Show I 1 A V va I 1 TT k WHITE ailts il tS THE STORY THUS FAR col frank kurtz pilot of a flying fortress tells of that fatal day when the japs truck in the philippines eight ot of his in ken were killed while fleeing tor for shel ter and old 99 with many other fortresses was demolished on the ground after escaping to australia what is left of the squadron lies flies to java where they go on many missions over the philippines and Ala cassar strait sergt boone gunner tells how queens die from eye witness experience java sea is now full ot of jap carriers the japs bombard a helpless dutch town and a jap bomb blows up the kitchen another bomb scores a direct hit on the fliers supply of beer CHAPTER XVI the dutch made us steel tripods for them in a machine shop but we had a hell of a time getting anyone to dig the holes we were flying missions and do it our artelles art elves so silva and I 1 took the chuck and went into maciun on fhe he street corners we saw a bunch of natives standing around picking their teeth or scratching their bottoms we argued they must be jap sympathizers or else they would have been busy helping win the war so we pulled out our and by a coincidence they all got into that truck and dug us some odthe nicest foxholes you ever saw after that when the alarm would go off we could run to those foxholes and swing a gun we knocked down five zeros with them in the short time lime we were there we were fixing up our planes too our tall tail guns had finally cured the japs of making attacks from behind now they were coming in at all directions hunting for our soft spots feeling us out like we were some sonie dame on a sofa but mostly they were hitting us headon beadon head bead on because they discovered that in the nose we had only a single little 30 caliber I 1 guess the designers after putting in those tail guns had figured they could rest on their laurels but you can never do that long in a war so we got busy there on maciun field we mounted a big 50 caliber down in the navigators compartment rigging it so it would fire out of the ventilator and for good measure we stuck in another 30 caliber since then carrying out this idea at the factory but the only way any factory can learn what is needed is from the combat crews ia in Those jap pilots were smart fly their machines dressed like natives so it if they bailed baided out they could just walk away and mingle with the crowd but we afraid of them even flying in the small numbers we had to in the states a formation would be twenty seven planes out there it was usually three or six three of us would be flying along fifteen or twenty zeros were hit and wed come back with a score of eight or nine maybe not all demolished but hit so they had to leave wed see them going down in crazy spirals we learned some tricks about those nose attacks when wed got to the target and had separated each picking our transport and the zeros would hit us headon head on the pilot would point j plane directly at the zero this i mrs down the zeros raking power because it gave him a smaller silhouette ho uette we were in his sights for a shorter time wed get some close shaves though I 1 remember one day off bali we were out there bothering a jap destroyer we could glimpse from time to time as the clouds sailed past when all of a sudden over the inter phones zeros femin mw rn at T epard ing and then our top turret gun started hammering old red up there get his guns that far down but I 1 guess he was just firing for the hell of it then all of a sudden whoosh a zero came up right square in front of my compartment window so damned close I 1 could see his guns smoking as they fired even see the lands inside his wing gun barrels almost headon head on he came up and over and old britt got him as he turned down behind but about the time we got those new guns rigged in the nose the japs started staying away from us wed be flying along pretty as you please when a flock flocke of zeros would come into view but staying well out of range just looking us over then one of our gunners might fire a burst in their direction just to let them know we were on the balls or sometimes the zeros might come in for one or two wide sweeping passes but mostly go off with their tails between their legs toward the last they only tried to get us on the ground they knew we had no protection there to speak of no fighters and no pom come in insolent as could be meaning caning 11 the gunners were ivere in the ball turrets ready to fire that was the week I 1 got into something way over my head inthis liaison work said frank but first you ought to look at that big de hotel which was the unofficial capital of java its lobby bar and dining room were crowded with uniforms british dutch and american it looked like a hollywood costume parade it was an enormous high hiah spacious thing open to the soft javanese air little tropical birds would fly in and out of the dining room and roost on the gleaming chandeliers the dutch are great eaters and they have something they call reis aels you order it and then sit back and eat while twenty three waiters line up and walk by your table each carrying a different sauce or fish or bowl of relish or rice I 1 tried it once and managed to live by eating only every other course but your true colonial dutchman will stoke in all twenty three into his big pot drenching the layers down with mugs of beer in the bar you might see the boys of patrol wing 10 in from reconnaissance con drinking daiquiris Dai this hotel was navy bilI billeting eting headquarters and often I 1 would see my old hollywood high school classmate john robertson sitting there in his off hours very handsome in his naval pilots uniform and with him was the most beautiful girl in Su she had dark hair and an almost ghostly pale face that was sad in repose then a smile would quickly light it up and wonder how you could ever have thought that and the most beautiful legs in the city when shed walk through the bar clinging to johns arm and looking up at him even the oldest and crabbiest crab biest admiral would rustle a little in his chair and lean out to give them a formal inspection the younger naval pilots envied john to the point where they would have hated his guts it if they liked him so much john was very busy and I 1 dont think he gave her much thought but still its nice to have the most beautiful girl in town crazy about you to the point where it even bothers the admirals she was so they said a very high dutch socialite and had lots of money which you might guess by 1 how ird P eriv br b r pin ning dresses were in the daytime she wore a beautifully tailored uniform of one of the womans comans volunteer organizations I 1 think she drove a car for the dutch general staff meanwhile my job was growing by leaps and jumps in that hotel dining room you might see general wavell the british commander in chief or admiral hart or general brett who commanded the united nations air force or van beyen the dutch commander in chief I 1 was circulating among the tables and my brief case was so crammed with hot information I 1 trust it in a checkroom the same fist which held the flashlight also held a steel knife there was a feeling of tension refugees had been crowding in from Singa singapore pom and sumatra now there was a feeling that maybe be crowding out soon lots of the natives had already left and those servants who remained you knew were staying only because they were very loyal but to whom maybe to the dutch or maybe to someone else staying around to watch us relaying information we knew not how or to whom you be sure of anything except that I 1 knew they were watching me maybe only out of idle curiosity as I 1 circulated from one table to the other and kept that brief case leaning against my leg when I 1 sat at my own table that hotel certainly built to keep military secrets the big high bedrooms had only swinging half doors like barrooms bar rooms open to the air a i r above and below the barefooted native servants looked after them only id catch them slipping in and out of mine at queer times of the day but I 1 thought I 1 only imagined it I 1 also suspected they were listening in the corridor outside one evening a couple of the pilots were down from malang going back the same night sitting on my bed while we talked over new orders and somehow a feeling grew on me we were being watched I 1 whispered to the others to go on talking slipped off my shoes tiptoed to the door just as I 1 T T rt nw oil it i T T rt n irl n V 1 f P r white robe flitting around the corner when I 1 got out into the blacked out corridor I 1 could see nothing but then I 1 was sure that night I 1 slept with my brief case under my pillow in addition every bed was provided with a dutch widow at first the american pilots know what to make of this and would kick them out on the floor I 1 should maybe explain that a dutch widow is a long padded bolster and if you sleep with it between your knees it keeps your legs from pressing together and sweating in the tropical heat after a while the pilots began to like them but that night I 1 went to sleep wondering about the white shape id seen flit around the corner it seemed about the same size as the waiter who had been staring at me in the dining room for the past three days only staring quite the word because this particular little chili picker had glassy ey eyes es like a turtle I 1 could never catch them directly on me but I 1 had the feeling it was I 1 he was interested in two nights later lieutenant jacquet came up from malang by the time we had finished work it was so late I 1 suggested hed better spend the night with me I 1 put my brief case under my pillow as usual on this particular night it contained something so important I 1 dont even like to talk about it now maybe that was any I 1 slept uneasily or maybe because the whole outlook for the war was so bad I 1 realized in the philippines I 1 had only been lucky and I 1 might never get out of java it was very hot and in the distance a thunderstorm was muttering as it moved toward the city anyway id been lightly asleep for about an aft hour when a glare awoke me it was a flashlight held very close a haze of yellow light coming through the mosquito netting over my face but in this haze I 1 could see that the same fist which held the flashlight also held a steel knife and that its point stuck down into the yellow cone of that flashlight the other hand was just touching the edge of my pillow 1 I gave a yell and dived through that netting like a cat but the yellow light instantly winked out and I 1 was standing there alone in the darkness while jacquet rolled out on the other side he been as nervous as 1 I and was sleeping more deeply but just then a blue lightning flash lit up the room and by its quick glare I 1 saw the door into the corridor closing 1 I was sure I 1 had locked it but when I 1 got out into the corridor it seemed empty why he stabbed me I 1 think because he was surprised to find jacquet there one of us would surely have been able to make an outcry and I 1 thought to myself well stranger for a newcomer youre sure getting into a lot of things because you never thought some guy you know and had never bothered would ever try to kill you through mosquito netting in a place called java the brief case was okay and the queer thing was said margo that just at this time the report got back to america that frank was dead hed been killed in a flying accident in java I 1 was down in florida by then an and d the only man I 1 could really talk to was cliff jensen an air corps boy we had known at march and albuquerque and later at morrison field he was stationed near by and now was working twenty one hours a day for the rest of the gang who were fighting in java I 1 could really talk to cliff we understood each 1 I 1 dead somehow reached australia and of course the air corps is a small place in a few days colonel truesdell in california heard it from one of the ferry pilots and a few days later cliff heard of it he tell me because he quite sure but some people thought it happened 1 I could feel the difference they were looking at me queerly now they would say what a fine boy frank had been or that they were praying for his safe return they never understand they cant see that what youre anxious about is not the distant future but this very night Is he hungry must he go out on a mission maybe hes been badly hurt during the he day and you dont know it yet praying that everything will be all right during those weeks and months to come scares you its asking too much youre afraid you just pray hes all right tonight and wounded and will get enough sleep so hell be strong and alert and have a good chance tomorrow you dont dare ask more also those strong plump sunburned men who could leave their business for months to lie around on the florida sands were very realistic about the war sure it was all a terrible mess and everything was going to pieces offering me lots of sympathy but what had any of them ever done to get us a decent air force in the past or what good were they or their realism doing anyone now I 1 liked cliffs better he knew what the boys were up against and was up half the night trying to hurry reinforcements out of the little we had and he knew how little so they could hold what t they hey could cliff made sense the rest was a nightmare when wed first hit java said frank wed been full of the offensive sive spirit sure we were going to roll the japs back off the philippines onto formosa with those thousand planes which according to rumor were coming within three months the second month was almost up now java was unsteady under our feet and wed so far received about two dozen P maybe a few more forts than that and seven dive bombers hardly fifty planes in all now we knew the offensive was out for the time being what we prayed for was fighters to defend what was left of our forts and those beautifully camouflaged dutch airfields with fighters to hold them off we knew we could hold java all right suppose the japs had moved into timor and cut the jugular vein from australia so that our P could no longer hop on the island chain to us on their belly tanks why not a carrier the navy spare just one which could load up with P in australia and then when it was still several hundred miles from java and out of range of the jap bombers it could turn the P loose let them fly on in to us and go back for another load TO BE CONTINUED 8 V W |