My best friend in China during WW2 was
David R. Donald and he was also a member of my crew. He and I along with
a pilot, co-pilot and radio operator had flown to Kweilin, China to
spend 4 or 5 days flying missions from there to remote bases in China.
As it turned out, the co-pilot was needed elsewhere, so we were down to
a crew of 4.
We had completed our assignment and were staying overnight before
returning to home base (Kunming) the next day.
At about 4AM, I was awakened by the pilot telling me that there was an
impending air raid at Kweilin, and he wanted to leave before we were
restricted to the base because of the actual air raid.
I called Dave Donald and the radio operator, and together we went out to
my ship to get ready for takeoff. We hadn't completed the preflight when
the pilot got there raring to go.
We taxied out to the runway where I felt sure he would stop, warm up the
engines
and check things out. Instead he rolled
onto the runway, opened the throttles to pick up speed for takeoff. I
was in the co-pilot seat cursing him and doing all I could to keep the
engines from losing power since they were still cold. Luckily
we got airborne OK, and it was then I could see that he was intoxicated.
He apparently had spent the previous evening in the city of Kweilin,
which was called "the Paris of China."
After we reached altitude and leveled off, he excused himself and went
back to lie down. Dave and I flew the plane back to Kunming, but about
20 minutes out, I asked Dave to go back and wake the pilot. He came back
after a couple of minutes and told me to forget it, since Ray, the pilot
was completely out of it.
"Now what," I asked Dave. He said "Tom, you've been up here dozens and
dozens of times; you can land this thing." The more he talked, the more
I was convinced to try since we had to do something. So we radioed for
landing instructions, and went through the check list that was
procedure.
As I turned on final approach, I asked Dave to "give me half flaps, I
guess" and to start calling off air speed. As we got closer to
touchdown, I suddenly realized that I might bounce that plane all over
the runway, so I pulled up the landing gear, opened the throttles and
went around. The tower was calling on the radio asking what the problem
was. I lied, and told them the landing gear Red warning light came on.
When I expressed my concerns to Dave, he said "well, I'll land the
sucker." We
came around, turned on final approach,
and as I was calling off airspeed and got down to about 100, we touched
down in a perfect landing. I think I called him an SOB for putting me
through such stress.
Until that minute, I had never known he had had extensive pilot
training. He was a Private First Class and I was a Corporal.
Dave taxied the plane to a revetment at the far end of the field, where
we took enough time to "cover" for our pilot and save his rear end.
Copyright 1999 Tom Flanagan