The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1944-05-05
CHAPTER x

them jerk the wreck and put in a
new one. With that extra thou
sand now, maybe I can get over the
target-we're about to begin our
bomb runs-and bag a cruiser, which
Is a good trade for a ruined air.
plane motor.
''Now we're approaching the ex-
act position Of the target, and ! be-
gin to realize the predicament I'm
in. Because If I lose another motor
On the same side, I'll have little
chance of getting this plane home.
"All the time Jim's doing his best
to stay with me, but / continue to
fall back. And just then Harris, my
bombardier, peering down through
the broken overcast, calls Target
ahead I'm glued to the PDI needle
now, but when my bombardier starts
30 make his run and the bomb-bay
doors come open, their extra drag
m the air slows me down still more
and fall further behind Jim as I
trim the ship both to compensate
for those open doors and to keep
the wing which carries that limping
engine from falling.
''Then over my earphones Jim is
calling: Bombs away, Franklin
turning off the target and far ahead
4 can see the sun CLINT on his up
cooked wing as he heads for home.
But I'm still on the PDI needle,
my bombardier has picked up a
beautiful target-a gang of trans
ports and cruiser down through
the overcast, the sea is laced with
their curving wakes as they try to
get away-but he can't seem to hold
any one of them in his sights long
enough to make a good run.
FINALLY Harris, in desperation,
pleads over the interphones, Frank,
] just can't hang onto that cruiser
let's turn east
Can you just hold it, Frank?
pleads Harris over the interphones.
<Just hold it, and we'll hang out
one in just second!'
''And then Jim Connally, For
Gods sake, drop your bombs and
come on, Frank!' I can see Jim in
the distance, getting smaller and
smaller.
Harris, the bombardier, peering
down from the navigator's compart-
ment, couldn't see anything when
his bomb train hit the surface. But
the tub gunner, peering straight
down from the belly of the ship,
swears he saw one Of them 60 smack
down for direct hit on a Jap
cruiser.
with my limping motor, I could
sit back and really begin to worry.
/ tried to level off, but of course I
couldn't. I knew we were some
where over Borneo by now. The
a1timeter showed we were "a 1000 feet
high, and in spite of everything I
was doing we were dropping 100
feet lower every minute. I thought
OF landing on the camoufiaged field
here on Borneo but we might be
too low even to bail out if we nosed
down through this dense weather
and couldn't find the field at once.
"Now dropping 100 feet minute,
If you can keep it from falling no
faster than that, at the end Of the
first hour you'll be down to $4,000;
the second hour, $4,000; the third
hour, 5000. So you see how it is. IF
you've got gas enough for four hours
you've got barely enough altitude to
make it back to Java, argued with
myself.
''But it was going to be tough on
the other boys. We'd been on oxy-
gen for four hours, and ordinarily
after fight in the high air, which
is a strain on everyone, the first
thing you do is bring her down to
$4,000 so everyone can take off his
mask and relax. Only I had to hang
onto my precious altitude, and it
would be another two hours before
we had fiuttered down to $4,000.
"But 1t seemed it was the only
thing to do, SO I told my naviga-
tor, Walt Seamon, to set a course for
Malang Field. Then it was UP to
me. / tried every trick in the book
and few I'd heard of to keep that
rate of fall from rising, because if
it went to 200 or 800 feet a minute
only for a few minutes I knew we'd
lose the plane. The automatic pilot
was out "a little gadget had busted,
and Of course we had no spare
parts), so my co-pilot and I had to do
all the flying, WORKOUT as we were,
but at least we didn't have to keep
stations on any other plane now, or
have the nightmare of maybe crash
ing into someone else.
"Then suddenly we had breath
er, for the clouds vanished behind
US and we were. floating free out
into the abyss of a cloud canyon
the same old one. Peering down, I
seemed to see the gray wisps of that
canyons bottom practically trailing
on the dull green jdngle-clad noun
fai11s far below. / doubt Il there
was even thousand feet Of ceiling,
10 we kept on our course. When we