Abstract:
About 500 people turned out in Tarboro for a banquet honoring their hometown hero, Captain David Gatling, who is home on a 25-day furlough. He is in the Army Air Force and has flown 200 combat missions in Africa, Sicily, Italy, and southern France. He sank an enemy destroyer off the coast of Tunisia and received the Silver Star for a low level, strafing attack on a truck convoy. His 200 missions are currently the all-time record for the war. He is a distant relative of Richard Gatling, the inventor of the Gatling gun.