The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-05-25
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ing to begin-proud OF every boy In
his gang, and you could see they
all worshiped him.
"The Dutch fighter pilots, who are
just as prancy as ours, were all ex-
cited and doing their stuff. They'd
led Bud in formation, and now they
were putting on q show for him.
They'd dive onto the field in an at
tack string, and just before they hit,
they turned almost straight up in
the air and then, q few thousand
feet up, that string opened out in
all directions like the petals Of a
rose.
bud had to admit the Dutch were
good. But he said he had to take
one Of his planes up for a test that
afternoon and show 'em how to fly.
And he certainly did-doing just
what they did, only coming closer.
1t happened there was a radio an
tenna over their operations office,
and Bud came so close down onto
the field that he flew right through
I this. don't think Bud knew it was
there, but when he landed and they
began unwinding That copper wire
which had twisted round his propel-
Ter hub, the Dutch thought he had
done it on purpose, and had to ad-
| NIT there wasn't much about flying
they could teach these visiting fire.
men.
"Bud hit it off with them right
away. He praised the camouflage
| on their field. When he came back
| next day, / heard him take his own
youngsters in hand. Of course it
was the old hooey, but he gave them
one serious warning.
"sThis is the best-camoufiaged
| field we'll ever operate on he told
| them, so remember-I don't want
anyone to cross this field with Zero
on his tail. Bail out, beach it, but
don't come back here with COM
pany.' AS a result, the Japanese
didn't find Gnoro Field until two
days before the end.
''Not long after they came, / rang
Bud UP with a queer assignment for
the boys. We were doing every
thing possible to stop the Japs from
swarming over onto Sumatra from
Malaga. The Forts were out past
ing their landing barges morning
and night. We were using them
practically as heavy pursuit-skim-
| ming down under the weather to
chase landing barges going up the
rivers.
$50 we asked Bud to deliver a lit
tie strafng, and off they went, car
rying belly tanks to get them there
and stopping off at Andir. They
went to work with 30-pound frag-
mentation bombs and their machine
guns, and when they got back Bud
reported the P-40's had had Japs
diving off those barges in full field
equipment. He sank quite a few
and drowned hundreds of Japs, and
every P-40 got back to Java.
"But they were closing in on us
from still another direction. We
could no longer operate from those
advance fields at Kendari and Sam.
arinda across the Java Sea. The
Japs had moved into Borneo and
the Celebes. So we waited for what
we knew was coming. They musi
be stacking Jap bombers onto what
had been our own fields there
within easy range of Java.
eve didn't have to wait long. One
morning | was at the KNILM Air
field at Surabaya, checking on q
transport plane which was supposed
to be bringing in ground crews foI
Bud Sprague's fighters, when at Op-
erations they reported in great ex-
citement that Jap bomber force
was over Java itself, headed down
the island.
| (Abbreriation for "Kaninklijke Neder.
ldndsch-Indische Luchfrdart Maatschdp-
phi" meaning Royal Dutch Indies Airplane
Company
81 was panic-stricken for fear they
might branch off at Malang and
catch our Forts on the ground there
Luckily the pass was bottled up with
fog, so they came on down toward
US at Surabaya.
'At almost exactly eleven o'clock
we could hear them hitting the city
off in the distance. We knew they
wouldn't miss us. I'll never forget
poor old Baalerts, the head of that
KNILM Field. He'd never beer
bombed before, and asked me what
to do. He had already crawled into
his car. / told him that was the
worst thing he could do, that we
should run for the concrete slit
trenches at the edge of the field
Well, we started out. Baalerts
weighs about four hundred pounds
and he had on a lovely white suit
He'd just married a beautiful ac-
tive young wife the day before, and
in general wasn't in condition to be
bombed.
GAS we ran, we could hear the
second wave coming in over the har.
Dor next to our airdrome-hear the
! hollow echo as the bombs crashed
into the oil storage base. They
practically leveled Moro Kamban
gem, the Dutch naval base there
coming in out of the sun-it was real
ly beautiful job from the profes
!, sional standpoint. It's second in size
only to Singapore. The docks were
left a shambles. Our American Ma
vy's Phys of Patrol Wing 10 were
anchored there. One or two were
burned on the ways. but the res