Interview by Daniel Jackson, June 19, 2007
Daniel Jackson:
Can you hear me, sir?
Jim Heitkotter:
Yes, barely.
Daniel Jackson:
I’ll try to speak loudly then. Okay. First of all, sir, when did you arrive at the 449th Fighter Squadron?
Jim Heitkotter:
In March—no, April ’44.
Daniel Jackson:
Okay. And apparently, according to the records, they have you flying your first missions in July. Did you fly any missions before July? Did you join when they were still at Suichuan?
Jim Heitkotter:
I arrived as a replacement, there were five of us, and there were no airplanes available. They had just had a big campaign and they had twenty-four pilots and eight airplanes. So my first mission was with a 16th Fighter [Squadron] in P-40s up at the other end of the runway.
Daniel Jackson:
Oh, wow. So you actually flew with the 16th for a couple of missions then before you actually flew with the 449th?
Jim Heitkotter:
Yes.
Daniel Jackson:
Do you recall where or what those missions were?
Jim Heitkotter:
All I remember is that the first one was the day after I checked out in the P-40, not used to all that torque. And we were up to intercept a flight of Zeros coming in, and I was going to fly the other way until I got used to that P-40. And we got credit for that mission, and I believe that was the only one. And it wasn’t really too long before I got to the 449th. That was while we were in Kunming, before we moved to Chengkung.
Daniel Jackson:
Were you involved with the July 29th Hainan raid by any chance? Were you on that mission to Hainan on July 29th?
Jim Heitkotter:
No.
Daniel Jackson:
Okay. The first missions that you’re in the unit history for are out of Yunnanyi. Do you recall any of those?
Jim Heitkotter:
Yes.
Daniel Jackson:
Do you remember when you got there?
Jim Heitkotter:
Well, I’d have to look at my records to see the date. But yeah, I remember being on detached service at Yunnanyi for a while, and then we were running there up into Burma.
Daniel Jackson:
Yeah, it looks like you were actually stationed out there a couple of different times. The first time it says in the record is you went out there on August 28th, and then you’re back on October 7th, back at Chengkung. And then back out to Yunnanyi again on November the 14th. And then it actually lists you on a couple of missions. The first one is on a mission to the village at Hopate doing a strafing mission on November 16th?
Jim Heitkotter:
Well, I can’t recall each of the missions very well.
Daniel Jackson:
What was your general impression of Yunnanyi, as far as the facilities, the food, any of that stuff?
Jim Heitkotter:
It was pretty fair. We were not in tents and the food was good and they had pretty good service for the airplanes. They had a service department there.
Daniel Jackson:
Okay. And do any of your missions into Burma stand out in your memory?
Jim Heitkotter:
Yes. We had one mission where we were to go and hit another area again where the Jap Air Force was supposed to be—I mean the Jap headquarters for Burma, that campaign. And I was tail-end Charlie and spotted a little bit of a roof down in the canyon. Everything had been bombed out before that. We couldn’t see that there was anything left. But I did spot that. And I made a turn while on the dive, which took up a lot of altitude and I dropped two 500-pound RDXs, and it came right back up through the airplane and I went back to the squadron on single-engine.
Daniel Jackson:
Wow, that must have been pretty terrifying to—
Jim Heitkotter:
That was pretty close. I feathered the right engine to save it because there was oil pouring out of the cooler and landed single-engine. In fact, the landing was a little hairy too, as I recall now. I waved off a C-46 on approach. He went on around and I went on in and overshot on one engine. And by the time I got the flaps up, I had sunk pretty low and I was out of sight of the guys at the squadron and flew around on downwind at about rooftop level and did get in okay.
Daniel Jackson:
Well, you were pretty lucky to be flying the P-38 as opposed to any single-engine job, I guess.
Jim Heitkotter:
Oh, yeah. Two engines was a real delight.
Daniel Jackson:
Yeah, I could imagine.
Jim Heitkotter:
I did that twice, I had to rely on that second engine.
Daniel Jackson:
Do you recall the second time by any chance?
Jim Heitkotter:
No, I don’t. My memory is getting more screwed up all the time.
Daniel Jackson:
That’s okay. And actually, if you have any written records of your missions, that might be helpful too. A couple of the guys that I’ve called had—I think they said their form fives left over from their missions or something.
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah, I have mine.
Daniel Jackson:
If I would be able to get those from you, that’d be excellent. Because what I’m trying to do is, as I’m sure you’re aware, there is no history really written up on the 449th. It’s kind of been forgotten.
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah, I know that.
Daniel Jackson:
And so basically, this semester—I’m a military history major here, and this semester I was writing a big paper on the air war in China in general and saw a couple of blurbs about the 449th here or there. And that’s interesting that there’s not much about that. So I decided on my own to do this as a summer project. And so far I’ve got a huge black file box full of stuff on your squadron now, just based on people that I’ve talked to like yourself and the official histories that I got from the Air Force Historical Research Agency. And so I’m going to try and put together a good 100-150-page history of the 449th just as summer project.
Jim Heitkotter:
That sounds very nice. Have you run across anything about Billy Beardsley shooting down the ranking general in China?
Daniel Jackson:
I have. I think I have the article from the Jing Bao Journal that talked about that. And then I’ve got something from the P-38 National Association letter and something from Dick Maddux about it. So I did find that stuff.
Jim Heitkotter:
It didn’t make any publicity like the navy admiral [Yamamoto] did.
Daniel Jackson:
Yeah. I guess Yamamoto was a little more well-known since he planned the Pearl Harbor attack. But yeah, I think China in general get too much publicity.
Jim Heitkotter:
Or engines or gasoline or oil!
Daniel Jackson:
Much of anything, I guess.
Jim Heitkotter:
Didn’t get much of anything.
Daniel Jackson:
Actually, that’s a good segue. How would you describe the supply situation out there in general as far as not only fuel and engines and everything, but getting new aircraft and new pilots as well?
Jim Heitkotter:
We got new pilots in, seemed like, fairly regularly. Do you have anything on Palmer, T. Foss?
Daniel Jackson:
Was he the one that was shot down towards the end of the war?
Jim Heitkotter:
It’s possible, but I don’t know that.
Daniel Jackson:
No, I don’t have much about him.
Jim Heitkotter:
I have a letter from a relative, a daughter of his, and so I’m trying to get anything, pictures of him and so on, to her.
Daniel Jackson:
All I have on him—I think he might’ve been the one that was shot down in Indochina. And I can actually reference the official history right here right quick. Basically, he was captured by guerrillas and they demanded two hundred guns for his ransom or something absurd like that. And then he was finally let go. Just a second. It refers to him as Lieutenant Foss, so yeah, that might be the guy that you’re—unless there was two Lieutenant Fosses. There you go. So yeah, he was the one that was shot down. So all I’ve got on him is a couple little blurbs like that.
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah. Well, how about pictures?
Daniel Jackson:
Of him?
Jim Heitkotter:
Of anything. What do you expect to do with pictures?
Daniel Jackson:
Well, I’m hoping to have a good twenty pictures or so. Right now I’ve only got a few that y’all have sent me, guys from your squadron. But I’m hoping to have a couple pages in the book with pictures. They’re hard to find on the 449th though.
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah, I was taking a lot of pictures over there and I’ve still got all my negatives and stuff.
Daniel Jackson:
Oh, wow.
Jim Heitkotter:
So I could show you what I’ve got and you choose what you need.
Daniel Jackson:
Yeah. If you want to send photocopies or something. And then basically, when I finish the writing, I’ll send a letter out. And basically, I’ll have to borrow actual photographs for whoever prints this up so they can get a high quality in there. But that would be excellent though. Yeah.
Jim Heitkotter:
Do you have anything on that Hainan Island mission to Samah Bay on January 5?
Daniel Jackson:
I do actually. I was actually going to ask you about that, what you remember. From the Jing Bao Journal, I’ve got the articles about when you were rescued by the liaison plane after you had to bail out. But nobody seemed to write about the mission itself before that point. If you’d be willing to expand on that?
Jim Heitkotter:
Well, I guess I could, but they did a pretty good job. Just recently or fifty years after that, after we were out, the pilot of the L-5B located me and we had a nice get-together fifty years later.
Daniel Jackson:
That must’ve been pretty neat.
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah, it was. Then last Saturday, the Confederate Air Force—it’s called something else now—was at Fresno at an air show and they brought an L-5B, and I didn’t think there were any left. I hadn’t ever seen one, so I got some pictures with it, and I’m going to join them and tell them about my story later on.
Daniel Jackson:
Hey, that’s a good deal. Yeah, that must’ve been pretty neat. I didn’t know that they had any of those flying anymore either. But they’ve got some neat stuff that they pull out of their hat every once in a while.
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah.
Daniel Jackson:
So the January 5th mission to Hainan, that was your last mission in the theater? Because you were injured on the bailout, correct?
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah.
Daniel Jackson:
Yeah. If you’d like to tell me about that, that’d be great. And I’ll get it on tape here, throw it in there.
Jim Heitkotter:
I have the pictures of that rescue from the German mission, and it’s kind of interesting.
Daniel Jackson:
Do you remember what targets you hit on the island as well before you had to bail out?
Jim Heitkotter:
Just the airfield. And a few planes got into the air, Oscars and whatever. There were, I think, four or so knocked down by the 51s and P-38s who went down there together. And I saw a 38 on the tail of a P-51 and it must have seemed like he was firing at it, mistaking it for a Jap. And I hollered out on the radio, “That’s a 51 you’re shooting at!” And then after many years I was at home, my younger brother who had been in the Jap occupation army, had a Jap working for him in the kitchen and told him a story of an air fight. The guy was a pilot. Told Don a story about this fight, and Don told me, and that was the one that was the January 5 mission. And so we had lost one P-51 on that. It was missing in action. So of course, I wrote the War Department hoping that they could follow up on it.
Daniel Jackson:
Okay. Did the War Department ever get back to you with anything on that?
Jim Heitkotter:
They may have one time, but I’m not sure.
Daniel Jackson:
Okay. And then what happened on the way back that caused you to have to bail out?
Jim Heitkotter:
Out of gas. Gasoline had siphoned out of the wingtip tanks, so I lost about 70 gallons of gas.
Daniel Jackson:
Ouch. That would kind of suck.
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah, there was something wrong with the caps on the G model. And that was fixed, I guess, right away. But that’s what caused it. Get in a tight turn, you know, in a high-speed turn, that would start siphoning.
Daniel Jackson:
Geez. I would hope they fixed that. That would not be good. And then as you bailed out, you hit the stabilizer, the rear stabilizer?
Jim Heitkotter:
I guess I did. It was a dark night and I guess I had my eyes closed anyway.
Daniel Jackson:
Are there any other missions that stand out in your memory?
Jim Heitkotter:
Well, if I can get this stuff out and start looking, I guess I’ll recall more and I can get back to you.
Daniel Jackson:
That’d be excellent, sir. And also, did you ever get the letter I sent you a few weeks ago by any chance?
Jim Heitkotter:
Yes, I did. In fact, this morning we were looking all over for the phone number that you gave my wife. Couldn’t find it and then I located the original letter. So we’re back in business.
Daniel Jackson:
Well, there you go. If you could actually send me some of your stuff on your missions, the stuff that you have in print, I could look it over and then have some better questions for you for an interview. And if you had the stuff in front of you too, that might help as well, if that sounds agreeable to you, sir?
Jim Heitkotter:
Yes, I think so.
Daniel Jackson:
You have my PO box. If shipping is an issue, just let me know how much it costs and I’ll get that to you. And my PO box number, 4609, I believe it’s on the letter that I sent you.
Jim Heitkotter:
Yes, it is.
Daniel Jackson:
Sweet. Okay. That would actually be very helpful. And of course, you can sure as heck bet that when I finish this, which hopefully will be towards the end of the summer here, I’ll get you a copy of it so that you can have one.
Jim Heitkotter:
I’d appreciate that. And I sure appreciate you going through all the work that’s necessary to do that.
Daniel Jackson:
Well, it’s my pleasure. This stuff is really interesting to me. Especially getting to talk to you guys is the most exciting part of it, definitely. I’ve gotten to interview five of you over the phone so far, and all of you guys are a lot of fun and very interesting to talk to. So I appreciate that you guys are willing to cooperate as well.
Jim Heitkotter:
Would you mind telling me the names of those five guys?
Daniel Jackson:
Well, let’s see here. I’ve talked to Jim Hyde.
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah, he was a crew chief.
Daniel Jackson:
And Dick Maddox who was an armorer. And I’ve talked to Jerry Doughty, and I’ve talked to Forrest Green.
Jim Heitkotter:
Uh-huh. He’s in Texas.
Daniel Jackson:
I’ve talked to Jack Bowman.
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah. They probably told you we had been getting together each year. And as you say, they’re a bunch of fun guys.
Daniel Jackson:
Yep. Although, I heard that the Fourteenth Air Force Association even ceased to exist this year. So I guess they’re having some trouble with get-togethers now, which is too bad.
Jim Heitkotter:
Well, Vandenberg, which is the Fourteenth Air Force now, has a banquet, and the rest of the guys are invited to that each year. There were two of us at Vandenberg Air Force Base on their banquet.
Daniel Jackson:
Only two, huh?
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah.
Daniel Jackson:
That’s pretty crazy. That’s too bad. It really is. Well, sir, I appreciate your help and I appreciate you sending me that stuff. That’ll be a big help. The official history is great, but towards the beginning of the war they skimp on dates and stuff and so I can’t figure out when stuff took place. And towards the end of the war, they’ve got all the dates in there, but then they leave the names off, who flew what missions.
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah, they never bothered with a lot of stuff. Even the medals. Guys didn’t get the medals they had earned.
Daniel Jackson:
I guess sometimes you just can’t win, huh?
Jim Heitkotter:
Yeah.
Daniel Jackson:
But I guess when you’re out there fighting a war and you don’t got what you need, sometimes you just have no choice but to take some desperate measures, I guess. So, it’s too bad. But yeah, so I appreciate it. I’ve got an introduction written, and working on the first part about the squadron moving out from North Africa. I’ve got about all the information I need on that. But around the time that you were with the squadron when you guys were flying out of Yunnanyi and out of Chengkung, that’s where I’ve got the biggest holes. So if you can send me that stuff, that would be excellent.
Jim Heitkotter:
Okay.
Daniel Jackson:
Well, you have a good day, sir, and thanks for getting back a hold of me. And thanks for your help. I appreciate it greatly.
Jim Heitkotter:
My pleasure.
Daniel Jackson:
Have a good day, sir. Thank you very much and I look forward to seeing that stuff.
Jim Heitkotter:
Alrighty. Bye-bye.
Daniel Jackson: Bye.
Heitkotter, James. Oral history, no date
Chronicles in the life of James Heitkotter.
Chronicle: a loose narrative of historical events told in chronological order.
The military: According to Hume Cronyn, memory can be a judicious editor omitting trial and tribulation. It can also be a terrible liar. It is now fifty-two years after the initiation of these first memories of military service, and the retelling of some of these accounts at squadron reunions has turned up more than one version of the same occurrence, leading to a conclusion that some memories may be incorrect. Surely not mine!
The Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese shortened my freshman year at Fresno State College when I headed for San Francisco to sign up into one of the flying services. My big intent for attending college was to get the required two years in for military pilot training, but by now, the requirement had been dropped.
The Army Air Corps took me in, after intensive testing, found I was warm and breathing. A call-up of six months later placed me in Santa Ana with thousands of others. Here, three of us played a little music combo on our off time, which grew into a forty-five-piece military band. We were very unpopular with the squadron mates after the commander used the band as a reason to conduct Sunday parades. A stroke of luck had me assigned to Rankin Aeronautical Academy in Tulare, California, for primary training only an hour’s drive to home in Fresno. The Stearman biplane was really a joy to fly, doing snap rolls before being instructed how to. I credited that to my Jimmie Allen “How to Fly” handbook, which I got in the mail at age ten or so from some cereal company. Each graduating class was treated to a marvelous demonstration of aerobatic flying flown by the legendary world champion Tex Rankin.
Basic flight training was done at Marana, Arizona, where BT-13 “Vultee Vibrators” were in use. No unusual recollections there except a very close miss of an air-to-air collision during night flying. The biggest thrill was being told that I was being assigned to P-38 training at Williams Field in Phoenix, Arizona. Willie Field was a great place. The pace of training picked up and became more serious. In the AT-6, we did the usual navigation, cross-countries, and gunnery. Here I met Bud Huber, who became a great friend who kept me in line and provided real competition for academics and flying scores. We were at the top of the class in gunnery. The transitional trainer to twin-engine was the Curtiss AT-9, a snub-nosed two-place trainer that took off at 120, cruised at 120, and landed at 120.
After many hours of learning cockpit procedures, using the buddy system and blindfolds, the first solo flight came about in the RP-622, a P-38 without armor intended for shipment to England. That was one of the great thrills of my flying experience; having over one thousand horsepower each side of me, at full RPM it fairly jumped out from under me when the brakes were released. Graduation with Class of 43K, December 5, 1943, got a commission as a second lieutenant.
A short time at Salinas, California and then to Santa Maria, California, for transition into battle-equipped P-38 fighters, flying formation, navigation, formation, gunnery, formation, dive-bombing, and formation. While dive-bombing practice on the beach at Santa Maria, the first three flour bombs I dropped missed the clump of dune grass used as my target. Determined to get a hit with my last bomb, I aimed more carefully and unnoticeably longer. Pulling out at four hundred miles an hour, the plane began to shudder a little, a high-speed stall, which prevented pullout. Easing off on back pressure to stop the stall, I maintained optimum pullout and completed it at sea level, kicking up spray from the water. Scary.
On completion at Santa Maria, we went to Hamilton Air Force Base for overseas assignment, which turned out to be China. This would not be known of course until after takeoff leaving the United States. We did know, five of us, Bud Huber, William Pace, Hogan D. Moses, William H. Jones, and myself, that we would proceed to Chicago, then to Miami by train. At Salt Lake City, I walked to a drug store for medicine and just made it back in time to board the train. After playing cards till bedtime, I complained to the conductor that I could not find my bunk in the Pullman. I was told that my car was part of the second section made up at Salt Lake, so he put me off the train at a very remote water station, and the telegraph operator flagged down the second section—the water station, because these were steam engines. I caught up with the other four, who I was supposed to be in charge of—my first and only command—twelve hours after they arrived in Chicago. The only other incident recalled during the Miami Express from Chicago was that the bar was shut down while moving through the dry states.
The Air Corps had taken over several beachfront hotels in Miami and we had to endure the hospitality of the Floridian Hotel for five days before shipping out. You can imagine what we did during our last chance to enjoy stateside pleasures. The following account of the flight from Miami is a diary written during the flight in a DC-6 [probably a DC-4] four-engine transport. 29 March 1944: After weighing in about 14:00, sat around until 17:00, checked out of a hotel, ate supper, and went to the airport. Took off about 20:30 and slept until we landed in Borinquen Field, Puerto Rico. Had half an hour there. Took off about 1:45, 30th of March, 44.
Slept until we arrived at Atkinson Field, Georgetown, British Guiana, at 08:00. Ate breakfast and took off at 08:45. Didn’t see much of South America as there were clouds, nothing but jungle for as far as one could see when we did see it. Landed at Belém at 12 o’clock, ate lunch, and took off about 13:00. All times thus far Eastern Wartime. Slept and played cards until we arrived at Natal, Brazil, at approximately 22:30. Ate supper, showered, shaved, slept in a bed for a change—mosquito nets and all. After breakfast, takeoff was delayed until 11:30, and when we tried then, one engine failed. Taxied back and spent all day on the post. Sent four pair of silk stockings home to Helen. Wrote letters and were hot all day.
Takeoff from Natal accomplished at 23:30 Greenwich Time, started another rummy game with Huber and beat his pants off again. Slept till landing on Ascension Island, approximately 06:00, 1st of April. Ate breakfast and waited for oil leak repair. Took off at 9:40 for Africa, and hit very rough weather nearly there.
Landed at Accra about 17:30, were issued quarters, ate, and wrote letters. Took all the precautions against malaria. Was called out of bed at 23:00 and took off at 00:30, midnight. Reached Maiduguri, Nigeria, at 6:30, April 2nd, 1944. A very nice place. Took off at 9:10, arrived in Khartoum, Egyptian Sudan, about 19:30, ate supper and waited for the usual maintenance before takeoff at 22:30. Began getting tired, restless, and couldn’t sleep well during flight. Arrived at Aden, Arabia, about 03:30, April 3rd. Set my watch to 4:30, ate two breakfasts between then and takeoff, which was at 08:00. Began to feel worn out. Slept till we landed at Nasir Island [Hormuz] four hours from Karachi, for gas. Took off at 13:45. Slept again until we landed at Karachi at about 18:00. Checked in, ate supper, and was taken to Army Air Force Relocation Center and given quarters. Awaiting orders to proceed to combat outfit. Out.
In Karachi, India, we waited about two weeks for our next flight toward China. The area was desert, hot, very little or no vegetation. Maybe that influenced us all to get bare haircuts. We bicycled, socialized with the British officers, and did a little shopping, and flew with a B-25 squadron there to complete time for flight pay. Next flight in the DC-3 or C-47, we flew across India to the Assam Valley, circling low over the Taj Mahal at Agra on the way. Now we were in hot, muggy, tropical country, lots of insects, noisy night creatures, and we were happy to be issued bug spray cans. I believe that I must have slept all the way over the Hump—or the Himalayas—to get to Kunming China, as I remember none of it.
The 449th Fighter Squadron was the only P-38 squadron in the Fourteenth Air Force, and they were just completing a rather intensive campaign during which several airplanes were lost, but fortunately, very few pilots lost. We were told upon reporting for duty that, “We’ve got twenty-four pilots and only eight airplanes. You go report to the 16th Fighter Squadron at the other end of the runway.” Five of us red-hot P-38 pilots who came all the way to China to win the war for them, and they assigned us to P-40s! What a blow to whatever morale we had.
After a week in my bunk, the 16th commander came in and said, “Heitkotter, you WILL go to the flight line today and check out in a P-40. That is an order.” Well, what the hell? My instructor ran me through all the procedures, then jumped down saying, “Take it up, it’s all yours.” Then he jumped back on the wing and said, “Oh, I forgot. When it spins out from under you, just chop the throttle, it will head straight down for easy pull-out. Get to about three thousand feet before you try to turn.”
Well, I did and it did—first over the top and next out from under. But gradually, I learned to turn fairly tight and hold coordination. Next day, I was assigned to Blue Flight, and sure enough, had a two-ball alert of enemy fighters coming in from the southeast. I determined right then that I was heading northwest if they showed up! They did not, and after a few days more practice, I grew to like the old machine. But then disaster struck, twice. Pace spun out when pulling up during the tactical landing, and another 16th pilot I did not know spun in. So we twin-engine pilots were grounded because they figured the single-engine torque was too much for us.
Now the worst occurred: We were assigned to be co-pilots in C-47s in the transport command. On top of that degradation, I was made PX officer for the outfit. I was soon replaced in that job because I divided each product type into the number of guys in the squadron, then distributed a pile of assorted goods to each. It was up to them to trade off what they did not want. I liked the process, but too many others did not. There were some exciting times, though, flying from place to place with freight and people. We would gather the nurses and the USO girls for our dance parties. My enterprising chief pilot bought Chinese yuan with American money when we landed where the Japs were pushing in, where he could get a lot for less. Then, when we landed where the Chinese were pushing back the Japs, he would sell it for a very profitable exchange. We were one of the last transports to leave Kweilin before it was blown up to prevent the Japs using it. In order to close the door, we had to literally kick away several frantic people who wanted to leave with us to escape the Japs, who had almost reached the edge of the field.
The next big news was very good news indeed, the 449th had acquired some P-38s and had rotated a few pilots home. So we—Huber, Jones, and I—were assigned to the squadron and even assigned our own airplanes. I promptly did a little nose art on mine, renaming it Black Lace. Hogan Moses elected to remain in the transport squadron, and we heard later that he ran into a granite cloud and was killed. I took his death very hard, even to crying for him, but these were very emotional times.
Most of the missions were dive bombing with a little strafing going in. Four of us went about seven hundred miles to burn a bridge in Thailand with napalm, but the constant high humidity there had the timber so saturated, they did not ignite. One 500-pounder would have done it. We had our own brand of snafus, you see. The most fun was a shuttle bombing run into Burma. We would leave home base, bomb the Japs in Burma, then fly on to Tingkawk Sakan, Burma, for more bombs to drop on the way back home. A little Yankee ingenuity soon developed, because they had no eggs among their food. They had white bread, spam, other stateside goodies, and canned beer. We had lots of eggs at our base and no canned beer. The two economies soon became more equalized. After bombing on the return run, we flew home at high altitude to cool the beer for those who eagerly gathered after landing. This went on for a couple of weeks or so and was sought after duty.
The first big encounter between the navies in the Philippines had the surviving Jap ships go into Amoy Harbor in China. General Chennault immediately ordered us to our easternmost airfield, to load up with 1,000-pound bombs and hit Amoy. While loading bombs, we learned from recon that Amoy was closed in with fog, so we waited. During this wait, conversation was heard, like “How are you going to do it?” “I don’t know. Maybe flip it in going into a loop from the ground,” or “Straight down the stacks,” or “I’ll skip it in while strafing,” or “From above the ack-ack and get the hell out of there.” Fortunately, all this chaos came to no fruition as recon now told us that the Jap navy had left Amoy under the fog cover in unknown direction. Never have so many been so relieved. So we hit an alternate target on the way home, reducing a reported three-story Jap headquarters building to a very large hole in the ground.
Another bridge that escaped undamaged in enemy territory was a lovely suspension bridge protected by a gun emplacement on the bank. I was tail-end Charlie again, and three near-misses preceeded my run. During the dive, I became more intent on the rising tracers from the gun than on the bridge. I missed the bridge but made a direct hit on the gun. I should have been first!
Going home to Chengkung, our home base, the squadron commander, Captain James L. Bledsoe, became lost. I had not been paying any attention to navigation, more or less napping on the way home, when the captain indicated to me, his wingman, that I should lead, and gave me no alternative as he slid back onto my right wing. As I became more awake and alert, it seemed that we were in a strange territory, and it seemed that we should be heading more northerly. On pure intuition, I turned the flight about 25 degrees to the right, and in about twenty minutes, the lake on which our base was located, came into view. Well now, without further hesitation, Captain Bledsoe took charge again and fearlessly led us in for a safe landing.
Captain Bledsoe was not very popular with the pilots, as he came from a transport command and knew little of fighter tactics. His most horrifying demonstration of this came when he had twelve of us stacked in a beautiful echelon right, then went into a right turn. It was extremely lucky that none of us collided in suddenly finding we had nowhere to go.
My first contact with Jap fighters happened as a coincidence on September 8, 1944, while on detachment at Yunnanyi, China. Four of us—Lieutenant Stuart Lee, me on his wing, Lieutenant Don Forsythe, and Lieutenant Tom Calder—were sent to Paoshan to escort some C-47 transports to drop supplies to General Stilwell’s troops in Burma. Just as we got the Paoshan airfield in sight, twelve Jap Oscars attacked the airfield. We climbed, gone in, and then all hell broke loose. Lieutenant Lee knocked one down. Then as his wingman, I hit and damaged the Oscar on Lee’s tail. Lieutenant Lee’s plane was hit and he immediately left the area on one engine. The ground machine gunner knocked one down during its strafing run. I got onto the tail of the leader, and from about a thousand feet or less, he rolled over and did a split-S, leaving me with a mountain to run into. I had rolled into a 90-degree bank, and when he went straight down, I saw that I could not follow him. I continued to roll, and just got over the top of the hill. We both climbed while coming around to meet again in a head-on pass. Both of us must have been a little chicken, with a little left rudder to avoid a collision, which also aimed our guns aside, as there were no hits. We just looked at each other as we passed within fifty feet.
I climbed away and soon saw that the remaining Oscars were reforming and heading south toward Burma. I lined up well behind to note their heading for debriefing when I realized that I could climb a little into the cloud cover and catch them unseen for a real turkey shoot. But my judgment of speed and distance was the basis for a huge disappointment, for as I descended out of the clouds, I find myself right beside their formation, unable to turn into them without colliding. So, I just turned away and around and went home. I wondered later about the wisdom of that tactic; my miscalculation might have had me descending into the middle of their formation, or perhaps a little in front. Then imagine my disappointment!
Two incidents that happened in late 1944, were brought together many years later, as told in the 449th Fighter Squadron newsletter, and inserted here. In a newsletter last year, I had commented about a P-38 belly landing witnessed by Philip L. Stallard, with the 374th Bomb Squadron at Chengkung Air Base. It was identified as number 327, and the question was, did anyone remember who that pilot was? Bob Burrell wrote that he was the proud father of that experience. I quote in part from his letter: “That was my plane with me flying it. And it wasn’t a case of not being able to get the gear down. I elected to make the belly-in because I didn’t want to roll for a mile after the touchdown.”
Bob continues, “The impeller section of my right turbo had disintegrated, severing the fuel and oil lines in my right boom, leaving about a two-foot hole where the turbo had been and had caught fire. The flames were all the way back to the right vertical stabilizer. You can bet the pucker string was pretty tight about that time, and all I wanted was to get out of that thing. I was too low to jump, hence the belly-in.” Bob, we are glad that you were able to walk away from that with no more than a damaged plane.
And then an answer: “Previous Squadron newsletters had made mention of a P-38 number 327, having to belly in at Chengkung Air Base, and Bob Burrell’s description of that experience. Jim Heitkotter, in a letter subsequent to those articles, states that what led to the belly-in was also an unusual and interesting event. I’ll let Jim tell his part: ‘At Yunnanyi, I was flying 327 on a mission to destroy what everyone could see had already been thoroughly destroyed: A Jap headquarters area. All the buildings on the rolling hills were obliterated, but we were told it was still active. We dive-bombed with 500-pound RDX bombs, and as tail-end Charlie—my usual spot—on the way down, I noticed what looked like a little bit of tile roof covered with limbs on a creek. I needed to rotate about 20 degrees to line up. And instead of pulling up and making a decent run, I did rotate and let go of two 500-pounders when too low. The blast and debris surrounded me with a hell of a jolt. Pulling out, I noticed oil streaming out of the right engine cooler. Both engines were running fine, but I feathered the right one to save it. By the time I reached home base, I was pretty high, so I would have less trouble pumping down the gear if it was necessary.
“‘Shortly after I had left the target, I attempted to switch tanks, but the selector valve was jammed. Remember the location of that valve? It would not have to be pushed up very much to perhaps cause at least a change of voice. Also in looking around, a large hole about eight inches across, lay up against the inside hinge of the left aileron. I noticed a few others too, but the airplane still handled very nicely. The hydraulic system put the wheels down okay, and on final, I passed and waved off a C-46 on approach, but was overshooting, so elected to go around on one engine. I did get over the little hills off the end of the runway, but sank out of sight of those watching on the ground when I very slowly milked up the flaps. That was the longest 360-degree turn in sweating time ever experienced by me.
“‘I remained in ground effect, and it seemed that I was level with the eaves of the farmer’s houses as I came around. Some may remember that the service depot and repair facilities were at the opposite end of the runway from our operations shack. After landing, I taxied to that depot, got out, and counted over twenty holes and a missing left prop spinner. They fixed it, and I suppose ferried it to Kunming so Bob could then take it up and belly land it. Perhaps that turbo was damaged enough in the blast, and since it was shut down all the way home, it waited for Bob’s flight to let go. Well, anyway, sorry about that, Bob. Oh, that was a 10-inch piece of four-by-four that jammed the selector valve!'”
During the quieter times of life in the 449th, which seemed like most of the time, one of the activities was photography. Our neighboring squadron across the runway was a photo recon outfit, so I did a bit of scrounging from them, set me up with chemicals and paper enough to do my own developing and printing. I built a contact printer and an enlarger with bits and pieces scrounged from the repair depot and the kitchen, using my camera as the negative rack and lens for the enlarger. It developed that the supply sergeant had to turn me down for equipment, like a projector bulb for the enlarger, and larger pans for enlargements, because fighter squadron technical orders did not list photography. I took this problem to General Chennault during one of our bi-monthly dance parties, suggesting that since I was developing and printing for the rest of the guys in the squadron, that it was a matter of morale. He agreed and summarily wrote a note making me squadron photography officer. What could the supply sergeant say? I got all I needed.
A date I well remember is January 5, 1945. It was a sunny morning and I had acquired a new hunting knife, which I had out of its belt sheath, and was attempting to sharpen to an edge that would shave hair. This idle pastime was interrupted by orders to prepare for immediate takeoff with belly tanks for a strike. Belly tanks of course meant a long way to go, and it proved to be Samah Bay at the southern tip of Hainan Island, which was a good way beyond the Chinese shoreline in the South China Sea. Photo recon came back with pictures of a large buildup of aircraft at that airfield, so General Chennault characteristically moved quickly to hit them before they hit anywhere.
Nine P-38s and twelve P-51s took off from Chengkeng, but Lieutenant Carroll Huber had to turn back with engine trouble. Continuing on in P-38s were Captain Ralph Wire in command, Captain Keith Mahon, Lieutenant Henry Rogers, on whose wing I flew, Lieutenant Fred Roll, Lieutenant David Tribby, Lieutenant Melvin Mercer, and Lieutenant Robert Christy. We flew down the Red River, past Hanoi and Haiphong, then 270 miles over the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin to Hainan Island.
The first pass on the airfield—a near surprise—began with a rather steep descent after jettisoning our belly tanks at twenty thousand feet altitude. At five hundred miles an hour, Captain Wire strafed the flight line of parked aircraft. His left wingman strafed the hangars. Lieutenant Rogers strafed the aircraft taking off the runway, and I on his right wing had no target except a truck rumbling along a burm on the far edge of the airfield. But by the time I corrected a couple degrees to line up, I was past him.
At that speed, the ground seemed like a huge roller, because whatever I saw ahead of me was under me so quickly. That first pass by Green Flight left six Oscars destroyed or damaged on the ground. Lieutenant Keith Mahon knocked down three Oscars, Lieutenant Dave Tribby got one Oscar, while I damaged one in the air. I never learned what the scores made by the P-51s were, but a P-51 was lost during the fight. More about him later.
In regrouping for the flight home, Lieutenant Christy found that he could not maintain much speed, and I found that my wingtip tanks of 70 gallons had siphoned out. The trip would now have to be made at ultra-economy cruise. So, I flew rather slowly with Lieutenant Christy, looking very carefully around and under his airplane to find the cause of his trouble. I found nothing, but he could maintain only about 115 miles an hour. We planned on landing at Mengtze as it was about 140 miles short of home, but the evening fog was filling the Nantan [Nanxi] River canyon, which meant the airfield would be socked in. We had no choice but to fly on into the night, and it did get dark very rapidly. In a short time, Christy radioed that, “This warning light’s been on so long, it must be standard equipment. I’m going to bail out.” I then answered, “Pick a good spot, I’ll be right behind you.” All these proceedings had not bothered me much—even zipping my maps into my jacket, putting the first aid kit on my arm, and jettisoning the canopy. But then, I saw in the blackness, the impact and explosion of Christy’s plane. I prayed that he got out okay and was then genuinely frightened.
The human mind plays strange tricks when in very stressful times, and this was one of those times. Ahead in the canyon, the evening village fires had been lighted—probably for cooking—and when first seen, they were aligned into two neat rows, outlining the most beautiful runway I had ever seen. But as I flew closer, they were scattered randomly. The fires did indicate possible help, so I prepared to bail out.
I slowed Black Lace, rolled down the right window, and put my butt and chute pack on the wing, and slid head first on my back toward the tail. What happened then is uncertain, except that what I felt was certainly the most shocking and painful of anything I had yet experienced. My lower left leg was hit so severely that my first thought was that it had been cut off. I may have hit the tail or I may have hung up on the rather sharp canopy window frame, or a more far-fetched possibility might be that the plane may have been in a full stall, and as we fell together, a prop may have struck me. My second thought was, “How the hell will I walk back to the squadron now?” And my third thought was, “Open the parachute!” That too was a real joke in which my maps came out of the jacket, the first aid kit come off my arm, and my .45 caliber automatic sidearm came off my belt. All were lost of course. Then no more than thirty seconds later, another jolt when I hit the ground.
Stunned for a while, I discovered I still had my foot, and reaching down to my lower leg, my hand went through my ripped pants leg and into a very soft and slippery hole about the size of a three-by-five postcard. The parachute pack contained a machete, survival equipment, and food, and some medicine, including a couple of packs of sulfa powder, which I sprinkled over the wound. Then with that little hunting knife I had sharpened that morning, I cut strips from the parachute to bind and wrap my leg. That was especially painful as reaching down, stretched the damaged leg muscle, pulling it even more apart. Far below I could make out fires in the village, which was the reason I chose to jump here. With a small package of matches, lighting one or two at a time, I waved in various patterns to signal to anyone out there.
I tried then to prop my leg uphill to minimize bleeding, and I dozed fitfully the rest of the night. I had bailed out at 6 p.m., and the nights are long anyway, at 25 degree latitude in January. As dawn approached, I could make out a small tree about fifty feet away, with forked limbs that could make a pair of crutches. So taking the machete, I scooted my feet ahead of me while in a sitting position toward the tree. Thirty minutes later, I still had about twenty feet to go, and found I was too weak to drag the machete, much less cut down the tree.
Most people never have the chance to thank God for fervent prayers that have been answered, and I felt that I was face-to-face with Him, with profound gratitude, when a team of Chinese appeared out of the early light, with the equipment to carry me down. They had seen my match signals and had climbed up the rather steep mountain—about fifteen hundred feet—with large diameter bamboo poles, a rack made for pack horses, and a rope to make a sort of sedan chair in which to carry me down. The rack was inverted and lashed to the poles, and my parachute pack was placed as a seat cushion. A rope is tied between the poles to support my injured leg up high. Then, with one person at each of the four pole ends, they proceeded to carry me down the mountain. Little places along the way that were more treacherous, during which passage, more then, would join in to make it a safer carry.
At the top of the mountain, I had discovered using my pointie-talkie, a small booklet of comparative phrases in Chinese and English, that at least one of my rescuers could read what I pointed at. So I determined that there was help and a radio transmitter nearby. A runner got underway with a message to Fourteenth Air Force Headquarters. “Nearby” proved to be a full day’s journey at a fairly steady quick-step gait.
When we reached the canyon bottom and the river I was carried through where my airplane crashed, it had almost totally buried itself in the soft earth. I saw one wheel and what appeared to be the leading edge of a wing, and it had hit just outside the edge of the village. No wonder they were alerted to something wrong!
The journey took us along the Red River, which circled a mountain beyond which was the mission, our destination. The news had preceded us, and at every hamlet, compound, and village, the people lined the trail, most dressed in their finest, most colorful clothes, to see what an American pilot would look like. Most stared with their mouths held open, which seemed to be a Chinese custom, and a few smiled to show a little compassion and encouragement. We ferried the river a few times, and sometimes some haggling over price was necessary with the more mercenary operators. I just observed, making no mention of my escape money belt, containing over $1,000 in American, French, and Chinese currency. I could have been dumped very easily!
In my parachute medical kit were two syringes of morphine, but not knowing what ordeal I might be facing, I elected to hold off using any until the pain become unbearably intense. It was anyway, but about midday, I thought it might be the right time, so I squeezed one of them until it would show some liquid. It showed no liquid. It was completely dry. Should I try the other one? It seemed that I gathered a little strength to hold off again, so that I could look forward to a little relief.
The trip continued, stopping only for a drink of water occasionally. The porters, when tired, would be replaced by new men picked up along the way, usually without even slowing. Just before dark we were met by one of the German missionaries, Mr. A. Pretel, who spoke very good English and who assured me that I would be well cared for. I then felt brave enough to face that other syringe of morphine. My faith paid off. It was full and did provide considerable relief.
As the night came on, the Chinese lighted the trail with burning sticks of pine—the sight that was most indicative that I was indeed in a primitive area. On arrival at the Pretel mission, I was only barely conscious. I recall some shots administered in the stomach area, but for several days I was seldom awake, severely weakened by loss of blood. But I do remember that Mrs. Pretel had set up a folding canvas lounge chair close to my bed and maintained a constant vigil.
Mr. And Mrs. Dietrich, whose mission was a few miles away, also spent considerable time caring for me. The room I was in contained my single bed and little else. One window, placed rather high, prevented looking outdoors. The walls were crudely plastered and whitewashed. From time to time, visitors would come in and pray for me. Actually, they prayed with me. I did a lot of praying for myself and for the missionaries. Mr. And Mrs. Dietrich had three children: a daughter about age twelve and twin boys, about eight years old. They seemed to be enjoying a very good family life in a very primitive environment.
Later on, when I could think a little, Mr. Pretel asked what dimensions would be necessary to clear the riverbank for a small airplane to get in and out for rescue purposes. With that, he enlisted the help of the Chinese from all around the mission to roll rocks and boulders and remove snags, and in a short time they had cleared an airstrip on the sand.
January 15 was a day for rejoicing. Captains Julius Pomeranze, medical doctor, and Amil Stafford, engineering officer, arrived with badly needed medical supplies. They traveled by ambulance one day to the end of the road, then followed rumors on foot for five days over some very mountainous trails to get to me. Captain Stafford’s report of their activities appeared separately at the end of this writing.
Being medical missionaries who had been in this remote area and out of touch for so many years, Mr. and Mrs. Pretel and Mr. and Mrs. Dietrich seemed to be constantly seeking information and advice from Dr. Pomeranze, and he certainly obliged. It seemed that the blood plasma and whatever else I received, did a world of good. I was feeling much better. The doctor had me believing I would be walking back with them in a couple of weeks. My appetite began to come back and I got a big boost when one of the ladies—I believe Mrs. Pretel—baked the most delicious chocolate cake in her primitive clay wood-burning oven outside. Though I could not see out of the transom-like window of the room I was in, I could hear the evening rehearsals of the choral group, formed of children through adults of the Chinese community. That made me homesick enough to bring tears, as they were singing the songs of Stephen Foster.
I was called on to arbitrate an argument between the two lead boys whose team found and carried me to the mission. A quarrel developed as to whom I gave the machete as an act of gratitude. I was thinking better now, so I asked if anyone had my parachute D-ring, which I wanted as a souvenir of all this. It was produced, so to compensate for the machete going to one of them, I gave the other my small hunting knife and sheathe, plus the cable of the D-ring. He then used the cable as jewelry.
There had been search planes in the area for a couple of days. What a thrill to hear the sound that the first one disappeared upriver. The next day, another one came and went, which was, to say the least, very disheartening. On the third day, the plane was a P-38, which buzzed the mission, pulled up, and dropped a streamer message. That was Captain Ralph Wire, my squadron commander.
The following day, January 20, 1945, a small plane had landed, and I was carried in a stretcher-like litter suspended from two poles, which were supported on the shoulders of two Chinese. The distance from the mission to the riverbank airstrip was long enough over some rough trail to cause me to arrive at the airplane—and huge crowds celebrating the occasion—in a state of motion sickness, I was very embarrassed about upchucking in the midst of so many who came to wish me well. The choral group gathered at the L-5B and sang some beautiful harmonized Stephen Foster again. Goodbyes were said all around, the missionaries were so very—so I was glad that I had left my money belt under the mattress. On takeoff, I noticed that the sergeant lifted a wing and rolled on one wheel. We landed after dark in Kunming, again rolling on one wheel. I mentioned that I also like to use that technique, to which he said, “I didn’t want to tell you earlier, but I broke a wheel on landing up there. Only the tire held it together.”
In the hospital ward, I found that most of the men exhibited a great deal of humor and even valor during their suffering. One gentleman who had his leg removed at mid-thigh two days earlier, connived to obtain some crutches so he could go two wards down the hall to visit his friend, who we had been hearing wailing and moaning because of an operation on his hemorrhoids.
Then there was the officer from special services who had a collapsed lung after taking a bullet meant for the builder of a bonfire during a blackout. I told him about a T-shirt I was wearing during rescue, that was given to me by my sister Fern, which had horizontal one-inch stripes and resembled an American flag. I made up a story that when my Chinese rescuers arrived to pick me up, I did not know whether they were friendly to the Japanese or the Chinese. So I unbuttoned my shirt to expose the flag-like T-shirt, and asked “You likee American?” Well, the young woman who seemed to be in charge then unbuttoned her shirt and asked “You likee Nipponese?” I did not realize his one lung would not support his sense of humor. The poor guy nearly died laughing. Literally. I made the same mistake sometime later when I offered him some raisins from a care package, this time from my sister, Naomi, and I said, “Take two, they’re small.” That poor guy.
The guys in the 449th, based only eleven miles away, came in to visit and set me up with a radio. Then another pair of visitors, Andre Kostelanetz and Lily Pons came in. Andre then had the idea of starting up a China Theater radio station for entertainment to the troops. Nothing came of that.
Another flight over the Hump had me in Calcutta, where they finished me up with some skin grafting. One of the nurses came to work one morning looking mighty haggard indeed. Her story was that she began her trip to work in a taxicab, which quit running. She then took a gharry, a one-horse buggy, but didn’t get far until the horse collapsed. She hailed a rickshaw and got nearly to the hospital when the runner suddenly died of a heart attack.
At various stops while flying home, the Red Cross ladies took very good care of our small group. In Cairo, we were taken to the Sphinx and Pyramids and a museum or two. We flew across North Africa to Tripoli and Casablanca, then to the Azores and on to Miami, Florida, landing on the 29th of March 1945—exactly one year after leaving the United States from that same airport.
What a thrill to be in Miami. Overseas, I had longed for a huge green salad and a chocolate milkshake. Several returnees were eating and drinking those as I walked through the hotel coffee shop on crutches now. Just seeing that they were available anytime I wanted was enough to satisfy my craving. One of the injured guys in my group complained that he could not find crutches small enough, so I gave him mine in exchange for his cane with, which I walked all over town looking at the great sights of being home: girls in shorts, well-stocked and bright stores, well-stacked girls in shorts, clean streets and transportation, and girls in shorts!
That evening I ended up dancing at a huge bar and dance club where some sailor stole my cane. From then on, I did without and I believe got stronger much faster. In fact, it wasn’t long after that when back at home in Fresno, that I was a little late breaking away from my fiancee’s house when the last bus went by, so I broke into a run to catch it. What a great feeling to be able to be running again and I ran all the way to the bus a block away where he had stopped to make his end-of-the-line report.
My brother Bill wrote to me from Texas that he had heard a radio program presenting my story in a national broadcast. He mailed a letter from the producer, which included the script in which a few liberties were taken to change some facts in order to make it sound more exciting and dangerous.
From Kenyon & Eckhardt, Inc. Advertising, New York, Chicago, Hollywood, Montreal: “Dear Mr. Heitkotter, thank you for your letter of April 30. Your interest in the story about your brother is quite understandable. I am enclosing herewith an excerpt from the script of my broadcast of April 30th concerning your brother James. Very truly yours, Gilbert Martin.”
“This is the story of four Germans and one American fighter pilot. In these terrible days of war, we are conscious of daily acts of medieval cruelty and barbarism. We have heard and seen unparalleled blows at racial and religious tolerance. Yet this story only serves to remind us that not all peoples carrying the national strains of the Axis powers are such sadists or bullies.
“This fine story of gallantry comes to us from Chungking. Four German missionaries were credited with saving the life of an American fighter pilot forced down in the strange mountains of Japanese-occupied China. Second Lieutenant James Heitkotter of Mountain View, California, was roaring homeward from a sweep over the Gulf of Tonkin beyond the large French Indochina coast city of Hanoi when he was forced to bail out of his P-38. His leg was slashed by the tail boom of the plane when he jumped and it was laid open to the bone.
“Heitkotter landed on mountain slopes which formed a mile-deep gorge of the Red River. He lay there all night in terrible pain. He was saving his emergency morphine until the pain became so intense he couldn’t bear it. The next day, Chinese peasants brought word of the American’s accident to the missionaries on the other side of the mountain. After a long all-night walk, the Germans whose home had once been in Munich, found the wounded pilot and carried him back over the mountain to their home.
“Soon through German sisters at a mission station nearby, word of Heitkotter’s rescue was sent to Fourteenth Air Force Headquarters at Kunming. When an engineering and a medical officer arrived at the far-off mission in the mountains six days later, they found the Germans personally tending to the pilot on twenty-four-hour shifts, giving him their scanty supply of drugs and compresses.
“It seems the officers had set out in a south-westerly direction with only the name of the small village, which was not listed on the maps. They trudged over 8,500-foot mountains with only an armed guard carrying blankets, plasma, and surgical kits. Remember too, this all took place in Japanese-held territory, where the slightest misstep might result in sudden death.
“Immediately, the Germans and 150 students at the mission school built a small landing strip on the bank of the Red River to allow a plane to fly Heitkotter out. Here’s what the engineering officer has to say about the German missionaries: ‘We felt we were leaving people we had known all our lives. They had been away from Germany most of their lives. Their only interest seemed to be working with the Chinese, and they hardly kept posted on the war.’ Thus, the tender hands of four old Germans kept Lieutenant Heitkotter—whose name isn’t exactly Irish either—from the brink of death. There is a moral to be learned from such instance of bravery and gallantry in these days of death, destruction, and bitter hatred.”
Another brother, Don, wrote while serving with the occupation troops in Tokyo, that his Japanese kitchen help was a pilot who told him of being in a big air battle on Hainan Island against the Fork-Tailed Dragons—or P-38s—and all the details matched our Samah Bay raid, one of which was that a P-51 fighter had crashed on their field. I then notified the War Department of that fact, which may have cleared up one missing-in-action casualty.
In retrospect, there have been a lot of people who earned my undying gratitude for their part in my rescue and recovery. The most profound, of course, were the German Lutheran missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. A. Pretel and Mr. and Mrs. Dietrich, and their Chinese community. Then the team of Captain Julius Pomeranze and Captain Emil Stafford. And I do believe that the commander who was directing everyone in answer to some very strenuous praying, was God himself.
The following is the report of my rescue submitted to the Fourteenth Air Force Headquarters in Kunming, China:
“21 February 1945,
“Subject: Report on Pilot Rescue Mission
“To: Commanding Officer, China Air Service Command (Provisional), APO 627
“On the basis of a Chinese radiogram stating that a wounded American flier was at a mission in Oshan [Eshan] and that it was possible to land nearby by airplane, Captain Julius Pomeranze, Medical Corps, left Kunming on 10 January 1945 in an L-5-type airplane but was unable to find a suitable landing strip in the vicinity of Oshan and returned to Kunming. Arrangements then were made by Captain Pomeranze to return to Oshan the following day, 11, January 45, by ambulance to evacuate the wounded flier. We, Captain Amil C. Stafford, Air Corps, Julius Pomeranze, Medical Corps, and the ambulance driver, left Kunming at 8:30, arriving at Oshan at 11:30, a distance of eighty-three miles.
“Upon locating the mission at Oshan, we learned from Sister Preisinger that the wounded flier was not at Oshan but was at Mosha, a five-days walk approximately ninety miles over mountain trails. Note: the Chinese at Kunming received the radiogram, were unable to find Mosha on their maps, and since the radiogram originated at Oshan, the latter was submitted for Mosha in the message. We further learned from Sister Preisinger at Oshan that Sister Eichmann in Xinping had telephoned the night before stating that word by runner from Mosha said the wounded flier’s condition was serious giving for the first time any hint as to the location and extent of his injury and that efforts would be made to remove the patient to Xinping if his condition would permit thereby saving us two days walking.
“Decision was made immediately to send a message back by the ambulance driver to Major Greenwood giving dropping instructions for Xinping, and to proceed there at once, even though totally unprepared for the journey. We requested two soldiers from the Oshan magistrate as guides and one coolie to carry our equipment as listed: two musette bags, two units of blood plasma, one medical field kit, two GI blankets each, one pair of socks each, and our shaving kits.
“We left Oshan 11 January 1945 at 13:30, arriving at Po-chiao [Pojiao] at 16:45, our first night’s stop. Left Po-chiao 12 January 45, 7:30, arriving in Malutang at 15:00, our second night out. Left Malutang, 13 January at 6:10, arriving in Xinping at 13:00 and were met on the outskirts of the village by Sister Eichmann with the most delicious hot coffee and cookies. We proceeded to Sister Eichmann’s mission where the excellent accommodations were provided.
“At 14:30 that evening, a runner from Mosha brought us word that 1st Lieutenant James Heitkotter, 449th Fighter Squadron—our first information as to the pilot’s name and organization—was too weak from loss of blood and was in no condition to be moved. We made immediate preparations to leave the following morning, 14 January, as soon as Major Robert Greenwood dropped us medical supplies and money as requested by the ambulance driver.
“We also requested of the Xinping magistrate six soldiers for guides and protection, one coolie, and pack horses for the additional medical supplies. The Xinping magistrate graciously granted our request and seeing that we were traveling unarmed, sent eight soldiers because the next two days would take us into bandit territory. The Mosha valley chief and his soldiers joined our party the next morning so that we had a small army for protection.
“In the morning of January 14, I made a telephone call from Xinping to an American radio net station giving the exact location of Lieutenant James Heitkotter with reference points as near as possible, his organization and condition, with a request for contact by airplane on 16 January 45 for possible evacuation of the patient by air, requesting that the message be forwarded immediately to Major Robert Greenwood.
“With our armed caravan, we proceeded to the outskirts of Xinping to wait for the medical supplies to be dropped by air, leaving instructions with Sister Eichmann as to the deadline time, and if they were dropped later to send them on immediately by runner. However, the supplies were dropped safely at 1100 and we proceeded on our way, arriving at Chu-Ti-Mo at 1800. Left Chu-Ti-Mo the following morning at 7:30 and arrived at Mosha at 13:00.
“During these five days, we had covered approximately ninety miles over trails that were almost vertical in ascent and descent for hours at a time. It would have been almost impossible to have evacuated Lieutenant James Heitkotter for some weeks due to his condition. We ate and lived with the Chinese villagers who were most congenial, and we suffered only from fleas as we had no flea powder. This part of the journey was much simplified by the fact that Captain Pomeranze has a good speaking knowledge of the local Chinese language.
“From previous traveling among outlying Chinese villages, his experience and knowledge were of inestimable value. We found Lieutenant Heitkotter at Mr. A. Pretel’s mission where he had been receiving excellent medical attention for five days. Constant care both night and day was provided by Mr. and Mrs. Pretel and Mr. J.L. Dietrich.
“Upon examination of the case by Captain Julius Pomeranze, Medical Corps, Lieutenant Heitkotter’s left leg had an infected laceration of muscles, anterior aspect, exposing the bone. Temperatures ranged up to 103 degrees, which was brought under control by penicillin and drainage and he was weak from loss of blood and plasma requiring the administration of approximately two-thirds of a quart of blood plasma,
“The following day, 16 January 1945, I inspected an emergency landing strip which had been prepared by Mr. A. Pretel and his approximately 150 school boys on the Mosha riverbed and found it suitable for an L-5 and made preparations for both panel and smoke signals.
“On 17, 18, and 19 January, searching planes were heard and sighted but were too high and too far away to see our signals.
“The evening of 19 January at dusk then-Captain Wire, commanding officer of the 449th Fighter Squadron, located us and dropped a note that an L-5 would be back tomorrow, 20 January 45, to evacuate Lieutenant Heitkotter.
“On 20 January 1945, Major Greenwood with two L-5s of the 19th Liaison Squadron, again located Mosha and landed on the previously prepared emergency landing strip. Lieutenant James Heitkotter was evacuated that afternoon, and the following day, 21 January 45, Captain Pomeranze and myself bade farewell to a small group of German missionaries who are sincere friends of the Chinese people and their allies, before leaving in L-5-type airplanes.
“To these missionaries, Lieutenant Heitkotter owes his life and leg. Theirs is a mission of mercy and enlightenment that they have and are performing beyond reproach. The two staff sergeant pilots, Mosier and Harper of the 19th Liaison Squadron, showed extraordinary skill in flying during the entire evacuation. The landing strip was far from the best and the air currents in the riverbed were unsteady.
“Many of these China inland missionaries are located throughout this area and because of the war and their German nationality, they are experiencing serious difficulties with local Chinese authorities. The situation has progressed very nearly to a point where they may be imprisoned or concentrated while their property and goods are confiscated for the benefit of said local authorities. We found them to be purely missionary in spirit, their whole interest and attention being given only to the furtherance of education and medical aid for the Chinese people of their remote area. In any event, even if their German origin should tempt otherwise, their location is far too isolated and remote for any effective action in that respect.
“In the meantime, they are of the utmost value, not only to the Chinese within their sphere of influence, but also to the United States government as a protection for the aircrews lost in the area. They all speak English, maintain a wide-flung and speedy network of native runners, and will go to any extreme to save an American life. In this particular case, word of a parachuting pilot was brought to the mission after nightfall, and they set out immediately, searching throughout the night and discovering him in the early morning. All of the missionaries, although not recognized doctors, are experienced in medical procedures, backed by years of local practice. As a part of their missionary training in Germany, they were required to spend from one to two years in a surgical hospital.
“It is suggested and sincerely requested by both Captain Pomeranze and myself, that a letter be written by the United States Army to the local Chinese authorities on behalf of these China inland missionaries so that they may be let alone to continue their work among the Chinese and stand ready to aid our pilots promptly and efficiently only as they can do.
“To more efficiently handle any emergency that may happen in the future, the following information was made standard and forwarded to the missions as listed on the enclosed chart:
“1. Personnel’s name, organization, and serial number.
“2. Exact location and geographic reference to other well-known localities nearby.
“3. Type of injury, mild, moderate, and severe—severe requiring such immediate medical attention as to justify parachute jump.
“4. The missions at Oshan and Xinping to be central point of all messages of this type.
“5. All messages will be addressed, Air Surgeon’s Office, Fourteenth Air Force Headquarters.
“In general, it is requested that medical kits be prepared for these missions to include in addition to the immediate first aid treatment, tetanus toxoid, anti-gas gangrene, penicillin, blood plasma, and GI first aid handbook.
“As noted above, all the missionaries are competent to handle and administer such medical supplies. It is further understood that should such supplies be furnished, they will be reserved for the benefit only of American personnel.
“Amil C. Stafford, Captain, Air Corps, 68th Air Service Group.”