Ross of the Flying Tigers

Air Classics, Jul 2002 by Rossi, John Richard

PART TWO

LIVING A LIFE OF ADVENTURE, DICK ROSSI JOINED THE NAVY TO LEARN HOW TO FLY. HE THEN JOINED THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEER GROUP TO LEARN HOW TO FIGHT

There was a small shack about midway down the field and as I rolled to a stop and began taxiing back, I had an eerie feeling. There was no one in sight. Then I noticed some movement in a machine gun nest off to one side.

Not knowing what to expect, I rolled up to the shack and cut the engine. It was a huge relief to see a young British officer step out of the door of that shack. He was an engineer and had overseen the construction of the field. He told me that he thought I was a Japanese photo ship, hence his machine guns were manned and ready. He said it was a relief to see the American insignia on the plane, although it was actually the Chinese insignia!

Fortunately, he had a supply of 100-octane gasoline. It had to be filtered through a chamois to clean it and he gave me enough to get to Toungoo which was only 165 miles southwest. While my plane was being fueled he showed me our location. He had a fine map of Burma on his wall. While I studied it, he had tea served along with a shot of Red Label Scotch. He was the only Anglo at the station, which was called Nam Sang.

With the fueling and social visit complete, I took off for the flight over the hills to Toungoo. As I parked the plane at Kyedaw, our first base, the first question I got was, "Where are the other six planes?" when I replied that there should be seven more, I was told that one had already been reported lost.

Their transmitter was out of commission at the base causing communication problems but they were able to monitor some of the other AVG transmissions so we learned that the flight of seven had only made it as far as Lashio due to strong headwinds. Because there was some maintenance required, they would stay overnight and go on to Rangoon in the morning.

Having their proposed takeoff time and figuring they would give our old base a "buzz job" (which I later found out they did), I planned to join them for the trip to Rangoon. When they had not arrived after I had sat at the end of the runway for five minutes with my engine starting to overheat, I took off for Rangoon. I had just taxied to a parking spot at Mingaladon when they arrived. They had given me up for lost so were a bit shocked to see me there on the welcoming committee.

After a bombing raid that night and a couple of intercept flights which turned out to be false alarms, I was scheduled to go on an escort mission on the morning of 19 January. Frank Lawler and I, along with two RAF pilots in Brewster Buffaloes, were to escort three RAF Blenheim bombers across the Gulf of Martabon to Tavoy. We were to fly cover for the bombers as they went in to evacuate some British personnel. One RAF fighter and Lawler were flying on the left side of the bomber formation and the other RAF fighter and I were on the right side in an open formation.

More than halfway across the gulf, the haze suddenly turned to fog and I lost sight of all the other planes. We were flying at 2500 feet, so I just held my course and altitude, checking my ETA for the coast. Very soon I emerged from the fog bank and came out into bright sunlight with the coast a short distance ahead, the RAF plane to my left was just a short distance ahead, but there were no other planes in sight. I joined up on the RAF fighter and proceeded directly to the airport at Tavoy. On reaching the airfield, we dropped down to 1000 feet and started to circle the field on opposite sides to await the others.

We had been there about five minutes and I was heading on a leg toward the coast with the RAF pilot flying in the opposite direction on the other side of the field, when straight ahead I saw six bombers suddenly appear over the hills just a little north along the coast heading for the airfield. Since we had been escorting only three I had to assume they were the enemy. The RAF pilot was flying with his back to them, so I immediately spun across to alert him and at the same time turned on my gunsight and switches, then pulled around to attack the bombers. That's when I got my first sight of a Japanese fighter (red ball and all) as he passed directly underneath me. He had made a run on me but did no damage. At the same time I saw a fighter with a red ball on its side making a vertical dive on the bombers. That meant that the bombers were RAF and we were being attacked by Japanese fighters.

What had happened up to this point was that the RAF had sent an additional three Blenheims on the mission; they had made a course change slightly to the north and joined up with our three and all were proceeding to Tavoy. Unknown to us was that the Japanese had captured the airfield during the night. All the Blenheim bombers dove out to the coast and into the fog bank and returned to Mingaladon.

I turned my attention to the fighter that had attacked me. He did a quick 180-degree turn and we were closing head-on. He dove underneath me and I could not get a bead on him. He immediately flipped over on my tail, but with my high speed I had plenty of room to go out and do a fast 180-degree turn and come back for another pass. I saw the RAF fighter as I came around for another head-on pass. I figured if I went into his area, he could pick the enemy plane off my tail. I concentrated on the Japanese plane and we made the same maneuvets once again. When I turned around for another pass I was pretty much into the morning sun. I figured that if I started firing real early, he would have to fly through my line of fire to dive under me.