Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 14, Number 37, DeMotte, Jasper County, 28 July 1944 — QUEENS DIE PROUDLY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

QUEENS DIE PROUDLY

by W. L. white

©. WHITB

w.n.u. feature;

THB STORY THUS FAR: Lieut. Col. Frank Kurtz, pilot of a Flying Fortress, teUf of that fatal day when the Japs struck in the Philippines. Eight of his men were killed while fleeing for shelter, and Old 99, with many other Forts, was demolished on the ground. After escaping to Australia, what is left of the squadron flies to Java, where they., go on many missions over the Philippines and the Java sea. The boys in Java hear what happened to the Marblehead and the Houston and morale sags. The Dutch blow up their ammunition dumps, and the order comes through to evacuate. The little Dutch navy fights a losing fight in the dark. Java collapses. Sgt. Warrenfeltz never gets his money.

CHAPTER XIX “When I saM I hadn’t got it, he ■aid if it ever did come through, I wasn’t to open rt until he got back, or something like that. He’d meant •very word of it, and yet now it seemed he didn’t want me to see it. I couldn’t understand. But it didn't seem to matter. Because what did any letter matter, now that we could talk, all we wanted to, around the world?” “It was long after midnight when we finished,” said Frank. “But it was some satisfaction to know it would cost the Japanese maybe five hundred dollars, and I only hoped I’d be out of Java so they couldn’t collect from me. “Then I got back to work on the Dutch military, who of course w r ere up all that night. They knew what was coming tomorrow even if the civilians were only beginning to suspect. It was two o’clock in the morning when I got Major Fisher out of bed with the news that already the landing barges of one flank of this invasion force had been sighted right off the beach. “After a final desperate call to the Dutch General van Oeyen, he agreed our boys might leave, turning their P-40’s over to the Dutch fighter pilots, provided that before they went they strafed the Jap landing barges. Without verbal orders from the Dutch commander, they would not have gone. “So I rustled two cars and a truck to transport them, and by four o’clock we were headed for Gnoro. We got there a few minutes before dawn, to find our boys were up and out on that final mission, although they did not know it was their last. “Again we telephoned Van Oeyen in Surabaya to tell him the orders had been obeyed, and he told us reluctantly to bid them Godspeed and good luck; they had fought the good fight, and those who returned from this mission w’ere now free to go to Australia. If there was a way. “I hoped there still would be. The Colonel had told me the day before that if I could get them across Java —to Jockstrap—by noon, they would find three Fortresses which he had ordered back from Australia to pick them up. However, he couldn’t guarantee that these Forts w’ould dare wait on that field beyond noon. “As we stood the Gnoro Field of course I got tense. Would those kids come back alive and in time to get across Java by noon? If we were late, would the bomber pilots get jittery and maybe pull out without us? Not that I’d blame them, for today no plane w’ould be safe on any field in Java. “The Dutch pilots are grave, but they make us welcome. “Then comes the roar of P-40’s ■nd here is the first flight—in out of the Rising Sun as though fleeing from it. Jack Dale is its leader. We grab them. What happened? “It looks bad, they tell us. There were so many barges. And when they started spraying them, the barges threw up horrible cones of fixe, in great masses. There was a

cross fire, too —from Jap shore batteries, already landed. At last they had set their ugly, crooked teeth into the fair white coastline of Java. Jack said, however, that he see his bullets taking effect as the Japs spread out, either diving or being blown off their barges. But he said he found he was flying so low that his own propeller was picking up the water splashes of his bullets ahead, so he had to pull up. “Just as he did this, he noticed his wing man was also pulling up, and out to the right, and letting his wheels down —now he could see his wing man was on fire. Jack called out to him. to bail out quick, not to try to come in on the beach. But then things were happening to Jack so fast he couldn’t watch what happened elsewhere, for he had to pull out for his next pass. “Then Jack said, in a low voice, ‘When in ‘hell will we get out of here, Frank?’ “I said I had news for him, but just then the next flight comes roaring in—it’s* three Hurricanes flown by Dutch pilots, all that is left of the Dutch Air Force this final day, except of course they had planeless pilots who were to take up our abandoned P-40’s. They bounce out of their planes, Hurricanes, still excited from the strafing party. But when we question them, they say yes, they had done some little damage, but it had not been worth it. “Now here’s the third flight, buzzing in low—P-40’s this time, and the American boys still have their old spirit left because they buzz up the drome, come roaring in right over the roof of the operations office —for a fighter pilot it’s like knocking at the door. They’re still the old 17th Pursuit Group—or what’s left of them. “Because the wing man on this flight had been caught in what the other two said was a ‘furious’ cross fire of beach and barge guns—it’s a word fighter pilots don’t use often —and had dropped into the sea among the barges. “I looked at the P-40’s. They are so full of holes they should be condemned—there is hardly one the Dutch would dare take up again. We were leaving them little enough. “Now my boys are gulping coffee. They grab an apple each and sandwiches to take along, and cram things in their bags, and I suppose it’s time for goodbys. Captain Anamaet, leader of the Dutch fighters, tall, thin, dark-haired, with a finely chiseled face, nervous like many fighters, is standing silent at one side. His Dutch boys are with him. “What can we say? Our American boys have fought with them like brothers for weeks. We’re now making a dash for safety. We can’t say what we don’t mean, but how can we say w’e’ll hope to see them again, when all know we never will? Or wish them good luck, which all know they can’t have? I stand there, tongue-tied. “Anamaet is the courageous one. He walks forward, puts up his hand, and says simply, without a quaver, ‘Thanks for all you have done. We have tried, but we are finished.’ Gravely, and with no bitterness. “I ask him why he and all his boys don’t come out with us. We’ll find room for him in the planes. Then we can continue the war from Australia. He shakes his head. His place ijs here. “Now our boys are loaded in the truck, and presently we’re out on the main highway, headed across Java, but just then we hear a familiar drone —Jap dive bombers. Smelling their way into Java, they’ve finally found this field. It’s only luck they hadn’t found it before. Our -boys crowd against the

tail gate of the truck to watch them peel off one by one, assume that 40-degree angle toward the ground, let go the little egg, pull out of their dives and then—r-r-r-umps, the bomb takes hold. It punctuates the lesson we’d been trying for days to drive home to the Dutch infantry generals—that the field was now untenable. It was only the weather which kept the Japs out of it yesterday. “But now we have worries of our own. There are seventy-six of us in this little caravan—fifteen of them pilots. We have only one road map, so the drivers’ instructions are to drive carefully and stay together. It’s a long drive at the speed we can make. A close squeeze to make it by noon. Then, in spite

of the road map, xve get lost —not badly, but two or three times we must backtrack. Then I see we’ll never make it by noon. The boys, tired from many weeks of fighting, try to doze standing up in that jolting truck. I don’t sleep, but I have nightmares. At every crossroads I wonder if lightning-fast light Jap tanks mayn’t come sliding in on us. Even if we had time to turn and run before they open fire with their turret guns, they would have cut off our escape to Jockstrap. ‘‘My wrist-watch hour hand seems to race. These tired boys, bouncing in that truck, trust me. The Air Corps got them in here; now the Air Corps is getting what is left of them out. They don’t doubt that a big bomber will be waiting with its door open on the Jockstrap runway to take them to Australia. Suppose we get there to find the bomber pilots have waited past the rendezvous hours, and then gone on back to Australia empty—and we look at a vacant field knowing the Japs are closing in behind us? “My watch hand races toward" noon and we’re still hours from Jockstrap, but I have an idea. We’re not far from what show’s on my map as a fair-sized towm which should have telephones from which, while the boys have lunch, I can call the Colonel and tell him we’re on our way—that those bombers

must wait, and by all means. “The town is a sleepy little place built round what at a quick glance one might mistake for a Middle Western courthouse square. War hasn’t touched it, and you’d think could never come. In the hotel they stare at our uniforms—they’re the first American ones they’ve seen. The boys order, while I hunt a telephone to call the Colonel at Jockstrap. “But minutes tick by and they can’t locate- r anyone else who can deliver a message that we are coming, and those bombers must wait. “Do I waste more time calling? Or do we hurry on, hoping we’ll get there before they are frightened from the field? That seems more sensible, so we forge on. I haven’t the heart to tell them I couldn’t reach the Colonel. “They're all tired in the cars, there’s no wrestling or kidding, which is amazing for fighter pilots.. Finally I know from the map we must be approaching Jockstrap. But on what side of the town is the field? We can’t waste precious minutes uselessly fl its nan streets. “Then, t le, I see leaping flames and a column of . smoke. That’s all the marker you need to find an airdrome at this, stage of a war. I tell the driver to steer for the smoke and he’ll find the field. “And at first it seems all to have been for nothing. There are the hangars, split wide open-six or seven Forts burning merrily. Also the water tower is hit. Professionally, I admire it f the best bomb runs I’ve ever st • n. The Japs seem to have made a perfect job of cutting off our retreat—but no! There remains a single Fortress! “It seems Lieutenant Vandevanter managed in the nick of time to get her off the ground, and flew out to sea until the raid was over. Luckily they sent only bombers, and no Zeros which could shoot him down. Here he is now, perched on the edge of the field. “But at the utmost he can carry only a third of us. I dispatch about fifty in the trucks to Madiun Field, hoping it isn’t blown up, and that two Forts the Colonel tells me are due in from Australia can get them out. “And now we have a bonfire of everything we couldn’t take with us, but which we don’t want the Japs to have—all our photographs, every official paper, the entire records of the 17th Pursuit Group for the Java and Philippine wars. It all goes up in those flames on Jockstrap Field forever—except what the few remaining boys standing around that fire can remember of what the others did. We even chuck in a few bomb sights that were kicking around—for luck, and for kindling mostly. “But just as the flames were leaping highest, the air-raid siren started to scream. We dived for a drainage ditch, and I think I got my worst scare of the war. Because up above were two Zeros approaching, and down here on the field was our solitary Fortress our last chance to escape—sitting in front of God and everybody (including those Japs) mother-naked and defenseless. How long I held my breath, staring up into the sky, I couldn’t say now. But for some reason they

hadn’t dived on us yet, and then when one rolled up to let the other take a picture I realized it was only a recco flight, to take the damage they’d done a few hours before. “I began loading the boys into that plane. But I did one final thing. I couldn’t forget Captain Anamaet, standing there on that Gnoro Field watching us pull out, and if I’d wanted to, the others wouldn’t have let me. So with the Dutch liaison officer there at Jockstrap, we made arrangements that if tomorrow night we could get any planes through from Australia, they would circle our old bomber field at Malang. The liaison officer was to notify Anamaet, so that if his Dutch fighter pilots could get there, and Malang wasn’t by then in Jap hands, they would light a bonfire on its field as a signal that it, was safe for our Forts to come in and pick them up and take them out to Australia, w r here we’d have another chance to fight the war together. “We kept the date. The next night Captains Bill Bohnaker and Eddie Green slipped through’ to Malang. For forty-five minutes they circled our old field. But there was no bonfire. Maybe Anamaet’s boys had died during the day, giving their all for Java. Maybe they’d got to the field just ahead of the Japs and were now prisoners, unable to light their bonfire but listening in the darkness as Bill and Eddie circled and circled above them. What happened we never knew. But I’m glad we couldn’t have foreseen that darkened field at Malang as we all climbed into our own Fortress, turned off the Jockstrap field, and headed east for Australia, flying into a rising moon.’* “Nothing much was going to happen on that flight to Australia,” continued Frank, “although we couldn't know it. All had to cram forward for the takeoff, of course, for with that big load in the rear we’d never have got her tail up. We manned battle stations, and only after we were halfway across the ocean did the gunners leave their turrets. I rode up in the pilot’s compartment, and there were at least seven of us there, three sitting on the floor. “At two o’clock in the morning we sight the coast in the moonlight, which gives it a ghostly hue. It’s just flat desert, but finally we find the little town of Broome. We circle it and finally a flare path breaks out below—-they’re tossing kerosene flares out of a moving auto to show us the runway, so we circle and come in. “In peacetime a little airline makes monthly trips up to this field —there are no railroads, and a sea voyage from Melbourne takes weeks —so part of us slept in its hangar shack, and the rest in the plane. That hangar and field reminded me of the Middle West in the old barnstorming days of the twenties. “I couldn’t sleep. The mosquitoes were making me groggy, and also I was thinking of our planes circling Malang Field for Anamaet. After a while I got up and locked , out the hangar door. The first pale dawn was breaking over Broome, which I could now see consisted Of a general store, a gas station, two houses, and this hangar shack—perched out here on the edge of nothing, where the red sand desert of Australia meets the blue salt desert of the sea. (TO BE CONTINUED)

If was two o’clock in the morning when I got Major Fisher out of bed.