Monday, Aug. 03, 1942

ROUGH ON RABBITS

TIME Correspondent Jack Belden last week cabled this firsthand account of a U.S. Army air force raid on a big Japanese base below Hankow on the Yangtze River.

At dawn we came out on the field. Red and purple clouds trailed across the eastern sky, suffusing our dispersed fighters and bombers in a soft glow.

Colonel Caleb V. Haynes led us to a huge Chinese map and let his finger come to rest on the town of Kiukiang, the strategic Japanese-held Yangtze River port below Hankow. Chinese Intelligence had reported that 30,000 Jap troops were concentrating there for a move toward Hankow.

"There's certain to be plenty of antiaircraft there. We'll come in high," said Colonel Haynes. "Tex, you follow behind us with your boys, and if you see anything worth strafing, have a go at them."

"We sure will. It's going to be rough on rabbits," drawled Major Tex Hill, late of the A.V.G.s.

We went out to inspect the bombs. They were Chinese-made. Our plane was now repaired and we carried a dozen incendiaries, while bombers following after us were loaded with demolition bombs. Tex's P-40 fighters were carrying fragmentation bombs. We started to step into the planes, but the rear gunner discovered his parachute was missing. "I'm not going to set foot in that plane unless I have a chute. I've made three emergency jumps and I'm going to have a chute or I am not going." We found him a parachute, stepped into the plane and were soon roaring off toward the Yangtze River and Kiukiang.

Now Colonel Haynes, who handles a bomber as another man would handle a pursuit, was in the pilot's seat. We were in the air with bombers and fighters strung out behind us. Haynes's second in command and copilot was Major William E. Basye. Black-haired, poker-playing Butch Morgan, longtime associate of Haynes's, was in the bombardier's compartment. This was a tough mission and Haynes was putting his best men on the job.

Below us spread hills and trails over which I had retreated in 1938 with Chinese armies driven back upon Hankow by the great Japanese force seeking to capture the Yangtze Valley and conquer China by one blow. It was almost like coming home. Mountains gave way to hills and around about their bases lapped greyish yellow waters. The Yangtze is in flood and we are drawing near our target, I thought. I crawled through the tunnel under the pilot's seat and came out in the glassed bombardier's compartment. Butch Morgan sat in the very nose of the ship, peering down his bombsight. I sat in the seat directly behind him with my knees in his back, peering down below and watching the yellow snake of the Yangtze drawing closer. Over to the right high up on a mountain, appeared the black spot of Kuling, formerly a summer resort of foreigners. Here it was that on July 19, 1937, Chiang Kai-shek made his historic speech declaring China would fight. Beyond on the northern bank rose the Tapieh Mountains, the great Chinese guerrilla base that stretches almost to Hankow.

Ships appeared heading westward under a frantic head of steam, evidently trying to get away from Kiukiang before we could get there. A great ocean freighter went past under our wings. By now the boats were growing thicker. Great patches in the river seemed alive. We grew tense in our seats watching for the target, watching for rising planes, watching for ack-ack fire, peering up into the sky above us for Japanese Zeros and 97s.

Suddenly there lay the city, a narrow strip of black below us, on the very edge of the south bank of the muddy Yangtze. Butch spun the dials on his bomb sights. I heard the rumbling of an electric motor. The bomb bays were opening. I looked at the double row of little lights, numbered from one to twelve, like lights on an elevator. They were still shining brightly. The bombs had not yet been released. Haynes dipped the plane up and down, giving the signal to those behind us to attack.

Morgan pulled at the switch. On the bomb board lights flashed off and on. Our plane swerved and dipped sharply down to the left. Morgan craned his neck far out over the bombsight, pressed his nose against the glass of the compartment and looked down. I peered out of the side. Below was the green, mucky lake and black smoke was rising from it. "That's damn poor bombing," said Morgan. But as the plane swerved further we saw flowers of smoke issuing from the heart of the railway station.

Big explosions and fires followed, then came more bursts of smoke from warehouses and piers and over in the corner of the city huge flames and thick black smoke billowed into the air as if the oil dump was on fire. In a short space we counted over 20 individual fires.

Down below us on the river was a large ship, and out of it came bursts of fire; balls of red flecked with white began shooting toward our plane. Japanese ack-ack guns and pom-poms were throwing everything but the kitchen sink at us. Then our plane began to tremble and shake, and from our belly red balls of fire began shooting down toward the Jap ship. Puffs of white smoke flowered in the air far below our plane. They were so far away I couldn't help laughing, but plainly we could see our tracers going straight into the Jap ship. Soon it ceased firing altogether.

Behind this larger ship, which Tex Hill later described as a light cruiser or destroyer, were two gunboats. Toward these Major Tex Hill now led his fighters in a great swooping dive. He made a pass at a destroyer but, on getting close and looking at it, he saw that it was armed to the teeth, so he swerved off, made a sharp bank and came down within 50 feet of the water, with all guns wide open shooting lead into the first gunboat. Before we could get to the second gunboat the deck was swept clean--figures threw themselves into the water as Tex's guns poured cannon shells into the water close by the side. Bullets skidded off the top of the water and struck the ship near the water line. Then fires burst out and the ship started listing.

Down behind Tex, close on his wing all the way, followed one of the green Army pilots. But he didn't look green now and was blazing away with almost as great effect as Tex Hill. We drew quickly away from the scene of battle.

Soon we came safely down on the home field and Tex swept in with his fighters. He walked toward us, his long wiry body moving with a roll that held a kind of threat in it. He looked like nothing so much as a steely-eyed Texas cowboy killer. On his face was a broad grin and in his blue eyes was a hard, bright, but delighted, look.

"Sure was rough on rabbits," he drawled.

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