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Show i Its Simple Furniture With Quaint Ruffles arid Frills for the Home 0 4 ns MY c-p- Col. Robert FOREWORD The author, CoL Robert L. Scott Jr., served under my command from July 1, 1942, to January 9, 1943, as of my fighter force. The only criticism of his actions as group commander was that he consistently scheduled himself as a pilot on all possible missions. He led all types of combat missions but specialized in the most e flights to dang rous, such as strafe from minimum altitude Jap airdromes, motor vehicles, and shipping deep in enemy territory. It was often necessary for me to forbid his participation in combat missions in order to enable him to discharge the many other duties of a group commander. His story is a record of persistence, determination, and courage from early boyhood. Having determined early in life that he had to fly, he overcame all obstacles in the way to the attainment of his ambition. This story alone should be an inspiration to every American boy. Having become a military pilot, his determined struggle to meet the ere emy and his glorious record first, as a " One Man Air Force and later, as com--i mander of the American Fighters in China, should be an inspiration to all Americans of all ages. Colonel Scotts group of fighters a ways operated against greatly superior numbers of the enemy. Often the odds were five to one against them. Their planes and equipment were usually battered by hard usage and supplies were extremely limited. Both Scott and his handful of pilots had one resource in unlimited quantities courage. T hey also possessed initiative and a never-failindesire to destroy the enemy. They wore themselves out doing the work of ten times their number. They demonstrated time and again that American pilots and planes are superior to the Japs. The results which they achieved prove indisputably that the enemy can be destroyed or driven from China if adequate equipment and supplies are made available. The offensive spirit displayed by Scott and his early pilots lives on in the men who replaced them. They impatiently await the weapons needed to drive on into the heart of Japan end to final victory. C. L. CHENNAVLT, Major General, A. V. S, Commanding, 14th Air Force. pom-jnand- long-rang- , g AUTHORS NOTE My decision for the title of this book was probably made back there in Kunming one afternoon as the doctor dug those five rivet heads from my back. They had been driven in when a Jap explosive bullet hit the armor plate behind my seat To keep my mind oft the pain the big Cantonese intern of Doctor Man-gets kept talking to me. He seemed to find it hard to believe that I flew the little fighter alone that I dropped the bombs fired the six machine guns changed the fuel tanks navigated and landed the fighter. Finally, with disbelief in his eyes, he looked at me and said, Colonel, you are up there all alone even talk over the radio when you shoot the guns? As I waited for him to go on with another question, I heard the old doctor say, No, son youre not up there alone not with all the things you come through. You have the greatest co- pilot in the world even if there is just room for one in that fighter ship no, youre not alone. I believe when this war is over that we will be closer to God than at any time in the past. I believe this because I have seen instances of real faith on all fronts. Take for instance: Just the other day a song came out, Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer. That could have been conceived as a title or as the theme of the song only by some real event. A ship landed with an engine shot away the fuselage gutted hy fire and the plane riddled with bullets. One of the war correspondents hurried out to the wounded pilot and asked, How in the world did you bring this ship in . . .? The pilot shook his head, smiled and replied, I dont know ask the Man upstairs. We who fly are going to get to that Great Flying Boss in the hy better and better. My personal ambition is that He permit me to E0 again into combat against the JaP or the Hun; that He help me Just a little to shoot down a d Jap ships even a thousand. Then I hope He lets me come back to tell another story. Im going to uame that one the sequel to this OD IS STILL MY R. L. S. mow hun-jh-e- one-G- CHAPTER I Even the angels in heaven must have shrugged their wings after the ' few seconds of my first flight. For home in Macon, Georgia, in i"20 I must have been, even at age the vandal type. There I ehmbed the steeple of the Baptist and from the belfry took twelve whitish pigeons, carried them .t a of Holy Rollers, .ud at the tense moment of fanatic ,?rayer released them. I can nearly splitting my sides ,aughing at what happened the arkies were rolling on the sawdust i or. They were rolling their eyes ud h yelling, Gideon, Gideon glory, glory! I suppose the jugeons really did look like doves I twelve, tent-meeti- er hal-euia- Peace. mlt L. Scott V.NU RELEASE But I had reckoned without the old preacher, who had me arrested for disturbing the noisy peace. When I got out of jail, more embarrassed than anything else, I swore vengeance on the Holy Rollers and the old preacher. Early one morning while delivering papers I took a razor blade and cut off fifty feet of canvas from the side wall of the converted circus tent took it away and hid it in the woods. I had no use for the purloined canvas, and to excuse myself from a nagging conscience I tried to forget it But every morning I saw the jagged hole that I had made for vengeance. Later on I decided to build a glider, and for wingcovering the canvas was ideal. Then, with the cloth stretched over the ribs of the airfoils and varnished for tightening, even with American insignia painted on the fuselage, I found myself ready to fly. Two of my friends helped me pull it to the roof of a high colonial home in Macon, and with them steadying the wings I ran down the sloping roof and flew out into space. Now in those days I knew nothing of main-spar"center sections, or With a crack like the closing of the jail door, the wing buckled in the center and I crashed sixty-seve- n feet to the ground. The Cherokee rose bush that sacred State flower of Georgia into which I fell probably saved my life, but the thorns stayed with me for a long time. Alter my father had pulled me from the wreckage more scared than hurt I was ordered to tear the glider apart. I did, but saved canvas for other plans. the Later on it was used to cover the barrel-stav- e ribs of a home-mad- e canoe which was intended to transport me down the Ocmulgee River to the sea, some twelve hundred miles away as the winding river ran. I had made about six hundred miles of the trip when the sailing canoe eaught on a snag and the current rolled us to the muddy bottom, tangled in the rope rigging of the sail. In the seconds that followed I nearly drowned I saw my whole misspent life parade before my eyes. Finally the rope broke and I swam ashore; but I had already decided to leave the sacred canvas, seasoning forever, at the bottom of the Ocmulgee River. Once again my mind turned to flying. I confined my aircraft construction to scale models, and finally made a flying one which won the first Boy Scout Aviation merit badge in that part of the country. I when General Mitchell (Billy Mitchell) led a flight of fastthrough the home looking MB-3- s town. I crawled into one of the baggage compartments in hopes that I would be flown on to Florida in k But the this flight. mechanics found me, and I missed making the pursuit ship any than it normally was. It was far back, when I was four or five, that I had seen my first airplane. A pilot by the name of Ely spun in and was killed, and my horrified mother dragged me from the scene. It most certainly should have been an ill omen for my flying future. However, I know that it whetted my appetite to fly. I liked anything that flew and freed one from the earth, but most of all I prayed that destiny would make me a pilot of the fast, little single-seater- s a fighter pilot. s, wing-loadin- ill-fat- dawn-to-dus- tail-heavi- er In 1921 I read of an auction sale of war-tim- e Jennys in Americus, Georgia. Gathering the largest fortune that I could collect, I drove n Model-racing Ford to my buy myself a real plane. As the auctioneers hammer hit the block for the first time that morning I opened with my maximum bid Seventy-fiv- e dollars! The auctioneer did look but the look was merely a way, my frown. Far in the back of the hangar a heavy voice called, "Six hundred dollars. And to this fat man the Jennys went, one by one. I must have bid over a hundred times before the morning had gone the sale had stopped for lunch and had been resumed. That afternoon I kept bidding, and dollars for as I said "Seventy-fiv- e about my hundredth time, I heard heavy breathing over my right shoulder. I turned to look at the man who had been overbidding me, and the deep voice said, Now listen, son, Im going to let you have dolthis one for your seventy-fiv- e lars. Get it and get the hell out of here, because Im buying all the rest for an airline. Anyway I had a real plane, all crated up. I hauled it home on a truck, hid it in another boy's garage so my parents couldnt find out about it, and began trying to assemble the parts. For days and weeks I worked, but couldnt get the knack of it. Finally I received a letter from a street-ca- r conductor who said he had been a pilot in the war. He offered to help me put the Jenny together, and teach me to fly and navigate, if I would give him use of over the plane for barnstorming the State on week-endcut-dow- T s. The partnership began. He taughl me some fundamentals, like taxyinj faster and faster until the ship wai almost ready to take off. I went to Chandler Field in Atlanta and took several lessons with the instructor! there in Eagles and Jennys, until one day I trusted myself to tak off from the racetrack of my home town fairgrounds. I still dont se the flight, beI with how, got by cause I knew nothing about coordination of controls or the technique of flying though no one seemed to know much about them in those days. But the ship was a pretty safe old crate, the wing skidi saved me from digging a wingtip in on the forthcoming ground-loopand I got away with murder. All of this ended very suddenly. The street-ca- r conductor instructor of mine came back to land one night and hooked the Jennys righl e of a smokewing on the stack. That was the last of him and the last of my Jenny, because they both burned. This Man Just Didn't Appreciate HerFirstAid She was on her way home from a first aid course when she saw a man lying prone in the middleera-ofthe sidewalk. His face was died in one arm; the other arm was twisted under him in a peculiar position. All alert she was, and without a moments hesitation went to got down on her knees and was her opportunity Here work. to prove herself. For a few minutes there was no response, then the victim spoke I dont Lady, he said, up. know what youre doing, but I wish youd quit tickling me. I m this trying tq hold a lantern for and fellow down in the manhole, hes got a fiery temper. SNAPPY FACTS ABOUT RUBBER s, By of reclaimed rubber in the United States increased more than 50 per cent from 1940 to 1943. Reclaimed rubber may frequently be used in the manufacture of the same articles from which it was reclaimed. Consumption Ruth Wyeth Spears IF YOU have been wondering if chine attachments will be learning' and quaintness, frills and ruffles the mysteries of the ruffler were going into the decorating ash hemmer. can after the war, the answer is NOTE Why not start your dream room no. There will be many strictly with a skirted blanket chest like the modern rooms but there will be now one in this sketch? It Is grand to have rooms also in which all the war extra covers handy on chilly nights and In 1943 gasoline and motor longing will burst the padded top makes a comfortable seat. vehicle tax revenues combined years pent-u- p iland 259 fully gives complete forth in the most romantic ver- Pattern accounted for nearly 30 per list of detailed with directions lustrated As the years went on I moved up sions of the traditional Home, cent of the total state revenues. materials needed for making the chest, full in the Boy Scouts until at seventeen, sweet Home with variations ac- skirt and top cushion. Enclose 15 cents Next year will mark the with name and address to get pattern in 1925, I was one of the highest in cording to taste. thirtieth anniversary of the the country, and had more merit Period' themes and quaintness 253. Address: use of motor vehicles in the badges than any other Scout in tha will be stepped up to have a drarural free delivery mail MRS. RUTH WYETH SPEARS mail South. With all of them, however, matic quality. Modern ideas will service. Rubber-tire- d New York Bedford Hills had a bearing on the cars my schooling had suffered, for te creep in and add to this effect. 10 Drawer me flying and athletics came before Simple furniture will be built in passing off the first federal aid highway law in 1916. Enclose 15 cents for Pattern No. 259. books and such. I sometimes think and fabrics will be cut and sewn the only way I ever completed high especially to fit the spaces they Name school was for my patient mother are to fill. The bed curtains for Address and father to promise . to let me the slanting wall in the sketch are work my way to Europe on freightan example and the triangular ers in the summer only when I shaped window curtains to give could pass studies like Spanish and extra fullness. Frills will be even Fancy Appetites English. I dont think, though, that fuller than those of our dreams, my parents kneW I had resolved te and many a homemaker who nevThe motives for the food fancies go to West Point. For after talking er before used her sewing ma- - of certain birds and beasts are te men in the Air Corps I had disundiscoverable. At the London zoo covered that if a boy went to the it has been found that humming Rats Fish With Tails Training center at Brooks Field, birds can be lured to eat simply near San Antonio, as a Flying Caby coloring the receptacles conbarand on uninhabited Rats the det, his future was rather indefinite. ffltnnra-- i taining their food red. subsist New off Guinea ren atolls The Government would train you to reptile-housthe In the which on Iguana they crabs, entirely the course in best the fly, give you world. Then they would order you catch by the unique method of lizard has a positive mania for to active duty as a Reserve Officer dangling their tails in the water yellow or orange fruit, flowers or for about a year. After that, due from the edge of a flat rock. Usu- vegetables, while the giant lizard, Komodo dragon, will to economy programs, it might aO ally, in a matter of minutes, a the crab comes along and grabs a select a white fowl, pigeon or rab- Invest in Liberty be over. and the rodent hauls in the bit to one of a grey, brown or Wanting to fly for the rest of my tail, & Buy War Bonds black hue. catch like a fisherman. life, I had charted my course. 1 resolved to go to the Military Academy and become a regular army officer first; then to be ordered to the Air Corps Training Center as a student officer. After completing the flying course, I would have a lifei ' time in front of me as a pilot in the Regular Army. The greatest fight I ijad was to get Into the Military Academy, for appointments were scarce in the South. I wrote all the Senators and Congressmen in Georgia, but found . they had promised their quotas long before. All such refusals merely made me more determined to win vs the opportunity. I wrote not only my own State political leaders but those of other States. Finally, the rx' Congressman of my Georgia district at the earnest plea of hometown friends who knew of my Boy Scout record gave me second alternate. This proved of little value; the principal won out by merely credits presenting his and passing the physical examination. The next year I was given a first alternate from a Senator but again the principal won. Hope of entering the Academy seemed to wane, for I was approaching maximum age limit for applicants. The same year I tried a competitive examination with the National Guard, but failed the algebra subject. This failure at least proved to me that though my Studies in high school may have been passed, I had learned very little. My stock in myself was at a low efb, there in 1926, when the principal did me the greatest favor in the world by his remark: Well, you really didnt expect to And go to West Point, did you? the smile that accompanied the slur made me swear that by all that was high and holy I would get there. The things that followed were chronologically peculiar for any boy. IU bet Im one of the few in this A his is no dreamed-u- p headline no tone poem conceived on an inspired world who was graduated from high school, attended. two colleges, and typewriter. Its the way the army explains the command Fix bayonets-charg- el, then returned to high school to realOnly the Infantry has it put to them in these words. As one doughboy said: ly get the foundation I had missed. I know I had at last learned that Ill remember those eleven words the rest of my life. what one of the old professors said Remember? How can he fqrget them? They describe the climax 0f the was right: "Not for school, but for describe the most cold-bloodlife, we learn. action on a battleInfantrymans assault-th- ey Returning to my old high school, field. Yet Infantry officers and men have advanced, countless times, to kill or I chose my own courses and subat New Orleans . . . the Argonne . . . New .Guinea . . , be killed ... at Saratoga jected myself to several periods of no Theres and Salerno. mathematics, history, rescinding of this order no retreating no nothing but English every day. The professors, who replain killing. membered me as seldom opening a at one as another book, glanced Right now, the men of the Infantry are closing in for the final kill. Theyre though they thought they had a psyto the order of kill or be killed. Remember advancing every chopathic case on their hands. But see next time a this the you doughboy on furlough. Remember this the next time I acquired some of the knowledge I to almost write that letter. Remember it till your dying day. You had missed, and the next summer forget you June, 19271 went to Fort McPherat least you can be forever mindful of his cant pay the doughboy back-b- ut son and enlisted in the Regular for freedom. this in role fight Army as a private. There I became Private Scott, Serial Number F of the 6355544, in Company 22nd Infantry. Three months later, 'Keep your eye on the Infantry THE DOUGHBOY DOES after a preliminary examination, I began training in the Fourth Corps Area West Point Prep School. guy-wir- MGoodrich AESOP e, ft 5 "AH officers end men will advance to kill or be kitted" high-scho- ol high-scho- ol ed ... day-advan- cing m n cnNTTNiimn , j ( , t , |