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Show .WHITE. W.N.U.TEATUHE5 back and forth all morning with conflicting con-flicting orders, came screaming down the field. Take her back to the hangar; they want the camouflaging camou-flaging finished by all means!' "Presently came another order for me and two other planes of this 30th Squadron to unload our bombs and insert cameras. Nothing more than that, but it was clear they were preparing us now for reconnaissance reconnais-sance over Formosa. "I didn't then know that our little field only reflected what was going on at Manila Headquarters, where our Air Force General Brereton had been up long before dawn and was at a big conference all morning. Of course it's very easy to be wise after the event. "And of oourse, even though Pearl Harbor had been attacked, our American Congress had not yet declared de-clared war, and perhaps it was too great a responsibility for our Philippine Philip-pine command to strike back when someone might argue that war did not exist technically. "General Brereton knew our position posi-tion at Clark Field was so dangerous danger-ous that if we did not at once strike at Formosa, we could probably never nev-er strike at all. He wanted permission per-mission to make a reconnaissance flight over there, so we could at least see if the Japanese were making mak-ing preparations to strike us. Surely, Sure-ly, now that they had hit Pearl Harbor, Har-bor, it would be only a minor neutrality neu-trality violation to fly close enough to Formosa to take a few pictures. "Consequently the turndown on thl wasn't complete; Headquarters THE STORY THUS FAR: UcuL Col. I Frank Kartz, who was pilot of the grizzled griz-zled old Flying Fortress known as "The Swoose," which escaped from Clark Field, tells of that fatal day when the Japs struck in the Philippines. Old 99, a Flying Fortress, Is struck down before It can get off the ground. Later, Lieutenant Lieuten-ant Kurtz bicycles to the serene of the bombing. He ands Old 99 a pile of Junk. He sees eight boys of her crew his boys lying In an Irregular line. They had been killed as they ran for shelter. He counts them, pats each on the back, and talks to them as If they were still alive. Then he goes to where Tex is lying, at the end of the sprawling line, and makes a promise. CHAPTER n "We weren't licked; It was only the beginning, and from now on we would get to work, all of us, and win. I told him that whatever plane they gave me later, Old 99 would be flying fly-ing right In the formation, and on night missions I would always see Old 99's wing lights beside me, and know that she was protecting me with her crossfire, knocking down Zeros that tried to climb onto my tail Yes, maybe' that's where the story begins. "The 19th Bombardment Group consisted of thirty-five beautiful shiny new Flying Fortresses, of which Old 99 was one we had picked her up at the Boeing factory Just before she came off the line. Of the Fortress series, they were D models then the latest and finest In the business. About a dozen of our thirty-five were down at Del Monte Field on the southern island of Mindanao. The rest were at the main bomber base, Clark Field, about forty-five miles from Manila, which was the headquarters of General Gen-eral MacArthur, the Commander in Chief. Our Immediate Air Corps commander. General Brereton. was constantly visiting us at Clark. "On November 27 General Brereton Brere-ton put us on the alert. He had received re-ceived the same State Department warning they got at Pearl Harbor that war might be days or maybe hours away. Within the limit of what we had, the Air Force was ready for it The General was making mak-ing all the reconnaissance he could, and had picked his targets in Formosa, For-mosa, from where we knew the blow would come. Our machine guns were in place and loaded. 1 "I'd never seen a Japanese plane except those slides of them they throw on the screen in plane-recognition courses at school. "I left the mess hall and ran into Tex, looking for me. He had everything every-thing under control with Old 99, the crew was standing by, and were there any more orders? "I told him not yet, I was going over to the operations tent and would be back with them in a very few minutes. Good old Tex, standing stand-ing there, apparently casual and yet really alert as a fox terrier, getting every word I said. A fine-looking kid, twenty-two years old, he was for me those extra eyes, ears, and hands that every co-pilot should be. "I was worrying about what would happen if while I was in that operations opera-tions tent, scout planes might report a Jap bomber formation headed down toward us from Formosa. I trusted our fighter pilots at Iba, but you never could tell a few bombers bomb-ers might slip through to Clark. "So I said to Tex: 'Now look, boy here's the dope. Make no mistake, I don't want any slip-ups. Up to now it's been all play-acting and Boy Scout stuff, but this war has really begun. If we get word In Operations that we're about tp be hit here on Clark, we can get Old 99 off the field from where she is, without with-out the usual runway procedure. So watch for me to come pedaling toward to-ward you on my bike from operations opera-tions tent. If I drop my arm as you see me come over the top of the runway run-way crest, that means I want the motors started by the time I get there." " 'Okay, Frank,' he said quietly. No saluting or heel - snapping there's not room for much of that in the Air Force. Then he assured me that the men had all been sent to chow, the engines warmed and checked. Now he turned, and went on back to Old 99. "The operations tent was crowded with about forty pilots and navigators naviga-tors waiting for briefing to begin. As we waited, I snapped on my radio ra-dio and we all listened to Manila. This time Don Bell was really packing pack-ing It across in his excited delivery. deliv-ery. Yet we didn't know that the precious minutes had all slipped away and only seconds were left. We didn't know that General Brereton Brere-ton had got permission from General Gen-eral MacArthur for us to take off on our photographic expedition over will. "As fast as our facilities would permit, our shiny aluminum Queens were getting their coat of dull war paint, and I was notified that Old 99 was scheduled to get her camouflage on December eighth. "That's a date we who were In the Philippines will never forget. With you it's December seventh, but don't be confused, for it's really the same day, only because the Philippines Philip-pines are on the other side of the international date line, we give it a different number. "The Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor at exactly 7:35 o'clock in the morning Honolulu time. At that same instant it was 4:35 o'clock In the morning of December eighth in the Philippines a few hours before dawn reached us. I was asleep in the nipa shack which was the officers' offi-cers' quarters on Clark Field. "I got up at seven as usual and, stumbling in sleepily to shave, snapped on my portable as I always did to get the early morning news broadcast by Don Bell in Manila. By the way, one of the first things the Japs did when they entered the town two weeks later was to shoot the poor deviL In even more rapid-fire rapid-fire style than usual he told us the big news that the Japs had hit Hawaii. Ha-waii. "We gulped breakfast, and then all the pilots rushed over to operations opera-tions meeting in the squadron's operations op-erations tent, where Major Don Gibbs went over the situation with us. I can see him now, trim, alert, boyish-looking for his rank and years if he'd lived out the war he would surely be a brigadier general by now. He was as shrewd as he was modest. It was his second tour of duty out East, and he knew the lay of the land. " 'Well, gentlemen, this is it,' he said. Then he stepped over to the open flap and faced us. 'If they've hit Hawaii they can't miss hitting us. I can't tell you when It will come, but it will come. However, I can tell you where it will come from.' Here he raised the canvas flap with one hand and pointed up and to the north. 'It will be from right over that hill,' he said. "We looked at the hill, tree-clad, relvety, beautiful In the sunrise. Beyond Be-yond It was Iba Field. Still farther was the China Sea and then came Formosa, the black forbidden hunk of something I had looked down on the week before. "As we left, Gibbs said: 'You're on the stand-by. Orders will be coming through fast all morning.' Then I went back to Old 99. She was one of the few which hadn't been loaded with bombs, as she had been scheduled for camouflag-' camouflag-' Ing that morning. Only the orders that now came seemed conflicting as those final hours slipped away. "First came one countermanding the camouflaging. Seemed something some-thing was afoot, and they couldn't wait for it. Instead wc were to load bombs, so we t;ixic:i over toward to-ward the ammunition at:-:,p. T'.vn Bill Crwke, who was to i-- rt;r.i...i.; Formosa, to see If Just possibly the Japanese might be making preparations prepara-tions to attack us. We didn't realize real-ize that General Brereton had already al-ready rushed to the telephone, and was even at this instant clicking the receiver, trying to get through to us with this order. "Now Don Bell was saying that bombs really were dropping on Clark Field he was broadcasting from the top of one of Manila's tallest tall-est buildings, and from there he could see big plumes of smoke rising ris-ing from Clark Field. "We all smiled at this. We didn't know that he, from Manila, could see around the little hill over in the direction of Iba Field, and that these plumes of smoke were from burning P-40's there. The Japanese were already tearing our American fighter fight-er force to pieces. But we smiled, and were listening for whatever crazy thing Don Bell would say next Geaeral Brereton still trying to get through to us on the phone when a private, standing just outside out-side the flap of our operations tent, said, in an awe-struck, admiring voice: " 'Oh, gee! Look at the pretty Navy Na-vy formation.' "It froze me. I could hear a drone. I think It froze all of us. The next second, Lieutenant Lee Coats, who was standing nearest thf tent flap, stepped to the opening. We watched him look up. " 'Navy, hell! Here they come!' "We turned over tables In the confusion con-fusion of piling out of that tent, but we're not yet frightened rats, we're still human beings, still organized. "There they came, the drone rising, ris-ing, right over the hill as Don Gibbs had predicted they would In an enormous V of Vs, three V's in all and about twenty-five Mitsubishi bombers in each V, at about 18.000 to 22,000 feet altitude coming right at us. "I heard a scuffling and looked around to see that I was alone except ex-cept for Lieutenant Glenn Rice he'd been detailed as photographic officer offi-cer and was grinding away with his camera at that V of V's. The rest had all taken shelter in a big drainage ditch near by. "I stood there because I thought It would be five or ten seconds more before they came to their bomb-release bomb-release line, and I ought to see the glint of their bombs turning over as they came out of their bomb bays they seem almost to pause under the plane before they start down several seconds surely before I saw that glint, and then would be time to jump for the ditch. Meanwhile Mean-while I wanted to see what kind of pattern this formation planned to lay down over this field, just as, many times before back in the dry bed of Muroc Lake in California, our practice bombing range in the Mo-jave Mo-jave Desert I'd watched a formation forma-tion of our own to see how good they were. I ITP PE CONTINUED I Don Bell was broadcasting from one of Manila's tallest buildings. said, well, maybe this would be pos-'sible. pos-'sible. Wait and see. "Back on the stand-by with Old 99, I couldn't then know this was why I had been ordered to jerk her bombs, reload 1 her with cameras, and rush the camouflage in the hope that permission would soon come. I only knew big things were moving, and suddenly I thought of my little portable radio. Why not find out what I could? So I sent Tex back to the barracks to get it. "When he returned, I had fair reception when I took it outside the steel hangar door. "It crackled with rumors some already true, some not yet true. They reported a big concentration of Jap ships off Luzon Manila was expecting an air raid every minute bombs, were reported already dropping on Clark Field. I understand under-stand that early false report reached the States. ' "It was curious," said Kurtz, "standing right outside that hangar door, looking at Clark Field In the mid-morning sunshine and hearing the radio In my hand saying that bombs were dropping on it It was crazy, and yet it made us apprehensive. appre-hensive. "A classmate of mine at Randolph Field who had been flying one of two old Douglases we used for transportation trans-portation to Manila had just pulled up and got out, and he was listening listen-ing beside me. Now he said, nervously, nerv-ously, 'Why In hell don't we get out of here and save these airplanes?' I could see he was thinking not only of the planes, but of our necks as welL "I said to him, 'What the hell, now, old man, take it easy we're under orders.' But I was getting jumpy myself. "Then quick came another order early chow for us pilots and our navigators at eleven o'clock. So I told Tex that Eddie Oliver (my navigator) nav-igator) and I were going to shoot on up to the mess hall, eat fast, and get over to the operations tent quick and find out what plans they had lined up (or us. Meanwhile Tex was to oversee the unloading 1 of the hn:v,bs and the r.T'-cin.c of 1 them wit'.i caircras in the bomb '.jays. |