The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1945-08-09

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Tai Lake.
Below US are the villages of the
Miaows. We climb TO $4,000 feet to
test the '.suped-up' ships, and a
smile comes to our faces under the
oxygen masks-for this IS going to
surprise the Jap. We're going over
the Mekong now. and from the time
that has elapsed we've certainly
picked up tail wind-must be MAX
ing over three hundred. The gorge
of the Mekong runs like cash in
the sinister country OF Burma to the
South, and we know it goes on and
on towards Saigon and the sea.
It's barely twenty miles to the
Salween, and we make it so quickly
that we begin to doubt that the 9TH
er river had been the Mekong. Our
ground speed is well over three hun
dred as we see Lake Tall and start
the down-hill run to Running. Now
we catch the first glimpse of the
Burma Road. North of Yunnanyi,
and soon we see the small lake that
is near our field at that town. The
mountains to the North are very
high, and we know they get higher
and higher and stretch almost with
out break to the East and the Pa
cific. We see the hairpin turns of
the Burma Road near Tsuyung, and
know that we're nearly home from
the Tai Mahal and India.
We dive over the field of our head
quarters just one hour and twenty
five minutes from the time we took
off from Assam. five hundred miles
away. can elleby the smiles on
the faces of the other men in the
flight that we're all thinking the
same thing: We have bad medicine
| for the Jap packed into the in
creased horsepower of these new
"Kays Warhawks. They are
the latest of the P-40 series, and
coming to us this time of year we
look upon them as Christmas pres
ents from the States.
The P-40 was In production when
the war began. Then the decks
were definitely stacked against us.
and everything was in favor of the
enemy. During the past year of our
war these ships produced as no 9TH
er fighter plane did, for they were
serving on every front. Any pilot
who actually fought the Axis enc
mics in the P-40 Tomahawks, Kitty
hawks, or Warhawks will tell you
they are tough and dependable. They
will dive with the best of projectiles
including a bomb. All of us hope
that the best fighter plane has not
been produced, but we know that
America will develop it.
In the meantime, through those
lean months when America had to
fight on many fronts with so little.
the glorious P-40 series paid off when
the chips were down in a ratio of
between twelve and fifteen to one
twelve to fifteen enemy ships for
every one of ours lost.
Some day, when the war Is over
and our sturdy American engines
driving great American ships have
won victory with air power, l hope
and pray-with all fighter pilots who
have faced our enemies in aerial
combat, from the hot sands of Libya
to the cold tundra of the Aleutians,
from the jungle heat of Guadalcanal
to those torrential rains of the Bur-
mese Monsoons-that some under
standing group of citizens will go to
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. There.
beside the statue that commence
rates the first flight of the Wright
Brothers, I hope that they will build
monument to the Curtiss P-40 with
its Allison Engine.
And now, with few minor battles
in the air, we saw Christmas in Chi
ma draw near, and | couldn't help
wishing for fast action somewhere.
After all, there's only one place a
person wants to be at Christmas.
took off from Running one day
just before Christmas to inspect the
warning net in western Yunnan. II
didn't take long to find out that il
was very inefficient near the Bur-
ma border, where a steady influx of
fifth-columnists and Japanese mon
ey was filtering across the Salween.
Even then I knew that instead of
getting the Chinese officers who were
in charge of the net to investigate.
it would be much better to have a
few engagements with the Jap. over
the failing net-area. There was no
tonic like burning Jap planes over
the country to improve the function
ing of the ar-rai4 ue~o,ra rtt