The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-03-09
CHAPTER III

the bomb-release line, and now came
the first, unmistakable whistle-just
as we'd heard it thousands of times
over Muroc-and then the dull err
rump! The first bomb of their pat
tern had hit way up the field, three
thousand yards away. didn't know
then it had hit the mess hall had
just left, and killed Bill Cooke, our
group engineering officer.
"But now was the time to run for
our lives, because here came more
whistles, and the nose of the
formation was over us now, like a
huge cloud with giant hailstones fall
ing from it.
$50 now Glenn and / ran for the
nearest foxhole. 1t was a shallow
one, two feet deep, built to hold one
man, but we both jumped for it, and
not until later did we realize there
was man, already in it. We could
think of nothing then except this
earthquake roar and grinding and
the whistling of a mighty storm NOV
ing down the field. You see there
were about seventy planes in that
formation, and each plane was to
drop train of about twelve bombs,
which made around eight hundred
bombs that were to cover that rec
tangular pattern in about the time
it's taking me to say a few of these
sentences. Meanwhile we were
bracing ourselves-getting our arms
and legs adjusted, worning as low
as we could in that shallow hole
for what we knew was coming. I
pulled my tin hat down to cover the
side of my face and cheek against
bomb fragments. Now it began Not
so much the thunderous roars as
the shaking-at its mildest, the hard
dirt quivered like a ,steel-tired truck
laundering over cobblestones, and
at its worst, bucked and pitched like
bronco. / kept feeling if l could
only stay on a little longer I would
live, because death was very close
now-the grinding roars and whis-
ties, the quivering, pitching earth
was coming closer, was laundering
over us. And then quite suddenly
was gone-the bomb trains had
crossed the field, the pattern abrupt
ly ended thousand yards beyond
it, and the Japanese formation was
moving off.
"Yet even as the low hum of mo-
tors died away we were afraid to
move. was afraid to take my tin
hat from my face for another half
minute, because maybe another v
might be above us at its bomb
release line, and other trains might
start laundering down.
"But the quiet continued and now
we raised up in our trench. The
black cloud of bombers was moving
off, empty of its hailstones-proba-
bly, just now closing their bomb-bay
doors, wheeling in the distance to
head back for home. 1t was very
still except for a rising crackle of
fire-the smoke from our burning
planes was just starting, the climb
ing columns had not yet blossomed
into thick black plumes.
"But over this crackle we could
hear another hum. Then we saw it,
as we peered east over the edge of
the field: string of fighters-they
must be our P-40's! We didn't know
that all but few Of our P-40's had
been bombed and shot down and
their field ruined before the bomb
ers came to us.
$50 we stood there brushing the
dirt from our clothes Zone bomb had
hit only fifteen feet away from me)
and watched this formation ap-
proach. They were coming around
beautiful Mount Arayat in a long
string like geese flying north in the
fall, and at only a little higher alti-
tude-say 1000 or 5000 feet.
"Can you blame us for feeling
good-to see some of our own gang
in the air at last? And also little
sore, because, damn it, here they
were, putting on this pretty low-alti-
tude show, but if they'd been only
little earlier and higher, they could
have knocked hell out of that Jap v
of V's. Meanwhile the smoke was
pillaring higher from our smashed
Forts, some of the pillars starting
to mushroom and billow at the top
while the attack string came on and
started to circle the field, each with
a wing now cooked up making its
turn, pretty as you please-only all
of a sudden Glenn Rice yelled:
Look! For Gods sake look at that
red circle!' There it was on those up
cooked wings-not ipstick red, but
a kind of orange red, the Rising Sun
of Japan. They weren't P40's, as
we now could see, but Nakajimas-
and some Zeros-coming in from the
direction Of Corregidor, an attack
string, each Jap leaning out as he
circled to pick out which Fortress
on the ground he would attack.
"As they circled we could hear
our ammunition dump going up-it
was like Fourth of July as the bombs
burst in the heat-and in between
the bangs there was that rising
crackle.
"A three-quarter circle they made,
like cracking Q blacksnake whip
over our already stricken air6eld.