FLIGHT TO THE RISING SUN

In the theater of Asia, never have so few done so much as the U.S. pilots in China. No correspondent has reported their activities so thoroughly as TIME'S Jack Belden who has lived and flown with them. After five years of war in Burma and China, Correspondent Belden was in India last week, for a war correspondent's holiday. This "is his last dispatch from the China air front:

Again the same tough routine. Hurl a few score bombs, dive into a whirling Richthofen Circus with 30 Jap Zeros. Home again, grab yourself a plateful of chow. Flop in your bed at ten. And here is the boy again calling you at a quarter to two in the morning.

I stumble into the dining room. The crew--as fresh as I am tired--preparing to go out on another mission, doggedly eager to get at the Jap. Again it is Canton, the main Japanese air base. For two weeks they have been falling on us with waves of 40 to 50 bombers, trying to wipe out our fighter base. We've got to strike them in their own home.

We sweat about the weather. Through a veil of haze, stars twinkle only dimly. It rains and we find shelter in a bamboo alert shack. Towheaded Captain Charles Sawyer, who is to lead our fighter escort, walks around with a haunted look. For seven months, over Burma, Siam and Indo-China, he fought in the old A.V.G.; then he joined the Army when most of his buddies went home. Three weeks ago he got lost in a storm, crashed his plane in the mountains near Tibet, escaped three firing squads of hill tribesmen, walked back into China proper.

Over near his P-40 is Pat ("Cocky") Daniels of Los Angeles. "Wait'll I meet those Japs, I'll show you some real color," he once boasted. So they called him "Cocky."

The rain drizzles through the bamboo bars on us. Major Del Bailey, flight leader, says: "I'll go up and look around. If it's clear I'll flash on one navigation light. . . ."I climb into the bomber with him. Above, we find a clearer spot in a squall and flash on one light. Up after us come the rest of the bombers and peashooters [fighters]. As dawn breaks we are off for Canton.

We are flying directly into the rising sun. Smudges of smoke from gunboats and ships on the Pearl River mix with a low-lying mist. Beyond, I know, is the Canton airfield.

There is the rumble of the bomb bays opening. Bursts of smoke pop out of the ground as our bombs strike the warehouse docks. On the brown airfield, Japanese planes are lined up in neat rows. Red Sorenson, behind us, wheels in with his flight and his bombs crash among a group of six.

Suddenly below us is the grey shadow of a Zero plane, sneaking up. Sergeant Ed Cooney, of Rushville, Ind., swings around in his gunner's position and "lowers the boom" on him. Two rapid bursts, then one of Ed's guns jams. But the other one keeps firing and the Zero falls away. Other Zeroes are in the air, climbing.

Our engines roar louder. Behind us our peashooters are attacked by Zeroes and new I-97s I see six go at Sawyer. He makes a head-on run at the leader, pours in a couple of bursts. The I-97, camouflaged with bright green paint, falls away in smoke. Five others do a quick flip to get on Charlie's tail, but he dives and pulls rapidly away and then comes up again on the corner of our tails.

Far away to the west, Cocky Daniels has run into his first Jap. He told me about it afterwards. He reached for the switch, said to himself: "Ah, at last." But the Zero jumped on Cocky's tail. He pulled up, but his plane stalled. When he came out of it at 4,000 feet he found two Zeroes on his tail. He dove, ending up with the altimeter reading 1,000 feet and doing 500 an hour, hedgehopping and gradually pulling away from the three Japs who had followed him all the way. His exhaust was shooting smoke.

Close over the ground he sped at 350 miles an hour, pulling away from all but one Zero. Then, Cocky said, he began thinking to himself: "Here I'm the guy who's been doing all the talking and I'm running away." He made a turn and found himself coming head-on toward the Zero. The Jap made a quick half-roll, momentarily flying upside down and attempting to get on top. Cocky pulled up and poured three or four bursts into the Jap, whose plane began spitting blue flame. The planes whizzed by each other 150 feet apart and Cocky caught a glimpse of the Jap pilot climbing out of the cockpit. Both planes went into a spin. Cocky pulled out of his, but the Zero crashed into a hilltop and burst into a huge spout of flame. . . .

We roared homeward, landing safely while our top cover stayed up to protect us. But the Japs did not come.

As I write this story, in this cave that is our operations room, a red arrow on the map indicates that Jap planes are bombing the town of Kao-yao, 40 miles outside of Canton. Evidently they are so mad at being caught by us that they are taking it out on the helpless Chinese villages.

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