The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-02-24
CHAPTER 1

The grizzled old Flying Fortress
stood on the runway of an American
airfield, presently to depart for an
other continent and another war
zone. Those scratches on her run
ming gear were made by sand grains
of Wake Island when she was on her
way to the Far East before the war.
That little dent on her wing was
made by a spent-bomb fragment the
day the war began, when the Japa-
nese destroyed all but a very few
of our Far Eastern Air Force on
Clark Field in the Philippines. She
was one of those few. The battle
paint on her wings was later bis
tered by the sun in the high skies
over Java, and still later nicked by
sandstorms over the Australian des-
ert.
/ OF the very few to escape Clark
Field, she is the only one to come
home, and now, her guns removed,
she is an old war horse turned out
to pasture, the transport plane of
three-star general of the American
Air Force.
Lieutenant General George H. Brett,
USA, tCho until recently commanded the
/ Far Eastern skies for the United Nations.
:. On her side is a jaunty emblem
daubed there by the hand of some
boy, unknown now and probably
dead-the outline of a misshapen
bird "The Swoose"-"ha swan and
half goose"-taken from a jingle,
and beneath it the skeptical legend
"It Flies?"
1t did, for countless thousands of
miles through cloud canyons and
over oceans and islands of the war
zone, and now in the shade of her
wing sit six who have a story to
tell. The pilot is standing. He is
Frank Kurtz, who has been three
times a member of the champion
ship American Olympic Team as a
high diver, who a year ago was
lieutenant in the 10Th Bombardment
Group, and who now holds the Dis
tinguished Flying Cross and the Sill
yer Star, and is lieutenant colonel
at thirty-one.
The others are Margo, his pretty,
blonde, blue-eyed wife; Captain Har-
ry Schrieber, his black-eyed, black
haired navigator; Master Sergeant
Charlie Reeves, his bombardier;
Master Sergeant Rowland Boone, his
gunner; and Master Sergeant RED"
Warner, the merriest embalmer in
the Air Corps, who few years ago
ran comfortable little undertaking
parlor out on the Coast.
"Red" is now crew chief of the
Swoose, and lords it over the ground
crews who swarm over her to check
her engines when she hits the
ground He brings hot coffee and
sandwiches to her pilot and passen-
gers when she is aloft, and it was
his duty in Java and Australia to
steal anything from carburetor to
a roasting chicken necessary to keep
the General comfortable and the
Swoose in the air. But this is get
ting ahead Of the story.
Since this ioas iUritfen, all The master
sergeanfs OF the SiC0ose crem hare been
commissioned.
Meanwhile Frank, the pilot, PAGES
up and down. It isn't easy for him
to begin. Few things have been easy
for Frank Kurtz. It wasn't easy as
q boy, when he earned his living
selling papers on the streets of Kan
sas City. It wasn't easy later to
leave home when he was fourteen
because he had decided to become
an Olympic platform diver and
there was a famous instructor on
the Coast the boy hoped he could
persuade to coach him. He did per-
srade him, but it wasn't easy to
earn his We through Hollywood
High School wfl14e he took the train
ing. Before leaving him, Frank had
decided to become pilot. He'll tell
you it's SO much like diving-all you
need is perfect balance and timing
and control; yet it wasn't easy to
take those many hours of flying les
sons, or later to win the Junior