Interview by Daniel Jackson, August 2, 2008

Daniel Jackson: Hello, sir. It’s Dan Jackson from the Air Force Academy.

Everson Pearsall: Hi, Dan.

Daniel Jackson: How are you today, sir?

Everson Pearsall: All right.

Daniel Jackson: Good. If you want to just get started right away. My first question has to do with how did you get to China in the first place?

Everson Pearsall: I went over as a replacement pilot with two other pilots. Down at Turner Field, in Georgia, was a replacement pool of qualified pilots. And we left on a four-engine transport plane, flew down to the tip of South America, and flew across the South Atlantic, and finally came to Calcutta. And then we stayed there for a couple of days and then were taken by Jeep and about ninety miles north of Calcutta where I joined the 118th Tac Recon Squadron.

Daniel Jackson: Okay. And then from there, did you fly over the Hump then?

Everson Pearsall: I did, but not with the squadron because I came down with yellow jaundice while I was there, and I spent fifty-three days in the hospital. And when I got out, I got on a transport plane and flew over the Hump. And the executive officer met me at Kunming and took one look at me when I got off the plane, he said, “Pearsall, you’d make a hell of an ad for vitamin pills.” And I’ve got that name to this day with anyone that ever knew me overseas, my name is Vitamin Pearsall.

So, he sent me to rest camp for a week, tried to fatten me up, but I didn’t do much about putting weight on. But eventually he came and picked me up and took me to the squadron and I think about four days later I flew my first mission. I had not flown in a long time then and I was very concerned, and I used to go down to the line and sit in a P-40 and just look at the instruments. But the day came, and the crew chief had to start the airplane for me. And once he got it started, I was okay, I taxied out. I was tail-end Charlie as every new pilot was. And took off and I was a little lax in getting into formation and the fight leader let me know it real quick. So, I finally got tightened up and we went down and strafed the hell out of a number of barges with Japanese soldiers on them crossing this river and it was very effective.

Daniel Jackson: And when-a-bouts was this timewise?

Everson Pearsall: I would say it was around early August of 19—I think around early August of ’44.

Daniel Jackson: Okay. And where was the 118th based at that time?

Everson Pearsall: They were based in Kweilin.

Daniel Jackson: When did the—

Everson Pearsall: Excuse me. Yes, they were based in Kweilin.

Daniel Jackson: When did they get moved to Suichuan?

Everson Pearsall: Oh, dear. You’re calling on my memory now. We went from Kweilin to—I would say about two months later, early October, we must have gone to Suichuan.

Daniel Jackson: At that time were you guys primarily equipped with P-40s or P-51s?

Everson Pearsall: P-51s by then, C-model.

Daniel Jackson: Okay. And how did—

Everson Pearsall: Everything had to be flown into us; we were way behind the lines. But it was very convenient for us to get to Hong Kong Harbor and places like that—as was the case with three or four other fields we flew from. We raised so much hell; the Japs would send their ground troops in and kick us out. That’s just what happened in Suichuan. And I remember that day very, very well because it happened rather quickly, and the squadron was not prepared to move as quickly as it had to. And I know another pilot and myself were assigned to fly out on the wing of a C-46 transport plane. I went out in a P-40, so did the other pilot. We decided we’d better have a talk with the two pilots of the transport and explained to them that if they got that thing down much below 160 miles an hour, they’re going to lose two of the best fighter pilots in the country.

The problem was that day, there was a fifteen-hundred-foot ceiling. And we told them to go up into the ceiling, which they could do with their transport plane, and come down at the far end of the field in a dive and come across at a speed of close to 200 miles an hour if they could before climbing out. And we would join up with them before we went into the clouds. And one was on the right side of the tail and I was on the left side. And that was one hell of a ride back, about two hours back to the field we had come from, I’ve forgotten the name of it now. But we had a little brief rest, but when we broke out in the clear about halfway there and Captain Decker and I were able to move off to the side and relax a little bit. But if you take your eyes off the instrument panel too long or you’d lose sight of the transport plane, the clouds were very thick.

Daniel Jackson: Wow. How long was the flight you said, about two hours?

Everson Pearsall: About two hours.

Daniel Jackson: So, did they evacuate the entire base with the C-46s then, when the Japanese were coming in with the ground troops?

Everson Pearsall: Well, all our airplanes were flown out, some of them went on the transports. We lost two guys who went up and decided to do it alone in P-51s, and they both crashed and were killed.

Daniel Jackson: Oh, wow. Just spun out in the weather?

Everson Pearsall: That’s right.

Daniel Jackson: How much weather flying experience did most fighter pilots have at that time?

Everson Pearsall: The regular, which we got before we got our wings, and we didn’t have much occasion to fly instruments in combat because they tried to be careful about the weather.

Daniel Jackson: Did the weather inhibit your operations very much there?

Everson Pearsall: It did at times. And if it got risky, they would call the mission off. But one day when I was in the hospital—I heard this when I got to the squadron—three boys went out towards the coast in China where the best targets were. And coming back, the clouds had filled in and they found themselves up in clear weather, sunshiny weather, but with no break in the clouds. The flight leader said when they got where they thought they were near to our base, the flight leader gave them a choice, he said, “I think I can get us down or you can bail out.” Well, I know it’s very, very difficult to leave a perfectly flying airplane and bail out. But that’s what they should have done because they chose to go through the clouds with the fight leader and all three of them went into the side of a mountain and were killed.

Daniel Jackson: Oh, no.

Everson Pearsall: And that was I think sometime in July of ’44 [August 6, 1944].

Daniel Jackson: Do you know when the 118th arrived in China originally?

Everson Pearsall: I would’ve to say in May, sometime in May—I have probably a record of it upstairs—by the first mission I flew, and I can backtrack to it. I’m trying to think now. There’s one pilot alive that I know of that was there. And that was George Green, he’s in the book of pilots of the 118th, that you probably have, lives in New Hampshire. But I think the number in it is not correct and he probably has moved. But you should try it anyway when you come across it, call it, you may reach him.

Daniel Jackson: Okay.

Everson Pearsall: If you don’t, I can give you the number.

Daniel Jackson: Okay, yeah, I appreciate that. You talked about flying P-40s then P-51s. What were the major advantages of the P-51 over the P-40?

Everson Pearsall: Oh, that’s easy—the P-51, based on my knowledge and what I’ve read, and flying the aircraft, was the finest propeller-driven fighter in World War II. As far as our concern, there were others like the P-47 Thunderbolt, which was an excellent fighter. It had eight guns, we only had six. And its biggest problem was it had a two-thousand-horsepower radial engine to get it going. And while it was fast, its range was very limited, maybe less than half of the P-51.

The P-40 was an old airplane by standards during the war, where the planes were changed very rapidly. But the P-40 was kept in service because, at the time of Pearl Harbor, it was the best fighter we had. They continued to make changes on the aircraft, but they were rather limited; there were no major changes. The Allison engine horsepower remained about the same. And I got along all right with it, but the P-51 was faster, and it flew like a dream. I flew almost two hundred miles coming back a mission one day; when I got out of enemy territory, I got the seat comfortable and sat back and trimmed it up—which you could do beautifully with a P-51 because the trims were done automatically. Whereas in the P-40, they had to be done with wing adjustments before you took off. And I flew that thing by sitting back. And I think I touched the joystick three or four times during the whole trip with the inside of my knees just to level it a couple of times. Absolutely remarkable aircraft. And it had a Rolls Royce Merlin engine in it, which was the engine that fired the Spitfires. If somebody had been smart enough to put that engine in the earlier models of the P-51, there wouldn’t have been so many fighter pilots of ours lost. It had a two-stage supercharger. I think one kicked in about sixteen, seventeen thousand feet and the other one up around twenty-four thousand, and it was just like a kick in the butt when it came on—it was wonderful. Whereas the Allison engine had no supercharger. There was a world of difference between the two aircraft.

In training and in combat, I flew every model of the P-51 from the period, known as the A-36, to the D-model, which was the first bubble canopy model. And what a relief that was. There was one more model, the K—I can’t think of the next model [the H]. But it was even faster than the D-model because they cut weight in every way possible, but it never got into combat. That was just about the time the war ended.

Daniel Jackson: Right, right. I’d heard from a couple of people that the P-51 was a little more vulnerable to ground fire, and so it didn’t make as good of a ground attack plane as the P-40.

Everson Pearsall: Well, that is true. And the reason it was true because the coolant radiator on the P-51 was on the bottom of the fuselage, practically almost under the pilot. And later on, they came out with an offer to put some metal armor around the—oh, the thing I just talked about.

Daniel Jackson: The radiator?

Everson Pearsall: They also wanted to put it somewhere else, and my first question to them was, “How much speed is it going to cost?” They said, “Oh, maybe about twenty miles an hour.” I said, “Forget it.” I didn’t want to give anything up for the speed we had. And if your coolant radiator was hit by ground fire, you had no more than about five minutes before your engine would quit. But we all knew it, the P-40 from that standpoint might’ve been a little better. But I still wouldn’t have swapped the P-51 for a P-40 anyway, anytime.

Daniel Jackson: Okay. You had said that when you guys were at Suichuan, you were supplied entirely by air transport?

Everson Pearsall: Oh, yes. There was no other way. You couldn’t get in with any ground vehicles. And bombers were made into transport planes and so we had our fuel all flown in. And it put a crimp in us, sometimes we couldn’t fly because we didn’t have enough fuel or we didn’t have enough parts to fix the damaged fighters. But that was true all the time I was in China, it’s just part of it. And that’s why when our group came in number fifth in total damage done to the enemy, with the handicaps we had, I thought it was a hell of a wonderful thing.

Daniel Jackson: Interesting. Since you were at a base that was surrounded by the enemy, behind enemy lines, why didn’t the Japanese Air Force try and root you out of it?

Everson Pearsall: They did. They used to come in almost every night, one or two planes, but they did very little damage and they didn’t, for some reason or other, I think they were afraid of us. We had thirty-three fighters, I think, at that time—we were a big squadron—divided into flights of eleven each. And I was proud to be made a flight leader of A Flight just before I came home. But they never sent fighters over our field. But each night they would send one or two in and the buggers would come in at two or three o’clock in the morning deliberately to harass us because we’d have to get out of bed and into slit trenches. And then they finally put some twin-.50 machine guns in positions along the runway. And I got one of the positions because before I went to pilot school, I had been a top turret gunner on a B-26 bomber. And I knew how to handle the machine guns.

But then I got thinking, “Why the hell did they have to put them so close to the runway?” That’s where they came over to drop the bombs because when the moon was out, you could see the runway very clearly. I thought it would’ve been nice to be a couple of hundred yards off to the side. But nobody got hurt, but they used to drop these little banana bombs, maybe six or eight inches long. And when they hit, they would drop a canister and then they would explode and they would cover quite a wide range of ground. And if they hit our airplanes why, they would do damage to them. And then the next day, the Chinese coolies would go out for some reason, and some of them didn’t explode the night before and they’d go off when they were picked up and the Chinese, they were losing hands and God knows what. It was a shame.

And I don’t know if you’ve heard the story about the time the night fighter came in—a twin-engine night fighter. I forgot whether it was built by Northrop or who it was.

But they were flying the airplane, and the crew came in. It was sent there to see if they could stop these night attacks. And the first mission, they got word of a plane, a Jap plane, coming in. And our flight surgeon bummed a ride on it. And they went up and they came in and they had to identify everything by sight first before they shoot at it. They pulled up and they could tell it was a four-engine bomber. They didn’t think that that’s what we got our fuel in, and they opened up and they exploded it.

And we were all clapping when it went down, we thought it was a Jap bomber. They didn’t have any four-engine bombers in the first place. The next morning, I’m going to mess hall, and I see this enlisted man walking up the street. He didn’t seem to be very oriented. And I said, “Can I help you?” He said, “I’m looking for the mess hall.” I said, “Follow me, I’m going up there.” He said, “I was on that bomber that was shot down last night.” And that was my first indication of what happened. Most of the others I think were killed, I don’t know how he got out.

Daniel Jackson: Wow. Did the night fighters ever shoot down any Japanese planes over Suichuan?

Everson Pearsall: No, and we didn’t send any up. They were sent up at Liuzhou. That’s where we went when we left, that first field I flew out of. And they did send three or four up. Green was one of them, George Green was one of them. He took a shot at one, but they didn’t shoot anything down. But if you had that book by Carl Molesworth—

Daniel Jackson: I do.

Everson Pearsall: It tells us about the original Flying Tigers. A lot of them shot Jap bombers down.

Daniel Jackson: When Johnny Alison went up and got three in one night.

Everson Pearsall: Johnny Alison is one of them. What a guy. I had the pleasure of meeting him a year ago, May, at our last reunion in Washington.

Daniel Jackson: Oh, wow.

Everson Pearsall: When I learned of his age, I couldn’t believe it. Because I’m 88, he was 94 years old, he looked about 75. He was a retired major general and he lives in Washington, one of the finest men I have ever met.

Daniel Jackson: I had the pleasure of having lunch with him last July when I was out there.

Everson Pearsall: Oh, did you? Wonderful. Listen, Dan, before I forget it, I live about twenty-six miles west of New York City, in Scotch Plains. I was born in Westfield, an adjacent town. If you ever get in the New York area, you have my number, give me a call. And we’d be glad to put you up or buy you a meal or take you to the club for dinner or something. I would love to meet you.

Daniel Jackson: Oh, I appreciate that, I’ll keep that in mind. I seem to find my way around a few places, and I appreciate the offer. I might be able to be up in New York for the West Point game this year, so we’ll see.

Everson Pearsall: Right. Well, give me a call. It’s not particularly difficult to get out here, we’re about fifteen miles from Newark Airport. And the offer is open anytime, you give us a little lead time and we’d love to see you.

Daniel Jackson: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I would love to meet you too. I do all these phone interviews, and I don’t get to meet—

Everson Pearsall: Excuse me for interrupting. I have my hearing aids in, but if you could talk just a little louder, it would help, Dan.

Daniel Jackson: Not a problem. I was just saying that I do so many phone interviews and I don’t get to meet even half of anybody in person, so it’s nice when I get to meet people in person.

Everson Pearsall: You’re getting away from me.

Daniel Jackson: Can you hear me now?

Everson Pearsall: I can’t hear you too well.

Daniel Jackson: Can you hear me now?

Everson Pearsall: Yes, it’s a little better.

Daniel Jackson: Okay. I was just saying that I do all these phone interviews for these projects, but I don’t get to meet even half the people that I talk to in person.

Everson Pearsall: Yes. Well, there’s a lot to talk about. My memory isn’t what it was. But I’ve got a lot of them that I will never forget. I flew eighty-one missions and was very, very lucky, particularly several occasions, but I got away with it. I don’t know if you have time to hear it.

Daniel Jackson: I do. I would love to hear it actually, if you don’t mind.

Everson Pearsall: Well, four of us went down. This was when—I don’t know whether we were in Suichuan or not. In any event, we completed the mission, we left the harbor and headed for home. And my engine started to act up. That was a very rare thing, because the mechanics were the best I’ve ever been with. And I didn’t call the others in the flight to say anything about it. I thought this might be temporary; I could find out what the trouble was. And I wasn’t very high because there were some hills around Hong Kong Harbor, and we gradually climbed out. We didn’t do a maximum climb or anything. And I guess I was about fifteen hundred feet, and I had my head down the cockpit looking for the trouble. And all of a sudden, I looked to the left and I saw these cannonballs and machine gun tracers going above and below my left wing. And I looked back: here was this Jap about a hundred yards behind me, looked like he’d thrown everything but the kitchen sink at me—never hit me.

And of course, when I first saw him, I turned that airplane every way but out. And I was in the worst position I could have been in: I have a Jap Zero on my tail with an airplane that wasn’t functioning properly. And when I looked back, I couldn’t believe it, a few minutes later, he had turned and headed back to the harbor. Well, I was so damn mad at being caught like I was, I turned around and started to follow him. And he apparently was just taking his time back because I found even with my engine, I was gaining on him. I almost got within range, and I thought I’d give him a shot and I wasn’t close enough. But he saw the tracers and he turned and came back and did a wing over and a 90-degree turn so fast, he went under me so close, he couldn’t have been more than thirty, forty feet below me. And he was looking up and I could see his goggles and I was looking down at him.

In the meantime, I called my three buddies who had gone up high by that time. And I looked up and watched them, and the minute I called them, boy, they did a turn and came back down. And the Jap never saw them. And I’m still chasing him when these three buddies of mine come past me, and the flight leader pulled up on the left side and the other two were on the right. And the Jap saw them, but he didn’t see the guy on the left. And Johnny just climbed all over him with a blast, hit the cockpit first, killed the pilot, and smoked the engine.

And you could tell he’d killed the pilot because the plane just gradually turned slightly to the left and started to go down very easily. Most of the time they go into a violent spin or explode. And the four of us flew up behind this Jap plane as he was going down. And we came up on this beautiful big lake, and I never thought he’d make it over the lake, but he did. He got to the other side because the decline was very gradual. And he hit at the bottom of this huge pine tree. And by that time, his plane was on fire. When he hit, it looked as though he had gone right up the trunk of the tree to the top and set the whole thing on fire.

We were yelling and cheering. And we turned for home. In the meantime, that engine of mine kept me up. And I got home, they flew back at my speed though. But I think that probably was one of the closest cases I had ever been involved in. There were a few others that could have been disastrous too. But that one, just because it was different from the others, something I’ll never forget.

Daniel Jackson: How often did you guys encounter Japanese fighters?

Everson Pearsall: I would say about 75, 80 percent of the time we flew. But sometimes they were far off, sometimes they were higher and they didn’t see us or lower and we were going about our mission first. But we saw them quite a bit. We were told when we first got to China that you didn’t stay on the same level with them and dogfight with them because they were so agile. You could pull up behind one, three minutes later he’d be on your tail. But we could out-dive them, and we were faster. And there’s nothing like speed when you need it, and that, the P-51 had plenty of, just a marvelous airplane.

Daniel Jackson: Were most of your missions ground attack missions or interdiction missions then?

Everson Pearsall: Most of them were ground attack. That’s what we were trained for. I went to fighter school after I got my wings—as all the other pilots in the 118th did. But when we finished our fighter training, we thought we were going to England. Well, we didn’t. Half they sent to England, half of us went down to Mississippi and took tactical reconnaissance training, which mainly was low altitude—the most dangerous type of flying that fighter pilot could do—I say fighter pilot—a single-engine pilot. But Chennault needed some guys like that that were experienced. We were taught to make a cross-country hop of say, two hundred miles and never get above a hundred feet. And that wasn’t easy, but we got onto it and did it. The wind was the only thing that would make a difference, and you had to allow for it. But if you got hit at the altitudes that we were attacking at and you didn’t have the speed to climb up to at least a thousand feet to bail out and you had to leave that airplane, you couldn’t leave it, you’d have to go in with it. And some of our guys got away with it and some didn’t. I had my airplane hit, but I wasn’t ever scratched. I’m very thankful for that.

Daniel Jackson: What kind of casualties did you guys take?

Everson Pearsall: Well, from the time my squadron started flying combat, fifteen of our pilots—I think a total of fifteen—died. One was an enlisted man; he got sick and died. The other fourteen were pilots.

Daniel Jackson: Okay. And that was across the entire time that you were there?

Everson Pearsall: Yes. There are other squadrons that had higher rates, I’m sure. Do you have that book, Sharks Over China?

Daniel Jackson: I do, I’m actually looking at it right now.

Everson Pearsall: That will give you a lot of information. I had occasion to meet Molesworth at one time and I talked to him on the phone too. He’s quite a guy. If he’s still alive, I think he’d be glad to talk to you. I think his address was in the back of the book.

Daniel Jackson: Is it?

Everson Pearsall: Yep.

Daniel Jackson: I’ll have to take a look. I saw that on one occasion you were flying with Lieutenant Colonel Older.

Everson Pearsall: Oh yeah, Chuck Older. His nickname was Chuck, he was a lieutenant colonel. He shot down eighteen planes. There was one other squadron commander by the name of Herbst, H-E-R-B-S-T. “Pappy” Herbst they called him because he was an older fellow. He was a lieutenant colonel and a hell of a pilot. And they both shot down eighteen, but Herbst got one or two on the ground. And one day our operations officer said to me, “We got a big mission coming up. We’re going up to Hankow on the Yangtze River.” The Japs had about five airfields up in that vicinity. And he said, “You’re going to be flying Colonel Older’s wing.” And I said, “What the hell are you doing to me?” He said, “You can handle it, I’m not going to give him some new pilot.” Then I understood. So he came in, I met Older, nice looking guy. And we took off and we had no sooner gotten up there and there was a Zero right ahead of us. And Colonel Older lined him up and hit him pretty good. And the engine started to smoke a little. And the Jap turned to the right and went into a cloud bank. And I happened to look back—I was curious—and about twenty seconds later, and I saw that thing come straight out of the cloud bank going straight down and went into the ground and exploded. So I didn’t say anything, of course, at the time. We completed the mission. Nothing else happened that was important.

When we got back and were being debriefed, our intelligence officer said to Older, he said, “Colonel, you have anything to report?” And Older said, “Well, I hit one when we got up there and it started to smoke, but it flew in a cloud bank and I never saw it again.” And I spoke up and said, “Captain Burke, I happened to see this airplane come out of that cloud bank and go straight into the ground, and I’d like to confirm that for Colonel Older.” Older looked over at me and smiled. I don’t know whether you know about his fame he had after the war. Do you remember hearing that?

Daniel Jackson: No.

Everson Pearsall: He went back after the war and went to law school and became a superior court judge out in California where he lived. And they assigned the Manson trial to him. Did you ever hear that?

Daniel Jackson: Right, right.

Everson Pearsall: That weird bunch of young people that went around killing people. And he was the head judge in that Manson trial. And I talked to him on the phone a couple of times. He died about two years ago. He was I think possibly two years older than I am. And he fell, apparently. And I guess he hit his head, among other things. And I think a few days later he died. But no question, he was one of the finest pilots over there. He was an original Flying Tiger too.

Daniel Jackson: Right. As far as operations went there, who planned most of your missions?

Everson Pearsall: We planned them. Our intelligence section planned them. And many, many times were told what to do by central intelligence from the 23rd Fighter Group. They would get information from all kinds of sources and then they would pick out a squadron or two that they thought could best handle the problem. And our boys would hear about it. And we simply had a briefing every morning when we were scheduled to fly and we would be told what the target was, how we were going to handle it, and how many planes we would put up—pretty cut and dry.

Daniel Jackson: Did the squadron have a lot of autonomy in planning its own missions?

Everson Pearsall: I didn’t hear that too well.

Daniel Jackson: Did the squadron have a lot of independence in planning its own missions?

Everson Pearsall: Just do it once more, Dan.

Daniel Jackson: Not a problem. I was just asking if the squadron had a lot of independence, autonomy, in planning its own missions?

Everson Pearsall: Well, I guess they did, I don’t know. I wasn’t too much in on it. When we returned from a mission, they got all the information they could get from the pilots who were on it. But I don’t know if they came up with anything, unless they got information from higher up. I don’t think they were equipped to come up with a new mission. But maybe sometimes if they said we would go down and attack one of the Jap airfields, that didn’t take anything from the President of the United States, so we went ahead and did it. I think particularly the bigger missions, the more important ones, came about as a result of information coming down from higher headquarters.

Daniel Jackson: What was the biggest mission that you were on?

Everson Pearsall: What was that?

Daniel Jackson: What was the biggest mission that you were on?

Everson Pearsall: The biggest?

Daniel Jackson: Yeah, or the most important.

Everson Pearsall: Well, there were two: I think one is Hankow, up on the Yangtze River. That was certainly one of the biggest. And the other one would’ve been a big one we had to Hong Kong Harbor. We were the nearest field in the 23rd Fighter Group to Hong Kong Harbor when we went to Suichuan, and we took full advantage of it. But we lost some boys down there. We would attack their airfield and then we would go out on the bay looking for tankers or Jap navy ships or anything like that. And one of our boys came over—he was going to be our next squadron commander. His name is David Houck, a nice guy.

And first, I don’t know whether you’re aware of the fact, but new pilots coming to squadrons, all of them flew tail-end Charlie on the first few missions. They didn’t care what their rank was. Houck was flying tail-end Charlie on a mission to Hong Kong Harbor and was shot down and captured on his first mission. And several months later, they accused him of attacking women and children down there. They came out in a courtyard, and he was shot by a firing squad and killed. He came from Baltimore, Maryland. And years later we had a convention down there and some of us from the squadron went over to the cemetery. And it was a mess. Apparently, there wasn’t enough money for them to keep it neat.

So, we all in the squadron put up money and talked to the superintendent and he said he would guarantee us that the whole plot—Houck’s mother and father and sister were there and so forth. And we said we wanted it trimmed up and made to look decent. And one of our boys went back and confirmed that it was done. Houck’s body had apparently been flown back to Baltimore after the war and buried there. But we had, to my knowledge, at least three pilots killed on their first mission flying tail-end Charlie. And it would happen very quickly, the Japs would wait, be above us, and on occasion, they looked down and see the tail plane, sneak up on it and give it a blast and it was all over in a minute. Somebody would look back and say, “Where did so-and-so go?” “Well, he was there a minute ago.” That’s the way it went.

Daniel Jackson: Did your squadron ever do joint operations with the 74th Fighter Squadron at Kanchow?

Everson Pearsall: Well, with all of the others in the group, the 74th, the 75th, and the 76th at times, yes.

Daniel Jackson: Okay. And you talked about being made a flight leader before you left. What were your responsibilities as a flight leader?

Everson Pearsall: To lead the attack and that’s about it. I didn’t have occasion to. I led a mission just before I came home with just two of us who went down and I was asked to attack an anti-aircraft position, which had shot several planes from our group down. And I knew where it was, and we went down and they gave us napalm instead of bombs. Well, the napalm, they had never been attacked with before. And I went in first and my wingman waited until I got through, but I dropped that napalm right on the money. The little buggers had dug holes in the ground where they’d hide when the planes were coming over. They’d hide underground, but they didn’t count on this napalm running down their little holes after them. And they came out with their clothes on fire, their bodies on fire, and ran like hell into a big patch of elephant grass where they thought they couldn’t be seen. They couldn’t from ground level, but they could from flying directly over it. And we went in and strafed the hell out of the whole thing.

Daniel Jackson: Wow.

Everson Pearsall: But mainly the flight leader, he was responsible for the navigation, to and from, and doing anything—if a sudden change in weather came up and they had to go to another target and things like that.

Daniel Jackson: Were tactics pretty standard for most missions?

Everson Pearsall: Were what?

Daniel Jackson: Were tactics pretty standard for most missions or would there be a discussion of approaches or formations before each mission?

Everson Pearsall: I’m sorry, I didn’t get all of that, Dan.

Daniel Jackson: I was just asking if the tactics that you guys used were pretty standard or if they varied from mission to mission and you just discussed them in the briefing before you used them?

Everson Pearsall: Well, I think they were pretty standard. I don’t think there was too much of a change. If something happened to the flight leader, then the second element leader took charge.

Daniel Jackson: Okay. You talked about using napalm, how often did you use napalm or rockets as opposed to just normal bombs?

Everson Pearsall: I understand that after I left the squadron that we got rockets. They were not used when I was there. The early ones I was told were not as reliable as they could have been.

Daniel Jackson: Right. How often did you guys make use of napalm?

Everson Pearsall: How often did we use what?

Daniel Jackson: Napalm. You talked about on that one mission attacking the anti-aircraft battery using napalm. How often did you guys use napalm?

Everson Pearsall: Napalm? We used it quite a bit. And it was deadly against Jap troops. See, as I told you, when we would go to a certain field—and other squadrons too would raise hell. The Japs, when they could, would send in the ground troops to kick us out. And when we went in and saw where they were, we dropped napalm on them and it was devastating.

Daniel Jackson: How reliable was the early napalm? Was it pretty reliable, it would set off pretty well, or did you guys have problems?

Everson Pearsall: Napalm?

Daniel Jackson: Yeah.

Everson Pearsall: Very reliable.

Daniel Jackson: Okay, good.

Everson Pearsall: And then we dropped a thing called para-frags. They were in groups, I think, of six canisters, and as soon as they left the wing of the airplane, the parachute opened, and they dropped straight down. So, they could be used very accurately and they would explode on contact with the ground. And they were devastating against ground troops too, and anti-aircraft batteries.

Daniel Jackson: Okay. Well, that’s about all the questions that I had for you, sir. Was there anything else, any memorable missions that you felt like mentioning or any other facets?

Everson Pearsall: There probably will be the minute I hang up. Well, one day I was walking past the radar shack and Colonel McCormick came running out. He said, “Vitamin, there’s a Jap recon plane up overhead taking pictures of our field. Let’s go get ’em.” I said, “Okay, I’m ready.” We took off in a hurry and we climbed. We went up to thirty-five thousand feet and the colonel called me and said, “Vitamin, it looks like he’s gone.” They had the advantage of altitude when we found out about them, and that was no secret. So, he started to play around a little bit rolled and so forth. And the next thing I know, we had dropped down to thirty-three thousand feet and all of a sudden, my controls locked, and so did his. We couldn’t do anything about it but wait until we got into heavier air to get control of our airplanes back, which we did.

But I remember looking at the airspeed indicator when the controls locked and it said, “375 miles an hour.” I knew that was low because of the thin air up there. But there’s a formula that we were told in flying school, if you ever want to know your ground speed at high altitude, if you had the airspeed indicator speed and apply it to the formula, it would give you the ground speed. When I got on the ground, I did that, and it came out to 600 miles an hour ground speed. Fastest I ever had it in the air was about 500.

Daniel Jackson: That’s pretty fast.

Everson Pearsall: Well, I came out of the dive at 340. At about eighteen or twenty thousand feet, we could fly at about 415, 420 miles an hour at the most, but that was fast in those days.

Daniel Jackson: Right. Okay. Well, I appreciate your time, sir, and if I have any more questions, I’ll give you a call. The paper will be done probably around October, November, and I’ll be sure to send you a copy when it’s finished.

Everson Pearsall: I would appreciate that very much, Dan. Again, remember my invitation. Anytime you’re in the New York area, at least give me a call, maybe we could arrange to get together.

Daniel Jackson: Okay. Well, I appreciate it.

Everson Pearsall: You’re going to graduate this year?

Daniel Jackson: Yep, this is my last year. I’m really excited

Everson Pearsall: Well, I wish you luck. I always will have a close place in my heart for the Air Force Academy, of course. I’ve enjoyed talking to you and best of luck.

Daniel Jackson: Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate it. I’ll talk to you later.

Everson Pearsall: My pleasure.

Daniel Jackson: Okay.

Everson Pearsall: Bye-bye.

Daniel Jackson: Bye.