Page Two
"We've got late afternoon reconuaissance photos. It looks
as if the gaps have obstructed Bond Street, as if they were wise
- so welre all going to pile into Fifth Avenue. Alright - get
going| And Just remember the dope on Fifth Avenue -forget all
the rest."
John Allison came over on the run John is a fighter pilot
but he had checked out on gliders a few days before just to make
this flight for he is Cochran's second in command with the job
of mining all airport in twelve hours out of a jungle clearing.
He got in and Doc Tulloch crawled in beside him. Magoffin and
I climbed in and the detachment from the Kings Liverpool Regiment
under Wilson filed in behind us. Everyone of us was in full field
kit and armed to the teeth with carbines, tommy guns, pistols,
knives and grenades. Uminski, with admirable enthusiasm had fitted
a tommy gun stock to an air cooled 30 cal machine gun for hip
and shoulder firing. A pirate crew, Wingate's army and Cochran's
Air Commando's, in mottled camouflage suits, with broad brimmed
rakish, paint dabbed Jungle hats - most of them with a growth
of rank beard, which seemed to be one of the few local conceits.
There was no excitement, no eager babbling to quiet screaming
nerves, no bravado - for this was no quickly cooked up raid.
This was an amy, filling the great gliders row on row behind
us - a force in heavy strength with hundreds of miles of night
flying ahead of us over trackless jungle and jagged mountains
- night flying completely over a formidable Jau force to let
down far behind it and to operate on an extensive scale in its
rear. It was history in the making.
The gliders are towed in pairs on long ropes. Seese was flying
the left glider in our tow. He carried Brigadier tread "Mad
Mike" Calvert with most of one of the Brigade staffs aboard.
Ground crews rigged the ropes as our tow ship taxied out like
a great waddling duck. We were being hooked in when the Dec %touched
and pointed ahead, "First tow air borne|" - there it
was clear of the tree tops in the late afternoon sun with its
two lumbering gliders weoving behind it. The second tow was roaring
down the strip raising an enormous dust cloud, strugcling and
howling for flying speed, bouncing slightly, straining, straining
and then tearing free of the earth and its own cloud of yellow
just and coming into clear silhouette above the tree top
Our glider jerked and shuddered as our tow ship took up the
slack on the ropes. Then we began to move down the strip into
the dust. On both sides of the field the long line of troops
were still filing in endlessly to fill the other gliders behind
us. Suddenly as our tow ship came to full throttle every thing
blotted out in the dust - everything but John allison at the
controls and the faces of the men in the glider - a little bit
drawn at the mouth, a little bit tightened around the eyes. We
were racingto take-off, bouncing slightly, straining on the end
of the long tow rope, shouldering heavily for flying speed. Ahead
of us the great tow ship was up few feet to the left and slightly
ahead, Seesels glider was air borne. So were we, with Allison
bearing down heavily on his right rudder, sweating over it and
shouting directions to Doc Tulloch to trim ship. We came up over
the trees fighting for altitude and presently we settled into
the long, slow, grind of wide circling to get our height for
the mountains ahead.
The soldier beside me handed over his naps, "Will you
circle Fifth Avenue with your pencil -we're the Bond Street party."
Everyone unclipped their safety belts and eased packs. The Doec
and I went into a huddle over the map and got Fifth Avenue lined
in for everybody. Then we settled to the log flying hours ahead
- long, cramped, smokeless hours with God knew what at the end
of then.
All of that vast activity that had been around us for days, was
gone now, and we were alone, in the setting Assam sun. It flooded
the glider and tinted the inside of its fabric with rose gold.
It picked