The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-07-14

we weren't WORRIED aDout yOus
Harry" said Frank with a grin.
1--WE thought you were dead. Way
back In the Philippines, when Jack
Adams plane didn't come back to
Del Monte Field from that mission.
We had given you up months ago.
What had you been doing, anyway"
Trying to get out Of the damned
Philippines" said Harry. "And I
didn't manage 1t until the day before
General Macarthur did-the six
teenth Of March I think it was"
"Harry was the last man to
come" said Frank, "and now that
the gang was together we could start
doing business. You see Lieutenant
General Brett, who had been COM
manding the United Nations Air
Force under British General Wa
veil, who was supreme commander,
needed plane to take him around
the war zone. His B-24 had been
lost at Broome, remember. Colo
mel Eubank recommended me to
General Brett as his personal pilot
and senior air aide, and selected
the crew. OF course when 1t came
to picking the plane itself, the Gem
eral ordered D, because all the
Els with tail guns were needed for
combat and he wanted those planes
saved for the boys who would be
going out on missions. +s@ss''Ss<s.@--'-.
r "But when it came to which D we
would pick, 1t had to be the Swoose,
because there was no other left. Ev-
cry plane, even Of the same model,
handles a little differently. I'd flown
our DIS out from the States, through
the Philippines and Java, and I've
always felt the old Swoose was just
few miles faster and answered the
controls little more smoothly than
the others.
$50 now, as pilot and crew Of the
commanding Air Force Generals
plane, we in the Swoose were maxi
ing weekly trips into the war zone
from Headquarters far down in Mel
bourne, up to Darwin and Port
Moresby, which were then far-fung
outposts on the battle line. The Gen.
eral would average sixty hours a
month in the air-thirty of them at
least in this combat zone. To get
him in and out of it, the Swoose often
hit $50 air hours per month.
"At Moresby it was never safe to
leave the Swoose on the ground by
day. We'd sneak in at night, leave
the General, and be off back to
Townsville by dawn, coming in to
pick him up again the next night.
Sometimes the General would just
have time to scramble aboard while
we cleared the field as the alarm
sounded. He was bound he wouldn't
lose the Swoose.
"We now began to get peek out
over the top at the broad picture Of
this Far Eastern war. There were
differences over strategy, but it was
never Australians versus Arneri-
cans. The cleavage was ground
minded versus air-minded thinking.
The Australian air generals saw eye
to eye with our American air lead
ers. Likewise the infantry gener-
ais Of both armies thought alike.
Sand there was much to the in
fantry side of the argument. After
Java fell, Australian civilians were
panicky. Thousands of Australian
boys had gone out to die in Africa
and Singapore. Now the danger had
suddenly rolled down on the Home
lands.
"Not in New Guinea, or Tulagi, or
Guadalcanal, or even in Darwin,
which, although on their own CONT
nent, is to the average Australian
as remote as the Aleutians seem to
New Workers.. They think of OAR
win as a tiny outpost separated from
them by thousands of miles of inn
passable desert. They wanted the
soldiers near the great cities Of Sgd
ney and Melbourne, where they
could hear the marching and the
military bands.
"This was also sound infantry
strategy. The only populous parts Of
Australia are down in this southeast
corner. We didn't yet have many
battalions, supply problems were
enormous, so our infantry generals
agreed with theirs and with their
civil leaders. They wanted to keep
the army near valuable detectives,
not scatter it out across seas and
Jungle islands, where supply prob
lens would become formidable.
"But we of the Air Forces Cloth
Australian and American) felt that
to defend this continent we must
build our fighter fields not in Aus
tralia itself, but on the outlying is
lands. Having these, with a few
ground troops to hold our airdromes
against Jap landing parties, no feet
! would dare venture through our air
screen to threaten the continent it
self.
"We'd defended Java by pound
ing the Japs from Borneo. The Japs
had not dared send their transports
and landing barges through until
they'd taken our advance bases and
held air control over the Java Sea,