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…
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…
Seventy-six years ago today, on January 20, 1945, the 7th Bomb Group reported B-24L 44-41438 and its crew of 9 missing in what would prove to be one of the most unusual stories from the air war over China. Throughout 1944, the situation in China had been quite bleak; half a million Japanese troops cut…
Seventy-six years ago today, on December 19, 1944, the 23rd Fighter Group reported Colonel Edward F. Rector missing when his P-51B Mustang failed to return from an offensive reconnaissance mission to the Japanese-occupied port at Xiamen, Fujian Province. Rector was a veteran of the American Volunteer Group—the original Flying Tigers. He remained in China after…
Seventy-six years ago today, on November 23, 1944, the 11th Bomb Squadron reported B-25H 43-4601 and its crew of five missing on a counter-shipping sweep over the Gulf of Tonkin. What followed was an incredible tale of survival, intrigue, and secret agents in wartime Vietnam. The colonial authorities in Hanoi had aligned themselves with the…
I was surprised to see three books about the mission to shoot down Yamamoto published this year: surprised because so much has been written about it already and I did not anticipate new information coming to light about this single, over-studied mission. In that regard, I was pleasantly surprised. Dick Lehr’s Dead Reckoning goes beyond…
I would like to commend Carl Molesworth on his outstanding new book about Flying Tiger ace Bill Reed. Reed resigned his commission in the U.S. Army Air Forces to serve in Claire Chennault’s famed American Volunteer Group—the original Flying Tigers—in 1941 and ‘42 and later returned to China as a squadron commander in the Chinese-American…
Bold Venture, by Steven Bailey, is an interesting and engaging narrative about U.S. air operations against Hong Kong during World War II. Bottom line: I think it is worth a read, but not if it is the first or only book you read on this subject. Bailey looks at the American attacks and compares them…
After arriving in Shanghai on the 3rd, Kun Shi and I traveled west by high-speed rail to Changsha. The station was enormous! This was my first experience with high-speed rail and it was pretty awesome. We glided along at 305kph through the rugged mountains of Jiangxi Province and it made it easy to see why the…
In Double Ace, Robert Coram does an incredible job spinning a fascinating tale about Brigadier General Robert L. Scott, Jr., one of America’s more controversial heroes of World War II. To his credit, Coram paints the picture of a complicated man whose tall tales stretched (or sometimes completely ignored) the truth. The warmth of Scott’s…