3rd Combat Cargo Group, 12^th Combat Cargo Squadron, APO629    

Unit History, September 1944

CONFIDENTIAL

     OPERATIONS:  Outstanding among the months flights was a mission flown on the tenth which involved a landing on the condemned Broadway Airfield behind enemy lines in Burma.  The aircraft involved was flown by Lt. Dobbins and Lt. Inman and carried a number of intelligence men to that area.  The strip was covered with water and high grass, and at the end of the landing roll the aircraft slid into a bomb crater.  Having received no information on this aircraft for over forty-eight hours, Squadron Operations at Moran sent an aircraft flown by Lt. Eisele and Lt. Mason to investigate.  Upon arrival over the Broadway strip, Lt. Eisele and Lt. Mason sighted the missing aircraft and observed that is was apparently stuck.  After circling the field several times, the rescue party landed and picked up members of the crew returning all, but the co-pilot Lt. B. C. Inman, to their home base at Moran. Lt. Inman had gone to a nearby hill camp where some American Officers were living and was returned to his base by L-5 later.  Three days after these men were returned to their base, Lt. Eisele and Lt. Veck returned to Broadway strip to fly the aircraft out.  With the help of Kachin jungle fighters, the crew attempted to dig the ship out, but were unsuccessful.   After three days, with practically no food, and the constant hazard of Jap Patrols and planes, the crew was still unsuccesssful in their attempts to dislodge the plane from the bomb crater.  Having had very little food, Lt. Eisele went into the jungle on the afternoon of the third day in search of food but failed to return that night. In the meantime, an L-5 landed at the field to again return the crew to their home base.   Lt. Veck was returned to his base, but since Lt. Eisele had failed to return from his hunting trip and the ship could not be left unguarded, Sgt. Wharton, the engineer, was left to guard the aircraft until it could be made ready for flight.  Three days later Lt. Eisele found his way back to field at Broadway, a bit worse for wear.  Having spent three days and two nights in the jungle, Lt. Eisele had over one hundred infected bites from leeches, mixed with severe heat rash, and innumerable scratches and bruises from jungle thorns.  He had lived on only what bamboo roots he could find and water from nearby streams.  Again the L-5 from Myitkyina base made its rescue run and returned Lt. Eisele to his base.  By this time, three crews had been involved in the Broadway incident and as of yet the aircraft concerned was still stuck.  The solution finally came when a number of elephants procured by the Kachins, pulled the ship out and it was later flown back to Moran.