Suicide Mission “Butcher”
A 2nd Bomb Squadron B-25 completes a bombing pass against the infamous Yellow River Bridge, visible in the background (National Archives and Records Administration)
It was Saturday, August 11, 1945. Assigned code name "Butcher," this early-morning mission was to include all four squadrons of the 1st Bomb Group, as well as several of the Chinese-American Composite Wing's eight fighter squadrons. The Yellow River Bridge was once again the target. This two-mile-long, ten-foot-wide bridge had been bombed repeatedly in the past, but the Japanese had always been able to repair it quickly and resume rail traffic on the vital Peiping-Hankow line within a matter of days. This was to be a final assault on the bridge, to destroy it "once and for all.” The raid had been planned by Col. John S. ("Jack") Chennault, commander of the 311th (“Flying Comanches”) Fighter Group stationed at Hsian. Col. Chennault, eldest son of Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault (now retired), would personally oversee the strike, circling high above the bridge in his P-51 and "directing traffic.” My father, James H. “Hank” Mills, remembered it as a very important target, with the bridge stretching across "a big lake,” and there were "some bridges between islands that went across that lake.”
The Japanese had covered the bridge deck with 1.25-inch boilerplate steel and installed anti-aircraft guns on the flats on the north bank of the river, as well as on the mesa on the south bank, several hundred feet above the river. Caves dug into the bluffs were equipped with anti-aircraft and large-caliber machine guns, so any low-level bombing attempt would surely be a suicide mission. Hank explained that the thing that made the target so dangerous was that "there were mountains on both sides that had gun emplacements and all they had to do was fire and you had to fly through that fire to get to the target.” There was little hope that they would all come back alive. "I figured if we didn't make it, that was my time to go.”
In this proposed combined strike, 14th Air Force B-24s and B-29s were assigned to first conduct high-level saturation bombing to knock out the anti-aircraft guns on both the north and south banks of the river. Next, the fighters would create a smoke screen in front of the machine gun emplacements on the south bank, refreshing the smoke screens every five minutes to reduce visibility from the caves. Then the 1st Bomb Group’s B-25 squadrons, using twelve planes each, would come in from the north and fly south along the length of the bridge at fifteen- or twenty-second intervals, two on each side. Attacking in units of four, they would release their bombs armed with fusing set to four- to five-second delay on the best angle possible. If the first four destroyed the south end, the next four would go no farther south than necessary to hit the next portion of the bridge. If the assigned section was not destroyed, the next four would go in to hit the undamaged section, and others would proceed in the same way until all forty-eight aircraft had dropped their bombs. By utilizing this strategy, mission planners believed there was good likelihood that the entire bridge could be wiped out at once.
Representatives from the CACW’s bomb squadrons and the fighter squadrons chosen to participate had attended a briefing at Liangshan on the tenth. Weather conditions must be perfect, and there had already been several delays. On this morning the radio message, “Butcher on green,” came in at 0400. Aircrews were briefed at 0500. The first elements were off an hour later and had been in the air for about twenty minutes. The 1st Bomb Squadron’s Mitchells had just fired up their engines for departure. Aircraft of the 3rd Bomb Squadron were loaded and pre-flight checklists completed. They were in position and ready to roll. "We were on the end of the runway, fixing to take off," Hank recalled. He was in his usual position as tail gunner. Before the bomber was airborne, the pilot received a radio message from the tower instructing him, in Hank’s words, "Don't take off. The flight's been canceled.” The pilot turned the plane around and taxied back in. Someone ran out onto the runway shouting, “The Japs have surrendered!” That was when Hank and his crew learned that for them, the war was over.
He said the same thing had happened two days before that: "We were on the end of the runway, and we were ordered to come back. We didn't know that there were any negotiations going on to end the war.” Although Japan had not yet officially surrendered, discussions had begun and a cease-fire issued that stopped "Butcher" in its tracks.
Celebrations erupted all across China, and arrangements began for the positioning of CACW personnel to allow them to begin the journey home as soon as the surrender became official. It was not until more than two weeks had passed that the formal document of Japan’s unconditional capitulation was signed.
To learn more of this intriguing story, read it in The Spray and Pray Squadron: 3rd Bomb Squadron, 1st Bomb Group, Chinese-American Composite Wing in World War II.