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Show a (SflMD) ns MY 0m VL- CdD-PIILCDT wf .-aV2feCol. Robert L.Scott wnu release The story thus far: After graduating from Weit Point ai second lieutenant, Robert Scott win hit wings at Kelly Field and Uket op pursuit flying. When the war breaki ont he li an Infractor In California and told he I too old for combat dying. He appeali to several Generali for a chance to fly a combat plane and finally the opportunity comet. He fliei bomber to India, where he becomei a ferry pilot, but this doei not appeal to him. After a visit with Gen. Chennault be gets a Klttyhawk and toon becomes a "one man air force" over Burma. He Is made commanding officer of the Mrd fighter group, taking over the AVG, and Is ordered to proceed to Kwellln area to take charge. CHAPTER XVI Well, the lost leader looked at his map and still couldn't see how he was North of the course and really past his destination. So he began to argue again. The old Navy operator op-erator stood the bickering as long as he could; then he "took over." With the initiative he had devel-oped, devel-oped, he gave off some of the most classic advice that I've ever heard, and he gave It straight from the shoulder. "Goddamit," he called, "who the hell's lost, you or me? Now you fly the course I'm telling you and we'll meet you." And so another man of the Occl-dent Occl-dent failed to change the East, and in failing learned a little and became be-came little more like the East It saved twenty-five airplanes. People have asked me what made me able to shoot down my first Jap, and probably they expected me to say that I had practised on tow targets until I could put every shot In the black. Or that I had been to all the schools from Leavenworth to Mount Holyoke, and had learned tactics. Or perhaps that I was better bet-ter at piloting than the Jap. I must have disappointed them. For If any one thing more than another enabled me to meet the Japanese fighter pi-, pi-, lots In the air and shoot them down while I escaped. It was an American flrL First of all, I don't know exactly what democracy Is, or the real, com-' com-' mon-sense meaning of a republic. But as we used to talk things over in China, we all used to agree that we were fighting for The American Girl. She to us was America, Democracy, De-mocracy, Coca Colas, Hamburgers, Clean Places to Sleep, or The American Amer-ican Way of Life. Early one morning July 31, 1942 I took off from Kunming headquarters head-quarters to return to the eastern theater at Kweilin and Hengyang. High mountains are on this five-hundred-mile route to the East, and I went on top of the overcast right away. From my twenty-thousand-foot altitude I kept looking down at the solid cloud layer Just below me, nd I guess that subconsciously I prayed there would be breaks at my destination. There were mountains at my destination too, and it's still not the best feeling to have to dive through overcast into hilly country with a fighter ship or with any ship, for that matter. As the minutes rolled by and the miles spun behind the P-40. I still didn't see the welcome shadow of a hole In the clouds. In Just a little over two hours I arrived over the point above the clouds where Ling-ling Ling-ling should have been. You see this point was In flat country, and between be-tween Kweilin and Hengyang. By Intentionally making an error to the North I knew at least what side of Kweilin I was on, and knew furthermore further-more that I could go down much more safely there than farther South in the mountains that surrounded Kweilin. I called Llngling over the radio, but before I could get a reply, Sas-ser, Sas-ser, the operator at Kweilin, broke In with an "alert" warning. He said: "Chinese net reports noise of enemy airplanes coming up the Can-ton-Hengyang Railway at high altitude. al-titude. Last report' Section A S." Looking at my map, which was marked off In squares with letter and numeral co-ordinates, I saw that I was very close to that section. But at the same time I was really not oriented as to position, and was Into the last twenty or so gallons of my fuel. Here was a chance at last to Intercept enemy planes; by the time the P-40'i from our fighter stations sta-tions could get there, the enemy would have gone on with their mis-lion. mis-lion. What was I to do? As I considered it for the second that was necessary to make up my mind, I remember thinking that my loss of this ship would be Justified If I shot a Japanese ship down, and if I was out of fuel above the clouds I could dive down and land In a rice paddy. That would be an even trade. But I guess my ego thought I could shoot the whole formation down and the exchange of the Japanese flight for my one ship would certainly be favorable to our side. Calling to Sasser. I told him I thought I was Just East of Linking and very close to the Jap formation, and was going to try to intercept. I dove down until I was Just over the tops of the clouds, at 17,600 fret. I dodged In among the tops of the flulTy cumulus, looking ahead for the first sign of the black silhouette of an airplane.' As the enemy ships had been reported heading North, I estimated where they should now be and flew to Intercept them. I'll never forget I had Just looked at the fuel gauge for the hundredth time, and as my eyes left the Instrument In-strument board to go back to my diligent search. I saw the clock, and the hour was 9:08. At that Instant I saw an enemy airplane one silhouette. sil-houette. From that second on, I know I moved automatically. I saw that on our courses we were going to meet head-on. The other ship was now much nearer, and closing fast. It was a twin-engine bomber and was right down low over the clouds, Just as I was. Down below now were holes In the overcast and I imagine the bomber was trying to locate Its po-sition po-sition to go down through. He didn't see my ship, and I kept hidden by the clouds as much as possible. I felt my left hand go to the instr-ment instr-ment panel to turn on the gun-switch. gun-switch. Then, as I looked at the red switch, I saw that I had evidently turned it on without being conscious of the act. I moved it off. then back on again, as a kind of test. I turned the gun-sight rheostat on and got the lighted sight reflected on my glass armor in front of my eyes. The enemy ship came on, "mushrooming" in my vision; our relative speed of approach was perhaps per-haps five hundred miles an hour. By now I had shoved everything forward on the throttle quadrant the engine was pulling full power, and the prop pitch was set to high speed, low pitch. Then, Just before I pressed the trigger, I saw the other planes, two enemy fighters above and behind be-hind the bomber. I had evidently -. V' " '?-r '?-r ' Ji Some fifty-caliber ammunition for the P-40. not been seen by any of the three ships, tor after all I was coming on very close to the clouds. But I nearly stopped my aiming from the surprise of seeing them. They were about three thousand feet above the bomber, and were weaving back and forth in loose formation. I saw the square wing-tip that told they were Navy Zeros. There flashed in my mind the warning that I had heard from General Chennault about attacking at-tacking bombers when there was fighter escort. Everyone in China had always neglected to consider odds on the side of the enemy they were used to that. Personally, I Just didn't know enough about aerial combat to worry much, or I might have gone on anyway. My six guns would neutralize their four; I could shoot the bomber down and dive into the clouds before the Zeros could get me. I really don't know whether I thought it all out or not, for by now I was shooting. The tracers seemed to go towards the enemy all right, but now the Jap came into my sight so fast that I don't know whether they hit him then or not. I dove right under the nose of the twin-engine twin-engine ship, and I'll bet he was one surprised pilot. I noted that he had started to turn and maybe that made me miss. As the ship crossed over my head, I pulled around In the tightest turn I have ever made, mushing down in the clouds a good distance, and that must have hid me momentarily from the fighter escort As I came out, the bomber was completing its turn opposite to the way I had turned, and I moved in for a full-deflection full-deflection shot a shot possible when the other ship Is crossing your path, at 90 degrees. I had slowed down, however, and had to reef In and shoot at It from beneath and behind. I got a good burst in here. But now I saw tracers all around me and felt a couple of hits: the Zeros were shooting at me. One of the enemy flRhters dove in front of mo and I got a snap shot at it from a hundred yards. I dove under the bomber again, and with the speed that I gained, tried to make a belly att.ick; I got in another shot burst and fell some more hits on my ship. As 1 pulled up. the Zero that hud been shooting at me made the mistake mis-take of rolling at the top of his climb, and I dove at him and gave him about two hundred rounds with a no-ileflrction shot; I know the burst hit him badly. I shot at the other fighter from long range as he tried a head on run. But the clouds were worrying the Japs-they seemed to have trouble teeing me. As my dive at the Zero built my speed up, I turned towards the bomber again; H saw ma and started turn to the right I snapped a short head-on shot, and before I got to the enemy i ship, I tossed caution to the winds and made a hundred and eighty degree de-gree turn the Jap was right In front of my guns and I was already shooting. I held the trigger down and saw the tracers hit the big wing, the fuselage, and saw the glass stream from the canopy. I Just squeezed the trigger and "froze" aa the bomber seemed to come back towards me. As I drew up to less than a hundred hun-dred yards the big red spots on the wing grew wider and wider apart, and I saw pieces come from the left engine. I nearly rammed the enemy I still don't see how I missed the radio antenna pole behind be-hind the glass canopy; I could see the guns waving to and fro, and they shot at me. But the bomber was going down. I didn't pull up as I went past him this time, but dove steeply. When I came out of the dive I looked back for the Zeros but they were not to be seen. Above and behind me, the bomber was spinning slowly in flames, the black smoke making a spiral above the clouds I saw it go into the clouds as I mushed through in my pullout. I came out below the clouds, which were broken in a few places now, but I couldn't see the Jap ships. I made one half circle and didn't know where I was. Finally remembering my fuel supply, sup-ply, I breathlessly glanced at the gauges, and they were all bouncing around on EMPTY! I turned and headed West with my throttle retarded re-tarded and the prop set back for cruising. Now I called Sasser, having hav-ing forgotten to call him at the moment mo-ment of contact with the enemy. I told him about the Interception, that I knew I had shot down the bomber and had gotten some bursts on the fighters. Sasser told me that there was a flight on the way from Hengyang, led by Gil Bright. My altitude was ten thousand now, and I held it while I Just about glided glid-ed with power to the West where I should see the Hengyang-KweUln railroad. As I finished my report over the radio, Sasser in Kweilin told me S-3, and Richardson at Hengyang said S-3 also. But Miller at Llngling told me I sounded very close to his station, and gave me the report S-5. These mean, in radio technical language, that my volume was louder in Llngling than at either of the other two stations. Just then Miller must have received re-ceived a report from a town that heard my engine, for he said, "You're Northeast of the field." I turned a little South and saw the welcome red clay of Llngling. I started feeling happy then I'd been in the air on a cross-country for nearly four hours, and knew that I'd shot down at least one plane. I couldn't buzz the field though, for any minute I expected the engine to cough and the prop to start "windmllllng" out of gas. I put the wheels down and landed without even looking to see which way the wind was on the runway. I got the ship parked without the engine'a dy-ing, dy-ing, but the mechanics said they couldn't see any fuel in the tanks. Rather excitedly I told my story. We counted the holes in my ship and then went over to count those in one of the fighters that had been in another battle that morning. Just then Miller came dashing up in a Jeep to say that my air engagement engage-ment had been reported over Let-yang, Let-yang, sixty miles to the East, and that confirmation had already come in on my bomber. It had crashed and burned eight miles from the town. That noon I was so excited that I couldn't eat my lunch I Just sat there and relived the battle. The sergeant came in to tell me there were seventeen holes In my ship, and two of them were from the cannon of the Zeros they were all back near the tail; so maybe George Paxton had been right, and maybe the little rats couldn't shoot Well, we were to find out during the next ten days, very vividly. I flew on to Hengyang that afternoon, after-noon, and with Lieutenant Cluck in a Jeep we drove to Leiyang. We had information that some of the crew or passengers had Jumped from the bomber that morning and had been captured, and we needed the prisoners prison-ers for information. With Chinese guides we climbed on foot over the rice paddles built on the hills, towards to-wards the scene of the crashed plane. Even before we'd covered the ten or more miles that we had to walk, I saw evidence of the airplane. air-plane. It seemed as If every coolie that came towards us was carrying a piece of the Jap plane. Near the wreck I saw pieces of aluminum on the houses covering holes in the roofs, and saw some of the clothes I from the Jap airmen. These we examined, and found a notebook, a map, and a pistol. Later the soldiers sol-diers at the wreck gave u a rhut and some other things. When we came to the burned bomber we found it pretty well scattered. scat-tered. The fabric was gone from the pArts that hadn't burned, but the larger part was Just a mass of burned metal. I noticed that the bodies of f mr Japs were lying where they had fatten, and several days later other visitors reported them still in th same positions. I looked In vain through the wreckage for a Samurai sword, which Is the souvenir souve-nir we value most from the Jan. I TO BE CONTINUED! |
