Show GOD aasi IS ila M MY irl r 0 2 7 1 1 COPILOT CO irl PILOT I 1 az 4 gob col robert W NAJ RELEASE 0 the story thus thai tan far after graduating from rom west weft point robert scott win ilni his wings at kelly field anil and takes takei up combat flying he be has bai been an instructor for 01 four our yenn years when the war breaks out oat and Is told ila ha li Is now too old for or combat flying ila he appeals to several leveral generals general and 1 ti finally anally offered an am opportunity to t ret get into he be tight fight no ne me file a bomber to tc india but li is M made ad a to lorry rry pilot and toll this does no not insul suit him no IIO visits gen chen chem pault gets a Kitty hawk and soon loon li Is i flying the skies over burma known as ai th the a one man air force later he ti Is m made s d 11 C CO 0 of the fighter group bu but I 1 be still keeps on knocking down jar jap planet planes lie ile goes out on an his greatest mis s lion ion over Hong hongtong kong CHAPTER pilots waiting for the order to lo go in into to the air sitting at the crude table lalle waiting for or the chow wagon I 1 or for an alert listening with keen k ears for the jingle of the telephone f playing gin rummy or poker but hearing everything that was going goin on A player would be dealing th the g deck and in the middle of the routine of dropping a card here and one there the phone would ring the card would stop in the air poised over the table while we all heard the chinese interpreters pick up the magneto phone and utter the familiar wey wey as they say hello the card would remain there over the table throughout the telephone conversation until the player realized what he was doing then hed go hesitatingly on perhaps the call was one of the hundreds that meant nothing only the chinese really knew and we could only wait and tad find out then again the receiver of the telephone might drop ba back ck into place and the interpreter would say something to another chinese this second one would go to the plotting board look at the marked ordinates coordinates co and quietly put a little red flag bag down over a certain city towards japanese territory even then with one warning only the game could go on for kt a long time in confidence ber B perhaps the squadron commander or the officer who was on the alert that day would move out of the game and start looking the map and the die flags over sizing up the situation As the picture formed and it became apparent that this was a real attack hed just go over and tell the card game about it or maybe two or three men would be gla to 16 get helmets out the game could silently break U up p with cards and CN left where they ey were helmets and gloves would be put on men who were pretending to be sleeping in the bags on the floor boor would be awakened and the tension dropped off like a cloak it the actual combat these fighter pilots feared for we all wanted combat more than anything else it was the damnable the ringing of a telephone jwan an ominous sound that most of the time meant nothing when men went out of the door to get into their ships and take off there was no handing to friends on the ground of last letters to take care of no entrusting of rings and watches to roommates room mates for fighter pilots dont think of not coming back they are invincible or think they are and they have to be that way down in idour codr hearts we may figure that some accident will get us some day when we are old and gray when our beards get in the way of the controls arwe or we get to where we dont see well or react fast but we know that no enemy fighter Is good enough to shoot us down it if that happens its just an accident these thoughts are the chips that we carry on our shoulders and they have to be there arrogant egotistical chips mellowed by flying technique and experience and forti artl fled by the motto attacks never be on the defensive shoot the enemy down before he can shoot you down you are better than he Is but dont give him a chance he may get in a lucky shot but youre invincible M move ove towards any dot in the sky that remotely resembles an aa airplane move to attack with switches tw itches on and the sight ready it if its not a ship or if its a friendly one be ready anyway and your arr arrogant luck will last a lot longer londer R the worry comes before you get to take off tor for combat wondering whether or not do the right thing out of 0 habit after youre in the air its all the tun fun of flying and coing 01 ol ng the greatest job to in the world you u are upshere up there pitying all earth bound creatures who are not privileged to breathe this purer air on high your training makes you do the combat work that li Is ahead without thin thinking kini about the movements months and years of training hours of waiting on the ground high powered engines pulling you up and up to the attack and then in a few fleeting seconds the combat Is over your ship li Is all in the sky and youre on the way home again to base whistling and thinking how easy it was and what a great and glorious life it really Is youre wondering if you can pick IFF those cards up and finish the game and take your CN back from ajax or johnny or mack you might be thinking how good that sleeping bag 9 going to feel or wondering whether the transports that can land on the field now that the air raid alert is over have brought you any mall mail doggone dog gone wonder it if abat woman li is writing me mayba mayb 9 th e yve even made some mist mistake ake back over there in the states and have sent some new planes out here and were going to get the best beat in the w world orld planes places that go a hundred miles an hour faster aster and climb feet A a minute to alft fafty thousand feet but th theres ere a your crew chief now waving you in and hes looking at the patches youve shot from the blast tubes of your our guns and knows youve youla e fired at th the nemy enemy or maybe your vie victory roll warned him anyway who knows day after day through the early part of november we acta actually allY prayed that the weather bast ast would clear so that we could stop our small piddling attacks on burma and go back to hongtong Hong kong ikney that general chennault and colonel cooper were planning a big one for the next time tor for now we had the largest force of fighters we had ever seen in china new P had been arriving in small numbers but steadily the group was actually being built up to strength at last with the first breaks in the heavy winter clouds bert carleton was sent with his transport and our ground personnel to aviation fuel and bombs were placed ready tor for instant use and I 1 could feel the tension in the air again from the dally daily reports on the air warning net it could be seen that the japanese had maintained a constant aerial patrol over hongtong Hong kong and vicinity since our last attack with the first break in the clouds we sent observation planes over with V I 1 iq t A group of fighter pilots on the a lert alert at Kun dunming ming a top cover of several fighters but the jap would not come up to fight the shark mouthed planes his instructions appear to have been walt wait for the american bombers on november 21 the ground crews got to kjellin instead of keeping them in the hostel that first night to insure that information would not leak out to the enemy we sent them to town first casually remarking that we were here now for the second attack on hongtong Hong kong early next morning our twelve bombers slipped into with colonel promoted since the last attack butch morgan in the lead ship the strengthened fighter force of between thirty and forty planes infiltrated for some went to Kw kjellin ellin others scattered to the surrounding emergency fields for better protection of the bombers As soon as I 1 landed I 1 ran up to the cave and the general took me in and showed me the plotting board the little red flags indicated increased vigilance at hongtong Hong kong then I 1 got my orders strike bongay in an hour the bombers were off to bomb the coal mines and docks of that indo chanse port north of Hai phong morgan sank a ton ship that was reported to have been an aircraft carrier the fighter escort strafed terry ferry boats small surface craft and looked tor for jap fighters trying to intercept but none came that night the enemy sent up a flight of three bombers to each of our fields looking for or our forces but we were so scattered that their luck was bad night fighters from all stations took off but those under mal maj harry pike at made perfect contact the entire japanese formation of three bombers was shot down over the field pike lombard and griffin each added an enemy ship to their scores but lombard was shot down in flames when the jap gunners blew up his belly tank lombard had made the tactical error of pulling up over the bombers after delivering fire thit that shot one down we had given him up tor for lost when he walked in carrying his chute and begging tor for another ship at dawn the next day november 23 1 I led the grouix group to escort morgan to island with twelve bombers we had noted thai the japs were strengthening the air patrol over hongtong Hong kong even more the general had smiled and said were making them waste a terrible amount of gasoline we saw morgans bombs ake out two ot of the three hangars on the island held field and we went down to strafe and watch for or interceptors Intercept ors taking off some of the flight got three but my plane was hit by the ack ack and when the oil pressure began immediately to fall all I 1 started for or the mainland and home with the oil pressure slowly going from seventy to fifty and finally to noth ing I 1 sweated out my return to and just madeia roade it by mentally lifting the ship onto the strip between the jagged stalagmites mites ites that fiega seemed to guard our field that afternoon I 1 led sixteen fighters to escort our twelve bombers to canton capt brick holstrom who had participated in the raid on tokyo the preceding april led the bombers As the fighters kept the new tactical squirrel cage about his formation he deliberately circled to the south ot of tien ho airdrome and covered the target area perfectly with his long string of bombs the antiaircraft anti aircraft was heavy and increased es as we wi went on north over white cloud field I 1 looked back at the results at tien ho and felt a surge of pride at that perfect bombing from fourteen thousand feet this was teamwork I 1 knew now with bombers and fight ers era properly proportioned all ali of us were mad because the japs jap come up the bomber bombe crews had reported them taking oft off from both fields and keeping low but heading to in all directions the accurate bombing must have destroyed many of them on the ground tor for we had made a feint of 0 f continuing on south to hongtong Hong kong g I 1 sent one ship home with each bomber the rest of us hung back and tried to tempt the enemy zeros zero s to ome come c up but they had evidently re received c e e their orders next morning pat daniels got up begging the gener general al to let him lead a dive bombing attack on an aircraft assembly plant in canton his plan was good and the mission was made ready all of us went down to the alert shack and watched the ground c rew crew loading the little yellow fragmentation bombs under the wings of six P A short time later they were off with daniels waiting to blow up the factory and all set with his movie camera to take pictures automatically as he dove the bombs into the target three hours later only five of the six returned pat daniels was missing in action his wing man had seen his leader lose part of his wing in an explosion on the way in with the bombs antiaircraft anti antl aircraft could have done it but most of us agreed from the description that daniels bombs might have hit his own propeller at the tremendous speed that a fast lighter fighter ship builds up in a long and nearly vertical dive pressures are also built up from the increased speed this torque necessitates so much compensating pressure on the rudder that one must actually stand on the rudder control while doing this pat might have relaxed pressure just as he reached down to pull the bomb release this would have allowed the speeding plane to yaw or skid and the bombs could have struck the are arc of the prop the only note of encouragement was that a chute had been seen when the fighters left the target patrick daniels was one of our best and most aggressive pilots and we missed him immediately and hoped for the best that same night johnny allson led eight ships in a fighter sweep end and dive bombing attack on the docks at bankow over tour four hundred miles to the north in the river harbor with the sky crisscrossed criss crossed by tracers from the ground johnny dropped his bombs on the hangars and on a large freighter then tor for ten minutes he strafed the enemy vessel and badly disabled it captain hampshire dove and shottie shot the searchlights out until he was out of ammunition the night attack so deep into enemy territory was a daring one and did much to confuse the japs further johnnys johnny ships were rather badly shot up from the ground fire and he was lucky to get them au all back to base safely but it was such missions as these which built up the circumstances that would assure the success of the big attack the general was wa planning next day with eighteen fighters we escorted the bombers to raid storming tog an occupied town near bankow we kept the circling movement all around our B and tried to give them an added feeling of security by our presence through heavy antiaircraft anti aircraft fire morgan led the attack in and waste a bomb we left the warehouses to in flames and there was much less ack ack coming up towards us than when we first approached arriving back at our advanced base we refueled and bombed up again then we made the second raid of the day towards bankow W over the town ot of once again morgan blasted the target with black bursts of antiaircraft anti aircraft fire bouncing around the formation but there was no interception and now we were feeling blue forcel we destroy the jap air force if they were going to try to save gave their airplanes we spent the ahe next day thanksgiving working on the airplanes and resting we had flown down seven missions in four days and both men and machines were tired and in need of repair we had a special dinner that night but remained extra vigilant against a surprise by the jap on that thanksgiving evening as we were grouped around the general he brought out a bottle of scotch some one had given him TO BE CONTINUED |