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1. I was assigned to Kurmitola for a few days before transfer to
Tezgaon (as a C-109 pilot). Even the thought of "sitting in a C-109 on
the ground" brings tears to my eyes and makes the body shake a bit!
Never had any nightmares but I don't know why. Plenty of "close calls."
--- Obviously radiomen were essential and all "good guys." The Loran
was of little or no help and the two direction finders on C-109s often
pointed in opposite directions when tuned to the same beacon. I had
plenty of "spooky experiences" but will skip them at least for now and
but never had to call for a QDM, but still scared the hell out of my
crew several times. --- Never liked Hump flying as a 'truck driver
type." --- I relive the "Hump" every day and it is good to hear from
guys like you who also have fond recollections of those rather
harrowing days. 2. He told us, among other things, how they would catch monkeys in India - by putting rice in hollow coconuts. 3.
I do recall landing on a muddy strip along the river bank and worrying
about whether we would get the "bird" out of the mud for take-off. ---
I do recall Liuchow (I think that it was often referred to as "no
chow." It seems that I did fly into there a couple of times but I can
only clearly remember doing it once. However I don't recall sleeping in
a tent. It seems to me we were in some sort of Chinese building. One of
the few photographs that I took while I was overseas was one of a
Chinese soldier standing next to what I recall as a Japanese airplane
that was badly damaged. This was at Liuchow. One other recollection was
of being at the airport and seeing a C-46 sliding down the runway on
its belly. I also remember the strange -looking mountains (hills)
there. I don't remember ever seeing any like that anywhere else before
or after.---I never saw a chicken while I was in China but there were
sure a lot of eggs. I think I remember that they pronounced the word as
"egguses." I ate a lot of times in the old C-46 line shack in Kunming
and I don't remember having anything but "egguses and rice." 4.
Were you by chance out over the Hump on Jan. 5, 1945 the night we lost
so many airplanes due to a horrendous headwind on our return flight to
India? I was, and there (were) so many MAYDAYS, according to one report
that I saw, we lost 100 airplanes that night, that of course was from
all the bases. 5. I made many trips into Chengtu,
and disliked every one, a miserable place to operate into. I came very
close to disaster there in a C-109 loaded with ice, poor visibility,
etc. I have no idea how many trips I made over the Hump, most of them
in C-54s thank heavens. I despised the C-109. --- I had a radioman,
whose name I have forgotten, that flew with me most of the time and he
was a good one. On one trip to Chengtu in a C-109 the cockpit filled up
with smoke and we were just before bailing out, at night somewhere
south of Chengtu. He, at the last minute, found the source of some
burning wires and saved us all. 6. I was a Crew
Chief engineer, but did most of my flight time in C-46s. At the
beginning of the monsoon season, quite a few of the engineers liked to
take a breather and were looking for some one to take their place. I
had been assigned to this old D Model B-24 that had fuel leaks in the
bomb bay. We had fun on test hops looking for evidence of leakage but
no luck. It turned out that on its last trip the engineer was still
trying to talk me into grabbing a chute & going along. It blew up
on the take-off in the Chengtu area, no survivors. --- Do you remember
the hard stands towards the river? A friend got in the pilot's seat of
this C-54, while the crew was devouring those famous "flied eggs,"
& accidently kicked off the brakes. The plane started rolling
backward, toward the river. I got on the hand pump to get the hydraulic
pressure up & he still couldn't get the brakes locked. I suggested
we switch places & finally by releasing the toe brakes as the
parking brake lever reached the lock position, they held. It was a
steep dropoff to the river if it had rolled much farther. Most guys
were so used to placing the wheel chocks in front, they never gave much
thought to the steep slope. We would probably have served a long
stretch in Leavenworth if we had dunked the plane in the river. It was
really amazing how much that river used to rise and fall. The Natives
would build their shacks near the water & they would get washed
away. They would turn around & rebuild. 7.
We
called it North Malir, probably because "H" area was in the north, but
I've also heard it called "New" Malir. Whatever it was called, you
describe it very accurately. At least the small portion where we stayed
to train Chinese B-25 & P-40 pilots & crews in bombing &
gunnery in the Sind desert and offshore in the Arabian sea. The
barracks were adobe wiith dirt floors and tile roofs. There were lister
bags of chlorinated water hanging at strategic points in our area, and
made it through the sagebrush to the movie theater only once. I didn't
get to see the movie though. After they played "God Save the Queen".
some drunken GI jumped up and yelled, "To Hell with the Queen!" A riot
ensued and I made a hasty retreat to the exit. Yes, all
the barracks had a long porch running the length of the building. We had
flashlights, but no batteries! Our 1st. Sgt. had a little pen light he
used to call roll at 4:30 or some other ungodly hour, but it didn't
shine far enough to see us in the dark, so we drew lots each evening to
determine who would go out and answer roll call in different voices
while the remainder slept through it. We did this for about a month
before he got wise. Maybe he got some batteries for his GI flashlight,
I forget. What I DO remember was HOT, very dry, and extremely dusty,
and the corned willy and British biscuits hard as a rock, day after day. Christmas
1944 came and went just like any other day for us. No turkey dinner,
work from dawn to dusk as usual, and I never saw a chapel or Red Cross
building all the time I was there. There were reportedly a Polish
internment camp, and a federal prison at Malir? I do remember the old
dirigible hangar at Karachi and rumors that the British built Malir as
a last stand to defend India if the Germans came over from North
Africa. But "Monty's" troops and a lot of help from us Yanks took care
of that matter. --- I dug out an old 14th AF drawing of the three
Kweilin bases that I'd like to tell you about. In the modern map it
seems that Erh Tong (Where we were based until the Japs drove us out)
was selected to be Kweilin's airport. This seems strange to me because
it was the smallest of the three, nestled among sugarloaf hills. Yang
Ton, to the west, although further from the city, was a much larger
facility that easily accommodated the B-24s. Li Chia-Chen, to the east
of Erh Tong, had the newest, widest, and longest runway built for B-29s
returning from raids on Japan to land on when low on gas. To my
knowledge, no B-29 ever landed on it. We had some P-40s that used it
for a while but the facilities were never developed and it was treated
as an auxiliary base. A lot of our tax dollars were poured into that
runway. Local politics must have been involved the decision to use Erh
Tong for the city's airport. 8. When I first looked
at your letter, I saw us both sitting in your tent at Kurmitola one
evening when I was on guard duty - you were giving me the words to
"Begin the Beguine." 9. My favorite spot was the
diner in Kunming, which served eggs & fresh water buffalo. All that
pure oxygen took the pounds off! 10. I think all my
flights were delivering 100 octane gasoline to China in 55 gal. drums.
There were no doors or windows in the plane because of the gasoline
fumes would explode so we wore heavy sheepskin parkas in the plane when
we went over the Hump at the top. (at 36000 to 39000 ft.) When
we took off from India (Assam Valley - Mohanbari) the temperature was
hot (up to 100 degrees at times) so when we took off we wore shorts and
a T-shirt and as the plane was going up, we took turns (pilot, co-pilot
and radio operator) put more clothes on and when we passed over the
Hump into China, we again took turns taking clothes off. Besides
monitoring the radio - it was our duty to check the gasoline drums for
leaks. The exhausts of the engines were right by a window and if the
plane would fill up with gasoline fumes - Boom. At 36 to
39000 feet - some of the gasoline drums would pressure leak, we would
roll it and kick it out the door of the plane. [Note: I'm sure the
writer meant altitude readings of 26 to 29000 feet, as the type of
planes used then were incapable of reaching the higher listed
altitudes. RAS] 11. As for excitement: Caught fire
over Burma, one bullet hole in C-54 from "Betty" on return trip, lost
an engine while delivering a Chinese General and 125 of his people to
the surrender at Shanghai - When I checked the engines before leaving
for home all 4 checked out - 12. Three crack ups
added some spice to my Hump experience. The first time we lost #3
engine on take off from A-3 [Chengtu] and couldn't crank the gear up
and the nose wheel wouldn't lock when we cranked it down. When we
landed it collapsed and we tore the plane up but no one was hurt. The
next time we blew the nose wheel tire on take off and tore up another
plane but no one was hurt. The third time we landed on the last one
third of the runway at Chanyi and found out we had no brakes and buried
the nose all the way to the cabin in a dirt bank. Again no one was hurt. 13.
Recently
I visited an airpark near here where there are four operating DC-3s. I
sniffed around in one, sat in the pilot's seat, thought about those
days when we were young and carefree. But if anyone were to tell me now
that I should crew that wonderful bird across the Himalaya Mountains, I
would tell them they must be INSANE! 14. Took
representatives to arbitrate surrender of Japs in Shanghai. Japs
wouldn't let them off plane for 3 hours till they got official word
that war was over. Japs had brand new cars - Lincolns? 15. GI THANKSGIVING 1945 ONE
THANKSGIVING THAT I SHALL NEVER FORGET' AND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMAN'S
WORDS IN MIND THAT ALL OF OUR TROOPS IN SERVICE WILL ENJOY A TURKEY
DINNER THIS THANKSGIVING, IN RETURNING FROM A HUMP TRIP ALL OF THE
TURKEY DINNERS WERE GONE. SO I HAD MY OLD STANDBY, A PEANUT BUTTER
SANDWICH WITH MARMALADE.
AGAIN, BOB, HAVE A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY.
FRANK 16. [From another Frank:]1945----that was a long
time ago. I just returned home (to Erie,PA) from Injaa and had
thanksgiving at home and felt a little cold because I had to adjust to
this climate again. I hope you and family had a nice Thanksgiving.
Frank 17.
[Glenn Morris sent me this letter which he had received from a friend ] WAR STORY Flying over the "Hump" from Chabua, India to Kunming, China May 1945. We
were a crew of three taking off from Chabua in a C-46 "Dumbo" headed
for Kunming, China. It was a typical monsoon weather buildup day with
lots of high cumulus thunder clouds in the eastern sky. Weather
predictions were not the best to look forward to. Almost
as soon as we had cleared the radio tower operating area we indeed were
in the soup. And it stayed that way for the rest of the time we were in
he air. Over the Burma/China border (we were in solid cloud fog with
rain, sleet, high head winds) one of the engines began to sputter. It
was a common failure of the C-46 to develop ice in the carburetor
intake during such flying weather, so this was anticipated. There is a
warming system to keep the ice from becoming a problem. BUT sometimes
it is too late or develops ice if not applied at the right time. Well,
the right time was now for the sputtering engine quit running. The
pilots feathered it to help the slip stream. Since the
weather was so bad the pilot decided to start trying to dump the cargo
which consisted of thirty two fifty gallon drums of oil and some
smaller stuff. Sure! At this point I had just finished trying to
contact Kunming Radio. The radio waves were full of static so could not
contact them. I was successful in contacting another aircraft with our
position and weather conditions and that one engine was gone. Because
of the static even that message was very difficult to get through. In
just a few minutes the other engine started sputtering and the pilot
said lets get out. I started calling MAYDAY giving our last known
position but never could hear any response - although we heard later
that Paoshan (China) radio picked it up. We were supposed to be flying
at 15,500 feet to be above the mountains but when I last saw the
altimeter it (read) 11,500 and dropping fast. All three of
us bailed out okay. We were in the soup of course so had no idea what
to expect next like slamming into a mountain top or trees or whatever.
After an eternity I came out of the clouds and could see a small
village area in mountain foothills below me. When I landed I broke my
left foot - the co-pilot hit on his tail bone almost really damaging
his back - the pilot made a safe landing. The villagers scampered to
come to the aid of each of us. We were separated somewhat because of
the terrain but they got us together in the loft of some sort of
building which was close to a small school. The people
were real great. They gave us small cups of saki to sip on to help with
the pain and they put saki in a bowl then lit it and lighly rubbed my
ankle and foot and the copilot's sore lower back. We were able to
correspond by drawing pictures, gesturing or good old talking louder
because they couldn't understand us. When it came to food time they
boiled water to drink, boiled eggs and rice to eat. It was apparent
they knew what to do. The U.S. had years earlier dropped leaflets and
passed the word (however) to the jungle people, Burmese and Chinese
that any help they gave American flyers would earn them salt, blankets,
food or what ever in return. We were so lucky to have gone down in the
mountainous area and not in the Burma jungle where there were some
Nahga head hunters. Many stories came to us about some that did. About
two days later the weather cleared enough to see a plane or two in the
distance. Later we found these were some of the search plane efforts.
After four days we were feeling much better. Early that morning the
Chinese brought by some donkeys to ride on and one to pull a drag with
the co-pilot on it since his lower back was still hurting. I have no
idea how far it was but in the late afternoon we had come to a small
segment of the Ledo Burma road where a search crew of GI's came by in a
jeep and drove us to their camp. It was an Army road construction
encampment area. Glenn, this is so much like the stories
in the "Hump" article you sent me. The Himalayas are strewn with any
number of items of cargo and many, many planes that went down. Although
the C-46 had its faults I am so glad that I didn't end up in the C-109
which was a B-14 converted to one big gasoline tank. We called them C-1
o booms for the obvious reason. Once I saw one flying over Chabua
headed for the mountain range when suddenly there was a big flash of
fire - they were gone... I am now reading a book by Andy
Rooney entitled My War. In it he covers the whole European thing
writing for the GI newspaper Stars and Stripes. It is quite
interesting. Like the article you sent me I could just about relive the
experiences while reading his story. He actually was in Chabua when I
was there but of course I didn't see him or even know who he was then.
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