OT OB 1 IS MY MA 1 COPILOT CO PILOT col robeet alscott W the story thus thin fm an after graduating from bom west point robert scott wins his bli wings at kelly field and tikes takes up combat syl byeng n g tie ile has ha teen been an 0 o instructor for or IOU tour r yea years rs when the war breaks out and bo be li is t told 01 d th that it he be I 1 li I 1 now too old for or combat flying tie he appeals to several leveral generals and Is 1 finally given an opportunity to get into the ogal he files a bomber to india but on arrival li Is made rry pl pilot lot and this dots not suit him I 1 liter r fisl ing general chennault he gets k and soon loon becomes a one in man au air I 1 force a 11 in the skies over dorm burma L later ate r he in made co commanding manding boffl C er 0 the 23 rd F fighter ahter gr group 0 up and still keeps knocking down Jap planet planes he tells the story of capt elias CHAPTER when I 1 finished the job and pulled i up again I 1 could barely see the y last of my flight several miles away y I 1 gradually climbed after them tor for J got to look around and just sat there dumb and happy just sat there too long over enemy terri tor without looking around every I 1 second without thinking about it I 1 had become a straggler in a high powered engine as soon as we go into combat we take military power from the engine that Is we take as much boost as the engine will stand without detonating put the prop in low pitch high speed position As you leave the c combat 0 and the area it if youre not too excited the hand automatically pulls the prop controls to maximum cruising position to save fuel and to keep the engine from running hot I 1 began subconsciously to do this just then very dreamily I 1 heard pop pop pop pop pop I 1 raised my head slightly to try to see my other fighters ahead and pulled the throttle back just a little more that popping sounded like engine detonation to me then I 1 tensed tor for I 1 had seen that my manifold pres bure was barely 35 inches on the asure i manometer gauge and therefore I 1 by could not be detonating from too much boost at the same instant I 1 heard again the pop pop pop and became all attention in a flash my nose went down I 1 had been climbing my prop went back to low pitch end my throttle really went forward enough to cause the engine to q detonate to n ate A cold shiver went down clown in my y spine there in that hot glass cage I 1 skidded the ship to the left fa d looked around as my speed wilt RA up fast what I 1 saw in the sun still ahead of me gnei chilled me more I 1 saw winking lights i and nd the blurred outline of an airplane and not so tar far away then I 1 saw another and I 1 guess gues there were others I 1 could see the orange lights winking down at me even in the glare of the sun they gewere were japs firing at me and I 1 had sonly y slightly more than a thou thousand and feet cold turkey and a straggler straggle rl while I 1 fumbled with my mike button to my radio to call holloway and baumler for help I 1 realized the futility of it I 1 dont believe my dry throat would have made a sound anyway I 1 just acted an and d thank the lord my reflexes let me do something I 1 turned directly towards the ships with my nose down and pulled up firing I 1 know now that it if I 1 had turned away from them they would have shot me down in their cross fire As it was I 1 surprised them and went underneath them very fast and into the sun thus when they looked around I 1 had the sun still in my favor and from that time on I 1 was using it but as I 1 pulled up firing I 1 held the trigger down and froze 11 I 1 heard the cannon of the zero I 1 felt the recoil reco ilof of my six guns I 1 felt things hit old Ex exterminator terral and then I 1 saw a cloud of black smoke in front of M my ir nose I 1 shut my eyes involuntarily and d dove again something hit my ship with the tame same sound you get when you suddenly fly into heavy rain I 1 opened my eyes and everything was dark I 1 smelled the smoke and cordite and gasoline and thought I 1 was on fire just then I 1 realized I 1 was still firing I 1 reached up grabbed the handle rolled the canopy open jl and saw light I 1 rolled it shut cand ain and realized that the blackness had been caused mostly by oil on my windshield the speed of my dive had blown most of that oft off no now and though I 1 see very we well I 1 could make out the horizon alth a long sigh of relief I 1 leveled the speeding ship over the rice paddles fadd les and as they say in the slang of fighter stations 1 I took off like a scalded dog I 1 sed S ed and skidded but tried not to lose speed looking back I 1 saw the smoke and oil that I 1 had gone through and down under the place where I 1 had bad been I 1 taw aw fire and a plume of smoke one jap that fly again I 1 think I 1 was halfway home before I 1 fully realized that I 1 had shot it down and run into it for twenty miles I 1 skimmed over 61 e paddles jinking to tool fool the en y who might be pursuing skidding to make him miss and watching my boost read seventy inches of mercury the engine heated up and the coolant light came on to warn me before I 1 eased the throttle back a little I 1 called ajax baumler on the radio a and nd told him I 1 was hit had been intercepted my engine was healing up and I 1 know what all was the matter with the ship but I 1 was on course for home and going like a bat out of hell ajax stood by to take my position it if worse things should develop and I 1 should 8 h 0 uld have to land but the coolant light finally flickered and went off the engine cooled off when I 1 got a little of the boost off and stopped abusing it and I 1 breathed again feeling that id been holding one breath for fifteen minutes all was clear behind me and I 1 gradually climbed to ten thousand and went back home to hengkang Heng yang all the boys came out to see me of course ellas elias was missing and been worried lest I 1 was a goner too there were cannon holes in my wings and tall one had gone lust just across the back of the canopy there were smaller holes in the fuselage from the cockpit back to the tall tail there was oil from the byln ner of the prop to the tall oil from your own ship can hardly get on the very tip of the nose of your ship and this was proof that it was jap oil As we looked the plane over I 1 got more and more settled down from my narrow escape but then I 1 realized that my ship which I 1 had now flown in combat from april until september 2nd and was badly damaged old exterminator was shot to pieces we had tea in the alert shack and sent the other mission out to dive bomb hanchang Nan chang and strafe the trains froah kukland to the north towards bankow also we got the chinese net looking for ellas elias and reported that I 1 had shot down one zero near kuksang Ku kiang general haynes led some s om e mons missions on canton and after tat fair r bombing results the fighters stayed behind and engaged the ene enemy in y zeros pat daniels shot down his J 4 fighter pilots ready to take to the a air ir on a moments notice they had plenty of opportunity to fight all the time they never had to sit on the defensive and worry and strange ly enough they liked it first jap and charlie sawyer got his third in the next raid of the bombers general haynes again led maj butch morgan who the newspapers used to say was the only yankee on general aults staff wonder how he got there was leaning over the lead bombsight and directing the bombing this objective was to burn the docks of Hai phong on the coast of indochina the small bomber force of six B went in with only three P tor for escort maj ed rector led the fighters with lieutenant marks on one wing and pat daniels on the other just to make the bomb load against the japs heavier the fighters carried a five hundred pound bomb on each ship with these they dive bombed the docks after the bombers bomber had blasted them and set met them on fire here the attack was entirely en successful the fighter boys boy came back and said it was the best bombing that they had bad ever seen thi the bomb train had covered the Hai phong wharves from one end to the other and when the ships went back to their forward field to refuel and return to base the smoke was covering the town rector hector led his three fighters down in a strafing attack over the wharf fires and kept the firefighters fire fighters from working we were brought back now from the hengkang front to watch the situation in burma and to harass the ja jap p to the south in indochina indo china our situation was peculiar in china we were just about surrounded by the japanese on all sides except to the north toward russia and nd that was so far and over such mountains that it seemed not to matter to our backs was burma filled with japs to the south was indochina indo china and thailand and out to the front and northeast were japanese where in hell bell could you find a worse situation but we got to fight all the time we never had bad to sit on the defensive and worry we liked it and there was never a word of complaint I 1 had to wait at hengkang Heng yang a day longer than the others tor for my ship was being repaired enough tor for me to fly it to thi the repair depot at Kun dunming ming at kuemin g the blow fell the engine of old exterminator was bad and there were no cc more new or serviceable engines the cannon from the zero had damaged the wing so badly that pullouts pull outs would be dangerous the fuselage was peppered with over two hun him dred holes from the last five months montha of combat but the old ship junked bunked or 01 salvaged for we needed parts too toe badly in china there were new planes on the way to us abw now in monthly increments but we could take tills this plane and put several back in commission the scheme that we devised helped my morale greatly tor for to have bunked junked the old ship that had been my fighter tor for five months would have been like seeing the horse that youve ridden for twenty years cast aside and destroyed I 1 could remember too well that day when I 1 landed at hengkang Heng yang and looked at the damage the ship had suffered there had been a lump in my throat and I 1 had felt as though my sword had been taken away old exterminator had taken me nearly five hundred hours into combat against the enemy over a hundred thousand miles and you just ask any pilot it if that a long way on trips where people shoot at you we took the guns out 0 of the ship that general chennault had given me in april and put them in my new P they were well broken in and the armament officer captain hoffman who had been with the and in my squadron in panama seven years before hid had worked them into perfection I 1 had had no jams or stoppages in over a month the tha landing gear we put on another ship the instruments were scattered throughout the group the armor plate was taken out to make a hot cake griddle tor for the mess AU all parts of the fighter were cannibalized I 1 2 ed and in a month were spread out over eighteen P in the organization I 1 remember especially that the automatic fuel pump was was put on a P which permitted the lighter ship to go higher than it had ever gone before and on its second flight with the booster pump the pilot T tt ft smith shot down a japanese observation plane over Kun dunming ming I 1 never did go out and look at the old engine that had come out of my first fighter after all an engine Is exchangeable anyway and we get used to different ones the shot up shell of the fuselage and the wing that had held me up over a hundred thousand miles of enemy country I 1 want to see again I 1 just thought of my six fifty caliber guns flying with me in my new fighter as the real soul of old exterminator and I 1 thought of the hundreds of parts from air corps number 41 1458 that were helping to keep eighteen ships of 0 our group in the air for the men of the group the cannibalized ship had been a help but to me it had been a tradition to keep in my mind no matter how ln long I 1 myself might be fighting in china old exterminator would be on all those flights some of it would be on every mission that we flew and thus it would fly forever on september 25 maj ed rector led the assault of a flight down to r raid aid hanoi in indochina indo china I 1 led the support and we kept a thousand feet above the first echelon our mission was to escort ten bombers for the bombardment of gla lam airdrome we went south and topped off our gas load at a secret base then routed our flight to the west of lackay to keep from alerting the jap warning net until we were close to hanoi we kept well W west est of the railroad that led to our objective even with these precautions to keep from alerting the enemy we found the japanese I 45 in the air and over the field as ai we came in from the tha west the twin engine fighters absolutely ignored our fighters and made runs on the bombers but they get very far with their orders rector took the first tour four P in on the leading japs and hit bit them five hundred yards behind our bombers who were already dropping their eggs I 1 saw two of eds flight gang up on the first steeply climbing 1 45 but before they could shoot it down daniels went in fast to within a few yards of the jap and shot him down in games As the ship exploded I 1 thought pat daniels plane was wa on gre fire too they were so close we all confirmed the first ship for the th eager daniels who was from van nuys Cali california fomia the bombers were on the way home now and we sighed with relief eind and tried to catch the japs ed rector took the next ship he got hla his sights bights on and blew it apart then he fought aalthe all the way to the ground with two others marks shot down one and the others were about equally divided I 1 caught a flight of three I going hell bent tor for the bombers from below and to the rear and shot the last one in the formation down with a short burst it was point blank range and occurred veri very fast I 1 first saw a thin trail of gray smoke that looked like the usual condensation cloud that forms behind the wings of fighter ships doing maneuvers at high altitude when the atmospheric conditions are just right and thel flame poured from the right engine it spread up over the cockpit and stretched thirty feet back in the slipstream I 1 moved up towards th the second enemy fighter and se lee the flamer go down tto BE CONTINUED