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

peel off my formation and give him
a lot of trouble.
He doesn't alter his course and
] don't alter mine; and after he's
passed the point where I could set
up collision course with him.
begin to come to my senses, to real
ize that I'm the pilot of a Flying
Fortress and my job is to get home
safely with these boys and this
plane, which was never designed to
engage in dogfghts with Messer-
schmitts.
eve got back to Malang feeling
pretty pleased with ourselves" said
Frank, "and I personally felt
had made headway settling my old
Philippine score. But in Java we
found there were troubles ahead,
and the least of these was that our
Navy was accusing us of bombing
their ships. They didn't say any of
them had been hit, just that they'd
had to beat off an attack, and it
occurred to me that this might ex-
plain all those fireworks which came
whooping up under our chins through
the overcast that night over the
CelebeS Sea. But we were never
sure.
$50 we said, Then why don't you
tell US where your ships are going
to be?' but it seemed that had never
been done-a ruling from the Navy
Department in Washington. guess
those guys must take some kind of
bomb-sight oath never to tell any,
thing to anybody who doesn't wear
black shoes.
"But plenty more was going on.
1t developed that our smash at the
Jap feet in Davao had been al
most too successful. Because Davao
was no longer safe base for them,
they had apparently boosted up
their schedule by two or three
weeks. Our reconnaissance went
clear up to the Davao area and re-
ported nothing there; then we found
out the whole gang had moved out
together and they were off the coast
Of Borneo, moving down into Macas-
sar Strait, and 1t was clear they
intended to clean out Borneo-not
only because Of our advance bases
there, but because they wanted the
rich oil fields at Tarakan and Balak-
papan on the eastern coast of Bor-
neo, where the oil is so rich they say
you can pump it right into the bunk
ers of ships. OF course they'd built
up big oil reserves which they had
bought from us before Pearl Har-
Dor, but now they were out to grab
of some fields of their own.
"And who was going to stop them?
It was up to us to try, because we
seemed to be the only force the
United Nations had in that area big
enough to tackle the Jap fleet.
1--WE were briefed before dawn
told everything that was known
about this big Jap gang of ships off
northeast Borneo-and at $3.50 in
the morning nine of us took off from
the Malang Field. We planned to
fly over the Java Sea and then in
land over Borneo, carrying to start
with an altitude of about $500 feet.
But about eight o'clock we hit
tropical front which was a night
mare-fog so dense you could hardly
see to light the tip Of your cigarette.
when we saw it coming ahead,
each v spread out little, so we
wouldn't collide. Only we didn't
dream how dense and how long it
was going to be.
1T was like trying to fly inside
giant bale of cotton-so dense that
when you looked out at the side you
could barely see your own wing
tips. And looking straight ahead,
that bale of cotton seemed tightly
packed against your windshield, only
it was dull fiat gray-white, like
the cotton ] imagine they'd spin
winding sheets out Of. And you'd