51³Ô¹ÏÍø

Lt. Tommy Harmon shakes hands with two UNID uniformed men at a federal building / He is seated at a desk in front of a large map / SOT Harmon "There were several of us up there that day, P-38 Lightnings. We had a great time when I finally got into the second fight, I saw 6 Zeros. They were coming up on the back of the squadron formation and turned into them. The first Japanese, the flyer made the mistake right then that was probably fatal. He turned in the wrong direction and landed in directly in front of my guns and after I had given him a short spurt, he went down in flames. The same time that I was working over the second one a bullet entered my cockpit and a shell had blown the gas primer between my legs, blowing my pant legs off at the knees and inflicting severe burns and starting a gasoline fire. I tried to stamp it out without much success. The next thing I knew I was hurtling earthward towards the ground. I opened my parachute immediately and was almost sorry that I did, because two Zeros circled me all the way into the lake. It was an awful long struggle and it took me 32 days to get back to my home base, but I don't believe it was tough as that South American jungle. I believe truthfully that that was the toughest yardage that I ever had to make"