24 JAPS DOWNED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 3, 5 January 1944, Page 3

24 JAPS DOWNED

FIGHTER PILOT'S RECORD

(Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.)

SOUTH PACIFIC, January 3. A United States Marine fighter pilot based on an airstrip on a New Zealandoccupied island in the Solomons brought his total of Japanese aircraft destroyed to 24 the other day when he flew back from a successful sortie over Bougainville. He is Major Gregory Boyington, 30-year-old former member of the "Flying Tigers" in China and now commanding a fighter squadron. Of his squadron's total of 12 Japanese victims last Thursday, Boyington got four. He knocked down the first three aircraft within a few minutes of each other shortly after the bombers his squadron was protecting had arrived over their target at Rabaul. Lingering behind after the rest had headed home,he shot down his fourth in a solo attack against a formation of nine Zeros.

Now on his third, and possibly last, tour of combat duty before his return to the United States, Major Boyington needs only two more victims in the next two weeks to equal the 26-plane record held jointly by Major Foss and Captain Rickenbacker. Rickenbacker's tally was the World War I United States record, and Foss's a Guadalcanal equivalent in this war.