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…

Findley, William S. — 9th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron

Findley, William S. I Took the Long Way Home. Unpublished, 1962. I’d set a new world’s record–100 yards in nine flat across a rain-slick rice paddy.  I stopped fleeing and turned to look apprehensively at the smoking United State Air Corps P-38 plane I’d belly-landed.  Any moment now, the few drops of gasoline remaining would…

Crawford, Paul M. — 529th Fighter Squadron

Interview by Daniel Jackson, October 15, 2016 I was surprised to hear that both your brothers also became pilots during the war? Yes. They were bomber pilots. One was a B-17 pilot and one was a B-24 pilot. What was it about your family that made you all so fascinated with flying? Well, I don’t…

Snow, Harold S. “Hank” — 528th Fighter Squadron

Interview by Daniel Jackson, January 13, 2009 When did you arrive in the China-Burma-India Theater? Well, we arrived in Karachi in January of ’44. So you were a replacement pilot, not with the original unit? Yeah. In Karachi they had a field called Landhi Field and they still had P-40s at the time and the…