Kweilin Falls to ICHIGO

Pvt. Philip Piecuch, one of four cooks assigned to the 3rd Bomb Squadron, waves from the stairs, while an unidentified Republic of China Air Force officer stands behind him. Another unidentified Chinese soldier claims his place in the car with the Americans (left), as 1Lt. John F. Faherty (center) and SSgt. Paul E. Haines (right) wait for the train to get underway. This photo provides only a hint of the great throngs of Chinese civilians who perched on the roofs, clung to the sides, and tied themselves to the undersides of the cars. J. H. Mills Collection.

Capital of Kwangsi (now Guangxi) Province, Kweilin (Guilin) was one of the newest and most beautiful cities of Free China. The 14th Air Force conducted operations out of three bases south of the city: Erh Tong, with Li Chia Chen slightly farther to the south and Yang Tong to the west.

B-25s assigned to the 3rd Bomb Squadron crossed “the Hump” and arrived at Kunming in Yunnan Province on September 4, 1944, completing the move of the final Chinese-American Composite Wing unit to reach China. Loaded with equipment, the Mitchells carried minimal crews that included enlisted men to service the planes. Then, they made their way toward Kweilin, where the squadron’s initial elements had arrived aboard transport planes the previous week.*

By this point in the war, Japanese military forces occupied approximately the eastern third of mainland China and controlled the main railroads and highways and all the seaports. In April 1944, the invaders launched a major offensive called Operation ICHIGO. Utilizing 400,000 men organized into seventeen divisions and supported by 12,000 vehicles and 70,000 horses, it formed a gigantic pincer movement designed to split Free China. The operation had three main objectives: improve routes of supply and communication by controlling the railroad between Peiping (now Beijing) and Hong Kong, provide a link between Japanese forces in China and French Indochina, and eliminate the Allied airfields from which bombing raids were being successfully launched.

In the initial phase, Japanese forces moved south from Kaifeng to join a second thrust moving north from Hankow. The Japanese seized control of Honan (Henan) Province in central China’s Yellow River Valley by the end of May and then marched south along the Hsiang (Xiang) River. The main thrust was then a powerful drive from Hankow, designed to link up with a push westward from Canton. The enemy offensive was relentless, and the overwhelming force of the invaders crushed resistance by the under-strength, demoralized Chinese defenders.

As elements of the 3rd Squadron began to reach Kweilin, the airfields at Hengyang and Changsha (also called Paoching) had been seized, effectively pushing back the reach of American air power. On August 16―the same day Maj. Chester M. Conrad received orders for his squadron’s move to China―the Japanese 11th and 23rd Armies, operating under command of the 6th Area Army, began to move into the northeastern region of Kwangsi Province. Chinese troops, who had retreated following the loss of Changsha, were incapable of offering battle but engaged in a campaign to delay the enemy advance.

Even as squadron aircraft were making their way to China, plans were being developed for their departure. On September 5, Capts. John C. Hinrichs Jr. (supply officer), Mark T. Seacrest (operations officer), and James C. Kelso Jr. (adjutant) attended a conference at Yang Tong to discuss the most effective procedures for evacuation. There was some uncertainty as to whether the B-25s would even be moved to Kweilin because of the imminent enemy threat, but they all arrived safely at Erh Tong on the afternoon of the eighth. That was the same day the Japanese 11th Army overran Lingling, both the town and the airfield. Then began their advance toward Kweilin.

The 3rd Squadron's bombers flew only four missions before Kweilin was evacuated, all against towns in the path of the enemy drive. All carried 250-lb. demolition bombs, and all were plagued by malfunctions of the bomb-release mechanism.  These were joint raids conducted with the 4th Bomb Squadron to hit targets in the vicinity of Lingling .

The first mission was off on September 10, when nine 3rd Squadron B-25s, with escort provided by four P-51s of "the 118th Fighter Squadron" (118th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 23rd Fighter Group, 68th Composite Wing, 14th Air Force), attacked targets at Lingling. Maj. Conrad led the formation, each plane carrying eight demos. This raid proved to be the most successful of the four. Although the 3rd Squadron’s A/C #718 accidentally salvoed its bombs due to defective operation of the racks, all hit the target area.

On the following day, Maj. Conrad, Capt. Raymond L. Hodges Jr., and 1Lt. Reuben Ragland each led an element of three planes, carrying the same bomb load as on the previous raid, to attack Luhungzsu. The 118th Fighter Squadron again escorted, with five P-51s and two P-40s. On the first pass, the Mitchells released sixty-five demos, but seven hung up in the racks. Two bombers accidentally salvoed on the second run. Only six bombs entered the target area but caused no observable damage. Crewmen reported multiple small fires along the railroad that was the target of the 4th Squadron.

Capt. Hodges and Lt. Ragland each led an echelon of three bombers on the twelfth. Each plane again carried eight demos to hit the town of Tunghsiangkiao. Two planes had bomb release failure, and one salvoed on target. Hits were reported as 70%.

Later that afternoon, Hodges and Ragland were off again, each leading a three-plane formation. This time their target was the town of Huangyangshih, just north of Lingling. Of the twenty-four demos released, 85% hit the target area.    

As enemy troops closed in, the dispirited Chinese offered little resistance but began their retreat. The Chinese 93rd Army abandoned its defensive positions at Chuanhsien, ninety miles northeast of Kweilin, early on September 13. The Japanese moved at will against the Chinese rear and past the miles of fleeing Chinese soldiers and civilians flooding out of villages and towns. No one knew exactly where the Japanese were, although marauding columns of cavalry were reported to be approaching the city within forty miles, and rumors placed them only ten miles away.

On the following day, Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault and Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell made a visit to Kweilin for a final conference with Gen. Chang Fah-kwei and Brig. Gen. Clifton D. ("Casey") Vincent, in command of the 68th Composite Wing to which the 3rd Squadron had been temporarily attached, as well as of the base. With Stilwell's approval, Vincent issued orders to abandon the airfields and destroy the stores of gasoline. Final evacuation and demolition procedures began immediately. Vincent later called it “the worst strategic defeat ever suffered by an American air force,” according to an article in CBI Roundup, a popular theater service publication.

Listed in 1st Bomb Group Special Orders No. 81, post-dated September 20, 1944, fourteen American officers, forty-one American enlisted men, thirty-five Chinese officers, and ninety-seven Chinese enlisted men (all sergeants) were 3rd Bomb Squadron personnel transferred from Kweilin to Peishiyi (Baishiyi). Their new base, located almost 400 air miles to the northwest, was the home of CACW headquarters. Squadron personnel were assigned to details that traveled by air transport, railroad, truck convoy, and the squadron’s B-25s.

Preparations for evacuation had begun several days prior to the final order. Alerted and ready since the seventh, each man was allowed a small bag for personal belongings needed for immediate use, while the remainder was packed into foot lockers to be transported by train.

The Kweilin airlift was organized by Air Transport Command. Every available transport plane was brought in from across China, and others crossed “the Hump” from India, all to assist in evacuating personnel, equipment, and supplies from the threatened base. My father, then-Sgt. James H. (“Hank”) Mills, remembered evacuating aboard a C-47, although he remembered few other details.

Capt. Kelso and 2Lt. John F. Faherty (assistant operations officer) were placed in charge of personnel evacuating by rail. They had the men ready to leave by 1530 on September 12, but trucks taking them to the train station did not depart from the field until 1900. Once aboard, they waited for many hours before getting underway because movement was blocked by a derailment up the line. On the tracks just outside the city and at the south station stood three stalled trains.

Maj. Conrad and Capt. Seacrest went down to the train station to see the men off. With a detail selected to assist with security during the long delay and the much longer journey that followed, 1st Sgt. William T. Earley Jr. was later awarded the Bronze Star for his vigilant attention to the task. They finally rolled out late the following day.

Almost the entire civilian population of Kweilin, carrying their meager possessions in pitiful bundles, made their escape before the advance of the Japanese army. Refugees by the thousands clogged the dirt roads and packed every available train as they fled the city toward Liuchow (Liuzhou), 100 miles to the southwest. Immobile passenger and freight cars were crawling with people, like bees in a hive, inside and outside, on roofs and on the rods. Many tied themselves in their precarious positions before the trains rolled. They ate, slept, washed, and cooked as best they could near the tracks. Sanitary conditions were deplorable, and doctors feared a cholera epidemic. Still people waited, mostly with stoic patience because they had little other choice, although some set out walking along the tracks in their desperate search for safety.

TSgt. Robert N. Solyn wrote a letter to his family that was summarized in a local newspaper. According to the article, “He and six other American soldiers . . . succeeded in getting to a train which was evacuating Chinese civilians. Under constant enemy gunfire during the trip through the tortuous mountain country, 600 of the Chinese civilians were killed. At times they were forced to take cover in the woods for protection against bombing. After 24 days of constant danger and hardships, they finally got through.” They lost all their equipment and “only had the tattered clothes which barely covered their bodies.”**  

The 3rd Squadron flew no missions on the thirteenth but spent the day preparing for departure. The air echelon led by Maj. Conrad, which had remained until “the last minute” according to Young, took off for Peishiyi on the morning of September 14, accompanied by planes of the 4th Bomb Squadron. SSgt. James E. McCann later remembered details and stated in an interview: “We made three missions [two according to official reports] the last day before Kweilin fell to bomb and strafe Jap troops in sampans on the Li River. The last time we took off we strafed them as the gear was coming up and our own people were blowing the field behind us.”***

The three airfields were abandoned after everything that might be of use to the occupying army was either hauled away or destroyed by demolition crews in compliance with a “scorched earth” policy. Thousand-pound bombs were planted in holes dug in the runways and then detonated to prevent the Japanese from having immediate use of them. Exploding ammunition and tracer shells fueled the inferno that burned hangers, hostels, depots, and alert shacks, as well as equipment, extra supplies, and bombs stored in caves.

Capt. Hinrichs and Lt. Young, in charge of the truck convoy carrying squadron equipment and supplies with a detail of eight enlisted men, left at about 2:00 that afternoon. They set up camp three miles south of Maling at 1645 after a run of sixty-five miles. The convoy arrived at Liuchow at 1925 the following day, “just in time for a two ball alert,” wrote Young in his report. The all-clear sounded after forty minutes. There was again "a mad scramble for cover" when three enemy planes bombed the field at 0245 on the sixteenth and again at 0225 on the following day.  

Pfc. James A. Wadlow, called “Snooks” by his family, was a member of this detail. He sent a letter from Liuchow to his parents in southwest Oklahoma that included details of his adventure: 

We have evacuated our home base and I am seeing China by jeep. There are ten of us with Captain in charge, four jeeps and a weapon carrier. We are more or less on a vacation. . . . We have the best officers in the whole lot in charge of us and we are really seeing some pretty country. We stop and camp at night and go swimming every chance we get. The rest of the boys all went by plane and train. The Capt. picked us to go with him and we have the best way of all. We had to ferry rivers and things like that and really had a time but it is fun. And the rest of the trip will be lots worse. We have 6 to 8 hundred more miles yet to go. We had an air raid and they really dropped bombs. We have a radio and a phonograph with us and everything else to make it more pleasant, thanks to the Capt. He really takes care of us. We sleep in pup tents and I don’t mind it at all. I am more or less the mechanic on this trip. I patch the old jeeps up. We will go through Bandit country some of the way but we have plenty of ammunition and weapons. So don’t worry. . . . I can take care of myself.

The irony of Wadlow’s letter is that he was a member of the 3rd Bomb Squadron’s only aircrew to be lost in combat.****    

The trucks made their way northward by way of Nantan, Tuhshan, Kweiting, Kweiyang, Tungkangchang, and Lungtze. The men who had traveled by rail arrived at Kweiyan (Guiyang) by truck on the twenty-fourth ("looking rugged,” wrote Young) and completed the journey with the truck convoy.

Although no official reports have been found regarding any direct contact with the enemy, Young related in an interview many years later that during the "final withdrawal before demolition from big China Kweilin Air Base,” Japanese soldiers on horseback surprised the convoy from three sides and he "escaped by land after nine days with only the clothes on his back.”

Capt. Hinrichs told his family that during the evacuation, the jeep he was driving was hit by enemy rifle fire that shattered the vehicle's windshield, narrowly missing him.

Solyn told a similar story about a sniper. He thought the man riding behind him had given him a hard kick until the backseat passenger noticed that he was bleeding from a wound in his back. The bullet only grazed him, leaving a long scar. He was later awarded the Purple Heart.

Even after the airfields were evacuated, B-25's continued to lead the attack against enemy columns moving on the abandoned city from the northeast and southeast, strafing motor convoys, troop concentrations, and supply dumps in the Chuanhsien and Tanchuk areas.

By the week following Kweilin’s evacuation, the invaders were within twenty-five miles of the city, but instead of launching an immediate attack, Japanese forces unexpectedly paused for five weeks to regroup and regather their over-extended supply line. Kweilin was converted to a fortress, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek reportedly ordered his troops to hold it at all costs. Chinese forces dug in and waited. By late October, Japanese troops, advancing in a wide arc, were within six miles to the east, six miles northeast, and nine and one-half miles southeast. Chinese defenders, with 14th Air Force support, continued to disrupt enemy supply and communications lines.

By November 1, the city's defenses had been breached. Chinese ground troops rallied and put up a stiff opposition, but Kweilin fell on November 11.

* See “Jing Baos at Kweilin, 9/6/2025, for details.

** “T/Sgt. Robert N. Solyn with Bomber Squad in China.” The Journal (Meriden, CT: April 11, 1945), 3.

*** Malcolm Rosholt, Flight in the China Air Space, 1910-1950 (Rosholt, WI: Rosholt House, 1984), 172.

**** ”James Wadlow Treks Across China In American Jeep,” The Hobart Democrat-Chief (Hobart, OK: Oct. 6, 1944), 1; and “Honoring the Fallen: Sgt. James A. Wadlow,” 7/17/2025.

There is far more to discover about this gripping story. Find it in The Spray and Pray Squadron: 3rd Bomb Squadron, 1st Bomb Group, Chinese-American Composite Wing in World War II.