USS Mission Bay (CVE-59) and USS Wake Island (CVE-65) steamed from Staten Island on February 20, 1944, loaded with Army personnel and one hundred P-47 pursuit planes bound for the China-Burma-India Theater. Accompanied by destroyer escorts USS Trumpeter, USS Straub, and USS Gustafson, the convoy formed Task Force Group 27.2. At sea for a biblical “forty days and forty nights,” according to recollections of my father, then-Cpl. James H. (“Hank”) Mills, 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. Men aboard the carriers were assigned to cramped quarters with little to keep them occupied other than to read, play cards, and sleep. The monotony was interrupted when the carriers crossed the equator, and a traditional line-crossing ceremony got under way to commemorate the occasion. Hank remembered stops for refueling and fresh provisions at Recife, Brazil, at Cape Town, South Africa, and at Cape Diego, Madagascar, before docking at Karachi, India (now part of Pakistan) on March 29.

Pilot of a B-25H, A/C #719, Capt. Mark T. Seacrest led the 3rd Bomb Squadron element, along with three 4th Bomb Squadron planes, on a joint mission from Hanchung. Their objective was to bomb and strafe the Yellow River Bridge. Providing close escort were eight 3rd Fighter Group P-40s that did their job well., despite being attacked by Japanese fighters, and eight 312th Fighter Wing P-47s as top cover that "hit the deck."