“Worst Thing I Ever Saw”
Boeing B-29 “Superfortress” bombers of the XX Bomber Command, shortly before participating in the raid against the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yowata, Japan, on June 15-16, 1944. Wikipedia
On June 26, 1944, Capt. John C. Hinrichs Jr., 1Lts. Robert C. MacNeil and Chu S. C., 2Lts. Chang C. K., Kuo C., and Liang K. Y., SubLt. Wang Y. S., and SSgts. Homer L. Chasse and Ewell F. Wilkerson took off on an administrative mission to Bangalore, India, where B-25s were assembled at the Hindustan Aircraft Factory. Despite foul weather that moved in and prevented any combat operations to follow the 3rd Bomb Squadron’s first mission on the previous day, the field at Moran was not lacking in excitement. Someone tossed a cigarette into a puddle of water that had a film of gas floating on its surface, igniting a fire at the armament "basha”. Quick action prevented damage to supplies, although the thatched-roof bamboo hut sustained slight damage. Armament moved in temporarily with Engineering until repairs could be completed.
While some of the men were fighting the blaze, notification came in stating that the wreckage of an airplane had been spotted about twenty-five miles southeast of Moran, right at the foot of the Himalayas. Rumor soon spread that it was one of the squadron's two B-25s that had recently departed for Calcutta on their way to Bangalore. A Stinson L-5 liaison plane’s pilot notified Communications of the wreckage's location, and a rescue crew with three jeeps, a truck, and an ambulance set out over a muddy jungle trail to the scene. According to the official squadron history, “The journey was exhausting, and night fell before all vehicles reached the crash area. Here the fighter doctor [Capt. James L. King, attached to the 5th Fighter Group] relieved our worries by revealing that the plane was a B-29.”
The team found no survivors, although one native reported seeing one or more bail-outs. “No bodies, only limbs, were found,” Capt. Louis F. Graves Jr. wrote. “Under the circumstances, it was felt best to postpone the search until morning, so the squad returned to Moran, mud-spattered, hungry and thirsty, after leaving one out-of-wack jeep near the crash scene."
My father, then-Sgt. James H. (“Hank”) Mills, was in the rescue party. "It was the worst thing I ever saw," he recalled many years afterward. The heavy bomber had broken apart and been driven into the ground. "Little ol' scraps of metal was all that was left of that plane.” Seventy years later, the scene of the catastrophe was still clear in his memory. "It was just a big muddy spot with burned places and pieces of men's bodies there—a man's shoulder and arm—a leg sticking out of a boot—some other parts of bodies that I couldn't recognize. The worst thing was that smell. They say when you smell it, you'll never forget it.”
Vultures were perched in the tall trees all around the crash site. "They had been down picking at that wreckage, eating parts of those dead soldiers.” It affected him profoundly. Several days passed before he was able to eat anything at all. "It would come time to eat, I'd sit down, and that scene would come. I couldn't eat. I didn't think about eating. You couldn't make yourself eat, it was so terrible. That smell—I will never forget that.”
Decades later he described it to his younger brother, Ralph, in a rare conversation about his military service while on a fishing trip, and he still remembered it as “a nightmare you could never get away from.”
On June 15, Capt. Marvin M. Stockett and a full crew from the 45th Bombardment Squadron, 40th Bombardment Group of the XX (20th) Bomber Command, had taken off from Chakulia, India, bound for Hsing-ching, China, which would be used as an advance base for deployment of the Superfortresses in raids against the Japanese home islands as part of Operation MATTERHORN. "Stockett's Rocket" (serial #42-6261), loaded with bombs for a scheduled attack on the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yawata, Japan, was last reported at Jorhat on its way to fly over “the Hump.” All twelve on board, including eleven crewmen and one passenger, were killed in the crash. The cause was never determined, although overheating of the behemoths' engines was among the many problems common to these early B-29s. Official records still list the aircrew of Stockett’s Rocket as missing, although the circumstances of that crash conform to what is known about the wreckage reported by 3rd Bomb Squadron personnel.
This was the first raid conducted by Boeing B-29 “Superfortress” bombers in Japan, and it was the first bombing attack on the Japanese home islands since Jimmy Doolittle’s famous raid in April 1942.
You can find it more of this riveting story in The Spray and Pray Squadron: 3rd Bomb Squadron, 1st Bomb Group, Chinese-American Composite Wing in World War II.