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r ho ro Honors
Returned Hero
Captain David Gatling is back
homo after having hung up the
remarkable record of 200 suc¬
cessful missions in Afriea. Sicily.
Italy and southern France*.
Approximately 500 resi¬
dents of Tarboro assembled
t at a banquet in the high
school gymnasium of that city on
Wednesday evening of last week
to pay honor to one of its returned
w ar heroes. He was Captain David
Gatling. 22-year-old resident of
Tarboro, home on leave and holder
of AAF fighter pilot record for
combat action.
Captain Gatling went overseas
20 months ago to the Middle East,
and saw his first action when the
British Eighth Army began its his¬
toric drive back from El Alamein
in 1942. From that time until
his return, he was in the thick of
every campaign that marked the
Cush through Tunisia, across the
lediterranean to Sicily, into
Italy, and finally up through south¬
ern France.
Flying with the “Bugs Bunny
Squadron," which specialized in
close support for ground forces.
Gatling covered invading forces
at Salerno, Sicily. Anzio,and the
French Mediterranean coast. Be¬
tween invasions he kept busy blast¬
ing stubborn enemy rockets for the
infantry and dive-bombing rail¬
road and highway bridges, enemy
troop concentrations. railroad
trains and communication lines.
Sank Destroyer
He sank an enemy destroyer off
the coast of Tunisia with a direct
bomb hit from his P-40. His per¬
formance against a truck convoy
brought him the Silver Star. In
a low-level strafing attack on the
convoy, he picked out an explosive
truck which literally blew up in
his face. Force of the explosion,
which practically wiped out the
convoy, tore his ship up badly and
sent a sheet of flame soaring some
300 feet into the -air.
"It wus so hot it melted the tar
around the canopy," he recalled.
His ship was so badly damaged
that he needed both hands and a
leg on the stick for the 150-mile
flight back to his base.
The invasion of southern France
was the easiest of all for the cover¬
ing fighters, the captain said. "We
just had everything under con¬
trol,” he explained. “They didn’t
send up much opposition except
for anti-aircraft fire.”
When the Allies stormed into
Salerno, he said, the fighters had
the hottest time of any of the in¬
vasions. "Every foot of sky was
filled with either fighters or ack-
ack." he declared.
Captain Gatling participated in
200 missions. Get that — 200 mis¬
sions! That’s on all-time record
for this wur.
So you can’t blame the good
people of Tarboro for feeling proud
of him and wanting to show him
some recognition in connection
with his great record. The pro¬
gressive Chamber of Commerce
and Merchants Association, of
which Mr. Milton Brown is pres¬
ident and Mrs. Mary Godfrey is
secretary, staged the affair. Every¬
body cooperated in whole-hearted
fashion, which is a characteristic
of folks down in Edgecombe
County.
There was only one slight hitch:
getting information out of the cap¬
tain about his exciting exploits
was like pulling eye-teeth. For
instance, when he was asked to
tell about his experience in sinking
the destroyer, he said: "I got a
lucky hit and she went down!"
That was all. There’s no question
but that he appreciated the
thoughtfulness and consideration
of his neighbors in arranging the
banquet, but so far as he was per¬
sonally concerned, he would much
rather have had a seat out in the
audience than at the head table.
If the name of Gatling has a
familiar sound to you. it may be
due to the fact that you're trying
to recall Richard Gatling, a native
North Carolinian, who invented the
Gatling gun. Captain David Gat¬
ling is distantly related to him.
Captain Gatling has a 25-day
leave. He doesn’t know where
he'll go when that's up.
In 1885 the date April 12. 1776
was placed our State flag, com¬
memorating the fact that North
Carolina through the action of the
Halifax Convention on this day
was the first of the thirteen colo¬
nies to sever relations with the
mother country.
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