The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-03-16
CHAPTER Nv

"A lot OF damned fools were wav-
ing flashlights around unnecessarily,
and | thought, Suppose a Jap Rocco
plane catches a CLINT of this Pretty
soon l heard a plane and raised up
to listen, but when it came in plain
er l recognized the deep four-motor
grind of one of our own Fortresses-
it was undoubtedly one of the dozen
which had been left down on Del
Monte Field, now coming In from
the long trip from Mindanao to spend
the rest of the night on Clark and
in the morning pound some of those
scores of Jap transports which were
said to be swarming off Luzon.
"And l hoped to God that single
remaining runway strip had been
cleared SO they could get down, and
they wouldn't have to circle and go
back home. Just then a nervous
antiaircraft battery opened up on the
Fortress, and then they all did.
There it was again-lack of organi-
zation, maybe a mix-up in identified
tion signals. We just hadn't had time
to get set up for war. But there
was nothing / could do that night.
When it quieted down | tried to
sleep, but l could still hear the
voices of my boys in my ears as I
had talked to them in the morning
and then l would see them lying in
that sprawling line which pointed
away from the plane to nowhere,
and | don't know which was more
real as / lay there, the voices or
the sprawl!ng line.
And what about Margo, halfway
around the world? Had she heard
anything? And how long would it be
before | could tell her that Eddie
Oliver and | were all that were left
of Old . she had waved goodby to
at Albuquerque six weeks ago? Or
would | ever tell her?
Il had promised the boys this was
just the opening game and that there
were a lot more Saturdays coming,
so what did it matter if this first
one belonged to the Japs? In the
end we would win. Only now be-
gan wondering about that sprawling
line and where it pointed to. Maybe
it trailed off into nothing, and at
the end would be only chaos and de-
feat. / didn't know, and when l
realized it would do no good to guess
or hope, then I went to sleep.
early next morning the good-na-
tured cook of the antiaircraft bat
terry which had set up headquarters
just outside the house gave us break
fast. 1t was only coffee, bread, and
an apple, but wonderful compared
to what was to come. Then / got
right back to the field and reported
to the Colonel, who sent me over to
be in charge of the fields control
tower. On the way l dropped my
stuff off at the barracks and noticed
that a few more faces had come
creeping back out of the hills. They
were still scared, but they'd come
back.
"Over at the field, six of the Min
danao gang had come up from Del
Monte, coming in two and three at
a time and landing on the two-thou-
sand-foot strip of runway which was
all that remained of Clark Field.
Then they had been pulled off into
dispersed areas while they were
gassed up and loaded with bombs.
The pilots of this half-dozen were
now assembled while the Colonel
gave them their targets, and tower
ing over the group was Colin Kelly
I could see his curly black head, his
shoulders back as usual. / knew
the boys would be headed out into
plenty of trouble, and / couldn't help
walking over to listen while the Colo
mel briefed Colin. felt a little
brotherly about him because he'd
been one of my co-pilots back on
March Field. Now he was headed
out on his first battle mission.
"He was listening attentively
while the Colonel gave him the tow
er signals and the Intelligence Re
ports-his target was transports
which were reported in a certain
area off northern Luzon, pretty
heavily defended, they would be, bet
ter look out for a cruiser or SO,
maybe even something bigger.
.Colin was photographing every
word in his mind. He looked tired
from flying all night, had had little
if any sleep-his ordinarily neat uni
form was smeared with grease as
though he'd been working on his
engines himself-and we had time
only to exchange waves as he head
ed for his plane to load his bombs
and I climbed up into the tower.
1.-The thing was practically sieve
from bullets which had ripped
through the corrugated iron during
yesterdays strafng. A couple of
privates had been up there for twen-
ty-four hours without food or relief
/ guess everybody must have for
gotten them, but they'd done swell
job. Looking at all those jagged
holes in the sheet-iron walls, / didn't
see how they'd come out alive, but
they explained it-told me if l got
] strafed, could lie down along one
vsheet-iron wall behind q pile of lead