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CreativityTranscript
00:00It's the 17th of May, 1944, and Lieutenant Phil Adair is in charge of a flight of Burma
00:06Banshees, four planes painted with screaming, sharp-toothed skulls.
00:11Today, their mission is to bomb Japanese ground targets.
00:15Adair grips the control stick and turns the nose of his aircraft towards the dense, sprawling
00:19canopy of the Burma jungle.
00:22Peering through the haze at the landscape, he sees flashes of gunfire and explosions
00:26punctuating the thick green expanse.
00:28American-trained Chinese forces are in a desperate battle against the Japanese army.
00:35Sweat drips down Adair's back as he and the other Banshees line up their attack.
00:40The less experienced pilots trail behind with Adair leading the run.
00:45The Japanese soldiers on the ground shield their eyes from the glaring sun as they squint
00:49towards the sky.
00:52Above them, the fierce skulls swoop in.
00:57Adair unleashes his deadly payload and the bombs are on target.
01:03The ground shakes violently beneath the Japanese soldiers' feet as explosions erupt in a fiery
01:08cascade.
01:09As Adair pulls up and his nose is pointing at around 45 degrees, he looks up and sees Japanese
01:15planes.
01:16To his side, his wingman is about to start a bombing run.
01:20Adair describes in his own words what happened next.
01:24Three flags of zeroes, there were 15 of them.
01:27They had us bracketed and had already started to feel off on us.
01:31They weren't coming after me, they were coming after my wingman and the other two guys.
01:35So I yelled at him.
01:36Bandits, 11 o'clock high.
01:38Adair is an experienced pilot, but his wingman, O'Connor, who Adair affectionately called
01:43Little Oki, doesn't have the benefit of Adair's experience.
01:47I called him and I said, Little Oki, make sure you've got your tanks and your bombs off.
01:52And turn right into the clouds to get away from the zeroes.
01:54O'Connor immediately drops his bombs, but his tank is stuck.
02:00Four enemy planes that are already closing in on him, he enters a hard turn to evade the
02:05incoming Japanese fighters.
02:08Adair sees all five planes disappear into a cloud bank.
02:12The remaining Japanese fighters fan out and lock on to the remaining Americans.
02:18But Adair is already coming to the rescue of his wingman.
02:21He accelerates and turns into the cloud bank to follow O'Connor.
02:27But when he comes out the other side, there's no sign of Little Oki.
02:32Adair describes the scene.
02:35When I came out into the open again, I was looking to see if I could spot any P-40s
02:40and
02:40I didn't, but I spotted a flight of four zeroes on the other side of this open clearing and
02:46they were heading towards me, so I headed towards them.
02:49Adair gets the leader in his sights, waits, and fires.
02:57Tracers snake out towards the Japanese, but before they're in range, the Japanese fighters
03:02pull away.
03:04Adair flies into cloud to evade further pursuit, but when he emerges into clear skies once
03:10again, there are Japanese fighters still around.
03:13Another flight of four aircraft comes into view.
03:17I did the same thing with them.
03:19I headed towards them, and the first three, they all broke to the left before they got
03:25in range.
03:27But the number four man didn't do that.
03:29He kept coming.
03:31So I waited until I was sure that he was in range, and the instant I squeezed the trigger,
03:36his airplane was disintegrated.
03:38I must have hit him dead center because the airplane just flew apart.
03:43With one plane down, Adair quickly maneuvers back into the cloud bank.
03:50I could see an airplane that had spotted me and headed towards me, and I headed towards
03:57him, and he kept coming and coming.
04:02When he got to looking pretty big in my sights, I figured, well, he's well within range now,
04:06so I squeezed the trigger, and I was shooting at him, and he was shooting at me.
04:11I couldn't see the bullets, but I knew what he was doing.
04:13I could see tracers.
04:14And all of a sudden, the canopy got so big in my gun sight that I knew he was real
04:19close.
04:20And he went right over the top of my airplane, and when he did, he was close enough that I
04:25could both hear and feel this warmth as he went by.
04:30As he went by, I rolled over and started to get down to a lower level, and as I did,
04:36when
04:37I was upside down, I could see a zero that was painted a bright green on the top.
04:43Sign is to be.
04:45Whoa!
04:47That's cool.
04:48So after he went by, I looked, and there was a zero come from the other direction, down
04:53lower than me.
04:54Using the advantage of altitude, Adair turns the plane and expertly swings in towards the
04:59rear of the Japanese fighter.
05:01The Japanese Hayabusa, or Peregrine Falcon, drifts towards Adair's sight.
05:08And Adair catches the Japanese plane with a deflection shot.
05:12The wing disintegrates, and the fuselage rolls over, plummeting towards the rocks below.
05:20So I knew that that was two that I had shot down there, and I had shot a several others,
05:25and no idea whether I'd hit him or not.
05:29Adair is now on his own, and in the open.
05:32At this stage, he's pretty shot up, and fuel is running low.
05:36He needs to get back to base.
05:39Turning to the north and home, he's horrified to see five more Japanese planes.
05:45Outnumbered, and without an altitude advantage, all Adair can do is turn and run.
05:51The stick trembles in Adair's hand as he guides his wounded P-40 to the south.
05:56Oh, man.
05:58The Japanese planes catch up fast.
06:01Their tracers are streaking past Adair's cockpit in deadly arcs.
06:05He throws his P-40 into a last resort defensive maneuver, pulling hard on the controls until
06:11the plane shudders around him.
06:13The world becomes a blur of metal in the sky as he twists and rises through the air, desperately
06:19trying to shake off his pursuers.
06:23Japanese fighters slash through his field of vision again and again, their guns spitting
06:28tracers and lead.
06:29Then, through all the chaos, he spots what could be salvation, albeit laced with danger.
06:36It's a thick bank of clouds with a massive rock formation jutting through its surface.
06:42Despite the extreme danger, Adair, outnumbered and shot up, weighs his options and dives towards
06:49the cover below.
06:53He manages somehow to get into the clouds.
07:00With skill and some luck, he misses the rock, and when he emerges on the other side, he
07:05heads back north into the clear skies.
07:08Bamboo 2, come in.
07:10O'Connor, do you copy?
07:13I circled a little bit, calling on my flight.
07:16Nobody around, so I thought I had, for the first time, lost all of my flight.
07:22I was the only one left.
07:25I didn't feel too good about his ship.
07:28A cold numbness spirts through him as he turns his battered fighter towards Nagaguli.
07:34He scans the horizon, searching for any sign of his missing friends.
07:38Through the haze, a familiar, red-nosed P-40 appears.
07:43Adair is ecstatic to see it's O'Connor limping across the sky.
07:48Adair flies up to survey O'Connor's crippled aircraft.
07:51His plane's belly tank is still attached, but the fuselage is peppered with punctures.
07:57A ragged hole gapes where a 20mm shell is torn through the canopy, and O'Connor slumps in the cockpit,
08:05blood soaking his flight suit.
08:07Through a red mist, O'Connor sees Adair's plane, and sits up, and gestures at his dead instruments.
08:15But there's no smoke coming from the engine, nor any fluid streaking the metal skin.
08:21They bank north towards Nagaguli, two survivors in an otherwise empty sky.
08:28The radio crackles, and a weak voice breaks through the static.
08:32Bamboo Leader, this is Bamboo 3. Do you read?
08:35It's Tom Rogers.
08:36He tells Adair that he's circling above Sadia in his P-40, too unsure of the state of his aircraft,
08:42to attempt a landing alone.
08:44Adair looks across O'Connor's wounded plane, knowing the diversion's gonna cost some precious fuel.
08:50But he can't leave a frame stranded, and the two Banshees set off towards Rogers.
08:56Banking towards Sadia, they spot Rogers' battered P-40,
09:00its wings and fuselage bearing the bullet holes that mark all three aircraft.
09:03As they draw closer, Adair's trained eye catches the telltale sag of Rogers' landing gear.
09:10Both of his tires are completely flat.
09:13Adair signals that he's gonna lead them both into touchdown,
09:16with Oki in front as his airspeed indicator is still working,
09:19and Rogers behind as the flat tires will bring him to a quick halt.
09:23Guiding the two planes into a final approach, Adair pulls up at the last minute and circles above.
09:30He's relieved to see both of his friends land safely.
09:34He then touches down himself.
09:36As the plane comes to a stop, Adair spots that Martinez is already down and unscathed.
09:42Rogers isn't injured either, but his plane took 123 bullet hits.
09:48Adair jumps out of his plane and runs towards O'Connor's broken P-40 to see him terribly hurt.
09:55He was pretty badly hurt.
09:57He didn't get back to flying again.
09:59As far as I know, he probably never did.
10:02He survived, but he died several years later from the wounds on his left side
10:08where the cannon shell went off and took the country away.
10:12Despite O'Connor's injuries, four men flew out, and four men flew home to tell the tale.
10:17That Adair is some pilot.
10:18Did you hear about the time he turned upside down to make it home?
10:21Watch this film and find out.
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