Show L Jolly Rogers Home from Pacific Bag Bog Jap Airplanes 21 Ships nf- nf t Top Navy Fighter Squadron Flying Vought Corsairs Loses No Bombers or Surface Vessels in Escort Missions i SAN DIEGO CALIF The The US U.S. Navys Navy's first Corsair squadron t the e Jolly Rogers V lias Has come home from rom two tours of aut duty with the distinction of having shot down more enemy planes than any other Navy or Marine fighter lighter squadron The Jolly Rogers squadron which has also been can called d Skull and Crossbones Bearded Pirates and Blackburns Blackburn's Irregulars rs took part in neutralizing 1 On February 19 just before they left for home the Jolly Rogers pilots sent 16 10 Zeros into the sea sea near without losing a Corsair or pilot I They never lost a bomber in 40 escorting missions In the 90 missions on which they escorted ship in their charge was hit by an enem enemy bomb While on OIl active chit dut duty they knocked Jap Japanese planes out of cf the air sank five small cargo ships and 16 barges carrying troops and supplies In one day five period the they destroyed 60 Jap planes 0 During its i s entire combat service the squadron squad squad- ron Ton flew its Double Wasp powered Corsairs on missions every day but two on which all the planes in the area were grounded by bad weather eather 4 Lt Commander John Thomas Blackburn skipper of Jolly Rogers has 11 enemy planes to Iris his credit He is second high scorer of the squadrons squadron's 13 aces The top scorer t Lieutenant jg Ira G. G Kepford who is also top scoring Navy Y Ace ce has shot 16 Jap planes out of the air The Japanese planes arc are good said Commander Commander Com Corn mander Blackburn and man many of their p pilots are good goad too The one great advantage we have is the toughness of our Corsairs You can canet cane e get et your pants shot off and still come home In In one act action ori Lt Kepford had his wing let set on fire his ammunition was exploding his landing gear was shot away and part of the tail was was missing Nevertheless he flew the C Corsair home made a crash landing and came out of it uninjured Commander Blackburn insisted on perfection perfection perfection tion in gun gunnery ef It paid off In one action Lt Kepford got four Zeros and one probable with ith only 75 rounds from each of his Corsairs Corsair's Corsairs Corsair's Corsairs Corsair's Cor Cor- sair's six calibre guns |