AMERICAN AIR ACE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 181, 2 August 1944, Page 7

AMERICAN AIR ACE

27 PLANES DOWNED DOES NOT LOOK LIKE HERO (0.C.) SAN FRANCISCO, July 12. The chunky, almost tow-headed 23-year-old Wisconsin farm boy took his place at the head of the table. "Gentlemen," someone said, "meet Major Richard Bong." It did not seem possible that this friendly lad was one of America's two top fighter aces, a Jap killer par excellence with 27 victories and eight probables to his credit. He did not look like a hero. He looked—except for his uniform—as if he had just come down off a hayrick to talk farm problems. There were no medals or campaign ribbons flashing gay colours; merely a plain pair of silver wings and a major's gold oak leaf topped by a slow, easy grin.

Yet this was the youngster who first topped Captain Eddie Rickenbacker's 26-plane record, the boy whose guns cut down two Jap planes on his first combat, the youth whose P3B Lightning became an aerial scythe to any warplane carrying the Rising Sun. Likes Two-engined Fighters

But if you studied him a bit you could see where the farm boy left off and the fighter began. He was absolutely relaxed and his hands were big and steady. His eyes— when they were not crinkled with laugh lines—were grey and penetrating. You knew instinctively he could get dangerously angry in an icy sort of way. Yet if you asked him how he hung up so many Jap scalps in the South Pacific he would tell you candidly, "Luck." The major was not exactly loquacious. It seemed he would rather act than talk, but he would answer readily enough if you shot a straight question at him.

"Did you do much deflection shooting at the Japs?" he was asked. "Yeah, I tried, but I couldn't hit a hell of a lot. ... If I could have shot good deflection I'd have raised that score to 75, perhaps." "Were you cagey with your ammunition?"—"Naw, I like to throw it round as long as I've got a chance to hit." "What's the main characteristic of a Zero?"—" Blowing up when it's hit." "You like the P3B, major?"—" None better. I like two engines. Came home four times on one." Japs Not So Eager

Only one Jap baled out of a Bongblasted ship—"and his parachute was on fire when it opened at 15,000 feet." "Ever been scared, major? he was asked. "Sure, every now and then," he answered. Among other observations elicited from the soft-voiced fighter before he left to address thousands of Lockheed employees at the Burbank plant near Los Angeles were:—"The Japs aren't any too eager to die for their Emperor. They would rather run than engage a 38. Their newer pilots are decidedly inferior to the old-line flyers. The Zero can be outrun and outshot by the Lightning. Our planes are all right," he smiled, "we just need more of 'em." So many Nips has the major shot down that he is not any too certain he can recall each individual victory. "I never thought much about trying," he admitted. He never even hit his 27th Jap. "I chased him down low," he related. "My guns were hot and firing wild, but the tracers scared him and he stuck a wing in the Pacific and cartwheeled over and over."