The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1945-03-22

ueT my snip. pulled the heavy lit
tie plane off the last few yards of
the runway and tried to climb. The
straining ship mushed along just
over the tea bushes, and I told Ser
geant Bonner when / got back that
even ten miles from the field I was
going along through the tea plant
ers' breakfast rooms, getting my
wheels up.
My greatest bombing day came
late in the month of May, when
l dropped four 500-pound bombs at
Homalin, down on the Chindwin,
where the Japs seemed to be con-
centrating. Early in the morning
headed South with the heavy yell
low bomb, slowly climbing over the
Naga Hills and through the over
cast, topping out at $4,000 feet. AS
! continued South on the course to
where the Uyu met the Chindwin
River, the clouds lowered but the
overcast remained solid. In one
hour, computing that / had made
the 180 miles to Homalin, let down
through the overcast, hoping that
the mountains were behind me. Luck
was with me, as it usually was in
my single-ship war, and ! found
the overcast barely a hundred feet
thick. I couldn't see Homalin and
my target area, but I kept right UP
against the cloud ceiling and circled
warily. ! knew that I was in luck:
I could drop the bomb and then
climb right back into the overcast,
no matter how many Jap fighters
came to intercept.
Soon ! saw my target-and sure
enough, there were loaded barges
coming out of the broad Chindwin
and heading for the docks of Homa-
lin. I continued circling against the
clouds at 1000 feet.
For I had a plan. Dive-bombing
from P40 is not the most accurate
in the world: you can't dive very
steeply or the bomb might hit the
propeller, and also in too steep a
dive it's hard to recover in the
high speeds that are built up. 1t
seemed to me that the type of bomb
ing one had to do in order to keep
the speed under control and to miss
the prop, was more in the nature
of glide-bombing. Most beginners,
however, are always short with their
bombs. That is to say, the projec-
tile strikes before it gets to the tar
get on the line of approach, rather
than over it. From my practice
bombings on the Brahmaputra, ]
had developed a rule of thumb: I
would dive at some forty-five de-
grees; then, as the target in my gum
sight passed under the nose of my
ship, ! would begin to pull out slowly
and count-one count for every thou
sand feet of my elevation above the
target. Then as the ship came al
most level, if was at two thou
sand feet when ! reached the count
of two" I'd drop the bomb.
/ let the four barges get almost to
the makeshift wharf; then I dove
from my cloud cover. AS got the
middle two barges on my gun-sight,
] made mental resolution not to be
short-for even if I went over I'd bit
the Japs in the town. AS / passed
three thousand feet the nearest
barge went under me, and | began to
pull out and count: "One-two--
three-pull"-putting in the extra
count to insure me against being
short. ! felt the bomb let go as I
jerked the belly-tank release, and !
turned to get the wing out of the
way so that could see the bomb hit.
The five hundred pounds of TINT
exploded either right beside the
leading barge or between the barge
closest to shore and the docks. AS
the black smoke cleared, I saw
pieces of the barge splashing into
the river hundred yards from the
explosion. I went down and strafed,
but the black smoke was so thick
that ! could see very little to con-
centrate on; so / climbed to three
thousand feet and waited for the
smoke to clear. Then / dove for the
two barges that were drifting down
the river. / must have put two
hundred rounds into each of them.
] got one to burning, and from the
black smoke it must have been load
ed with gasoline. The other would
not burn, but I'm sure I left enough
holes in it to sink it. Coming back
over the target again, I strafed the
Japs in the water who were either
floating dead or swimming towards
shore.
On my second raid I dropped a
five-hundred-pound bomb on the
largest building in Homalin, which
the British Intelligence reported the
next day had been the police sta
tion. They said that two hundred
japanese were killed in that bomb
ing, and that between six hundred
and a thousand were killed in the
series of bombings. Many bodies
were picked up about thirty miles
down the Chindwin at Tamu and Sit
tiang. All four of my bombs had
done some damage, and I was quite
satisfied.
In British Intelligence reports I
read that Radio Tokyo had men,
toned Homalin. One bombing had
taken place, it seems, with very
slight damage, and that only to the
innocent Burmese villagers, but the
Imperial japanese Army had evac-
uated Homalin because of the serious
malaria that was prevalent there.
Anyway, I always like to think that
my four trips to Homalin with four
500-pound packages of good old
American Picatinny TINT had some
thing to do with the monkey-men'
deciding that the malaria was too
bad along the Chindwin.