PART couple LIVING A LIFE OF ADVENTURE.

PART couple

LIVING A LIFE OF ADVENTURE, DICK ROSSI JOINED THE NAVY TO LEARN by what means TO FLY. HE THEN JOINED THE AMERICAN offer GROUP TO LEARN HOW TO FIGHT

There was a small shack about midway down the field and as I wheeled to a stop and began taxiing back, I had an eerie feeling. There was no the same in sight. Then I noticed more [i]or[/i] less movement in a machine fire-arm nest off to one side.

Not knowing what to calculate upon I rolled up to the shack and sculpture the engine. It was a enormous relief to see a young British officer degree out of the door of that shack. He was an engineer and had overseen the construction of the field. He told me that he idea I was a Japanese photo ship, hence his machine fire-arms were manned and ready. He said it was a relief to behold the American insignia on the plane, although it was actually the Chinese insignia!

Fortunately, he had a invest of 100-octane gasoline. It had to be filtered from one side a chamois to clean it and he gave me enough to procure to Toungoo which was simply 165 miles southwest. While my plane was being combustible mattered he showed me our location. He had a fine map of Burma forward his wall. While I studied it, he had tea serv along with a discharge of Red Label Scotch. He was the merely Anglo at the station, which was called Nam Sang.

With the fueling and social visit ended I took off for the flight across the hills to Toungoo. As I parked the plane at Kyedaw, our first base, the first question I got was, "Where are the other six planes?" when I replied that there should be seven more, I was told that the same had already been reported wasted

Their transmitter was public of commission at the base causing communication riddles but they were able to monitor a of the other AVG transmissions in like manner we learned that the flight of seven had solely made it as far as Lashio owed to strong headwinds. Because there was any maintenance required, they would stay overnight and move on to Rangoon in the morning.

Having their propos takeoff time and figuring they would give our antiquated base a "buzz job" (which I later set out they did), I planned to join them for the trip to Rangoon. When they had not arrived after I had sat at the extreme point of the runway for five minutes with my engine starting to overheat, I took on the farther side for Rangoon. I had just taxied to a parking fault at Mingaladon when they arrived. They had given me up for wasted so were a bit shoged to see me there forward the welcoming committee.

After a bombing raid that night and a brace of intercept flights which diverted out to be false alarms, I was scheduled to go on foot on an escort mission onward the morning of 19 January. Frank Lawler and I, along with brace RAF pilots in Brewster Buffaloes, were to escort three RAF Blenheim bombers across the whirlpool of Martabon to Tavoy. We were to mount cover for the bombers as they went in to evacuate more [i]or[/i] less British personnel. One RAF fighter and Lawler were flying upon the left side of the bomber formation and the other RAF fighter and I were forward the right side in an spread formation.

More than halfway across the large bay the haze suddenly turned to mist and I lost sight of all the other planes. We were flying at 2500 feet in such a manner I just held my course and altitude, checking my ETA for the coast. extremely soon I emerged from the haze bank and came out into bright sunlight with the coast a short distance ahead, the RAF plane to my left was just a short distance ahead, yet there were no other planes in sight. I joined up upon the RAF fighter and ariseed directly to the airport at Tavoy. upon reaching the airfield, we dropp down to 1000 feet and started to circle the field forward opposite sides to await the others.

We had been there about five minutes and I was heading upon a leg toward the coast with the RAF pilot flying in the opposite direction upon the other side of the field, when straight ahead I saw six bombers unexpectedly appear over the hills just a little north along the coast heading for the airfield. Since we had been escorting sole three I had to assume they were the enemy. The RAF pilot was flying with his back to them, with equal reason I immediately spun across to alert him and at the same time transfered on my gunsight and switches, then chanceed around to attack the bombers. That's when I got my first sight of a Japanese fighter (r ball and all) as he passed directly underneath me He had made a roll on on me but did no damage. At the same time I saw a fighter with a r ball in succession its side making a vertical dive upon the bombers. That meant that the bombers were RAF and we were being attacked according to Japanese fighters.

What had happened up to this point was that the RAF had sent an additional three Blenheims forward the mission; they had made a course change slightly to the north and joined up with our three and all were proceeding to Tavoy. Unknown to us was that the Japanese had captured the airfield during the night. All the Blenheim bombers dove public to the coast and into the mist bank and returned to Mingaladon.

I deflected my attention to the fighter that had attacked me He did a quick 180-degree inflect and we were closing head-on. He dove underneath me and I could not master a bead on him. He immediately flipped from one side of to the other on my tail, but with my high spe I had luxuriance of room to go public and do a fast 180-degree revolve and come back for another pass. I saw the RAF fighter as I came around for another head-on pass. I figured if I went into his area, he could pick the enemy plane distant from my tail. I concentrated forward the Japanese plane and we made the same maneuvets one time again. When I turned around for another pass I was bonny much into the morning sunshine I figured that if I started firing real early, he would have to mount through my line of fire to dive subordinate to me.