Mayday Over China
The Dairy of Jim Young
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Collected by Andrew Priddy
Copyright 2011 by Andrew Priddy
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Uncle Jimmy
Jim Young, my great Uncle, was an extraordinary man. As you will learn by the trials you are about to read, he endured more than most possibly could have, and hopefully ever will. He was a man that never spoke an unkind or judgmental word, climbed Mt. Rainer after his release, ran several miles a day, truly embraced life.
Jim Young passed away from a heart attack during the 6 mile Tacoma- Narrows race, and is truly missed.
His writing was left unchanged with the exception of “Japs” being replaced by Japanese throughout his story.
The Mission
October 24, 1942- “This is the mission we have all assembled here for,” said Colonel Morgan. “We will take off at 0400. All combat crews will be on the flight line by 0330, and that doesn’t mean 0331.”
That was about all he told us. There were about 45 of us assembled in the dirty, book-strewn operations briefing room. We were rather excited, thinking that the “big push” was finally ready to roll. We, who heard the Colonel, represented 75 or so men who made up the crews of 16 B-25 bombers. The rest of the men were on “alert” crew. Two men for each bomber had to be at, or near their planes, which were dispersed over this large base at Kunming, China. Whenever an enemy air raid threatened, it was the duty of the alert crew to get each bomber off the field and to circle around in the vicinity of the Tibetan border until they were called back after the attack was over.
We went out to our planes and loaded each with six 500-pound bombs. As the belly gunner, I had the additional dubious honor of tossing ten, small, 10-pound incendiary bombs through the hole in the plane’s belly where my guns swung. This was a tricky operation, consisting of removing a cotter pin from the fuse. The fuse had a small propeller on it, which prevented the fuse from detonating the bomb until it spun off its fuse shaft. The cotter pin locked the prop to the shaft.
We worked till well past dark on some generator trouble on an engine and squeezing every last drop of gas in the tanks that they would hold.
We who attended the briefing slowly meandered the ½ mile back to the hostel where we ate and slept. The high tree-lined lane along which we strolled took on a new significance for many of us as we felt we were enjoying a rather uncertain existence anyway. This was the first formal full-dress briefing I had ever attended and it all sounded very ominous and important to me. I had little knowledge of the massive flights soon to be employed over Europe in which 10,000 or more crewmen participated with their 1,000 bombers. No this was the largest number (16) of planes I had ever flown with on a bombing mission and I believe we were all quite proud, if somewhat apprehensive. My 34 previous missions had made me rather philosophical about any other missions to come—better not think too much about it; better to give some thought to the condition of the guns, the radios, gear storage, and what we were going to have for supper—fried eggs or scrambled eggs?
Twenty-fifth October 1942 came on Sunday. The weather was clear, cool and beautiful as we walked in the darkness to the operations office where we converged, talked in low tones for a few minutes, and straggled to our planes—carrying odds and ends of flight clothing. As daylight was breaking, the pilots began to start up their engines and test them. Ours started fine, and, as we were waiting for the lead planes to start off, we got the signal from the leader to shut everything off. We did—wondering what the hell was the matter. A car was dispatched with a messenger to tell each plane commander to immediately check his plane for sabotage. It seemed that the lead plane had discovered a loosened oil connection just before taking to the runway for take-off. It lost 27 gallons of oil before it was discovered. We climbed to the ground and checked our own motors and everything seemed all right.
After about an hour delay we were signaled to start up again. This time we got off the ground and settled down for a flight to we didn’t know where. In our briefing the only thing that wasn’t told us was our target. Not even the pilots knew where we were going to bomb. There was much speculation—even that we were going to cross the China Sea to Japan proper. Our group leader apparently feared a leak in security, so he didn’t even entrust the secret of our target to anyone. After about three hours of flight we came in to the airstrip at Kweilin, China. The approach to the small field was rather tricky our pilots all negotiated it well enough. We noticed small smoking piles of debris along the runway. We soon learned that the Japanese had strafed and bombed the field only an hour before we arrived. Coulees were carrying burning dummy planes away and there were soft spots in the runway, which were newly filled bomb craters. It was lucky for us that we were delayed at Kunming, China, for we most certainly would have been caught on the ground at Kweilin when the Japanese paid their visit, and probably would have destroyed all our planes.
It was warm at Kweilin. We were all curious as to our ultimate destination. We had stopped at Kweilin, which was an advance base to refuel with gas and proceed on to we still didn’t know where. Everyone started checking and rechecking his plane as we waited for the fuel truck to get to us; it proceeded along the straight line our planes formed along the runway. It was getting on toward noon and we were all quite hungry because we hadn’t eaten since 0300 that morning. The four officers of each plane had walked down to the head of our line of planes to a bamboo shack. They came strolling back to their respective ships.
And then I heard it! Lt. Allers, our 1st pilot, was talking in undertone as he stood in the shade of our right wing. I was on top the wing checking the gasoline as it was pumped into the wing tanks. Our target was to be Hong Kong! That one of many fabulous cities of the Orient. A British Crown Colony resided on the small island of Victoria and it was there that Hong Kong was situated. A very important shipping point and trading center. It had fallen to the Japanese on 25 December 1941 after and incredibly bloody siege against its British and Canadian defenders.
It was heavily defended, we knew, and surrounded by several Japanese air bases. My chief regret was that I hadn’t had sufficient notice of our target to study a map of it. It had been my habit for the past several months to study a map of our target area carefully, in case I would need to know the country in other dire circumstances. However, since I hadn’t dreamed of Hong Kong as the target, I was completely ignorant of the surrounding region.
A flatbed truck had gone along the line of planes giving sandwiches to each crew. About two planes from ours, the truck suddenly turned around and sped back off the runway. We stood by helpless and raging, and plenty hungry, as we cursed that truck driver. No difference—the planes were refueled and the word was “get the hell out of here!” The Japanese might be back!”
We felt badly treated as we climbed back inside the plane. It was roasting hot inside and the stench of night-soil drifting in from the rice paddies made it very miserable in that craft; and we were still having a little trouble with the generator.
One by one the engines coughed and started and started air circulating inside, which mollified us—but only slightly. The planes stirred up a dense dust cloud as they took off. Just prior to take-off I had heard Lt. Allers complain that we had been switched from one position in the flight to a tail-end position. He had been out-ranked by some captain who wanted our position. The ironic and tragic part of this little by-play was that the captain’s plane had a tail-gun while ours didn’t have one installed. Plain (or plane) logic should have dictated that the bombers with tail guns should cover the rear of the formation; however, simple logic doesn’t always prevail in a military situation. As a sergeant I learned very little of what transpired in command circles and had little chance to wield any influence at all, so naturally all an enlisted man could do was take it and carry on. If my pilot couldn’t reason with the brass, that ended the argument right there. Anyhow, there was work to be done. We bombers took off and formed while the P-40 fighter escort took off and climbed above us. As near as I could tell, our escort numbered some 20 or 25 planes. Built by Curtiss, the P-40 was a tough little craft and considered to be reliable by the standards of that period. It mounted from four to six .50 caliber machine guns in the wings.
We got started on our course and settled down again, with some trepidation, for the mission to come. We crossed over a dam and reservoir about an hour or so out of Kweilin. Some planes up front dropped a few bombs but they overshot the mark by far. A few clouds appeared; the weather was generally good with visibility unlimited. We were ordered to put on our oxygen masks when we got to 10,000 feet and continued on up to 17,000. Small towns appeared along the way. Our motors loud roar with the lack of insulation in the plane made each man feel very cold and alone up there. The formation instinctively drew together. We were all under an inexplicable strain. The two weeks of waiting had taken its toll. The myriad calamities and losses that our country had sustained in the ten months since Pearl Harbor had engendered a slight sense of frustration and now we grasped fearfully at “something” which we felt represented a positive challenge to the Supremacy of the Imperial Japanese Empire in the Orient. This feeble thrust was the opening of many such, and ever larger, to come (we hoped), and our apprehension was justified. A large body of water appeared as a faint line far ahead. No flak, no Japanese interceptors. Maybe we could just—well, better not speculate now, Young. Sure is cold at this altitude—damn! But I’m hungry. The navigator, Lt. Williams, rode back in the mid-section with Sgt. Webb and me. Since we were simply following in the tail of the formation, there was nothing the navigator could do, so he was told to hand those little gems of incendiary bombs to me as I removed the cotter-keys from them and heaved them out—when the time came.
Then, there it was—Hong Kong. The climax of all our blundering efforts. Flak suddenly burst all round us as if by a master signal. We began our approach—the bomb run. These approaches required some 30 seconds at least of straight, level flight in order to utilize the features of the bomb-sight in our lead plane. We simply triggered off our bombs when we saw them falling from the lead plane. So here we were, making our final run on the target when suddenly like a swarm of bees appeared the Japanese interceptors. They sure appeared angry. Each man tried to make himself feel tiny and invisible as possible as flak would rock us and bullets zipped around our formation. Webb was in the upper gun turret. He began firing first as he spotted Japanese Zeros coming in on us from high above. All I could see was a lone fighter or two off to the side from where I sat. Then I felt the air blast that always occurred when the bomb-bay doors opened. That was my signal to prepare to throw out my little gems when I saw our own bombs—falling. There they go! I started pulling cotter-keys and heaving bombs as fast as I could. I sat right in the midst of them as they were piled like so much baloney all around me. One, two, three, four, I counted off our high explosive (H.E.) demolition bombs. Mine were all tossed out. What happened to the other to H.E’s in the bomb-bay? (We carried six). Had they been released without my seeing them? No matter, a Japanese fighter suddenly dived past our right side about 100 yards off. He leveled off just below and started crossing under us. I tipped my belly gun down and pressed the thumb trigger. The Nip plane rose slightly, fell off on one wing, and started spiraling down in smoke. ‘Twas a simple matter to hit him.
Then things got plenty hot. Our plane suddenly lurched then fell behind the formation. What a sensation, to see your buddies pulling away in a solid unit and yourself all stranded and alone. The Japanese fighters seemed to all concentrate on our plane, which was obviously disabled. The right engine started to smoke and snapped to a stop. The pilot put our craft into a short, steep drop, then upward roll, in order to evade further damage. I saw a plane come in on our tail and tipped my belly gun as high as it would fire rearward. I didn’t see if he was hit or not. Probably not. Oh for a tail gun!
After dropping the bombs we continued in a straight line right out over the bay (where I saw our other two bombs jettisoned). Then we made a sharp left turn and preceded back toward land. It was this time when our other engine was knocked out. We were losing altitude and knew then that whatever might happen wouldn’t be good. Suddenly the left engine caught fire just as a fighter plane leveled off to our right and seemed to be cavorting merrily at our pilot. Neither of us could get our guns trained on him. Powder smoke stung the eyes and nose—we had long since torn off our oxygen masks and I had removed my fleece coat. I could hear the bombardier firing from the nose of the plane. The pilot got the left engine stopped and now we began to fly rapidly. A bullet came through from the top. It came through Webb’s Plexiglas canopy, filling his hand with glass; then it landed in my ammunition can, which all blew up, showering me with the brass and powder smoke. A pellet buried itself in my left bicep. I tried to pull the can of ruined ammo out of its case on my gun but when the Japanese bullet had blown it up, it became fused to the gun and a jagged piece of metal lacerated my fingers quite deeply. My gun was “out”. Then another Japanese burst from somewhere to our rear cut off the electrical circuit that powered Webb’s turret motors—his gun was “out”. He scrambled down from his turret and headed aft with me right behind him. We opened an armor plate door to the aft section where the toilet, tools, and our parachutes were. As Webb was digging out the chutes I was trying to get the hatch door open. Always before, the emergency release worked perfectly. This time I had to kick the damn thing out and, on a belly door that can be interesting. We helped each other get our chutes on as rapidly as we could and—me being the closest to the hatch—I tucked my knees straight under my chin and, facing rearward, lurched off the front edge of the hatch and dropped. I was “out”, and thus terminated my combat crew career on a bomber in World War II.
We were very low—about 500 feet—when Webb and I bailed out from that rear hatch. We didn’t bother to see what the officers were doing up front. Those engines and fire took all our concern. Aviation gasoline has a nasty habit of exploding at the wrong time.
A Japanese Zero was following very close on our tail and almost seemed to ram me as he fired over my parachute canopy. As he circled to come back on me, I hit the ground. I hit on a hard path between a canal and a rice paddy. The Zero had circled and was making his run back over me. I rolled toward the ditch as he fired on me. His bullets struck the bank above me as he roared over, very low. I was rather excited and plenty frightened as I tried to get untangled from my parachute. Finally succeeding, I ran as fast as I could along the ditch. As the Zero came in for another burst at me I came to a ditch that led from the canal to the rice paddy nearby. It had a large wooden head gate, which controlled the flow in the ditch. I dived headlong behind this head gate and the Zero never even fired as he zoomed over me. He didn’t circle any more, but flew on straight away. Probably low on fuel or ammo.
I climbed out of the mud and slime where I dived, and ran down the ditch to gather my parachute and hide it so it wouldn’t be a landmark for any other planes. After dashing fifty yards or so along the ditch, I didn’t find the chute, which I know was lying near the top of the bank. Then it occurred to me that in my haste and terror I had run from the head gate away from the chute, in the wrong direction. I hurried back along the canal bank and there I came to my chute, which I quickly wadded up. There was not a plane to be seen now. Everything seemed so strange and unreal. I was numb. I knew that I’d have to attempt to return to Allied hands, so I cut a large section of silk from my parachute to use for trading or any other purpose. My seat pack contained a large jungle knife, quinine, two pounds of sweet chocolate, a head net, fish line and hooks, and pistol ammo. This I put in a small bundle preparatory to striking out for “home”.
There were several Chinese houses all round where I’d landed but the people all scattered when the gunfire commenced. Now two men peeked around a mud and bamboo hut and then approached me. I didn’t feel hostile toward them, but I unsnapped the cover on my shoulder holster. When the Chinese saw this motion, they vanished again. I proceeded with my packing and soon a young Chinaman approached me slowly again. I believe he knew I had no war-like intentions toward him because he walked right up to me. Confused and excited though I was, I realized I’d never have a chance without the aid of these people so the sooner I enlisted it, the better.
Upon my first meeting with a Chinaman after my “downfall” I was surprised and pleased with his friendly manner. I showed him a small silk flag that we all carried. On it was a message written in Chinese stating that the bearer was an American Flyer and was to be given all aid possible by those who might find him in distress. He seemed to know well enough about my plight, because he immediately made gestures indicating that I remove my uniform, as I would be less easily recognized by the numerous Japanese patrols, which were constantly prowling through the vicinity. I had (and have yet) no idea where I was, except that Hong Kong was some few miles away; in which direction I didn’t know. I donned his coulee garments consisting of a gray-black loose cotton shirt and similar style trousers; leaving him quite bare except for a breechclout and hat. I gave him a handful of Chinese money of which I had about $1200.00 mex.
Soon another Chinaman approached. He spoke (in Cantonese) to my “benefactor” and the two motioned to me to follow them along the canal. I was still in a rather dazed condition, and everything seemed so unreal. It seemed impossible to associate Jim Young of the fields and forests of Oregon with this situation in which I found myself as an instrument (however tiny) of American military policy abroad. Here was the mysterious Orient of which I always felt in awe – all ‘round me – foreboding - strangely silent after all the roar of the Aircraft, surely I must be dreaming (I hope).
My fleece lined flying boots were much too large when worn without shoes, which made walking a sloppy shambling. However I followed them willingly enough. After five minutes or so they looked back and suddenly pushed me to the side of the trail where a small pile of rice straw lay. They had me lie under it, carefully covered me, and motioned to me to remain very quiet. I hadn’t seen anything to cause this course of action, but was in no position to object, so did as they bid me and they departed. Needless to say I lay quite still under that hot pile of straw, and the only thing that might betray my position was the sound of my heart, which seemed to pound loud enough for all to hear within 10 yards.
I lay there for about 15 minutes when I heard a group of men approaching. They converged on my position and stopped. I tried to make like a straw stack, but right away I heard hands pawing away my cover. I peeked up tremulously and looked right into the forlorn face of Sergeant Webb.
I arose from my undignified lair and Webb and I stood facing each other like long lost brothers. We shook hand and grinned lugubriously at each other, although not more than 30 minutes had elapsed since we had bailed out of ol’ Burning Bessie.
This little by-play seemed to restore some meaning to our existence and also brought into sharp focus our more serious plight. I said, “Well I’ll be damned”. Webb countered, ”I guess you know we’ll get out of this”. I often wondered whether that prophetic statement should have been followed by a question mark or an exclamation point.
One of the five or six Chinamen who had accompanied Webb to me led us along the canal for a short distance, and then we crossed the canal. A coulee carried each of us piggyback across. We then proceeded across a field. The leader of the group made motions to me that he wanted my pistol. I was in a quandary just what to do. Finally I decided that he would do more with it than I could. I couldn’t hope to defend myself against the Japanese Army with a .45 Colt, and being lost in a strange land as I was and some 300 miles from the nearest American base, I couldn’t see much more than moral support being derived from one weapon. I gave it to him. Possibly that same lone firearm caused much damage to the enemy during the next three years. The Japanese had offered a reward of $10,000.00 (mex) for any Yank flyer that could be captured. The fact that the Chinese didn’t immediately betray us to a Japanese patrol for this reward was evidence of their good intentions, however it was with some misgivings that I handed him he pistol. He took it without a word or outward indication of anything more than the completion of an honorable transaction. I was relieved on that score.
At the edge of the field we came to a strip of tulles and reeds, some 500 ft. in depth, which ran along the bay that we could now see. The Chinese motioned us to enter into these reeds and again they departed leaving us quite alone, standing in six inches of water and muck among the reeds.
We had no idea what we were to do, so we penetrated farther into the marsh. It made me feel better, but did not improve our prospects any.
Webb was suffering from amoebic dysentery, and he had lost all of his cigarettes. He told me that he had landed smack in the middle of a rice paddy and sunk to his waist when he hit the earth. He had been unable to salvage anything from his jungle pack so now he was quite bereft of any of the necessities. I split my money and gave him one of the two chocolate bars I had. He took it willingly enough.