The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-06-08
W.N.u.FEkTuRES

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smashed into our compensatory
gen tank, and also cut a gasoline
feed line, so that gas was squirting
all over the cabin, but we didn't
know it then. Finally the tail gun
ner, seeing gas streaming along the
| planes belly past him to trickle off
the tip of the tail, guessed what
had happened, and called out to the
rest of us over the interphones for
Gods sake not to smoke. With that
cabin filled with pure oxygen and
gasoline fumes, it would have been
bad idea. Don't forget to ask me
about the railroad spike.
"Well, pretty soon Strother dove
us into a friendly cloud where we
lost the Zeros, and I could climb
down from my gun to inspect the
damage. I found that when that
bullet burst our oxygen tank, it had
/ blown two square feet of plywood
out into the cabin, and blown loose
the bomb-release controls. 1t had
sounded like 20-millimeter cannon
shell exploding in there. Then / To-
Gated the gas leak and pulled the
emergency release, salvoing gas
tank and bombs, and hoped they
wouldn't land in some poor peas
ants back yard, because we were
back over land now.
when we got back to our field
and were telling about it, someone
asked our tail gunner If he wasn't
!, scared when, right after watching
those other two go down in flames,
that bullet burst our oxygen system
with big bang. No. he said,
there wasn't time to be scared.
But if someone had pushed a rail-
road spike into my mouth, would
have bit the head of it off, clean and
sharp
"But we could see the japanese
were learning. Their tail attacks
against the new E-model Fortresses
had finally taught them a lesson,
and this was the first time they had
attacked us head-on. OF course they
never could have done it so sue
cessfully had they not surprised us
with that forged emblem. But most
important of all, they never could
have done 1t had we been at our
proper altitude.
"The Flying Fortress was de-
signed for the high skies, and if
! you keep her in her groove, for her
crew she's the safest plane in the
air and for her enemies the most
deadly. We found this out not from
any book, but we learned it that
day in combat, which is learning it
the hard way. And we hoped it
wouldn't take too long for this les
son to percolate upstairs"
"On the way home," said Frank
Kurtz, three Of the remaining Forts
hit q heavy afternoon rainstorm.
Visibility and ceiling were zero, and
for hours they flew around the is
land of Madura, off the coast Of
Java, looking for a place to land.
When gas was almost gone they de-
cided to beach them. Luckily no
one was killed, but two of the three
were completely washed out on the
seashore rocks-they set fire to the
wreckage so the Japs couldn't find
out anything about the planes. But
Lieutenant Fred Crimmons did a
magnificent job of setting his plane
down on the beach in the rain. He
made two passes, looking at his
gas in between, then squared away
and brought her in-she held firm,
sinking only little. / had the har-
bormaster's wrecking barge. with
tools and Dutch engineers, on its
way before daybreak. They were
having a little trouble with the ma
tives there - they were warned
against Jap parachutists, and our
boys had to yell at them password
the Dutch had taught them to use if
we were shot down: 'Kancha Kom-
panee!' 1t means Our Army they
explained to us.
"They worked a full day-shoring
up the plane, building base OF
logs and sand under it, clearing
runway strip. And then, in Java's
regular afternoon rainstorm, in
came old Freddy onto Surabaya
Field. He explained he'd stripped
the plane of everything he could un-
screw to tighten it and then, turn
ing the motors on full blast, had
made a jump take-off from that lit
tie strip. He grabbed sandwich
and went on in to Malang.
"The afraid alarm in Surabaya
was now going off regularly, some
times three times day, because the
Java Sea was sitter than an old
sock with Jap carriers. Colonel Eu-
bank was now faced with real
problem. The three main bases for
our Forts were at Malang, Madiun
and another town which was spelled
Jokyakarta, but the American boys
couldn't chew this one, so they all
gave it up and everybody just called
it Jockstrap.
"The Dutch had no system to de-
tect- planes coming in from over
the sea. Their only warning system
was a tiny island about seventy-fve
miles out. 1t had a radio, so Sura-
baya got fifteen minutes notice and
Malang about thirty.
$50 what was the Colonel to do?
Our P-40's were badly overworked,
so when the alarm sounded, if the
Forts took to the air the Zeros might
shoot them down, while if they
stayed on the ground, the Jap bomb
ers might blow them up. Never were
we able to keep more than twelve