Stingers

The Fourteenth Air Force had lost most of its bases in eastern China (TIME, Dec. 11), but it refused to be downed.

From secret northern bases, bomb-carrying Mustangs flew out to pound and strafe Jap airfields at Tsinan, in Shantung Province, 800 miles northeast of Chungking. In two assaults, 67 Jap fighters and bombers were smashed. The outfit which gave the enemy this stinging surprise was the "Yellow Scorpions" squadron, named for the gaudy spinners on the planes' noses. The squadron had first distinguished itself in Burma; when it was transferred to China, the Japs had hailed the move as an opportunity for revenge. Now the enemy had more revenge to get.

Neither foxy Major General Claire Chennault nor the foe gave any hint where the Scorpions had their nest. But it was so remote that written communications with Chungking would take two weeks by devious routes through enemy lines. When not engaged in banging at enemy airfields or escorting Superfortresses returning from Manchuria, the Scorpions had a routine chore: shooting up locomotives on the Japs' tenuous north China railways. In two months their score was 300.

Far to the southeast, Chennault had dispersed his planes widely after the loss of Kweilin and Liuchow. Now, from secret bases, they went on attacking Hong Kong. The Japs retaliated by bombing two Allied airfields deep in Kiangsi Province.

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