Red Randall Over Tokyo

by R. Sidney Bowen

  Red Randall and Jimmy Joyce, the heroes of Pearl Harbor, are detailed on a perilous secret mission…to contact a United States Intelligence Agent in Japan who possesses information vital to the American forces in the Pacific. The fearless airmen fly and fight their way from Australia to the coast of China, where they are to meet General Chan, a Chinese guerrilla leader, who is to help them reach their destination. Led into a trap by a clever Japanese trick, Red and Jimmy are taken prisoners. Their rescue by General Chan’s guerrillas, their flight to Japan in a captured enemy plane, and their mad dash over a Tokyo blazing from Yank bombs, make for a thrill-a-minute adventure.

  RED RANDALL 3:

  RED RANDALL OVER TOKYO

  By R. Sidney Bowen

  First Published by Grosset and Dunlap in 1944

  Copyright © 1944, 2021 Robert Sidney Bowen

  First Electronic Edition: August 2021

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by means (electronic, digital, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with Cosmos Literary Agency.

  Visit www.piccadillypublishing.org to read more about our books.

  A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

  This and the other books in the series were originally written and published in the 1940s, when language and attitudes were much different to today. In order to preserve the spirit of the original writing and terminology, we have kept revisions to a minimum.

  Chapter One – Man Your Planes!

  SHIELDING HIS EYES against the blazing sun, Red Randall peered out over the rollers that were pounding the sandy beach of Broome, located on the western coast of Australia. A moment or two later he spotted a tiny splash as a stone arced down into clear blue water.

  “Terrible!” he snorted. “Why they wouldn’t even let you play the outfield in Brooklyn! Better stick to soft ball, my friend.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Jimmy Joyce snorted back at him. “Well, let’s see you beat it, Mister! Let’s see you beat it!”

  “Beat that?” Randall echoed. “Go on and take another try. Give me something to shoot at.”

  “Quit stalling!” Joyce said. “Just let me see you beat it.”

  “Okay, if you insist, sucker,” Randall grunted and picked up a stone off the beach. “But, look, Jimmy, I want to be fair about this. You want me to use my right hand or my left hand?”

  “Use either, or both!” Joyce snapped. “Just beat my throw if you can. And don’t forget, you’ve got a dollar riding on it.”

  “And when I think how easy it would have been to talk you into five!” Randall sighed, taking a firm grip on the stone.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?” Jimmy growled as Red hesitated.

  Randall grinned at Jimmy and then cocked an eye offshore.

  “I only hope this doesn’t go over the horizon,” he said, “because if you don’t see the splash, you probably won’t pay me off. Well, get set to weep over your one-buck loss.”

  Drawing back his arm, Red danced forward a couple of steps and then brought his throwing arm forward. At that exact moment, however, a soft pocket of sand under his left foot gave way an inch or so and pitched him off balance. He tried desperately to hang onto the stone, but it flew from his fingers like a bullet and hit the beach right at the water’s edge about fifty feet away. He saw it hit as he stumbled down onto his hands and knees, and then heard the hooting laughter of Jimmy Joyce.

  “Boy, are you good!” Joyce cried. “Wonderful! Marvelous! And colossal! But not quite far enough. Pay me the buck.”

  “Pay you?” Randall shouted as he scrambled up on his feet. “No dice. My foot slipped. You’re not counting that, are you?”

  Joyce grinned at him and stuck out his hand. “One dollar, cash money, please,” he said.

  “You go climb a Zero!” Randall said and shook his head. “I get another chance. Look. Make it two bucks, huh?”

  “How the guy can crawl out of things!” Joyce sighed. “Okay, go ahead. If I did collect you’d be sniveling and grumbling about it for the rest of your life. Two bucks it is then.”

  “Now you’re being sensible,” Randall said and selected another stone off the beach. “But you had me worried there for a moment. Okay, take a look.”

  This time the redhead did not step on any soft sand, and the stone left his hand at exactly the right moment. Both young men squinted and waited. Presently they saw the splash in the blue water.

  “There you are!” Randall cried. “Beat you by a good fifty feet.”

  “Fifty feet nuts!” Joyce jeered. “You mean fifty feet this side of where mine went in.”

  “Now who’s backing down?” Randall snorted. “You know darn well I trimmed you. What do you want me to do to prove it? Swim out and find both stones?”

  “Sure!” Joyce grinned. “And stay there! But I might as well give you another break. We’ll throw together, and then we can see both splashes. Fair enough?”

  Randall gave a little shake of his head and began looking for another stone.

  “What you have to do to get a dollar out of a Navy guy!” he groaned. “Okay, pick a stone and let’s get it over with.”

  Jimmy Joyce bent down to pick up a stone, but at that moment the eerie wail of a siren came drifting down the beach. Both youths stiffened and looked at each other.

  “The air raid alarm!” Randall finally found his tongue. “Let’s go!”

  The last was quite unnecessary, because Jimmy Joyce already had whirled around and was racing up the beach toward the American-built flying field on the southern fringes of Broome. Randall dug after him, caught up, and shoulder to shoulder they reached the field and went racing past the line of Curtiss P-40’s to the small wooden building that served as the Operations Office. Other sun-bronzed Yank pilots raced from various directions to the same point. There was a bit of a jam as they all tried to go through the door at the same time.

  They all finally got inside, and Major Clarke, standing by the desk, nodded and grinned.

  “You lads remind me of the five o’clock rush in a New York subway!” he grunted. “Relax, all of you. There’s no air raid. I just wanted to get you all together, and didn’t want to waste time sending the mechanics around to dig you out of the sand.”

  The Commanding Officer of the Yank fighter squadron stationed at the field paused for breath, and hooked one leg over the comer of his desk.

  “Another scare rumor is making the rounds,” he explained. “A Jap boat, or the whole Jap fleet, is reported to be out there in the Indian Ocean somewhere. G.H.Q. wants the rumor checked, and we are one of the squadrons selected to do the checking. I’ve worked out a flight schedule and areas for you to cover. The areas will fan out from here like slices of pie, and two pilots will be assigned to each. You will maintain strict radio silence, even if something goes wrong with your plane and you go down into the drink. If there are any Jap boats off the coast, we don’t want them to know that we are hunting for them.”

  The Major paused again and smiled faintly.

  “Don’t worry too much,” he went on, “if you do fall into the ocean. You have your rubber life rafts, and the schedule shows the area e
very pilot will patrol. If one of you fails to come back on time, we’ll know just where to look. If you sight any enemy ships, take as good a look as you can from a distance. Don’t get too close. A flock of Zeros might pop up to kiss you right on the button. The main idea is to try to spot the Japs without them spotting you for a snooper. So take a good look, and then high-tail back here at full throttle and report. Is that clear? Are there any questions?”

  “Yes, sir,” spoke up one of the pilots. “When do we start?”

  “Just as soon as you’ve studied the schedule and your ships are ready,” the Major replied. “But don’t get your hopes up too high, men. As you all know, these scare rumors are like the dawn—they come around every day. All right, then. Here’s the schedule. Take a look at it, and then get going.”

  Ten minutes later Red Randall and Jimmy Joyce tumbled out of the Operations Office with the others and legged it over to the line of planes. Mechanics already had “plugged in” the engines so that the air was filled with the song of high octane power. Skidding to a stop by his plane, Red wiggled into his parachute harness, which he had left on the trailing edge of one wing, and grinned over at Jimmy, whose plane was next in line.

  “Thoughtful of the Major to assign us to the same slice of pie, wasn’t it?” he called out. “He knows he can trust me to keep an eye on you and not let you get lost.”

  “Yes, sure, I don’t think!” young Joyce shouted back. “But it was G.H.Q. that was really thoughtful of me!

  “Of you?” Randall echoed. “Okay, I’ll bite this once. Why?”

  “The radio silence order!” Joyce said, climbing up into his plane. “I have to look at you now and then, but I don’t have to hear you!”

  “Say, do something for a pal, will you?” Randall shouted through his cupped hands. “If you have to bail out, count up to six million before you yank the ring!”

  “Pilots like me don’t bail out!” Joyce retorted with a grin. “They bring the ship back! Be seeing you!”

  A fitting reply to that remark leaped to Randall’s lips, but he said nothing because Jimmy Joyce opened up his engine and sent his P-40 rocketing out across the field. A moment or two later Red followed him. He gave the ship plenty of head run, pulled it clear, and went climbing up into the Australian sky. He joined Jimmy at five thousand feet, and wing to wing they circled the field several times to check their engine performance, and then they swung westward and went cutting out over the clear blue waters of the Indian Ocean.

  Chapter Two – Zero vs. Zero

  SHIFTING TO A more comfortable position in the pit of his P-40, Randall shoved up his goggles and rubbed his tired eyes. Then he pulled his goggles down into place and squinted ahead. He saw the same thing he had been seeing for the last hour—sun-tinted blue water that stretched on and on until it met the horizon. And there, sun-tinted blue sky began and stretched back, and back, and passed on over his head. There was nothing else—not a cloud, not a bird, not so much as a floating rowboat.

  “Joe Sucker hunts the phantom fleet!” he growled to himself. “That’s what you could call this flight. Oh, well! The Major warned us. And he certainly wasn’t kidding. I wonder what the guy who owes me a buck is doing? The bum! It was fifty feet if it was an inch!”

  Red turned his head and looked across the quarter of a mile of air space to his right where Jimmy Joyce was drilling along in his P-40. At the same time Jimmy glanced over at Red. They made a couple of razzing signs to each other, and then turned front to pay attention to their jobs.

  Randall stared listlessly at the same old maddening scene. But suddenly he blinked and sat up a, little straighter in the pit.

  “The old eyes beginning to do tricks?” he muttered. “Or what is it?”

  Red thought he saw two slivers of silver in the sun-tinted heavens far ahead. Were they birds, a couple of planes, or just two silver spots in front of his tired eyes?

  At that instant he heard the savage yammer of aerial machine-gun fire off to his right. He jerked his head around in that direction to see Jimmy Joyce’s plane swinging in close. Young Joyce had fired his guns to attract Randall’s attention, and as the redhead looked his way, Jimmy pointed wildly ahead with his free hand. Randall nodded and took both hands from the controls and gestured with them, palms upward. Joyce nodded and repeated the gesture.

  “Which gets us nowhere at all,” Randall grunted as he looked ahead again. “But at least Jimmy sees them, so that means my eyes haven’t gone haywire. Now what the heck can...? Hey! Planes! They are planes! They can’t be anything else. And are they traveling! It’s the sun on them that makes them look like silver slivers.”

  Leaning forward, as though that movement would afford a clearer view of the two planes, Randall watched them draw closer and closer. They were not traveling toward him head-on. Rather, they were crossing his line of flight at an angle of northwest to southeast. And though the distance was still great, it struck him that the two planes were plunging in a long, shallow dive. And then, as both objects suddenly swerved more to the south, and seemed to shake off the dazzling refection of the sun’s rays, Red saw them clearly. He stiffened and choked out a startled gasp.

  “Planes, and how!” he cried. “Jap Zeros! Two of them. But what are they puffing off? Are they playing follow-the-leader way out here? Hey, Jimmy, you see what I see, kiddo?”

  As Randall impulsively shouted the last into the roar of his engine, he turned his head and looked over at his flying mate. Young Joyce nodded violently and started making signs with his two hands. Before Randall could figure out what the signs meant, the yammer of machine-gun fire ahead jerked his head around front.

  “Now I must be nuts!” he cried in dumbfounded amazement. “Or somebody must be! That Jap behind is blazing away at the one ahead. And his tracers are getting close, too.”

  The last was quite true. Thin lines of smoke streaked out from the rear Jap plane and cut dangerously close across the wing of the Zero ahead. The leading Zero seemed to jump sideways in the air. Then suddenly it cut around in a flash turn and came streaking straight toward Randall. Instinctively the redheaded pilot slid his hand up to the electric trigger button of his guns and braced himself in the seat.

  “So they spotted us, and this is some kind of a trick, eh?” he muttered. “Okay, you Japs! It suits us fine. The Major didn’t give any orders about not shooting if a couple of you guys should drop around. Keep coming. Keep coming right into my sights.”

  With every muscle tensed, Randall lined up the on-streaking Jap Zero in his sights. But he did not fire because the range was not right. There was no sense in wasting bullets on thin air. Besides, he might scare off the Japanese.

  But there was something else that made the Yank air ace hold his fire. The on-streaking Zero was zigzagging from side to side as he tore through the air. And the pilot of the Zero behind was still blazing away with his guns. Twice Randall was sure that the Zero ahead had been hit. However, the plane only lurched violently to one side or the other and kept on coming.

  “If this business is a trick,” Randall grunted, “it sure is the dizziest trick I ever saw. That guy in the lead has been flirting with death for the last couple of minutes. What now?”

  The leading Japanese plane had suddenly swerved again, this time all the way around to the north. The bareheaded pilot half rose in his seat and waved both hands wildly over his head. An instant later the pilot of the Zero behind hit him. The one with upraised waving hands fell over to one side. The Zero seemed to stumble in the air, and then started down in a power dive. The pilot, though, pulled himself up straight, and gradually the Zero came out of its mad dive.

  Seconds before then, however, Randall had made up his mind. He was convinced now that the leading pilot was trying desperately to escape from the Zero hotly pursuing him. Maybe it was a trap and maybe it wasn’t, but it was high time he did something about it.

  “I’ll take a smack at you and see what happens!” the redhead shouted, kicking his plane around
until he was boring in on the pursuing Japanese.

  Taking a second out to hold the P-40 steady, he pressed the trigger button and his guns yammered out their song. The range was just a wee bit too far, and his tracers fell short. The Japanese Zero immediately kicked over and down in a flash half roll. Almost before Randall could blink an eye, the Japanese twisted his ship up and around and came charging in with the speed of light. Streams of jetting flame spurted from his wings, and Randall saw the wavy lines of tracer bullets cut their paths through the air just off his left wing tip.

  “Nice flying, but rotten shooting, killer!” he roared, and fired his own guns again.

  This time the range was right. The onrushing Japanese Zero seemed to suddenly stop dead in mid-air, as though it bad flown straight into an invisible brick wall. Its nose came up sharply, and it fell off on left wing. A tongue of red flame leaped out from under its engine cowling and was blown back by the prop wash. And then there was just no Zero any more. There was just a great splash of livid red in the sky that broke up into countless little tongues of fire. And the whole business went slithering downward, leaving behind a long trail of oily black smoke.

  “Next time make it tougher, will you?” Randall grated, and took his eyes off the mass of fire showering earthward.

  He twisted around in the seat, half expecting to see Jimmy Joyce tangling with the other Zero. But young Joyce was coasting along through the air a little above and behind the Zero. And he was making no effort to shoot it down. To Red’s astonishment, the pilot of the Zero was flying along with one hand raised above his head in a token of complete surrender!

  “Well, that beats all!” Randall exclaimed, and banged his throttle wide open. “It wasn’t any trick. Or else that guy decided to call it quits before Jimmy had a chance to bag him. And they say Japs would rather die than surrender. Well, not this bird, anyway. Hey! What gives, kiddo?”