The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-07-20
W.N.u.FE FEATURES

be / had point there. Ana think
ing about it, he finished his break
fast. l was glad when we got out
of there after breakfast for Mel
bourne"
"You should have been glad" said
Charlie Reeves, the bombardier,
because we were still in Broome
that evening. The field was still
loaded, all right, mostly Forts-all
of them planes pulled out of. Java.
That night all but three of the Forts,
including ours, pulled out for Mel
bourne. We had to stay and work on
our brakes. But it was a setup for
the Japs / didn't like it bit. Out
behind the breakwater were a few
big Dutch Catalina flying boats,
loaded with women and children
from Java. That night and very
early next morning more came in.
1--WE worked most of the night on
the brakes, and then went to sleep
in that hangar shack. / slept fit
fully-woke at five, to get an early
start. 1t didn't seem healthy to me
or to any of the rest of us. After a
makeshift mess-hot beans and cof-
fee plus field rations-we went out to
the ship at six and stood by.
"Skiles had asked the officer in
charge when he could take off. But
he gave Skiles to understand we
were evacuees just like the others.
When we were given our passenger
list, we could go.
$50 we stood around the plane
from six o'clock until 9:10, waiting
for that list and those orders. At
this minute Sergeant Britt happened
to look up and hollered: Make a
run for it, fellows-here come some
ZerosI Five of us who were stand
ing back Of the plane dropped into a
hole about fifty feet away.
Zone Zero peeled off and strafed
the Fortress with incendiaries. 1t
caught fire Immediately, then the
Zero went on down and strafed a
B-24, setting it afire. Then it turned
and, coming in directly over our
hole from the rear, strafed them
again. 1t repeated this six times,
also firing 20-millimeter cannon at
US, which caved in our hole and COW
cred us with dirt.
''When Sergeant Britt first hol-
Tered out, a big B-24 loaded with
twenty-six people had just cleared
the runway. When the Zeros hit, it
was out over the ocean headed for
Perth. It had hardly had time to
pull its wheels up-and there was no
room in there for them to swing a
gun in their own defense-when a
Zero caught up with it and dropped
it in the sea.
1.-TWO sergeantS managed to get
out. They swan for thirty-two
hours, one of them giving up in
sight of shore. The other told us
what it had been like inside there
when those bullets came smashing
through that packed crowd, and a
few seconds later when those dying
and wounded were all struggling not
to drown as the water came in.
'That day the Japs got another
B-24 on the ground (it had been the
one General Brett himself used),
three Forts, a DC-2 and a DC-3, a
Lockheed-but the worst were the
nine Dutch flying boats they caught
out in the harbor. About forty or
fifty people were killed on them,
mostly women and children.
"I saw one Dutchman swim
ashore dragging his wife by the hair.
The whole lower half of her face
had been blown away and she
was dead. I saw another woman
standing on the wing of one of the
planes which was burning. She had
a child in her arms, and was ready
to jump and swim ashore, when a
cannon shot hit her in the back and
broke her into halves. They both
fell forward into the water, but the
arms on the top half which held the
child never let go of it.
"The men who were left were al
most crazy with rage. One Zero was
shot down by Dutchman who stood
in front of the hangar holding a 30
caliber machine gun across his arm.
The gun got so hot it scorched right
into his flesh, but he never noticed
it. 1t turned out that Broome's anti
aircraft defense consisted of Just
this one .30-caliber gun. The Japs
did the whole job in thirty minutes
didn't leave thing.
1T was a hell of a mess. And
how were we to get out? For all we
knew, those ZeroS might be work.
ing in advance of a Jap landing
party, and all we had was that one
.30-caliber.
Finally the officer in charge told
us: We expect planes in between
now and midnight, but we don't
priority list, but if your name isn't
called by two o'clock, advise you
to get out of here quick, and the
best way you can, even if you have
to walk-and it's long walk
''He turned out to be right.
fooled around until 2:30 and then,
when my name hadn't been called,
nine of us decided we'd string along
with civilian contractor who'd of
fered us lift. He had thirty men
and five Ford trucks, and said he
was headed south down the coast for
the nearest town, called Port He'd
land, two hundred miles away. The
Army had some emergency rations
hidden in the woods, so we helped
ourselves to enough of those to keep
us on the trip.
''Then | began to find out about
Australia. Those guys are like olr
Westerners-pioneer types, except
bigger. When we got twenty miles
out of Broome the road ended en-
tirely. After that-nothing at all