The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-05-05

OF course they were then terribly
short Of seasoned pilots, and often
quickly trained kids were flying
them, and cracking them up all
across Africa and Asia. But it was
all they had to send us. Sometimes
six would start out from Tampa
Field and maybe two would arrive
at Malang. During the whole month
of January we got only half Dozen"
1--WE were in the old 7th, which
came out to reinforce you," said
Master Sergeant Charles T. Reeves,
the bombardier. He had been sit
ting beside the pilot, under the
planes wing.
$50 was l." said Master Sergeant
Rowland A. Boone, the gunner, who
sat next to him.
ION the day of Pearl Harbor, the
7th was sitting on Hamilton Field,
California poised, waiting for one
new plane to come of the Boeing
assembly line before we took on
across the Pacific for Manila. OF
course the big news from Hawaii
Cancelled that trip. We'd have to go
around the world another way.
"Then they put me to work ferry
ing Els from the factory to Sacra-
mento," continued the Gunner. Il
was picking them right off the as
sembly line, two or three day.
It would have been wonderful IT we
could have had that many in Java.
But the bottleneck then was pilots
the planes were all stacked up
waiting for them, and no matter how
fast you build Fortresses, you can't
jerk kid out of a Beechcraft train
er and put him in a Boeing. And by
the way, when we got back to the
States this summer, the bottleneck
was still pilots. They still had sew
eral dozen Els stacked up on the
factory field, waiting for men to fly
them.
"I'll never forget my first look at
the E-model Fortress. She had that
big dorsal fin, and she looked a lot
bigger-more deadly, too. Because
not only were there tail guns, but
much better side guns. And whole
stack Of power turrets. On the old
D model, the angle Of fire from the
radio guns and the belly guns had
been very small, but this was
corrected in the E, and the top tur-
ret was honey!
'sIt doesn't hurt to talk about the
D model, because the enemy have
captured plenty of them. It's no
more secret than the Model T Ford.
But in those days the E was a sur
prise package--like the new F model
is now.
.And when something is really
new, the combat boys who have to
take it up don't want it blabbed
around. For instance when we were
still out East, a copy of an Ameri-
can magazine arrived which gave a
complete diagram Of the E. It
showed everything-the angle of fire
of every gun, even the break in the
fire angles for the propellers. There
weren't many blind spots on the E
where an enemy fighter can sneak
in, but this diagram showed every
one.
"Our gang talked over that
damned picture for days. Holy
Smokes!' we said, why don't they
give the Japanese set Of blue
prints!' In addition, it showed the
exact position Of every man on the
plane, so the Japs could work in
through the blind spots and pick us
off.
s.It was all stuff. we knew the
japanese didn't know, because all
the. Els we had lost up to then had
either dropped in the ocean or
burned after Bleaching. MY God the
other gunners said. They're sell
ing us out back home. They might
Just as well take the guns off the
plane and let the Japs shoot US
DOWN. That picture knocked our
morale for days.
"But what the hell Now the F
model is out-nobody knows the ex-
act improvements on that yet, and
when the enemy fighters hit the F,
they'll find out they've picked up
real hot potato"
Lets get back to the trip over"
said the Bombardier. In my plane
we left the States December %. I'd
had a blue Christmas-missed din
ner because we were out testing
guns-but didn't mind much, be-
cause we were itching to get over
and into it.
Gas we were approaching Brazil
we ran into hell of front, couldn't
get over it so our navigator could
take sun shots and find out our posi-
ton. weren't sure where in hell we
were. My pilot, Captain Duane
Skiles, first went up to $1,000, but
there wasn't break. Then he went
back down through it, staying just
100 feet above the Atlantic. We
hoped we were headed right for our
field at Belem, but we didn't know.
Finally called to him over the
interphones and said that in my old
geography book, it said you could
see the line where the yellow Anna
ION mixed into the blue Atlantic
as far as four hundred miles out to