This story is of the four-hour "drama" which I experienced as an aircraft commander in late 1944, and its effect on my life.  It will deal with who, what, why and outcome.  First, let me set the stage leading up to this experience.

     I was a U.S. Army pilot. I graduated from flying school on 8 February 1944.  In the process of training in operational U.S. training aircraft (B-25 and C-47) from February to August 1 of 1944, I was designated as First Pilot in C-47 aircraft, attached to the 4th Combat Cargo Squadron First Combat Cargo Group.   Following our overseas training, our group consisting of four squadrons was assigned to duty in the China Burma India (CBI) theater.

     We departed our training base in Louisville, Kentucky, for Fort Wayne, Indiana, in late August 1944.  Here our squadron was fitted out with twenty-five brand new C-47B aircraft. Personnel wise, the flight crews consisted of one and a half crew per aircraft. Based on age, flight time and other considerations, twenty-five "crew sets," so to speak, were selected to fly the aircraft to our destination.  Others became passengers, of which I was one.

     During the last stages of our stateside training, we began to practice typical mission tasks, and as a result, a few hours were spent with myself and another pilot, a contemporary flying school classmate (Class 44B), flying together as a "crew."  Due to the luck of the draw, it so happened that was checked out as a first pilot.  Because of our comparable qualifications, we worked out, whenever possible, an agreement to share "left seat" time.  One of us would log first pilot time outbound and the other inbound.

     After arrival in the CBI Theater, we continued to fly together on several benign missions between India and Burma.  We operated out of a base known as Tulihal, in the Imphal Valley, which was near the border between India and Burma.   On these missions, we either air-dropped our supplies or landed them on dirt landing strips.  These missions lasted about three months, until just before Christmas of 1944, when our squadron was suddenly relocated to the China theater.   Our base was Chengkung, a short distance southeast of Kunming, both in the southwest corner of China.

     The Mission

    After making full use of our jungle ration of bourbon on Christmas Eve, the next day most of us retreated to our barracks, spending the next three days exploring our new surroundings in a part of the world we had only read about a few years earlier in our high school geography classes.

     In the early afternoon of December 28th, our assigned crew received the call from Operations to prepare for our first China mission.

     Our designated aircraft was one of our C-47Bs, and the crew consisted of:

(Crew Photo)

Don and I had participated in several missions into Burma, as mentioned previously. This mission was to be our first in China.

     Because of the way operations were set up, with 12 to 13 cockpit crews more than the number of 25 aircraft, none of the pilots were attached to a particular aircraft.  The flight engineers and radio operators were in general assigned to one of the 25 squadron aircraft.  In our case, Don and I were scheduled for A/C Serial No. 15849 (Tail No. 849), Flight Engineer S/Sgt. Harry Ennis's aircraft. Sgt. Burton, Radio Operator, had recently been reassigned to this aircraft also.

     Takeoff was delayed about two hours by Gen. Chenault in 14th Air Force headquarters and, unfortunately, we were not cleared for takeoff until late afternoon.

     After introducing ourselves all around, we launched along with the rest of our squadron, which was assigned to the same "target."  We took off in trail, a fact that was to play a vital part in the outcome of this mission.

     Almost immediately, while on course (see Map, Fig. 1 (note: large file 1 meg), at about 11,000 foot altitude, we encountered a heavy cloud layer.  Later we learned this was a perpetual weather condition this time of year.  The retreating sun created a peaceful and disarming scene of a cotton-ball carpet. (I need to digress for a moment.  Our navigational "system" was primarily the radio compass, which depended on a loop antenna to acquire a signal from the destination, the loop being oriented at right angles to the line of flight, and if the signal was showing equal strength from both edges of the antenna, you were on course, the object being to orient the aircraft to a heading that caused this result.  This brief explanation relates to a later part of the story.)

     The flight was uneventful until we arrived at a point when the radio compass reversed itself, indicating that our destination signal was just behind us and we had arrived.  It now became obvious that it would be necessary to do a procedure instrument letdown through the overcast. (See Fig. 5 for my note-pad sketch of our briefing of this pattern.)  This was delayed, as all of the aircraft that proceeded us at takeoff had already arrived, buzzing around this vital signal, awaiting their turn to let down.  In the excitement of watching for other aircraft and the anticipation of the instrument letdown, we neglected to mark our arrival time, thereby not allowing us to calculate our true ground speed to the "target" while on top of the overcast.

     After several minutes of flying a back and forth pattern on top, we were called down for a breakout above the airfield. This, incidentally, was a base known as Chin-Chiang (pronounced Chickeyang), a forward fighter strip.  The letdown (my first) was accomplished and our next task was to get on the ground safely.  The strip was on top of a small mesa and it was somewhat unnerving, as we noticed on the final approach a litter of crashed aircraft.  We touched down and taxied into the waiting arms of ground crew anxious to get their hands on our cargo of 50-gallon drums of aviation gasoline.  Because we had been experiencing nuisance bomb attacks at the home base in Chengkung, it occurred to us that there was a possibility these bomb attacks were going to be repeated on our return, and therefore the base might be temporarily closed. Thinking of this, we requested the gasoline unloading crew to give us back fifty gallons, just in case we had to hold over our return base.  This request was flatly refused.  (Would fifty gallons have made a difference??). We proceeded on to the mess hall and partook of dinner and quickly returned to the aircraft and started our journey home.

     My recollection is that this was approximately 7:00 to 7:30 in the evening.  We climbed out through the overcast to altitude and set course for the return trip, not being aware of strong headwinds on top which were tailwinds inbound.   As time went by, it appeared that we were exceeding our theoretical estimated time of arrival and we were still not clear of the cloud cover. Based on weather briefings, we were expecting clear weather over the Kunming area.  We learned later that regular westerly winds aloft sometimes exceeded 50-60 mph.  At that point, we attempted to get a fix with our radio compass on the home base beacon, and it indicated that the signal was coming off to our right and we had thus been blown south of our course.  In order to correct our position, we had to start a right turn.

     This procedure repeated itself three or four times as we continued, always getting a reading which we could fly for a short time period and then the radio compass would swing around to another direction.  We had been apprised of the possibility the Japanese would be using misleading signals.  Also, there was an indication that the mountainous area had magnetic fields which could fool our instruments.

     About 8:30 in the evening, Don and I realized that we were just boring holes in the sky and not making much progress toward our destination, and our salvation was going to be reaching a ground radio contact for a position fix.

     The decision that I made was to fly close to the top of the overcast, the thinking being that we were close to Kunming, and that if we came across a hole in the overcast, then we could quickly descend into the opening.  As a result, I reasoned that we could break out and pick up some solid visual checkpoints.

     In flying along on top of the billowing clouds, there appeared several times more than one dark hole.  Because of the strong moonlight, a cloud depression would cast a shadow which would appear to be a here.  In taking a shot at descending, we quickly realized we weren't that close to where we thought we were and the possibility of running into a mountain in the cloud cover was too much of a risk to continue that approach.

     In the meantime, as we flew along, our radio operator, Blaine Burton, was making every  attempt he could to raise our home base, Chengkung, and get a directional vector to lead us home. Either no one was listening or our signal was not reaching the right ears. We had several return calls, and at that point we began to issue a Mayday call for anybody that could pick us up and give us a heading in some direction. What that boiled down to was that about 8:30 that night, we realized that we were getting ourselves into pretty deep trouble.

     Possibly the decision to fly close to the cloud cover to conserve fuel and to be prepared to descend quickly was not a good one.  We started picking up dangerous wing ice, propeller ice and antenna ice.  By advancing the throttles and the prop pitch, and by changing power settings, we were able to get the propellers to throw off chunks of ice, which then hammered like a machine gun against the aircraft fuselage.  (If anyone thinks this didn't add to the confusion, think again.)   Unfortunately, we had no method to de-ice the radio antenna.

     The wing ice began to approach the danger level, changing the airfoil to the point where the wings would no longer provide lift.  Fortunately, our aircraft had expanding rubber boots on the leading edge and we made good use of those, turning them on and off, breaking the ice loose. And, of course, that was rattling back across the fuselage, also, causing a great deal of anxiety.

     Flying on instruments almost exclusively, I suddenly noticed that our altimeter and air speed indicators, which functioned off of the pitot head data, rapidly started unwinding to zero.  My first inclination was that vertigo had set in and I didn't realize that we had stalled and were in a spin.  Looking at the mechanical instruments, however, those not operated by the pitot pressures, they were still steady, and what seemed like a couple of minutes and probably was only half of a minute, I realized that we had collected ice on the pitot head, which threw off the static and dynamic pressure readings and was causing our dynamic instruments to malfunction.

     The immediate problem then was, where is the switch that operates the pitot heater? Since we had not had a need to use this part of the equipment for some time, it represented a brief moment of anxiety -- Where is that switch? There was a row of toggle switches just above the pilot station. I just reached up and turned them all on in ripple sequence, and at that point the landing lights went on, the cabin lights went on, several of the systems started to function, creating the potential for additional chaos in an already bad situation.  Our fight engineer, Sgt. Ennis, rescued us and switched off the unnecessary switches that didn't need to be operated.  We caught the problem in time and soon the instruments began to function as they should.

     At this point we kept thinking we were getting a good reading from the radio compass and, as it turned out, we weren't.  Along about ten o'clock, Burton, our radio operator, was able to pick up a very faint vector signal and we picked up that heading, but after the passage of time, our fuel needles were beginning to get into the danger zone.  Losing an engine at this point would have spelled disaster.   A decision was made that we should prepare to abandon aircraft, and the concern on that activity was to keep the plane under control from the cockpit as long as possible. The crew retreated back into the cargo area, removed the cargo door in preparation for an exit and broke out the four parachutes.  This was about 2230 (10:30) December 28th, 1944.

     I put the aircraft on autopilot, and to compensate for the change in center of gravity with four of us back in the exit position, I did have the presence of mind to set the autopilot for a very slight pitch-down.  The four of us then assembled back near the cargo door and donned the parachutes that were available -- these were not our own personal chutes but a part of the aircraft equipment -- some fitting had to take place.

     Burton donned his parachute more quickly than the rest of us and, recalling that he had not set the detonator on the IFF ("ldentification Friend or Foe") device, he took it upon himself to return to the cockpit and set that switch which would destroy that piece of security equipment on impact.  It occurred to me that this was a somewhat unnecessary task considering our other immediate concerns.   When it seemed that Blaine was having time consuming difficulties setting the switch -- he has since reminded me that I gave him a direct order to "get the hell out of the aircraft," which he did. At this point, our crew chief, Harry Ennis, displayed some reluctance to jump into the unknown and leave the aircraft.  Don and I quickly explained the facts of life, that we weren't prepared to go down with the aircraft with him, and if he didn't want to go, we were going to leave.  That caught his attention and he decided to jump, immediately followed by Don Solberg.  Don had put his head down and backed up against the far side of the fuselage for a run at the door and became temporarily entangled in lap belts that were hanging there, which I quickly disconnected.  The lap belts were easily disconnected from his parachute rigging and he proceeded out the door and I followed immediately.

     I had cautioned the crew because I felt that we were in the Kunming area and probably had a 4,000 or 5,000 foot free-fall through the bitterly cold overcast and it would be wise to delay pulling the ring too soon.  To a man, all four of us, the second that we were clear of the aircraft, that chute was out and operating.

     One of my vivid memories of that exit was tumbling through the sky and seeing, as I was tumbling, the aircraft flying on with all of its lights and exhaust blazing, and feeling a really sad sense of loss, almost one of personal loss, as if we were going to lose a dear friend.

     I floated on down through the overcast and obviously did not see -it was dark, pitch dark -- the ground coming up, and suddenly I found my knees in my face as I hit the ground.

     That ends the mission sequence and the end of the story up to that point.  Beyond that, it is probably meaningful to tell the events upon hitting the ground and seeking help.

     It seems worthwhile at this point to also mention something about the performance of the crew. I could not have asked for anything more in the way of cooperation and support from anyone such as that provided by Don.  The radio operator was feverishly working the entire time that we realized we were in difficulty because of our navigational problem.  He was on the liaison radio set, burning it up, so to speak, trying to send a strong signal and raise directional vectors from someone on the ground.  The flight engineer, Harry Ennis, was left to sweat it out.  The comments and experiences of Ben Deatheredge, in his book ‘Silhouettes of Fear’, led me to appreciate the position that the flight engineer, in most cases, was in.  They really had nothing particular to do in the air as long as the airplane was functioning, and that was the case here. Harry was somewhat older than the rest of us.   Three of us were in our early 20s.  How old was Harry?  We don't know, since he passed away a few years ago.  My guess, late 20s.  Now, by reflection, I can understand the potential for him to be considerably traumatized by an inability to do anything to help specifically.  Recognizing that Harry was in a situation dependent on three people much younger than himself, I'm sure this period of anxiety had a real bearing on his state of mind as we prepared to leave the aircraft.

     The "Walk Out"

     Once we were on the ground, it was up to us as individuals to do what we each had to do for survival.  We, for the moment anyway, ceased to be a part of a team, so to speak, whereas prior to leaving the aircraft we had been working pretty much as a unit.

     The course of our last vector apparently was a flight path that crossed the mountain ridges. On my arrival on the ground, the adrenaline was pumping full speed and my body temperature was quite high, and I sat down to get my bearings and to begin thinking about what to do next. Remember the feeling of warmth and comfort, a feeling that didn't last long enough.  In about two hours, I regained my composure somewhat and thought about trying to contact Don.  I didn't have a whole lot of hope in contacting the other two people because they went out a significant amount of time ahead of both of us.  I fired off my .45 side arm and the only response that I got from that was a barking dog.  Calling out to Don certainly was a futile attempt.   It's hard to realize the effect of passing over the ground at 140 miles an hour and how quickly one becomes separated.

     After becoming a little more comfortable and being able to think about what to do next, I decided I had better make use of the parachute to keep warm, so I began cutting the shrouds of the chute and using the parachute for some degree of warmth.  Foolishly, on the way down in the parachute, I had looked at my hand which held the release ring and thought, well, this thing has done its job, it's no longer useful, and I tossed it out into space.  However, at this stage of the story, it would have been a very interesting memento.  To fill that void, I released and cut the pilot chute loose, as that was of a size and weight that wouldn't bother me for any kind of a trip I had to make on foot.  That was stuffed away, and it is still intact with other mementos.

     I next opened the parachute back pack. It had a survival kit embedded in the back portion of the harness.  I salvaged those things out of the survival kit which I thought might be useful -- machete knife, some fishing gear, some jungle-type chocolate bars, a silk map of central China and, most importantly, a little hand-held book that we called a "pointy talky. It had various questions written in English with a Chinese translation of that question.  On the opposing page of the booklet would be a typical answer to the question posed, and that would be written in Chinese with an English translation.  As we progressed with our efforts to get home, that book proved to be a very valuable piece of equipment.  The dunnage that served as the packing felt which carried all the embedded equipment was left on the hill along with most of my parachute.

     The ground was very, very damp, creating a grease-like footing, and any attempts that I made to walk in the dark were futile and dangerous. So I decided to just sit tight and try to stay as warm as possible.  In fact, having a pack of cigarettes in my pocket, I sat back and smoked a cigarette.  That didn't seem to add much to the comfort level.  In summary, it was a very, very cold experience from probably around midnight to dawn, a period of six hours.  I'm sure that the other men were in the same situation.

     As dawn was breaking and some light became available so I could see where I was going, I created some additional noise, probably fired off my .45 again.  The dog that had barked very early proceeded to express himself again and I followed that noise, assuming that there would be humans involved in a situation where they had a dog as a pet or part of the livestock harbored by whatever human presence I might find.

     After a few minutes, can't recall exactly, maybe a half hour, I slipped and stumbled upon a Chinese family dwelling which was the source of the dog barking.  They were pretty much in awe, probably not ever having seen a non-Chinese person and someone larger in stature than most of them. In any case, while probably as frightened as I was, they invited me to get in out of the cold. I wish I was artist enough to draw a picture of the "structure" they called home.  It was a hovel, really a hut with a very low ceiling to the point where I had to get on my knees to get through the doorway.  It was very dark inside, and looking around at the people seated around a very small fire, it was hard to really get a mind's eye fix on what everyone looked like.  It looked very dirty by our standards, to say the least. However, they did offer me some food and I partook of some small amount of something in the grain family.  I don't recall just how they broke that meeting off, but I didn't stay there very long because I felt I needed to really move on as quickly as possible.

     In recalling some of the things that I had learned in the Boy Scout activities, I found a small stream and followed that downstream.  Occasionally, I ran into the odd individual along the way. I made every attempt to make use of my pointy talky and the Chinese flag identifiers (Figs. 2 and Fig 3), which was futile because, as I quickly discovered, most of the people I encountered in that very primitive area didn't know how to read Chinese.

     I descended the mountain, and it was probably around noon before I did make contact with an individual, a young man, who could read the information in the pointy talky and the flag identifiers.  He indicated I should follow him, which I did, having no other option.  About mid-afternoon, we eventually arrived at the exit of the stream, which flowed into another stream somewhat larger, and we crossed that, coming upon an imposing fortress like structure built of stone.  (On a subsequent trip we took to China in 1988, I found a model of a structure very similar to what my memory told me about this outpost.  I took a picture of it in one of the museums and that is included as Fig. 4.)  At any rate, this was certainly intimidating in appearance: high walls, large, heavy entry gate such as one might have seen in some of the history books of European structures.

     I was led into the center courtyard to be greeted by 15 to 20 armed men who were probably a warlord's private army.  They all had rifles and most of them had bandoliers of cartridges draped over their shoulders.  One can well imagine that if I'd been wearing a hat, it certainly would have been about three inches off the top of my head because my hair was standing on end with anxiety as to what would happen to me in this situation.  However, they were very placid and nonaggressive and ushered me into a side room where I was able to sit down and rest for a little bit.   They all crowded around, jabbering among themselves, and, of course, I couldn't understand a word they were saying.  It wasn't long before one gentleman, more well-dressed, not armed, spoke up in the back of the crowd.  I recognized an English word and I was greatly relieved to find somebody who seemed able to help me communicate.

     This gentleman then ushered me to the second level of this fortress, which had a balcony surrounding the open courtyard, and showed me a room.   This room was very barren and equipped with what appeared to be a bed, and that was my home for the next three days.  The bed was very minimal, consisting of boards, reminding me of several hours of poor sleep on many camp-outs, thus ending a very strenuous day (12/29/44).

     The next day (12/30), I remember that about 0830, there was a commotion in the courtyard and the natives brought in Don Solberg.  The community was aware of the presence of these strange Americans.  The word of mouth communication system evidently informed the people wham Don had contacted that there was another party involved and where I was.  He was brought in, and you can well imagine the wonderful feeling of relief on seeing that another one of the crew besides myself had survived.

     My most vivid recollection of our visit there in this refuge is probably the evening of the 30th. We were invited to have dinner with the man who we concluded to be possibly a local war lord or certainly a man of substance and authority.   He gave us his card (Fig. 8) which revealed his name as "Lung Wey Singh."  He had with him at the dinner I'd say four or five subordinates, probably part of his ruling staff.  The dinner was quite a different affair.  Don and I sat together on one edge of a large round table and the others were seated appropriately.  Seated next to me was "Mr. Singh," and he acted as our host.  I wish l'd had a movie camera.  This group of people certainly didn't want for something to eat.  There was plenty of food.  Rice, of course, was passed around several times by a table servant, and in the center of the round table was a very large pot containing a stew-type of dish.  I would guess we would call it maybe a won ton.  It contained a lot of floating things in it.  He reached into the depths of this pot with his chopsticks and grabbed a hold of something and took it out and offered it to me.   Lo and behold, it was an entire chicken head -- the beak, the eyes, the craw, the whole works -- which I very politely declined, suggesting that maybe Don might be interested.  He wanted no part of it either.  To add spice to the meal, there was a collection of small dogs under the table.  When the diners found something they didn't want, they just flicked it under the table, thereby creating a minor dog fight.   We discovered another good use of our heavy jump boots -- protecting our curled-up toes.

     We had both salvaged our chocolate bars out of the survival kit.  We pulled those out and chomped a little bit on those, as I remember.  Our instructions, as minimal as they were to prepare us for flying or being in that part of the world, were that if we didn't know what we were eating, the best thing to do was to eat a hard-boiled egg or an egg you knew had not been contaminated in any way.  I think we had a couple of eggs and I don't remember what else.  As the dinner concluded, we were offered the services of a concubine and also a pipe, which we concluded was probably opium or some type of drug.

     At the risk of appearing ungrateful and unappreciative, we politely declined all the offers and were given leave to retire to our wooden bed upstairs.

     That pretty much concludes the activity of the 30th, except for the fact that we thankfully had received a note (see Fig. 5, Fig. 6, and Fig. 7) from Sgt. Ennis wherein he related that he and Blaine were together and o.k. and that we were to join them rather than having them come to us.  My thought was that we were in pretty good hands where we were and could they come to us.  It turned out that, no, our joining wasn't to be handled that way.  They informed us via these notes which were going back and forth with the runners that they were with a Chinese army encampment and we were to come there.

     So, on December 31st we were given directions to gather ourselves up and join an escort party taking us to the other crew members.  All of our apprehension about the motives and possible betrayal by this group of Chinese were dispelled as we left and said good bye to our host, Mr. Lung Wey Singh, about 1130.   We were always concerned that we would fall into the hands of treacherous Chinese who sometimes would take downed airmen and turn them over to the Japanese for a reward.   Fortunately, we were in very friendly territory, friendly to the extent that we were furnished a generous escort over the hill plus letters of safe passage (see Fig. 8, Fig. 9 and Fig. 10).  As I remember, there were about four or five Chinese bearers, a sedan chair and a Chinese pony, plus two fat rolls of Chinese money (about 10,000 Chinese dollars) apiece.  I was ushered into the sedan chair and Don mounted the pony.  It turned out that, because of the slippery conditions -- it was still overcast and the ground was saturated -- the poor little Chinese on either end of this sedan chair which I started out in were just slipping and sliding and falling. I said, "Just a minute, let me get out and I'll walk."  I don't recall whether Don tried the sedan chair or not.  He wasn't having much better success with the pony.

     It turned out to be quite a hike.  We climbed up the side of the mountain for approximately three or four hours and over the ridge and into the area of the Army encampment, arriving about 1500 (3:00 P.M.).  Again, with great joy and relief, we were able to shake hands and put our arms around our two crew members, men we barely knew.  Unfortunate as this situation was with officers and enlisted men in that era, in looking back, it was certainly ridiculous protocol.  Owing to the fact we had been strangers as of three days earlier, and because we never had flown together before, this day and the ensuing days until we got back to the base was get acquainted time.  We were grateful that we had those fine men to live with for the next eight to ten days.

     A Major Fung and a captain were put in charge of us.   They saw to it that we had a good meal for dinner.

     This being the 31st of December, we celebrated New Year's Eve, by standing out on the balcony of the building where we were hostelled, sang songs and fired our .45s into the air.  Each of us, I'm sure, was thinking our own thoughts of gratitude for the fact that we were all together and seemingly safe and on our way back to the base.  Blaine and I shared a small famous wooden bed, and Don and Ennis shared one as well.

     That concluded December 31.

     On January 1st we were aroused early, and at 5:30 in the morning we started to hike away from the Army encampment to a more civilized and populated area.  We were escorted, this time by uniformed soldiers.

     Harry Ennis had sustained bruises and a sprain or some difficulty with his leg or his back -- I don't recall exactly the area that was troubled.   He had made a tough landing with the parachute and slid down a precipice.  He was able to walk -- not comfortably, but he was able to walk. Blaine, Don and I were in good shape, with no apparent injuries.

     We were not able to sustain the pace desired by the Chinese troops and they were constantly urging us on, but not being used to this sort of tempo and exercise, we requested rest stops more often than the troops wanted.  Of course, what this resulted in was us continuing on to walk the entire day into the darkness at night.   We were in a single-file walking situation, and again, we had the services of a small Chinese pony and four sedan chairs.  I don't know whether the pony was the same one that carried us over the hill or not.  As before, the chairs were useless. The pony, however, was following the trail and we were relying pretty much on it finding its way.  Not wanting to lose track of the pony, I had a handle on his tail just to make sure there was a solid connection. It being pitch black, we were just stumbling along.

     As I remember, it was probably around eight or nine o'clock at night before we emerged from the hills into a road.  At a point called Ch'in-ShuiHo (pronounced Sushwayho) we stopped for the night and were given housing and food.

     On the next day, the 2nd of January, we were escorted, and here my memory is completely blank as to how we moved from Ch'in-Shui-Ho to our next wayside stop on this road.  We were heading south, and Burton has refreshed my memory (I'm not sure that Don recalls it this way), but we were finally delivered to this next refuge, which was Pichieh (pronounced Peyshe).

     Due to the fact that we could not communicate directly with our Chinese escort people, we were on guard for some time prior to this, not really knowing where we were going and in what direction we were headed.  Because of the communication gap, we pretty much just had to leave our fate in the hands of our Chinese army personnel.  As it turned out, our worries were needless, since they certainly knew what they were doing.

     Pichieh was a larger community than our first rest point. The Chinese turned us over to a missionary establishment run by some German nuns.  I believe they were of the Episcopalian faith. In any case, it was certainly a welcome sight to see a semblance of order and an infrastructure for living conditions that was a vast improvement over what we had been seeing over the last four days.

       Pichieh, January 2

     My memory of our stay here is sketchy.  Importantly, there was a Quartermaster detachment of five Army enlisted men and one Army lieutenant, Lt. Ryan.   They were stationed there at Pichieh for the purpose of repairing and maintaining U.S. Army trucks.  The road that we were on turned out to be the extension of the Burma Road, running from Kunming to Chunching, the capital of China. Ironically, Ryan was not too friendly toward U.S. Air Force types at the start. It seems he had made two trips over the Hump in C-46s and had bailed out twice.  They were also doing room and board at this missionary.

     Highlights of that visit were:  We had a feather comforter, which was a vast improvement over what we'd been sleeping under.  We each had our own place to sleep.  Sanitary facilities were down the hall and consisted of a closet and bucket arrangement.  The food was minimal but good, and much appreciated after having lived on the chocolate bars, various and sundry boiled eggs and whatever we'd been able to eat along the way.

     We spent three or four days at this location, as I recall, enjoying the hospitality of the German nuns.  We departed, heading south about January 7th or 8th, ever growing closer to our home base.  While awaiting our transportation, we did take advantage of the bath house, where we experienced a new happening for us young, unsophisticated travelers: steaming hot tubs of water and soap administered by Chinese ladies who ran the bathhouse.

     After four or five days at Pichieh, we received word from Lt Ryan that it was going to be necessary for him to report into his headquarters in Chanyi, and that we would be leaving the next morning via a Chinese truck for that location.   Not that we knew anything about Chanyi other than the fact that it was an AAF airfield and was probably the closest place where we could be retrieved by members of our squadron.

     The truck journey, some 200-plus miles descending down very windy and poorly kept roads, proved to be almost as much an adventure as the previous activities in the airplane.  I think we survived by closing our eyes for most of this part of the journey.  The truck was an old charcoal burner, had very little in the way of braking qualities and was driven by a Chinese driver who didn't seem to have a whole lot of regard for what we would term safe and cautious driving. While it was more comfortable in the cab of the truck, it was less scary riding in the bed of the truck itself, which was loaded with bent and broken automobile parts.

     After our arrival at Chanyi, we spent the night there, since we arrived fairly late.  Our base at Chenkung was notified of our presence and rescue arrangements were made to pick us up the following morning, on the 9th.  It was a welcome sight to see one of our C-47s coming in on the final approach and to recognize something wonderfully friendly.  On landing, it turned out the pilots were Capt. Harold Beason, our operations officer, and my roommate and best buddy, Brian Bumpas.   I found out later about the extreme measures he had taken to put the pressure on becoming part of the crew to conduct the rescue operation.  Well, it was a wonderful and welcome greeting. Brian was, and is, a very enthusiastic kind of guy.  His excitement and enthusiasm were certainly shared by me and the others.  Needless to say, we were so very grateful to see this aircraft and these two familiar faces.

     We returned from being gone 12 days, "absent without leave" but with kind permission of the authorities.  The squadron welcomed us home with open arms and many hugs.  The afternoon was well spent, quickly writing and getting a letter off to my wife, who, as it turned out later, had already received a telegram from the War Department announcing my Missing in Action status. I think my January 9th letter to her arrived ahead of the wire from the War Department (see Fig. 11), with the correct information as to our survival.

     At the beginning of this story I mentioned the manner in which lives can be changed in the twinkle of an eye, or even over a longer period of time, by unexpected events.  The highlights of this event really consisted of a very brief three or four hour ordeal prior to leaving our aircraft. There is a well-known saying among U.S. Army infantry personnel that "there are no atheists in a foxhole."   The same can be said about the cockpit of an aircraft that is in imminent danger of becoming a fatal accident.  I, for one, certainly was aware of the need to put my spiritual house in order, along with the activities of keeping the aircraft under control.   And I'm sure that the other three crew members were making their peace with whatever deity was part of their religious background.  The fact of the matter is that I, for one, never at any moment accepted in my thinking that we were not all going to survive this crisis.  My confidence was in either finding a refuge on the ground or abandoning our aircraft with a safe parachute landing.  Weather conditions were such that the latter was our only choice, and certainly a safer one.

     In the early part of the narrative, I mentioned there were four of us as a crew.  There certainly, in my mind, was an unseen fifth member of that crew, and I made full use of the reassurance that that ingredient in our crew makeup would see us through to a successful return to our air base and eventually our loved ones at home.

     While not in the pilot's handbook, Verse 4 of the 23rd Psalm has been brought to good use many times since:

    " Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me".

FIFTY FOUR YEARS LATER -- SOME 20/20 HINDSIGHT

     As with most "mishaps," there occurred more than one defining cause.  Here's my thoughts on some of those causes.

     Navigational Relapses:

      . Lack of local familiarity and insufficient weather information to account for winds aloft, and thereby causing our inability to accurately determine true ground speed above the cloud cover, which was critical.  Obviously, we miscalculated our estimated time of arrival, allowing ourselves to consider "spurious" radio compass signals.

      . During our Squadron Commander Major Loyal Penn's ebriefing, he asked, "Did you do a null procedure on those radio compass signals, thus verifying their true nature?"  The answer was no, and I realized then that this might have been a key solution.  This procedure was known to us but not really drilled home.  It involved hand-rotating the loop antenna to an "in-line-of-flight'' orientation such that a true signal would have been nulled because of the loop reporting conflicting strength (strong on loading edge and zero on trailing edge).

     Weather Challenges:

      . As mentioned in the narrative, our strategy was to maintain as ow an altitude as possible (about 11,500 ft.) to maintain visual contact, conserve fuel and provide a ready posture to take advantage of any cloud openings for a quick descent.  It may have been wiser to assume a 12,000 ft. or 13,000 ft. altitude into a much drier climate.  This would have avoided the icing complications.

     Communications:

      . Our inability to obtain directional help from ground stations was apparently a result of severe icing on all antennas.

     If we could do it all over again??