The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-08-03

chief, few oat over northern New
Guinea on a personal inspection of
the whole coast, and sent to Mel
bourne detailed report, endorsing
a field at Buna as vital to our fu-
ture air operations.
Presently his reply came. In ref
erence to his report on the estab-
lishment of landing field at Buna.
Melbourne headquarters commend
ed him for his initiative in making
the reconnaissance, but found that
owing to lack of facilities, it WASH /
possible at this time.
'tBut this friendly little ground-air
argument over Buna was soon set
tied. The third week in July our
reconnaissance spotted a Jap Naval
task force moving toward the north
coast of New Guinea. and now Just
off Rabaul. We weren't sure where
they were headed-maybe around
the island, to capture Moresby itself.
I'VE were taking no chances, so
on July "a General Brett hit them
with everything he had, little as 1t
was-medium and light lombard
ment. Forts and obsolescent dive
bombers.
"But for twenty-four hours the
fog closed in, hiding them. When
it lifted they were sixty miles off
Buna. Now we knew the Jap High
Command was thinking in the same
strategical terms as we were in
the Air Force.
Even though the weather gave
us this very short time to pound
them, we made them pay for their
Buna landing. But still they could
sneak transport through during
the night to put troops ashore. Had
we had only little infantry and
artillery at Buna, they could have
held them off, giving the Air Force a
chance to pound their landing barges
at dawn. But we didn't have, and
when morning came their transport
was steaming away empty.
In only two days the enterpris-
ing little devils had chopped land
ing strip out of the jungle. A few
days later their fighters were rising
off it to attack our bombers as they
took off or returned to Moresby aft
er pounding the Jap base at Rabaul.
''It took almost six months of
hard fighting by both Australian and
American infantry, down over the
Owen Stanley range-finally led by
General Macarthur himself - to
clean the japanese out. What we
have now is real cooperation. The
ground forces know the vital impor-
tance of airfields, and l hope we in
the Air Force have come to appre-
ciate the tremendous Importance OF
the unity of air, land, and sea-"
"a man doesn't know what dis
tance means until he flies that end of
the world" said Red, the crew chief.
Remember the time we had to
make a forced landing right in the
middle of the placer"
"I'Il never forget" said Charlie,
the bombardier. "It was about the
time of that Buna business"
I'VE had left Darwin" said Red,
land were flying across the Austria
lian desert headed for Cloncurry.
We had umpty-ump rank aboard,
about sixteen in all-General Royce,
General Perrin, General Marquat,
and some Australians-Air Marshals
they probably were-and also Lyn.
don Johnson, big lanky guy from
Texas, a real Congressman, only
now he was out inspecting this area
as a Navy Lieutenant Commander.
''Well, we're flying along over this
wilderness which looks like the rum
pied parts of New Mexico or Arizo-
ma, heading, we think, for this Clon-
curry, only our arrival time goes
by, and no Cloncurry.
Harry, the navigator, begins to
check things, and discovers that his
octant has gone out on limits like
a sextant on ship, only you use
an air bubble instead of the horizon.
1t wasn't Harry's fault-the prism
was turning all right, but now he
could see the recorder wasn't. He
came up out of the navigator's COM
partment into the cockpit shaking
his head, and told Frank here what
had happened-that he had no idea
where the SWoose was. You can
have her now, Major he says.
She's all yours!'
"WeIl, first the Major got our ra-
dioman to working, trying to wake
up some Australian station which
would give us a bearing. But ]
guess they were all asleep. Our
gas was getting lower and lower.
And the sun was sinking, too. And
that country below US was all rum
pied up like someone had slept in it.