Show b aft QUEENS PROUDLY yaa chite a THC STORY THUS FAR col rank kurtz kurd pilot of flying fortress the ilie sose tells of that fatal day bell the ju japs pa struck in the philippines kellug eight of OIS his men dle and 11 demolish hg old 99 tb many other forts be for ore it could get or off the ground found after aping to australia what Is left of the hie jtb bombardment group lies flies to jaa JT where m they i defend the he island until it aus V U S fliers evacuate to austra Us hi to tarry carry on the war from tb there ere from its base in north australia the esth plus the lie ien past new guinea and new brit ru n islands red varner gwoose crew chief tells of I 1 close call with the gen en eril j aboard lie had to hug bug the ground to D prevent being dive bombed CHAPTER aso a so the major started out then on a ordinary box search problem trying to find this cloncurry Clon curry you fly so 50 many minutes north and then east and then south and then west and then lengthening T your time north again and so on we kept this up for quite a while but no cloncurry Clon curry and our gas was running out ill say this though the major sure running short of advice what with his cockpit full of air generals of all nations he had plenty of that and every different kind you can an imagine they all knew just what hat to do dd the trouble was every time he paced from the nose of the plane back to the tail it would throw the plane out of balance and frank tere here would have to trim ship in addition to all the questions he was answering I 1 guess this pacer had never liever thought of that by this time frank had decided the only thing to do was to make a forced landing so he was leaning over oter the side trying to pick a spot with all of those guys yammer ing at you telling you what to do said red and this guy pacing only for a while he stopped but just for a minute while he was putting on a parachute why I 1 quite know because we were down to feet and if he did jump of course it would never have time to crack but I 1 say a word because buckling himself in was keeping him quiet only right away he starts this pacing again with the poor major trying to nose her down for a crash landing and he tells me to tell them all to get back in the tail so it will act as a brake only this guy starts pacing again now I 1 was getting the jumps lor even if the major is the best pilot in the business a crash landing is no joke even for old timers so I 1 grabs this pacing guy and now look I 1 says to him you may carry plenty of rank on your shoulders but to this pilot youre just two hundred pounds of ballast so now you quit shifting around you get on back there and sit down and I 1 herded him back to the very tip end of the plane and pushed him down parachute and all on that little seat youve probably been wondering all along just where this little seat is on a bomber well its just where it would be any place else even on a jarm farm all you do is follow the clothes line back down to the end of the grape arbor and there she sets well I 1 pushed him down on the seat and in about a minute there was quite a bump but still it was a perfect three point landing in four seconds the major had her rolling smooth the ground was soft twenty five tons is a lot of bomber and her wheels began to sink in about six inches but the major could sense this so he gave gas to all four engines to keep her rolling and taxied her up to high ground hard enough to hold her up we got out pretty soon australian ranchers begin crawling out of holes in the ground I 1 dont know where h ere else they came from and right t aw away ay lieutenant commander johnson gets busy he begins to get acquainted they tell him where we are and some of them go 90 off to get a truck to take us into town where we can telephone and more keep coming and johnson is shaking hands all around and he comes back and tells us these are real folks the best darn folks in the world except maybe the folks in his own texas pretty soon he knows all their first names and telling him why there ought to be a high tariff on wool and ana theres no question he swung that county for johnson before we left t he was in Us his element I 1 know he sure swung the gwoose crew he can carry that precinct any day listening to him made us all homesick said frank so I 1 suppose it was a good thing we got suddenly ordered back to the states at the end of the month in a curious way I 1 was ready now to come id turned it down before because after we were thrown out of java we all had that sick feeling trying to hold onto something that was slipping away in spite of everything you did you walk out leeling eeling things might suddenly cave in i again but now it was different in australia and that island chain above we were getting firmly set the way we should have been in the philippines and java and have time but wed had it now and knew how to use it best of all we were finally getting some fighting equipment arient not just production figures so even though thou eh we were soaking un plenty plen y of heavy punches in the island d ch chain ain we were sure now we could cou id at least hold them but yet I 1 dared as hope for much more only now I 1 come to the thing which a at alast last changed that because it I 1 had to see it before I 1 could believe it happened out on that long transpacific trans pacific trail where weve almost worn ruts in the sky between the states and australia it was like this we were letting down tor for one of the island steppingstones stepping stones which according to harrys navigation should be somewhere ahead of us it was very early in the morning harrys the best navigator in the business and he had said we should be in there six hours from the time we left the last island but of course his figures could be a little out or maybe the wind drift would change you never know the ine pacific is too big a place to take chances in as eddie Ricken backers party found out so after wed been out five hours we got the island on the radio and asked them to give us sa searchlights earch lights just so we miss their little pinpoint in the dawn wed flown without change of course for five hours now harry took his final shots and we started down the line to that island harry had said six hours it took us just five hours and fifty seven minutes the island was an atoll around a shallow basin where navy flying boats could light the atoll is two feet above high tide at its high point on one side are labor construction st ton tents a cantonment building for the tiny garrison ack ack acci searchlights and even a tiny movie theater on the other side is the landing strip ill swear harry must have navigated not for the island but for that landing strip itself for without change of course all we have to do is let our wheels down some day I 1 want eddie to meet harry As we climbed out of the gwoose the island garrison asked us very excited did you see anything when we said we they went off by themselves whispering I 1 wanted to know what was up so I 1 asked their colonel told him we were on an important mission ourselves had a top ranker aboard and what did he expect here at this atou atoll 11 trouble he said looking at his little setup I 1 help thinking of those poor guys who were overwhelmed on wake island but the colonel sure what kind of trouble was coming he only knew orders had mysteriously come putting the navy patrol planes on extra long hours doubling shifts somewhere somebody was certainly on the lookout for something and those poor devils had to sit on that atoll and guess what it might be it smell good we gassed up and got out forty five minutes later just as it was cracking dawn by B now the equatorial front had dissolved into a spotted ceiling I 1 suppose wed been going an hour when through a hole in this ceiling out suddenly popped four or five ships down on the wrinkled sea but I 1 could only look at one of them now you think youre a man with everything under control yet im telling you I 1 reacted to this one the way a fox terrier does to a rat because it was a whopping aircraft t carrier and after java and th the e philippines say carrier to a pilot and he steadies everything for his bomb run tense as a violin string hoping his bombardier has the hair lines of his bomb sight crossed on its flight deck just over the engine room its like a bird dog pointing quail with his tail tip quivering only after half a S second im a man again and can think can remember we any bombs swinging on their shackles in our bomb bays nothing we can drop on this beautiful target but the high ranking passenger who is riding with US then comes reaction number two no bombs but what wha t about the carriers covering fighters you talk about a mother tiger fighting for her young nothing to the way a patrolling carrier fighter will defend its mother ship because e every car rier based fighter knows that once his carrier is hit and the waves begin to sweep over that long flight deck and one end of her hoists up in the air then hes out in the big sky by his lonesome no pontoons pon nothing to do but sink into the sea when his tanks are dry those zeros will come screaming in to nit bit me from almost any cloud since I 1 cant make a bomb run I 1 must get away quick but now over the inter phones cornes comes a shout spotted another carrier I 1 look and see it too then another and now my god it cant be but it is four I 1 it makes us frantic we got something som ething to plunk through those smooth flight decks into their engine rooms and maybe blow a few square yards out of the bottom of their hulls only we now grow cold because where are the escorting fighters we cant speed up because they should be up ahead but they might show up any place come leaping up at us out of this fleecy blanket of overcast like dolphins jumping through the foam D down own there are not only four carriers but a gang of other stuff a fog of destroyers at least fifteen cruisers and one thundering big battleship tle ship only as a bomber pilot im fixed on those carriers enormous brutes too enormous say going on because jap carriers are little devils you can hardly pack forty planes into them while these might hold double that like our best ones now wait maybe were too low and these just look big but no I 1 glance at the altimeter and were at so ours this big parade of surface strength is us americans canal I 1 change course just the same 30 degrees swinging wide of this big naval parade because we can take lake no chances on their air patrol even an american carrier fighter when he sees a bomber over his mother ship should shoot first and ask questions later we dont want to tangle with brummans Grum mans we swing out wide and away but with what a different feeling fee lingl well I 1 guess about all except on our homeward trip we cracked the transpacific trans pacific record wide open the old gwoose with her war worn motors made it from brisbane to san francisco in thirty six hours ten minutes flying time the only one of the original ginal 35 on clark field fie d to see home again when they said long distance was calling from san francisco of course that mean anything to me said margo with two brothers in the air corps one in bombardment bar dment and one in pursuit it might be either one then I 1 heard franks own voice saying margo because I 1 heard any overseas operators opera tors or any censor clicking in I 1 knew he must be he here re in n the states for the first time I 1 cou could d cry on the phone its nice to 0 be strong but so much more fun to 0 let down w when hen you can and I 1 di did THE END |