Forced Down in Yunnan
Capt. Mark T. Seacrest, the American seated in the front row (3rd from left), with members of his Chinese air and ground crew sometime prior to the bailout from A/C #714, pictured here in the background
On August 14, 1944, American members of the 3rd Bomb Squadron celebrated Chinese Air Force Day with their Chinese counterparts at Dergaon Field in Upper Assam, India. This holiday is held annually to commemorate the heroism and sacrifice of Chinese pilots in defense of their homeland on that date in 1937, when the CAF scored its first air-to-air victory over the invaders. The entire squadron participated in a flag ceremony at 0800, with two Chinese generals and staff as guests of honor. Several banners to commemorate the occasion were presented to the squadron’s American component. Speakers were Gen. Sun, Division Commander, as well as squadron co-commanders Maj. Wu Ch'ao-chen and Maj. Chester M. Conrad. Squadron Mitchells flew two missions that afternoon. Maj. Conrad, with two high-ranking Chinese officers along as observers, led a nine-plane formation that bombed and strafed the Burmese city of Mohnyin "with excellent results.” Conrad’s plane encountered some anti-aircraft fire, although no significant damage resulted.
Capt. Mark T. Seacrest, the squadron’s operations officer, led the second mission of the day, also carrying two Chinese officers as observers. His objective was to skip-bomb a twin highway bridge about four miles northwest of Lashio, starting point of the Burma Road's south end. Skip-bombing was always done at very low altitudes (usually 200 to 250 feet) at speeds from 200 to 250 miles per hour. A "stick" of two to four bombs, preferably fused to four- or five-second delay, was released by either the pilot or bombardier at an angle that induced them to "skip" over the water, similar to skipping a rock on the surface of a pond. Their hope was that bombs would bounce into the target and detonate, although odds were about equal that they would bounce over the target and miss.
Two B-25Hs took off at 1505 hours. Capt. Seacrest flew Chinese A/C #714, with 2/Lt. John F. Faherty as both bombardier and tail gunner. All other members of the aircrew were Chinese, including Lt. Col. Sing (given name and serial # not specified), passenger, for whom this was reported to be his first mission. On Seacrest’s wing was A/C #722, piloted by Sub-Lt. Liu Ping-chang with an all-Chinese crew. Weather and visibility were recorded as good.
Upon reaching the target, they discovered that it was heavily defended by concealed anti-aircraft weapons. Crewmen almost immediately spotted a convoy of trucks parked beside buildings near the bridge. Seacrest dropped in to strafe, and Liu followed on his tail. Then they reversed and attacked the trucks with a second strafing run. Both planes were hit by heavy small arms fire on the second pass, but they followed up with four more strafing passes. After destroying seven of the trucks, Seacrest went in low to skip-bomb the bridge, blowing up the south end. Later reports claimed it as completely destroyed. Seacrest was preparing to make another strafing pass when his navigator pointed to Liu’s plane and signaled that its left engine was smoking, having evidently been hit by some of the six or seven machine gun nests dispersed in the target area. Then operating the waist guns, Faherty reported by interphone their own plane had been hit and "the back end of the ship was quite full of machine gun holes and that he desired to leave the target area,” according to a statement later submitted by Seacrest.
When the left engine of A/C #722 started smoking, Seacrest gave the signal for the other pilot to join formation "because we were leaving.” After climbing to 4,000 feet and circling, he saw that Liu did not join formation but climbed to 6,500 feet, feathered his left engine, and headed for Assam. It would be impossible for the damaged plane to get past the 10,000-foot-high mountain range it must cross by that route back to base, and the nearest friendly territory was just east of the Salween River in China’s Yunnan Province, only about eighty miles away in the opposite direction. As Liu's plane began losing altitude, Seacrest overtook it after about four minutes (estimated as fifteen miles from Lashio) and signaled the Chinese pilot to change course and follow him in the direction of Yunnanyi, where the most westerly of the bases operated by the 14th Air Force was located. When they reached the Salween, Liu reported that he could go no farther and made a forced landing on an open plateau on the west bank of the river, about 100 miles southwest of Yunnanyi. A/C #722 was damaged but did not burn, and all crew members were observed exiting the aircraft.
As Capt. Seacrest was circling at 100 feet to allow his navigator to take a photograph of the grounded aircraft, Faherty informed him that their own left engine had begun pouring out white smoke. Seacrest immediately gained altitude and turned toward Yunnanyi, but the engine began to run very rough—-back firing, smoking, and sputtering—-and "nearly lost all of its power.” Seacrest flew on the right engine for about thirty minutes. During that time, he fired all the ammunition out of the fixed nose guns to lighten the plane while Faherty tossed out the two waist guns, additional ammunition, oxygen bottles, hydraulic fluids, and spare canvas through the side hatch. When everything "loose" had been jettisoned, Seacrest instructed Faherty to buckle on his chute and wait for the bail-out order, because the plane was becoming increasingly unmanageable. A/C #714 continued to lose altitude at about one to two hundred feet per minute, with full power on the right engine.
"At 1830, we were still on one engine at 6000 ft. following valleys in the direction of Yunnanyi, when we noted some mountains about 12,000 ft. in front of us,” Seacrest wrote. “I started the left engine again and although it was running very rough we were able to climb to 14,000 ft. At 1845, I tried to switch on the instrument lights as it was getting dark. The instrument lights would not work and we had no lights in the cockpit at all, probably due to a short in the wiring due to ground fire.” He was able to maintain a relatively straight and level course for almost ten minutes, although with considerable difficulty. At about 150 miles northwest of Yunnanyi, Seacrest gave the order for the crew to bail out.
Assisted along the way by cooperative Chinese, Capt. Seacrest and his crew traveled by horseback and on foot to Yunnanyi, where several of them were treated for minor injuries. Then they traveled by transport plane on to Kunming, covering a distance of about 130 miles in eleven days. Lt. Liu and his crew began their walkout at about the same time and also arrived safely at Kunming. They all made their way to rejoin their squadron in early September, as personnel were moving from India to China.
There are far more fascinating details to this story than can be included here. Read the full account, including excerpts from letters home, memoirs, and official reports, in The Spray and Pray Squadron: 3rd Bomb Squadron, 1st Bomb Group, Chinese-American Composite Wing in World War II.