CBI Roundup - June 22, 1944 - China-Burma-India Theater of World War II

VOL. II NO. 41 REG NO. L5015 DELHI, THURSDAY JUNE 22, 1944

Ships Like This Super-Fortress Hit Tojo On The Nose

This picture of a CBI-based B-29 bomber has details of armament blacked out for security reasons

JAPAN AWAITS MORE 'VISITS'
    As American ground crews affectionately groomed their "flying battleships" for another attack on the Japanese mainland, the enemy in all sections of the Islands of Japan must have been wondering: "Where will they strike next?"
    On June 15 an unannounced number of B-29's trundled down runways and lumbered off for what was to become the longest bombing mission in the history of aviation. "Tons upon tons" of bombs were dropped on the "Imperial Iron and Steel Works" at Yawata on Kyushu Island, producers of 20 percent of Nipponese steel.
    Bombs away was signalled back to base by the code word "Betty" at 10-58 p.m. and all but four planes returned to refuel and prepare to go out again when the time is ripe.

STRONG ACK-ACK
    Anti-aircraft fire was intense over the flaming target, Japan's largest steel mill, and enemy fighters were up. Of the four ships that failed to return only one was shot down by enemy action (anti-aircraft), two suffered accidents from which one crew has returned safely and one is missing.
    Communiques from the War Department stated the bombing was accurate and effective but that no intercepting enemy planes were shot down. Tokyo radio admitted damage to the coke ovens and open hearth furnaces but sorrowfully commented that the Yanks seemed to have concentrated on schools and hospitals.
    The 20th Bomber Command is under a wiry, short, blad little brigadier general by the name of Kenneth B. Wolfe. In turn it is under the 20th Air Force in Washington and not under CBI Theater Command. The 20th Air Force is a new super-air force commanded by Gen. H. H. (Hap) Arnold and is termed a world air force. It will probably be used in all theaters and its movements will be directed from Washington by the joint chiefs of staff.

MILITARY HEADS TELL SCOPE OF NEW PLANE

    The B-29 was built by Boeing Aircraft Corporation. It was conceived about four years ago and the first experimental bomber was lost. It was necessary then to jump directly from the experimental stage to the training stage and four-engine pilots with more than 3,000 hours were selected to fly the mighty ships that were twice as big as the Flying Fortresses or Liberators. They only got into serious training last summer and the first contingent came to this theater in a dramatic mass flight.

THE PLANE

Here is a partial description of the B-29:
1. A midwing, four-engine, all-metal monoplane which carries the greatest bombload farther, faster, and higher than any other existing plane. It is one and one-half times bigger than the B-17 and two and one-half times heavier.
2. Wing span - 142.02 ft. Length - 98 ft. Height - 27 ft. Speed - "compares with the fastest modern pursuit ships." Horsepower - 8,800 on takeoff, 8,000 rated (This is total for four engines). Ceiling - "over 30,000 ft."
3. Armament - .50 caliber machine guns and 20 mm cannon.
4. Engines - 18 cylinder radial Wright Cyclones turning 16½ ft. four-bladed propellers.
5. Secret devices - SECRET!

    Washington brass hats saw the B-29 for the first time last December when one plane landed on the short Bolling Field strip. The outfit, which is basically a world strategic air force, was trained around Salina, Kansas. Crews were especially selected with some little emphasis placed on their ability to withstand high altitudes. Although the bomber is capable of flying at alititudes in excess of 30,000 feet, Wolfe said the target was attacked from about 15,000.
    The significance to this theater of the use of the B-29 is that Japan can now be reached, attcked in force and softened up long before it would have been possible with our previous heavies. The B-29 has relagated the 17 and the 24 to medium bomber class and the former mediums to short-range light bombers. No section of Japan is safe from these craft. The range of the B-29 is so great that the ships returned from history's longest mission with approximately 1,000 gallons of gasoline left in the tanks.
    Whereas American strategy was once based on advancing overland in China or from island to island to get bases within B-24 and B-17 range of the heart of the enemy, Americans are now within that range.
    The use of the giant plane primarily is a tribute to two things: (1) American engineering genius and (2) the patient, poorly rewarded, uncomplaining toll of 450,000 Chinese coolies who built the longest runways in the history of China by literally breaking up and placing each stone by hand. The sight of this mass of humanity turning China's peaceful paddy fields into homes for the greatest aerial messengers of death in world history must have been an almost unimaginable thing in itself.
    This strike brought comments from great men:
    Secretary of War Stimson: "The new long-range bombers have overcome the tremendous barriers of distance to bring the heart of Japan under the guns and bombs of the Army Air Forces. These giant battleships of the air are far superior to any plane our enemies have been able to develop. They may well ponder when and where we shall use this mighty task force next."
    General Marshall: "The B-29's will be treated as a major task force, in the same manner as naval task forces are directed against specific objectives. This type of flexible, centralized control recognizes that very long-range bombardment is not a weapon for the air forces alone."
    Tokyo radio indicated that B-24s also were used on the raid and stated "they appeared over localities in northern Kyushu and concentrated their attacks on the industrial areas of Moji and Shimonoseki." The announcer added that the railway line between Orio and Hakata had been damaged.

WALLACE VISITS AIR BASE

SUPER-AIRBASE - Vice-President Henry Wallace and his party have arrived here by air from Russia, to be met by officers of the 20th Bomber Command, whom he eagerly questioned for details of the recent Super-Fortress raid on Japan, an operation which Wallace termed as "Ding How."
The smiling, tousle-haired Vice-President, while waiting for clear weather for his big C-54 transport, also shook hands and talked with enthusiastic G.I.'s at the base, signed a shortsnorter bill, and looked at specimens of corn and beans grown on a nearby Chinese farm, before continuing his trip.

Mogaung Next On Timetable

    Chinese troops occupied Kamaing, third most important enemy-held town in Northern Burma, June 16, and cleared the way for a final assault on Mogaung.
    Chinese troops under Gen. Sun Li-jen destroyed the enemy garrison within the town while other forces swung around behind Kamaing to cut their escape route and prevent the Japanese from bringing in reinforcements. The enemy stronghold fell after a seven-day siege.
    Following the occupation of Kamaing, Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell's Allied forces pressed closer to Mogaung, the next important objective in the drive to clean the Japanese out of North Burma. Chinese troops early this week reached the north bank of the Mogaung River, opposite Mogaung, co-ordinating their drive with a fighting march that brought Maj. Gen. Walter Lentaigne's Chindits to within 200 yards of the railway bridge east of the town.

VERGE OF COLLAPSE
    This week, as the British and Chinese troops tightened their partial encirclement of the town, the second largest town in North Burma seemed on the verge of collapse.
    Meanwhile, Chinese and American troops inched forward against strong Japanese fortifications inside Myitkyina. Progress has been slow, with the Allied troops measuring their gains in hard-fought yards. Flame throwers and bazookas were brought into play to clean the tenacious Japanese out of pill-boxes and earth and stone fortifications. Enemy casualties were high as the Americans and Chinese pressed closer to the town's center from the north, south and west.

CHINESE TUNNEL
    Chinese troops at one point tunnelled to the rear of an enemy party and wiped it out.
    Forty miles north of Myitkyina, on the road to Fort Hertz, Kachin Levies and Ghurka troops under Brigadier Bowerman occupied the village of Tiangzup, where the Japanese had held up their advance for six weeks. Capture of this village tightens the Allied ring around the entire northern neck of the Irrawaddy Valley.
    American P-40 and P-51 fighter-bombers worked in close support of the Allied troops, dropping some of the heaviest bombs seen in this area on Japanese bunkers, fox holes and ammunition dumps. Enemy air action has been practically nonexistent.
    Under cover of American air power, U.S. transports have played a vital role in the successes of Stilwell's troops in North Burma, carrying troops and supplies into the captured Myitkyina airdromes under fire.

MEET HANK GREENBERG

Capt. Hank Greenberg, Special Service officer to the 20th Bomber Group, talks it over with two Chinese friends. Yes, he's the same Hank Greenberg of Bronx, New York City, who used to make life miserable for the Yankees by blasting out home runs for the Detroit Tigers. Greenberg is the final sports authority for the 20th and settles all bets on the baseball world.

U. S. Builds Super-Base To Hit Nips

By SGT. EDGAR LAYTHA

    CHINA - I am in the very center of our new giant airfield system in Western China. I can't tell you it's name, because it hasn't got one. I just call it Super-Airbase, Asia; and it's no understatement. Everybody here, from private to general, knows he is on the band wagon to Tokyo. The final fate of Japan may be sealed right here.
    The Allies needed a great, impregnable airfield system in the Far East. This remote and well-sheltered plain in Northwestern China was the obvious choice. At the Cairo Conference, Roosevelt presented the plans for "Super-Airbase, Asia" to the Generalissimo and Prime Minister Churchill. Both approved and from then on it was up to Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell.
    Col. Henry Byroade, who built the airfields in Eastern Assam, was the chosen man to get these super-bases ready for use. Finally, smooth, tall Lt. Col. Waldo I. Kennerson was made executive district engineer for the area of "Super-Airbase, Asia." Then the entire construction project was turned over to the Chinese Ministry of Communications.
    The first pioneers arrived in early January. With Byroade and Kennerson arrived Capts. Roberts H. Hunter and Kenneth H. Kimball as engineers; Capt. George V. Deaton and W/O J. A. Sterling as supply officers; T/Sgt. Kenneth LaRue, S/Sgt. Gordon Neilen, Sgts. Henry Dreisen and Herman Palma and Pfc. James Butcher as draftsmen.
    By the end of March, dozens of heavy planes were using the field, being serviced with clock-like precision, landed, unloaded and ready to return to India within 75 minutes.
    Japanese photo-Joes visited the base more than once. They flew very high, disappeared very fast. A few days after each visit, Japanese-controlled Saigon radio gave the Chinese names of the fields and the number of grounded aircraft.
    Toward the end of May, "Super-Airbase, Asia" had its first air raid alerts.

Tribute
BY P-40 WALLAHS TO FOOT G.I.'S

Ye Ed:
    We P-40 wallahs get a trifle annoyed now and then because the P-51, admittedly a terrifically hot plane, gets all the glamor while our "ancient" crates continue to bomb, strafe and kill a hell of a lot of Japs day in and day out.
    It pleased us greatly that in your current issue you ran a picture of P-40s "poised for the take off" for the assault on Myitkyina. The discerning reader however, was never advised that the 40s ever got there, while twice in your stories of the taking of the airdrome your correspondents mentioned that they saw "P-51 Mustangs" working over the battle. Well, a lot of us were over Myitkyina that day, and to be entirely truthful, it was pretty much of a P-40 show.
    We know that in the interests of good journalism you will appreciate this note. Further, and not to deprecate for a moment the P-51, we are confident that anybody who knows his air war up here will assure you that the battered, pretty beat up old 40s are doing plenty of smart, sound airfighting in support of General Stilwell's boys.
    And we want to announce another thing - and this is far more important than the smallish rivalry between planes and squadrons. Every pilot who flies over the ground fighting here marvels at how the Merrill boys and their Chinese co-fighters can lick the Japs under the conditions they face. You know them all - rain, mud, jungle, insects, K-Rations, dampness, heat, Japs, more rain, mud and heat - and probably a lot we can't even imagine. And although it's probably true we are a bunch of blase "heroes," who would beat you over the head if you called us "proud" of anybody or anything, we are nevertheless, to a man, "proud" to work in support of those soldiers on the ground.
Sincerely yours, P-40 Wallahs of Burma

    (Ed. Note - A very nice gesture on the part of the Air Force to Merrill's gang and their Chinese comrades. The Roundup has been assured by its correspondents that the P-40s did get to Myitkyina, with sad results for Tojo.)

VICEROY'S SON HURT IN ACTION

Capt. Archibald John Wavell, son of former C-in-C India Command and present Viceroy, has been wounded in action while leading a recent Chindit attack on enemy positions near Mogaung.
Wavell has been evacuated and is reported to have lost his left hand. He was leading a company of South Staffordshires.

Chinese Offensive On Salween Continues Westward Advance

    SALWEEN FRONT - Chinese troops in the Salween area, commanded by Marshal Wei-Li Huang and accompanied by the American liaison group ofBrig. Gen. Frank Dorn, continued their drive westward this week for a juncture with Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell's forces in North Burma.
    The Chinese pressed forward in bitter hand-to-hand fighting in the fortified hills west and north of Lameng. The town of Lungling, captured last week, has been evacuated due to intense Jap counter-attacks, but Chinese forces still hold the surrounding areas.
    Chinese capture of Sungshan opens the Burma Road from the Salween River to Lungling.

NORTHERN SECTOR
    In the northern sector of the front, the Mamien Trail was completely cleared of the enemy, as the Chinese 20th Army group occupied all remaining Jap-held strongpoints.
    Enemy troops that reoccupied Hsiangta have been unable to make any eastward advance and have been bottled up inside the town. Jap reinforcements from Tengchung have been blocked by elements of the 11th Army, between Lungling and the Shweli River, and have been unable to aid the remnants of the Lungling garrison. On the Hpimaw-Myitkyina trail, Chinese guerillas occupied Tiawgaw and Lauhkaung.

SHWELI VALLEY
    Severla other towns and enemy positions were captured by Chinese units during the week, including Kangfang, Chaikung Tang, where 100 Japs were killed and large stores of ammunition and rifles were taken, and the Kanlanchai road pass, which secures approaches to the Shweli Valley.
    Air support of the 14th Air Force was hampered throughout the week by inclement weather. However, the Watien Pass area was bombed and strafed by 14th AF planes, while other aircraft of the Troop Carrier Command succeeded in dropping quantities of ammunition and supplies to the Chinese troops.

EYEWITNESS STORY OF NIPPON RAID
AS SEEN BY NEW YORK TIMES WRITER

By TIL DURDIN   New York Times Correspondent

    SUPER-AIR BASE, CHINA - Maj. Robinson N. Billings, our pilot, swung his big plane around to face the vast length of the runway.
    Nearly two miles away, at the other end, another Super-Fortress lifted heavily, narrowly cleared the tree-tops and headed off eastwards.
    Lt. John L. Cowsert, co-pilot, concentrating on his watch, told off the seconds until take-off time: "Thirty seconds to go; Twenty seconds; 10 seconds; five seconds."
    Billings tightened on the controls. Cowsert leaned over and fingered a flood of power into the

PARTY BEFORE JAPAN AFFAIR

A party near Super-Asia Airbase just before members of the 20th Bomber Group took off on their bombing mission to Japan.

motors. We moved. In seconds we were hurling forward, more than 65 tons of plane and bombs and men, as the runway shortened dizzily.
    There was a sharp bump as the plane took the air, then ground again. We lifted again and held it, then strained slowly up as the finish of the runway disappeared below.
    Elation flooded everyone aboard. We were off, we were on our way, with target, Japan.
    We headed out over the Yellow Sea with light clouds below and the stars visible above. Second Lt. Paul L. Westbrook, navigator, and 2nd Lt. James G, Christie, special radioman, monopolized the interphone with the problem of giving a true course into our target. Second Lt. Francis E. Meredith, bombardier, took some star shots through the nose glass.
    Westbrook located an island that was a major check point on the way into the target. Billings wheeled to the right on a new course, and we veered toward the Himonoseki straits.
    Our gunners at the tail of the ship, Cpl. H. Jackson, T/Sgt. Richard Brown, S/Sgt. Otis A. Pegg and Sgt. Holst stated excitedly reporting sighting the islands off the coast of Japan.
    "How far to the target, Westbrook?" Billings asked. Westbrook sweated with his maps and compass.
    "Thirty miles, sir," Westbrook replied.
    Suddenly Cowser grabbed my arm and pointed. far off in the distance and to our right was a mass of light faintly visible, it was a concentration of searchlights. They seemed to be bent at an acute angle as if probing for something far off on the horizon. They marked our target, and we would soon be over it.
    Voices over the interphone grew higher, more excited. Billings began to lose altitude for the bomb run. Westbrook brought us into it squarely on the beam. The mass of lights grew brighter; there seemed hundreds of them.
    Their base and the target seemed obscured in the mists or smoke, and we could make out little but a glowing area. Above we had a clear sky. We could see flak now and processions of tracers marching into the sky.
    "Plane at 10 o'clock," called Holst from the rear.
    "Clear the guns," ordered Billings.
    "Target 10 miles ahead," came from Westbrook. The searchlight mass straightened its cones of light, converging straight up in the sky and dead ahead of us.
    "They've got a B-29 pinned. I can see it," shouted Brown.
    I picked up the great silvery ship, too. Down below I saw its bombs explode with a dull, yellow glow through the mists. I could make out the glow of fires here and there over the Yawata steel target area, but no other details.
    The B-29 ahead of us twisted and banked like a tortured monster, trying to shake the persistent lights. Ground guns palpitated in angry flashes that lit up here, there and everywhere, like the myriad glows of tell-tale lights on a gigantic instrument panel. Brilliant tracers climbed toward the plane. It seemed to falter, but slipped away.
    "That's the target," said Billings softly, almost as if to himself.
    "Five miles from target," called Westbrook.
    Billings put the ship on automatic pilot and let Meredith and Christie have her.
    "Plane at 9 o'clock, very close," shouted Pegg. "It looks like a night fighter. There are lights on the wing tips."
    A light beam detached itself from the mass around the target and started feeling our way. Then another and another. The interphone crackled with exchanges.
    "Lights all over our tail," someone shouted.
    A cone found the nose. We were pinned.
    "How about a little evasive action," shouted Billings to Meredith.
    He took the ship and swung it about, shaking off some of the lights.
    While still several miles from the target he leveled off and handed it back for the bomb run. The lights started getting us again and flak began coming up. Meredith bent imperturbally over his sights, ignoring all else.
    "Four minutes to target... Three minutes to target," I could hear someone calling off.
    "Okay. Take your time," said Billings imperturbably.
    The lights were all over us again now and it was as bright as day inside the nose of the plane. Whereas before I had stabbed at my notebook in the dark, I could now write as if in daylight. I felt as if our ship were as big as the Empire State Building.
    The minutes crawled by like centuries as we droned on into the fury of the flak and lights that blazed just in front of our nose. I felt a tremor under the bottom of the plane.
    "Damn, that one was close," Holst exclaimed from the tail.
    "Bombs away," came a shout.
    Billings snatched the controls, and Cowsert reached over and gave the motors full throttle. We dived and banked steeply and the air speed indicator spun. The lights still had us and the flak still came up. I couldn't see it explode, but the gunners kept reporting it flying around.
    "There's still afighter off our wing," shouted a gunner.
    Billings saw it too, and called, "Shoot the bastard."
    I heard our guns stutter, the plane switched off wing lights and peeled away.
    The lights released themselves reluctantly, and we got clear of the target, heading off in a wide swing over Kyushu Island. As we swung about, I saw another B-29 in the lights over the target.
    We crossed the coast heading back toward China. Ship lights were again visible and below us we saw a curious light pattern that someone said might be an aircraft carrier. The weather thickened. We climbed and lost sight of the cauldron of flak and lights that marked the target. Billings eased up on his straining motors.
    Suddenly, we relaxed. We laughed, we shouted. Over the interphone, we traded versions of those grim 10 minutes in and out of the target.
    Our target run had been made a little after 11. We figured we were probably the fourth plane over.
    Our run home was easy going. We were covered by thick weather all the way, and the Japs couldn't have found us if they had tried. The plane hummed a tune of quiet satisfaction.
    Over the home field, the landing gear failed to respond to normal pull, but emergency motors brought all wheels down, and Billings set the plane in easily.

Any Trench During Raid

    CHINA - Sgt. Solomon (Sammy) Fox of the Chinese-American Composite Wing of the 14th Air Force, believes anything is better than the open field when Zeros come over.
    Solomon was caught in the open recently when Tojo's men came over. He didn't hesitate a minute but jumped into the only available shelter.
    It was - a latrine trench.
    Fox's comment: "It was only slightly used."

Use of Merrill's Men, Chinese Frustrated Nip Defense

    Kamaing is ours, Myitkyina is being slowly and painfully reduced, the Chinese and Chindits are attacking Mogaung.
    Escape routes for remnants of the once famous Japanese 18th Division and reinforcements appear to be a thing of the past. It looks like the beginning of the end of the first great phase of the campaign to open the land route to China.
    The Japanese have fought a courageous and occasionally brilliant delaying action. The polyglot forces under Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell have been equally courageous and consistently more brilliant.
    A normally unexcitable staff officer said recently that the Hukawng - Mogaung - Myitkyina campaign would go down in history as one of the tactically great military operations of this war. He said the use of the Chinese and Merrill's Marauders in a continuing series of "right and left hooks" around strongpoints had been so brilliantly executed that the Japanese could hope for nothing but the chance to delay and accept extermination as their only reward.

BURMA TACTICAL TRIUMPH

    The move on Mytikyina caught the Japs completely by surprise. The strong defending force succeeded in holding the town at the time only because of the exhaustion of the Americans and Chinese forces. These troops were just simply physically unable to roll over the Japs as they had in the past. For 21 days they had marched over some of the worst terrain and through some of the densest jungles in the world. For 21 days they had lived on K-Rations and rice. For 21 days they had seen their ranks depleted by illness until one battalion at least was nothing but a corporal's guard.
    This campaign is one that has been filled with the impossible. It is an epic of a strange mixture of races and tribes who somehow worked, sweat, bled and even died together efficiently and with little or no recrimination. It is a graphic demonstration of cooperative effort at its best. It is a campaign that has proceeded with incredibly limited resources and at amazingly small expense as total war campaigns go.
    Names of individuals and names of units have become legendary. No American will ever forget Gen. Liao Yao-hseing and his 22nd Division, which captured Kamaing and is still plugging ahead. No American will ever forget Gen. Sun Li-jen and his 38th Division who took Warong, who entered Walawbum, who, back in 1942, saved the British at Yenangyang and who today wearily keep killing more Japs.
    No Chinese will ever forget the cursing, murderous gang of Merrill's Marauders, nor their brilliant leader Frank Merrill.
    Yet, these leaders and their forces could have done nothing without Brig. Gen. William D. Old's Troop Carrier Command, Brig. Gen. Johnny Eagan's combat planes softened the enemy day after day and forced him to move at night. It was faith in medical care and evacuation by "jeep" plane and ambulance C-47's that gave men that extra confidence and with it the will to take the extra chance in wiping out the enemy quickly and on schedule.
    It was Col. Phil Cochran's glider pilots who flew in the troops to Myitkyina who were to sustain an already exhausted attacking force. Then there is the legendary Brig. Gen. Lewis Pick and his equally fabulous road-building jockeys who used to needle Stilwell with requests to go forward until The Boss, in desperation, would let them go up to get shot at a little.
    There have been a thousand acts of heroism. There have been a thousand acts of accomplishing the impossible. There have been thousands of little whimsical things you wouldn't expect in the stark reality of murder by act of government. There have been untold kindnesses and simple courtesies between men and races who, despite eyes red-rimmed from fatigue, minds dulled by the constant repetition of the same thing over and over in a filthy jungle, and nerves jangled by enemy fire, would take the time to be human more than occasionally and administer a pat on the back or split a ration.
    After Mogaung-Myitkyina what? The road to China, we suppose. It is telling no military secret to point out that the road leads to Bhamo and on.
    Can it be taken now? Must it wait until after the Monsoon? Who knows?
    What we do know is this. Many more Americans, Chinese, Englishmen, Ghurkas and Indians will be killed before it is done. Many more will be maimed. Many will die of illness. But that is the reality of war.
    Fighting seems horrible in itself, but there is something about it that produces a flood of letters from rear areas asking for combat duty in order that these men, too, may say as one of Merrill's Marauders said in a letter to his family:
    "My rifle is loaded. My pack is on my back. As I walk into the Valley of the Shadow of Death I fear no sonofabitch."

RADIO TEAM RECORDS CBI ACTIVITY
Program Tells Home Folks of Yanks in Orient

    CHINA - They were recording the building of a runway. Amazed coolies were their actors. They crowded around the microphone but swayed away from it when their own voices were played back to them. Touched by this streamlined Black Magic, they couldn't believe their own ears, listened in silence. Then their lips began to move, repeating their own words without uttering a sound.
    A "Fireball" flew the recordings a few days later to Shangri-La. In fact, within five days after the recording, they were delivered to the Radio Division of the War Department, which handed them over to the Blue Network for its regular Sunday night program: Yanks in the Orient.

STILWELL SPEAKS
    It was one of the last recordings of the CBI Radio Team in their first 13-week series. Now, the team is on the move again to record the 13th feature. Its highlight: A wind-up speech by Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell.
    It wasn't, of course, always as smooth as that. In its nine-month history, the team had to cross many bridges. Fortunately, General Stilwell was, from the very beginning, the team's patron saint, although the idea was an old dream of Maj. Rankin Roberts, a former Texas radio executive, who used to enthuse to Lt. Col. Paul Jones, anothe ex-radio man, about weekly-recorded broadcasts which could inform the people in the U.S. about this theater. The two carried the idea before the general, who said yes, adding a wish: keep away from the commisioned ranks as much as possible.

THE TEAM
    Here's the team itself:Lt. Col. Paul L. Jones, from San Diego, the team leader, marched with Stilwell out of Burma two years ago. Before the fateful retreat, he evacuated thousands of Chinese soldiers by train and air. The colonel's voice hardly needs a microphone.
    Lt. Finis Farr, from New York, was March of Time editor before he joined the Army in 1942. An Infantry officer from Fort benning, the lieutenant is the program's script writer and producer.
    Lt. Bert Parks, New York, the team's announcer, also went to Fort Benning. A crack CBS announcer, his voice is familiar to millions of listeners of the Camel program.
    M/Sgt. Arthur Dixon, who handles the equipment, was key sound technician for RKO in Hollywood. Dixon, 37, is the youngest grandfather in the CBI.
    T/Sgt. John Shaffer was for two years an educational advisor to the Government of Afghanistan before he enlisted in New Delhi two years ago. The pundit is the team's publicity photographer.
    Sgt. Al sager, who used to blow hot air into his alto saxophone, is, in his own words, still in the hot air business. His is the job of preparing advanced publicity for the broadcasts.

SWEAT AND TEARS
    The team's road to fame was not entirely without sweat and tears. Glass records were broken on their way home, and the team was left for months in obscurity about the fate of Yanks in the Orient. Then, at last came the night of April 16, when the first program went on the air.
    Yanks in the Orient, the new permanent radio show of the Blue Network, makes the CBI the only theater which has in Shangri-La a regular spot on the air.

G.I. BUTCHERS, AIDES BRING HAMBURGERS TO LEDO ROAD

Mohammedan meat carvers, members of an Indian Army unit, line up, with their shoes off, ready to cut beef for the boys in the forward areas. The Indians observe full religious formality, including taking off their shoes, before going to work on brother steer.

Ledo Road Boys Get Fresh Beef
    LEDO ROAD - A small group of G.I.'s are currently butchering their way towards Tokyo, and as a result our lads along the Ledo Road are getting fresh meat.
    A short time ago when a G.I. was told beef was coming up, he would know some belly-robbing "corned willy" would be the answer. But now Yank butchers, with the help of some Indian fellow slaughterers are turning out the Shangri-La kind of beef, to the mouth-watering nods of chow hounds up front.
    The Indian butchers are all Mohammedans and they go to work on the unsuspecting cow with full religious observance. No foot covering is worn, prayers are said as each animal is killed and visits are made several times a day to a nearby mosque.
    Quartermaster butchers dress the animals and completely bone the carcasses when the meat is prepared for air dropping. Hamburger night is now a weekly event along the Road.

'Best' Fighter Outfits Giving Japs Bad Time

ADVANCED CHINA AIR BASE - Operating from this rain-drenched, mountain and Jap encircled airfield, which, at first glance, looks like a part of Milton's version of Hell, are a couple of fighter outfits, which to their ground crews and 400,000 Chinese who have seen them shoot down innumerable Sons of Heaven, are the best damned fighting forces in the world.
No fairyland is this field, surrounded by weird looking mountains where take-offs are mostly in soupy-foggy weather, bu the fighting outfit of ex-AVG Col. Tex Hill and the bombers of Lt. Col. Joe Wells' famed

CUTE SARGE

Already framed, Sgt. Mary Francis Igoe, of the Marines, could be a pin-up without any trouble. She's wearing the summer uniform of her service.

Submarine Auxiliary Corps (so named for their destruction of Jap shipping) regularly deal out death and misery for the Japs.

PHOTO JOE DOWNED
    Recently, Radio Tokyo broadcast that this field had been wiped out during an air raid. That's wishful thinking at its best, for ever since Sept. 1943, Col. Hill's gang has proved time and time again thst the best defense is a good offense. A Jap raid has only meant losses for them and a field day for Hill's fighters.
    On Sept. 20th, for instance, the Nips sent over 24 bombers with an escort of from 20 to 30 Zeros. After the smoke of battle cleared, it was found Hill's interceptors, a half dozen or so of them, had accounted for seven bombers and a Zero.
    It was the same story on Dec. 12. The Japs never reached the field and four Jap fighters were confirmed, five damaged and three marked up as probables. Two days later, Texan Hill objected to being photographed from the air by a Nip photogrphic plane. A fighter plane charged up and the shutter-bug went down in flames.

PIN-UPS DESTROYED
    Another large swarm of fighters and bombers attempted to help the Americans with a belated Christmas celebration on Dec. 27. The result was five Nip Zeros confirmed, seven probables and four damaged. But the Japs had bombed the pilot's alert shack, which contained no valuable equipment, but several score of prized pin-ups. The fighters swore revenge and three days later got it. Twenty Zeros came in to strafe and bomb. Nine American fighters went up after 'em. Five Jap planes went down in flames, three were damaged by fire from American planes and a sergeant on the ground got another Zero with a .50-caliber machine gun.
    The Japs are coming in occasionally in 1944, too, but they've been so busy trying to intercept Col. Hill's fighters over their own fields, they have had little time to carry the ball themselves.
    And with such good hunting the fliers of those two outfits don't care a damn about the rain, the fog, the mud, the mountains. And they've got a new collection of pin-up gals.

MELVYN DOUGLAS CRASH LANDS

    INDIA - Capt. Melvyn Douglas, motion picture star now serving in CBI as a Special Service Officer, and 17 other passengers on an airplane owe their lives to the cool piloting of 1st Lt. Harold L. Griffith, of Los Angeles, Calif., it was revealed this week.
    After riding out a severe storm and bucking terrific headwinds, Griffith was forced to make a difficult "belly landing." The dangerous crash landing was made on a dry lake, flanked on three sides by hills, and was accomplished without a moon for illumination.
    Capt. Douglas and the other passengers, including Capt. Roger F. Howe, Seattle, Wash., and Glenn Abbey, of Dodgeville, Wis., member of the American Mission at New Delhi, had high praise for Lt. Griffith and his co-pilot, Lt. James M. George, of Seminole, Tex., and Sgt. E. B. Halzlip, Eatonton, Ga., radio operator.

RAIN CHECKS IMPHAL PUSH

    IMPHAL - Although heavy monsoon rains and accompanying mud slowed the Allied advance along the Imphal Road this week, British and Indian ground troops forced their way to several miles beyond Viswema, where they captured two heavy artillery pieces and much equipment.
    The Japs offered stiff resistance to the Allied push north of Kanglatongbi.
    While British and Indian units were clearing all enemy elements from the Molvum ridge, 18 miles northeast of Imphal, other Allied forces re-captured Ninthoukhong, which had be relinquished to the bitterly-attacking Japanese the day before. In the Kohima sector, despite strong enemy resistance, Allied troops occupied Kidima, on the Jessami track.
    Latest count of Jap casualties on the Imphal front shows a total of 10,000 enemy dead in the past three months.

14TH AF HITS JAP SHIPPING

    14TH A.F. HQ. - In concentrated round-the-clock bombings Maj. Gen. Claire Chennault's 14th Air Force and Chinese-American Composite Wing inflicted terrific devastation on Japanese shipping, troops, and rail installations during the past week.
    In the short span of the past 18 days, regardless of climatic conditions, the airmen have accounted for 21,300 tons of enemy shipping sunk; 16,000 tons probably sunk and 4,400 tons damaged. These figures do not include one large steamer of unestimated tonnage, two smaller vessels, and several supply barges sunk; one tug boat probably sunk and a cruiser and two supply barges damaged.
    In addition to this, more than 1,200 Japanese were killed in a three-day period in the Changsha area, which was the center of operations during the week. Heaviest of the air attacks came in the middle of the week when 100 aircraft, composed of B-25s, P-51s and P-40s struck at Wuchang railroad yards, causing considerable damage. No opposition was met over the target. Upon leaving, a flight of Jap fighters was met and two of the enemy planes were destroyed and one was damaged.

JAP TROOPS BOMBED
    Meanwhile, the Chinese-American Composite Wing hit a radio station and troop concentrations north of Changsha, damaging the station and killing many. Fighters strafed and bombed the lake area east of Yiyang, sinking 150 boats, among them a double-decked troop carrier. In a night mission, B-25s bombed Paiuchi airdrome, damaging and destroying planes in revetments.
    In support of Chinese troops, the Wing swept the river channel near Lanchi, sinking launches and barges and destroying a warehouse and two ammunition dumps. Another group of Warhawks hit more enemy-held villages east of Changsha. P-40s sank 40 supply boats in a river sweep of the Yuankiang.

60 SHIPS SUNK
    On the Yellow River front, the Composite Wing slashed out at warehouses and factories at Shasi. Warhawks sank 60 of an estimated 500 enemy troop ships in the Delta area, northwest of Changsha. The rest of the boats were damaged.
    On June 17, P-38s bombed the villages of Shanglishih and Fenglinou, starting fires and causing considerable damage. They then bommbed a column of 2,000 Japanese troops, killing more than 400. The Changsha area, north of the Yangtze River, was again attacked, resulting in considerable damage to nearby villages. Five Jap planes were met, one being destroyed while two were damaged.

C-47 CARGO PLANE SETS FLYING RECORD

INDIA - An all-time record was established for the India-China Wing, ATC, during April, when a C-47 cargo plane averaged more than 12 hours per day in the air for a total of 302 hours and 55 minutes.
The record operations also clinched flagship honors at this base for the plane for the second consecutive month. The three crew chiefs who traveled with the ship during April were Cpl. Frank J. Hojara, 26, of Detroit, Mich., Cpl. Sherman L. Anderson, 23, Meridan, Tx., and Pfc. Glenn D. Davidson, 23, of Badensburg, Ohio.

BAD WEATHER HINDERS EAC

    EAC HEADQUARTERS - Fighters and bombers of Maj. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer's Eastern Air Command were forced to the ground by bad weather during most of the week, although RAF and American pilots managed to sneak in several crippling blows on enemy positions in the Imphal, Kohima and Myitkyina areas.
    As often as the monsoon weather permitted, Allied heavy bombers and fighter-bombers of the Strategic Air Force and the Third Tactical Air Force showered tons of explosives on Jap fuel and ammunition dumps, bridges, troop camps, gun positions and other installations.
    On June 9 and 10, while a force of Liberators was carrying out a raid on oil plants and workshops at yenangyaung and the power plant at Lanywa, north of Chauk, other RAF fighters and bombers blasted military targets at Imphal, Kohoma, Mayu and Buthidaung, along with objectives at Myitkyina and Katkyo and enemy shipping in the Mandalay area.
    Other targets blasted by Allied pilots during the week included bridges, rolling stock and river craft in the Pyingaing and Kalewa areas, and motor transport, troop concentrations and communications in the Palel, Bishenpur, Tiddim Road and Upper Chindwin sectors. A Jap camp at Mulam, near Churachandpur, was also attcked and several large fires were started.
    The inclement weather was also quite a damper on Japanese air operations and slight enemy opposition was encountered over the targets. However, in an RAF raid on the Palel-Bishenpur area, 20 Jap Zeros tried to intercept the attackers. Six of the enemy planes were shot down.

Lack Of Supplies No Problem To Ingenius Yanks In CBI

    NEW DELHI - What the American soldier in the CBI doesn't get through channels, he makes himself.
    At an SOS base in India, a slavage repair section turns out almost anything asked for by the Government. The section, under command of Capt. Benjamin G. Patterson, is composed of four G.I.'s and 40 native laborers. S/Sgt. William B. Scharman, of Brooklyn heads one part that makes money for the Government by selling to local dealers meat bones, beer cans, old newspapers, coca-cola caps and milk cans. It is estimated that over $15,000 has already been turned over to Federal coffers.

ALL REQUEST
    S/Sgt. Raymond Brehant takes all requests for implements that the Government doesn't possess. He draws up plans for the model, then it goes right down to the work bench for the finished product.
    Along the Ledo Road, Pfc. Richard Kline has set up a one-man laundry. The washing machine was built by Cpl. Maynard Noble from a sheet of iron, which was welded into a tub. He also made a revolving tube with fins for the actual washing.
    Kline's big trouble in the past was lack of water, which has to be carried by drum from the river. But the monsoon has ended this dearth.

MUSIC WANTED
    Cpl. Noble found out that his buddies along the road wanted music. But the engineering outfit didn't have any instruments. So Noble, who had been a carpenter in civilian life, made three guitars from tree trunks, salvaged nails, from packing cases and wire, which was improvised into strings.

NURSE DAISY CHAN ANGEL OF MERCY FOR ALLIED TROOPS

    Y FORCE OPERATIONS STAFF, SW CHINA - Daisy Chan, 22-year-old Chinese nurse serving with the USAF in China, has crammed more than her share of adventure into her young life.
    But her current anxiety is to find her father, who is seemingly lost somewhere in the U.S. American authorities are now trying to find the elder Chan, to let him know that his daughter is safe. mail sent to his last known address in New York City by his daughter has been returned.
    Miss Chan's story starts with the Japanese siege of Hong Kong. At that time she was employed as a nurse in a civilian hospital.
    "But as the attack progressed, Canadian, Scotch and English soldiers began to be carried in." she said. "On one occasion we worked more than 24 hours at a stretch, with over 100 major operations performed.
    "Our food supplies ran low as the fighting continued. Finally, the city fell and the Japs entered the city on Christmas Day, 1941. When they arrived at the hospital they told the 150 Chinese nurses they would not be molested but they interned 70 British nurses."
    Miss Chan then told how the Japs took watches, fountain pens and other valuables belonging to the wounded soldiers... how they tried their propaganda theme, "Asia for the Asiatics"... how the Chinese nurses had to barricade their quarters nightly against individual Jap soldiers.
    "Finally they chased all the prisoners out of the hospital at bayonet points. They dragged sick and wounded men out of their beds."
    The nurse told how the Japs mercilessly prodded the helpless men into prisons, how after they had driven them from the hospital, the Japs continued their propaganda efforst with the Chinese nurses.
    "I finally managed to secure permission to take a position in a private hospital in Hong Kong," continued Miss Chan. "With a fellow nurse, Rebecca Chan, who is now with CNAC, I disguised myself as a peasant girl and escaped from Hong Kong.
    "We joined a Chinese refugee column that was trying to get into the Chinese lines. The column was constantly strafed and shot at by the Japs, who would then rob and beat the wounded. But we managed to reach the Chinese section in safety."
    Reaching Chungking, they were engaged by Col. Gentry, USAAF surgeon in China, lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell's personal pilot, Capt. Emmet J. Thiesen, flew them to Y-Force Headquarters.
    Daisy Chan is still here, but Rebecca later left for service with CNAC.

SERVICE GROUP FINDS ARMY HOME IN CHINA

    CHINA - Members of a USAAF service group had to come to China before they could find a home in the Army.
    If you don't believe it ask any of the boys, who now flash their Middle East campaign ribbons and battle stars in the shadow of the comparitive luxury of hostels, mess plates and hot showers.
    Not that China is any bed of luxury, as can be attested by G.I.'s who have been sweating it out over here. But this particular bunch of G.I.'s had been living out of their barracks bags so long they had become real knights of the roads.

COLONEL HELPS
    So used had they become to moving that they wouldn't even give their laundry to a willing but puzzled Chinese laundryman. They had to get the assurance of a colonel that they would hang around long enough to get it back before they would yield to the wiles of the laundry entrepeneur.
    Their odyssey started in Shangri-La back in April, 1942. For five months they travelled around the States as a service group, hitting one camp after another. Finally in September they got aboard a transport and wound up in Egypt.
    From then on they were constantly on the move, servicing bomber groups attached to the rapidly advancing Eighth Army. The boys even drew British battle dress since their G.I. uniforms were too much like the Italian regalia.

ITALIAN VEHICLE
    T/Sgt. William Zarka, picked up an Italian light vehicle which was christened "Spaghetti Wagon." They held on to this across Tripoli and even managed to transport it across the mediterranean to Sicily, thence to Italy, from where it eventually wound up in China.
    As Sgt. Joseph Hanlon puts it, "We plan to gas up in Tokyo, ferry across to Alaska and drive the old blitz buggy right down the Alcan Highway to Broadway."
    They have sweated out glider-borne attacks in Sicily... lived in dust storms lasting for days... got along on a ration of one quart of water a day... had P-40 pilots supply them with wine out of belly tanks which they had filled with the vin rouge at Cape Bon... built a PX out of an underground water cistern in Italy.
    They're now investigating the possibilities of the black market in China and hoping for some more P-40's with wine in the belly tanks.

PARACHUTE TO MYITKYINA

Doucely decorously dying
  for the Roman patria
Was quite a different business from
  floating down on Myitkyina
Floating down to gloating devils
  crazy-drunk with Dai Nippon,
Is not the kind of deatb which we
  brave or not, can dwell upon.
Dying with a solid bullet
  in a battle hot and clean
Is very different from descending
  blind, into the dead obscene.
Doucely decorously dying
  heroes of the past became
Mortal gods of state and nation
  They died well, But not of-shame
- P.M.A.L.

THE HOOGHLY HORRORS

Oh, it aint the bloody 'Ooghly
It's the stinking 'Astings Mill
What gives a man the 'orrors
'Til 'e's more than merely ill.

The beasty river's bad enough
With bodies floating by
Christ, a man don't 'ardly know
Whether to live or die!

But when the jute dust starts to blow
And mosquitoes get THAT thick
A man is licked before he starts
And 's gets the 'orrors quick.

No it aint the bloody 'Ooghly
It's the stinking 'Astings Mill
What makes a man so crazy mad
'E wants to rape and kill

The lights stay on; latrines don't work
We are lined up six feet deep
The only thing to save a man
Would be a bit of sleep

But all around 'e 'ears the cries
Of mortals in great pain;
They've got the 'Ooghly 'Orrors
And it's all a bleeding shame

No it aint the bloody 'Ooghly
It's the stinking 'Astings Mill
That made us all give up our ghost

We'd more than 'ad our fill
There aint no charge for dysentery
And the fever's strictly free
There's all the comforts of a 'ome in 'Ell
And 'eat in the syme degree

We're mor than slightly crowded
And we're slowly going mad
We'll never forget ole 'Astings
It's the worst we ever 'ad

No it aint the bloody 'Ooghly
It's the stinking 'Astings Mill
That makes us long for 'Oorijan
And wish we were there still.
- Anonymous

14TH A.F. PILOT ADMITS FICTION CAN BE TRUE

    CHINA - When F/O Walter F. Halsey used to read in prewar days about hazardous flying conditions in China, he didn't think that one day in the warlike future he would live through an air adventure that would make him believe truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.
    Halsey is an ATC pilot on loan to the 14th AF. He relates one of his recent experiences while flying a C-47A transport plane, loaded down with 4.500 pounds of cargo and passengers.

OVER MOUNTAINS
    "We were 12,000 feet over an airbase in a mountainous region of China when we ran into a thunderhead. The plane wouldn't level off, then went into a dive. The inside of the cockpit looked like a madhouse. Cigarette butts and earphones floated in mid-air, the gyro compass spilled and all the instruments went crazy except the airspeed indicator. It was registering the limit, 300 miles per hour.
    "I told the co-pilot, Lt. B. F. Mehall, to help me hold the controls as rudder resistance was terrific. When we had been thrust down a mile, down to the level of the mountain tops in this region, we were finally able to come out of the dive. The wings buckled part way but fortunately they held.

PASSENGERS READY
    "After we had pulled out of the dive I instructed the navigator, Lt. Lewis G. Helm to get the passengers in their chutes. Helm found the passengers had not had their belts fastened and had been tossed around from the floor to ceiling. They had punched holes through the plastic air duct along the roof with their heads. One Chinese gen eral, who was ill, had been hit on the head with a bucket. However no one was seriuosly injured."
    Halsey is now a devotee of the Flip Corkin strip and thinks Terry and The Pirates can do no wrong.

TRAVELING IN 'STYLE' TO REST CAMP

G.I.'s go to Rest Camp - Third Class. "Lucky" Yanks, travelling to and from various vacation spots in India, found plenty to complain about in these none-too-clean third class Indian train coaches. Complaints from American transportation officers resulted in some improvement - but not much.

TREED ATC PILOT
SAVED BY NATIVES

    INDIA - Forced to bail out of a C-46 transport plane on a China-India flight by bad weather and diminishing fuel supply, 2nd Lt. James C. Cooper, an ATC pilot, found himself in a precarious position atop a 200-feet tree, hanging by his parachute shrouds and surrounded by a score of ostensibly hostile natives.
    Finally, the natives voted in Cooper's favor and set about rescuing him. He beathed easier as they proved friendly and led him to a nearby village, where he met two other members of his crew; 2nd Lt. Roscoe T. Smith and Cpl. John M. Hillkirk, radio operator, who had landed a quarter of a mile apart and had had a less harrowing experience.
    The three men were treated hospitably by the chief of the tribe, who made arrangements for escorts to the nearest U.S. airfield. After several days of hiking along mountain trails, subsisting primarily on a diet of rice, they reached the field, where they hitchiked a plane ride to their home base.

CBI SKY PILOT SLAYS COBRA WITH BRICK

    APO 465 - Gals just naturally don't like snakes. But Lt. Mary Tobin, of Maynard, Mass., an Army nurse, has the skin of a five-foot cobra among her CBI souvenirs, all because she had the nerve to transfix the snake with the beam from a flashlight until her companion, Chaplain Aubrey Zellner of St. Cloud, Minn., could kill it with a brick.
    The two were leaving an air base hospital after dark, when the sky pilot suddenly grabbed Mary by the arm and jerked her from the path. At their feet was the big cobra with hood expanded and plenty mad.
    Zellner handed his flashlight to the nurse and told her to shine it in the snakes's eyes, until he could get into position with the brick.
    She did, and he did.

The C.B.I. Roundup is a weekly newspaper published by and for the men of the United States Army Forces in China, Burma, and India, from news and pictures supplied by staff members, soldier correspondents, the United Press, and the Army News Service. The Roundup is published Friday of each week and is printed by The Statesman in New Delhi, India. Editorial matter should be sent directly to Capt. Floyd Walter, Headquarters, U.S.A.F., C.B.I., New Delhi, and should arrive not later than Sunday in order to make that week's issue. Pictures must arrive by Saturday and must be negatives or enlargements. Stories should contain full name and organization of sender.

JUNE 22, 1944

Original issue of C.B.I. Roundup shared by Virginia Dyer, widow of CBI veteran Stanley Dyer.

Copyright © 2006 Carl Warren Weidenburner

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