Jim explained that, owing to the higher wages in Burma, an Indian could work three years away from India, then return back home and live a year without working. Several of the Indian servants had been going back and forth for a couple generations.
The mornings, even though I was awakened before sunrise, were equally pleasant—no clanging alarm clock, no bugler, merely the delightful aroma of freshly brewed tea. This came from a teapot and a poured cup upon a table beside my pillow. And for once in my life I was able to get out of bed by degrees and enjoy myself. The cup of tea was very nearly consumed by the time I had finished a cigarette and had gotten my other slipper on my foot. Then into the bathroom for a shave and a toothbrush I went. Upon returning to my bedroom I found fruit, ham and eggs, marmalade and toast, and more tea, placed upon the little table beside my bed. What a way to live! How could I ever forget this part?
The only occasion I recall for ever having a great deal of conversation with any of the natives must be considered as a justifiable bawling out by an Indian. It had been accomplished in an orderly manner, though, and I got his point, realizing my mistake. We were there at a time when these people had been getting along without us for so many generations and before the land was infested with G.I.s who so wantonly tossed their money about.
The incident occurred when I had given an Indian youth three rupees, equivalent to a United States dollar at the time, for spending a whole day cleaning and polishing my dirty field boots. The boy’s eyes expressed supreme delight when I paid him for his troubles, so, when the father confronted me in anger afterwards, I got a chip on my shoulder immediately, for I imagined that I had been accused of something I hadn’t done—cheating his son.
The father simmered down quickly, as did I, and he explained the situation I had unintentionally created. The point being that I had given his son far too much money, as much as his father made in a week. Not that he didn’t appreciate generosity, he explained, but through my actions he would lose the privilege of discipling his son. He would be lowered in the son’s estimation, upon the boy’s discovery that he could make more money than his parent.
For causing this trouble I apologized to the Indian father. And today there is little doubt in my mind concerning world attitudes about the U.S. dollar and the manner in which we toss the God Almighty Buck around.
With all this excellent living nothing but craving for excitement and women could tear us away occasionally to the Greek’s Silver Grill in downtown Rangoon. There were enough members of the AVG, by each of us going on occasion, to make the Greek an excellent living in his moth-eaten night club night after night.
One night when I had a terrific load aboard, an air raid sounded while we were busy whooping it up at the Silver Grill. I guess that the Greek had about enough of our money for one day. Anyhow, he was wringing his hands and telling us we had enough for one evening—to go home. That part was okay. But the Greek went too far; he couldn’t get us out quietly, so he ordered us out.
Automatics and revolvers were part of the dress for these nights out. But on this occasion they should have suggested that all firearms be left with the hat-check girl, like in the movies of the old wild West. We answered the demanding proprietor of the Silver Grill, carrying out our threats by shooting down the chandeliers. God knows what the Anglo-Indian prostitutes upstairs thought, if there were any of them left up above at the time.
Americans had a rather crude way of getting what they wanted under these circumstances. Later I learned that P. Green, as we always refer to Paul, almost had some difficulty in obtaining service in another colony, when several pilots were ferrying planes back from the Gold Coast.
P. Green, the handsome Jim Clinton of Kunming, as we call him, was wearing two holsters for this Gold Coast trip. Hot and thirsty, the pilots had stopped in a British colonial bar, where apparently liquor was rationed, and ordered a round of drinks. The bilious English bartender informed these pilots that there was sufficient whisky for Englishmen only.
As the story went—and who am I to doubt it?—P. Green saw red. He tossed both of his heavy West Texas pistols, crashing down upon the bar top, and screamed: “Whisky me, boy. Whisky me, boy.”
P. Green and his buddies were served. Served with smiles, too, all they wanted. So, it wasn’t all our fault, like one might have believed, the cause of the grating feelings that existed. I have to admit, personally, that I didn’t help the situation much.
During an early moon one evening we were seated on the Adams lawn, quietly sipping our scotch and sodas and listening to the drone of a Japanese bomber. Occasional bursts of anti-aircraft fire, blending in with the searchlights, were rather pretty, I thought. No worry concerning our P-40s, for they were off the field. The whistling and the cla-umph cla-umph of the bombs in the distance were normal sounds by then.
But the next night was a complete surprise. First we saw a more or less horizontal burst of tracers at some altitude. We saw another, Roman-candle-like burst, which appeared as if it had been fired straight down. Then came the ever-increasing howl of a pair of twin engines, winding up as though they were about to tear themselves out of their mounts. The crescendo increased gradually until it terminated in silence, after a blinding flash of light, which preceded a terrific explosion.
After this little show we realized that the tracer bursts had to be from a fighter, but had no idea who it could have been. The following morning we were to learn that Wing Commander Schaffer, survivor of the Battle of Britain, had been doing a bit of night flying in his RAF Hurricane.
It was an honor to meet this handle-bar-mustachioed gentleman in the RAF mess a few days later. That is the way I felt. I couldn’t blame the commander if he felt differently.
It is odd, indeed, what things we do in an emergency. This thing I did paralleled the actions of a tow-headed youngster I was to meet in a Japanese prison camp in Japan. This sailor had filled his pockets with canned goods before he was released to the surface in an air bubble from the Tang, an American submarine, resting upon the bottom of the Sea of Japan, unable to rise.
While talking to Wing Commander Schaffer I became so engrossed I failed to recognize a certain sound. But he did. He yelled: “Strawf. Strawf,” and out of the RAF mess door his lean frame went, his mustache streamlined out along his thin cheeks. What caused my actions, or how I did them, I don’t know. But I had followed the rangy Schaffer, hurdling a high porch railing that should have taken me three jumps, followed him into a slit trench, landing with both feet in the middle of his back, poor fellow. And, as I gathered my senses, lying there on some rocks, I discovered that I was clutching an unbroken bottle of scotch in each hand.
One morning in the middle of February our squadron received a sad blow. An extremely quiet morning, as I recall it. Sandell had been out early, testing his repaired P-40, and was killed. I was on duty this day, but I hadn’t seen the accident. But some of the RAF had seen it and told me about it.
They said that it appeared as though Sandy had spun his airplane deliberately, at fairly high altitude, and then appeared to be having difficulty in recovering. But eventually the plane recovered completely and was in a steep dive. At fairly low altitude Sandy apparently hauled back on the stick too rapidly when pulling out of the dive, and his P-40 half rolled slowly, going into the ground in an inverted attitude.
The following day only half of us could attend Sandy’s funeral, and I was on duty at the field for an alert. There was no direct contact in mass this day. We had taken off twice, during the same alert, and couldn’t make contact with any bandits the first time, although the reports were coming in from RAF Radar Control. A hazy day made a will-o’-the-wisp game out of it. Here they are. No, they aren’t. Finally, after about two hours of this, I saw one lone Jap fighter, almost across the bay leading into the Settang River. Apparently he was heading for Moulmein, about out of fuel.
It was simple to ease up behind this I-97, and I had all the time in the world to set my sights for a no-deflection
shot. He never saw me, at least not before I fired. Fear that I had missed him was soon over. The I-97 slowly half rolled and plowed out of sight under the water. Realization that I was seventy miles from Rangoon hit me suddenly, so I scooted back to base while I still had fuel left.
There were a few Hurricane pilots around the city by this time. After I had gotten back, a couple of their pilots told of sighting the main body of the I-97s. The two of them had been sitting above approximately fifty Japs, sensibly waiting for some of the AVG to reinforce them before making an attack.
They asked me who was in a certain numbered P-40. I remember saying that I didn’t know offhand but could find out—and why do you ask?
One Hurricane pilot said: “While the two of us were waiting, we saw Number—– climbing up, and counted on his joining us.” He added: “But to our complete surprise Number—– plowed into the whole bloody bunch alone. And the next thing we knew he was in a bloody spin with Japs all over his Shark Fin. They damn nearly got us both when we decided to give him a bit of help. Here’s a little friend I found imbedded in my parachute pack,” he said, dropping a 7.7 slug into my palm.
This may all seem pointless. But this lone character turned out to be Big Jim Howard, Newkirk’s second-in-command, to whom we fellows always gave a horrible ribbing, for he acted so gullible.
After Big Jim’s AVG days he went on, and they gave him the Medal of Honor for his work over Germany. I can imagine how he baffled the German pilots, thinking they were up against an automatic pilot, or something out of the ordinary, at least. Jim who didn’t give a damn about the odds Madame Chiang had made book on. Though I considered Big Jim one of the better boys, I somehow had a feeling that I was as close to him as I was to a cigar-store Indian.
The pleasant company of Jim Adams and Bill Tweedy was too good to last, and I knew it. The Japanese ground forces had steadily marched on west, with poor old General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell one jump ahead of them.
I first met the general at Mingaladon Field. Even now I can still see him as he was during those days. Of course nobody would have recognized him as a general in the clothes he was wearing at the time. Stilwell informed me at Mingaladon that he was without American troops, and the few Chinese and Burmese with him were forced to move back all the time. But I believe Stilwell knew that if he had so much as stopped to tie his shoelaces, let alone fire a round, the Japs would have surrounded them.
Well, whenever we stopped at an airfield, along the road would come General Stilwell with a group of refugees. I’ll never forget the time at Magwe, Burma, a west-coast town, where they evacuated refugees to India. One of our mechanics was opening a can of tomatoes and he turned around to the general and said: “Hey, bub, do you want some of these too?”
The general answered: “Sure thing.”
They ate out of a can and slept practically beside each other on the ground all night, and it wasn’t until the next morning that the young mechanic learned the identity of the man he had called “bub.”
Getting back to our genial hosts who were saying good-by, for Rangoon was in the process of being almost flanked from the north, the only way out. Jim called me in one day in early March and told me of the plan to evacuate Rangoon. He said he had talked to the servants; and they were willing to remain with us pilots. So I was instructed briefly in how to manage these servants. Jim suggested that we double their wages because of the uncertainty of things. You could have knocked me over with a breath of cool air when I found that by doubling the help’s wages it was still only thirty-some dollars a week. Whether this included the supplies the cook bought I can’t remember offhand. Anyhow, it would be little more.
Then I was the head of the household, a position I have never been able to manage very well at best, but I pretended to carry on the routine, the same as Jim Adams had, if for nothing other than to keep his excellent help around.
The Indian cook would bring in his ledger before dinner, every other night or so, and I would pretend to study his ledger with care, as I had observed Jim do so often. It was impossible for me to tell up from down about the damned thing, for I couldn’t even pronounce the few words I knew in Hindustani. Anyhow, I would point at some item at random on the page, and pretend I was angry, like a wrestler does in exhibition. Then the cook would be all explanation and apology. I never will know how much he fooled me, or I him. Much the same as a game of darts in the dark.
The most pitiful sight I ever saw was when these two Scots were leaving Rangoon. They had said farewell, and were to travel by foot with light bundles over their shoulders. As they walked down the road, they looked much like two of our own Knights of the Road back home. Before they started, I asked: “Anything I can do for either of you after you go?”
Bristol Blenheim
And Jim had said: “Set a match to it. It’s too good for the Japs.”
Angus, the great Dane, was left behind also, for Jim had made me promise to shoot Angus before the Japanese arrived. Little did Jim realize that I would have less trouble shooting one of the pilots than I would slugging old Angus.
Another thought ran through my mind, watching the two balding gents go their way with my pity, about how relative everything is. Only a couple weeks ago we had been complimenting our hosts on what a great way to live, and bachelors, too. And Bill Tweedy, the spitting image of the actor Charlie Ruggles, had said: “I’ll have you know it was much more exciting than this, for once upon a time, these hallowed halls were occasionally blessed with beautiful Anglo-Burmese girls who came to dinner.” And he had said this with a delightful chuckle.
Since February there had been South African crews in twin-engined Blenheim bombers, carrying bombs into next door Thailand. And from our old training base, Toungoo, a squadron of Kashmir Indians was flying ancient, single-engine Lysanders loaded with bombs. Neither the South Africans nor the Kashmir Indians needed or accepted fighter cover, and they never appeared to get much higher than the jungle terrain they flew over, either. How I admired them both!
Though the Japanese ground forces came steadily onward, averaging roughly ten miles per day, about as fast as they could walk in a day, the air was commanded by a handful of RAF and AVG. We were getting few alerts by then. One of the last alerts of any size came around the middle of February, but I never saw any bombers personally. Some of the pilots spotted a few, and knocked a couple down, far away from Rangoon. All I could see were fighters that apparently had been up for some time. By then I had learned where to find some easy shooting, when the enemy is going home low on gas with his guard down. If one wanted to run into anything going home after a raid, he had to get down low, or he would never see an enemy. The Nips would be taking a free power glide, their attention being taken up somewhat by the gas gauges and the anxiety to get back whole, getting closer to the terrain as they approached home base. So it was extremely difficult to pick them up, but there were some fairly easy pickings if you did and had a lot of gas left.
As an aid safely to searching down low I found something, quite accidently, I was to use to good advantage thereafter. Pilots had been coming out of the sun since World War I, and so did we. But to make certain that no one sucked me in for a sun approach, or if he did and I couldn’t avoid it, I used a trick to keep track of him: I closed one eye, holding the tip of my little finger up in front of the open orb, blocking out just the fiery ball of the sun in front of my opened eye. I found that it was impossible for an enemy to come down from out of the sun on a moving target without showing up somewhere outside of my fingertip if I continuously kept the fiery part from my vision. This is mentioned only because I assumed that others were doing the same thing, but the war was over before I knew that most of the pilots I talked to didn’t.
Anyway, with this little bit of knowledge, I felt comparatively safe this day, chasing some homeward-bound Nips. And it paid off, too, for I was able to get two Nip fighters with short bursts, one after the other, only seconds apart. There were no flames from either one,
both were perfect no-deflection shots. As a matter of fact, this was the only shot I ever had complete faith in, regardless of all my practice back in the States—a no-deflection shot.
The third fighter didn’t go down quite so easily, it seemed, and something made me feel squeamish. Air fighting had become impersonal, for there was no personal contact—except on this one occasion.
As a boy I remember reading the air stories of World War I, and how the opposing pilots at that time, in their rickety machines, did everything except fire revolvers at each other. And, on remembering some of these stories, I think that at times the pilots did even this.
On this occasion I had sent a burst into this little fellow. He had an open-cockpit fighter. The plane didn’t burst into flames, and it didn’t fall apart, but was definitely going down, out of control. As I flew right beside him, I could see his arm dangling out of the cockpit, flapping in the slipstream like the arm of a rag doll, and I knew definitely he was dead. For no other reason, or maybe because we were supposed to bring a claim back in our teeth to get credit, I sent another long burst into his plane and literally tore it up. That was the only time I ever felt squeamish about the entire affair.
From this time on the AVG pilots knew that unless they came down practically within the city limits of Rangoon they would stand little chance of getting back at all. The Burmese members of our help disappeared without notice one day. Their action frightened so badly our Indian servants, who were definitely not pro-Japanese, that they announced they would be on their way to India on foot.
Ed Liebolt, one of our pilots, forced down with engine trouble on the outskirts of Rangoon, was expected back, surely, for some other pilot had seen Ed get out of his wheels-up landing in a rice paddy and commence running. However, Ed Liebolt never got back, so we can only assume the Burmese had killed him.
We discovered that the Burmese had turned pro-Japanese in a hurry, and for safety we moved back out to Mingaladon Field, where we could fly out on a minute’s notice and set explosives to anything we had to leave behind. Our ground crew had been sent on to the next base of operations in trucks, Magwe, Burma.
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