Interview by Daniel Jackson, July 22, 2008

Can you tell me about the 6 May 1944 mission you flew alongside the 449th?

At that time, the 449th had been attached to the 23rd Group and of course I was in the 76th Squadron of the 23rd Group. We were both stationed at Suichuan which is kind of southeast of Hengyang, towards Formosa. Their quarters and flying and everything was on one side of the field and ours was on the other side of the field, so we really didn’t have much contact with them on the ground because we had different quarters that were quite a ways apart. But the mission on May 6, the 449th and 76th fighter squadrons were flying the top cover on that mission. By the way, I think if I remember correctly, we escorted bombers and I think we had B-24s and B-25s and then we had P-40s around the bombers. And there were fifteen of us, I think there were eight P-38s and seven P-51s, but it could be the other way around. And we were flying top cover. The thing of it was, I think there was fifty-seven airplanes altogether. Or fifty-two or three. But I believe that was the most airplanes the 14th Air Force ever put in the air on one mission. While that 8th Air Force over there would have thousands of planes on one mission.

What happened with that large formation of airplanes? I understand you were ambushed?

We were flying above the formation probably about 20,000 feet. The Zeros intercepted us from above and there were a lot of them. I never saw so many Zeros in the air at one time. There must have been a full squadron of Zeros. But the bombers protected by the P-40s as close cover, they went and bombed, had good results, and never had any contact with the Zeros. The only contact was with the 449th and the 76th. I was flying a P-51B, I think there might have been some As. The 76th Squadron was the first squadron to get P-51s in China.

So the Zeros just jumped the top cover element then?

We were jumped – they just hit us – and they shot down three P-38s and just one P-51 and that was me. One of the P-38 pilots was a guy by the name of Lee Gregg. We both did get down and the Chinese Communist guerrillas. The Chinese Communists had what they called two armies that operated behind the lines and they would harry the Japanese and if the Japanese advanced they dispersed. And this outfit that picked us up was the New 4th Army. They got Gregg and I together and I had heard about him that they had him and he was following behind me to where they were going to take us. And I stopped somewhere that was safe and waited for him and then we came out together. And they took us clear up in the mountains where they had several thousand troops. They were very good to us. They took good care of us as best they could. They gave us gifts. They gave us a really nice Japanese two-handed Samurai sword that had belonged to a Japanese major general that they captured and they told us to take this and give it to Chennault, who at that time was a major general. And Lee and I got separated on the way back to Kunming, he didn’t get to Kunming, and I took the sword and gave it to General Chennault. Then I finally got back to my squadron. Then I finally got back to my squadron. My squadron at that time was in Liuzhou and we’d lost all our bases at Hengyang and Lingling down at Suichuan and I don’t know where the 449th went after that, but that’s the last I ever saw of them.

When did you return to the United States?

It was about time for me to go home since I had been there for about a year, but what happened to me was that five of us joined the squadron at the same time and while I was missing in action the other four got promoted to captain. Tex Hill at that time was the commanding officer of the 23rd. When I got back I went to see him and he said he would send me home and I told him I missed that promotion to captain and I wanted to go home with railroad tracks and he said well stick around for a while and we’ll see what happens. So I didn’t come back right away, I came back in September. He was a hell of a guy. He was leading that mission. In fact, on that mission he got a Zero and that was the last victory he got in China.

How much interaction did you have with Tex Hill?

Oh, I don’t know. When the AVG was disbanded in July 1942, there were only five of those pilots that stayed. And he was made a major and given the 75th Squadron. And a guy by the name of Ed Rector stayed and got the 76th Squadron. But before I got there they’d all served their time and gone home and then Hill came back and took over from Holloway in about October of ’43. Between Holloway and Hill they were the finest two officers I ever served under. Both of them were great guys. Holloway was a little more reserved and Tex was a little more outspoken, but they were both just great leaders. Great leaders.

When did you end up in China?

I got over there in the summer of ’43 about May I believe.

This was your first combat tour?

Yes, I was pretty young. I got my wings right after my nineteenth birthday and I was nineteen when I got over there.

Did you go through an operational training unit before you went into combat?

Well, when I got my wings at Luke Field flying AT-6s, then I went down to Florida and checked out in P-40s. And I had about 20 or 30 hours in P-40s when I went over there.

Did you have any training on the specific tactics they used in-theater?

Well, they talked to us, the squadron commander, they told us not to try to turn with the Zeros and hit and run and things like that. So I wasn’t in much aerial combat, maybe three or four fights. I got one probable in one fight, but I didn’t see him hit, but I saw my tracers knocking pieces off his airplane, but he never did blow up or anything. I lost him somewhere.

Did you go straight into P-51s then, or were you in P-40s for a time?

Our squadron got the first P-51s. The first ‘51s we got were the “A” model. The “A” model had the Allison engine in it. And they had been in North Africa and they were pretty well beat-up when we got them. I was in the first group that went back to Karachi to pick up the very first “B”s. There were four or five of us that went back with “Casey” Vincent, who at that time was the wing commander, we went back to Karachi to get the first “B”s that came to China. While I was in Karachi I came down with malaria and they put me in the hospital in Karachi. I was there for about a month before they let me fly again and I went back to Suichuan by myself from Karachi.

How did it feel to have malaria?

Well, it was pretty rough. That was the second time I had it, it was a relapse. The first time, I was in Suichuan and we did have a doctor. I wasn’t feeling very well and I went in to see him. And he took my temperature and took some blood and said, “Well, just go back and rest.” And the next day I felt worse. So I went back to see him again and he stuck a thermometer in my mouth and my temperature was 106. So he laid me down and started cooling me off with water. He had to change my bedding one night four or five times. I had the sweats and soak it and then I would be in the chills, and sweat, and chills. I finally got over it. There are three medicines you have to take that will cure that malaria because they treat the three different stages. In China they only have two of those drugs. They had the one that would kill the active bug and the one that was going to become active, but that’s why I had the relapse because they didn’t get the third one. And when I went to India they gave me the three drugs for the cure and I’ve never had any problem with it since. That relapse wasn’t nearly as bad as the initial sickness.

Were there a lot of mosquitos at Suichuan?

Probably, they had nets everywhere. There were mosquitoes all over China, as I remember. By the way, I don’t know how much I know about the 449th, but did you know who Tom Harmon was? He was in the 449th. I saw him when he got out of the hospital. Just like I saw, we didn’t have much contact. But also, do you know who Rex Barber is? He was the guy that shot down Admiral Yamamoto. I think Lee Gregg was an ace too, if I remember, he had six victories. But I don’t know where he got them – if he got them in China or before he came out to China. We didn’t talk too much about that. I think he had his twenty-sixth birthday while we were with those Communists. The commander we met became the commanding general of the Chinese army and then when he got out of the service he went into politics and in about 1980 I think it was he was the head man of China. He was the head of the . . . I don’t know what they call it, but he was the head man. He died sometime in 1990. But in 2005 the Chinese had a big celebration over there about the anniversary of the end of our struggle against the Japanese. I think it was the sixtieth anniversary in 2005. They invited people who had helped them against the Japanese from different countries like Russia and the United States. And they invited forty Americans. And you could bring your wife or your son or your whoever. So there were eighty of us and they paid all expenses. And I mean airfare from L.A. or San Francisco to Beijing and back, five flights in China, and all the best hotels. They paid the whole tab for eighty of us!

I was just in China myself on a language immersion trip.

You’re learning to speak and read? Listen, there was a young officer with us, Chinese Communist, when Gregg and I were picked up by the New Fourth Army. He became a general in the army before he retired. And he’s still alive. I met him over there in China. And here a couple of years ago he wrote a book – while I wouldn’t call it a book it was like a booklet – and the name of it is “Saving American Pilots.” And he’s got a story in there about maybe ten different people they helped rescue. And anyway, he wrote it in Chinese and his wife translated it into English. And so the booklet has the Chinese and the English in it and it’s got some pictures. And if you’d like one I’ll send it to you. There are pictures in there of this guy that became the head man of China. When I went over there in 2005, I met his daughter – of the guy that became the head of the government. Well she’s a bigshot in the government and she was really good to me. When my wife and I went in 2005, I also took my son and my grandson. We had to pay their airfare, but they gave me a pretty good deal. So we had quite a good time over there.

I’ve been to the Academy a couple times. One of our commanding officers in the 76th, he’s passed away now, but he lived right across – he lived in Monument – across the interstate from the Academy. His wife still lives there. He had about nine victories. His name was John Stewart. They have his P-40 at one of the fields out there – Peterson Field? He was CO of the 76th while I was over there. When I first got there, the first CO was leaving and a guy by the name of Williams took over and then Stewart took over from Williams. But when they moved out to Suichuan, they sent a detachment over there from Hengyang, and John Stewart was in charge of the detachment. And I went over there with him. There was about five of us. And then eventually the whole squadron moved out there and when Williams went home they gave the squadron to John Stewart.

Did the turnover of commanding officers cause any difficulty?

Not necessarily. The guys that took over had the experience. The guy who was in charge when I got there, he wasn’t there very long, he was a major. I can’t think of his name right away, but when Williams took over, I think he had been a captain for about a week when he got the squadron. He was a great squadron commander. What happened was the guys who had been over there, the guys who had the experience flying, all went home and guys like me – I was in the Class of 43B – we didn’t have much experience. So they started bringing lieutenant colonels from the States over to take over and they didn’t have much experience in combat. That was about the time I left. They lost a couple of those guys. I know one crashed somehow, just returning or something. In the two months Lee Gregg and I were gone we missed all that action when the Japanese started that offensive. They were going to go all the way to Hong Kong, then turn west and try to take Kunming. But they were stopped before they got passed Liuzhou. But we did lose Guilin and Hengyang and Lingling and Suichuan. The guys were flying two or three missions a day. It’s awfully hard to stop troops with airplanes.

Earlier you talked about flying to Karachi to pick up new P-51Bs. How did the “B” model compare with the “A” model?

It had the Merlin engine in it. You know, the one that the British designed. It was built by Rolls Royce and license-built by Packard. It did a lot for that P-51 – a lot more power, higher altitude – it really made the P-51.

What kind of edge did that give you in air combat in China?

It didn’t give us any edge in maneuvering. There’s no way in hell it could outmaneuver a Zero. But it gave us more climbing speed and more speed per se, you know, you could outrun those Zeros. And they couldn’t catch you, as far as I’m concerned, if you knew they were on your tail. But they were good airplanes. Actually, with the “B”s, they took two of the guns out. It only had four .50s. All the rest of them had six. It was only that one model, the “B” model, the only one with four guns [sic].

Was that a problem in combat?

Well, it was a little less firepower. I don’t know why they took them out, something about they did something to the wing, I guess they couldn’t get another gun in there. Then in the models after that, they did something so they could put those two guns in, but I don’t really know the details. But even with just four .50s – that’s one big advantage we had over the Zero, was our firepower. When you opened up with those .50s, they’d just roar. When the Japanese fired, their guns would go tat-tat-tat-tat. They didn’t fire at near the speed that our guns did. And of course we were much more protected than the Zero. They did everything to make that thing light. And they had no protection for the pilot. The big thing they didn’t have – and I think they would have been much better off – was self-sealing fuel tanks like we did. Because once you hit the fuel tanks with incendiaries and they ruptured, well the whole plane just blew up. Whereas our planes didn’t blow up if you got hit. If you lost your coolant then the engine would seize, but very seldom would they just explode. Because of those self-sealing tanks and the armor we had, particularly behind us. They couldn’t penetrate the protection we had behind the pilot.

How did it hold up in ground attack?

They were good at it. They were just as good as any other airplane. You had a lot of speed. We got a lot of trains – we’d knock trains out – and shipping. You know there aren’t many roads in China at that time. They did have a railroad from Beijing all the way to Hong Kong. But mostly they used rivers. And we would shoot up the boats on the rivers. Troops, per se, are not easy. They could hit a ditch or get out of the way or something.

I heard the P-51 was more vulnerable to ground fire because of the coolant.

That certainly was, you know all the inline engines would have that problem. If you got a hole in the radiator, you could only go so far. By the way, do you know about the raid on Formosa. Tex Hill led that one. He was super well liked. He had a good memory. I said, “Tex, you’ve got to write a book.” Then when I found out about the book, last time I saw him, I said, “Well Tex, I’m glad you finally wrote a book!” He looked at me and he said, “I didn’t write it.” He said, “My grandson wrote it!” His grandson is, I think, in the service.

For that 6 May mission to Hankou, did you fly from Suichuan, or did you stage through another base?

We flew from Suichuan – the 449th and the 76th. Where the P-40s came from – I think they probably came out of Guilin or Hengyang. I don’t know where the bombers came from. We all rendezvoused somewhere and got together. That’s the way we did those missions. All of the fields I flew out of were fighter fields; they didn’t have the ‘24s or ‘25s at those fields.

How much higher were you above the bomber formation?

That’s a good question. I would just be guessing; I would imagine they were around fifteen thousand. But I’m not sure. I do know we could look down on them and the P-40s were packed in pretty tight – had them pretty well surrounded, you know? I don’t know how many P-40s there were, but it looked like there was quite a few of them. But just like I said, I don’t know, in total there were fifty-one or fifty planes. You subtract the fifteen P-38s and P-51s, you’d have thirty-five planes. I don’t know how many of each there was. But for the 14th Air Force it was a big raid. And that was a big Japanese base, Hankou.

Had you ever been there before?

Yeah, I went up there once before. The guy I was flying with, he got over the river and went into a spiral and pulled up over the river and tried to find the formation and we couldn’t find it, so we had to go back to the base.

When the Japanese fighters jumped you from above, which direction did they attack from?

They had the jump on us. Initially I don’t know, but they had good speed and they were coming from all over. I saw one of them in front of me. I don’t think he knew I was there. I started after him, but I was just getting close enough to fire when I got clobbered from behind. So what I did was I went to dive away, I got shot up pretty bad, and got away from that fight and then my plane actually quit and I bailed out.

How long after you bailed out did the Chinese find you?

I landed in a rice paddy in my parachute and they were working there. They were wary of me. They wouldn’t come close to me. You carried a flag – I carried it in my back pocket – and I held it up and I kept saying “Meiguo, meiguo!” Which is “America, America!” They were really wary of me, but one of them pointed up toward a couple of buildings up ahead and I walked up toward that and a Chinese guy came right to me. He wasn’t afraid of me. He came right to me. And we carried a pointie-talkie and I pulled that pointie-talkie out and I asked him to take me to the guerrillas. That’s the other thing about China. Only about ten percent of the population there was literate! But this guy was literate and later that day he got me with a few of the guerrillas and they led me out for the next couple of months. I had a few encounters with the Japanese. Anyway, I’ll send you that little book. But I’m going to tell you right now, this guy didn’t write it until a couple years ago. Now this maybe sixty years after it happened and there’s a lot of mistakes in it and errors in translation. I’ve gone through a lot of books with contacts of people in there, but I’ve been unable to find a lot of them. A lot of them were B-29 crews and I haven’t found any of the people in any of their records. But I’ve tried. I just haven’t had much luck. Anyway, I’m just telling you now. He got me mixed up with another guy that was rescued, by the name of Armit Lewis. He got my date wrong. Besides that, the interesting thing about it is he wrote it in Chinese and then his wife translated it and so you have the English version and the Chinese version. Since you study Chinese, that ought to be interesting. One of the guys he rescued became a four-star general. He was the Class of 1936 at West Point. They had his name misspelled. And I never could find anything out about him. But I was reading another book and his name was in there correctly spelled and when I got the right spelling, my computer picked him up. He retired as a four-star general. At the time that he was shot down they got him in the book as a captain. And I think to myself, my gosh, a guy who was Class of 1936 at West Point and he’s over there in China flying P-51s – he ought to be more than a captain. And actually he was. He was a colonel. I found out he was retired, but his family was out in Shreveport, Louisiana. I got a lot of information about him. He was buried there and his wife and two children are still alive. So I sent each of them a copy of the book. There was that diary you’ve got of Gregg’s, I had started a diary and when we got together, he was writing a lot more, I said, “I’m going to get a copy of your diary and I’m going to quit.” He says, “Ok.” But then we got separated and I never heard from him again. When I got out of the service, I moved to California. I knew his family was in the San Marino area. So I went down there looking for him and I found his mother. I talked to his mother and she told me that Gregg had married and they had bought a boat and all he does is sail the South Seas. But she had his diary. So I got a copy of it. It’s probably the same thing you have.

Did you two have a lot of time to sit and talk on your way back from Japanese lines?

Oh yeah. When we first got together, why we talked all night! He had kind of a tough time. When he bailed out, he was in a dive and the canopy blew off and he unstrapped from his seat belts and he was just sucked out of the airplane. I think something hit his head. He didn’t know how high he was or how fast he was going because when he hit his head he couldn’t see. And then he pulled that ripcord and he was going too fast. It really jerked the heck out of him and apparently knocked him out. And then when he hit the ground I think he was semi-conscious – I don’t remember everything – and there was Japanese and Chinese right there. They were kind of fighting over him. The Chinese ran the Japanese off and got him out of there. He recovered, I guess, and when we finally got together, why, I had been jumped by the enemy one time. I had forty or fifty soldiers with me, Communists, and we were in a dangerous area traveling at night. And it was really dark, it was a moonless night with an overcast. I had hurt my leg when I bailed out. I hit the horizontal stabilizer and I couldn’t walk. They carried me for about a week in a stretcher and we walked along this trail and the Chinese took turns carrying me. It took four guys to carry me in that stretcher. They had just laid me down. I hit the ground and I heard that tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. I looked over to my left and I could see the muzzle flash of the machine gun. And I got off of that stretcher and got behind a mound or something. I had a young kid that was kind of taking care of me. They had a little battle there. And the next morning we all got back together and took off again.

So you stayed behind that mound all night?

Well yeah, I got back there in a ditch. Like I said, I wasn’t able to walk, but my legs worked a little better then! We just kind of hid until the firing was over. And we got kind of scattered, but that young boy, he stayed right with me. Then when it got lighter and we all got back together, I don’t think we lost anybody. But that was – I don’t think a full company, but quite a few guys. The way those Communists operated, I don’t know if they still do, but they’d have party members that stayed right with the troops. And there were two guys. They wore a uniform like an officer’s uniform, but with no rank on it. Right down to the company level, they had a communist right there in that company. So if the people decided to do a coup or whatever, they would know about it right now. So that’s why you never hear about a communist party being taken over. But that’s the way it was then. The guy’s name there was Shui, which means water, in Chinese, and the other guy was a professor – a professor at the University of Peking, but he was in that great [long] march. He could speak a little English. So I could talk to him a little bit. China is changing. They are probably one of the few communist nations, but they lean toward capitalism. Capitalism is not a form of government, it’s a form of your economy. In China, every one of these Chinese citizens, they want to be an entrepreneur. They’re selling stuff in the street and everywhere you go.

I’m looking at the information I have for the 6 May missing and it says there were fourteen B-25s, thirteen P-40s, sixteen P-51s, and eleven P-38s – a total of fifty-four aircraft.

I don’t think those numbers are right. There were fifteen of us in the top cover. There were fifteen P-38s and P-51s – I’m talking about total now. There were seven or eight of either – I’m not sure, but I think there were eight P-38s and seven P-51s. But there were fifteen of us flying top cover and all the rest of them were bombers and P-40s. I don’t know how many of them there were. I do know the number fifty altogether. But I know for sure the combination of ‘38s and ‘51s was fifteen. And I know there were three ‘38s lost. Two of those P-38s pilots I haven’t been able to figure out whatever happened to them.

I went back to China twice. Jeff [Greene] was giving tours over there in 2000 or 2001. He’s the one that brought us over on that anniversary deal. What he did – he had a lot of us people who were over there during the war on stage about their experience. I’m talking about twenty-five different guys. Pretty famous people: Dick Rossi and Tex Hill and one of the guys that was on the Doolittle Raid – tell their stories. And he took all their stories over to China and had them translated into Chinese and they came out with a book called, “When Tigers Roared.” And it’s all in Chinese. I got a book. He had us send pictures to him. And it’s really quite a book. And he was going to have it printed in English, but it’s never come out in English. So I’ve got the book but I can’t read it! It’s all in Chinese! I don’t know why it’s so difficult to print it in English, because all of our stories were originally written in English! Dick Cole, he was Jimmy Doolittle’s copilot. He was on that trip. And Dick Rossi was on that trip. He was the only AVG guy on that trip. Of course he died a few months ago. I went to his funeral in Florida.  

Do you have any pictures with your P-51?

I sent them to Steve Bonner. He was on that trip. In fact, we went to China together and came home together. He was in the 76th. I sent him the few photos that I had. But I made copies of them, so I can send you a picture of that. It’s the same one you’ll see in that book. The 23rd Fighter Group and all its squadrons are down at Moody Field and they fly A-10s. They have a reunion there for the young guys and the old guys. It’ll be in November this year. The first week of November. I went last year. I’m not sure if I can make it this year. But I hope I can.

Since Suichuan was the farthest east airbase in China at the time you were there, what was the supply situation like?

It wasn’t too good. They didn’t have the mess halls ready, so we had C rations. It was the best food I had in China. When the Americans got to China, part of the contract was that the Chinese built quarters and house us and feed us. So the mess halls weren’t open at Suichuan until later, they finally got the mess halls open. As far as supplies are concerned, we did pretty good, but we kind of lived off the land. We had a line sergeant that was probably the best crew chief, line sergeant in all of World War II. He was in our squadron. His name was Gerhard Neuman, “Herman the German.” There’s a plaque about him in the engineering department at the Academy there. He was born in Germany. He was educated in Germany. And he came over to China. He had an opportunity to get a job there. And the job happened to be in Hong Kong, which was a British possession. When Germany and England declared war, they told him he had to get out of Hong Kong. He didn’t know what to do and somebody told him there was an American in the interior of China looking for mechanics. And that was Chennault. This was before the AVG. So he got a job with Chennault, because Chennault was trying to help the Chinese Air Force. And then he stayed and they made him a sergeant and put him in our squadron. After the war he came over here and went to work for GE and he became an executive for jet engines at General Electric. He was remarkable. He could do almost anything.

Were there any days out at Suichuan where you couldn’t fly missions because of fuel shortages?

We were always short of fuel. They were still working on the field when we moved in. They had a big roller the Chinese used to roll down those runways. They had two or three hundred people pulling that. But things were pretty good at Suichuan.

While you were out there, did you fly any river sweeps?

Oh yeah. All the river traffic in China was probably Japanese. We would go after boats and trains. One thing you had to be careful with – when we first got over there, they took some guys up on the river, just targets of opportunity and so on, and they ran into a Japanese convoy. And they had run out of ammo. So this was in the morning. And when they got back to Hengyang, they told the CO there was a convoy. And when they went back to shoot up the convoy, the Japanese were thinking the same thing and there was a swarm of Zeros above the convoy. So you had to be careful. The same thing happened one time when we shot up a train. They next day they’d send something out to get the train off the tracks and so we’d shoot that up.

Beneda, Ed and Elinor. Interview by Daniel Jackson. 29 November 2015.

How are you?

Elinor: Well, for ninety-two, I’m doing pretty good, I guess. I can’t complain. If I had a new hip, I’d be a hundred percent, but I’ve got a bad hip. When you’re ninety-two, they’re reluctant to operate on you. But I think it would be better to have it done. If I survive, fine, but if I don’t, I’m in Heaven, so I don’t care. I’ve got a win-win situation.

How are you?

Ed: Good, thank you. I was talking to Jeff Greene; I’m excited about your book!

Elinor: There was a young captain at the base when we first moved out here. He interviewed Glen and wrote his master’s thesis on Glen’s story. He gave Glen a copy of it. I don’t know where I can find it. I’ll look for it. A lot of what you covered in the 449th book is what Henry talks about: how he entered the air force, how he was shot down, and how the Chinese rescued him. It was just, you know, the standard documentary story.

What effect did Glen’s experience during the war have on his life after the war?

Elinor: Well, he was very reluctant to even talk about it, for, I’d say almost twenty years. When we started going to the reunions – you know, when Tex Hill formed that 23rd group, just the 23rd started meeting, then other guys were talking and, “Hey Glen, did you remember this?” and “Hey Glen, how about this?” That’s when he seemed to be open to talk about his experiences. But before that, dad never really talked about his experiences at all, did he?

Ed: No. No, he didn’t. I suspect there was probably something back there behind the windshield that we didn’t know what was going on, or under the hood, you know?

Elinor: But as he got older, he began to talk about his experiences. He never talked about any of the really bad things that he probably had to go through, but he would talk about the good things. The only thing that he would really talk about was how his leg really hurt him when he hit that tail. I figured that as he got older he mellowed and probably reflected more that he was reluctant to do when he came home. He just wanted to wipe it out of his mind, probably.

Ed: Yeah, I think, Daniel, you’re very much schooled in the Chinese and how they think about things. A big thing with the Chinese is “face,” saving face. And I suspect when my dad – it was kind of an embarrassing thing, being shot down, you know? That part of it probably weighed on him. And then to have to be carried and all that. Because dad was always the type of person to help other people. He was very good at athletics. He was a football quarterback, he played basketball, and he ran track, and he could shoot pool, and he could play golf. I don’t know how many holes-in-ones he had during his lifetime…

Elinor: Six.

Ed: Six holes-in-one. He could play ping pong. He was very gifted in that area. And then all of the sudden he’s kind of vulnerable. He was coming home one day from school. He had his books and his civilian clothes on and some of the kids that were running track, they were yelling at him, “Hey Beneda, you can’t run! Hey Beneda, why don’t you go out for track!” They were going to run a 440 and so my dad went over there in his street clothes and lined up with everybody and he came in first place. He beat everybody. And the coach says, “Ok, Beneda, you’re on the track team.” Dad would never spike the football like they do today, or do anything like that. His yes was always yes and his no was always no. He was a very honorable person. He was a good example of a dad. He always paid his bills on time.

Elinor: If he didn’t have the money, he wouldn’t buy it! No such thing as credit.

Ed: And if he told somebody he was going to do something, he’d do it. But I think one of the real turning points in my dad’s life – and my mom saw it – is when we went back to that village and they took him out to see his plane and they carried him out there. And then the one guy came up and gave my dad a hug. There was a good picture of that. I could just see in his face –mom and I talked about it – when he was looking out there at his plane and everything. His mind was just like it was doing a flashback to the war and maybe to what had happened or whatever. He always said that the heroes were the farmers and the civilian people and the soldiers that carried him. They saved his life.

Elinor: I can tell you one thing; when we first got married, he said, “I eat most anything, but please don’t ever serve me rice.” And I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t laugh, just “ok.”

Ed: He probably ate a lot of rice when he was…

Elinor: Well they were so poor, that’s all they had to feed him.

How long after the war did you get married?

Elinor: We married in ’46.

Did you know him prior to the war?

Elinor: Yes. Well, I know who he was and he knew who I was. And I think a couple of times that we even double-dated somebody else. He had a different girlfriend. I had a different boyfriend. But I think it was after the war, after he came home, then we saw each other – they had kind of a USO place in McCook. All the big bands would come through there and they’d stop in McCook overnight and play in this big auditorium. My girlfriends, some of them were married and some of them were single, and we’d go down there and we’d be the USO-type girls. They had a big airbase in McCook, a B-29 base. So there were always a lot of GIs to dance with and Glen was there. And I was asking the girls, “Do you know that’s Glen Beneda? Should I go up and say hi to him, or should I be coy?” And I went with my girlfriends into the restroom and when I came out, there was Glen standing there waiting for me. And that was it. We got married – that was probably in November and we got married the next March.

Had the war grown him up much?

Elinor: Yeah, I think so. All of us.

Ed: Does Dan know the story about Uncle Ralph?

No.

Elinor: You know he and my brother went into the service together.

I didn’t know that.

Elinor: Oh you didn’t? They had both enlisted. My brother was older. My brother was twenty-three or twenty-four and Glen was eighteen. But they had to go to Omaha to sign the papers and take their physical. My brother had a car and I don’t know how – and Glen said he didn’t remember either – how he got ahold of my brother Ralph, and said could he ride to Omaha with him. And so he did. And then they were called to go to Santa Anna for basic training together. But my brother had had so many broken bones in his body that he got delayed. He graduated 43C or D and Glen was 43B in February. And then my brother got assigned to B-24s and he was killed in the Ploesti oil raid in Romania. He was kind of our connection, really. We didn’t meet each other again. So that’s kind of the saga of the Beneda and Egle.

Ed: And so my dad knew my uncle very well and then when he came back to McCook after World War II then he saw Uncle Ralph’s sister there, I’m sure he knew something about my mom already. It’s interested that they ended up falling in love and getting married.

Elinor: Glen was shot down in May ’44 and my brother was killed in August ’43. He hadn’t been overseas only about three or four months. He went to England and then they took him right from England to Libya. And then they flew out of a base in Libya.

It’s hard to imagine, this day and age, the kind of loss that every family went through during the war.

Elinor: Absolutely.

Ed: You know, back during that time too, most of the people, they lived in the rural areas and they were farmers and stuff and, you know, there were people that lived in cities too, but I think that one of the big differences today, and I saw it on the fire department, is that generation that my dad grew up with, and even, to a certain extent, my brother and I, they knew how to work on tractors and they knew how to work on cars and change oil and do brake jobs and all that stuff. Young guys today, I don’t think they’re very mechanically inclined. Some of them are. You had to know how to do those things to bring in the harvest and put food on your table. It’s kind of different today. Everybody has and iPad now.

Glen went back to China twice, correct?

Ed: It was 2001, 2005…

Elinor: 2008 and 2010.

Ed: and 2010 yeah. Four times.

Do you think that brought about healing or perspective?

Elinor: Well the first time, I think he was kind of – I think Jeff Greene got a bunch of them together – it was celebrating the sixtieth anniversary or something.

Ed: That was before the sixtieth one. The sixtieth was in 2005. Dad went in 2001 and I went with him. And it was just more or less a tour trip and they took you into the silk shops and the furniture places and tried to sell you stuff. Dad wasn’t really happy about that because it was so commercialized. You know, it was kind of like, “We’re going to get in your pocketbook.” But in 2005, when those sixty veterans went, it was completely different because now he’s with a lot of the guys that were in the war. That was the year he met Madame Li Xiaolin. That really changed his life. I don’t know if you know the story about that. Mom can tell you.

Elinor: They kept after Glen to come to China in 2005 and he said, “No, I’ve been there twice. I don’t want to go anymore.” We kept getting these calls from China. Our answering machine was full of calls from China. And finally, he gets this one call, and it says, “You must come. We have found your airplane.” And Glen said, “My airplane was never lost. I know where it was!” So we went on that trip.

Ed: Not only that, he says, “I know where it was!” Then he would say, “It’s just a piece of junk!”

Elinor: “Because I crashed it.” He says, “I don’t need to see it!” Then when we met Madame Li, she invited us down to her hotel room, and she told Glen, “I have arranged for you to go to Jianli to see the people and they’re excavating your airplane out of the lake.” And Glen said, “I don’t want to leave the rest of the people. I want to stay with my people.” And she just stuck her nose more-or-less right in his and said, “Glen, you will go!” So we went! And that was an experience too. We left in an SUV and we had a police escort. And we left from Changsha and went all the way to the Yangzi. We get to the Yangzi and all these cars and buggies and whatever were waiting to get on the ferry. And the ferry was there and the police car and our car drove right onto the ferry, right in front of all these other people. And the ferry took off.

Ed: They wouldn’t let anybody else on.

Elinor: And so we went up to the town and our SUV broke down – the air conditioning broke down. It was hotter than hades, so they took us to some little restaurant that was closed and they weren’t going to feed us and our guide – or whoever he was – that was with us, he had a big fuss with the owner and finally why, they fed us. I mean, this was out in the middle of the boonies. There was nothing around except this restaurant. And it wasn’t much of a restaurant. And when we got ready to leave, there was a brand new SUV sitting out there. Where did it come from? We don’t know!

Ed: One of the things that happened, we were sitting there, and this guy comes out with this big platter with some food on it, you know? And it wasn’t what you would think is on there. He comes around the corner and it was a barbequed cat! And the people that were with us, they just had a fit. They grabbed that guy and spun him around and marched him back in the kitchen. You could see the whiskers on the cat and everything.

Elinor: Well we saw the tail!

Ed: So anyways, they told him, “Well you’re not going to serve them that!” So he had to make something else.

Elinor: Well I think he did it on purpose because he and that guy got into a big fight and demanded some food and that owner was in your face.

Ed: When you have a police escort, those guys, police guys, that group we were with, they were almost like gestapo, you know? Forced the guy to open his restaurant and everything. Anyway, that was kind of funny. But then we left there in the new SUV and we’re driving and we started getting closer and closer to the village, but there wasn’t really any roads.

Elinor: Oh no, it was terrible.

Ed: There was just dirt in between the rice paddies. Like people would drive their water buffalos and stuff between the rice paddies and that’s where we’re driving this SUV.

Elinor: I don’t think we even went five miles an hour!

Ed: No, we were probably going three miles an hour.

Elinor: Bumpity bump!

Ed: We were going for quite a long time. And all of a sudden I start hearing these drums: bum bum! Kind of like cymbals, or whatever. And they start getting louder and louder. And the closer we got, all of the sudden, I don’t know where all these people came from, but they came out of the woodwork. There were people marching behind the car and banging on drums and cymbals. I don’t know if you saw the documentary, but part of that was in there and it was really something. Then when dad got out, they had all these media people and paparazzi and some tables set up and they gave him flowers and everything. That was really a point in my dad’s life …

Elinor: That’s when you could look at his face and he was just overwhelmed. And you know a lot of that overwhelming feeling that he had was remembering, I’m sure. Because I can look as some of the pictures we took and his face is so strained. And then it’s also bewildered. It’s not a happiness-type thing, you know. No, it wasn’t that.

Ed: I think, Daniel, you’ve talked to a lot of servicemen and when you have something traumatic happen in your life, you kind of just put that out of your life. You just go on. You kind of bury it. But then all of the sudden this thing is coming back fresh again.

What did it mean for you two? You knew this happened, but then you were standing there where it happened.

Elinor: Well, it was kind of overwhelming for me too, to see all of it and to be among the people that rescued the love of your life. It was indescribable.

Ed: For me, it just put a face on everything that dad had been saying and all of the sudden, I’m right there where that place is that he had talked about and with the people. And there was really just the sense, with my mom and with my dad and my son was with me – it was almost just an outpouring of love. You were so overwhelmed and so grateful and so thankful for all of the sudden this incident that dad’s talked about, all of the sudden now it’s come to life – it’s real. And you’re seeing the people face-to-face and you’re seeing how much they come out to honor my father. A big part of it is about my dad, but it’s also about the Flying Tigers and the guys that served there. And I think also too part of it, I’m sure they were all given the day off, they were all told they probably had to be out there too. But it was kind of a seminal point and really something that was very powerful and very meaningful. I would have never thought in my lifetime that I would ever be back there where my dad’s plane was or where he was rescued and all of the sudden it’s kind of like, “Is this for real? Or is this a dream?” It was something that happened that I had heard about, but now all of the sudden it had come alive and it was really quite a moment in my life to see that.

It must have been quite an experience for him to eventually have some of his ashes placed there.

Elinor: They’re at Madame Li’s father’s library. If you ever have a chance to go see it, it’s unbelievable what she did.

Ed: What she did, is she went to all the different presidential libraries in the United States. She went to Carter and she went to Nixon, George Bush, and she took notes. And this lady is really a sharp gal. The Nixon Library has the birthplace of Richard Nixon there, the house that he was born in, and so the house that her dad lived in, and I don’t know if he was born there or not…

Elinor: Yeah, he was born in that house.

Ed: … is at the museum there. The landscaping and everything is just really beautiful. It’s kind of out in a remote area, in a rural area. And it has a reflection pool, kind of like the Lincoln Memorial. And she built a three-story hotel there that’s probably a four-and-a-half or five-star hotel. Last time we were there on September the third for the seventieth anniversary, mom and I stayed there and she had a presidential suite that she let us stay in and it was probably two thousand square feet.

Elinor: At least.

Ed: If you counted the patios. It had three different patios and it was all glass. It was really beautiful. She treats my mom and I and our family just like family.

Elinor: Well, we are family.

Ed: Yeah. It’s just something I never would have thought would happen in our life. It seems like a fairy tale when we go there. They just treat us so nice, you know? They meet us at the airport, and…

Elinor: When we went to Nebraska after you saw us in Denver, and then we went on to Nebraska and we stopped by my family cemetery in my little hometown where my grandfather was the minister. That’s where Glen’s ashes are, with my mom, my dad, and my brother. And I just mentioned to her, I said, “I have a small container of Glen’s ashes. I’d like to have you take them back to Hubei Province and spread them over where the farmers rescued him.” And she said, “Oh, that would be nice.” So then the next thing I know Sonia, Doctor Sonia Li told us, she said, “You know what you said to Madame Li? Well, she hired an architect and she’s building a memorial to Glen.” I said, “Oh no!” We just can’t believe the whole thing. It’s just unbelievable. She even has a P-40 in glass at that memorial. She’s got the map – I took his flight maps and he drew on it where he bailed out and where he walked. We had it hanging in the garage. And she saw it in our garage and she said, “I want that.” So it’s hanging in her father’s library.

Ed: And what she did, Daniel, is she hired this architect and he made these thirty-five steps that are pretty wide. I’d say they’re probably – oh, I don’t know – thirty-five-feet wide. And they go up. They start at the bottom and they go up thirty-five steps and she made it to look like a runway. And so when you climb up these steps, then you get to the top and that’s where dad’s ashes are. And then you walk to the back, there’s two walls…

Elinor: It’s got walls that look like marble, but they look like clouds.

Ed: There are two of them at ninety-degree angles. In the corner, at the foot of that, she put a piece of glass with a P-40 sitting in there.

Elinor: Well then she’s got a copy of that flight map. And he engraved it into that marble wall.

Ed: One side is done in English and one side is in Chinese. It tells the story. So it’s very nicely done and there’s pine trees right there. I think it’s one of the nicest places in the whole library. She put that place for dad, you know?

Elinor: It’s unbelievable.

Ed: So when you walk up there in that area, it’s just so secluded and it’s almost like you’re kind of in a pine forest. It’s really pretty.

I know when Glen was in China during World War II, it was chaos, it was terrible. Did he ever realize how much what he did meant to the Chinese people before going back in 2005?

Elinor: I think so. Because he used to talk about how the civil war was going on all the time, but they seemed to be able to negotiate between the Communists and the Nationalists to rescue him. And he said they’d come to these no-man’s lands areas and he said there’d be the people they were negotiating with, they’d give them big baskets of money to take him and Gregg across that no-man’s land to the other side. Maybe to the Nationalist side. And he said, “We wondered if we’d ever get out of there alive.” Because he said they were bandits.

Ed: I don’t think dad ever really thought in his wildest imagination, the respect and the gratitude that the Chinese people would have for the Flying Tigers. I don’t think he ever really clearly understood that until he went to China. Because he was just like the rest of the guys that served in the war. They won. They did their job and they came home. And he went on and raised a family and he worked and stuff, but never really gave it too much of a thought about the Chinese side of it. Because, you know, if it wasn’t for the AVG and some of the things they did by stopping the Japanese, they would have lost their country. They would be speaking Japanese. And they told dad that to his face.

Elinor: A lot of young college kids would come up to Glen and thank him and he’d say, “I didn’t do anything special!” And one young teenager…

Ed: College kid.

Elinor: Yeah, he just turned to Glen and got right in his face and he said, “Sir, if it weren’t for you, I would be speaking Japanese.” And Glen says, “Well young man, we were told that we were trained to fly planes, fighters, and we were serving our country and we were told to go to China and we went to China.” And he said, “We did what we were supposed to do.” And he said, “If we helped you people, that’s wonderful, but” he said, “your people helped me too.” A lot of the young people, he had good rapport with.

It turns out that Glen really paved the way for the New 4th Army to help other pilots get out safely. Another pilot mentioned it in his report.

Elinor: Well they knew, Chennault was glad to get these reports from him, because, just like he told his mother, he’d never had a pilot shot down that far in enemy territory and he had no idea that they’d be treated like they were. He actually gave Glen’s mom no hope because he hadn’t lost anybody like that before that.

Ed: Daniel, what was that guy’s name?

Elinor: Yeah, was he from Colorado Springs, by any chance? I can’t think of that guy’s name in Colorado Springs, but he was shot down too. Dad talked to him on the phone.

Armit Lewis.

Elinor: Yes! Armit Lewis. We went to see him and he had saved every piece of memorabilia from there. He’s not like Glen. Glen lost all his stuff. But Armit had everything. He called Glen right after Nixon opened up things with China. He said, “Glen, I want to go back to China. Do you want to go with me?” And Glen said, “No, I don’t think I want to go back.” But Armit really wanted to go. But he also, I think he told us at that time, I can’t remember what the dates were, but he said he got a letter from the State Department and it said it’s too early to go into China. We will not give him a visa, or whatever you needed to go. And why, I don’t know. But he got a letter from the State Department telling him not to go.

Ed: Did Armit ever go back, mom?

Elinor: No.

Ed: Did you guys meet and talk with him?

Elinor: Glen talked with him on the phone a long time. Even when he got really sick and Glen told him about his trip in 2001. I can’t remember when Armit died [9 Aug 2010]. He died two or three or four years before dad did [sic; Beneda died 23 Oct 2010].

Ed: Did you guys ever meet, mom?

Elinor: Oh yeah! We went to his house in Colorado Springs.

Ed: I wonder if he has any surviving family.

Elinor: He has a daughter. I used to get an email from her every once in a while, but I haven’t heard from her in a long time.

It says he passed away in 2010.

Elinor: 2010? That’s the same as Glen did. But I think he passed away before Glen. He was very sick before he died. I think he had a bad stroke. Down in his basement he had all kinds of memorabilia in there.

Ed: One thing dad us too, Daniel, was there was a Japanese pilot who was captured alive. I’m not sure of the details. But they sent my dad over…

Elinor: Glen was off flying status after he was shot down.

Ed: Yeah, he couldn’t fly anymore. So, tell Daniel that story, mom.

Elinor: Well, they had a radio outpost wherever that Japanese guy – they held him as prisoner. And they told Glen to go up there and get him and bring him back to headquarters. So Glen had another young kid he took with him. I can’t remember who it was. But anyway, when he gets up there, who’s the guy running the radio outpost was a kid who graduated high school with him in McCook! I mean, how strange is that? So Glen told him, “I’m here to pick up the prisoner.” And then they were going to take him by boat back to headquarters. And Glen had his .45 on his side. And they had that Japanese guy to a light pole, or a telephone pole. And when Glen walked up to him, Glen said he just absolutely, he said, “I thought he was going to die right there.” Then he said, “I realized that he was looking at that .45” and thought Glen was going to shoot him. So then Glen told the guy to come over and undo him he wanted to put the chains back on him and Glen said, “No.” And he just took him by the hand and pointed and told him to go towards that boat. And I think that Japanese guy was so grateful that he didn’t kill him, he was practically worshipping Glen after that. He said he bowed to him every time he turned around.

Ed: Did dad say he took the bullets out of his gun, too, or not?

Elinor: No, he didn’t.

Ed: He brought that guy back.

Elinor: Yeah, he took him back to headquarters. And they got a lot of information out of him. I don’t remember Glen every saying what his name was. But he and that young kid – it was a Chinese kid that he had with him, like a…

Ed: Translator or something.

Elinor: Yeah, whatever. Anyway, they took him back to headquarters. I don’t remember Glen every saying what happened to him from there. I don’t think Glen even knew what happened to him.

Ed: Do you think the blood chit had much to do with the number of Americans rescued?

I think it helped, but it wasn’t the critical factor. Especially where Glen went down, the Communists knew what to do.

Elinor: Well the other thing too is a lot of folks, when Glen kept waiving it and saying, “Meiguo, Meiguo!” There was probably no one in that group of farmers that was literate enough to know what it was and they kept point to these little out-sheds or whatever and then there was a man in there that he was literate enough that he could read it. Probably the majority of the people in China were not literate at all in their own language.

Well, I appreciate you guys talking to me. And I’d love to see the documentary and I would appreciate being able to see that.