assembling a naval and transport fleet in Ambon bay, where ships started to arrive from Java on May 16. At 0300 on May 18, Pope took off from Mapanget to attack Ambon again. He first attacked the airfield, destroying the C-47 and P-51 that he had damaged on May 7. A short distance west of Ambon Bay, he found the invasion fleet, which included two 7,000-ton merchant ships being used as troop transports. One of the transports, the Sawega, was trying to take evasive maneuvers as Pope attacked it; his bomb fell in the sea short of its target. The Indonesian Air Force had one serviceable P-51 Mustang on Ambon, at Liang airbase. When Pope attacked Ambon airfield on May 18, the P-51 flown by Ignatius Dewanto at Liang was scrambled to repel him. Dewanto closed on the B-26 just as Pope was attacking the Sawega. The convoy took both aircraft to be AUREV and fired on both of them. Dewanto also hit the B-26, damaging its starboard wing and the bomber caught fire. Pope and his Permesta radio operator, Jan Harry Rantung, bailed out. As they jumped, the B-26 was entering a sharp dive and the slipstream threw Pope against the tail fin, fracturing his right leg. They landed on the coast of Pulau Hatala, a small island west of Ambon, where a small Indonesian Navy landing party from one of the invasion fleet's minesweepers was put ashore and captured them. Some 20 other AUREV insurgent aircraft were reported to have been seen with Nationalist Chinese markings obscured by hasty coats of paint. Their pilots were Nationalist Chinese and Americans from CAT. Trial, conviction and release U.S. Ambassador Howard P. Jones portrayed Pope as an American "paid soldier of fortune" and expressed his regret at the involvement of an American. However, when he was captured Pope was carrying about 30 incriminating documents, including his flight log, that substantially added to the embarrassment of the Eisenhower administration in the U.S.A. Pope admitted to flying only one or two missions, but his flight log recorded eight and another source states that he flew a total of 12 . Pope "spent the early hours of Sunday, May 18, over Ambon City in eastern Indonesia, sinking a navy ship, bombing a market, and destroying a church. The official death toll was six civilians and seventeen military officers". When Pope was shot down by