The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-05-11
W.N.u.fEArupE$

"A Tree cruise around the world
which in peacetime only a million
aire could afford, and looking down
at it from the skies in addition!"
'When we got to Iraq," said the
Gunner, 1--WE began to smell the
war. The British there told us not
long ago the natives. led by Nazis,
had revolted, and two thousand reb-
els had tried to take the field away
from the little garrison. All the
British had on it was one plane,
so old it looked like a box kite
cruised about seventy miles per
hour.
$50 they'd taken an empty gas
drum, loaded it up with brace chains,
rivets, and bolts, and in the middle
put a hell of lot of sticks of dyna-
mite and fuse. 1t was so big it
would hardly go into the door of
the plane.
''Then they flew over the rebel
army, and when they had figured the
best place to drop it, they Lit the
fuse. But when they tried to roll it
out, it got stuck in the door of the
plane. The British said they were
quite worried for a bit while that
fuse burned on.
Finally they jammed it through
the door and on out, but it exploded
about fifty feet off the ground. They
said it killed about fifty rebels.
"a couple of hops later we were
in Bangalore, in India, where there
was a Welsh regiment stationed.
''Then we flew on down to Palem-
bang, Sumatra, and crossed the
equator in a hell of a snowstorm at
$4,000 feet, with snow packing in be-
tween our engines.
"There we first saw the Dutch.
Compared with the English, they
seemed more rugged. But we liked
them, even though they give you a
loaf of bread, hunk of baloney, and
cup of tea and call that breakfast,
lunch, or dinner"
"On the seventeenth of January
we had reached Java" continued
the Gunner, land were looking down
on their rice paddles in drizzle
which washed everything a vivid
green. Then we flew over Surabaya
and up between those two conical
mountains that guard the pass into
Malang Field.
"Then we went down to barracks
to meet the 10th. Well, there'd been
quite a change. AS a bunch they
looked nervous and hollow-eyed,
compared to the way we'd. remem-
bered them back in the States.
Looked like few Of them had been
drinking quite bit off duty, maybe
trying to forget what they'd been
through. You had to stop and re-
member that those poor guys had
been fighting a defensive war with
those DIS.
They'd look enviously across the
field at the tail guns of the new Els
we'd arrived in. No doubt it was q
lot better combat plane. 'Yeah-a-
uh,' they'd admit, but wait till q
Jap gets on your tail and then see
what happens They all looked 20
tired wondered what I'd look like
after a while.
1--WE found out they were sending
us out on a raid the very next morn
ing-which should show how badly
they needed us-so after we came
back I went out to check again on
my guns"
''We needed the new boys bad
ly," said Frank. WED got word
trouble was on the way. You see
the American Navy's PBY's-big
flying boats-had come out of Ma
Mia, and now were operating of
Java, from the big Dutch naval
base at Surabaya, but mostly from
coastal coves and the wide mouths
of rivers. Patrol Wing 10 they were
called, and a swell gang they were.
OF course we thought it was God
awful stuff they were fiying-those
clumsy twin-engined boats with the
tail sweeping up in the air-but they
certainly did a job.
"They came in with the news that
on reconnaissance they'd picked up
an enormous gang of Jap surface
ships, coming toward us down Ma
| CAESAR Strait. It was the same gang
we'd pounded at Davao. They had
to be stopped. Had to be! So the
Colonel sent out everything he had,
which was just six Forts, and the
Dutch sent their little Navy, which
couldn't scare them much alone,
plus some old Martin Bio bombers
they'd bought from us before the
| war"
"Take-off was at $3.50 in the morn
ing" said the Gunner. "We'd
planned to bomb from a good alti-
tude, but the weather was so bad
that we had to drop down to $4,000
as we approached the target. II
broke light about seven and we be-
gan to see the gray, hazy sea, and
the mountains piled up on both sides
| of the Strait below us.
! 1--WE were about ten miles from
the target when we saw that Jar
surface gang. I'm not Navy man
but was knocked over by it. They
were strung out in two lines, trans
ports with escorts - destroyers
| cruisers, battleships riding the
tanks, stretching back as far a;
we could see. ! was as bowled ovel
as a ten-year-old kid watching hi:
first Sells-Floto circus parade star
by. Only then I thought, My God
here we were, only. six Forts, witt
all this power against us!'
"When we sighted them we sepa
rated into two flights, following ra
dio command, and almost immedi
ately their ack-ack fire opened VI
on US. We went in in column O.
Vs, each flight picking its ship, ane
by. the time we were over them, the