Escape From Davao Read Online Free Page B

trouble forced two pilots to abort the mission, the remaining pilots, Lts. Joe Cole, Gus Wil iams, and Johnny McCown, turned to the next-senior pilot for leadership.
    That individual, Lt. Sam Grashio, al of twenty-three years old, regrouped the lost squadron into formation and shepherded it north toward Clark Field, sixty miles distant, the assigned objective and, in Grashio’s estimation, the most logical location for action.
    Almost from the beginning—he was born on April Fool’s Day 1918, in Spokane, Washington, to be precise—action, in one form or another, had been the main objective of Samuel Charles Grashio. The sixth of seven children, he was short and thin. With fair skin, blue eyes, and ringlets of light brown hair, he possessed a disarming physical appearance.
    Growing up, Grashio was competitive and impetuous, and deeply religious—a holy terror. The wiry altar boy could usual y be found in railyards hopping freight cars and fighting. As he matured, Grashio—described as “119 pounds of condensed dynamite” in one newspaper—boxed in smokers and quarterbacked his high school footbal team at Gonzaga Prep to three straight championships, but shortfal s in the class room precluded a chance at col ege. As the shadow of the Great Depression eclipsed the country, Grashio’s career choices dwindled. He had no desire to take over his father’s barber shop, so he approached the Jesuits of Gonzaga University about joining the priesthood. They told him to wait and see if his interest waned. It did.
    Grashio had rekindled two old flames, one of which was his high school sweetheart, a big-eyed blonde named Devonia Carolus. The other was Grashio’s longtime love affair with airplanes, which showed considerably less promise. Nevertheless, much like his father—who in 1902 had traded his likely future as a goatherder in Calabria, Italy, for a ticket on a New York–bound steamer—he took a chance and enrol ed in Gonzaga’s federal flight training program in 1938. With hard work, newfound focus, and the practical experience he had gained with the Washington Air National Guard, Grashio earned his pilot’s license in 1940. He navigated the rigorous cadet programs at Randolph and Kel y Fields and was assigned to Ed Dyess’s 21st Pursuit in 1941, a break Grashio would later consider the biggest of his life.
    “Ed … took me right under his wing. He was only two years older than I—he was twenty-five—but he was like a father to me at first,” said Grashio. “Then, when I became more assured, he was like a pal.” At the time, Grashio could not have known how strong that friendship would become, nor could he have known how much action was in store for him.
    Despite the heavy fog of war settling over Luzon, the skies were clear and the air, recal ed Grashio, was “as smooth as glass.” The P-40s of C Flight passed over 3,000-foot Mount Arayat until 1220 hours, when Grashio surveyed Clark Field from 10,000 feet. Seeing nothing unusual, he decided to wing westward to join up with a formation of P-40s. Ten fateful minutes later, his radio crackled to life. “Al P-40’s return to Clark Field,” shouted the tower operator there, his voice muted by exploding bombs.
    “Enemy bombers overhead!”
    There were fifty-three Japanese navy Type 96 and Type 1—known as “Nel ” and “Betty”—twin-engine bombers in two V formations blackening the skies at Clark Field. It was about 1230 when the first wave of Nel s, like bursting storm clouds, began to rain destruction from their bomb bays. The shril whine of an air raid siren sent men pouring from crowded mess hal s. They dove into slit trenches and scrambled to their battle stations as bomb concussions rocked the ground beneath them.

    The Japanese bombardiers possessed uncanny aim. Direct hits obliterated hangars, barracks, and communications stations and fel ed radio towers and telephone poles in showers of sparks.
    Fragmentation bombs ignited ammunition dumps and