FOR THE BOYS ON BATAAN

This is a first-person story of the U.S. bomber raids on the Philippines, as told to TIME'S correspondent Melville Jacoby in Australia by Lieut. James Byington MacAfee of Charlotte, N.C., a dive-bomber pilot who had been flown out from Bataan because there were no planes for him to fly there and who had begged to be allowed to go back on the air raid with General Royce. His story begins with the bombers' arrival at the secret U.S. field in the Philippines.

"We spotted the field. Everyone thought we were Japs because they did not know we were coming, and they dove for foxholes just like we used to do. But when we landed and taxied down the field, they came running towards us like mad, from every direction, laughing and crying. We shook hands with everyone and by that time our planes were completely camouflaged. I saw a lot of officers I knew, and I ran into Tom Gerrity -- I was so happy because I thought he was lost. That was the finest day. . . .

"We loaded the planes with big bombs, then slept right in the planes. At dawn we went sailing down the runway heading for Cebu city. At Cebu we made three passes over the target, which was the dock area and shipping. The first time, it just looked like an idle harbor scene -- bunches of ships stacked every which way. When we turned around we saw the docks were all afire. On the second pass we hit a transport right amidships. While stuff was still settling around it, she turned over on her side. . . .

"We loaded up again the same afternoon and went back. Everything was the same except they had lined up three transports for us -- one, two, three broadside -- and a cruiser besides. So we squared away. We hit that cruiser right on the bow and got those transports, too. That night we felt real good.

Second Day. "Just as the sun was rising we flew over the Filipinos' heads on the lines where they were fighting outside Davao. There is just a little old road right on the sea, with big mountains almost down to the water's edge. There were barricades on both sides where the lines stop, maybe half a mile apart. We dropped to 1,000 feet so the Filipinos could see us, so everything was right below us and plain. We could see the trucks and horses on both sides of the lines, and a little forest where the Filipinos on their side and the Japs on theirs were cooking breakfast. It was the same scene exactly, only parted in the middle.

"Just as we got to the barricade, we opened the bomb bay doors. We headed straight down the road and every time we saw something, clicked out a bomb

"I picked out a house with a big green roof, Jap headquarters, and I lined it up a mile away. The explosion from that bomb knocked the plane right out from under us and the seat hit us hard We bombed a couple of barracks too.

"Just out from the beach, I saw three big old boats full of Japs, called the gunners and told them about the Japs in the boats. They just plastered them. The Japs in the warehouse came out on the steps to look at us -- they thought we were Japs too -- so we dropped a bomb right in front of them and they tore back into the warehouse. As we headed out over the docks and ships, I saw a seaplane taking off, so I hollered in the Colonel's ear. He just said: 'S'pose we get that sosb& sbso.' We bore down on that guy and we thought we were shooting everything out of him, but found it was his gunner shooting at us. A couple of feet lower and his bullets would have gone right in our cockpit. Then we could see his plane right by us like a slow-motion picture closeup. You know how you see movie shots of bullets writing initials in targets. It looked like that when our gunners found him -- holes growing in the Rising Sun on the Jap's wing, slowly. . . .

Third Attack. "The next day the ships went to Davao and Cebu for the third time. We were approaching the target at Cebu, bomb bay doors open so that we couldn't maneuver, when I saw a Jap seaplane sitting up in the clouds. He started down toward us. I remember wondering why they always picked on us, the lead plane, but this took all the prizes. He dived down, overshot, turned in the middle of a dive right on us, pulled out again, half rolled, climbed, and did an Immelmann right down on our tail -- all this in a seaplane and not a pursuit, mind you. But by that time we could pull away.

"I'd have given fifty thousand to be in Jap headquarters the night after, and hear what they're talking about. With all the ack sback -- they must have shot off a couple of thousand tons -- they didn't even get a plane. Only one guy had a close miss when a piece of shrapnel hit the seat right behind his head.

"I sure felt good after those three days. The only thing wrong was wondering if the boys in Bataan would hear. Because no matter how bad it is for them now, they'll be happy to hear what we did -- and we did it for them."

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