Shot Down in Burma
It was July 4, 1944, and two 3rd Bomb Squadron B-25s took off at 1015 from Moran Field in Upper Assam, India, toward Burma. Visibility was limited by scattered showers. The planes were last seen heading into bad weather at low altitude toward Mogaung. Capt. Thomas S. Simpson flew a B-25H, Chinese A/C #721, with a crew made up of Capt. George C. Cunningham as navigator, 1/Lt. Eugene H. Dorr Jr. as top turret gunner, and a Chinese copilot, radio-gunner, and tail gunner. The two bombers dropped 500-pounders on railroad targets at Naba Junction and Katha. "Had to fly with my side window open in order to see the tracks,” Simpson wrote in his diary. He came in low on an attack of a bridge, about ten feet above the bridge deck, when the Mitchell was hit by rifle and machine gun fire that knocked out its left engine. Simpson signaled Lt. Reuben Ragland, pilot of the wing plane, that he was going down, but Ragland misunderstood the gesture and headed back through the pass toward base.
Simpson’s oil pressure dropped to zero, so he ordered the crew to strap on their parachutes. The engine ran "rough,” and rpm fluctuated between 2000 and 2800. The left propeller would not feather and the plane could climb to no more than 800 feet in altitude. White smoke began pouring from the engine and a small flame appeared from under the cowling. “Had to land or jump right away,” Simpson concluded. After four failed attempts at landing the plane, "I gave up and started looking for a place to sit down," related Simpson. Then he instructed his crew to brace themselves for a crash landing. "It was raining so hard I couldn't see more than one half mile ahead. The road was to my left and seemed fairly smooth so it was there that I headed and set the ship down.” About twenty feet wide, there was a good straight stretch before it made a turn to the right toward a steep cliff, and Simpson knew that he had to put the plane down before that turn. As the Mitchell was skimming above the road, the second engine cut out.
“It came to me in a flash—the memory of a movie I saw 10 years ago.” Using it as his inspiration, Simpson aimed the aircraft between two trees in an attempt to reduce forward momentum by knocking off the wings. "My flaps cut the speed from 200 to about 160 miles an hour. I flipped off the ignition. Then we hit. My left wing hit a tree and was knocked off so the plane was straightened but . . . the right wing hit another tree.” The tree trunks clipped about ten feet off each wing. "We dropped down to about 100 miles an hour but we were still eight or ten feet high. I shoved the stick forward and bellied in." The aircraft was on the ground at 1320. “ Could hardly tell when we hit the ground,” Simpson wrote in his diary. "The plane came to rest and the crew and I got out unhurt.”
Fearing an explosion, Simpson ordered his crew to clear the plane. They all scrambled out of the emergency hatches in time to see a group of about fifteen to twenty enemy soldiers approaching at a run along the road behind them from the south, with twenty to thirty advancing from the opposite direction. The advance party took up a position just behind the tail. As the leader uncorked a grenade and drew back his hand to throw it, Dorr dropped to the ground and opened up on them with side arms from where he lay in the road. At the same time, Simpson sprinted back to the plane, leaped into the top turret, and tried the power switch. To his great relief, the guns were still operational. Simpson turned the twin .50-caliber guns on the enemy soldiers and fired between the stabilizers, killing or wounding all in the first group before swinging the guns around and mowing down those in the second group.
Simpson and his crew made their escape into the jungle, with the Japanese in constant pursuit, often firing mortars in their direction. What follows is a thorough account of their miraculous escape. They were all back at Moran on July 9, with the aid of friendly Kachin tribesmen after being pursued through swamp, river, and jungle. This was the first 3rd Bomb Squadron plane to go down in combat. Unfortunately, it was not the last.
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Capt. Thomas S. Simpson
(Courtesy of Larry Simpson)