Show QUEENS da PROUDLY WHITE fa THE STORY THUS FAR dent col frnk kurtz pilot ot of a flying fortress dortre s tells in of that fatal day when the japs struck ek in the philippines eight ol of his en were killed hilier fleeing lor for shelter and old oil 99 with joany other fortresses was lied 01 on n the ground after g to 0 Aus australia what Is left ot of the guadron gna dron on fues flies to java where here they to go on M many dr missions ver over the philippines and ja cassar strait sergt boone gunner tells bow to queens die nine forts are out looking for or jap carriers when they meet a right alg of 01 PMs P Ms who fly with ebern TOO late they y discover the forged stars the ilie P los jap planes open up at close range on the tbt forts and three queens go S donn doin in flames CHAPTER XV when that chute cracked open the jerk pitched him out of the harness headfirst head first and as the chute billowed loosely back of the planes tail we saw him dropping down with his clothes smoking getting li littler and littler oh heaven 1 I 1 look any more the plane was settling faster in that curve now because it was all over so we who have seen a fortress die in battle can tell you how they do it they die like the men who fly them and fight in them would want them to diel die they die like the great sky queens they are and queens die proudly just then I 1 heard our pilot captain strother over the inter phones telling jim worley our bombardier that hed opened the bomb bay doors and for the bombardier to go back and salvo all the bombs and the gas tanks carried there well jim worley is about to obey but just then he sees a zero coming right in on us headon head on and his gun there in the nose is the only one who can handle this attack so hes got to stay on it he gives her one burst and then starts to salvo his bombs and gas tanks but theres a crashing sound and the controls dont work he realize a bullet has wrecked his controls know what has happened then all of a sudden bang theres a hell of an explosion inside our plane and dust and the stink of gasoline after seeing what had just happened to the other two planes we thought it could mean only one thing we must be on fire I 1 and later on ask me about that railroad spike but somehow there were no flames so we kept on pounding away at the zeros swarming around us it was the only thing to do what had happened was that a bullet had smashed into our compressed oxy gen tank and also cut a gasoline feed line so that gas was spurting all over the cabin but we know it then finally the tail gunner seeing gas streaming along the planes belly past him to trickle off the he tip of the tail guessed what had bad happened and called out to the rest of us over the inter phones for gods sake not to smoke with that cabin filled with pure oxygen and gasoline fumes it would have been a bad idea dont forget to ask me about the railroad spike when we got back to our field and were telling about it someone asked our tail gunner if he scared when right after watching those other two go down in flames that bullet burst our oxygen system with a big bang no he said there time to be scared but it if someone had pushed a railroad spike into my mouth I 1 would have bit the head of it off clean and sharp the flying fortress was designed for the high skies and if you keep her in her groove for her crew ashes the safest plane in the air and for her enemies the most deadly we found this out not from any book but we learned it that day in combat which is learning leaming it the hard way and we hoped it take too long for this lesson to percolate upstairs on the way home said frank kurtz three of the remaining forts hit a heavy afternoon rainstorm visibility and ceiling were zero and for hours they flew around the island of madura off the coast of java a looking for a place to land when e gas was almost gone they decided to beach them luckily no one was killed but two of odthe the three were completely washed out on the seashore rocks kocks they set fire to the wreckage so the japs find out cut anything about the planes but lieutenant fred crimmons did a magnificent job of setting his plane down on the beach in the rain lie he made two passes looking at his gas in between then squared away and brought her in she held firm sinking only a little I 1 had the barbor masters wrecking barge with tools and dutch engineers on its way before daybreak they were having a little trouble with the natives there they were warned against jap parachutists and our nays boys had to yell at them a password the dutch had taught them to use if we were shot down bancha kom Pari eel it means our army they explained to lo us they worked a full day shying UP P the plane building a base of gs and sand under it clearing a runway strip and then in javas java s regular afternoon raiA rainstorm torm in came old freddy onto Su irid ifield lie he explained hed stripped the t plane of everything he could un screw to lighten it and then turning the motors on full blast had made a jump takeoff take off from that little littie strip he grabbed a sandwich and went on in to malang the air raid alarm in surabaya Su was now going off regularly sometimes three times a day because the java sea was stiffer slider than an old sock L with jap carriers colonel eubank ban k was now faced with a real problem the three main bases for our forts were at malang maciun and another town which was spelled but the american boys chew this one so they all gave it up and everybody just called it jockstrap the dutch had no system to detect planes coming in from over the sea their only warning system was a tiny island about seventy five miles out it had a radio so sura baya got fifteen minutes notice and malang about thirty so what was the colonel to do our P were badly overworked so when the alarm sounded if the forts took to the air the zeros might shoot them down while if they stayed on the ground the jap bombers might blow them up never were we able to keep more than twelve planes in the air even including reinforcements for we were losing them about as fast as they were coming in and a number were always under repair and therefore un flyable also we had some bad breaks in luck one afternoon lieutenant ray cox had his plane up on a high alti 4 we saw him dropping down with his clothes smoking getting littler lit tier and littler tude test giving the superchargers super chargers a vcr with him in the cockpit was johnny hughes who had been checked off as a first pilot just after we arrived in java they finished the test and at two were spiraling down when zeros came over to strafe the field below these strafing zeros also had a top cover of zeros hanging up at feet in case our P might come in to break up their ground party well when the strafing began our boys in the control tower remembered that ray was up and they tried to tell him by radio to fly south over the sea for an hour until the zeros were gone that was our usual procedure but ray and johnny alone in in this plane probably intent on their test must have had their headphones off anyway they be reached although the boys on the ground tried frantically to let them know what they were coming down into finally they saw three zeros hit them at feet ray immediately turned out to sea while johnny probably did what he could on the guns but one gunner cant cover every side at once and they stand a chance against three zeros next day the plane was found shot down and burned about twenty miles from malang field shortly after that taid boone the gunner we had a adough tough little mission a night flight to bomb a jap task force which was attacking one of the islands down toward australia I 1 forget which one it was if I 1 ever knew that was the navigators business six of us took off from malang but before we started for the target we had to fly over to jockstrap and load up with dutch bombs they were running low at malang and the dutch at jockstrap had plenty then we took off at eight at night in some of the dirtiest weather I 1 ever hope to fly in that country a storm at nig night ht is so black its ii like ke going into the closet under the stairs where all the old overshoes overshoe es are and pulling the door shut for our rendezvous we turned on the wing lights but even with them it took us forty forte yat five minutes to assemble then we went up to trying to climb out but we were still in that storm it was darker than the inside of a black cow but every now and then the lightning would rip everything wide open the who whole I 1 e cloud around us would flame up and you y 0 u could see to read fine print in th the e c cabin abin we were like a bug b u g in a neon tube then blackness w would close in and it would be a long time before your eyes could make out the I 1 little ittle blue pink exhaust flame of the plane next to you after about an hour we had plowed through the storm and were flying above scattered moon flecked overcast down below us at about at 1030 we were over the target and we glided down to feet to see what was going on through the hunks of clouds we could see the gun flashes of jap warships lob bing shells into that poor old town then we would see the flash wh when en the shells exploded they th ey had fires already going in several places and of course the town had absolutely nothing to hit back with but clouds protected the jap fleet so we make a run on just where we guessed those gun flashes were the thickest bombs were scarce orders had been it we find a good target to bring them home so we did we had no flares aboard abo a rd to light up that harbor or any installation for dropping them the old forts were never cut out for but of course in a war you sometimes get into cracks where you use whatever youve got to do what must be done we hated it leaving that poor old town burning while the japs sat out there and tossed shells into her without giving it even a little help but it had to be on our return we found that storm had moved on down java and was squatting right on malang field the turf was soaked into apple jelly and our pilot did a wonderful job on the landing we were worried because we knew that a single pound weight on the brakes would start our twenty five tons sliding over that slippery field like it was the frozen surface of a pond so to keep from piling up in a crash at the end of the runway remember we had all our bombs aboard and dump them because they were precious our pilot ground looped her so she would start sliding sideways in that muck skidding along he waited until she had revolved in a ISO degree turn and was sliding backward of course she would then have crashed into the end of the field and blown up all of us but he was able to st oliber by gunning the motors even if the wheels bite into that slippery ground the propellers could bite the air it was neat another gripe we had on malang field was the food the mess was in charge of the dutch they served only one hot meal a day and this was always at noon usually hot soup with boiled beef and potatoes but I 1 only got to eat this hot noon meal three times I 1 was always out on missions which should give some idea how busy we were they had baskets of food for us to take up in the plane pine pineapples aples tropical fruit and then sandwiches which were either a slab of cheese or else raw bacon in between two thick hunks of bread we found this heavy stuff made gas in your intestines and just as you got to high altitude going over the target this gas swelled up giving you the gripes so wed eat the fruit and throw the sandwiches away also malay cooks dont know hot food the breakfast soft boiled eggs were always hard and bring out a no 10 can of jam for a hundred and fifty men what with getting two or three hours sleep a night we all lost weight two of us lost nineteen pounds and charlie lost twenty three and it scared off us either we all felt that with a decent meal we could do a lot more so as much as we needed sleep at eight or nine at night wed take the dutch bus into town to a restaurant owned by a javanese which had a dutch waitress wh who spoke english just to buy us a thick rare steak americans have got to have red meat to fight on give them that and they ll 11 manage to sleep when they can we finally took over the mess but that help much because by then the field was being bombed regularly the mess sergeant had his kitchen blown up three times in a single day and this improve the flavor of things but the worst thing was hod hed got hold of three truckloads truck loads of pale beer and had the cases neatly stacked when a jap bomb scored a direct hit leaving not more than three dozen bottles I 1 never saw men any madder than we were when we came out of our foxholes and word went around they had blown up our beer 4 moved us over to madi un field said the bombardier and we had your troubles and some more besides when we first arrived there w were ere no P or antiaircraft guns for miles to keep the zeros up but we did have three D model For fortresses tresse S out of commission we were u using sing for spare parts so lieutenant mcgee dismounted their guns and master sergeant silva and I 1 decided to mount them in in holes around the airfield at least these would keep off stra fers TO BE CONTINUED CONTINUE Dl |