Edson: Our fliers learn tricks of trade fighting Nazis
By Peter Edson
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Grandma would be shocked to see modern version of Pinafore
Bared shoulders and embroidery spell freedom and femininity
By Maxine Garrison
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC (delayed) – All but six of our planes were back from their strike on Tokyo and safely landed.
The six formed a separate flight, and we couldn’t believe that all of them had been lost, and for that reason our officers didn’t feel too concerned.
And then came a radio message from the flight leader. It said that one of the six was down in the ocean, and that the other five were hanging around to try to direct some surface vessels to the rescue. That’s all we knew for hours. When we finally got the story, this was it:
Ens. Robert Buchanan of Clementon, New Jersey, was hit by flak as they were driving on their target some 20 miles west of Tokyo. Buchanan himself was not hurt.
He kept his plane up till he got over water, but it was still very much Japanese water. In fact, it was in Tokyo’s outer bay – the bigger one of the two bays you see on the map leading in to Tokyo.
Ens. Buchanan is an ace, with five Jap planes to his credit. He ditched his plane successfully, and got out in his rubber boat. He was only eight miles from shore and five miles from the big island that stands at the bay entrance.
Then the flight leader took charge. He is Lt. John Fecke of Duxbury, Massachusetts. He is also an ace and an old hand at the game. He has downed seven Jap planes.
Fecke took the remaining four of the flight and started out looking for an American rescue ship. Thery found one about 30 miles off the bay entrance.
Uses mirror to signal
They talked to him on the radio, told him the circumstances and he sent back word he was willing to try. But he asked them to stick with him and give air support.
So Lt. Fecke ordered the other four to stay and circle above the ship, while he went back to pick up Buchanan’s location and guard him.
But when he got there, he couldn’t find Buchanan. He flew for 25 minutes around Tokyo Bay and was about to despair when he began getting sun flashes in his eyes.
He flew over about three miles and there was Buchanan. He had used his signal mirror, just like it says in the book.
In the meantime, the ship’s progress was slow. It took almost two hours to get there. And one by one the aerial escort began getting in trouble, and one by one Fecke ordered them home to our ship, which was getting farther away all the time.
Lt. Irl Sonner of Petaluma, California, lost the use of his radio, and had to leave.
Lt. Max Barnes of Olympia, Washington, got dangerously low on gas, and Fecke sent him home. Gas shortage also sent back Lt. Bob Murray of Muncie, Indiana.
That left only Lt. Fecke circling above the man in the boat, and Lt. Arnold Berner of Springdale, Arkansas, flying lone aerial escort for the rescue ship.
Finally, the ship was past the bay entrance. The skipper began to have his doubts. He had to go within three miles of the gun-dotted island, he was within five minutes flying distance of land, and Jap planes could butcher him.
Go right into lion’s mouth
Furthermore, he looked at his chart, and saw that he was in “restricted waters,” meaning they were probably mined. It was certainly no place for a ship to be.
The skipper radioed Fecke and said he couldn’t go any further. Fecke radioed back and said, “It’s only two miles more. Please try.”
The skipper answered and said, “Okay, we’ll try.”
And they pulled it off. They went right into the lion’s mouth, pulled out our pilots, and got safely away. Then, and then only, did Fecke and Berner start home.
They came back to us three hours after all the rest had returned. They had flown six hours on a three-hour mission. But they helped save an American life by doing so.
That night I lay in my bunk reading a copy of Flying magazine. It was the issue of last October, nearly six months old. It was the annual Naval aviation issue.
And in an article entitled “Life on a Carrier,” on Page 248, was this paragraph:
It’s a mighty good feeling to know that even if you were shot down in Tokyo Harbor, the Navy would be in to get you.
It never had happened when that piece was written. But it has happened now.
TAILPIECE: The rescue ship radioed us the next day that Buchanan was feeling fine, and that just to be impartial, they also had rescued another Navy pilot, a disgruntled Jap pilot, and a lone bedraggled survivor of a Jap picket boat!
Editorial: Rescue story
A good example of the reason Ernie Pyle, America’s favorite war correspondent, will be found today on Page 1, Second Section.
He tells of a squadron of flier who refused to desert one of their number shot down in Tokyo’s outer bay. the squadron located a U.S. ship and talked the skipper into going in after the pilot.
While the squadron provided air cover, the ship steamed within three miles of the gun-dotted shore, picked up the pilot and escaped.
Ernie writes the story, just as he does all his stories simply. So, he achieves quality that all the purple words in the dictionary wouldn’t apply.
If Ernie has a trick of writing, it is that he likes to have a kicker on the end of a story. You will find a kicker on this one, too. It will make you grin as you say to yourself, “That’s how our boys fight the war.”
Trouble-shooting is their trade –
Army engineer’s leg is blown off, but he keeps right on firing
Youth only 19 kills more than half of 39 Japs before he, too, dies on New Guinea
By Lee G. Miller, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Well, I ran into one of those nasty clerks today. I went into the candy store to buy some Easter rabbits, and the clerk just glared at me and said: “We’ve had a run – or don’t you know what that is?”
The idea of asking any woman if she knows what a run is, with the stockings we get these days! But it developed that he meant there is a shortage of candy Easter rabbits.
I guess they’re sending most of the rabbits to our boys overseas. Though the way they’ve moving in Germany I’d like to see the rabbit that could keep up with them.
Anyway, unless the OPA pulls a few bunnies out of its hat between now and Sunday, I guess we are going to do without them. I know our children, Ronnie and Sandra, will understand. But it’s simply going to break George’s heart.
Baseball briefs –
Phils get Wyatt from Dodgers in cash deal
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Why play out the season?
All agree: Pirates team to beat
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Who was this american and what was his story?