Death of George

At a secret airfield in Australia, airplane engines roared and a flight of pursuit ships sped out of a swirl of dust to take the air. One, a little too close, was caught in the slipstream of a ship ahead. It went out of control, screamed off the runway, ripped the motors off a parked plane, bounced off a jeep and crashed beyond in a group of khaki-clad men. The injured pilot was carried off the field crying "See what I did, see what I did."

Under the wreckage of his plane lay one of Douglas MacArthur's finest officers, one of the U.S. press's crack war correspondents. Slim, hard-flying Brigadier General Harold H. ("Pursuit") George was taken to a hospital where he died soon afterward. His comrade in the grim battle for Luzon and the last-ditch fight on Bataan, Correspondent Melville Jacoby of TIME & LIFE (see p. 55), was killed instantly.

Under tough, practical Hal George were only a few P-40s and Philippine Army training planes when U.S. troops retired to Bataan for their last stand in Luzon. He used them as if they were bombers, hid his anxiety for his youngster pilots by working at his hobby: woodcarving. His "Lady Bataanin," a shapely reclining nude, became a luck piece which pilots touched before going out after the Jap. They needed luck. The Jap bombed the two makeshift fields endlessly, was always overhead with fighters when they took off because he was close enough to hear their engines warming up. Like his pilots, General George took it all with a tight grin, hoped for better days.

Ordered to Australia, he shaved his Luzon beard, got back to trig uniform, waited with burning impatience for the day when his comrades might be somehow relieved. Lady Bataanin was with him, a reminder that kept his eyes blazing when he was out against the. Jap in the Australian area. The day never came. When he heard of the fall of Bataan one day at mess, he unashamedly wept for his youngsters, who had taken everything in their stride, who had talked of missing buddies as though they had gone out to lunch.

Now that Hal George was out to lunch, Lady Bataanin was alone.

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