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Show . Gl (3 ID IB MY p?T mt CO-PMLOT Iff Col. Robert L. Scoff w.nu R&LE.A&E. "tSJi-. of cultivation the boy, standing with his feet on the wooden scraper, was using hij own weight to make it scratch the mud. but was holding on to the water buffalo, with his hand gripping the tail of the ponderous animal. Landing at the threatened airdrome, air-drome, I put the General's plan into immediate effect. I commandeered the necessary transportation on Yeching field and placed it ready for the instant movement move-ment of pilots to their dispersed fighters, which were scattered to all parts of the airdrome. The P-40's were pointed in the direction of a run for immediate take-off. All this was to save even the barest minimum mini-mum of lost time, for when the alert came we would have to move fast and furious. Every one of the thirty pilots was kept on alert, and constant patrols were begun at dawn. We sent two ships above the field at seven o'clock and doubled the number at nine. At eleven o'clock we doubled again and continually con-tinually had eight high in the sky. The Jap had attacked the day before be-fore at 2:35 in the afternoon, or 14:35. The General had told me Little Miaow children holding Christmas geese for Col. Scott. T'"V J ;us tar: After graduadne fror. lint, Robert Scott wins his winua at K?..y Field, Texas, and takes np combat flylne. He has been an Instructor for four years when the war breaks out, and Is told he Is now too old for combat flylnr. After appealing to several Generals Gen-erals he Is offered an opportunity to get Into the fight. On arriving in India he is made a ferry pilot, but this does not uit Scott, who talks Gen. Chennault Into giving him a Klttyhawk for combat Hying. Hy-ing. Soon he Is flying over the skies of Burma and becomes known as the "one man air force." Later he Is made CO. of the 23rd Fighter Group, but be still keeps knocking Jap planes out of the akies. chapter xxvni It looked as if we'd get the chance very soon, too, for the field in western west-ern Yunnan had been selected by the newly formed Air Transport Command, which was superseding the Ferry Command, as the Eastern terminus of the route to China. For the purpose of security in future operations, I will not name our base in western Yunnan. But there was a big turquoise-blue lake less than ten miles away which the General and I called Yeching. To us that meant "good hunting," for ducks and geese abounded. The landmark for our base was Just one of the many lakes In Yunnan. Next morning I went out on Lake Yeching, and from the bow of a Dative sampan I soon shot eighteen of the biggest geese I had ever seen. Even if we were remote from the loved ones at home, we'd have meat for Christmas dinner that was filled with the vitamins we needed. I had hurried back to the field before be-fore taking off for Kunming with my report on the efficiency of the warning net, and was taking pictures pic-tures of some little mongol-appear-lng Miaows who were holding my geese aloft when we had an air raid alert. There was heavy engine-noise from the reporting stations sta-tions over towards Burma. We tossed the eighteen geese into the baggage compartment, winding their necks around among the conduits con-duits of the radio so that the cargo wouldn't shift, and I took off for Kunming. Kun-ming. Then as I heard more reports from the Southwest, I turned South, joined the other fighters on patrol, and looked for the enemy. In about forty-five minutes we spread out to cover more territory, and I caught sight of two enemy planes Zeros I thought, at first sight. I called to the others and attacked. Even as I approached the Japs I knew they were too slow and too large for Zeros. Then I saw that they were single-engine reconnaissance-bombers. I caught the rear one and gave It a short burst, keeping my eye on the other. The first one went down with most of one wing gone. The next I chased down every valley val-ley on the Mekong, getting In several sev-eral good shots, but I never did see him go down or crash. From the evidence of the thin trail of smoke that I last saw coming from it as I dove and circled to look around again, I claimed it as a "probable." The first one I had confirmed as a "certain." The others in our patrol engaged four other planes and probably prob-ably shot down two of them. The General had been correct as usual the Japs were keeping the end of the ferry route under close surveillance. surveil-lance. Christmas night, while we were enjoying the geese, George Hazelett came in with his Squadron to report that the Japs had bombed our base near Lake Yeching with eighteen ships on that afternoon of Christmas Day, and the first warning the field had was the sight of the enemy bombers in the clear blue Yunnan sky. Luckily the bombing had missed the field and no ships were damaged, but many Chinese in the vjl'ase had been killed. Deflnite--ie warning net in western Yun-made Yun-made the operation of the A import Command at Yeching ' JrAous. I could tell by the Gen-is Gen-is face that he had some plans he would tell me about in private. The General had been sick with a cold over Christmas and had a fever fe-ver that night, when he told me what he had to do at Yeching. At dawn the next morning December 26th in China, but actually Christmas Christ-mas Day in America I took off with full Instructions. When I left, the Doctor told me General Chennault was running a temperature of 103. All of us were worried about him, and knew that the defeats on Christmas Christ-mas Day hadn't helped his spirits. As I flew West towards Yeching, 145 miles away, in the half light I saw the coolies carrying drums of gasoline on wheelbarrows up the Burma Road. Some of these I knew would go on through Kunming to Chungking, 390 miles away by air. Trundling these crude wooden, wheeled vehicles of the ages gone-by, gone-by, these patient workers would require re-quire seventy days of constant effort, ef-fort, at their dogged trot, to reach the capital at Chungking. The two-wheeled two-wheeled Peking carls with three drums would take a shorter time 44 days. I saw coolie boys plowing in the rice paddies halfway up the sides of the mountains paddies built like steps from the top of the hill to the valley, so that the irrigation water wa-ter could be used over and over. laughed as I saw the ancient means I We made the attack from three directions simultaneously. Lieutenant Lieuten-ant Couch led his ships on a stern attack that I did not see, for I was diving on the course of the bombers bomb-ers from the flank where the low sun was. I was going in for a full-deflection full-deflection shot from out of thaj sun, for I had planned this method of how I wanted to attack a bomber formation long ago. On my wings were six fighters in two ship elements. ele-ments. In Couch's flight were four fighters, and Hazelett had four coming com-ing from above the Japs on the other oth-er flank. I had to dive from 20,000 feet to 17,000 feet to get on the level with the enemy formation, and when I got there I had plenty of excess speed over the Japs. I passed them rapidly from out of their range, but could see their tracers curving short of my flight. When I had overrun over-run them a thousand yards, I turned right into the bombers and we went after the three Vee's of Mitsubishi bombers. By being on the same level with them I'm sure we caused part of the enemy formation to blanket blan-ket out some of their own ships from firing at us. I opened fire from six hundred yards and led the enemy leader by at least a hundred yards; it must have been just right, for the tracers seemed to go into the top of the wing. I just held the trigger down and kept going into the sides of the Japs they blossomed out of the sky at me, growing larger and larger, "mushrooming" in my windshield. wind-shield. As the bombers passed by, my bullets were raking them with full-deflection shots, and as fast as my formation turned the other five men were doing the same. I saw the lead bomber climb a little, then settle set-tle back towards the formation with one wing down. As I saw the second Jap in front of me the left wing man of the leader I realized I'd have to dive under the enemy very soon or I'd run into them. Things hit my ship now, and with noise Ike a wing coming off, the side glass of my windshield was shot out. I was three hundred to two hundred yards from the second bomber when I got my long burst into it. There was a flash ahead, and I dove as fast as I could shove the nose down. As I went under the smoke and orange or-ange flame, I thought that the Jap I was shooting at had caught fire, but as I pulled around, back to the direction direc-tion the formation had been going, and climbed, I saw what had happened. hap-pened. There was only smoke above, and the formation had broken, for I knew the bomber had exploded the bombs had been detonated by the fifty-calibre fire. Behind, over the trail the Japs had come were four plumes of smoke where their bombers bomb-ers were going down. Below there were bomb bursts all over the paddy pad-dy fields where bombs had been jettisoned jet-tisoned in the unanticipated interception. inter-ception. I pulled up behind one of the lone bombers that I could see and began to shoot at it methodically methodical-ly from long range. Over on the left were three more, and I saw P-40's making passes at them. Over the radio I could hear happy American English, with unauthorized swear words aimed at the Jap that the individual pilot was shooting at, and by the tone of the pilots I knew that we were winning this battle and that the General was also going to be very happy. From 800 yards I'd squeeze out a short burst at one engine, then skid over and aim carefully at the other engine and throw out another short burst. The Jap ship was diving with all the speed he could get, but the P-40 kept moving up. I think all their ammunition was gone, for I saw no tracers. In my second burst on the right engine I saw some gray smoke thin, like gasoline overflowing overflow-ing a tank and blowing back into the slipstream. The next time I came over behind that engine from clos, er range I saw two red dots near the engine, two dots that became fire. The flame ran to the jengine 1 and to the fuselage, but by that time I was over shooting at the other engine again. I last saw the bomber diving, with flames that were orange against the green of the mountains below. There were no more bombers to , be seen, but I saw seven P-40's. Clinger came over and got on my , wing; as I recognized his ship I slid my hatch-cover back and waved at him. Even before we landed I thought that we had gotten all the bombers. As we circled the field, with me trying to dodge the cold air that was knifing through the hole in my windshield and bringing a particle of glass against my face every ev-ery now and then, I realized why we still had to wear goggles in flght-, flght-, er ships in combat. Below on the Yunnan hills. I saw eight forest- fires that could have been started j only by burning airplane wrecks, , for they had not been there when I took off. I kept some of the planes up for 1 top-cover while we landed those that - were shot up or low on fuel. Later, I when I had the combat reports made s out before the pilots could talk the ' battle over between them, the "cer- tains" out of the nineteen that had - come in nine fighters and nine r bombers and one observation plane i were fifteen. (TO BE CONTINUED) many times of the propensity of the Japanese for the exact duplication of former military operations. We were going to get gradually more vigilant and stronger above the field for the expected blow. At the same time we were going as far as was commensurate with safety to conserve con-serve the invaluable aviation gasoline. gaso-line. Most of the fighters kept right over the field or slightly away in the direction of the expected attack from Burmese bases. Four fighters fight-ers began to patrol from Yeching to the Mekong, on course to Lashio and seventy miles from where we were waiting. At two o'clock I sent all planes into the sky except mine. I sat in that On the ground, listening for Harry Har-ry Pike's expected report from his patrol to the Mekong River. I was within shouting distance of the ground radio operator, who would tell me of any developments on the weak-functioning warning 'net. The Jap would come today, I knew, between be-tween two and four that's 14:00 to 16:00 hours. At 14:54 I saw the radio operator wildly running for my ship. He yelled, "Report from W-7 says heavy engine noise coming this way the report is right recent." I was already al-ready energizing my starter when Harry Pike called excitedly: "Here they come fighters and bombers I'm just East of the river." I knew then that the Japs were close to fifty miles away; we had all we could do to get set and be waiting for them. When Pike called in, as I got the engine started, I heard that the Japs were at seventeen thousand, and I called to him to take the fighters, for I hoped by that move to make the bombers come in unescorted. From Yeching at its level of 6500 feet I was climbing with full gun, climbing for all the altitude I could grab. I watched the temperature but drew all the boost I could without with-out detonating too badly. At exactly three o'clock I reached twenty thousand thou-sand feet and picked up most ol my Group, which today was made up of Hazelett's Squadron. Just six minutes from the time I had given the ship the gun, I saw flashes reflected by Japanese windshields wind-shields in the sun. They weren't fai away, but I grinned for they were below us. I heard from the chattel on our frequency that there was s fight going on towards were Pike had seen the formation cross the river. As the enemy ships materialized materi-alized on the horizon, I knew thai Pike had done his job well, for there was only one fighter with the bomb ers as escort one fighter with nine heavy bombers. I think I knew ther that we were going to make it tougr for the Japs. I called for the attack, in ordei to get the enemy before he coulc bomb the field. As I dove for the attack that I had always longec for, I saw one P-40 take the lone - Zero head-on and shoot it down, anc I knew from the way the shark i nosed ship pulled up in his chan delle of glory that Dallas Clingei had become an ace with his fiftl I enemy ship. |