I was a pilot, B-25, 341st Bomb Group, 22nd sq. The group had 3 sqds., two were mainly concerned with east China and Indochina. Our sqdn was assigned to misc. including Thailand, North Burma, and southern China. You must realize that all operations were limited due to shortage of supplies. Every ounce of supplies was flown in from India over most difficult terrrain [sic]. In fact, 700 transport planes were lost in the operation. You will probably find much information in the books written about General Stillwell and Chennault. The references would be especially useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Japs occupied the Salween area to cut off the Burma Road, which was the only link China had with the outside. General Stillwell set out to drive the Japs out using Chinese troops. That road was the most difficult imaginable \u2013 over incredible mountain terrain. But it was cut off and the territory was occupied. The battles to retake the road were conducted with rather poorly motivated Chinese troops. They had air support from the 14th. P-40 fighter-bombers were used quite well. The tiny fighters could carry a 500lb and had 4-6 50-cal, Mg. They operated at ground level if needed and were very effective. The terrain in the Salween area was about 3000 ft in the river valleys. The mountains rose more steeply than YOU CAN IMAGINE to 10-12,000 ft. The little fighter was not fast but could get the job done. Also, the pilot was well protected from ground fire. It was said that the P40 was the best crash-landing plane in World War 2. The B-25 was not suitable for close ground support in the tight mountain valleys. It used about 130 gallons of fuel compared to 50 for the P40. However, when targets such as warehouses and troop housing were identified we readily bombed these targets readily from altitudes of 5-10 thousand feet. Small towns occupied in the near Salween area were hit with success at will when we had the supplies. I was in China in 1944, only based at Yangkai. The fighter squadrons were mainly at Yunnanyi. I believe the fighter sqdns were 73rd, 75th, and 76th [sic]. Those people had a very risky job and they performed it well, although the entire operation was less than satisfactory. Good luck with your project on a forgotten part of the war. Excuse my typing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chap Hale<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\nhave just a few questions for you mostly about the Salween campaign.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I happen to know just a little bit\nabout it ’cause I was stuck over in India in September of 1944 in a tent with\nsome fighter pilots. None of us could get across the Hump on account of bad\nweather. We spent a couple weeks playing cards and drinking beer, so I learned\na little bit about the fighter position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How\ndid you end up in China?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This was just because of the way\nthings worked out. I was in a replacement training center, as they call it, in\nColumbia, South Carolina, in the last of ’43 and at the time when you finish\nyour period then you’re supposed to receive an assignment overseas. So there\nwas several of us were sent down to Florida and picked up new airplanes for\neach one of us. There were four crews. That’s what it was up to altogether. We\npicked up our B-25s. They bought them there. A brand-new B-25 cost $88,000. I\nremember signing for it. But then, we did it like in the movies. So the morning\nwe were to leave there, heading for our first destination, which was Puerto\nRico, and then at one hour on the trip you opened your orders to see where you\nwere going. I opened the orders and saw 341st Bomb Group, China. Which was\nreally good news because the things were not too healthy over in Europe. We\nweren’t too anxious to go to Europe. And so being sent to a faraway place like\nthat, the reaction wasn’t too heated. It\nwas actually really good news. We actually flew the plane a period of thirty\ndays with stops and all, all the way into China. A very interesting trip, but\nat this late date I think about it a lot. It wasn’t very important to me then,\nbut it was quite a trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So you traveled across Africa then?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We went through South America and\nthen to Ascension Island- You ever hear about Ascension Island? It was halfway\nbetween South America and Africa \u2013 about sixteen hundred miles each way \u2013 and\nthen across Africa into the Arabian Peninsula. You had Aden which is right at\nthe base of the Red Sea and then we went around the corner of the Arabian\nPeninsula to a place called Masirah Island, a little sand pile, and from there\nwe went into Karachi which at that time was a part of India then down through\nBangalore and wound up at Agra. And from Agra we moved on into the Assam Valley\nwhich is right at the base of the Himalayas. And then we flew the individual\nships into Kunming, China, where we met the 341st Group and was assigned to a\nlittle base called Yangkai, about forty miles outside of Kunming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How\nwould you describe the supply situation out there?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, it\u2019s beyond description! When\nthe Japanese took over Burma, and there was only one supply route \u2013 it was the\nBurma Road \u2013 to China. A pretty poor route, but it was a route. So when they\ncut that off, every ounce of material that came into China had to be flown in.\nAnd that was for the B-25s and the P-40s and the P-38s. There were a few B-24s\nthat were over there and they flew their own material. They flew it back and\nforth across the Hump and they could bring their own material. But everybody\nelse had to depend on the transport line. They had mostly C-46s, which could\ncarry twenty-one 55-gallon drums of gasoline. Over in the Assam Valley there\nwas probably four or five fields which were operating basically continuously,\njust as fast as they could send things across the Hump into China, and get over\nthere with a load of cargo and get back. It went on twenty-four hours a day and\nat night \u2013 at all hours \u2013 both bad weather and good. I may have mentioned that\nthe record shows that some seven hundred of those transports were lost during\nthat period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Did\nyou have any interesting experiences flying over the Hump yourself?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, the sense was this was\nroutine. The first time I went we had to get way up high \u2013 say maybe seventeen\nthousand feet, which was high for a B-25 loaded. I went to India to pick up\nanother airplane. I came back, we came about seven or eight, which wasn\u2019t,\ndidn\u2019t have to get so high, but we ran into thunderstorms \u2013 very difficult. I\nonly flew in China at night twice. This time I came in at night. It\u2019s the\nweirdest thing flying over China in those days. At night there was not a light\n\u2013 not a single light \u2013 no lights. Whereas in the United States, maybe out in\nWest Texas in that time you might just see a few lights or something like that,\nbut in China it was absolutely totally black. It was rather a strange feeling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I had one little experience that I\nhad on the Salween River that I wrote up in a magazine that I will send you a\ncopy of that. It\u2019s written from a pilot\u2019s standpoint, but it might be of\ninterest to you as you look at things. Like I said, there were several bombing\nmissions in the Salween. It was so tight of an area in there that the bomber\njust couldn\u2019t maneuver very well, so we stayed up. I remember one time there\nwas a located target which was apparently small warehouses \u2013 a group of them \u2013\neach maybe as big as a house. And that mission we didn\u2019t have any bombs except\nnapalm bombs. Well, we really didn\u2019t have any use for napalm bombs. So we\nloaded up our napalm and we bombed that encampment probably from five thousand\nfeet. And we hit it real good and it burned every single building in there \u2013\njust accidentally \u2018cause those napalms didn\u2019t fall out of the airplane like\nguided bombs do, usually they came out tumbling. Apparently that\u2019s how they hit\nthe target. That was such difficult territory down there. Later on, we managed\nto \u2013 did you research Stilwell? He was the big dog and he and Chennault didn\u2019t\nget along at all. Chennault reported to him. That was very difficult for flying\npeople. We didn\u2019t get promoted on schedule and all that sort of thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The area of Lashio was the\nbeginning of the Burma Road. We got into a situation where we were moved to a\nlittle base named Yunnanyi, which was a place where the fighters were, and we\ndid shuttle bombing into Burma. There was a place, a little strip, called\nTingkawk Sakan. From the air, down in the jungle, it looked like a matchstick\nlying there. It was a little strip. I think we had three thousand feet of\npavement and then they cut the trees down for another two thousand feet. So you\nhad to be up two hundred or more by the time you climbed out of that little\nditch. That was the only time in the war that we used full emergency power that\nthe airplanes had. It was really hard to get out of that. We\u2019d operate in there\nand did a lot of missions and we bombed Lashio and north of that. At that time,\nthis was in October-November of \u201944, Stilwell\u2019s troops were fighting heavily up\nin that area mainly around a place called Myitkyina; M-Y-I-T-K-Y-I-N-A, or\nsomething like that. The Chinese finally were kicking the Japanese out. Because\nat the same time the Americans were building the Ledo Road \u2013 You ever hear\nabout the Ledo Road?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It was built by this base I was talking about. They built this thing by cutting the enormous trees down and piling dirt on them. And I understand that once they kind of cleared the Japanese out, they were able to put this Ledo Road on in. That was after the strip was finished. They also had a small gasoline pipeline that they managed to get into China. And so of course it enormously improved the supply situation, but I had been long gone by that time. We did a lot of bombing in that Lashio area, which was very comfortable while I served because there was no enemy activity. We didn\u2019t have to worry about fighters, just a little bit of bad weather. I met and became friends with one of these P-38 pilots. He was a photographic [reconnaissance]. When we were bombing we didn\u2019t have any trouble because practically every day, or every two or three days, these P-38 photo aircraft would sweep down into Burma, Thailand, and south Indochina and photograph everything that was down there. And if there was any interest then the P-38s, which had great long range, would go down and clean them out. So the result was, even though the Japanese had airfields facilities down in that area, they didn\u2019t put any airplanes in there. The P-38s kept them out. The P-38s could do very long missions and they flew higher than any Japanese planes could get up there. I had one mission, I think, we went down into Thailand and the P-38s rode along with us \u2013 I guess maybe because they didn\u2019t have anything to do. But that was the only mission I ever had any fighter escort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Do\nyou remember what you were going to bomb?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a bridge at a place in\nThailand that was known as Dara. It was six hundred miles a trip. It was an eight-hour\nmission each way and I mean that trip wore us down. That bridge was built by\nAmericans and it looked just like a regular American bridge, with huge concrete\npillars and steel superstructure. And when you were skip-bombing, your bombs\nwould bounce away. When you did skip-bombing you had to have a delay on the\nfuse, maybe five seconds, so you could get away from it. And the bombs would\nhit those pillars and bounce off and it looked like you knocked the bridge out,\nbut it would still be standing. I had a picture, I lost it. A little print, it\nwas taken during a skip-bombing mission, the tail gunner took a picture, and\nright behind the airplane is two 1000-pound bombs exploding right behind the\nairplane. But they did bounce. It did remind me, there was one mission over\nthere, a small walled city, and I looked up the records, they call it\nTengchong. Them records seem to call everything Tengchong. The guys keeping the\nrecords didn\u2019t keep them very accurate. We could go in and drop 1000-pound\nbombs on the wall of the city. The Chinese would go in. There were just three\nof us on this mission, I guess. We made our pass and dropped our bombs as best\nwe could, but I don\u2019t think we really got the wall. We had such few supplies\nthat we couldn\u2019t practice anything. And even when you do something like this\nyou need some practice. So they just sent us over there to that valley, sling\ndown there and get down low and drop your bombs and give it your best. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the bombing was done at\nhigher altitudes. I did fifty missions, but most of them were at several\nthousand feet, which was a comfortable attitude. Low-bombing in those mountains\nwas extremely hazardous. We lost crews hitting mountains, getting lost in\nweather; we had one who actually hit a bridge \u2013 that was in Indochina. Another\none which was shooting up a train, and he wasn\u2019t being very effective, so he\ndecided to hit the train head-on \u2013 and he hit that train head-on. We had, each\naircraft had, six-to-twelve 50-caliber guns aimed forward. So it was pretty\ngood for strafing except that the airplane was bulky and hard to maneuver,\nunlike a P-40. A P-40 was kind of like it was strapped on \u2013 it would go exactly\nwhere you thought it would go. The bomber was hard to control if you were\ntrying to operate it above 150 miles an hour. The controls were so heavy and\nwere hard to handle. If you were going after ships out on the ocean, it was\nokay because there wasn\u2019t a mountain sticking in the way, so you could handle\nit all right. They actually used the B-24s to skip-bomb ships, big and bulky as\nthey were. But we\u2019d talk to these P-40 pilots and they told us about their\nstrafing missions, which it sounds like that\u2019s practically all they were doing\n\u2013 drop one bomb and then strafe the targets. And the P-40 was the really meant\nfor this because it could get shot at and take a lot of holes and still come\nback. If they got shot down, it was a good airplane to crash-land in. They\ncould crash-land that thing in a rice paddy. In the last of the war, they put\nin P-51s, but the pilots didn\u2019t like it \u2013 even though it went much, much\nfaster. But its cooling system was exposed and it would get shot up. Whereas\nthe P-40 was well-protected \u2013 nothing happened to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you know how air support was coordinated from the ground? I know the Chinese troops at Tengchong had American troops embedded with radios and I was wondering if you knew how that worked.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n No I don\u2019t, but radio control at\nthat time was so primitive. The radios that we had on our aircraft, the P-40s\nwere the same way, are what they call command radios. It\u2019s very low frequency \u2013\nit\u2019s even lower than AM that you\u2019re talking about now. The better radios than\nthese, HF and the UHF, were used in Europe. I never saw those until I came back\nfrom overseas. But that was standard. We never had nice radios on ours. They\nwere very poor. You just couldn\u2019t get any reception. The radio comms then were\nuseless. But they put those boys on the ground \u2013 that was a little later in the\ngame, after the Japanese were getting [?]. A lot of the Japanese didn\u2019t go\nahead and pull out, but once they were in there, they weren\u2019t able to pull them\nout. So they kind of spread out in the small towns around there and lived off\nthe countryside. And the Chinese weren\u2019t very anxious to mix it up with them\nanyhow. But then when we got up there north of Mytikyina, they had not only the\nP-40s, they brought in some squadrons of P-47s \u2013 the big fellas \u2013 to operate\nout of that little place where we did our shuttle bombing. The activity up\naround Myitkyina got really heavy and the Chinese finally began to fight. I\nthink there were some American troops in there with them. Stilwell had got them\nin there. They finally put a cork in that bottle. But it was getting late in\nthe war and the Japanese didn\u2019t have much use for it anyhow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our part in China was a very, very\nsmall operation. We just could not get supplies. My base had two squadrons of\nB-25s and one of B-24s. I guess we probably had about a thousand men there. Our\nfood was mainly eating off the land \u2013 the Chinese. For Thanksgiving and\nChristmas they flew us in some canned Turkey and occasionally a little British\nmarmalade, but most of the time we made do with Chinese cooks and all Chinese\nfood. Everybody had diarrhea all the time. It was pretty uncomfortable. We were\nfed regularly. The Chinese did the best they could. Now, the Chinese trucks\nover there \u2013 we had no gasoline to drive trucks for our squadron. All they had,\nI think one jeep and one personnel carrier, which you used to take folks back\nand forth to the airplane. And they ran those things on ethyl alcohol,\nmethanol. And they would just barely run! They would just barely run. The\naltitude was sixty-five hundred feet above sea level at the base. They would\njust barely run. The Chinese had a few old trucks they had that were charcoal-burners.\nYou ever hear about a charcoal-burner \u2013 a truck? They kind of clunked along and\nthen they would just barely make it. They just made the most awful racket you\never heard \u2013 smoke, fumes \u2013 but that\u2019s all they had, a big charcoal burner on\nthe side of the machine. We didn\u2019t even have a two-by-six truck on the base.\nYou know what a two-by-six was, don\u2019t you? A deuce-and-a-half: the standard GI\ntwo-and-a-half-ton truck. Any vehicle we had had been brought over in pieces\nthen put back, welded together. Refueling was done with the Chinese operating\nhand pumps, pumping it out of the drums and into the tanks of the airplanes \u2013\nvery laborious. I don\u2019t know how much was written about this campaign, about\nStilwell \u2013 how much detail was in the books about Stilwell. I know there are a\nnumber of books about Chennault, but I don\u2019t know about Stilwell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most\nof the books about Chennault don\u2019t really mention much about the Salween\nCampaign since he wasn\u2019t a big proponent of it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t think they would because of\nthe ground part. He wasn\u2019t really interested in that. He was the commander and\nhe was kind of doing the best he could to ensure the back of the Japanese Air\nForce was broken. He wasn\u2019t too much interested. It was a small effort and the\nB-24s and B-25s did do pretty good by going down and chasing all these ships\naway from the coast. The Japanese shipping was hugging the coast of China to\nget away from our submarines. So when we were able to get down there and bomb\nthose that came along the coast, we broke that up. So that was the most\neffective part really of the 14th Air Force. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Were you guys used a lot against railroads as\nwell?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh yes. Any railroad we could find,\nwe\u2019d tear it up. That was easy stuff to knock out \u2013 unless it was right tight\nin the mountains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How\nwould you tear up the railroads?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019d hit the bridges and just catch\nthe trains \u2013 that was the easy part. So they couldn\u2019t run their trains in the\ndaytime. We knocked some of the smaller bridges out. You knock those things out\none day, come back two days later and they had it up and running again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How\neffective were B-25s at hitting bridges from medium altitude? How difficult was\nit?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Very difficult. Very difficult. We\ngenerally got down to low altitude. Except for that one I was telling you about\nit was no problem to knock them out \u2013 the ones that were built of wood. Go down\nlow, close to the water, and you couldn\u2019t miss. But that old bridge that was\nbuilt by American standards was a tougher one. It was a first-class bridge. But\nmost of them were not that way. Most of them were almost temporary bridges. The\nhighways weren\u2019t operable because they didn\u2019t really have many trucks either.\nIf the P-38s could find those trucks they just would wipe them out. There\nwasn\u2019t a lot of P-38s then, but the P-38 was awfully good for what they were\ndoing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How\nwould you compare the B-25\u2019s ability to skip-bomb bridges with the P-38\u2019s\nability to skip-bomb bridges?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The P-38s weren\u2019t doing that much.\nThey were shooting-up stuff. A P-40 or a P-38 or any of those things, their\nopposition was not too heavy, it was pretty much a duck shoot \u2013 duck soup \u2013 to\nhit their targets. It was easy. In Europe they used P-38s very heavily over\nthere against trains and stuff like this. But it was a deadly game and they\npaid a severe price in Europe for attacking ground targets. For a P-38 to\nattack a target in Burma or Thailand was easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did you\never have trouble with ground fire?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh yes. Anytime you went after a\nbridge or anything like that. But the Japanese weren\u2019t very good at it. The\nGermans were deadly, but the Japanese \u2026 you might come back with holes and\nthey\u2019d usually be in the tail. I never had anybody get hurt, though I had holes\nin the airplane. They usually wouldn\u2019t lead the plane right \u2013 most of the holes\nwould be in the back. Some of the small bridges, they had manholes in each end\nat the front and the back of the bridge, and as you came in they\u2019d be shooting\nat you. But of course we could keep them down. Then when you went past them, on\nthe other side, they\u2019d pop up out of their manhole and shoot at you as you\nleft. But then you\u2019d have to shoot your tail gun at them to keep them down. So\nwe got a lot of ground fire, but it just wasn\u2019t that effective because they\ndidn\u2019t know their business. It wasn\u2019t like attacking Germans at low altitude.\nThey would absolutely eat you up. There was only one time I ran into good anti-aircraft;\nI was at Hainan Island which was off the coast over there. There was a case two\nyears ago where an airplane \u2013 one of our surveillance planes \u2013 had to land over\nthere \u2013 emergency landing \u2013 after hitting a Chinese fighter. It had to land on\nHainan Island and the Chinese wouldn\u2019t give it up. They had to dismantle it and\ntake it out piece by piece. This first mission I had, it was down there over\nsix hundred miles away. We had received word that there was some ships in the\nlittle harbor down there. So we go down to that little harbor to sink those\nships. We got down there and there was only one ship in the harbor. It was\npretty easy, we sank that one. Then the orders had been, after you do that, go\nahead and strafe the docks. We sank that ship, but on the other end, we ran\ninto the most intense fire I ever seen \u2013 never seen again. It was just\nunbelievable how accurate they were. So they were shooting us up. We weren\u2019t\ngoing to try to strafe the docks right into those things. Actually, on that trip,\nI was flying copilot and I saw, right in front of my eyes, I saw a 75-millimeter\nshell just explode right in front of the plane. I saw it open, but it wasn\u2019t a\ngood clean burst. We didn\u2019t get any holes. Shut the engine off for just a\nmicrosecond. But I saw it. People won\u2019t believe that I saw that. It didn\u2019t\nexplode right! If it had exploded right I wouldn\u2019t be here. But most of their\nanti-aircraft was very poor. In case they even had the 75-millimeter, they\nwouldn\u2019t be anywhere close to you most of the time. This one place they were\njust dead-on. We learned you don\u2019t want to fool with the Japanese Navy, from\nour standpoint. But the rest of it was relatively easy pickings. One\nreplacement airplane was shot down when I first got there by a Zero, but the\nrest of the time we didn\u2019t. Our losses were just weather, getting lost, and\nstuff like that. The ones I told you about. But those P-40 pilots, they seemed\nto dust up like they were doing a good job. They helped the Chinese. They had a\nvery poor opinion of the Chinese fighters of course because they were going in\nand do their thing and the Chinese would sit there and watch them do it and\nthen the Japanese would run them off again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wish I could have more to tell\nyou, but I don\u2019t. Like I said, the accounts of the fighter activity down there\nwas second-hand. We had our little thing going on. You kind of stayed alive\nuntil you had the chance to go home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chennault was a very popular man,\nlots of stuff written about Chennault, but nobody cared much for Stilwell. He was\nnot nice. He was very dedicated and Army all the way. We didn\u2019t like him\nbecause he made us stay second lieutenants for a whole year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nhave one last question for you. When did you leave China?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I left China the first week of\n1945. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What\ndid the Army have you do once you got back?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I went through several things. I\nwent through instructor school for B-25 pilots and then the permanent pilots\ndecided they didn\u2019t want the returnees around, so they shipped us off. Finally,\nI ended up in California, out there pulling targets in B-26s for the P-38 base\nout there. You\u2019d fly out over the ocean and pull targets out there for them to\nshoot at. I think they got mixed up one day and they shot one of those B-26s\ndown. Well, you really weren\u2019t far away. A thousand yards up in the air is not\nvery far. We pulled the targets a thousand yards out. But we were out there and\nwe had radar service using our ships. That was a good deal when it all ended. The\nB-26 was a pleasant plane to fly, but it was not near as combat worthy as the\n25 was, for the type of work we had to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are\nyou talking about the Martin B-26, or the Douglas B-26?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Martin B-26. Of course, you\ncould never have got them off the ground where we were. But it was a good fun\nplane to fly \u2013 fast \u2013 although the 25 had good wings. It would get you off the\nground. So being at sixty-five hundred feet above sea level to start with, the\nengines were not turbo, so you didn\u2019t get off the ground very well. The problem\nwas you would like to be 130 or 140 miles an hour when you left the ground and\nsometimes we\u2019d be staggering off at 110 or 120 fully loaded. But it was a\nreliable airplane, never any failures on that. The maintenance people really\ndid their job. I considered myself lucky when I went to China and lucky I\nsurvived it, because not everybody did. It was an interesting war when you live\nthrough it. One of my friends I talked to, he just died, he was in the Pelilieu\ncampaign over in the Pacific \u2026 terrible \u2026 terrible \u2026 in the Marshalls. It was\njust a horrible thing. The casualties were unbelievable. He talked about how\nhorrible it was, but he said on the other end, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t miss it for the\nworld.\u201d I thought that was a remarkable statement. Going through a war like\nthis was an interesting thing. Thoughts are always with us, how things went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well,\nthank you for talking to me sir, you have been very helpful. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m glad to hear somebody was\ninterested in a very obscure portion of the war. I wish you luck in your\nobscure pursuit of these things that happened in history. What are you going to\nbe in, the infantry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n No,\nI\u2019m going to hopefully fly.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, flying is, one thing I got into\nthe Air Force because I was in ROTC in the infantry and I knew one thing: I did\nnot want to walk! Going through flight school was a very, very interesting\nthing at that time because they didn\u2019t have a lot of patience. You either got\nthrough or you didn\u2019t. But now I\u2019m sure if you get in there, they make sure you\nget through and they\u2019ll take enough time and patience to get you through. But I\nwish you every bit of luck and I appreciate you writing this thing for history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well,\nI appreciate your help sir.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I still wish I had been able to put\nmy bombs in that city wall because I think if I had had the practice, I would\nhave known how to do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You\nknow what\u2019s funny, is every single pilot I\u2019ve talked to that flew in China has\ncommented about that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Talked about the fact that you\ncouldn\u2019t practice or anything? No, we couldn\u2019t practice anything. The ones over\nin Europe, they\u2019d drill, drill, and drill so they could get everything right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\nwas a different war.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We got by. And I hope we\u2019ll get by\nthe next one. Well good luck to you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank\nyou very much, sir. You have a good night.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Good night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" E-mail to Daniel Jackson, November 5, 2007 I was a pilot, B-25, 341st Bomb Group, 22nd sq. The group had 3 sqds., two were mainly concerned with east China and Indochina. Our sqdn was assigned to misc. including Thailand, North Burma, and southern China. You must realize that all operations were limited due to shortage…<\/p>\n