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Show .WHITE W.N.U.TEATURE5 said. "I leave It to your discretion as to how and when you come out. Best of luck.' - "It wasn't until I'd hung up that I realized that when the 19th had left Java, there wouldn't be any way for me to get out. The hotel by now was emptying fast of foreign uniformsI'd uni-formsI'd bade the first echelon of our Navy goodby. Poor old Java was being left to sink by herself, but since the newspapers were still about four days behind the actual news, the people didn't realize it yet. Things were moving fast. "That day we heard a big Jap force was closing In off the north coast, headed for the Java beaches. We got reports from scout planes, even from submarines, but we didn't know just how big it was. Because hanging over it was a Jap fighter screen so thick that our recco planes didn't dare fly through to see. "We got a few reports from a tiny island which lies out in the Java Sea north of Surabaya, but ominously its radio went dead. We realized the Japs had put a landing force ashore there. "That night out went the tiny Dutch Navy It was all they had left which pounded them under cover cov-er of darkness and then pulled away. V I THE STORY THUS FAR: Lieut. CoL Prank Kurtz, pilot of a Flyine Fortress, tells ot that fatal day when the Japs struck In the Philippines. Eight of his men were killed while Seeing for shelter, and Old 99, with many other Forts, was demolished on the ground. After escaping escap-ing to Australia, what is left of the squadron squad-ron flies to Java, where they go on many missions over the Philippines and the Java sea. The boys in Java hear what happened to the Marbtebead and the Houston and morale sags. Bud Sprague, who got his commission in the morning, Ues that afternoon. The Japs take Ball field, and all Java Is caving in. Sergt. Warrenfeltz volunteers for a very dangerous dan-gerous mission. CHAPTER XVIH "I had only four bombs we hadn't had time to load more before the air-raid alarm blew and we'd had to clear off the field so I sighted on the last ship and let go all four in a stick. "If you're dropping instantaneous fuse bombs, of course you see the aplash ot deck planking and debris the Instant it hits, but it doesn't do much damage all on the surface. But these were delayed-action fuses. From' that altitude there isn't much -to see when they first crack the deck. There's a little pause, and then there'i the sweetest geyser of deck splinters, and form, and machinery, ma-chinery, and Japanese Infantry corporals cor-porals you'd ever hope to gaze down at As I think I said, we blew her atern off. I kept peeking back until un-til the debris subsided, and I could aee solid blue water between the two halves of the ship. "We got back to Madiun Field Just in time to take off in the face of three strafing Zeros, our side gun-uer gun-uer a National Guard boy we'd picked up In Java; the rest of his outfit all stayed and got captured knocking one of them down almost before we got our wheels up. When the other two went away we re-landed, re-landed, and found a bomb somewhere some-where had knocked our electricity -out. We had to refuel by hand, using us-ing flashlights. Also we were using us-ing them trying to repair our brakes when all of a sudden came a terrific Bang! It shook the ship so badly it knocked one guy off the wing, and he fell face-down on the field. Of course we were sure that the Japs, seeing our flashlights, had dropped a bomb. But no. Oh, nol "It was Just the methodical Dutch, carefully scorching the earth by blowing up our ammunition dump, which by some miracle we weren't mear at the time. "It seemed the order had Just come through to evacuate, because the Japs were coming, and what with the language difficulty, this was their way of announcing it. The funny thing was, for weeks they'd had a gang of men working to improve im-prove that field and repair the runways. run-ways. These guys kept right on sweating away up until the minute the order to evacuate came through then they went ahead sweating Just as hard to blow up what they'd just been fixing. "We were Jittery been going through a lot of strafing but finally t got our plane refueled, and loaded twenty-four men aboard. We still had no brakes on the right wheel, but we all hoped together in unison that we'd clear the runway. We did. . "It was two o'clock in the morning. morn-ing. As we climbed for altitude we could see refineries flaming all over the island fires and explosions and as we circled the field in the dark for the last time, the Dutch down , below us threw a switch and blew up that beautiful new concrete hangar. hang-ar. It had huge arches like a bridge span, control tower, and everything it all came rolling up at us In a parting salute. "Now we were headed for Australia, Aus-tralia, buzzing along at about 10,000 feet." "Getting Into Broome, Australia, we began to worry about that busted bust-ed brake, and the momentum we would have when we hit the field with all these men aboard. We could lighten ship by having the guys bail out, but the trouble was we had only nine chutes. But when the pilot called the airport, they reported re-ported they had one runway which ran uphill and was soft at the far end perfect for us, so we made a ' beautiful landing." "I was still back in Surabaya," said the pilot, Frank Kurtz, "because "be-cause I had a couple of Jobs to do. The day we got Warrenfeltz off in the Corregidor relief ship, the Colonel Colo-nel had told me he was leaving Ma-lang Ma-lang for Jokyakarta the town we called Jockstrap and that I'd better bet-ter Join him there and he'd send me out to Australia. All the other boys of the 19th were going that day. "But I asked him if I couldn't stay over just a little longer. I was thinking think-ing of the fighter pilots. No one was looking after them; they had absolutely abso-lutely no liaison. When a place is cracking up, everybody tends to think of themselves. Why bother about the fighters. They got in, didn't they? Well, let them get out again. The trouble was the fighters had got in with belly tanks, hopping hop-ping via Timor and Bali, which were now held by the Japs. "The Colonel said I was absolute- I Iy right maybe I could help them. I "You're .under your own orders,' he ; had put in a telephone call to America. Amer-ica. It was to Margo, but it was government business and the Dutch, when they understood what it was about, said they would pay the charges themselves. They said the connection might not be made until midnight. I privately wondered if it would go through at all. Java was collapsing fast all around us. "But I said I'd take it whenever It came, knowing I'd get no sleep that night maybe little sleep for many nights. So at midnight I started start-ed for the telephone office. Just as I was leaving the hotel I ran into Commander Peterson of the Navy's Patrol Wing 10. By now he was almost al-most the sole survivor. He seemed surprised to see me, told me he was just leaving for his plane the last of the Navy was leaving Java. He asked how I expected to get out. 1 said I didn't know. 'Come with me now,' he said, 'and I'll take you out to Australia.' I couldn't. There was that telephone call. And also I mustn't leave those American fighters fight-ers to be swallowed up in the collapse col-lapse tomorrow. So I thanked him; we said goodby. "Walking to the telephone building build-ing I could hear a dull rumble in the hot midnight air coming from far over the water. The few people in the blacked-out streets assumed it was distant thunder. I knew it was the little Dutch Navy in its final agony out there In the dark. "Then I waited in that dim-lit mosquito-filled telephone building for that call. Sitting on a bench, with the help of a flashlight I made my notes for the call. Then I paced the floor. Each time the window opened, letting out a little light, I was sure the half-caste girl was telling me the call had been completed. com-pleted. I had other pressing business, busi-ness, but none more pressing than this. I thought of the eager face of the boy just before he went out into what looked like almost certain death." "From Florida," said Margo, "I could hear the telephone operators working, setting up. that line all around the world, from here where it was noon to midnight in the tropics. trop-ics. And finally Frank's own voice. 'Have you got paper and pencil?' he asked. 'Now take down this name; Mrs. W. H. Warrenfeltz, of Hagers-town, Hagers-town, Maryland. Her son Bud is going on a mission and he wants her to know there probably will be some money deposited to her account ac-count in the Hagerstown bank from New York. Tell her Bud sends his love to Billy, Jane, and all, and of course to her. He wants her to use half the money to buy her home, and the rest is for her to live on, and he wants her to be happy, however it comes out.' " "Then I told Margo the boy was going on a most dangerous mission. We didn't know how dangerous until after he left, for his course took him right across the path of the main Japanese fleet. And now," Frank said bitterly, "this little story has a happy ending, so far as the War Department's auditors are concerned. con-cerned. Because the five thousand dollars which Bud Warrenfeltz thought his mother was going to get, when he went out to face the Japanese Japa-nese fleet, was never paid. It never cleared through the New York banks before Java fell. I suppose those New York bankers were more prudent pru-dent than Bud, and took no chances on Java paper. So Bud's mother didn't get any money, and even Bud himself never got through to Manila. Let's hope he's a Jap prisoner." "After I'd written down the message mes-sage to Mrs. Warrenfeltz, it seemed that Frank just wanted to visit," said Margo. "Of course it was wonderful won-derful to talk to him, because for some reason there didn't seem to be any censors clicking in on the line." "The censors had all caught the boat," explained Frank. "In a few hours the Japs would have Java, so it didn't much matter what they knew." "But after we talked about fifteen minutes I began to worry," said Margo. "Living on an Air Corps salary, you have to think of money. As we talked I couldn't help thinking think-ing it was six dollars and a half for every minute, and I said we'd better bet-ter hang up. Then he explained we could talk all we liked, because it was a government call." "I didn't tell her what government govern-ment it was on," said Frank. "She didn't know that the Japanese were taking over tomorrow, and they would get the bill." "After that it was wonderful," said Margo. "Frank was coming through as clearly as if he were in a pay station downtown. He told me there would be no more calls for a while, and from that I guessed that maybe in a week or so the Air Corps would be retiring to Australia. I didn't dream that the Japanese were already just off the beach, that Frank didn't know how he could get out. "He talked a lot about a letter he'd written me months ago from the Philippines, a few days after the first Japanese attack, when he thought there was no chance of his getting out alive explaining that while he'd meant every word of it, yet he'd been tired when he wrote it, so I was not to take it too seriously. seri-ously. (TO RTC CONTINUED! There's a little pause, and then there's the sweetest geyser of deck splinters. It did some good, because in the morning we found the Jap advance guard, which had been headed right for Java's beaches, now pulled back a little, under that bomber-and-fighter screen, waiting for the main force to come on up. "Colonel Eubank was now in Jockstrap, Jock-strap, and by telephone I put a problem prob-lem up to him. The position of our fighter pilots in Java was hopeless now any minute their field would be hit by Jap bombers and put out of operation. I wanted them to turn their P-40's over to the Dutch fighter fight-er pilots (who had nothing left now but three Hurricanes which had been rescuedfrorry Singapore) and come on out to Australia with us where we could continue the war. "Further air defense in Java was hopeless. We had broken camp at Malang Jap bombers were swarming swarm-ing over the island. "But Van Oeyen, the Dutch commander, com-mander, wouldn't listen. He was a stout old infantry officer, and he had given orders to fight to the last "We had to plead our viewpoint with Van Oeyen. Yet it would be hard to explain to men who were defending their homes and families in this beautiful Island, whose lives, when it fell, would be over. "That night fifty miles off Surabaya, Sura-baya, the naval battle was resumed. The main Japanese invasion force, ringed by submarines, was headed for our' beaches. At midnight the United Nations Navy moved in to throw their little all into the balance. This final night the Dutch struck no glancing blow. It was now or never. nev-er. They moved in and fought them toe to toe, the Australians at their side. It was pitiful, of course, and hopeless, as all of them knew. But the gallant Dutch preferred to die fighting out in the night rather than go skulking home to wait for the Rising Sun tanks to come rattling down their streets. "Side by side, the Dutch and the Australians plunged through that outer ring of Jap submarines. The American forces took up the last defensive position, skirting the Jap back edge, firing on the run. It was our duty not to dissipate ourselves our-selves in lost causes, but to do what damage we could, and conserve our strength to strike again. "Java died that night in the gunfire gun-fire which came rolling in over the water. It took until dawn for the Jap battle fleet to crunch to bits the Dutch and Australian navies. "But early the morning before I |