Baa Baa Black Sheep (8 page)

Boy, oh boy, this was what I’d been waiting for. Ten of us climbed out of Mingaladon in our P-40s. Eight in close formation, supposedly with one of Jack Newkirk’s seasoned veterans leading us, with Cokey Hoffman and another pilot flying high cover a thousand feet above us.

The eyes of any formation had to be the leader’s, for the rest are busy watching the aircraft they are flying close to. None of us flying close formation had been in combat before, just following blindly and trusting to luck that our leader would know where to take us. Over my earphones came a garbled “forty to sixty bandits” and their approximate location. This information changed from time to time. Our formation leader came in with: “I’ve got them spotted. Between forty and fifty I-97s.”

The Japanese I-97 was a single-seater, highly maneuverable, fixed-gear airplane. Finally I spotted the Japs in the haze above us, occasionally losing them, as we were climbing into the sun, which was quite high at that hour. It wasn’t my business to question, but I couldn’t figure why we were always climbing under these babies with the sun in our eyes. I had hoped that the guy who was leading knew what he was doing.

Another few minutes, and we were directly under these Jap fighters, about two thousand feet, I imagined. What an
uncomfortable position to be in, I thought. Couldn’t that jerk see where he was taking us? But I found later that this was also his first fight. The leader wasn’t one of Newkirk’s old hands, he was one of us.

Mitsubishi A5M

My thoughts were soon interrupted as I witnessed each of these Japs slowly half-roll onto their backs, glittering momentarily above. And then all I could see was their flat-plate areas and smoke and tracers from the Jap machine guns. Cokey’s P-40 above us gave all the appearance of a fish writhing in agony out of water.

As I glanced out of the corner of my eye, the entire formation I had been sitting in a second before had disappeared completely. They were headed straight down for old mother earth. So I pulled off and down to one side to get out from underneath the diving Japs. And what a relief to have free air above me for a change.

Soon I spotted a pair of Japs off to the side of me, so I added throttle and started to close in behind them. One of these two pulled almost straight up, going into a loop above my P-40 about the same instant I started my tracers toward the other. I knew that I had to break off firing and commence turning, or the Jap who was then above my P-40 would have me bore-sighted.

Recollection of how I had been able to outturn the best of the United States Fleet pilots in peacetime practices probably gave me self-assurance. I really am not sure. The
fact that I had learned to tighten my neck muscles in my intercollegiate wrestling days, retarding the blood from rushing out of my head, I had found extremely useful in simulated combat in the past. In those earlier days pilots had no squeeze suits, which were designed and worn later on for the same purpose I had been accomplishing with my neck muscles.

But I soon found that little asset wouldn’t solve my problems against this much lighter Japanese aircraft. I discovered that even hauling back on my stick and turning with all my might, my neck muscles and breath locked, gave me no advantage whatsoever. As a matter of fact, I was sufficiently blacked out not to be able to see whether my burst had gotten the I-97 I had been firing on. I had pulled myself plumb woozy. All the time I was pulling this terrific “g” load, tracers were getting closer to my plane, until finally I was looking back down someone’s gun barrels. “Frig this racket,” I thought, and dove away.

So true, it was, that nobody could follow you if you dove with sufficient altitude in a P-40. I should have realized, then and there, that the tactics and close formation I had been so thoroughly trained in weren’t worth a damn with the Japanese, and I imagine that nothing but pride and ego led me to try once again, even though I hadn’t the faintest idea where my mates were by then.

In trying once again I gave myself a much better break, making a faster pass from a thousand feet above. As I approached this Nip fighter, he also permitted me to get close enough to where my tracers were sailing about him. Then I witnessed this little plane perform one of the most delightful split S’s I had ever seen, and then I discovered that I was turning again with some of his playmates.

“Who in the hell said: ‘These little bastards can’t fly’? To hell with this routine!” I thought, and dove out. Bonus money of the fantastic variety fluttered to the ground like so many handbills, and with them the last of my illusions.

It probably isn’t worth mentioning now, because I hadn’t even felt it at the time it occurred, but while flying back to Mingaladon Field I became conscious of something sticking me like a pen, somewhere on the underside of my upper left arm. In rolling back my short-sleeved bush jacket I found the cause, a 7.7-millimeter had evidently struck my P-40 and its jacket was imbedded in my arm.

As I went back to base, I pulled the metal delicately out of my flesh, intending at the time to keep the bullet for a souvenir. This I soon forgot about, though, for there was hardly any blood. Besides, our outfit didn’t give out Purple Hearts. It happened to be an incendiary round, and the chemicals attached to it left a large vaccination-like scar—which is souvenir enough.

A complete picture of dejection and disillusion flew back to the field. Vaguely I recall people telling me how sorry they were about the mistakes they committed, and how happy they were when I had returned after being considered shot down. As if from another world, I recall Bob Prescott standing up on my plane’s wing just after I taxied up to the flight shack. Bob told me years later that by my glancing up out of the cockpit and saying: “We didn’t do so hot. Did we, podner?” I had helped him tremendously.

I didn’t recall these exact words, but this was about my attitude then. I hated myself so badly I didn’t even bother to write up my first combat report, for this could have happened to others—but not to me. Self-pity had always been one of my greatest indulgences anyhow. And how I could feel sorry for my injured pride, when we had to lay poor old “Cokey” Hoffman to rest the following day, I don’t know.

I don’t intend any sacrilege, but I became nervous and perspiring, looking into the open grave with Cokey’s coffin beside it. We stood there, listening to an English minister drone on in the hot sun, and he seemed to be stretching the ceremony out far too long. For after all, he hadn’t known the old chief A.P. as we had. As we started to lower Cokey to his final resting place, the grave turned out to be too narrow about halfway down, and the coffin jammed there. By this time the minister sensed the strain as we struggled with this impossible situation and he quietly said: “You may all leave now. We will take care of the rest.”

As we walked away and lighted cigarettes, leaving the old chief aviation pilot, I imagined I could hear Cokey reprimanding: “You bastards. You were doing great. Why did you have to leave me fouled up—halfway down?”

The old attitude had left our English friends by then. They seemed to see us in a completely different light, for, outside of an occasional lone bomber coming over at night, they were beginning to feel comparatively secure. During the
hours of daylight not one single bomber ever even tried to hit that city again, after the First Pursuit arrived in February. Nothing but fighter sweeps were sent over by the Japanese, to try to neutralize our air defense.

Rangoon’s residents then sat in their patios and watched “a bloody good show,” because aircraft were crashing at a more comfortable distance from their fair city. I too was compelled to witness some of these “shows” from the ground, because it was impossible to have an airplane every day. During one of these battles the air above would become so full of vapor trails the sky gave the appearance of some giant bird leaving chicken tracks in barnyard mud.

It was rare, but occasionally we would have to duck for cover, when a single Jap fighter would come down and strafe too near.

The Nips’ aircraft were no match for ours in many ways, after we learned how to fight them. We had two .50-caliber and four .30-caliber machine guns against the Nips’ two 7.7-millimeter machine guns. Also, we had armor plate behind the pilot and self-sealing gas tanks, of which the Nips had none. Our P-40s were faster than the I-97s, and after we had spread out the enemy, we learned to whack them off one by one. Our P-40 proved to be capable of taking a beating from gunfire and yet go on flying. No longer did we turn with the Nips when we didn’t have to; we made them play our game.

The ground viewers could see the Nips come down in flames or disintegrating parts. Or if they were not completely burned out, a loud explosion was heard, and a column of smoke would rise off the edge of Rangoon.

During the middle of one fight Sandell landed a P-40 that was literally bathed in oil. As Sandy braked his P-40 to a halt, he vaulted out of the cockpit and ran across the field like a jack rabbit. And immediately we saw the reason for his actions, for a Nip was bearing down upon his vacated P-40 with machine guns wide open. This I-97 barely clipped the P-40’s tail surfaces, crashing into smithereens a few yards beyond.

A few of us ran over to see if we could assist Sandy in any way. He said he had gotten three Nips that day, prior to being forced down with holes in his cooling and oil systems. We also wanted to get a good look at a Japanese fighter, but it
was in too many pieces to tell very much. And so was its pilot, too. The largest part of the pilot I could recognize was a tiny left hand with the severed tendons sticking out. No doubt subconscious reflex had thrown up his arm in a futile attempt to protect his face.

Another Nip fighter, knowing that he could never reach home, deliberately dove at one of our planes parked in a revetment, and, so help me, he couldn’t have done better, for us at least, because it was the same as if he had put the last piece into a jagsaw puzzle. This Nip had committed hara-kiri in that revetment without placing so much as a scratch on the parked aircraft. It was unbelievable that this I-97 could have fitted into the unused space at any angle except the one it did—straight down.

As luck would have it, a “bogey” came at the same time of day, two days after my first flubdub. The Japanese always appeared to come over like clockwork. These folks certainly believed in monotony, if nothing else. On this occasion I got to lead the scramble, and I personally didn’t give one damn whether these bandits got over Rangoon or not. All I was going to make certain was that, when we made contact, I was going to be on top of the heap and remain there.

And on top we were. With the exception of Cokey our ten pilots were the identical formation in which I had my first fight. As I lowered the formation down over the neat-looking Jap fighter formation, they loosened up, spreading in depth and width below us. Their idea was to suck the P-40s inside this beehive, in hopes that we would turn with them. I became so familiar with this change in the Jap formation when about to be attacked that it made them look like a flock of vultures as they hover over a single spot.

There had been no turning this time. We worked methodically from the top down. I caught my first Jap just right, and he blazed into an inferno. Shortly afterward I heard someone scream over the radio: “This is for Cokey, you son of a bitch.” My sentiments were the same.

Pulling off to one side, I saw another safe shot. As I continued a steady burst into the fighter, pieces of his fuselage ripped off at point-blank range. In a second or so this plane also went on its way earth-bound, twisting crazily and burning like a torch.

Because of the first sad encounter, or maybe because we
merely desired to leave well enough alone, the remaining Nips were free to go home alone. We did not give chase. On this second fight we flew back to Mingaladon with an entirely different feeling, however, because we had knocked down sixteen enemy, while we lost no one.

Although my own spirits were bucked up considerably, I didn’t permit myself much enthusiasm, for I knew only too well that this was going to be a struggle for survival—not for money.

Here at Rangoon I was to meet two of the most genuine friends I hope to have. For two semi-portly gentlemen in their fifties, showing the signs of years of good living, came across my path. I didn’t realize then that, no matter where a person goes or what kinds of problems he may have, he always has friends.

Jim Adams and Bill Tweedy did everything a little differently from the way other wealthy colonials acted there in Rangoon. They came out to Mingaladon in person and picked up six of us AVG pilots. It was very cute, I thought, the way the inseparable pair worked together. Later, I learned, they had continued this relationship, which started when they served together in World War I. As two young men, they had realized the lack of opportunity in Scotland and had struck out to the colonies to better themselves, remaining there ever since.

Jim and Bill were in the oil-refining business in Burma. Both were bachelors and always had been. And both of them had selected picturesque knolls in the suburbs of Rangoon, where they had constructed their dream estates, approximately a half mile from one home to the other. The construction, the landscaping, the servants, everything appeared to blend in peaceful harmony.