The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1945-08-02

for shooting down those Frenehmen.
and he'd be sure TO gel letter from
Washington to answer by endorse
meRt. Later it came out that the
ships we're flown by Japs. and that
they were being trained in these
ships in Indo-China It was just kid
ding, anyway, for Bruce Holloway
was one of the most eager pilots in
all the world and was running up a
good score.
! landed at Kweilin, and while I
counted the holes in my plane I
watched for the last of the fighters
to come in-haf trying to count the
twenty-seven holes from the ground
fire around White Cloud and half
trying to sweat all the twenty-five
fighters back. All the bombers were
In and were being serviced and
bombed up again. Eighteen fight
ers finally came in, and we worried
until we got word that the other
four were at another field and would
be back later In the afternoon.
We made our reports to the Gen
eral and we. knew he was pleased.
Out of As zeros that had come up
for US over Canton we had shot
down 20 that were confirmed. Ali
son had stayed back there for twen-
ty-hyes minutes and definitely had
seen that the two freighters loaded
with Zeros and engines had been
sunk. The nature of the cargo was
eventually, confirmed. eThreezweeks
later we dive-bombed the salvage
parties that were. diligently trying
to raise the sunken freighters. Evi-
IDENTIFY there had been something
very valuable to the Japanese on
the two big vessels,
= We went on back to Running,
Sometimes I wonder if the Jap ever
did find out where General Chen
nault was going. Years after may
be they'd still. be flying that patrol
over Hongkong, waiting for the at
tack that we were supposed to make.
AS we carried out the long mis-
sfons into Burma in the days that
followed, ! thought about how the
spirit of our air warfare had changed
from what i had heard about and
read of the last World War in the
air. There had been an element OF
knighthood depicted in that first
struggle in the skies. Now I thought
! knew why. aHHaK 80
Back there the pilots had been
carefully hand-picked. They were
the adventurous, devilmay-care hot.
bloods, like those boys who had been
the Confederate cavalry in the War
Between the States. More than like
~ when they fred at another pilot
and then saw that their victir1's
guns were ..jammed, !" they may
have "saluted" and dived away, UNI
willing to destroy the helpless enc
my. But this was q different type
OF war, against race of fanatics,
who had been repressed for so long
in their warped minds that they
were barbaric madmen. k
From what ] had already seen. |
T knew that the japanese soldier and
the japanese war machine were moi
out merely to beat us in war-tfley
were out to EXTERMINATE us,
even to the extent of killing our nj.
lots whom they captured as prison.
ers. And we knew that this had
been done even in April of 1912. We
learned of it again after the Hong
kong raid. Thay would never give
up--they had gone about In war te
the bitter end. There was no TO
nance about it. We knew that i
we were shot down and were no
killed In the crash, or If we were
captured, we would most certainly
be tortured and executed. That's
Why all Sof as never considered the
element of cap ptire. Get out Of the
crashsl landing shooting, we always
said.