Flight Officer (posthumously promoted to 2nd Lieutenant) Barton L. Wherritt was a member of a six-man aircrew that perished after their B-25 was shot down over the Japanese-el airfield at Ichang (Yichang).

1/Lt. Donald J. Davis was the pilot of a six-man aircrew that was lost when their 3rd Bomb Squadron B-25 was shot down over Ichang (Yichang) on May 16, 1945. His remains were recovered and returned to his home in California for reburial on July 13, 1949.

James H. “Hank” Mills, a B-25 crew chief, found his name on the roster for the next day’s mission and participated in 3rd Bomb Squadron operations as an aerial gunner until the end of the war. “They volunteered me,” he later said in an interview.

Capt. Thomas S. Simpson and a mixed Chinese and American crew of the 3rd (Spray and Pray) Squadron, Chinese-American Composite Wing, were shot down on a mission on July 4, 1944. The narrative that follows describes their miraculous escape from pursuing Japanese soldiers through the swamps and jungles of Burma.

My dad, then Corporal James H. Mills arrived in Karachi to begin training Chinese mechanics in early April 1944. I was born three weeks later in Arkansas. I met him in November 1945, when I was eighteen months old.

From the collection of James H. Mills, this wartime photo taken in Kunming shows the Green Rooster Arch in the foreground and the Golden Horse Arch in the background.