H Patton A Case of Ammo

I was delayed in arriving at Sylhet, due to having spent 5 days in the hospital in Abadan Iran with a bad case of Amoebic Dysentery. And very shortly after my arrival, the decision was made to send a detachment of 6 of our planes to Kunming, China, to assist in the evacuation of several Chinese cities which were in imminent danger of being overrun by the advancing Japanese army. So, I packed my bags for a short stay in China and carefully stowed the rest of my belongings in a canvas parachute bag and pushed it under my bunk. Now we were quartered in a Basha, a, primitive sort of building made of woven bamboo slats and bamboo poles. Our Basha had a brick floor, and in that heat and humidity, slip and slide was the order of the day. These buildings were a legacy from other troops of bygone days, Probably British. Which reminds me of a conundrum I encountered somewhere in a town in the Middle East. A sign posted on the outside of a bar, proclaimed it to be "OFF LIMITS TO ALL OTHER RANKS" I didn't know whether to go in or stay out. There were certainly lots of other ranks which I wasn't, and only one that I was I mulled that one over in my minuscule mind for quite a while before I found out that it was posted by the British Army and in their Army, Enlisted personnel are called "The Other Ranks". Travel certainly enhances our store of knowledge, now doesn't it? To get back to our Basha. It wasn't the Ritz Carlton but it didn't leak it and it fulfilled our basic need for shelter. We even had a well and a pump outside where our daily ablutions were conducted, by judicious use of our helmets and a little soap. These Bashas were dispersed throughout the area in the jungle, usually so that one could not be seen from the others. We were a fair distance from the hub of things, like the Mess Hall, the Orderly Room etc via a winding path through the jungle. This seemed like a some what perilous journey, particularly at night, and especially after a large Cobra was found taking a leisurely nap atop a desk in the Orderly Room. From then on, every twisted root and anything that moved along that path immediately translated into a stalking Cobra! Adrenaline flowed freely along that path at night.

Well, as I said, I pushed my parachute bag under my bunk, went down to the landing strip and we took off over the Hump for Kunming for the "short stay" which we had been told would only be about 2 weeks. This was Sept 15th 1944 and it was Oct. 16th When we finally returned. When I entered the Basha and picked up my carefully stowed parachute bag, the whole bottom of the bag stayed on the floor. I hadn't counted on the effect of that slimy brick floor on canvas. One thing that we had in plentiful supply there in our jungle home was bananas. For a couple of rupees (a rupee was worth about 30 cents) we could have the native kids bringing us all the bananas we could eat. The native bats also were quite fond of bananas, and a few bunches hanging in the basha would be sure to attract a few bats at night. One night one of the guys started batting the bats with a baseball bat, and one of his wild swings came a little too close to my head for comfort and so we sort of had to put a stop to that method of bat eradication. I had even heard that certain members of our group were using the bananas and rice to ferment a potable beverage which when properly aged (about half an hour) would remove the hide from a wooden Indian and would sometimes enable the drinker to accrue several hours of flight time without ever leaving the ground. (This was hearsay of course, and I never had any real knowledge of such goings-on). I am sure those little plumes of smoke rising out of the jungle at night were the result of a troop of Boy Scouts on a camporee, and in no way connected with any illicit activity on the part of our own troops.

The two cities that we were sent to evacuate were Liuchow and Kweilin. Kweilin was an important base for the B-29 raids and losing it was a definite setback to the bombing effort. Every effort was being made to salvage as much as possible. We flew a lot of missions on that assignment. And of course there were many other planes from other squadrons taking part in the effort too.

I guess my most vivid memory was the last night at Kweilin. Our best intelligence sources told us that approximately 9000 Japanese were just about 7 miles from the base and were probably getting ready to advance on the base at dawn.

I had chanced to get acquainted with the munitions Officer at some point during our trips back and forth and on this last night, he wanted to know if I would like to have a case of .45 caliber ammo. I said yes, and we got in his jeep and drove down to the munitions warehouse. It was dark and we were using flashlights to see with, and I noticed some whitish looking powder scattered several inches deep on the floor. I asked him what that was and he replied "dynamite" I immediately adopted "Tiptoe through the Tulips" as my favorite theme song. I was on my tip toes more than a Prima Ballerina until we finally got the ammo, loaded it in the jeep and got out of there.

Now there is something about knowing that there are thousands of enemy troops massing just outside your area, that can make people extremely nervous and jittery. And knowing that you can't leave until everything is set to go at dawn, can make an 8 hour night seem like 24 hours and you hope to God that the Japanese haven't moved their schedule ahead. The runway was mined, the Ammo building wired to explode and most of the other buildings were set to be torched or blown up in some fashion. There was also a group of vehicles and personnel set to start overland to Kunming at as soon as the demolition was complete. Those were the guys I didn't envy! About 400 to 500 miles through mountainous terrain and trying to keep ahead of the Japanese army. I never heard any more of them, and often have wondered if they finally made it.

It turned out that my friend the demolition Officer, had a bizarre sense of humor. After most of us had tried to get a little sleep on the floor with guns in hand, this guy slipped outside at about 4AM and set off an explosive charge that rocked the camp. We just knew that the Japanese had arrived! Pandemonium burst upon the scene! People were running helter-skelter. I just laid there, about 4 inches above the floor until I came to, then I contributed my bit to the general confusion. One guy confided in me later that he had been headed for the Latrine when the blast went off, and he said " I just wiped, turned and around and went back!" Somehow, we survived the night even though everyone in that room was as jumpy as a long tailed tomcat in a room full of rocking chairs. And into the bargain everyone had a fully loaded gun in his hand. Getting hit by friendly fire posed more of a threat than the Japanese. The first rule of survival was --just don't make any sudden moves! The morning finally came and bright and early we hastened to take our departure for Kunming.

Now if you have never taken off in a fully loaded airplane on a runway laced with mines, and sundry high explosives, take my advice --try to avoid it if at all possible. If one of those things happened to go off, it could ruin your whole morning.

That mission completed our evacuation, and as I looked back at the Airfield as we climbed out, it boggled my brain to think what would happen to that City and the Airfield at the hands of the Japanese. Kweilin fell to the Japanese on the 10th of November and Liuchow, which we had also helped to evacuate, fell on the 11th of November 1944.

I have a good Buddy from those days, Larry Greenfield, who spent the same night, gun in hand, trying to get a little sleep on the hard, cold floor of his airplane, and if I can ever persuade him to write some of his stories, we can experience that same night from a different perspective asked him one time why he and the Crew Chief stayed on the plane, rather than go to the barracks, he said they had been ordered to guard the plane. I said "from what? "9000 Japanese soldiers"? "At any rate, I said I guess you would have been OK." "At least you had your trusty .45 pistol". You could just have taken careful aim and thrown it at them.

Herb (Pat) Patton

From Memory 4/19/99