The midland journal., May 25, 1945, Image 2

About The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947

Image provided by: University of Maryland, College Park, MD

                
£* GOD IS MY
W*. CO-PILOT Vf
Robert L. Scott WINJJ. RELEASE
| The itory that far: After (radnatlnc
from Weit Point, Robert Scott wins hie
wins■ at Kelly Field, Tern, and take! np
combat flying. He has been an Instructor
fbr four years when the war breaks out
and is told he Is now too old for combat
flying. After appealing to several Gen
erals, Scott Is Anally offered an oppor
tunity to get Into the fight. He flies a
bomber to India, but on arrival Is
made a ferry pilot, but tbls does not suit
' him. He visits Gen. Chennault, gets a
Klttyhawk and soon Is flying the skies
over Burma, where he becomes known as
i the "one man air force." Later, he Is
j made C.O. of the 23rd Fighter Group, but
he still keeps on knocking down Jap
planes.
CHAPTER XXVII
Another theory was that the reali
zation that you had strafed enemy
ground troops, shot down Japanese
pilots, strafed troops getting out of
an enemy transport, or even killed
Japanese satellites, would come
back to you at night, and you’d wake
up in horror at having “blood on
your hands.” To that I say “Nuts.”
Later, when the newness of com
bat had worn off, I used to watch a
Japanese pilot come towards me on
a head-on run, picking me out, I
guess, because I was reading the
Group. I’d get my sights on him
and yell, perhaps a bit hysterically:
“You poor sucker, with my six Fif
ties that out-range your short-range
little cannons that jam lots of times,
I’m going to blow you apart before
you get close enough to hit me!”
Overconfidence, perhaps, for I didn’t
get every one who came at me, and
I took lots of hits in my own ship
even had to dive away sometimes
when two came on me at once. But
I’m still here, and from thirteen to
twenty-two Jap pilots who fought
against me are dead.
You know that you have every
thing to live for, and that the Jap
has everything to die for. That’s
his only hope of reaching the heaven
that we already have.
Yes, they are suicide pilots; at
times they will try to ram your
plane, or will dive their ships into
our carriers. I’ve seen a Japanese
dive low over Hengyang and circle
while they shot at him with every
thing on the field and we shot at
him with every ship above the field.
But he flew his ship in a slow cir
cle, as if he were blinded and
couldn’t see, or were only partly
conscious. Then, with a half roll at
barely three hundred feet, he dove
his plane into the only building on
the field—our thatched-roof alert
shack, which burned with the Jap
in his ship. When the wreckage had
cooled enough we finally pulled his
charred body out —and by his side
was his Samurai sword, and through
his body the doctor found one lone
bullet-hole, severing his spinal cord
near the small of the back. He had
been able to move his hands but not
his feet. But with his last conscious
ness he had picked out one more
object on our field to destroy for
the gods of the Shinto Shrine.
But they have fear too. Don’t
think they’re supermen, for I assure
you they’re not. They’re little,
warped - brain savage animals
with the complex of suppression—
but they have fear, like any one
else. Their fear is worse, for there’s
that phobia of having nothing to live
for—the inferiority-complex they try
to overcome.
I once saw that fear on the face
of a Japanese pilot when he knew
he was going to die, and it did me
lots of good. I told of it many
times to youngsters in my Group and
it always made them feel better to
know that the Japs were afraid
when they met them probably
more afraid than we were. Oh, the
Jap is a wonderful pilot when he
meets no or little opposition. They
come in over undefended Chinese
cities and loop and roll and zoom,
shooting at the helpless pedestrians
while arrogantly flying inverted on
their backs. But when they meet
good American fighters, with pilots
who know how to fight them, they
are the most anxious people I’ve
ever met to leave our territory and
go “hell for leather” towards Japan.
One day I flew up very close to a
lone Jap pilot during a fight near
Kweilin. I placed my sights right
where his wing joined the fuselage
of the 1-97-2 and steadily squeezed
a burst from two hundred yards,
holding the trigger down while I
moved into closer range. Then I
swerved out from behind the enemy
ship, expecting it to stream fire
and perhaps explode. I had seen
pieces come off, and I had seen the
canopy glass turn to a fine, shining
powder that sparkled in the slip
stream as the ship nosed almost
straight up. But when it didn’t burn,
I skidded back across its tail, first
with a look to my rear quarter.
I saw into the cockpit. The can
opy had been shot away and I could
see the Jap’s face—and on it was a
look of terror such as I had never
seen before. The realization went
through me with such force that as
! I nosed down to fire again I nearly
,cut the tail from the Jap fighter
,with my prop. Then I savagely
held a long burst from less than
fifty yards while I shot the ship to
pieces. Even after the enemy plane
(had fallen and I had flown through
!the debris, I found that I was con
tinuing to fire at the empty heavens,
for I had learned to hate also.
No, the Jap is far from a super
man. But we must never again be
little the fanaticism of the Japanese.
jThey are as dangerous as mad dogs,
They think they will win—and they
can if we continue to underestimate
them.
Strange things happen in the air,
strange as the fiction of the ages.
Six of us shot into a ship that de
tached itself from one of the cir
cling Japanese “circuses" we en
countered one day East of Heng
yang. When you meet the Jap in his
larger-numbered formation, he at
once goes into the circling technique
that Baron von Richthofen made
famous in the last war. This “cir
cus” gradually moves in on or away
from their objective as a defensive
maneuver, for in it the ship behind
protects the tail of the one in front.
Our tactics were to dive through
the “squirrel cage” and get snap
shots at as many ships as we could,
but keep our speed to prevent their
getting on our tails.
It was in one of these attacks
that this lone Jap Zero left the pro
tection of his other ships and began
to do aerobatics—sloppy loops, wing
overs, stalls, and then another loop.
Thinking it was a trick, we were
wary; but after two of our pilots had
made passes on it, two more of us
went down towards it. As I kept
getting closer and closer to the ene
my plane I could see that the pilot
was evidently hurt, but when I
v.f
Another friendly coolie who gave
aid to Col. Scott.
crossed the top of the strange-acting
plane I saw that he was leaning
forward over the stick control, ob
viously dead.
As the speed of the dive would
build up pressures on the tail sur
faces, the nose would rise, for a
Jap ship is rigged that way. As
the ship climbed more steeply, the
pilot’s upper body swung to the back
of the seat in the normal position
and the plane made a sloppy loop.
For several minutes we watched
the pilotless Zero in fascination.
From 16,000 feet a ship that is shot
down can dive into the ground in a
few seconds—it can even spin in
from an explosion in a little longer
than that; but we watched this plane
for twice the time that it would nor
mally have taken. It worked closer
and closer to the ground over the
same area, as it lost altitude gradu
ally in the maneuvers. Then, after
the longest wait that I can remem
ber having gone through in the air,
in one of its dives from a loop it
struck the hills below and burned.
We could have burned it with a long
burst many times during the min
utes of our watching, but I imagine
we were all spellbound at the spec
tacle.
No one spoke for several minutes
as we turned back to Hengyang.
Then some call over the radio broke
the spell, and we just marked the
Jap off as another confirmed Zero—
another '’good” Jap.
Over in Yunnan we fought the
Japs a few times in Burma and had
the sadness of another military fu
neral. Those moments in the Bud
dhist burial grounds were the hard
est in China. As the Chaplain read
the prayer and the flag-draped cas
ket was lowered into the red earth
of Yunnan, a small formation, with
slow-turning engines that gave forth
a muffled sound, would fly over the
grave. There would be one vacant
niche in the evenly spaced fighters,
in honor of the brother airman who
would fly no more.
After eight months in combat I
was sent with five other pilots to fer
ry six new P-40 K’s over from the
air base at Karachi. During our
wait for the planes to be ready for
combat, we were permitted to go to
Bombay for the detached service.
There, in this splendor of the Hotel
Taj Mahal, we had a glorious time.
In fact, it became very hard to real
ize that a war was going on over in
Burma and China, as we looked at
the night clubs from Malabar Hill
and from inside them too, at the
horse-races for the Aga Khan’s
Purse—and at all the things that
we had forgotten to remember.
The return across India was a
happy one, for we were ferrying new
and higher-powered ships back to
the war, and all of us were eager
to try them out in combat. From
Assam we took the old familiar trail
that I used to fly with the trans
ports, and it felt especially good to
look around and see those friendly
looking P-40’s along with me over
the Burma Road where I had, is
MIDLAND JOURNAL. RISING SUN. MD.
earlier months, been compelled to
fly alone. The shark-mouths had
not yet been painted on, but the sil
houettes of the new fighters looked
friendly nevertheless.
A fast trip over the five hundred
miles from Assam is like this:
We’re off from our base and head
ing 118 degrees across the twelve
thousand-foot Naga Hills to the first
check-point, where the upper fork
of the Chindwin forms the likeness
of a shamrock. Up to our left now,
from the altitude of eighteen thou
sand that we’ve attained so effort
lessly with the new ships, can be
seen the higher snow-capped peaks
of Tibet and Chinese Turkestan.
Down below us the valley of the
Irrawaddy is low and green, but
forbidding nonetheless. Ahead, as
we cross the “Y” in the little known
“triangle of the Irrawaddy,” we see
the real hills of the “hump” begin
to rise. Snow-capped peaks every
where. Our map reads that our
highest peak is going to be 15,800
feet; yet we well know from ex
perience that we’ve tried it many
times and we need to be very sure
that we are at 18,000 to clear the
mountains from the Irrawaddy to
Tali Lake.
Below us are the villages of the
Miaows. We climb to 25,000 feet to
test the “suped-up” ships, and a
smile comes to our faces under the
oxygen masks—for this is goiHg to
surprise the Jap. We’re going over
the Mekong now, and from the time
that has elapsed we’ve certainly
picked up a tail wind—must be mak
ing over three hundred. The gorge
of the Mekong runs like a gash in
the sinister country of Burma to the
know it goes on and
Saigon and the sea.
twenty miles to the
and we make it so quickly
■lt we begin to doubt that the oth-
WJr river had been the Mekong. Our
ground speed is well over three hun
dred as we see Lake Tali and start
the down-hill run to Kunming. Now
we catch the first glimpse of the
Burma Road, North of Yunnanyi,
and soon we see the small lake that
is near our field at that town. The
mountains to the North are very
high, and we know they get higher
and higher and stretch almost with
out break to the East and the Pa
cific. We see the hairpin turns of
the Burma Road near Tsuyung, and
know that we’re nearly home from
the Taj Mahal and India.
We dive over the field of our head
quarters just one hour and twenty
five minutes from the time we took
off from Assam, five hundred miles
away. I can tell by the smiles on
the faces of the other men in the
flight that we’re all thinking the
same thing: We have bad medicine
for the Jap packed into the in
creased horsepower of these new
“Kays”—our Warhawks. They are
the latest of the P-40 series, and
coming to us this time of year we
look upon them as Christmas pres
ents from the States.
The P-40 was in production when
the war began. Then the decks
were definitely stacked against us,
and everything was in favor of the
enemy. During the past year of our
war these ships produced as no oth
er fighter plane did, for they were
serving on every front. Any pilot
who actually fought the Axis ene
mies in the P-40 Tomahawks, Kitty
hawks, or Warhawks will tell you
they are tough and dependable. They
will dive with the best of projectiles
—including a bomb. All of us hope
that the best fighter plane has not
been produced, but we know that
America will develop it.
In the meantime, through those
lean months when America had to
fight on many fronts with so little,
the glorious P-40 series paid off when
the chips were down in a ratio of
between twelve and fifteen to one
twelve to fifteen enemy ships for
every one of ours lost.
Some day, when the war is over
and our sturdy American engines
driving great American ships have
won victory with air power, I hope
and pray—with all fighter'pilots who
have faced our enemies in aerial
combat, from the hot sands of Libya
to the cold tundra of the Aleutians,
from the jungle heat of Guadalcanal
to those torrential rains of the Bur
mese Monsoons—that some under
standing group of citizens will go to
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. There,
beside the statue that commemo
rates the first flight of the Wright
Brothers, I hope that they will build
a monument to the Curtiss P-40 with
its Allison Engine.
And now, with a few minor battles
in the air, we saw Christmas in Chi
na draw near, and I couldn’t help
wishing for fast action somewhere.
After all, there’s only one place a
person wants to be at Christmas.
I took off from Kunming one day
just before Christmas to inspect the
warning net in western Yunnan. It
didn’t take long to find out that it
was very inefficient near the Bur
ma border, where a steady influx of
fifth-columnists and Japanese mon
ey was filtering across the Salween.
Even then I knew that instead of
getting the Chinese officers who were
in charge of the net to investigate,
it would be much better to have a
few engagements with the Jap over
the failing net-area. There was no
tonic like burning Jap planes over
the country to improve the function
ing of the air-raid warning net.
(TO BX CONTINUE©!
News rtx
Behind^.
the.'Nbw®
By PaULMaLLON^^
Released by Western Newspaper Union,
RUSSIAN DELEGATES SHOW
AMIABLE WORLD RELATIONS
SAN FRANCISCO. Definite and
positive assertions as to what this
conference and the world will do are
being flung rather freely around.
A commonly popular one in the
news is that the conference—as one
exceptionally able writer has put
it has proceeded to the point
where a new era is assured.
Behind this line of current thought
running through the news and com-
Hment is the idea
tov afterward called
Stettinius and made
Molotov ? ertain oth ? r ma
tures creating a
new amiable and friendly spirit. It
is thus true enough that the atti
tude with which Mr. Molotov, if not
Russia herself, came into this con
ference, is being altered.
But down deep inside every
one here knows peace and the
settlement of world problems
will be a long process. The mil
lenium Is nowhere here yet visi
ble to my eyes. The precise de
gree of progress that has been
made is that Russia has shown
a willingness to cooperate and
that this has put the delegates
naturally in a better frame of
mind.
Now is this new spirit can be car
ried forward to the application of all
problems, then the new era will truly
have arrived. But to keep a proper
perspective of the actual condition,
it must be reported that the prob
lems still remain all of them
—many grave, deep problems of
every economic, financial and poli
tical nature. What has been done
here so far has been merely to get
an agreement on the organization of
the conference. Therefore it should
be plain future hopes here can not
be based on “the receptivity” of
this governments attitude toward
Russia, but upon the receptivity of
the Russian attitude toward demo,
cratic processes.
Action Taken Slowly.
The questions I hear asked by
men here who have given earnest
thought to the matter all run down
to that single, focal proposition.
It took this world peace meeting
exactly a week to get down to the
business of naming its committees
and commissions to do the actual
work for which it was assembled.
During that week the loud speak
ers of the opera house recorded
speeches from all the interested
parties and the organizational dis
putes of the major powers.
The speeches set forth large
ly the pleas of the small powers
for “mutual respect of na
tions,” “recognition of human
values,” “Principles of justice”
—not far from the line which
Mr. Truman laid down at the
outset in his appeal for “simple
justice.” I would say that as
far as words are concerned most
of the nations are not far apart,
but some of them were not rep
resented in all these expres
sions.
It may be reported, also, that
the smaller nations will win conces
sions in the Dumbarton formula,
the extent and nature of which will
be ironed out by bargaining—and
this represents progress also.
Behind all these developments
however, the nations were sound
ing each other out. From their ex
periences they have a more com
plete knowledge of just how much
each one wants.
To that extent, great progress has
been made. But it would be safer
to report progress here—not victory.
The nine point program of Dum
barton Oaks amendments adopted
by the American delegation repre
sented quite a personal victory for
Senator Vandenberg. It was the
Michigan Republican who first
demanded the main points such as
inclusion of the word and ideal of
“Justice” through the charter and
opportunity for future peaceful
change of the world setup as well
as the charter. Other forces pre
scribed what seemed in general to
me to be basic changes of theory
from Dumbarton Oaks along the
same lines such as specific inclusion
of the Atlantic charter ideals, re
turn to international law, world
court, safeguarding human rights,
etc.
From a political standpoint the
doctrines of international law and
world court have a Republican ori
' gin, while the Atlantic charter and
human rights lines were developed
by Mr. Roosevelt. The improve
ments devised by Americans here
therefore represent a genuine com
promise and exhibit what I think is
an outstanding development of this
meeting, namely a return to a
spirit of cooperation among Ameri
can political interests which is so
vitally essential. Most of the in
side voting in the delegation bas
been unanimous.
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ffTsPRAINS AND STRAINS 1 !
\^\ Museulor Aches and Pains • Stiff Joints • Bruises I
i
■ .^~!5532
"I understand back home they*re saying
the war is over, 9 *
w Speak louder — J can’t hear yuh. 9 *
Sure, BiU—tpeak louder. Celebrate louder, America!
You’ll have to, to be heard above the bloody gurgles of
the men who are dying at this very moment of our
day of “Victory”...the ghostly whispers, mighty in
volume, of the men who died not to kill one nation but
to kill all tyranny.
Today our great fight is hut half won.
Japan, our final and most dangerous enemy, still lives.
Japan still boasts an army of 4,000,000 fanatical, last*
ditch fighters, with half again that many in reserve.
Japan’s huge, ill-gotten wealth of Empire is still essen
tially intact.
Japan still hates our guts.
Today we can, if we choose, start breaking faith with
those who died. We can go on a fool’s orgy, get drunk
on our success so far.
Or we can, if we choose, pray for our dead, and for the
lives of those who have so far been spared. We can stay
on the job, buy another War Bond, give a pint of blood.
We can choke back our cheers... and save our wind for
the mighty task that lies ahead.
Today is but the symbol of the many days to come.
What are you going to do with these days?
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SNAPPY PACTS
RUBBER
It Is difficult to detect the ordinary
"slow leak" In time to prevent de
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mends an effective cure for stealthy
leaks: (1) Make sure valve caps
have been screwed on finger tight.
(2) Before adding air be sure to
test pressure In each tire. (3) Check
variations in tire pressure—a marked
difference in pressure Indicates a
slow leak, which should be repaired
Immediately.
To help relieve the critical need for
military tires, men who work In a
large rubber plant In Los Angeles
(B. F. Goodrich) have sworn not to .
miss a day's work, and, like sub- 1
marine crews, not to shave for 120 r u B
, r
days.
PBtEGoodnchJ
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