Last Flight of the Buffaloes - a World War II Story on the Fall of Java

Chapter 11 - Back to Andir

As they neared the bombed-out gates of Andir Airfirled, in the distance, a siren whaled, loudly, covering the whole city with alerts.

"You better get me on a damn plane right now, Desouza!"

"This a Willys Jeep, not a goddamn Spitfire... Hold your fucken horses!" Circumnavigating the main road due to water-filled bomb craters, Jack hit the gas, and went through the second wire fence's security gate, of which the airman guarding it had opened as quickly as he saw an American jeep coming at high speed.

"Over there!" yelled Drebbel, pointing to his squadron ready building, where pilots were scrambling away. Drebbel quickly jumped off the jeep, clenching his teeth as his wound still hurt. Seeing what seemed to be his squadron, he yelled: "Captain! Captain van Helsdingen! Hey!"

One of them turned, and it was Bruggink, his section leader. Yelling in Dutch, he called the captain, who came soon enough.

Bruggink embraced his friend, then said to him: "Franky? I thought the Japs had you!"

"Almost."

"Well, good thing you're still with us, Franky." Captain van Helsdingen said. He was excited as first, but noticing something from Franky, his face quickly turned sour.

"Permission to rejoin the unit, sir." Franky said.

"Franky," said van Helsdingen. "You're wounded. You could barely walk."

"I'm fine, sir." He said, holding his wound.

"You're bleeding out. You know what it is up there. Twisting, turning, high-Gs—I don't want any planes lost because you're blacking out, or any of my guys—your friends—getting shot down because you can't take an order."

"But, sir—"

"You're not flying, Franky. That's an order."

"Sir!"

Suddenly someone shouted, a ground crewmember. "Captain! Message from Lembang! Japs are at the gates! First Division is getting overrun!"

"Don't argue on me with this. Take this." He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. "Get out of here. Reform with the others. Fight back. You'd be better use fighting another day."

Franky did not want to take it.

"Pieter," Bruggink said, calling to his captain. "We gotta go. Japanese bombers are gonna zero in ter Poorten anytime now."

Captain Pieter van Helsdingen, ML-KNIL, shoved the ticket on his chest, and went off. They sprinted to their Buffaloes. In less than a minute, they were up and flying.

Franky Drebbel went over to Desouza. He was visibly distraught. Sitting on the back of the American jeep, they saw the Dutch Buffaloes taxi on the runway. They took off, one by one, then proceeded to form up in the sky then heading north, to the hills and high plateaus of Lembang, where the elements of the KNIL were making their last stand. He sat down and Jack saw a small tear going down his face.

Jack withdrew and convened with Galveston. "Well he don't look like he's flying, sir."

"Not anytime soon, no. He's still our ticket out. Now that we got a boarding pass, all we have to do is to get a plane to board on..."

"And how the hell do we do that?"

"We'll figure something out." Said Desouza. He looked at his watch. March 7, 1942—1030 Hours Local Time. He stood there for a moment. Then, he figured out how. He took the jeep and headed to the base radio relay, where he barged into the door and told the radio operator to dial in the US Army Air Corps frequencies he knew, some he used during his time calling in air strikes from the Leuwiliang O.P.

He put the headphones on one ear. "White-Six, White-Six, this is Baker Dog Five-Five. Do you read?"

Static. He repeated again, and again, and again, but it was static yet again.

"Seems like they're gone, sir." Said the Dutch radio operator.

"Shit, that ain't possible."

Then suddenly something came up. Fading in and out, Jack told the Dutch radioman to prop the frequency up and down to get the right fit, until they finally got an intelligible message. "Baker Dog Five-Five, this is White-Six... Roger. Send traffic. Over."

"White-Six, are you still at base? We have dozens of American and allied wounded needing evac in Andir Airfield. We're going to be overrun any second. Can you get us out?"

"Baker Dog Five-Five. We are 200 kilometers east of you and are running short on fuel supply. We're hightailing out of here in a couple of hours. Orders from Far East Command."

"Refuel here. We have all the fuel in the world."

"Roger. We'll get back to you."

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