Page:O'Donnell - Hail Holy Queen 05 - All Through the Years.djvu/2



It was here in Chicago, at a recent luncheon for General George C. Kenny that this incident occurred. One of the guestss began to praise him for his resourceful leadership as commander of our air forces in the southwest Pacific during World War II. "Now stop that," said General Kenny, who is modest and refreshingly frank. "If you want to give credit where credit is due, throw your bouquets at that young colonel over there. I'll tell you about just one of the great deeds that he and other American boys like him performed." The colonel was Jock Henebry, and the General told his story.

"One day I sent out a reconnaissance plane because I needed information about what the Japs were doing in Borneo. The pilot soon came back saying that the weather was so bad that observations were impossible. Colonel Henebry, who was on my staff, knew that the information was indispensable. He picked a crew and got a two-engined plane ready. Although it was only a reconnaissance flight, I noticed he had four 500-pound bombs in the bays. I was going to say something, but didn't. And I'm glad I didn't, because this is what happened.

"Colonel Henebry flew to Borneo through all that bad weather, diving down through the low ceiling to make his observations. Then he went up above the fog and headed for home. As the weather began to clear, he saw below him a Japanese merchant ship escorted by two destroyers.

"'There really must be something in that ship when they send two destroyers along with it,' said Henebry over the intercommunications system. 'Let's go down and see if we can drop one of these bombs into it. The General doesn't like Jap ships in the neighborhood.' The plane swooped down to within fifty feet of the water and roared in at the merchant ship. The bombardier scored a perfect hit, which blew the ship up. They then sank the destroyers. Again they started for home, with one bomb left. On the way they saw a 10,000-ton tanker. Down went Henebry again to sink the tanker with his last bomb.

"By this time the plane had suffered some anti-aircraft fire, and Henebry was having trouble with one of the motors. Nevertheless, as the plane passed a Jap-held island, a machine