The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1945-02-22

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GOD is MY
o.. CO-PILOT
Col. Robert I.Scoff w,su RELEASE
Of. Robert I.Scoff

20 use Ioree, after all, he was the
Commanding General of all Ameri-
can forces in China, Burma. and In
dia. and we knew he was to have a
very slim chance of walking out to
India through Burma.
| guess If We had captured Gen.
eral Stilwell and taken him back to
Chungking we'd have been court
martialed and shot. But we didn't
much care what happened then any,
way. Burma was falling, and there
seemed to be never-ending stream
of Japs coming North. I guess we
thought we had very slim chance
of ever getting out alive. After all.
we'd been flying around bombed
Burmese towns all morning, and
when you expect to see Jap fighters
any minute for hours, with you in
an unarmed ship, and then get TO
destination and the General won't
go-things just don't much matter.
We loaded the anxious staff and
took off for Calcutta with over forty
passengers. We could easily have
taken from fifty to seventy, but the
staff colonel whom we instructed to
give the signal when the load was
aboard evidently lost count, for he
came up and told Colonel Haynes
that all were inside.
AS we crossed South-Central Bur-
ma towards the town of Chitta-
gong, we planned to come back that
night and take General Stilweu out
If We had to trick him into getting
aboard. We crossed the many
mouths of the Ganges in one of the
worst rains that I've ever seen, and
soon landed in the humid heat of
Calcutta. While we were reservic-
ing for the second trip of some FIVE
hundred miles, Joplin landed from
Assam, and Colonel Haynes had him
unload his cargo and take off imme-
diately for Shwebo. Once again we
ourselves flew through black rain
across the Ganges into Burma, but
when we landed we found that all
had been evacuated except wounded
British and American soldiers. In
the half darkness, for the night was
lighted by the fires of the burning
villages, we loaded them on and took
them to Calcutta.
General Stilwell with few of his
staff, his ADO, Colonel Dorm, and
Jack Belden, war correspondent,
had gone on to the North on the
long trek to India by way of the Uyu
and Chindwin Rivers to the Manipur
Road. For weeks no one knew where
he was.
One of the officers in this last car
go handed me an itinerary that the
General had given him, and | re-
solved to try to drop food and vita
min capsules to the party as it
made its way to the West. The pro-
jected itinerary would lead them
from Shwebo North to the Uyu Riv-
er, down that stream to the Chind-
win at Homalin. then down the Chind-
win to Sittaung and Tamu, and
thence on the Manipur Road to I'M
phal. Using 1t, expected to be able
to contact them and drop the neces-
sary food: Joplin and I even figured
we could land on sand bar in the
Chindwin and pick them up. We
planned all this out the next day as
we flew back home, four hundred
miles to the Northeast. transporting
our first jeep into Assam by plane.
But though we began next day to
fly into Burma to contact General
Stilwell's party, again we found that
there was many a slip 'twixt the
cup, etc., even when one had an
itinerary. After I'd crossed the
Naga Hills in my single P-43, would
follow the Chindwin South until