The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-06-30
CHAPTER XVIII

to clear off the field-So sighted on
the last ship and let 60 all four in
stick.
eff you're dropping instantaneous
fuse bombs, of course you see the
splash of deck planking and debris
the instant it hits, but it doesn't do
much damage-all on the surface.
But these were delayed-action fuses.
From that altitude there isn't much
to see when they first crack the
deck. There's a little pause, and
then there's the sweetest geyser of
deck splinters, and foam, and ma
chinery, and Japanese infantry cor
porals you'd ever hope to gaze down
at. AS think I said, we blew her
stern off. kept peeking back UNI
til the debris subsidized, and l could
see solid blue water between the
two halves of the ship.
"We got back to Madiun Field
just in time to take off In the face Of
three strafng Zeros, our side gun
ner-a National Guard boy we'd
picked up in Java; the rest OF his
outfit all stayed and got captured
knocking one of them down almost
before we got our wheels up. When
the other two went away we re-
landed, and found a bomb some
where had knocked our electricity
out. We had to refuel by hand, us
ing flashlights. Also we were US
ing them trying to repair our brakes
when all of sudden came a terrific
Bang! It shook the ship so badly
1t knocked one guy off the wing, and
he fell face-down on the field. OF
course we were sure that the Japs,
seeing our flashlights, had dropped
a bomb. But no. Oh, no!
"It was Just the methodical Dutch,
carefully scorching the earth by
blowing up our ammunition dump,
which by some miracle we weren't
near at the time.
"It seemed the order had just
come through to evacuate, because
the Japs were coming, and what
with the language difficulty, this was
their way of announcing it. The
funny thing was, for weeks they'd
had a gang Of men working to inn
prove that field and repair the rum
ways. These guys kept right on
sweating away up until the minute
the order to evacuate came through
then they went ahead sweating
just as hard to blow up what they'd
just been fixing.
"We were jittery - been going
through lot of strafng-but finally
got our plane refueled, and loaded
twenty-four men aboard: We still
had no brakes on the right wheel,
but we all hoped together in unison
that we'd clear the runway. We
did.
"It was two o'clock in the morn
ing. AS we climbed for altitude we
could see refneries flaming all over
the island-fres and explosions-and
as we circled the field in the dark
for the last time, the Dutch down
below us threw a switch and blew
up that beautiful new concrete hang
ar. It had huge arches like bridge
span, control tower, and everything
lit all came rolling up at us in a
parting salute.
'Now we were headed for Aus
tralia, buzzing along at about 10000
feet"
"Getting into Broome, Australia,
we began to worry about that bust
ed brake, and the momentum we
would have when we hit the field
with all these men aboard. We could
tighten ship by having the guys bail
out, but the trouble was we had
only nine chutes. But when the
pilot called the airport, they re-
ported they had one runway which
ran uphill and was soft at the far
end-perfect for us, so we made a
beautiful landing"
1T was still back in Surabaya,"
said the pilot, Frank Kurtz, "be-
cause had couple of jobs to do.
The day we got Warrenfeltz off in
the Corregidor relief ship, the Colo
mel had told me he was leaving Ma
lang for Jokyakarta-the town we
ter join him there and he'd send me
out to Australia. All the other boys
of the 10th were going that day.
''But asked him if / couldn't stay
over just little longer. I was think
ing of the fighter pilots. No one was
looking after them; they had abso-
lutely no iaison. When a place is
cracking up, everybody tends to
think Of themselves. Why bother
about the fighters? They got in,
didn't they? Well, let them get out
again. The trouble was the fighters
had got in with belly tanks, hop
ping via Timor and Bali, which were
now held by the Japs.
"The Colonel said I was absolute
ly right-maybe could help them.
You're under your own ORDERS he