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Show W QUEBEJS ID IE tPS -3 IPIKJDTUBILY .WHITE tyTfcJLTPAife W.N.U.TEATUREJ TIIE STORY THUS FAR: Lieut. Col. Frank Kurtz, pilot of a Flying Fortress, tells ol tnat fatal day when the Japs truck In the Philippines. Eight of his men were killed fleeing for shelter and Old 99, with many other Fortresses, wu demolished before H could get off the ground. After escaping to Australia, what Is left of the squadron flies to Java where they go out on many missions over the Philippines. Sut Fortresses go on a mission over Macassar Strait where there Is a huge concentration of Jap ships. They make their bomb runs and on the return trip Major Robinson's plane goes into a dive and crashes into in-to the sea. U. S. planes circle over the dead Queen. CHAPTER XIII "I now watched this last four falling fall-ing through what was practically a striped fog made by Jap pom-poms coming up at us. We could see the Japs crowding the rails, trying to jump overboard as the bombs gathered gath-ered speed. The first bomb plunked into the water alongside, but the other three went smack! smack! smack! right down what had been her promenade deck, and it looked like she was coughing up into the sky 'a kind of confetti made up of planking splinters and Jap infantry. My right wing man, who was releasing re-leasing his bombs synchronized with me, scored four hits across the back of this ship. "You ought to hear Beardshear, our tail gunner, tell about it. Not having any Zeros to keep him busy, he was enjoying the scenery and playing 'Yankee Doodle' on the deck planking with his .50-calibers. He says we passed over so close that he looked down the funnels, and he called to us over the interphones that he could see what they were going go-ing to have for chow rice and fish heads. Then we made our turn, and went on back to Batavia, which was crowded with refugees from Singapore. "About this time," said Frank Kurtz, "I got word from the Colonel Colo-nel that at last some American P-40 fighters were on their way up from Australia, equipped with belly tanks so they could take it in hops, landing land-ing for fuel at Kupang airdrome on Timor Island. It was part of my liaison job to get them settled with the Dutch fighters at their airdrome at Gnoro. It was another beautifully beauti-fully hidden field. The Dutch had to lead them to it with an escort plane. "When they landed I found there , were nine, led by my old friend Major Bud Sprague, whom I hadn't seen since the Philippines. I asked him where Buzz Wagner was, and he said Buzz just hadn't been lucky. They'd told them in Australia that one of them had to stay behind and give the newly arriving fighter pilots a little extra training, while the other would lead the squadron in Java. Buzz and Bud had tossed an Australian shilling to decide it, and Buzz had lost; he was stuck with that training job. "The Dutch fighter pilots, who are just as prancy as ours, were all excited ex-cited and doing their stuff. They'd led Bud in formation, and now they were putting on a show for him. They'd dive onto the field in an attack at-tack string, and just before they hit, they turned almost straight up in the air and then, a few thousand feet up, that string opened out in all directions like the petals of a rose. "Bud had to admit the Dutch were good. But he said he had to take one of his planes up for a test that afternoon and show 'em how to fly. "Bud hit it off with them right away. He praised the camouflage on their field. When he came back next day, I heard him take his own youngsters in hand. Of course it was the old hooey, but he gave them one serious warning. " "This is the best-camouflaged field we'll ever operate on,' he told them, 'so remember I don't want anyone to cross this field with a Zero on his tail. Bail out, beach it, but don't come back here with company.' com-pany.' As a result, the Japanese didn't find Gnoro Field until two days before the end. "Not long after they came, I rang Bud up with a queer assignment for the boys. We were doing everything every-thing possible to stop the Japs from swarming over onto Sumatra from Malaya. The Forts were out pasting past-ing their landing barges morning and night. We were using them practically as heavy pursuit skimming skim-ming down under the weather to chase landing barges going up the rivers. "So we asked Bud to deliver a little lit-tle strafing, and off they went, carrying car-rying belly tanks to get them there and stopping off at Andir. They went to work with 30-pound fragmentation frag-mentation bombs and their machine guns, and when they got back Bud reported the P-40's had had Japs diving off those barges in full field equipment He sank quite a few and drowned hundreds of Japs, and every P-40 got back to Java. "But they were closing in on us from still another direction. We could no longer operate from those advance fields at Kendari and Sam-arinda Sam-arinda across the Java Sea. The Japs had moved into Borneo and the Celebes. So we waited for what we knew was coming. They must be stacking Jap bombers onto what had been our own fields there within easy range of Java. "We didn't have to wait long. One morning I was at the KNILM Airfield Air-field at Surabaya, checking on a transport plane which was supposed to be bringing in ground crews for Bud Sprague's fighters, when at Operations Op-erations they reported in great excitement ex-citement that a Jap bomber force was over Java itself, headed down the island. (Abbreviation for "Koninklijke Neder-landsch-Indische Luchtvaart Maatschap-pij," Maatschap-pij," meaning Royal Dutch Indies Airplane Air-plane Company.) "1 was panic-stricken for fear they might branch off at Malang and catch our Forts on the ground there. Luckily the pass was bottled up with fog, so they came on down toward us at Surabaya. "At almost exactly eleven o'clock we could hear them hitting the city off in the distance. We knew they wouldn't miss us. I'll never forget poor old Baalerts, the head of that KNILM Field. He'd never been bombed before, and asked me what to da He had already crawled into his car. I told him that was the worst thing he could do, that we should run for the concrete slit trenches at the edge of the field. "As we ran, we could hear the second wave coming over the harbor har-bor next to our airdrome hear the hollow echo as the bombs crashed into the oil storage base. They practically leveled Moro Kamban-gem, Kamban-gem, the Dutch naval base there, coming in out of the sun it was really real-ly a beautiful job from the professional profes-sional standpoint. It's second in size only to Singapore. The docks were left a shambles. Our American Navy's Na-vy's PBY's of Patrol Wing 10 were anchored there. One or two were burned on the ways, but the rest managed to take off, although the. ml He had been anxious that his wife know that he was all right. He died at three in the morning. Japs strafed a dingy full of sailors rowing out to them. They also scored a direct hit on the barracks they?, so for the second time those poor guys of Patrol Wing 10 lost all they had the first had been at Cavite in the Philippines. "Now came the third wave, headed head-ed right for our airdrome. Echoing around in the cement of our slit trenches, the- sound of the crashes was terrific. Poor old Baalerts was down there lying on the concrete floor, his white bridal suit soaking up half an inch of dirty rain water. We were all thankful when we heard that bomb pattern moving away. They'd laid a nice strip across the field, but only one bomb happened to hit the macadam strip. "I was just hoisting out of the trench what was left of our bridegroom bride-groom there had been a lot of noise and I'm afraid his condition was pretty grave when the Zeros hit, so we got Baalerts back down again. "All the Dutch had to meet them were twelve export-model Curtiss pursuits. They had little motors and were hardly better than advanced trainers. The Dutch had come to America in 1939 with nice shiny new-mined new-mined gold in their hands, begging to buy fighters. But this was all we could spare them, and it was the entire Dutch fighter force, except ex-cept for another dozen which finally got back from Samarinda. Well, this brave dozen was up to do what it could against about ten Zeros. "We watched one Dutchman coming com-ing in for fuel when two Zeros crossed his tail, their guns going full-blast, hammering tracers into his tail watched his plane roll over and dive into the red dust at the edge of the field. "Now another Dutch pilot comes in, with a Zero streaking for his tail, the Dutchman dodging all the way to the ground. Fifty feet from the ground he slips to the right to avoid that stream of tracers, but it's too late. Flames come gushing out, yet he manages to land and jum'p out of the burning plane. It's a terrific ter-rific fight overhead: we can hear the faraway rattles as they clc-'ir their guns the brave Dutch kids aire fighting for their homeland, and seven sev-en planes were lost that morning a the twelve which had been Java'i only defending Dutch fighter force "As I climbed out I realized thi picture was darkening fast. We wen depending on our Fortresses to kee the Jap transports away from Java but we had to have fighters to de fnd our flying fields. "But it wasn't until later In thl day that I found out the Zeros hai got Major Straubel, one of our owl squadron commanders. He'd beet piloting a B-18 we used for transpor tation, and was coming from Malan) to Surabaya to talk with Genera Brett. The Zeros hit, and from th ground they saw him go over th hill on fire. "They brought him into Surabayi hospital, and of course I went righ out. It was in confusion because a the raid, but tiptoeing down thosi dim corridors, I finally found Strau bel's room. He was burned black and there was no hope, but they't given him morphine to put him ti sleep, and he was groaning in hii sleep. But until then, when he't been conscious, he hadn't let out t groan had just been anxious tha' the nurse let his wife know he wai all right. He died at three in th morning. "While the liaison work lasted ', was quartered at the big hotel it Surabaya, and the whole thing didn'' feel right. You weren't sure of thes natives as you had been of the Fili pinos. That night a few were sho who were caught flashing lights int the air. And at the hotel the' bare footed waiters, who slipped silentlj between tables and in and out of thi high-ceilinged rooms, began to dis appear. "My own boy turned up a coupli of days later, however with tean in his eyes. Said he was back ant to stay. He wasn't sure what thii war was about, but he'd taken hii mother and sister to the country and was back for the rest of the war "Jap Intelligence must have beei very good, because one bomber hat peeled off the formation and madi a direct run on the newly complet ed Dutch Army-Navy building (the; had just moved in), scoring a near miss. "Meanwhile there was somethinj else to straighten out. The Dutcl fighters alone had been defendin) Surabaya where had our P-40'i been? Well, It turned out that ii that Dutch fighter-control room thei hadn't been able to speak EnglisI clearly enough for our boys to un derstand over the radio, so they't been off In another corner of thi sky. Getting someone in there whi could talk with an American accen was another job for me. "The Forts of course had beei pounding away at the Japs, and hat come back with ominous news-they'd news-they'd spotted a Jap carrier out ii the Java Sea and sent it away limp tag. If they'd had more strengtl and could have laid down a dense: bomb pattern, they'd have sunk thi damned thing. The Navy's PB1 flying boats of Patrol Wing 10 wen doing a wonderful reconnaissanci job finding targets for us everj morning or so you might wake u to find a Jap carrier at almost an; corner of the Island. The PBY'i would sight a little task force ii the evening, but by the time I go word to our Forts to be out then next morning, often it had slippet away. . "Most important of all, ten mon fighters presently arrived hoppini up from Australia via our stepping stones' of Timor and Bali. The were led in by Captain Will Con nolly, a commercial pilot, who flev a Beechcraft and did the navigatinj for the fighters that isn't part o their training. He reported they'i only lost one, which cracked up ii landing at Timor Field. "But they'd had plenty of excite ment. Just as they were approach ing Timor the boys had engaged ani shot down a Jap fighter. It madi Connolly plenty jittery. He was ai old hand at flying, but his littli Beechcraft had no guns, am wouldn't have lasted a minute ii combat. So he hurried on out o there to land at Bali for lunch. Bu en route he sighted what was eithe; a twin-tailed Messerschmitt 110 or i twin-engined Mitsubishi bomber, oi patrol, which altered course am was coming toward them. "Will Connolly had no radio In hii Beechcraft to warn the ten P-40'i in the formation he was leading, si he started going up and down fran tically to signal them. Sure enough the kids got the idea, and the twi fighters on his wing peeled off am headed for the Jap. The first oni put out his port engine, but the Jaj feathered it and kept on going. Bu then he was hit by the second P-40 which, in spite of the fact that onl; two of its six guns were working knocked out the starboard motor And just to make sure of him, i third P-40, which by now had ar nved, dived in to chew his wing off "You should have heard thosi American kids when they got in Most of them were just out of flyinj school, and had never before fiowi a P-40 except for the three-houi practice Buzz Wagner had been abl to give them as they passed througl Brisbane. But now they had drawi first blood, and they were excitet and yipping like a bunch of foi terrier pups chasing their first rab bit. ' (TO BE CONTINUED' |