The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-06-22
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knew they were in for trouble. They
had no carrier, of course, which
could send fighter up to shoot it
down. He said the Jap bombers pres
emily came over them from their
bases in Borneo and the Celebes
(our bases they had captured) in
three waves, spaced about half an
hour apart. BY skillful maneuver-
ing they lodged the bombs Of the
first two waves. But the third,
which crippled them, caught them
just at sundown, and chewed their
superstructures into steel spaghetti.
''In the darkness, they were able
to crawl away out of range, and the
Marblehead eventually got back to
the States. My friend, who was an
old-line blue-water surface sailor,
praised the clever maneuvering
which enabled her to survive at all,
and / didn't say anything, because
/ know what those poor guys had
gone through. Only in that position,
with the Japs absolutely in control
of the air, they stood q ninety per
cent chance of getting found and
hit. No doubt their maneuvering
was good. God knows / had SYM
pathy for them. When ! think of be-
ing down there on the surface, help
lessly lodging and twisting to writhe
away from bombs, it gives me night
mares.
"But troubles of our own were
looming ahead. The boys in Navy
Patrol Wing 10 came in with the
report that their planes on recon-
naissance had sighted a force of
six Jap transports and FIVE warships
headed toward Bali Strait, which di-
vides Java from Bali. They were
after the Den Passar airdrome on
Bali-our last stepping-stone-hav-
ing already occupied the airfield at
Timor. This was, as maybe you now
begin to see, war OF airdromes-
Clark, Del Monte, Kendari, Sama-
rinda, Kupang, all of them lost
pearls in the United Nations de-
fenses, and now Den Passar. Next il
could only be Malang, KNILM, Gno-
70, and Madiun-all we had left on
the strand. Seldom in this war did
the Japs make brutal assault; al.
ways it was the skillful surgeons
technique-isolate and occupy the
airdromes and then you have the
country. It was game we knew
well too, but you've got to buy chips
before they will deal you q hand,
and we didn't have the equipment.
"Al I can say is the Dutch and
Americans were ready to defend
Bali with what we had. Our little
surface navies moved in that night
to clip them a glancing blow on the
run, as they'd done at Macassar
Straight, and our submarines did a
grand Job in the moonlight. The
Colonel sent his Fortresses out and
down to 5000, to paste them from
the air. We left two transports
burning in the moonlight, and a Grip
pied cruiser. AS a result the main
Jap force had to stand off; instead
of seizing the airdrome that night
they were able to get only a small
beach head.
'Next morning it was up to the
Air Force alone, because the Navy
was too tiny to venture out by day.
The Forts went over, of course-in
fact everything we had, to smash
at those Jap transports as they
poured thirty thousand troops onto
the beach at Bali. The P-40's were
led by Bud Sprague himself. That
morning he got his commission as
lieutenant colonel. He paused just
before the take-off to scrawl his
signature on his papers, but he didn't
take time to pretty himself up in
his new silver leaves; I guess he
was satisfied to die in his old gold
ones. Because what they desperate
ly needed was dive bombers, and
about all they had was P-4O's-a
fighter plane which was never built
as a stable platform to launch an
egg from. But all right, there the
Job was to do, and SO Bud climbed
into the cockpit.
How many passes at the target
are we going to maker someons
asked.
Depends on how many wild
hairs I'm sprouting when we get
over her. says Bud with a grin,
and they were off.
''He led them cold pigeon into that
Jap barrage over the Bali beach
Hell!--back here, the people don't
know that boy ever did thing out
there-and the other boys saw him
60 down in on his run-and never
come up again. Yet his boys-what
are left of them-still like to hope
maybe he succeeded in landing on
that Bali beach, which looks so nice
in the travel folders, and will turn
up grinning some day, telling them
what q social success he was with
the natives.
"But it was pitiful. We lost al
most all our dive bombers there,
and about half our P-40 fighters. OF
course Bud and his gang made the
Japs pay ten to one for taking that
airfield-but the Japs had it to pay.
with the Japs holding that Bali
field, they could send bombers and
fighters into every corner OF Java,
and we knew it was almost over.
But anyway the Forts could now
bomb our own field the Japs had TAX
en- from us-very convenient, be-
cause we knew exactly where every
thing was