Carriers Take GIs and P-47s to CBI

King Neptune, attended by his court, presides over the initiation of “pollywogs” as they prove themselves worthy to become “trusty shellbacks.” Pfc. Andrew R. Allegretto stands behind “the pirate” and to the right of a partially-assembled P-47 Thunderbolt—one of the first one hundred shipped to the China-Burma-India Theater—while Pvt. Norman L. Long takes swats (but protected from injury by a book in his pants). They were among the passengers of USS Mission Bay who included four officers and twelve enlisted men destined for service in the Chinese-American Composite Wing’s 3rd Bomb Squadron. A. R. Allegretto collection, courtesy of Mary Allegretto Henry

Navy records reported that USS Mission Bay (CVE-59) and USS Wake Island (CVE-65) steamed from Staten Island on February 20, 1944, loaded with Army personnel and planes bound for the China-Burma-India Theater. The previous day Mission Bay had received thirty-eight Army officers and 175 enlisted men and loaded fifty P-47s, fifty cases of aircraft parts, miscellaneous spare parts, and aviation supplies. The carrier steamed from Pier 14, Staten Island, at 1330 hours. Wake Island, moored at the US Army Port of Embarkation, Stapleton, Staten Island, had embarked twenty-seven US Army officers, 143 Army enlisted personnel, seven US Navy officers, thirty Navy enlisted personnel, and three US Marines officers, as well as fifty P-47s, boxed aviation material, and Army and Red Cross supplies. This carrier got underway at 1300 on the twentieth and rendezvoused with Mission Bay, which led Task Force Group 27.2 accompanied by destroyer escorts USS Trumpeter, USS Straub, and USS Gustafson.  

My father, then-Cpl. James H. (“Hank”) Mills, described Mission Bay as "a small aircraft carrier" that also transported the first P-47 Thunderbolts sent to the CBI. The defense of Allied airfields in India and China was a major concern because of their vulnerability to Japanese air attack, and the 14th Air Force was already short on fighters. At the request of the US Army Air Force, the US Navy diverted two escort carriers from the Mediterranean to transport one hundred P-47s to India. Its hangar bays filled with pursuit planes were described by Glenn ("Red") Burnham, another passenger aboard Mission Bay who was assigned soon afterward to servicing the P-40s flown on missions by the 17th Fighter Squadron (Prov.), 5th Fighter Group (Prov.) of the Chinese-American Composite Wing, 14th Air Force. "The carriers were being used for transport only: the flight and hangar decks were loaded with P-47s," he recorded in his diary. Soon after their arrival, Burnham’s unit was informed that they were replacements for a CACW unit that had been lost when their ship was attacked and sunk in the Mediterranean.*

At sea for a biblical “forty days and forty nights,” according to Hank’s recollections, Mission Bay went down and around the coast to South America, crossed the Atlantic, and then steamed around the coast of Africa and up to the Arabian Sea. This circuitous route was chosen because it was less likely to attract the attention of marauding Germans than if the ship had steamed directly east across the Atlantic and then along the coast of North Africa, as was the case when the convoy that carried personnel intended for the CACW (referenced by Burnham) had been hit by Luftwaffe bombers the previous November on the day after Thanksgiving.

Accommodations were far from luxurious. Men aboard the carriers were assigned to cramped quarters with little to keep them occupied other than to read, play cards, and sleep. Closely-spaced rows of bunks were stacked one above the other. Seasickness plagued many once they put out to sea, although Hank was fortunate to have never suffered from it. "Some of those men threw up their toenails,” he recalled with a grin. Fierce competition ensued regarding use of the head located farther down the passageway, which soon reeked of vomit. Hank wrote some letters while he was aboard the ship, and he asked one of the sailors to mail them for him. It seems they were not sent because he never received any replies―or perhaps they were intercepted by censors.

The monotony was interrupted when the carriers crossed the equator (0⁰ latitude, 38⁰W longitude, headed south) at about midnight on Monday, February 28, and a traditional line-crossing ceremony got under way to commemorate the occasion. It was a protracted affair that extended into the following day, when King Neptune and his court, sporting gaudy costumes, conducted a mock trial of the uninitiated. These "pollywogs" were required to undergo a series of ordeals that included taking swats before they were deemed worthy to become "trusty shellbacks.” Each of the men who took part in the rite was awarded a "Shellback Certificate,” and these mementos are now treasured by the families of then-2nd Lt. George P. ("Red") Wood, T.Sgt. Robert N. Solyn, and Pfc. Andrew R. Allegretto, who were also aboard. “I had one, but I don't know whatever happened to it," Hank remarked.

The convoy made its first stop for refueling and fresh provisions at Recife, Brazil, on the afternoon of March 1, and passengers were given shore leave. Entrepreneurs, accustomed to providing services to men who had spent long periods at sea, welcomed them. As the GIs passed along the wide streets leading from the docks, prostitutes called to them from second-floor windows of the buildings from which they worked: "Come on up, boys. Come on up, boys.”

Hank, who seldom passed up an opportunity for a practical joke, remembered an incident that involved another of the GIs who went ashore that day—a man from Los Angeles, California, with whom he shared quarters. “So this Charles J. Sacky, he claims that he didn't have anything to do with any of those girls—and he drank some but he wasn't drunk. So when we got back to that ship, the shore patrol people accused him of being drunk and being with one of those girls.” The MPs threw Sacky into a cold shower, clothes and all, and he lost his voice. “And every time he'd say something, he'd sound like that [whispers]. And I'd say, ‘Huh?’ He'd do it again. And for about two weeks—his voice came back, and he could speak, but I had him trained. Every time he said something, I said, ‘What's that?’ And he'd say [whispers]. After he got it back, he didn't know he could talk, but I'd make him go through that, all the time, every day.” After they reached Karachi, the two men were assigned to different units (Sacky to the 5th Fighter Group) and never saw each other again.

The convoy got underway again at 1640 the following evening en route to Cape Town, Union of South Africa (now Republic of South Africa) via a "great circle route.” Hank recalled that just off the coast of Brazil, "All of a sudden [the destroyers] took off, and then in a minute a sub popped up and ran up an American flag. 'Hey, don't shoot me! I'm one of y'all.' Those destroyers were gonna get 'im.”

The destroyer escort received orders to leave the convoy on March 5, and the carriers "commenced zig-zagging and continued during daylight hours" to avoid torpedoes from German U-boats that might be patrolling the vicinity, according to Mission Bay's war diary. The carriers entered the channel at Cape Town on the morning of Sunday, March 12, and waited for a heavy fog to lift before mooring at New Basin that evening at 1820. The men were once again given shore leave. "There was a big billboard as we went into town―'There will be no mixing of the races'―and they were serious," recalled Hank. Capt. Raymond L. Hodges took a tour of Cape Town. One of the attractions along the route was the home of Cecil Rhodes, creator of Oxford University's Rhodes scholarships. Hodges was served tea and scones before he reboarded the carrier.**

In Table Bay on the afternoon of the fourteenth, Mission Bay completed degaussing procedures for correction of the ship's magnetic field before getting underway again at 1700. The carriers were joined at Cape Town by escort vessels of the British Royal Navy. The frigate HMS Bann took station screening ahead of Wake Island with Mission Bay in column astern. The convoy rounded the Cape of Good Hope and then continued steaming along the coast as it traveled northward. A destroyer, HMS Quadrant, joined the escort on the nineteenth and HMS Raider, a patrol vessel, on the twenty-first before anchoring off Cape Diego, near the northern tip of Madagascar, at 1228 on March 22. The convoy was underway again at 1704 from Diego Suarez Bay after the refueling of escorts.

On the twenty-third, the convoy was described, "Steaming as before. Zig-zagging during daylight hours.” The carriers entered the channel at Karachi, India (now part of Pakistan)  at 0700 on March 29 and anchored off the breakwater to await the end of a dust storm. At 1625 Mission Bay was "moored port side to dock, Berth 21, West Wharf" and began discharging passengers and unloading cargo. Wake Island, moored nearby, also disembarked passengers and began discharging cargo.

It was a strange and exotic place to these Americans. Hank, like many other young men who traveled to this unfamiliar part of the world, experienced culture shock soon after arriving in Karachi. "The men had a strange custom there. Everywhere you'd see men walking around holding hands together. I wondered, what kind of place is this I've come to?”

Karachi's streets were filled with people, both indigenous and foreign. Many of them were military, not only American but also British, Indian, Canadian, Australian, and Chinese troops. It was a city with a significant Muslim population, so activities stopped at specified times of the day while prayer rugs were unfurled and the devout turned their faces toward Mecca to pray. Hank's recollections included hearing the keening of the Muslin call to prayer. "I never did like the sound of that.”

Sgt. Kenneth W. Daniels of the 1st Bombardment Squadron (Prov.), 1st Bombardment Group (Prov.), Chinese-American Composite Wing, described his only visit to Karachi a few months earlier: "I drank in the sights, sounds and smells for a few hours―camels pulling big carts through the crowded streets where sweepers crouched whisking a bundle of branches, spitting blood-like beetle-nut juice and the God-awful sound of sitar music. A sacred cow stood on the sidewalk eating from a food stand while I watched a cobra-mongoose fight, trying not to inhale the putrid odors.” He was glad to get back to camp at Malir, explaining, "The air smelled much better out on the desert.”***

*C. E. Daniels, “SSgt. Glenn ‘Red’ Burnham,” C. E. Daniels Collection, http://www.danielsww2.com/page25.html.

**Penny L. Pool, “A Life That Could Have Been a Movie,” Randolph Leader (Roanoke, AL), Nov. 9, 2005, https://www.therandolphleader.com/news/article_6e852950-7e6b-59dc-9377-db22376cb4e6.html.

***Ken Daniels, China Bombers: The Chinse-American Composite Wing in World War II (North Branch, MN: Specialty Press, 1998).

Find more of this entertaining story in The Spray and Pray Squadron: 3rd Bomb Squadron, 1st Bomb Group, Chinese-American Composite Wing in World War II.