Victory at Hengyang

On the red-brown earth of an airdrome near Hengyang, in southeast China, lay the shattered Zero fighter of a Japanese flight commander. In the grey streets of Hengyang city, in hundreds of broken bits, were splashed the remains of Japanese B-4 bombers. Round the city, in the fields and hills, were the fire-blackened skeletons of other Jap ships. All 17 of them were evidence of the Jap's fate when he gave up bombing Chungking after one attempt and tried another target.

To Hengyang, railroad junction and key point in the southeast China airdrome system, moved a flight from the Twenty-Third Pursuit Group fresh from the Chungking fight. They made the 500-mile run because China's espionage system had told them the Jap would hit there next.

China's spies were right. After a few tentative passes at the city, the enemy sent over three smashing raids--more than 100 planes in all. Hengyang's defenders were only ten and they fought in the moonlight as well as by day. Within 32 hours they could count at least ten crack Zeroes among the 17 planes they had knocked down. Their own loss: one plane, crash-landed; no pilot.

The Lure. For several days before the enemy turned on Hengyang, Major Tex Hill, formerly of the A.V.G., and Major John Allison of Gainesville, Fla., had launched pin-pricking attacks on Japanese outposts and circled their fields, daring them to come out and fight. Finally they did. These tactics and others, all part of a secret and tricky plan of their commander, Brigadier General Claire L. Chennault, fighting under resourceful Lieutenant General "Uncle Joe" Stilwell, finally led the Jap to get on with his bombing.

First they sent over a small group. The U.S. planes lay in their camouflaged stations and all the enemy saw was anti-aircraft pecking at him. Twice more, he came back, still with small flights. Still the U.S. planes lay low.

The Lure Works. At 1:30 on a moonlit morning the Jap sent over four bombers, and the U.S. pursuit was up to meet them, well south of town.

"I got down moon from them," said Fighter Allison, "and they made a 180-degree turn away from me. The radio called: 'You see 'em?' I answered: 'Watch the fireworks.' But they let go at me first, hit my motor, burned my hand with an incendiary bullet. I was right behind three Japs and there was no use in quitting at that point.

"We all fired at point-blank range. It was just a slugging match. The rear bomber pulled up over my tracers and fell away smoking. I kicked in behind the second plane. He jettisoned his bombs, but I set him afire. I kicked my ship after the leader. He plowed right on to the field, dropped his bombs. There I caught up and gave him a burst. He just fell to pieces."

Fire from the burning planes flared above the city and two Jap airmen plummeted cometlike to the ground as the fire from their flaming clothes spread to their chutes. But Allison was in trouble, too. His damaged engine was rattling. He headed for the Hsiang River, skittered over a log, set the ship down in the water. Chinese fished him out.

The sun was high when the enemy came back. This time he tried something else: a spearhead of fighters, with 18 to 27 bombers trailing far behind. The U.S. defenders met the Zeroes at 18,000 feet. Tex Hill engaged the leader head on. They opened up at 1,500 yards, roared directly at each other. Grim, blue-eyed Tex held on and the Jap went down in flames. Then for a few crowded moments the air was a tangle of fighter and chattering fighter. Major John Bright of Reading, Pa. burned up one Zero; Lieut. Druing got another; Baumler another. The Jap fled again. His bombers led the retreat.

Next morning at 6:30 he tried again. This time there were 27 Zeroes, brand new and shiny. Bright got the first at 13,000 with a short burst. Lieut. Jack Mitchell sailed into nine Zeroes strafing the field, made them drop their work. Four turned on him but he outdistanced them. South of Hengyang, where the bulk of the Zeroes had swung, other pilots ran into the biggest fighter battle China had seen in years. Lieuts. John Lombard of Ionia, Mich, and D. A. Clinger of Etna, Wyo. set it off when they picked on three Jap fighters, found that they had jumped a decoy. Soon they were fighting 23 Zeroes and 973. Clinger looked around and saw five Zeroes on his tail, all shooting. He shook two off in a thundering dive from 17,000 feet, alternately leveled off, fought, dove and leveled off again until he was 200 feet from the ground. Somehow he managed to bag one fighter on the way down. On landing he found that his plane had been hit by two cannon shells and ten machine-gun bullets.

The Jap got enough that day. The last plane was brought down by Captain Ed Goss of Tampa, Fla., who caught up with a straggler. Said he: "I thought to myself: 'You poor bastard. Hirohito rest your soul.' Then I let him have it."

Each of the Twenty-Third's 10 pilots, including their commander, lean Colonel Robert Scott, had knocked down at least one plane. After the fight was over, Lieut. Martin Kluck of Erick, Okla. went walking in the hills and found one of the victims. The Japanese pilot had been captured by Chinese, had wrested a pistol from a Chinese and shot four of them. Then he laid about him with a sword until he was shot. Now he was dying.

Kluck offered him a cigaret. The wounded airman feebly stretched out his hand, spoke a few words of English and fell back, dead. To the Twenty-Third Group he was a figure of the men they had met, adept flyers, resourceful foes. They had been beaten, but they would be back again.

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