The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-06-23
CHAPTER XVII

1--WE dreamed and prayed for this.
And as a matter Of fact the Navy
did make an attempt. An aircraft
tender was loaded with P-4G's and
started out from Australia. But what
happened was just what was feared.
Those P-40's were in crates stacked
high on her decks, so she had to
come clear in-through skies the Jap
bombers ruled. She went down with
her entire crew and those Grated
P-40's forty miles off the southwest
coast of Java-but I'm sure the Navy
was doing the best it could for us
with what they had.
"Of course it gave our morale a
kick in the belly. Late the next
afternoon young Jack Dale (he'd
won his spurs in the Philippines
with the 18th Pursuit) came in from
Gnoro on a personal mission from
Major Bud Sprague. When he'd fin
ished it he stayed few minutes.
''The next night a Navy man who
had just got in from our little feet
told me what had happened to the
Marblehead and the Houston, those
two beautiful cruisers which had
been the nucleus of our Asiatic Fleet
helping the Dutch and Australians
defend Java. With the rest of the
feet they'd been out in the Java
Sea. When they sighted Jap rocco
plane overhead about noon, they
knew they were in for trouble. They
had no carrier, of course, which
could send a fighter up to shoot it
down. He said the Jap bombers pres
emily came over them from their
bases in Borneo and the Celebes
(our bases they had captured) in
three waves, spaced about half an
hour apart. BY skillful maneuver-
ing they lodged the bombs of the
first two waves. But the third,
which crippled them, caught them
just at shutdown, and chewed their
superstructures into steel spaghetti.
SIN the darkness, they were able
to crawl away out of range, and the
Marblehead eventually got back to
the States"
''But troubles of our own were
looming ahead. The boys in Navy
Patrol Wing 10 came in with the
report that their planes on recon-
Nuisance had sighted a force Of
six Jap transports and five warships
headed toward Bali Strait, which di-
vides Java from Bali. They were
after the Den Passar airdrome on
Bali-our last stepping-stone-hav-
ing already occupied the airfield at
Timor. This was, as maybe you now
begin to see, a war of airdromes-
Clark, Del Monte, Kendari, Sama-
rinda, Kupang, all Of them lost
pearls in the United Nations de-
lenses, and now Den Passar. Next it
could only be Malang, KNILM, Ono
70, and Madiun-all we had left on
the strand. Seldom in this war did
the Japs make brutal assault; al
ways it was the skillful surgeons
technique-isolate and occupy the
airdromes and then you have the
country. It was game we knew
well too, but you've got to buy chips
before they will deal you hand,
and we didn't have the equipment.
GAIL I can say is the Dutch and
Americans were ready to defend
Bali with what we had. Our little
surface navies moved in that night
to clip them a glancing blow on the
run, as they'd done at Macassar
Straight, and our submarines did a
grand job in the moonlight. The
Colonel sent his Fortresses out and
down to 5000, to paste them from
the air. We left two transports
burning in the moonlight, and a Grip
pied cruiser.
"Next morning it was up to the
Air Force alone, because the Navy
was too tiny to venture out by day.
The Forts went over, of course-in
fact everything we had, to smash
at those Jap transports as they
poured thirty thousand troops onto
the beach at Bali. The P-40's were
led by Bud Sprague himself. That
morning he got his commission as
lieutenant colonel. He paused Just
before the take-off to scrawl his
signature on his papers, but he didn't
take time to pretty himself up in
his new silver leaves; I guess he
was satisfied to die in his old gold
ones. Because what they desperate
1y needed was dive bombers, and
about all they had was P-40's-a
fighter plane which was never built
as a stable platform to launch an
egg from. But all right, there the
job. was to do, and so Bud climbed
into the cockpit. g4
How many passes at the target
are we going to maker someone
asked.
Depends on how many wild
hairs I'm sprouting when we get
over her. says Bud with a grin,
and they were off.
''He led them cold pigeon into that
Jap barrage over the Bali beach
Hell!-back here, the people don't
know that boy ever did5a thing out
there-and the other boys saw him