| |
Burma Road
On May 17th 1944, Myitkyina airfield-main
link in the old India China air route-fell to a surprise attack by Merrill's
Marauders. They had appeared suddenly on the air-strip after a 20 day
march along secret jungle paths.
"Taking, and holding, of the strip went
back and forth between a small band of Marauders and the enemy. Gliders
carried in support troops and the strip, and the strip only, was secured -- at
least to a point. Directly there after we started flying in ammo and
supplies. Captain Potter was jumped by four Oscars, over the field, and shot
down.
There was supposed to have been fighter coverage
however, due to shortage of fuel, they had departed for their home base.
In doing so they transmitted in open English that replacements would be on site
in a little over five minutes. Command reprimanded the pilots as they were
supposed to have transmitted all messages in code. At the time four Oscars
were hovering in the clouds over the field and jumped Potter. One Oscar crashed
and the other three, after downing our aircraft, strafed the field. We had
other C-47s on the ground and they looked like punch boards thereafter.
The Oscars were taken care shortly thereafter as our fighter replacements
arrived on the scene.
We got our aircraft out of the strip but to say they
needed a lot of patching would be understatement of the year. The work was done
with anything our engineers could get their hands on as we received very little
supplies due to tension between ground and airfare commands in obtaining
same".
more
|