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

Another friendly coolie who gave
aid to Col. Scott.
crossed the top Of the strange-acting
plane / saw that he was leaning
forward over the stick control, OBJ
viously dead.
AS the speed of the dive would
build up pressures on the tail sur
faces, the nose would rise, for a
Jap ship is rigged that way. As
the ship climbed more steeply, the
pilots upper body swung to the back
of the seat in the normal position
and the plane made a sloppy loop.
For several minutes we watched
the pilotless Zero in fascination.
From $4,000 feet ship that is shot
down can dive into the ground in
few seconds-it can even spin in
from an explosion in a little longer
than that; but we watched this plane
for twice the time that ii would nor
mally have taken. It worked closer
and closer to the ground over the
same area, as it lost altitude gradu-
ally in the maneuvers. Then, after
the longest wait that / can remem-
Der having gone through in the air,
in one of it's dives from a loop it
struck the hills below and burned.
We could have burned it with long
burst many times during the min
utes of our watching, but | imagine
we were all spellbound at the spec
tacle.
No one spoke for several minutes
as we turned back to Hengyang.
Then some call over the radio broke
the spell, and we just marked the
Jap off as another confirmed Zero
another "good" Jap.
Over in Yunnan we fought the
Japs few times in Burma and had
the sadness of another military fu-
neral. Those moments in the Bud
dhist burial grounds were the hard
est in China. As the Chaplain read
the prayer and the flag-draped cas-
ket was lowered into the red earth
of Yunnan, small formation, with
slow-turning engines that gave forth
a muffled sound, would fly over the
grave. There would be one vacant
niche in the evenly spaced fighters,
in honor of the brother airman who
would fly no more.
After eight months in combat !
was sent with five other pilots to fer
ry six new Packs over from the
air base at Karachi. During our
wait for the planes to be ready for
combat, we were permitted to 60 to
Bombay for the detached service.
There, in this splendor of the Hotel
Tai Mahal, we had a glorious time.
In fact, it became very hard to real
ize that war was going on over in
Burma and China, as we looked at
the night clubs from Malabar Hill
and from inside them too, at the
horse-races for the Aga Khan's
Purse-and at all the things that
we had forgotten to remember.
The return across India was a
happy one, for we were ferrying new
and higher-powered ships back to
the war, and all of us were eager
to try them out in combat. From
Assam we took the old familiar trail
that I used to fly with the trans
ports, and it felt especially good to
look around and see those friendly
looking P-40's along with me over
the Burma Road where ! had, in
earlier months, been compelled to
fly alone. The shark-mouths had
not yet been painted on, but the sill
houettes of the new fighters looked
friendly nevertheless.
A fast trip over the FIVE hundred
miles from Assam is like this:
We're off from our base and head
ing liz, degrees across the twelve
thousand-foot Naga Hills to the first
check-point, where the upper fork
of the Chindwin forms the likeness
of a shamrock. Up to our left now,
from the altitude of eighteen thou
sand that we've attained so effort
lessly with the new ships, can be
seen the higher snow-capped peaks
of Tibet and Chinese Turkestan.
Down below us the valley of the
Irrawaddy is low and green, but
forbidding nonetheless. Ahead, as
we cross the "Y" in the little known
triangle of the Irrawaddy," we see
the real hills of the hump" begin
to rise. Snow-capped peaks every
where. Our mep reads that our
highest peak is going to be $1,000
feet; yet we well know from ex-
perience that we've tried it many