U.S. AIR WARFARE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 123, 27 May 1942, Page 2

U.S. AIR WARFARE

PILOT'S EMOTIONS

"MAKING THE JAPS. KNOW IT"

(0.C.) SAX FRANCISCO, April 24 How (iocs an American flyer feel when he sees a bomb drop on a Japanese troopship? What does he think of hundreds, thousands of Japanese drowning in the water below? And how does he feel as ho dodges old American scrap metal belched in new munitions from Japanese guns? Answers to these questions came in letters written by a southern California pilot, Lieutenant Joseph Kean, to his mother. Lieutenant Kenn was navigator for Captain Colin Kelly, and had flown with Kelly both during his heroic exploits since December 7 and on long peace-time flights over the Netherlands Indies and Australia before that. On January 30 Lieutenant Bean wrote from a base "up here in the wild country"—apparently somewhere in the Netherlands Indies. On February 5 he wrote from new quarters in Darwin indicating the transfer of more aid to the Royal Australian Air Force. "So far I have been very lucky—almost inbelievably—and have received hardly a scratch except one bullet which grazed my ankle," read the first letter. "It's practically well now. I have been machine-gunned four times, twice in a plane and twice in a parachute," wrote the 26-year-old Army Air Corps flyer. "My plane is gone, but I'm ready for another one. ... It was too bad to have to be in the war in such a beautiful country. We were bombed where I was before the war started (Philippine Islands) until it was getting almost monotonous, except for a close one now and then. I know what happened to all the scrap metal around the country. We are getting it back in the form of slugs. This is a good fight any way you look at it. We have been doing them some awful damage, almost pitiful. I get a bird's-eye view of it 25,000 ft up, sometimes a view of them 5000 ft above me. It doesn't look good." Later from Australia Lieutenant Bean wrote: "Don't know how long I'll be here. We have been operating all over the Far East and have been making the Japs, know it. They get one of our planes now and then, but at combat they're no match for us. I wish I could write some numbers of what we've been doing to their pursuit planes. Their pilots fly around up there and look us over, afraid to get close enough to attack. They have learned some mighty hard lessons the past fewdays. Other times when there are a lot of them they give us hell. "I think I am the most shot at man in the world and least shot up. I have stopped only one of their bullets and am practically well now. I have been in the worst of their bombing. My job was alert signal officer—wait until the bombers get close enough to recognise, blow a siren, call up on three telephones and run down a 100-yard stairs.. I'll tell you some big ones about that sometime. "We have been raising hell with their troopships." Lieutenant Bean added. "That is the most pitiful thing in the world. It's so cruel I'm almost ashamed of it, except that I know they'd do the same to me if they had the chance.

Saw Hordes Drown "It gives you a sick feeling to watch a heavy bomb drop into a ship that you know is loaded down with men who would like to live as much as you do. You see them— little dots floating down there, drowning. Hundreds of them in one place and thousands and thousands of them in another. I hope St. Peter will understand this business. It's a hard thing to do, but it's my job. so I'll do the best I can by it." He sent good wishes to relatives, including four working in aircraft plants in southern California. One brother, Robert, is a Lockheed production engineer. Another, Albert, is a draftsman and toolmaker in the Vega plant. A sister, Mrs. Roy Pitt, is a clerk at the Douglas plant in El Segundo, and her husband is an engineer there.