The Mountain Refuge

Seventy-eight years ago today, on February 28, 1943, the 76th Fighter Squadron reported Capt Jesse R. Carney missing when he failed to return from an offensive reconnaissance mission over southwest China. Hurtling 500 feet above the ground near Datang, Yunnan Province, when surface-to-air fire crippled His P-40K, Carney realized he would be unable to reach…

Ravenscroft’s Walkout

Seventy-six years ago today, on February 12, 1945, the 26th Fighter Squadron reported P-51D 44-11297 missing when it failed to return from a counter-shipping sweep of the Yangzi River. 1Lt Gerald W. Ravenscroft led a flight of four P-51s aloft from Laohekou that day. They let down through a break in the undercast north of…

Impossible Situation

There are many critics of how both Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek and General Joseph Stilwell handled the war in China. While not excusing poor judgment or bad decisions, I believe their choices were very much constrained by the impossible situations they found themselves in. Stilwell was responsible to General Marshall and President Roosevelt as U.S. Theater Commander…

Outprocessing

I recently found this photo in the national archives of a few of the 449th Fighter Squadron’s pilots outprocessing from China on 10 October 1945 to return to the United States after the end of World War II. The processing center is in Yankai, China, and the pilots are, from left to right, Lieutenant W.H.…

Jim Heitkotter

Jim Heitkotter joined the 449th during the summer of 1944. The first time he saw Japanese fighters was 8 September 1944. He was a part of a flight of four P-38s led by Lieutenant Stuart Rea. At 1510 hours that day, twenty Oscars from the 64thSentai attacked C-47s unloading Chinese troops at the frontier airfield of…