Jap cruisers
and destroyers had managed to get
under way, and their wakes laced
the water in great spirals and sworls
as they tried to dodge the bombs.
Aside from these few, they said,
we'd caught the Japs absolutely fiat
footed. If there had been enough
of us, we could have blown chunk
out Of their fleet they would never
have recovered from.
Gas it was, they had watched four
direct hits on Jap battleship, seen
pieces Of debris flying in every di-
rection and smoke starting to bill
low up. In addition to this, our
squadron had sunk three smaller
eraft-two cruisers and transport.
'They said our bomb pattern had
rhurned the whole area white with
spouts of foam, and what few ships
had their power up were running
around like crazy. They said thou
sands of skilled personnel had been
killed or drowned, and also that
we had torn hell out Of the dock
workers and docks at Davao Harbor.
"Only I don't have time to gloat
long, for something approaching us
from ahead catches my eye through
the windshield. It's practically fly
ing our course and our altitude, ex-
cept that it's off to the left. But am
I seeing ghost? It can't be what I
think it is, Messerschmitt 10, the
kind that Ernst Udet told me all
about in Berlin when ! visited there
in 1884. There can't be a Messer-
schmitt ITO in this hemisphere,
but what else could it be with that
split tail?
''He doesn't alter his course and
! don't alter mine; and after he's
passed the point where I could set
up a collision course with him, I
begin to come to my senses, to real
ize that I'm the pilot of Flying
Fortress and my job is to get home
safely with these boys and this
plane, which was never designed to
engage in dogfights with Messer-
schmitts.
1--WE got back to Malang feeling
pretty pleased with ourselves" said
Frank, land / personally felt I
had made Roadway settling my old
Philippine score. But in Java we
found there were troubles ahead,
and the least of these was that our
Navy was accusing us Of bombing
their ships. They didn't say any of
them had been hit, just that they'd
had to beat off an attack, and it
occurred to me that this might ex-
plain all those fireworks which came
whooping up under our chins through
the overcast that night over the
Celebes Sea. But we were never
sure.
$50 we said, Then why don't you
tell us where your ships are going
to be?' but it seemed that had never
been done-a ruling from the Navy
Department in Washington. guess
those guys must take some kind of
a bomb-sight oath never to tell any,
thing to anybody who doesn't wear
black shoes.
'But plenty more was going on.
It developed that our smash at the
Jap fleet in Davao had been al
most too successful. Because Davao
was no longer a safe base for them,
they had apparently boosted up
their schedule by two or three
weeks. Our reconnaissance went
clear up to the Davao area and re-
ported nothing there; then we found
out the whole gang had moved out
together and they were off the coast
of Borneo, moving down into Macas-
sar Strait, and it was clear they
intended to clean out Borneo-not
only because of our advance bases
there, but because they wanted the
rich oil fields at Tarakan and Balak-
papan on the eastern coast of Bor-
neo, where the oil is so rich they say
you can pump it right into the bunk
ers of ships. OF course they'd built
up big oil reserves which they had
bought from us before Pearl Har-
Dor, but now they were out to grab
off some fields of their own.
"And who was going to stop them?
It was up to us to try, because we
seemed to be the only force the
United Nations had in that area big
enough to tackle the Jap feet.
'sWe were briefed before dawn
told everything that was known
about this big Jap gang of ships Off
northeast Borneo-and at $3.50 in
the morning nine Of US took of from
the Malang Field. We planned to-
fytoyer the.Iava Sea. end then in
land over Bofneo, carrying 70 start