The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1944-03-23
CHAPTER v

"Of course when / heard all this
I also heard about the whopping big
target he'd hit and sunk. But l
didn't think much of this at the time,
and l don't think Colin did either.
IF l know the boy, and think /
do, after he saw his oxygen system
was on fire, and had given orders
for the other guys to jump, and was
sitting there hanging back on his
stick and fighting his rudder in order
to give them chance to do it, he
wasn't thinking about how many
gross tons that Japanese ship dis
placed, but about his parents and
Marian and little Corkie. And later
when he was trying to crawl out of
the upper escape hatch before his
clothes caught on fire, it was the
same, and still later, when he cleared
the hatch but saw the ground coming
up at him, too close and too fast for
his chute ever to have chance to
crack open, / don't think he was
worrying about how big his, post
humous medal was going to be, but
only worrying about Marian and
Corkie and what a lousy thing 1t
would be for them, and how that gay
little girl could put together what
would be left of a happy life for
herself, and make living for Cork
lie, and how much he wanted to
help her do it, only now he couldn't
ever.
"A little later in the afternoon one
of our fighters came in and began
to circle the field, fiuttering like
wounded bird. ! could see it was
something serious - guessed even
then an aileron might be shot away,
so / gave him the green light to
come in and land. He began to
make passes at the field, cutting his
throttle to pick out the strip Of
straight sand through the bomb era
ters, marked by a maze of red flags
we'd put up. But each time he'd
throttle back his left wing would
drop and he'd have to gun her again,
making slow climbing circle up
off the field.
sIt began to get me. Come on,
son, come on, put it down, before
we get into trouble On the last trial
he gunned it, came around, and then
tried to pull up straight, but too late.
Teetering down the field, he caught
one wing on one of our slightly
damaged Fortresses, tearing it off,
and then himself cartwheeled off into
the trees-killing a sergeant who had
been working on plane back there.
The pilot wasn't hurt much himself,
but one more of our precious few
P40's was gone.
"But, following orders, was still
giving the Fortresses the red light
to stay in the air, and I began to
worry about this. Maybe orders
had been issued to bring them in,
but someone had failed to notify
me. Some of them would circle for
a while, and then would head on
back for Del Monte, more than six
hundred miles away, while they still
had enough gas to get there.
'Finally old Jim Connally said
the hell with it, and came on in
without my giving him any light at
ALL He needed more gas to get
Odlh W 1nilddlldO Clid NOdldIl PClIl
up there all day, and little after
this the Colonel said could give the
others the green light to come in
and gas up, although any hour, any
minute, we were expecting the Japs
back He wanted to save those re-
manning Forts at any cost
''It was a weird highland / spent
most of it up in that tower. We'd
rugged up jack-leg system of land
ing lights on our sand strip, and 1t
worked about half the time. When
we finally did get plane onto the
ground, two men with flashlights
would walk at each wing tip as it
TAXED to the dispersal area, to
keep it from tipping over into bomb
craters.
"I was finally relieved about three
o'clock in the morning, but it wasn't
safe to sleep in the barracks. They
had moved our cots out into the
middle of a thick cornfeld and we
slept there-or tried to sleep. All
night planes were coming in and
out from Mindanao. / remember not
long before dawn couple were try
ing TO come in, with their wing lights
full on, missed the field on their first
pass, and were circling when some
trigger-finger boy in the ack-ack de-
cided they were Japs and opened up
on them.
I'VE got out of bed just as dawn
was breaking and, folding our sheets
inside our brown blankets SO no
white would show, stuffed them un-
der the khaki cots-we didn't want
anything that would indicate on q
Jap recco picture that we were now
sleeping in that field. The Japs were
reccoing the hell out Of the place
with hich-altitude cameras. two or