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Show UTAH Kathleen Norris Says: .w.te THE STORY THUS FAR: Lieut Col. frank Kurtz, pilot of the Flying Fortress which escaped enown s "The Swoose, tells o f that fatal day from Clark Field, whtB the Japs struck la the PhlUppines. Is struck down Old 99, another Fortress, tefore it can get off the ground. The field ottered with the skeletons of U. 8. air ace. Is chased pjjDfj. buzz Wagner, He meets Lieut t; Japs In hie goss Church and together they bomb a Church falls to return. Other jap field. are gives their targets. Including plots Kellys plane settles for a Cohn Kelly. jap battleship, hut the plane is ablaze, glght bale out Kelly bales out but Is so Hose to the gound he sever had a CHAPTER V when I heard all this heard about the whopping big target hed hit and sunk. But I didnt think much of this at the time, and I dont think Colin did either. If I know the boy, and I think I do, after he saw his oxygen system was on fire, and had given orders or the other guys to jump, and was sitting there hanging back on his 4;ck and fighting his rudder in order jt give them a chance to do it, he Jrasn't thinking about how many igross tons that Japanese ship displaced, but about his parents and Marian and little Corkie. And later when he was trying to crawl out of the upper escape hatch before his clothes caught on fire, it was the same, and still later, when he cleared the hatch but saw the ground coming up at him, too close and too fast for his chute ever to have a chance to jack open, I dont think he was worrying about how big his posthumous medal was going to be, but only worrying about Marian and Of course I also Corkie. little later in the afternoon one of our fighters came in and began to circle the field, fluttering like a wounded bird. I could see it was lomething serious guessed even then an aileron might be shot away, so I gave him the green light to come in and land. He began to make passes at the field, cutting his throttle to pick out the strip of straight sand through the bomb craters, marked by a maze of red flags wed put up. But each time hed throttle back his left wing would drop and hed have to gun her again, making a slow climbing circle up A i ffie darkness, and pray the leak didn t get worse or a hot exhaust stack didnt set it off in mid-aiWe chanced it, and made it all right, but it turned out to be my last trip, because the next day the Japs came back and put out of commission what was left of Clark Field. 1 got the story from Eddie Oliver, who had been my navigator on Old 89 he and I were the only survivors of the entire crew when he got down to Del Monte a few days later. The Japs, having reccoed Dark Field thoroughly, came over all ready for business. Some guy had carelessly left a pillow exposed in the cornfield, so they knew wed been sleeping there. They blew hell out of it with their e stuff, and didnt touch the regular flying field, which theyd put out in the first days raid. Then their fight-er- s came over and with incendiaries set fire to the nipa shacks which had been our quarters. In them was everything I owned, including the watches, diaries, and wallets which had belonged to the crew of Old 99. It was now hopeless to operate front Dark, everyone saw. Any-wathe Japs had landed light tanks on the coast at Apari, so five hundred rifles were issued to what ground personnel we had left there and they went off with infantry units to chase them out if they could. The poor devils ended up on Bataan. So here we were now at Del Monte, about fifteen Fortresses in all, but patched up and in such bad r. high-altitud- y, y 'Vi IB he ick eft as be We the Fortresses the red light stay in the air, and I began to worry about this. Maybe orders bad been issued to bring them in, but someone had failed to notify me. Some of them would circle for a while, and then would head on back for Del Monte, more than six hundred miles away, while they still had enough gas to get there. Finally old Jim Connally said the hell with it, and came on in without my giving him any light at all He needed more gas to get back to Mindanao and couldnt perch up there all day, and a little after this the Colonel said I could give the others the green light to come in nd gas up, although any hour, any minute, we were expecting the Japs back. He wanted to save those remaining Forts at any cost. We got out of bed just as dawn was breaking and, folding our sheets inside our brown blankets so no white would show, stuffed them under the khaki cots we didnt want anything that would indicate on a Jap recco picture that we were now deeping in that field. The Japs were feccoing the hell out of the place with e cameras, two or three times daily. I spent the next day in the tower and it was much like the first, it was plainer and plainer that we would have to abanden Clark. So the next morning the evacuation began. They gave me one of the planes they had patched up, and A1 Mueller and I made two trips back and forth to Del Monte loaded down with members of the ground crews who were to service our planes giving to high-altitud- ex-ee- pt 6-- 41 at Del Monte. Ill never forget my last trip It was at night of course it wasnt safe to leave a plane on die ground by day at Clark any toore. We were taking off at three to the morning in order to be through ut. die danger zone bad almost no while they were oft oatt 0Bf eic irelli ono it iff Sts ly ee 1 vortW toi by dawn, and Id sleep at all. But warming the motors they came running to me with jbe news that there was a pretty leak in my fuel line. So what to hell to do? I could wait while Jbey ripped a fuel line from one of e semiwrecked Forts standing around on the field, and installed it rnine. But by then it would be well after dawn, and if we encountered Jap fighters, there Id be, With sergeants stuffed into every corner of the plane, so that we wouldnt have room to swivel a e gun in our own defense. Or we cbuld tape up our leaky e Bet the hell out of thera in ma-rhin- I him. He didnt laugh because I wanted to work without pay he couldnt have been nicer. He showed me huge piles of applications for aviation-cadet assignments in the Air Corps that were coming in. I could needed everything, said Ground crews, pilots, copilots, And to make it worse, our own group commander, Colonel Eubank, had been hurt and was in Manila hospital. "We were getting more and more uneasy. Here we were, comfortable on this beautiful field. It was as peaceful as Dark Field had been before December eighth. Wed fled from Dark down here to Mindanao, and even as we were arriving the Japs were putting troops ashore at the southern tip of this same island, where thirty thousand Japanese farmers had taken over the city of Davao on the first day. But here at Del Monte we saw people who didnt seem to know a war was on. The only military around was some kind of a transportation outfit. The first day we were there I got hold of a couple of privates and gave them orders to dim out the headlights of every car ne matter whose that approached the field. But the transportation officer decided hed stop all that. It seemed the boys, carrying out my orders, had even stopped a staff car, and the transportation officer explained that they needed! more light Well, our planes were on that field, and I knew the Japs were headed down the coast and would be here soon enough anyway, and I didn't want to attract them any sooner than necessary. But before they did come, the old 19th Bombardment Group or what was left of it got in some mighty hard licks at them. For instance, there was the Le Gaspi Bay mission. Our Intelligence reported a big concentration of Jap ships moving south toward us down the coast of Luzon. Of course that meant the handwriting on the wall for us, particularly if one was a carrier with Zeros which would presently be in range of us and could strafe us on the ground remember we hadnt a single American fighter within five hundred miles. "Sure enough. Intelligence presently reported that they thought one of this concentration was a carrier, and now they were just off Le Gas-p- i. It was up to us to take off and do what we could. Wed been working like hell to get the planes in shape, and finally had six which we thought could complete the mission and get home. But remember Old 99 was back on Dark, and I was a planeless pilot. So it ought to be Harrys story he was navigator on Jack Adams plane. Frank. the field. , It began to get me. Come on, son, come on, put it down, before we get into trouble. On the last trial he gunned it, came around, and then tried to pull up straight, but too late. Teetering down the field, he caught one wing on one of our slightly 'iamaged Fortresses, tearing it off, Vrd then himself cartwheeled off into y ne trees killing a sergeant who had been working on a plane back there. The pilot wasnt hurt much himself, but one more of our precious few was gone. But, following orders, I was still He wasnt thinking about how many grass tons that Jap ship displaced. we were lucky if we could get half a dozen off the ground at repair any one time. But otherwise it was a lovely setup. A pretty turf field right up against the big pineapple cannery the executives had used it for their little private planes before the war. A country club these executives had built, swell food (until we ate it all up), a swimming pool, turf tennis courts even a few white women, which set all the boys staring but not an antiaircraft gun or a fighter plane to protect us for hundreds of miles around. "Pretty soon we improvised our A couple of ships own ack-accracked up, and we jerked their guns out of them and installed them in sandbag pits; this would be of some help against strafing if the Japs were accommodating enough to come in low-altitu- low. And one of the first things happened was that we lost that our squadron commander. Major Gibbs He had taken off upder cover of dark ness on a secret mission and did not come back. We never knew what happened. Weeks later the native constabulary of Negros Island was to bring in the cushion of his plane it had cracked up against a mountain in the dark. said Margo, But, sweetheart, first cable. your forgetting youre No, Im not, said Frank. I got it off as soon as I could. All it said, Margo explained, was: Beloved Doing all right under circumstances Wire Eddys broth er. Frank. , Of course I sent the wire, but couldnt understand at all. Eddie, of course, was Franks navigator on Old 99. But what about the other boys? Why hadnt Frank told 'me to wire their families of all the It wasnt like Frank sergeants. to forget "Anyway, all cables are unsatis factory. This one was dated at Ma nila on the seventeenth, so of course Frank had been alive then. But hadnt got it until the nineteenth. Anything could have happened In those two days, and for the first time in my life I was powerless to help him. Id been furiously writing letters still addressing them to Dark Field. Each was a problem because I wanted each to fill a need. Bell Syndicate I couldnt tell him I was worried, because that would be letting him down. He would think I didnt have complete confidence in him. I would start to write the little news about family affairs, and it seemed so trite because maybe hed be reading it in a foxhole, not having eaten for a week. Maybe hed be woundedAnd maybe each one would be the last letter he would get for a long while the only thing hed hear from me. Then I had to do something about myself I could see that Sitting in my room thinking, I would go to pieces. And 1 wanted to get started doing something useful before Christmas. Back in October Frank promised me hed call on Christmas Day, and now I realized Id been building on hearing his voice then more than I knew. I also realized that maybe he wouldnt be able to. If that call didnt come through, it would be hard for me to take. My little brother (hea a fighter pilot now) was getting married out on the Coast during the holidays. They were asking me to go out. But suppose Frank did call me Christmas, and missed me? I decided to wait in Omaha for that call. But Just waiting would drive anyone crazy. I wanted to help to get close to the Air Corps. So I went down to Colonel Houghlands office he was air officer of our 7th Corps area in Omaha and put it up to help, he explained, by classifying and filing these, getting them in their proper groups, help speed up the stream of reinforcements which the boys out East would need so badly we didnt dream how badly. off ew Can You Do It? W.N.U.TEATURM said Harry Schrieber, the navigator, it was like this. The six of us were to start at ten oclock, and Jim Connally rolled out first, and got a flat tire right on the one wing into the throwing ground and crumpling it. That left five, and it wasnt so good, because there is safety in numbers in Fortresses the more of them that go over a target together, the more fire power you can bring to bear against the Zeros, and the more Forts will get back home. But anyway we started. The pilots jvere Shorty Wheless, Pease, Lee Coats, Vandevanter, Jmd of course Jack Adams I was his navigator. We are flying in formation to our agreed rendezvous, in case we got lost In heavy weather a point miles due west of our tarthirty-fiv- e get and we are due to be there in two hours and fifteen minutes after our start Well, runway-- TO BE CONTINUED) WNU Feature. Dressed Up. A LL dressed up in a three-piec- e ensemble, the youngster oi one to six years will be as pretty as a picture in this set. The bolero-typdress, matching bonnet and panties are perfect for spring wear! The four of them lived with great gaiety and courage and infinite adventures. e By KATHLEEN NORRIS AN you write your soldier or sailor or marine or airman that life is going to be wonderful for him when he comes home? Can you truthfully tell him that all is serene at home, all small frictions smoothed out, everything going well, and everyone waiting for the glorious news of the peace that will bring him back? Are you making definite postwar plans for him, so that has always dreamed of being an engineer, or an airman, or a doctor; the means and the way will be ready for him? Are you watching national if he legislation closely, so that you can write your congressman urging the passage of this bill or asking the suppression of that? Are you out of debt, and putting bonds safely into that little deposit box at the bank, so that when he comes home he will have a little nestegg that will enable him to take a breathing spell when he is honor ably discharged from the service? A nestegg that will spare him the bitter humiliation of job bunting among the luckier fellows who had flat feet or bad eyes, and so could stay safe at home and progress in their jobs from promotion to promotion, while he was saving the civilization of the world? Do you write him all your petty troubles? That everyone has flu, that Papa is worried about the doctors! bill, that his wife, pretty little Betsy who cried so hard when he went away, seems to be having pretty good time with the boys from camp; that you have to move and there isnt anywhere to go; that everyone hopes that this senseless war soon will be over, it wont accomplish anything anyway, and that his old chum Tom has been made one of the banks vice presidents, imagine that at 31! Women actually do write letters like that More than one heartsick, swamp-soake- d homesick, mosquito-bitten- , boy has sent such letters to me with comments that ask, sometimes in extremely violent terms, what the heck? Any woman who writes such letters belongs to the Fifth Column. What those boys ought to hear is that we are proud of them down to the last fiber of our minds, souls, and bodies; that cruel and aggres sive nations must learn that they may neither torture their own peoples nor swarm like pirates over the borders of peaceable countries, and that they our boys, are teaching them that lesson, swiftly, decisively, and God willing! for all time. That we know God IS willing, and that we believe it will be tor all time, and that when the boys come back they shall have a hand in deciding just how it shall be done. That nothing that we have to face at home, in the way of taxes, privations, shortages, food stamps, shoe stamps, is anything more than a joke compared to what they are sacrificing and risking. Or better yet, a challenge, a chance to show our fighting men that in our way we ENCLOSE A SMILE! All of us know the importance of mail to our men on the fighting fronts. All of us know that despite whatever little sacrifices we make at home that he is making the greatest. While he is thousands of miles away that soldier, sailor or marine of ours his desire for news of what takes place at home is a keen one. When he doesn't receive his quota of letters naturally he's apt to feel letdown. Its up to all of us to provide our servicemen with the news of what we are doing to safeguard his interests at home while he is protecting ours. When we write let's not mention our petty troubles. That everyone has the flu; that Papa is worried about bills; or that the wife who cried when he left seems to be having a pretty good time since hes gone. Lets make the mail cheerful. Let him know that were doing our utmost to see that things will be pretty smooth sailing when he returns. Enclose a smile; pack a lot of laughs in letters to him. You can do itl are eager to go as far as they are going. So if you are dragging along in the usual way, letting bills accumulate, grumbling about inconveniences, not too scrupulous about a here and little there, living up to the last cent of your income and generally a little more, then pull yourself up! right now with a jerk. Whatever your income is, did it ever occur to you that you could live on exactly half of it, if you had to? This is the simple truth. Millions of families are living on half your income, and living respectably, too. There is a widow in my town who found herself left 15 years ago, with three children to care for on She never took one $60 a month. penny of help. She rented a cottage for $11 a month, and the four of them lived: oh, not easily, not luxuriously, but with great gaiety and courage. Today she runs a small restaurant for a good salary. Two girls are married, one has a job with the telephone company; the son is down in southern seas with the fleet When he comes home a present from his mother and sisters is going to be a small but profitable newspaper and magazine business. The old man from whom they bought it will run it until he gets back. Then Diuck can either carry it on or sell it anyway, its a temporary solution of that bitter problem that cost our men such humiliation after the last war. There were men in uniform asking you huskily for mutey for a cup of coffee, after the last war. In England, all over Europe yes, and here, too. Some of them wore decorations; some were crippled. Is your boy, after this war, going to be one of them? An A Apron-Dres- s GLORIFIED apron - dress which laps over in the front ind is tied in back by means of the narrow belt. You can make t in an afternoon. Try it in pink candy-strip- materiall e No. 8581 Is In sizes 36. 38. 40, 12, 44, 46, 48, 50 and 52. Size 38 requires yards trim. )? h material. h SEWING CIRCLE PATTERN DEPT. 149 New Montgomery Street San Francisco Calif. ( Encloae 20 cents In coins tor each pattern desired. Pattern 3 yards bias Pattern No. Size.,,,..,, Name Address . , Hear 'em Crackle.' Tlie Kelloggs Rice Krispies equal the whole ripe grain in nearly all the protective food elements declared essential to human nutrition. nr--n 17 innr ir-i- n SEEEEDDS black-marketi- MAXFIELD FEED & SEED CO. Halt Lake Utah West 174 Broadway City, Preserve the American Way of Life By Buying United States War Bonds one-roo- m Blankets Shrink Blankets shrink some in laundering. If they are constantly jerked in pulling them up around the neck, the undue strain hastens the wear ing out of the blanket. Blankets on the market today range from 76 to 90 inches long. The length Is too short tor satisfaction except on childrens bed3. The length is long enough for ordinary use. But if the mattress is very thick or the sleeper very tall, the length is needed for comfort and long wear. h 90-ln- Pack a smile in your letters I 08581 Pattern No. 8584 Is In sizes 1, 2. 3, 4. I and 8 years. Size 2 ensemble requires I material. yards Due to an unusually large demand an current war conditions, slightly more tim is required In filling orders for a few o the most popular pattern numbers. Send your order to: HINTS FOR HOM Hofand BAKIIS a Grand Dessert Snowy-Her- e's fatmk tint dSw UltyNsMr a CXTRA vHtitima INOW IIICUIT Yeast .1 cake Flelschmanns Sssr lasssss' Sift together tour. to dry ingredten- andimad Turn out on floured board moo and cutter. Place on ' d until dXSlckly and lightlybiscuit KS bulk, about Bt 426. K. jS or preserves for a supper dessert treat! FLEISCHMANNS about 20 d RECIPE BOOK NEWIY. REVISED FOR WARTIME! Clip and paste on a penny post card lor your frt copy of Fisttrhmsnni newly re- vised The Breed Basket." Dosens of easy recipes for breed, mils, desserts. Addrsee Standard Brands, Grand Can tral Annex, Box 477, New York 17, N. Y., Shm |