The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-04-20

crashing into the plane ahead at
least by a few yards.
"We'd been fighting through it on
instruments, because inside that cot
ton bale you couldn't see stars or
ocean, and it took so much hard fly
ing that / was having my co-pilot
handle the power for me. If thought
! was dropping behind the rest, may
be l would get lost and have to 60
over the target alone, which by now
we knew was dangerous business,
I'd say to him, All right, give me
little more mercury now-about four
inches Then when I'd catch a
glimpse of the plane ahead I'd say:
'Okay, now you can bring it back to
thirty inches. We're sitting okay-I
can see him fine.' And could for a
minute or so.
without warning | break into the
clear. / haven't climbed over that
cloud, but instead have flown out
of one of the walls of an enormous
cloud canyon and am now flying
around in the clear air between the
precipices.
"Ahead of me looms the other can
yon wall. Maybe it's thirty miles
away, maybe fifty-you can't ever
judge the distance of a cloud, be-
cause they don't come in standard
sizes. But cloud canyons like this
one are one magnificent sight that
you never see any place except in
the high skies.
Because, you see, the morning
sun was slanting down from behind
me, over the top of the canyon wall
out of which / had just come, to
hit the top half of the cloud-canyon
wall ahead. That top half might
have been built out of FURNISHED
silver feather beds piled one on top
the other, and yet you looked again
and it seemed to be so firm it could
be carved of glistening ice or mar
BILE.
81 am wondering if old Jim is
also looking at all this when sud-
denly his voice comes out of no
where into my earphones.
'Connally to Kurtz,' he is call
ing.
Kurtz answering Connally,' !
say.
Have you broken into the clear
yet?' he asks.
Into the clear, Jim, at 14,500.
Now I'm turning onto 270 degrees.
That means I'm turning west to fly
down that canyon to see II ]
can't catch sight of Jim, whose voice
is so loud in my ears. Suddenly
] see single Fortress ahead there
in the canyon. / pick him up when
the rejecting sun hits his uptilted
wing. He is circling.
"I think / see you, Jim,' / call.
Continue to circle ! head toward
the plane and fall In on its wing,
continuing the long slow circle in
side the canyon in the hope we'll pick
up some of the others, and won't
have to 60 in on the target alone.
Meanwhile the radio operators Of
the two planes have started talking
to each other by winking their Adds
lamps back and forth. We're so
near the target ! don't want to use
the radio any more than necessary.
And just then I spot a third plane
about 500 feet below us and far
ther west down the canyon. Just as
I'm wondering which one 1t is, my
radio operator reports that the plane
we're circling on isn't Jim at all, It's
Bill Bohnaker. So we drop on
down the canyon and sure enough,
that third plane turns out to be old
Jim. can read his number plain
now on his tail. Now there are three
Of us in the circle, wondering what in
hell has become Of the other six.
We haven't got the gas to stay in
this golden dream castle much long
er. But just then my radio operator
comes in with a message from
Combs, the leader. God knows where
he is, but he's telling us, Continuing
to target and he's sending it out
by key, where he can use code, be-
cause he daren't use voice SO close
to the target as he must by now
be, because most of these damn
Zero pilots seemed to have gradu-
ated from Los Angeles High School
and understand English as well as
you do.
"All right, continue it is, so now
we plunged back into that damned
front-the opposite canyon wall-and
the gray mist packed down around
my windshield again. We continued
to climb in that deathly whiteness-
first one wing and then the other
surging into my view. flew il
for forty-five minutes and decided il
was just too much to risk crashing
into each other when we were SO
close to the target. So without any
message to Jim or Bill ] decided I'd