Dave Dawson with the Flying Tigers

by Robert Sidney Bowen

"And you can't stop us, either!" Dawson cut him off. "Chungking? Listen! Twenty thousand trapped Chinese soldiers are worth making Chungking wait! Heck! You think Freddy and I would sit here and cool our heels while all those Chinese lads are trapped? And by dirt rotten Japs? Nuts! What two planes, Major? Point them out, and let's go!"

"Over there, numbers six and ten!" the Flying Tiger leader cried. "And good—!"

"Same to you!" Dawson snapped and started running. "Come on, Freddy. Shift it! We've got some real flying to do for a change!"

Not over two minutes later twelve shark head-painted Curtiss P-Forties went roaring up off the surface of that field, slid in close in formation, and went cutting around and up toward the northwest. Flying at number three on the right, Dawson turned his head and grinned over at Freddy Farmer flying the same formation position on the left. The English youth seemed to feel his look, for he turned his head and returned the grin. They both nodded silently and immediately returned their attention to the business of flying.

"Tough on those two lads hit!" Dawson breathed to himself as the formation went ripping along over the uninviting terrain of North Burma. "But what a break for Freddy and me. Once again going into action with the Flying Tigers. Hot dog! And here's hoping that this time things will turn out even better than that other time, which was plenty, what I mean!"[3]

With a grim nod for emphasis, Dawson twisted the little button on the stick to "Fire" position, and made sure that everything was set to release the cluster of twenty small strafing bombs fitted to the under side of the wings. Everything was in order now, and all that was left was the passing of time, and the arrival at the objective.

And that arrival seemed to become a fact almost before Dawson could blink his eyes and take a deep breath. As though by magic, three more Flying Tiger Groups materialized in the Burma sky. And just ahead at a hair pin bend in the muddy Salween River, the ground on both sides was beginning to belch up flame and smoke. But most of the flame and smoke came from the north side of the bend, from the heavily fortified Japanese positions. And it seemed to be no more than a couple of split seconds later that Dawson was wing-screaming his Curtiss P-Forty practically down at the vertical.

In his earphones he heard Major Brown bark orders for two of the Flying Tigers to stay top-side to ride herd and watch out for Jap planes. But he didn't turn his head to take a look at the two who were to remain aloft. He kept his eyes fixed on the picture below, and his blood boiled with anger. Trapped was right! And how! It was like a small edition of the beach at Dunkirk, during the British evacuation of France back in 1940. Thousands and thousands of brave Chinese troops were huddled in the shore growth with the suicide cliff at their backs. And across the river's bend in the low hill, thousands and thousands of little slant-eyed rats of Nippon were hurling death and destruction into the midst of those Chinese. The foothills seemed to explode shell fire every three or four feet in any direction. And trailing backward along the narrow roads were columns of supply trains moving upward with more horror and more death for those helpless Chinese.

All that and more Dawson saw and absorbed with his eyes as he went roaring downward. And then he was within range of the Jap forces, and all thoughts of everything fled from his brain. That is, all thoughts of everything save the constant thought of hammering those hordes of slant-eyed rats into the ground as long as he and his plane and his guns could hold out. Here was a chance to pay back for some of the things he had seen and had suffered himself. Here was a chance to fight for a gallant nation; a nation that had held its own against the Tokyo vermin for so many years. Chungking? Sure! Freddy and he would get to Chungking presently. Right now, though, the lives of twenty thousand Chinese soldiers hung in the balance. The lives of twenty thousand Chinese soldiers, and some thirty odd shark-painted Curtiss P-Forties overhead to do something about it!

"Don't worry, pals, we'll blast them out for you! We'll blast the rotten bums out even if we have to come down and do it with our bare fists! And how, pals! And how!"