John Carmichael Part 1

MY TOUR IN BURMA

I was working for Todd’s Dry Docks in Galveston, Texas at the time I got my notice to report for service duty. I knew I was going so I volunteered into the U S Army Air Corps. This would be in line with the work I had been doing and it might be better than fighting in the Trenches or Foxholes. I reported to the train station and along with several others I boarded a train for Ft. Sam Houston. After indoctrination and some tests, I was assigned to Ellington Field in Houston, Texas for basic training for six weeks. I also had met my future wife while visiting my sister in Waco, Texas. From there I was sent to Gulfport, Mississippi for further basic training and airplane mechanics schooling there. It was “HOT” and the camp was located among a pine forest, with little breeze and very hot climate as it was late spring and early summer. From Gulfport we were put on a “SLOW” troop train and sent to Longbeach, California to the Douglas Aircraft Factory school. We were schooled on the Douglas C-47 transport planes and I learned very well how to take them apart and put them back together. From there I was sent to Santa Anna Air base for further basic and then to Salt Lake City for small arms training. Then we were sent back to Santa Anna for assignment. Joe DiMaggio was there at the time, spending his Patriotic Duty playing baseball for the base. Joe was one of the most likeable people we met.

I was assigned to Victorville Army Air Base and spent several “HOT” months and enjoying my trips to Hollywood and Los Angeles, where we treated very well by both the movie Stars and civilians. I got to dance to music by the great bands of the day there at the Palladium and other big dance pavilions. I met personally with Red Skelton, and several more Stars. They treated us so nicely and we had a lot of freebies given us by the local citizens there.

I VOLUNTEER FOR OVERSEAS DUTY

The date was May 16, 1944, and I was a Corporal at the time, based at Victorville Army Airfield, in California, which was a Bombardier Training Base. We were in the Mojave Desert, and it was hot, with many days of 116 degrees and even hotter. I stood under the wings, of the airplanes, in the shade, when I drained the water from the gas tank sumps. The hot asphalt would burn your feet through the soles of your boots, and the water, drained from the sumps, would evaporate very quickly.

What a setup I had, with a three-day pass to Hollywood, and Santa Monica, each month. I was a little restless, and not quiet satisfied even with all of this. I could have stayed at Victorville through all my service time, as so many of the men did. I had many good times in Hollywood and Los Angeles and I saw several movie stars, such as Ward Bond, Joan Leslie, Wallace Beery, and had a conversation with Red Skelton. He was a funny person and had a buddy and me laughing all the time that we talked with him. Joan Leslie was very young and very pretty, and talkative and we got to dance with her. I can tell you, my heart really beat rapidly. Wallace Beery was a big bunch of laughter as he called to us from his car while stopped for a red light. Ward Bond was leaving the Beverly Hills Hotel as we entered and he was dressed in very expensive western garb, with his shiny black boots.

I had always wanted to be on the go. I was a Private First Class when I came to Victorville, and I was called upon to change a piston in a cylinder of one of the planes, an AT-6 fighter-training plane, in the squadron next to ours. They had no one who knew how, or they did not want to tackle the job. The piston had jammed, or frozen in the cylinder, and the engine would not start. I did a good job of it, and after the pilot took it up for a test hop he said it was O.K., and was ready for flight. Soon afterwards I was made a Corporal.

While scanning through a book, “Stilwell and the American Experience in China” written by Barbara W. Tuchman, I read that the ATC (Air Transport Command) lost 468 planes in three years of operation, while flying the “Hump”, an average of thirteen a month. Carburetors and wing icings were a cause of some of these losses due to the altitudes they had to fly. Rarely were there more than 60 to 70 percent of the assigned planes in operation at any one time. Weather and other failures had reduced the number of daily flights. *

We were not told why we were going to the CBI Theater of War, only that they wanted volunteers to go there. I have been reading more from Tuchmans’ book and I learned from her writing what the CBI War was about. It was a war approved by Roosevelt trying to keep Chiang ki-Shek and the Chinese forces in the war against Japan. Japan had taken all of Burma and was occupying the northern part. General (Vinegar Joe) Stilwell wanted to supply Chiang with arms and supplies, such as fuel for the fighter planes and food and munitions for his Chinese divisions. The Japanese were at the time superior in the air and on the ground as supplies were slow getting to the Chinese. Transportation of supplies by vehicles on the terrible roads would take sometimes as much as three months to reach their destination in China. Chiang and General Chennault thought we could overcome the Japanese armies by air power, and Stilwell wanted to take back Burma by land forces before giving Chiang what he wanted in air power. This would force Chiang to continue fighting for us. Stilwell said that Chiang was uneducated and didn’t have enough sense to be in command of the whole Chinese armed forces, or that whole war, as he wanted to be. General George Marshall and Henry L. Stimson were very favorable about Stilwell being in charge of the war in the CBI. Roosevelt didn’t particularly like Stilwell and was siding with Chiang in order to keep China in the war against Japan.

Stilwell had the experience as he had been in China for many years and understood the way of war there. Roosevelt wanted to put an inexperienced aide in charge of the war. This man he had sent over to China for only three weeks was very inexperienced and knew little about the war. Chiang wanted to replace Stilwell with Chennault and put Chennault in command of all the American forces there. Madame Chiang, (the brains of the ki-Shek duo), swayed Roosevelt with her request for additional air power and air movement of supplies and equipment, including arms and munitions to fight the war. Roosevelt finally saw the light that the war would never be won in the CBI unless he sent cargo planes to re-inforce the Air Transport Command in India and Burma. He consented to send 100 transport and 265 combat planes with crews to maintain and fly them.

This is where the 4th Combat Cargo Group and I came in. I had taken two flights with the Bombardier trainees, in their AT-11 bombardier training planes, and I was hooked on flying. I wanted to get into any outfit where I could fly. Soon after this, notices were posted on all of the squadron’s bulletin boards wanting volunteers to form a new Group to go overseas to the CBI Theater of war. This Group, The 4th Combat Cargo Group, was to be made up of four squadrons of twenty-five planes each. The Squadron I would later be assigned to would be the 14^th Combat Cargo Squadron. We volunteered into this totally blind as to what to expect. We only knew that we were to be sent overseas in a new outfit, with a chance for quick advancement in ratings and pay and we would be serving our time in combat. I think that we all wanted to do our part and actively serve in an overseas unit.

Notices were posted on all bulletin boards that a new Air Transport Command (ATC) Group was to be formed and volunteers were asked to sign up for this new Group. Only six men from all of the squadrons, at Victorville, had volunteered, and I was the only one from my squadron. A Staff/Sgt. Robert J. Fuller was put in charge of the six of us that volunteered; but for some reason he did not go and the paper work was handed to me and I was put in charge. We flew to Syracuse, New York, by commercial airline. We were surprised to see that Gene Autry boarded our flight at Chicago, on his way to entertain some troops, or whatever, as he had a brief case and a hand full of papers that he was studying. He was a Tech/Sgt. at the time. He acknowledged us; but he was busy, and we did not bother him, except to say hello.

We reached Syracuse at night and there was a truck waiting at the airfield to take us to the camp, which was Syracuse Army Air Base. We were to become a part of the Troop Carrier Command. I always have wondered how they knew just how many barracks were needed to house so many men. There were always just enough barracks to take care of all of the personnel. Only two of the five of us were to be part of the flight crews. The other three were to be assigned to the airdrome squadrons, which would do the maintenance for the flying squadrons. I do not know if they had any schoolwork on airplane maintenance. The 14th Combat Cargo Squadron, one of four squadrons of the Fourth Combat Cargo Group, would be assigned the 349th Airdrome Squadron as our maintenance squadron. I guess that I was very fortunate to have had been through all of the Tech schools that I had been through since I enlisted. It assured me of an assignment as one of the flying crews.

Our training began with the Douglas C-47 transport planes, for which I had just recently attended the Douglas factory training school, at Long Beach, California. We practiced our flying in Syracuse, New York, and later at Bowman Field in Louisville, Kentucky. At Syracuse we learned to fly the way we would probably have to fly in Burma, and land on short airstrips. We did a lot of touch and go landings. We also were to become acquainted with the pilots and co-pilots, and they with us, the engineers and radio operators. We practiced our landings and short flights, over the surrounding areas of New York, as far north as Watertown. Being so new to flying, I was awed looking down on all of the heavily wooded areas below, and to see the small cities that we flew over. While here at Syracuse, on August 4, 1944, I made the rank of Sgt.. The ratings were coming very fast, and would continue to come in the next few months. I also, at this time, made a classification change from a 747, Airplane Mechanic, to a 2750, Aerial Engineer. This rating would let me start drawing flight pay, which was a good increase in my meager pay.

After a couple of months of this, we moved our Group to Louisville, Ky., and were surprised to find we would not fly the C-47 airplanes; but they were to be replaced by the Curtis Wright C-46 cargo planes. The C-46 was the largest two-engine cargo airplane in WWII. It could haul much heavier loads of freight than the Douglas C-47, which had been used extensively in Europe and in the Pacific, as supply planes. The C-46 was also a bit faster plane. The top speed was 195 miles per hour, when loaded. The C-47’s were used as troop carriers, parachute dropping both men and supplies, and for Glider towing of troops. We also practiced towing Gliders, as we did this one time later, in Burma. I flew in one of these gliders, one time, which was fun; but that was enough for me. I remember the rough landing that we made, and the sudden stop. These gliders had skids instead of wheels. The glider pilots were good pilots, and they controlled them very easily while in flight. It was just a practice flight at the time I flew in it, although it was loaded with soldiers, as they had to practice their routines for disembarking and being ready for combat.

The C-46 planes had a bad reputation when we started flying them. At that time they had not been thoroughly tested, and were having difficulties with them. There had been a couple of them blow up in mid-air, in Utah, and we trained in these same older planes that were flown in to us from Utah. They had been well used when we got them. While we were practicing flying these planes, one of them came in for a belly landing one night, as they could not get the wheels down. The sparks flew as the plane skidded down the runway. I am surprised that the plane did not burst into a fiery inferno. We were not allowed to go on the runway near the plane until the fire was out, and even then we had to stand clear of it. I had been at the flight line filling out some papers concerning the old plane we were assigned, and got to see it all happen. It really makes you think about what might happen to you if the same thing occurred with your plane, and it did later in India.

At that time the bugs in these planes had not been corrected. It was exactly as true to form as you can get, in the service. Train and go through the factory school for one type of airplane, and then be assigned to fly another type, for which we had never seen, nor ever been trained to fly or maintain. The plane was much larger, and the engines were larger and more powerful than we had learned to work on. We fell right into the change, and had no problem adjusting to them, although I do not think that all of these crew chiefs had been to a factory school. I also received quite a few class hours of training in the aircraft mechanics schools at Ellington Field, in Houston, Texas, and at the hot, night schools at Gulfport, Mississippi, so I had some knowledge of the cargo airplanes in general. We had a few hours of classes at Bowman Field on this C-46 airplane. It was enough to acquaint us with the differences of the two planes. We went over them thoroughly when we had time and learned as much as possible in our spare time.

After we had been training for a short while the pilots chose the enlisted men they wanted to complete their crews. I was very fortunate to get probably the best pilot, 1st. Lt. George A. Cox, Jr., (Cox), and the best co- pilot, 2nd. Lt. Robert G. Starkevich, (Starky), in the whole outfit, and a very good radio operator, Donald X. Sullivan, (Sully), who had flown with Lt. Cox, while at Bergstrom Field, in Austin, Texas. Also, my pilot was the son of our ground maintenance squadrons Commanding Officer, Major George A. Cox, Sr., which put me in good stead, if I ever needed any repairs on my plane, done by the ground crews. Cox and Starky came to me at Louisville, and said they had observed me in training and while flying with them, and had decided that I was the best crew chief, and they wanted me as their crew chief. I was very flattered and proud to be chosen by them.

Cox wanted to return to civilian life, after he was discharged, and open a barbecue business in Dallas. Starky was a dental student when he was inducted, and would return to school and become a dentist. I heard from Sully, after the war, and he went to pilot training school and became a pilot for Cities Service Oil Company. He was a true Irishman from Brooklyn, New York, and even spoke with a slight Irish brogue. We made a good pair, he at six feet and three inches in height, and me at five feet and six inches. On November 1st, 1944, while still at Louisville, I made the grade of S/Sgt.

Louisville was a good soldier town; but was crowded by soldiers from Fort Knox, which was not too far south of the city. We were plagued with the Smart Alec officers from Fort Knox, who would call an M.P. and have you arrested if you failed to salute them. We had to constantly be on the alert for them, as they delighted in harassing the airmen. Luckily I was not one of the men they arrested. I tried to stay off the street, at a large dance hall in the middle of the city, where I saw some of the best Jitterbug dancing I have ever seen. At the time I didn’t know how to do that kind of dancing. These couples evidently had a lot of practice, as the boys were not soldiers; but probably 4-F, or draft dodgers, with their regular girl partners. Louisville was also the home of Seagram Seven Crown whiskey, and a lot of it was consumed there.

We were pleasantly surprised when our orders came in, to fly the old planes to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and pick up one hundred new C-46’s to fly overseas. These were the 100 C-46’s that Roosevelt had ordered at the request of Madame Chiang ki-Shek, to be joining the ATC command in Burma. All the defects that had caused the older ones to explode in mid-air had been located and corrected in the new ones. We were assigned one with the radio call numbers of “036”. After flying these new planes for a couple of days to get the feel of them, we were ready for our trip overseas. While we were at Fort Wayne, we had entertainment at the clubhouse the first night, and it was Cab Calloway’s band. He and his band were so good. He made a handsome figure, dressed in white, with his white shoes, and his white tuxedo with the long tails. What a night of entertainment, as his orchestra put on a truly great show for us, with his Hi-D-Hi-D-Ho music.

Our planes were to carry the men in the Airdrome Squadrons, and their equipment and flight bags, with the clothes and equipment they would need over there. Some of the planes would carry spare parts that we might expect to need, after we arrived at our new assignment bases. There had been a lot of planning done before we picked up our new planes and they were already loaded for our trip. The planes had folding seats along the sidewalls of the cabin, but no cushions. We were fortunate to have a barber on our plane, and most of us got a cheap haircut, for a tip of twenty-five cents each. This was to be a miserable trip for some of them, as it would take several days to reach India.

I had a desk and swivel seat at the front of the cargo area, and it sat between the two engines. I was subjected to all the engine noise from both engines, throughout the whole time we were flying in the CBI. That, plus the later flying over the Chin Hills in Burma, where the updrafts and down drafts at times caused me to hit the ceiling and then the floor. These down drafts and updrafts were sometimes as much as five hundred feet. At the time I did not realize the effect it was having on my hearing, as that is the reason I am hard of hearing today. My ears would stop up from the pressure, and then sometimes pop when I would hold my nose, and blow very hard. This would partially clear my hearing; but it also was not good for my ears, as I felt the pressure in my eardrums for quite some time afterwards.

Our personal armament consisted of a Colt 45 automatic, which some of us wore, like the gunfighters of the old west, tied down with a leather thong, so it would not move about. We did not have bullet loops on the belt, and a full clip was all the ammunition we carried. I also had a hunting knife that my brother had given me, strapped under my holster. He had worn the knife while he was in the Pacific theater before acquiring Malaria so badly, that he had to be returned to the states for hospitalization, and a discharge from the service. He said, “Wear it for good luck”, and I guess it did bring me luck, as I returned home in one piece. I still have the knife. I will hand it down to one of my sons for luck, if they would like to have it.

We also had a .30 Caliber, lightweight, sub machine gun, with a heavy wire type handle. It was what we called a Burp Gun. This gun stayed on the plane at all times. I kept it on a rack that I had on the front of my desk, and the desk concealed it from the rest of the plane. We never fired the gun in all of our time overseas. During our time in India and Burma, I never knew of anyone losing one of these guns, even though the planes were never locked when not in use. We didn't have any guards posted about our planes at night, only a circulating Jeep, with two M.P.’s as security. The Burp gun was for our protection if we were stranded at a forward base, and under attack, or if we went down in the jungle and survived the crash. We only had one magazine full of ammunition, and the gun would have to be discarded after that was empty, as we did not carry extra ammunition for it. I don’t remember where we got any of our extra ammunition; but I did replace any that I shot. I guess it was replaced for me at the supply room.

Each squadron of twenty-five planes flew separately, and on different schedules, so we could have accommodations at each of our in flight stops. We were never in contact with the other three squadrons after we left Terre Haute, as they were assigned to separate bases from us in India, and Burma. Upon leaving Terre Haute, on our first day, we flew to West Palm Beach, Florida, where we were to stay overnight. We refueled before night, and after a good meal, we turned in for a nights sleep; but I think most of us were really too excited to sleep much that first night. The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, we were ready to go. We left the U S A early and flew to Puerto Rico that day. I was very swelled up with pride to be doing what I had wanted to do, and be a part of this. That night we were allowed to take a shuttle truck and visit some of the night life in Puerto Rico, which was not much to see, as the shuttle only made stops at the bars. We only got as far as the second bar and it was dead, no activity. The Puerto Rican beer tasted like it had soap suds in it.

We remained only one night in Puerto Rico, and the next morning we headed south to Belem, Brazil. Belem is located beside the Amazon River, and is surrounded by dense jungle. It was a nice camp, with all the buildings painted white, even the two-hole outhouses. We stayed here only one night. The next day we flew to Natal, on the East Coast of Brazil, where we stayed overnight. After refueling to make sure we had all the gas the tanks could hold, we left the next morning to fly the most dangerous part of our journey.

We had to land at the small pinhead on the map, the Ascension Island, halfway between South America and Africa, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The planes only held enough gasoline to make the trip there. We must have had some of the best navigators in the Air Corps. All twenty-five planes in our squadron flew in safely. These navigators were not a part of our regular crew, as we didn’t require a regular navigator in our crew. They were on assignment for Special Service. After we arrived in India, they were flown back to the states. When we approached the Ascension Island, we were looking straight into a sharp bluff where the runway starts just a few yards above the edge. There were several wrecked planes along the coast below the cliffs. This could have been the bad judgment of the pilots, or they might have run out of fuel, as they approached the island and crashed into the cliff. Our flights were timed perfectly for all daylight flying.

We had plenty of space to park all our planes off the runway that night. There were several large metal Quonset huts with plenty of bunks for us to sleep. We were fed a good meal and then turned in. The next morning, after we ate breakfast, we were ready to leave, as we had refueled our planes when we parked them the night before. The runway was just long enough to land, or take off, if large planes touched down near the edge of the cliff when they landed, or got airborne quickly upon leaving. The way out was between two hills, and it wasn't easy to get airborne except that the updrafts from the cliff below helped. We had to rise sharply in order to make it out between the two hills. We looked down as we cleared the edge of the cliffs, going between the two hills, and saw several airplanes that had crashed below the edge of the cliffs. They didn't make it on take-off, or upon trying to land from the east. I really don’t believe that anything could have been done to prevent this from happening, with no longer distance for a runway. It just seemed to be something that could happen to any airplane that was heavily loaded without the ability to rise into the air in such a short distance, or catching a surge of air from below.

We were headed for Accra, Ghana, in Africa. This is a fairly long trip, and we had one plane that did run out of gas right after it landed and was taxiing toward the parking area. They had to refuel the plane before it could park for the night. We all had barracks, and bunks awaiting us. I had been itching in my crotch area and while I was undressing to take a shower, I looked down and discovered a bunch of crawly little creatures moving about. I had a bunk above Sully, and everyone got a big laugh as I held one up and pretended to drop it on him. One of the men went to the PX and bought me a bottle of Campho Phenique, and with a good dose of that I was rid of my torturous little pests. I will never know where I acquired those little crab lice; but I presumed it had been from a toilet seat at one of our stops in South America, or in one of the beds. We had entertainment at a large outdoor movie theater, before we retired. It was a Doris Day movie; but I can’t remember the name of the movie. I can only remember how beautifully she sang. I have always loved good music, and she had such a beautiful voice.

The next morning we took off for Khartoum, Sudan. Khartoum had a lot of large buildings, not too tall, and they were different from our buildings in the States. That is about all we got to see of Khartoum, as we did not get to go into town that night. There were guards for our planes that night. We were beginning to get close to the war zone. The next day we flew into Aden, South Arabia. We could get the breeze from the Gulf of Aden, and that helped to ease a little of the heat, that night. We got a chance to see the people in their white sheets and turbans; but we had to stay at our assigned area of the base, and again, there were plenty of sleeping accommodations. Also, there were a few men riding their camels near the airstrip, and we then realized that we were finally getting near our war.

A WAR UNHERALDED Part 2