Up at 5:15 after a restless night, with a heavy schedule ahead of us. Early escort mission to Wau was cancelled at the very last moment, to the vast disgust of the boys who got up to take it. Wrote to Betty last night, enclosing money orders for £80. Also received two telegrams from her last night, acknowledging receipt of the money and also of my wire re the consular matter. She says all is running smoothly, praise be. My ship "Betty", no. 45, now has a record log of over 265 engine hours, a record for combat, and we are sweating out 300 hours for it. She's a good old ship, and with a new engine would compete with the best of them. One mission, took off at 10:45, patrolled Buna, and landed at 1:10. Much activity over the area, B-26’s bombing, A-20’s and B-25’s, P-38’s, P-39’s, and our own P-40’s. No enemy resistance. Afternoon off, loafed about doing nothing. No mail! Why?
When he referes to "my ship" does he mean is P40? Interesting that it has a record number of combat hours - if I'm understanding this correctly.
ReplyDeleteYeah, his ship, "Betty", is a P-40. It does read, to me, like his plane has a record # of combat hours on it. I don't have any good historical comparisons, but I think that he survived that many combat hours is pretty amazing too (assuming he logged all of the hours).
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