United States Air Force Air Commandos: Any Time-Any Place

By Madonna Yancey

"Any Time Any Place" is the motto of the United States Air Force Commandos. Feel as though you are a member of this elite group as you read the history of the Air Commandos as they proudly served from World War II to the present. This book contains the history of the group, numerous aircraft photos, and biographical profiles of the veterans who have served.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Dec 1, 2000
• ISBN: 9781618585554

Book preview

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Turner Publishing Company

Publishers of Military History

P.O. Box 3101

Paducah, Kentucky 42002-3101

Co-published by

Mark A. Thompson, Associate Publisher

For book publishing write to:

M.T. Publishing Company, Inc.

P.O. Box 6802

Evansville, Indiana 47719-6802

Pre-Press work by

M.T. Publishing Company, Inc.

Graphic Designer: Kyle J. Davis

Author: Madonna Yancey

Copyright © 2000 Turner Publishing Company

This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced without the written consent of the Publishers.

The materials were compiled and produced using available information; Turner Publishing Company, M.T. Publishing Company, Inc. regret they cannot assume liability for errors or omissions.

Library of Congress Catalog

Card No. 00-134405

9781618585554

Printed in the United States of America

Limited Edition

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

history

THE HISTORY OF THE AIR COMMANDOS

AIRCRAFT

BIOGRAPHY

INDEX

NOTES

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Battle Damaged EC-47 Aircraft, NKP Thailand, May 1973, 56th

Special Operations Wing. (Courtesy Alfred Gummerson)

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

It is with great pleasure that we introduce this volume on the Air Commando.

We owe our deepest gratitude to all the men who served as Air Commandos, for giving of themselves, heart and soul and in some cases their lives, during their courageous service to our country.

We extend our gratitude to Air Commando Association for their cooperation in producing this book. Special thanks to the Association Museum staff for their assistance in seeing this project through to its completion.

A special acknowledgment goes to Madonna Yancey for writing the manuscript for the front of this publication.

We are indebted to the individuals who submitted photographs and additional material from which information was compiled.

Turner Publishing Company leads the way in military association history book publishing, and we hope all will enjoy our newest title that chronicles the history of Air Commandos.

Dave Turner, President

Mark A. Thompson, Associate Publisher

history

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End of mission Home Free Nakah Phanam. Joe Kittinger, Pilot.

(Courtesy Air Commando Association)

THE HISTORY OF THE AIR COMMANDOS

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The Air Commandos have a long and glorious history, a history that traces back to World War II and to the mountains and jungles of the China-Burma-India Theater. The creation of the Commandos came from the extraordinary vision of General Henry H. Hap Arnold, the exemplary leadership of two U.S. Army Air Force Lt. Colonels - Philip Cochran and John Alison - and the skill and bravery of the men of the storied 1 st Air Commando Group.

In the early years of World War II, the Japanese set out to gain control of all of Southeast Asia. One by one, the countries of this region and strategic Pacific Islands were overrun by Japanese troops. In just a few short years, French Indochina, Thailand, Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island, the Dutch East Indies, and Burma were all under Japanese control, as was much of mainland China.

The battle for China had actually begun in 1931, when a group of Japanese army extremists took control of the Chinese province of Manchuria. Although the conquest was in defiance of official government policy, the Japanese were not about to let go of their prize conquest. By the summer of 1937, the Japanese were launching attacks on the remainder of the Chinese mainland. By 1941, they had nearly cut off China from the rest of the world.

While China was the biggest prize, Burma was the key to Japanese dominance of the region. The small number of resistance fighters remaining in China were being supplied by the British in India along a route known as the Burma Road, which extended to the city of Kunming. Cutting off those supply lines would effectively put an end to the Chinese resistance, freeing the enemy’s troops to engage in other operations. Control of Burma would also give the Japanese a staging area for moving into India, the next great prize they sought to win. And a Burma under Japanese control would help the Imperial Army block the Allies from advancing into their nearly conquered territories in Southeast Asia.

In addition to its strategic importance to the Japanese plan for domination of Asia, Burma had other enticements. Japan was a country poor in natural resources; Burma was a country rich in rubber, oil, tin, and other materials the Imperial Army desperately needed to prosecute the war. Burma also had another commodity the Japanese needed: the country could produce millions of tons of rice each year, food to fill the bellies of hungry enemy troops and enable them to keep fighting.

Just barely two weeks after their attack on Pearl Harbor had drawn the United States into the war, Japan began their invasion of Burma. While the Allies bravely attempted to defend Burma, they were ill equipped to do so and quickly learned that they were no match, at least at that time, for the Japanese army. As the Allied troops began their retreat back into India, the enemy, adept at jungle fighting, used the country’s inhospitable terrain to their advantage, constantly harassing the retreating troops with roadblocks and sneak attacks. By the spring of 1942, Burma was firmly in enemy hands, China was isolated, and the Japanese seemed in control of the war. The Allies, however, would soon create a new weapon to meet the enemy’s challenge.

The Allies were determined to keep General Chaing Kai-Shek’s forces in the war. With the Burma Road cut off and Burma in Japanese hands, they had to devise some way to keep his troops supplied from bases in northern India. One enormous obstacle lay in the path from the military bases in northern India to Chaing Kai-Shek’s troops in Kunming, China - the majestic, snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas, the highest mountain range on earth. The men who had flown across this mass of rocks and glaciers tagged it with a nickname: the Hump.

Some of the most spectacular scenery ever seen by man lay along this mountainous route. For all of their beauty, however, the Himalayas were also one of the most treacherous places on earth. The 650-mile route from India to China was fraught with danger along every mile. The mountains were often shrouded in dense fogs, and the area was subject to violent snowstorms, downpours of freezing rain, and winds so fierce they could toss an airplane around like it was a mere toy. Adding to the already hazardous missions, the route into China passed over Japanese-controlled Burma. One route across the Hump became known as the aluminum trail because it was littered with the wreckage of so many aircraft.

While U.S. Army Air Forces planes were ferrying supplies from India into China, Allied engineers were trying to construct a land route from India into China through northern Burma. And in the meantime, the troops that had retreated from Burma back into India under the command of Joseph Stillwell, an American general, were reorganizing for the next effort to wrest Burma from Japanese control.

GENERAL WINGATE AND THE CHINDITS

Into this situation came a British brigadier general named Orde C. Wingate. General Wingate was something of a maverick, considered by many to be a brilliant and charismatic, if somewhat unconventional, leader. With his arrival, the course of the war in that part of the world would undergo a dramatic change, a change that would give birth to the Air Commandos.

General Wingate knew that conventional tactics of waging war would never work against the Japanese troops who were firmly entrenched in the jungles and mountains of Burma. Instead, he proposed using long-range penetration columns (LRPs) that would use guerilla tactics against the Japanese. They would make forays behind enemy lines, hitting critical transportation and communications links, including railway lines, bridges, and boats. If these tactics worked, they would be able to stop the flow of supplies into the interior of the country from the port of Rangoon and the major city of Mandalay. General Wingate had successfully employed these tactics against Axis troops in Libya and against the Arabs in Palestine.

General Wingate’s troops were known as the Chindits, named for the mythical winged stone lions that guarded Buddhist temples. Officially, they were the 77th Infantry Brigade, comprising the 13th Battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment, the 3rd Battalion of the elite Gurkha Rifles company, the 142nd Commando Company, and the 2nd Battalion of the Burma Rifles company. Together they formed a seven-column brigade of nearly 3000 men. To carry their supplies into enemy-held territory, they had hundreds of mules, oxen, and elephants.

Early February of 1943 marked the beginning of Operation Longcloth. On February 8, 1943, General Wingate’s Chindits, and their supply animals, crossed from India into Burma. The Chindits’ first incursion into Burma had several objectives. They were to penetrate deep into the country and reach their first target undetected by the enemy. To support this first objective, the 23rd Indian Division mounted an attack against the Japanese to keep them occupied and unaware of the movements of the Chindits. Once in Burma, they were to cut the main railway line which ran between Mandalay and Myitkyina. If possible, they were also to cross the Irrawaddy River and make a second cut in the rail line, this time between Mandalay and Lashio. And they planned to harass enemy troops with surprise attacks in the Shwebo area.

The Chindits were accompanied by an officer from the British RAF, who was to prepare them for being resupplied by air drops 16 days later. The resupply plan did not work as it had been envisioned. The Chindits moved at night, making them difficult to locate and the resupply missions ineffective.

The Chindits suffered heavy casualties when two of the columns were ambushed at the railway line. The nearest Allied forces were more than 100 miles away, across the mountains and in India, meaning there was no effective way to evacuate the wounded. Instead, they were left with their weapons, some rations, and a few prayers for their survival. In addition, the inhospitable climate and the diseases endemic to the jungle inflicted a heavy toll on General Wingate’s troops. And after crossing the Irrawaddy River, he was forced to disperse his forces into smaller groups, making them even more difficult to resupply. On March 27, 1943, the Chindits finally returned to the safety of India. Over the course of their mission, they had marched nearly 1000 miles and lost nearly one-third of their men.

Still, Operation Longcloth had to be considered a success. The Chindits had penetrated 150 miles into Burma. And they managed to do so in a cloak of secrecy, right past the noses of an unsuspecting enemy. In two weeks, the main body of the column reached the railway line at Mandalay without encountering any Japanese troops, and they received fresh supplies via air drops from the Royal Air Force. They blew up the railway line in more than 75 places along a 30-mile route. The Japanese repaired most of the damage relatively quickly, but General Wingate and his Chindits had struck a heavy blow, both physically and psychologically. They had proven the enemy vulnerable to surprise attack from within the borders of their own territory. They had also shown that unconventional guerilla warfare tactics could be an effective weapon in the Allied efforts to take back Southeast Asia from the Japanese.

There were still two major obstacles that would have to be overcome for the long-range penetration columns to work. They would have to find an effective way to resupply the troops deep in enemy territory, and they would have to find a means for evacuating the wounded back into India. If those two things could be accomplished, the Japanese were in very serious trouble.

PROJECT NINE

General Arnold had been watching events in the China-India-Burma Theater with great interest and anticipation. A pioneer in the use of aircraft for military purposes, General Arnold was the first pilot to deliver mail by air. He was also a visionary who saw the value of air power in combat and also recognized that military aircraft could be an effective means of providing tactical support and mission coordination for ground troops.

In August 1943, heads of states from the Allied powers, as well as key military commanders, gathered in Quebec, Canada, at the Quadrant Conference. Prime Minister Churchill had requested General Wingate’s presence at this conference to present a report on the development of the LRP concept and the activities of the Chindits in Burma.

Several decisions emerged from this conference. President Roosevelt wanted to keep Chinese resistance forces active in the war, and the Allied leaders decided that continuing supply flights over the Hump was the best way to aid the Chinese efforts. Prime Minister Churchill’s primary concern was regaining the territories that the Japanese had wrested control of in Southeast Asia and, above all, protecting India from an invasion by the enemy.

The third decision had implications for the way the remainder of the war in Southeast Asia would be fought. General Wingate was to plan a new offensive strike into northern Burma, with support from the air supplied by the Americans. And a new LRP force would be created, this time with British imperial reserves along with 3000 American group troops. This combination British/American LRP force would relieve the mounting pressure on General Chinese forces by cutting supply and communication lines. If successful, this new plan could force the Japanese out of Burma and reopen the road between India and China. If Burma could be retaken, the rest of the Japanese empire in Southeast Asia would be in danger of falling apart.

General Arnold, then Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces, was directed to find the solution of resupplying and evacuating General Wingate’s troops. Called Project Nine, the operation would mark a bold new chapter in military history.

Although they didn’t know it at the time, the birth of Project Nine could not have come at a better time. The Japanese still had their sights set on a conquest of India and had set down plans for an attack against Imphal. Time was on the Allied side, thanks to the onset of the annual monsoon season. The Japanese operation, with the code name U-Go, was to take place during the next dry season. Unfortunately for the enemy, Project Nine would put an end to their plans of adding India to their empire. In fact, Project Nine would be instrumental in turning the tide of the war in favor of the Allies.

Project Nine would attempt to do something that had never been done before in military history - stage an invasion into enemy territory by air. Under the aegises of Project Nine, Allied air bases would be established behind enemy lines. U.S. Army Air Force planes would transport General Wingate’s troops into northern Burma. They would land in a jungle clearing and then build an airstrip. Once the airstrip was completed, transports would bring in additional troops. From a secret air base, built deep in enemy territory, General Wingate’s forces would use hit-and-run attacks to decimate the enemy’s supply routes and communication lines.

To lead Project Nine from plan to implementation, General Arnold would need men of exceptional qualities and abilities. The two men he chose were both known as mavericks, skilled in the tactics of unconventional warfare.

The first was Lt. Colonel Philip G. Cochran. A fighter pilot, Lt. Colonel Cochran had taken a group of inexperience pilots, flying P-40 Warhawks, into North Africa and turned them into a cohesive air power unit. A highly-decorated pilot, Colonel Cochran had no interest in General Arnold’s grand plan. Instead, he recommended his former roommate from two of his previous duty assignments.

Lt. Colonel John Alison was a fighter ace who had flown with General Chennault’s famed Flying Tigers in China. A veteran of the CBI theater, with seven aerial victories to his credit, he also had extensive foreign experience. He had worked with Lend-Lease programs in Russia, England, and the Middle East. But Colonel Alison, like his friend before him, was not interested in becoming part of Project Nine. He preferred to remain a fighter pilot

But a general is a general and a lieutenant colonel is a lieutenant colonel. Over their objections, General Arnold’s intention was to make Colonels Cochran and Alison co-commanders of the new special air unit he had been charged with developing. Project Nine would have top priority, both in the recruitment of men and the procurement of necessary supplies and equipment.

Early on in the process, Colonels Cochran and Alison decided against a co-command. As Colonel Cochran had a few months of seniority over Colonel Alison, he became the commander for Project Nine, with Colonel Alison as his deputy.

The idea behind Project Nine was to develop a way to stage an invasion of ground troops by air, saving the men from the grueling march into Burma. They also needed to find an effective way of evacuating wounded troops. A third objective was to provide additional firepower to the LRP troops, if possible. Because they traveled by foot, the Chindits also traveled light. Close air support would provide them with a weapon they had never had at their disposal before. The Chindits were brave, fierce fighters. With the addition of artillery and heavy ordnance, supplied by U.S. Army Air Force planes, would prove an even more formidable force against the Japanese.

There was another problem unique to the Chindits. General Wingate strongly believed that mules were the best way to transport supplies through the mountains and jungles of Burma. However, pack mules could not be parachuted into the jungle. Large cargo gliders provided the solution to this logistical dilemma.

The next step in Project Nine was to recruit the men who would become the Air Commandos. In the pre-war years, the Army Air Force comprised a small, select group of men, and Colonels Cochran and Alison knew most of the experienced pilots and support people by name. They were allowed to bring in men from any unit, anywhere in the world.