The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-03-30
CHAPTER vi

SnOrIy WneleSS QTOpS out Ol loIllid-
tion-we guess it's engine trouble
and he can't keep up this rate of
climb-and half an hour later Pease.
AS we come to the rendezvous point
where we're due to make our turn
and 60 straight in on our target,
only thirty-fve miles away, Lee
Coats drops out-his motors we can
see are weak, he can't make the al
titude.
THAT leaves just my pilot, Jack
Adams, and Vandevanter to go on in
alone. When we thought there would
be six planes, we had planned to
divide into two flights of three planes
each. The flights were to come in
on the target at three-minute inter-
walls and at different angles.
There are just two planes now,
so Jack decides he'll pretend he IS
one flight and Vandevanter will play
like he was the other. The two of
us against this big gang of Jap ships
we are closing in on.
$50, as agreed on, we come in
first-fying north to south. But the
overcast is so thick we have to get
down to about $4,000 before we can
see the target, and there it is-we're
glimpsing it and then losing 1t and
glimpsing it again through breaks in
the clouds--a row of transports and
naval craft escorting them.
Remember, we're down to $4,000.
That's not our altitude. The old D.
model Fortress is designed to per-
form best in combat at almost dou-
BILE that height. But $4,000 is right
when we come in on the target,
I'm down there in the lower jaw.
But now my job as navigator is
temporarily over, so / can leave it
and 60 back to the bomb bay, where
the bombs are hanging in racks on
either side of little aisle.
.Now the bombay doors are
opened, and light comes up around
the bombs. And now the bombs are
away. I lean over to look down
through the open bomb-bay doors,
feeling a little wooZy because my
oxygen mask is back by my seat in
the navigator compartment, and
just before Jack Adams from his
pilots seat slammed those bomb
bay doors closed, looking down be-
low the belly of the ship I think /
see something, but then the doors
slam shut and there is only black
ness. So / run back to the naviga-
tors compartment, and, boy! there
they area whole gang of Zeros
coming up after us. How did feel?
Just the way anybody feels the first
time, no matter what they pretend
later-it scared the hell out of me.
Jack headed for a cloud which we
estimated was below us at about
10000 feet-sloping down toward ii
with full power on. Meanwhile the
Zeros had opened up on us about
thirty seconds after we first sighted
them-in an air battle the stuff
doesn't take as long to happen as it
does to tell about later-and while
we were tearing for that cloud, reg
istering $50 miles per hour on the
speed indicator, our gunners began
returning their fire.
"There were five of them after us
climbing up and in on our tail.
Our bottom gunner shot down the
nearest one, but the other four kept
coming in tight formation. Jack
Adams began wish-washing our tail
up and down to give our top gum
ners a chance at them-no reason
why the bottom gunner should have
all the fun-and sure enough, the
top gunner picked one out of that
formation. That left three.
$50 then Jack pulled cute one.
He throttled back suddenly and one
Zero overshot us to the left, which
made him clay pigeon for our
side gunner, who picked him off.
Then still another came UP under
our stabilizer in the tail, and our
bottom gunner got his second for
the day. That made four Zeros
down and one to go-and it was still
going for us in spite of all we could
do.
'sWe'd dribbled on down through
the bottom of that cloud, and Jack
was looking for nice beach to set
her down on. But there wasn't any
beach-only jagged rocks with white
surf wrapped around them-and we
kept losing altitude.
.'The hell with those. SO Jack