Lalaghat, and every other field sending aircraft for Operation Thursday for that matter, was a beehive of activity on the morning of March 5. A constant roar permeated the air as plane after plane landed or took off. Some transports taxied to the sides of the runway where tow ropes had been strung in long rows to be connected to plane and glider. Other C-47s taxied to designated pens where equipment was being muscled into position for loading. On almost every road leading to the runway, British and Indian soldiers and their mules clustered while waiting for orders to board gliders or planes. The men checked and rechecked their equipment. Away from the airstrip hubbub, flying personnel were briefed on the mission. Large maps drawn on bedsheets that showed the landing areas were studied carefully by the men.
Slim, Stratemeyer, Baldwin, and Old had flown in to Lalaghat to watch the show. The only major commander not present was Mountbatten himself. He had suffered an eye injury in a jeep accident a few days earlier and had not yet recovered.
Ironically, the atmosphere at Lalaghat was both tense and relaxed. Many men were tense in anticipation of what lay ahead. Just as many were relaxed for the same reason because now they could get on with the task they had trained so hard to accomplish. Cochran and Alison seemed to be everywhere as they made last-minute inspections. Both men had planned to fly a glider into one of the clearings, where they would assume command. Not happy about the possibility of losing both his air commanders, Wingate ordered Cochran to remain at Lalaghat. Cochran tried in vain to change Wingate’s mind. For once, the soft-spoken Alison outtalked his friend, and Wingate chose him to command the force at Piccadilly. Olson, the group’s executive officer, would command Broadway.1
Several days earlier, Russhon had gone to Cochran to ask about photographing the clearings. Russhon wanted to get some last-minute pictures for the photographic record he and his team had been compiling about the operation. He also believed that taking the pictures was a reasonable precaution against receiving a nasty surprise when the troops actually flew in. Cochran reminded the photographer that Wingate expressly forbade aircraft from flying over the landing sites. Still, Russhon thought the colonel was not enthusiastic about leaving Broadway and Piccadilly unobserved.2
Russhon approached Cochran again the following day. This time the Air Commando leader was amenable to the proposal. The concern over the landing grounds that had been nagging at Cochran for some days now caused him to defy Wingate’s orders. He told Russhon to fly over the clearings in the late morning or early afternoon of D-day and see what things were like there. The photographer raced to the airstrip to find Maj. Robert Smith. The bomber leader listened quietly to Russhon then told him to climb into Smith’s B-25. Smith would fly the mission himself. Shortly before noon, the B-25 roared off the field and headed for Broadway. Almost two hours later the clearing came into view. Everything seemed normal as Russhon snapped away with a handheld camera. Smith then turned south for Piccadilly.
Whereas Broadway had looked fine, something appeared to be wrong at Piccadilly. As Smith and Russhon neared that clearing, both men could see numerous parallel streaks stretching across the open field. On closer inspection, the pair saw that the streaks were actually teak logs that had been pulled into the clearing and effectively blocked the site from glider landings. Only one small area seemed usable, but freshly turned dirt was spotted. The logs had not been there a few weeks earlier, and Russhon also wondered if the fresh dirt concealed mines. He was so astonished at the sight that he forgot to take photos. Smith circled over Piccadilly once more so that Russhon could get his pictures then sped for home.
Time was of the essence. The B-25 was under strict radio silence, and it would be between 4:00 and 5:00 PM before Smith and Russhon could get back to Hailakandi, where Russhon’s photo lab was located. The takeoffs for the operation were set to begin at 5 PM, just before sundown, from Lalaghat, twelve miles from Hailakandi. Russhon was out of the plane and running for his photo lab before the B-25’s propellers had stopped turning. At the lab, Russhon turned his photos over to 1st Lt. Irving A. Greenspan and his three enlisted assistants for developing and printing.
The four men turned to work with careful haste. The darkroom was a crude structure of bamboo. It was not light tight, and extreme caution was necessary to minimize light streaks. Water for fixing and washing the prints had to be carried from a well some distance away. No drying facilities were available, so Greenspan used desk blotters to blot and dry each negative and print. Working under these adverse conditions, the men made some thirty 20- x 24-inch enlargements.3
While Greenspan and his men were developing the pictures, Russhon had been trying to telephone Cochran. He could not reach either Cochran or Alison, however, and he despaired that he would not get the information to them in time. Because Lalaghat was so crowded, Russhon could not use a large plane like Smith’s B-25 to fly there. Russhon had just commandeered a jeep to make the frantic twelve-mile drive to Lalaghat when fortune smiled on him. A USAAF colonel, having become lost on the way to Lalaghat, landed his fighter at Hailakandi to ask for directions. Russhon ran to the plane to assist the colonel and to also ask him to deliver the precious photos to Cochran. The pilot consented and was soon on his way.
Russhon was headed back to his jeep when a second bit of luck came his way. This time it was in the form of an Air Commando sergeant and his L-5. The little plane had hardly stopped when Russhon was beating on its door and asking the pilot to fly him to Lalaghat. Agreement was swiftly reached, and the L-5 putted off for Lalaghat. It was not as fast as a fighter, but it was at least heading in the right direction.
As soon as he reached Lalaghat Russhon began searching for Cochran and Alison. He found them puzzling over the photos. The photographer quickly told his story. Now fully alarmed, Cochran and Alison took the photos to Wingate. At first the Chindit leader was irate, berating Russhon for disobeying orders. Cochran finally broke into Wingate’s tirade by saying that he had felt a hunch. This seemed to mollify Wingate, for he quickly calmed down and even managed a small smile.
Wingate called a conference of his brigade commanders to decide what to do. Slim, Stratemeyer, and Baldwin also joined the group. Initially, it was thought that Japanese agents had found out about the operation or, at least, about Piccadilly. Could the other landing zones now be ambushes? Someone remembered that a photograph of the Piccadilly site had appeared in Life following Wingate’s first foray into Burma. Perhaps the enemy, knowing that an Allied offensive was imminent, was just taking a routine precaution to block potential landing sites. (As it turned out, Burmese loggers, not the Japanese, had dragged the trees into the clearing to dry.) Using Chowringhee in place of Piccadilly was considered but “Mad Mike” Calvert, the 77th Brigade commander, did not believe that was wise since his force would be split between two widely spaced points separated by the Irrawaddy River. He thought this would be an invitation to disaster, as did Lieutenant Colonel Walter Scott, whose 1st Battalion, The King’s Regiment was to be first in. Cochran and Baldwin also agreed, saying that changing the landing site would require too much rebriefing.4
There were other important points to consider. After weeks of intense training, the Chindits and Air Commandos were at their peak. Any delay would take the edge off their preparations. Also, if Operation Thursday was delayed, it would be a month before the moon would again be in the right phase. This would result in the operation being one month closer to the start of the monsoon season, which was not an appetizing thought. There was one other major consideration: The operation was already under way. Even as the senior officers were in conference, Fergusson’s brigade was moving toward the landing area. To stop the advance would effectively end the participation of Fergusson’s troops in Operation Thursday because they could not remain behind enemy lines by themselves for another month.
What happened next has been controversial ever since. Wingate supporters state that he alone made the decision to go ahead with the landings but to use just Broadway. Wingate critics disagree, claiming that Slim, as Army commander, had to make the final decision. It was more likely a meeting of minds among those present—Wingate, Slim, Baldwin (who was in charge of the air elements), and, not the least, Calvert, whose brigade would lead the operation. Whoever ultimately made the decision—and in the end it does not really matter who that was—gave the fateful words to continue Operation Thursday.5
With the matter resolved, controlled chaos took over as flight plans were revised and loading manifests were adjusted to account for the elimination of the twenty gliders scheduled to land at Piccadilly from that night’s launch. Unfortunately, this haste resulted in carelessness in reloading. Equipment was just piled in the gliders and stowed wherever it would fit, creating weight and center-of-gravity problems that would only become apparent later. Cochran and Alison rushed over to their men to quickly rebrief them. Clambering atop the hood of a jeep, Cochran told his men, “Say, fellers, we’ve got a better place to go!”6 He then showed the glider and transport crews their new assignments. The briefing ended quickly, and the men ran to their aircraft.
Alison was now out of a job, for he had been scheduled to lead the mission into Piccadilly. Not willing to be left out of the operation at this late hour and willing to serve under Olson at Broadway, he took the spot of another glider pilot. The Air Commando glider leader, Taylor, who had been scheduled for Piccadilly also, bumped the pilot who was to fly the first glider into Broadway.
The ground trembled with the roar of C-47 engines as the planes waddled into position for the final checks prior to takeoff. At 6:12 PM, just seventy-two minutes late, Bill Cherry took off, towing two gliders behind. These were the first of eight gliders carrying the advance party that was to reconnoiter the landing site and prepare the ground for the arrival of the main force. At five to ten minute intervals, the rest of the Broadway force followed.
It quickly became obvious to the tow pilots that something was wrong. Continuous high power was needed in the climb, and even then the aircraft were climbing at only 150 feet per minute. Not until later did it become known that most of the gliders had been dangerously overloaded by their passengers. In some cases the glider loads reached 5,500 pounds, which was nearly 2,000 pounds more than what the CG-4 flight manual recommended as a maximum safe load. Like soldiers everywhere, Wingate’s men did not trust that supplies would reach them any time soon, so the Chindits had loaded their gliders with more ammunition, food, and other supplies.
The tow ships climbed laboriously to eight thousand feet, an altitude that gave them just five hundred feet to spare over the highest peaks of the Chin Hills. Some gliders did not make it that far. Men on the ground at Lalaghat soon saw red flares in the distance, which indicated that some of the CG-4s had been cut loose from their tows. Ten gliders were released before reaching enemy territory. Two of these separations were caused by electrical problems in the tow planes, necessitating a return to the Lalaghat area; two more were the result of higher than anticipated fuel consumption. Those two gliders were cut loose near Imphal. Fortunately, no casualties resulted from these misadventures, but needed supplies were lost.7
Further losses were sustained as the remaining tugs and gliders struggled on toward Broadway. Prior to reaching the Chindwin, a bright full moon shone directly into the faces of the pilots. Then a haze enveloped the aircraft, and it became difficult for the glider pilots to see their tugs. This problem was exacerbated when all lights on the C-47s were turned off. In the turbulent air, with just the blue exhaust flames of the C-47 engines dimly observed in the gloom, pilots began to overcontrol their gliders. The gliders surged forward and then recoiled, placing great strain on the tow ropes. Inevitably, some ropes failed. Nine more gliders fell away between the Chindwin and the Irrawaddy.
Two of these came off the same tow. One carried Lieutenant Colonel Olson, who was to have taken charge at Broadway. This glider was also one of the two radio ships destined for the landing site. Olson’s pilot turned back toward the Chindwin and was able to make a relatively smooth landing near the river. Although suffering a foot injury that caused him to fashion a jury-rigged crutch, Olson led his party back to safety within a few days.8
The second glider almost suffered a disastrous fate when the broken tow rope whipped back over its wing and cut into the fabric and caused the pilot to lose control momentarily. Fortunately, the pilot was able to recover and make a safe landing in a rice paddy. As the seventeen men, including Air Commando intelligence officer Major Boebel, scrambled from their glider, rifle and machine-gun fire met them. They had landed almost on top of 31st Division headquarters. As the commandos lay low in the shadows, it became evident that the Japanese were just shooting in the direction of the sound of the crash. Nevertheless, the men decided to get out of the area as fast as possible. It took almost a week for the party, traveling mostly at night, to reach safety.
On their fourth night one of those incidents that reveals the heroism that often dwells in the unlikeliest of men occurred. The group had reached the Chindwin, which they were going to have to swim. But of the seventeen men, eight could not swim. The swimmers took off their trousers, tied knots in them, and blew them up like balloons. Along with a few life preservers, the trousers were used to help float the nonswimmers across the swift-running river. A Japanese patrol was known to be nearby, so there was to be no talking during the crossing. One of the nonswimmers was a small, thin glider mechanic who also wore thick glasses. Although he did not appear tough enough for an arduous jungle campaign, Cpl. Estil I. Nienaber had pleaded to go on the mission and was finally allowed to go. He had held his own during the jungle trek, but he was going to be pulled across the Chindwin. About halfway across Nienaber lost his grip on his swimming partner, and the current ripped him away. He could have cried for help, but even at the cost of his life, Nienaber obeyed orders to remain quiet. He disappeared into the blackness and drowned. Eventually, with the help of Burmese villagers and a Chindit patrol, Boebel’s party reached friendly lines.9
Other downed parties had varying degrees of luck. An ambulance glider carrying Captain Murphy, an Air Commando medical officer, and a load of Gurkhas landed near the enemy airfield at Katha. Unperturbed, the men climbed nonchalantly from their glider, formed into a column, and marched away into the jungle in the bright moonlight. Hardly a shot was fired at them. Instead of heading back to India, this group marched toward Broadway, reaching there on the 13th. Another glider landed near the 15th Division headquarters. Most of these men escaped into the jungle, but the pilot, blinded in the crash, was captured. He refused to give his captors any information, but the Japanese were able to study the crashed aircraft and made some shrewd observations. They were already fairly sure that Wingate would be involved in new operations into Burma, and this was confirmed by interrogations of other Chindits and Air Commandos who were captured when their gliders landed near the 31st Division headquarters and a regimental headquarters in the Paungbyin area. These scattered and inadvertent landings confused the Japanese, however, and they were unsure of where the main airborne landings had been made and in what strength. The Japanese remained in the dark on these matters for several days.10
While some Japanese officers considered the airborne invasion serious enough to recommend that U-Go, the invasion of India, be postponed, others remained sanguine; none more so than the Fifteenth Army commander General Mutaguchi. When the 5th Hikoshidan leader, Maj. Gen. Tazoe Noboru, warned Mutaguchi of the dangers of enemy units running wild behind the lines, Mutaguchi dismissed such threats. Considering the Chindits little more than a minor diversion, Mutaguchi told Tazoe that he would be in Imphal before the Chindits could cause major damage, and then he would destroy them. Although Tazoe continued to press the issue, pointing out what the enemy had accomplished with aerial resupply in Arakan and declaring that this could happen now on a greater scale, Mutaguchi refused to accept Tazoe’s entreaties. The Fifteenth Army leader believed that whatever units there were in the areas of the landings were capable of handling the Chindits. After all, Mutaguchi told Tazoe, the Chindits were just mice in a bag.11
Mutaguchi assigned several battalions to counter the threat. The Burma Area Army leadership, while agreeing with Mutaguchi that U-Go should proceed, took the airborne landings more seriously. In mid-March, well after the landings, the Burma Area Army sent the 24th Independent Mixed Brigade from Moulmein and a number of 2nd Division units from the Bassein area to reinforce the Fifteenth Army against the Chindits. This slow buildup of forces against the Chindit strongholds would not prove very effective, however.12 It was fortunate for the Chindits that the Japanese were confused by the inadvertent glider landings and that the enemy commanders were more interested in their offensive against Imphal than in what they perceived to be hardly more than nuisance raids, for the Broadway landings came close to disaster.
Shortly before 10 PM, Cherry arrived over Broadway with his two gliders still safely in tow. The clearing was plainly visible in the moonlight—a pale island in an ocean of blackness. Taylor cut loose from the C-47 and found himself plunging almost straight down. Only with great effort could he get the glider’s nose to come up. Taylor could not figure out what was wrong. Another problem cropped up as he tried to slow his aircraft to its normal landing speed of about sixty miles per hour. The glider would not slow, its airspeed remained ninety miles per hour. Still, under these circumstances, Taylor’s landing was better than most that evening.13
At the last moment, as he passed through shadows cast by the trees surrounding the clearing, Taylor momentarily lost his feel for his aircraft’s attitude. Then he saw a large white patch in front of him. Hauling back on the controls with all his strength, he hopped his glider over what was a large and deep elephant watering hole. With a thud and the sound of ripping fabric as a wheel tore off, his glider slewed to a stop.
Two more gliders arrived, the air flowing over their wings whistling eerily in the darkness. One was flown by Blush, and the second, piloted by Alison, was carrying Scott. Their landings were also signaled by crunching and snapping sounds as they, too, crashed. As Scott and his men spread out to set up a perimeter defense, Alison and Taylor were left wondering what was causing the crashes. They soon had their answer. The landing ground was not as smooth as it had appeared to be on the reconnaissance photos. Large ruts made by logs dragged across the field were hidden under the tall grass. Some logs still remained, presenting hazards to the landing gliders. Here and there, large, deep elephant and buffalo water holes lay in wait to ensnare unlucky gliders. Two large trees, inexplicably unnoticed in the photos, towered right in the middle of the clearing.
When it became obvious that Olson was not going to arrive, Alison quickly took charge. He, Taylor, Blush, and Russhon, who had landed in a fourth glider, scurried about to set up beacons to guide the rest of the CG-4s. The regular lights had been lost, along with all aboard, when the glider carrying the equipment crashed into the jungle. The quartet were able to set out smoke pots as a temporary expedient. They had to relocate the smoke pots continually, however, because most of the arriving CG-4s cracked up upon landing, blocking the landing areas. It was exhausting work, and the Chindits pitched in to help. The sound of gliders smashing into each other was an unforgettable booming drum-like sound that was accompanied by a sharper snapping noise as glider frames twisted and broke.
Seese flew in Calvert and his team. Just prior to touching down, Seese saw Taylor’s glider looming dead ahead. Yanking back on his control column, Seese managed to jump the other glider and land safely. The CG-4 carrying Casey, the 900th Engineer’s commander, slammed into the trees, killing all aboard. The glider carrying the all-important radio equipment also crashed, and the equipment was damaged. With Olson’s radio glider missing, this was a serious complication. Wingate and Cochran needed the latest information from Broadway, but despite the feverish efforts of the Air Commandos, the radio remained silent. More men were killed or wounded as the remaining gliders came in higher and faster than had been anticipated and crashed. It was some time before the Air Commandos realized that too-heavy and out-of-balance loads were the cause of most of the landing problems.
The hardworking radio crew finally got their equipment operating, albeit fitfully. Alison, assessing the chaotic conditions, directed them to send out the code word “soyalink.” Chosen because it was the name of a meat substitute the British soldiers detested, soyalink meant that conditions at the landing zone were unfavorable and no further gliders should be dispatched. Alison intended to expand on that message, but before he could do so, the radio died again.
Wingate finally received the message at 2:27 AM, but only after it had passed through a couple of other communications links. Both he and Cochran were horrified. What was happening at Broadway? Was the landing zone under attack? The anguish of the unknown weighed heavily upon them. Wingate wrote later, “At the conclusion of the first night’s operations there was little cause for optimism with regard to the future.”14 Old, who had never been enthusiastic about Operation Thursday, was even more critical, complaining in his diary, “It was on the whole a poor show.”15
Before he received the disturbing message from Broadway, Cochran had dispatched a second wave of gliders. Because of the difficulties encountered by the first wave of gliders in double tow, Old directed his aircraft to tow only single gliders on the second mission. Cochran soon followed suit. Cochran was able to recall all but one tow and glider from the later group. In hindsight this unrecalled glider provided one amusing moment in a night of less-than-humorous events, and as it turned out, the glider’s cargo also played a major role in the eventual success of the operation.
With the landings finally apparently halted, Alison and the others, completely worn out from running all over the field, prepared to get some rest. Suddenly, the sound of a motor cut through the air. The men thought at first that it was a Japanese plane, but then they recognized the sound of C-47 engines. Calvert tried to get a flare to warn off the incoming aircraft, but could not find one. Attempts to douse the smoke pots were just as unsuccessful. Those on the ground could tell by the sound of the C-47’s engines that it was turning away and had evidently released its tow. Then they heard the eerie whistling of the glider approaching. Fearing the worst, Alison and Calvert awaited the inevitable crash.
The sound of the glider hitting trees was terrifying. “Oh my God!” Calvert muttered. Alison could say nothing. More men had been killed or wounded and more needed supplies had been lost, they thought. Discouragement began to set in, as can happen in the blackness of night when everything seems to be going wrong. Finally, Calvert said, “Let’s go to bed. It always looks better in the daytime.”16
Fate has a funny way of managing things, however, and the situation was not as dire as it seemed. Amazingly, the men and much of the equipment in the crashed glider survived. When the CG-4 crashed, it passed between two huge trees and had its wings ripped off. The fuselage careened on and was brought to an abrupt halt by the rough ground. The sudden stop broke the moorings of the bulldozer the glider was carrying, and the dozer surged forward toward the pilots. Flight Officer Gene A. Kelly, well aware of the consequences of this occurrence, had rigged the dozer’s moorings to the corner braces of the glider’s hinged nose. Now, as the dozer shot forward, it broke the braces, unhinging the nose. The nose swung upward with Kelly and his copilot, Sgt. Joseph A. DeSalvo, still strapped in their seats. The dozer shot forward some ten yards in front of the glider to land on its side. After the dozer passed, the glider’s nose fell back down. “I planned it that way,” an unflappable Kelly observed. Except for a broken thumb, he and DeSalvo were none the worse for wear.17
When daylight finally came, Alison and Calvert surveyed the landing ground. Of the fifty-four gliders dispatched for Broadway and not recalled, thirty-seven reached the objective. Two of these crashed into the jungle, killing most aboard. The remaining thirty-five gliders landed in the clearing, but most became wrecks themselves.18 Smashed gliders littered the field. As the two men gloomily assessed the situation, they were startled by the sound of an engine coming from where the last glider had gone into the trees. A bulldozer, driven by 2nd Lt. Robert Brackett, the 900th Engineer’s second in command, emerged from the undergrowth. With Brackett’s appearance, things began to look a little brighter. Three small bulldozers were available, but the commander of the engineers had been killed. Alison turned to Brackett. He did not appear too impressive to Alison, but first impressions can be misleading. He turned out to be a tiger.
Alison asked the young man, “Do you think you can make an airstrip here?”
Brackett shook his head ruefully but said, “Yes, I think we can.”
“Well, how long is it going to take you?”
Taking a measured look at the littered field, Brackett answered, “Well, if I have it done late this afternoon, will that be soon enough?”
Laughing, Alison told him to go to work.19
Brackett gathered the nine surviving engineers and a number of Chindit volunteers and began clearing a strip. Dynamite blasted trees out of the way; the bulldozers and men with shovels filled in holes and leveled a usable strip. Calvert was worried about his wounded. They needed hospitalization, and their presence limited what actions he could take in securing the surrounding area. At 6:30 AM Calvert reestablished communications with Wingate. The brigade commander requested that light planes with fighter escort be sent immediately to evacuate thirty casualties and to bring in replacement radio equipment. He reported thirty men killed. (A subsequent count revealed twenty-four fatalities, all but four of which were the result of crashes into the jungle.) Radio contact was again lost, leaving Wingate still unsure of the situation at Broadway. Nevertheless, light aircraft were dispatched. One L-1 took off from Tamu carrying the radio equipment. After delivering the radios, this aircraft brought out the first two wounded soldiers. All the available L-1s and L-5s at Taro followed shortly thereafter to evacuate the remaining wounded.
One part of the operation was apparently thrown together at the last minute and entailed using the group’s UC-64s to drop supplies, and it was a disaster. Ten UC-64s were loaded with various supplies to deliver to Broadway. The planes were poorly equipped for night flying, and just two of them reached Broadway. The supplies they dropped were damaged or scattered all over when they hit the ground. Little could be used by the Chindits. Three of the UC-64s were lost—luckily without casualties—when they got lost on their way back to base.20
Finally, around 10:00 AM, Wingate received the heartening words “pork sausage.” Unlike soyalink, pork sausage meant all was well at Broadway, and the field would be ready to receive C-47s by nightfall. The glider loads that could not be flown in on D-day were quickly reloaded on the transports. Old flew the first C-47 into Broadway on the evening of March 6. Sixty-two C-47 sorties carrying 77th Brigade reinforcements went in that night. For once the general was pleased with the way the Air Commandos handled things, particularly praising Alison for his traffic control at Broadway. Except for a minor collision between two taxiing RAF C-47s, operations went smoothly. Troops were unloaded, and the wounded and glider pilots were loaded with commendable speed; the aircraft averaged just twenty minutes on the ground. The two damaged transports were flown out later.21
With things now looking up at Broadway, Wingate began planning to open a second field at Chowringhee. This site was located about sixty miles south of Broadway and twenty miles southeast of Katha across the Irrawaddy. A small number of gliders would be dispatched there to prepare a field for the arrival of Brigadier Lentaigne’s 111th Brigade. As the first C-47s were en route to Broadway, twelve gliders in single tow were launched for Chowringhee. All except one landed safely. Unfortunately, the one that crashed was the glider carrying engineering equipment, including the only bulldozer slated for the new field. All three Air Commandos aboard were killed, and the dozer was destroyed. This was a serious handicap, for it made grading a usable strip difficult.
Cochran immediately sent a C-47 to Calcutta to pick up a spare dozer. The new dozer arrived that evening and was transferred to a waiting glider that was shortly on its way to Chowringhee. In the meantime, Alison had sent one of his machines to the new field. The delay in getting the Chowringhee landing field open resulted in many of the transports slated for there being switched to Broadway. But shortly before midnight word came that the second field was ready to accept C-47s.
Six transports departed for Chowringhee at midnight, followed by additional waves at twenty minute intervals. After twenty-four planes had taken off, the disturbing news came that only 2,700 feet of lighted runway was available. Because it was believed that C-47s needed at least 4,000 feet of runway for safe operations, a recall message was sent to the transports. The first seven planes did not receive this message and continued on. Old again led the transports and did not receive the recall, but he landed without difficulty. He did, however, have some choice words for his favorite targets, the Air Commandos. He claimed that they had shown no flight discipline at Chowringhee, twice cutting his plane out of the landing pattern. The decision to recall the transports had been wise, however. There was not yet enough room on the ground to maneuver the C-47s.22
As work continued to expand Chowringhee, March 8 turned out to be a red-letter day for the Air Commandos. To keep the Japanese away from the vulnerable landing zones, the Fighter Section pounced on the enemy airfields at Anisakan, Shwebo, and Onbauk. The attacks temporarily halted Japanese interference with the Chindit operations at Broadway and Chowringhee.
As it transpired, Chowringhee was not operational for very long anyway. Wingate had already decided, during a conference on the 7th, to fly the maximum number of sorties into Broadway. He flew into Broadway that evening to observe the activities there and stayed overnight. The next evening, he flew to Chowringhee, returning to Lalaghat a few hours later. After inspecting the second field, Wingate decided that Chowringhee was too exposed to enemy attacks from both the ground and the air. Since the Japanese had not yet discovered Broadway, Wingate would use that field as the main hub for his operations.
Also influencing his decision to abandon the second field was that most of the 111th Brigade had flown into Chowringhee by the time of his visit, and its columns were pushing toward the Irrawaddy. To assist the brigade in crossing the river, four gliders were towed to a sandbar along the riverbank on March 11. The gliders carried boats, outboard motors, and other river-crossing equipment. That evening, two of the gliders were snatched out, with one carrying some Burmese prisoners. Meanwhile, the rest of the brigade was ordered to fly into Broadway and join up later.23
It was good that Wingate was concerned about Chowringhee because the Japanese had found it. The last loads of Chindits were flown in on the 9th, and the Air Commandos sent C-47s from Broadway to snatch undamaged gliders and equipment from Chowringhee. Six gliders were brought out that evening. Early the next morning, after demolishing the field, the last Chindits moved out. A few hours after the last men disappeared into the jungle, enemy planes bombed and strafed the field. The Japanese returned the following day to waste more bombs on the deserted strip.24
While Chowringhee was used only briefly, Broadway (so far unnoticed by the enemy) had become a beehive of activity. Air Vice Marshal Baldwin wrote Stratemeyer, “Nobody has seen a transport operation until he has stood at Broadway under the light of a Burma full moon and watched Dakotas coming in and taking off in opposite directions on a single strip all night long at the rate of one landing and one takeoff every three minutes.”25
Following the chaotic activities of the first night, operations at Broadway had settled into a regular, if furious, routine. For all this activity there were no accidents except for the C-47s taxi mishap until a Bomber Section B-25 crash-landed on March 8 after an engine failed during a mission. Fortunately, there were no injuries, and the wreck did not obstruct operations.26
One of the damaged C-47s was repaired and flown out on March 9, but the other plane remained grounded awaiting parts. A section of the stranded plane’s leading edge had been bashed in almost to the main spar, and an aileron had been crushed. Alison believed that just a little sheet metal work and a new aileron would make it flyable again. He requested that the RAF send parts to effect a repair. Instead, he got a repair crew that would only estimate the damage. Alison hit the ceiling. He did not want a large target sitting in the open. Further requests for parts were ignored, and he finally told the sergeant in charge of the RAF crew that he would fly it out as is. The sergeant was aghast, sputtering that he could not let Alison take the plane in that state. Alison reminded the man that he outranked him and that Alison would accept responsibility. Still grumbling, the sergeant backed down.
Russhon decided he would accompany Alison even though Alison told Russhon that he had never flown a C-47 before. The photographer shrugged that off, replying, “Let’s go.” Alison took off and got the gear up easily because he read a large placard in the cockpit telling how to raise the gear. The flight to Lalaghat went smoothly. Even with just one aileron, the C-47 was a docile beast. The only concern Alison had about the flight arose when he arrived at Lalaghat. He could not read the landing gear hydraulic pressure gauge very well because it was located on the other side of the cockpit. While circling the field, he contacted a C-47 pilot in the tower and told him what he was doing. The pilot told him that he had done the right things, and Alison brought the plane down with ease. A laconic Old recorded in his diary, “Landing okay.”27
Alison turned the plane over to the Air Commando mechanics to repair. Before giving it back to the British, they apparently made sure that some needed spare parts made their way onto a few of the Air Commando C-47s.28
By March 11 (D+6), Operation Thursday was completed. Because little information had been received concerning conditions at a proposed landing site known as Templecombe, Wingate directed that Dah Force be moved to Broadway instead. Thursday had been a remarkable operation and, despite the glider losses suffered the first night, a highly successful one. In addition to the fourteen Air Commando C-47s, two TCC squadrons and four RAF C-47 squadrons had been used. These units flew 660 C-47 and 74 glider sorties. According to figures compiled by Special Force, 7,023 men had been flown into Broadway, and another 2,029 had been delivered to Chowringhee through March 11. In addition, 175 ponies, 1,183 mules, and 509,083 pounds of supplies had been delivered to the two fields.29
Recognition over the success of Thursday was quick in arriving. Wingate wrote Cochran, “Please convey to all ranks under your command my thanks and appreciation for their devoted service in support of Thursday. In particular the courage and skill of the glider pilots should be praised as the foundations of the success gained. The continuous and unflagging operations of fighters and bombers is also one of the major factors in what has been achieved.”30
Mounbatten passed on a message he had received from Churchill in which the prime minister said, “I reported to the president your airborne attack to which he has replied as follows—‘I am thrilled by the news of mobile column success under Wingate. If you wire him please give him my hearty good wishes. May the good work go on. This makes an epic achievement for the airborne troops, not forgetting the mules.’ ”31
Broadway escaped the attention of the Japanese until March 13. Cochran had sent four fighters under Mahony to the field the day before for defense of the field and to provide close support to the Chindits fighting nearby. To Cochran’s displeasure, the British had also dispatched several Spitfires there without telling him. A radar set also became operational that morning to provide early warning capability. It was limited in its coverage primarily because of nearby hills, a limitation that soon became painfully obvious.
When the Japanese finally attacked Broadway on March 13, they were met by the Spitfires and antiaircraft fire and suffered the loss of three planes and damage to six more. The enemy was not about to let Broadway escape unscathed, however. They returned in force on the afternoon of March 16. After four days of supporting the Chindits, Mahony was about to lead his men back to Hailakandi when warnings were received that an enemy force was approaching and only twenty-eight miles away. He immediately ran to his fighter yelling, “Come on, guys, let’s go!” First Lt. Hubert Krug had thought that getting to a dugout was a better idea, but he raced to his plane anyway. The first three American pilots roared off safely, but the last thing Krug remembered was placing his hand on the throttle. When he came to, his plane was on fire, but the engine was still running and pulling the Mustang around in a big circle.
The fire was eating into the right side of the cockpit, and Krug was attempting to shield his face from the flames with his right hand while trying to open the canopy with his left hand. It was probably just a few seconds before he got the canopy open, but it seemed like forever to Krug. Then he could not move. “Oh, yeah, my safety belt,” he thought. He snapped it open and rolled out of the burning plane.
When he hit the ground and tried to run, he could not. He suddenly realized he still had his parachute strapped on. As he unstrapped it, he noticed that his hand was bloody and that skin was hanging off it in strips. In shock but not hurting, Krug stumbled to a dugout, where Capt. Cortez F. Enloe, an Air Commando doctor, gave Krug a shot of morphine and some grapefruit juice. A C-47 evacuated Krug back to India that evening.32
Now fully aware of Broadway, the Japanese sent twelve Oscars against it on March 17. They caught the defenders unaware and shot down one Spitfire and destroyed three others on the ground. With only a couple of fighters left operational, the Spitfires were pulled out. On the 18th the enemy returned again and burned the radar set. An RAF unit was already en route to Broadway before this happened, and its arrival on March 19 was most welcome.33
Although the fighters were withdrawn, Broadway remained an important base for the Air Commandos’ light planes. The Japanese offensive toward Imphal had forced the evacuation of Tamu, where many of the smaller planes had been stationed, and they had moved to Broadway. There, the L-1s and L-5s were much closer to the action and were available to deliver supplies and evacuate the wounded that much more quickly. While at Broadway, one pilot was killed and one was wounded by strafing. Several aircraft were damaged, as well.34
Two events of importance to the Air Commandos occurred during this period. The first was that they finally shed their provisional status and became an officially designated group. The unit was constituted as the 1st Air Commando Group on March 25 and activated four days later. Its provisional designation had indicated its temporary status to perform a specific task, in this case the support of the Chindits. As such, however, the Air Commandos’ logistical support was subject to the whims and vagaries of senior commanders, which were not always in the Air Commandos’ favor, especially when requests for men and supplies clashed with the needs of already established units. By using their access to Arnold, Cochran and Alison could often circumvent this problem, but it was not an efficient way to operate. But now they would be recognized as a “proper” unit and be in the pipeline to receive logistical support.35
Unfortunately, the second significant event had serious negative ramifications for the light planes. A small strip, called Dixie, was built just inside Burma. A and B squadrons moved to the new field to be nearer to the columns they were supporting. The two units had been at Dixie for but a day when reports of enemy troops approaching were received. The strip was hastily evacuated—too hastily, as it turned out. Code books and other communications and intelligence information were left behind. Also, word of the evacuation was not spread, and a pair of light plane pilots landed at the abandoned field. Luckily, the Japanese had not yet reached Dixie, and the two men escaped.
Although the Japanese apparently did not capture any secret material, this close call was something that could not be tolerated. As commander of the Light Plane Section, Rebori was ultimately responsible for the actions of his men. And like the manager of a losing sports team, it is the manager who usually gets fired, not the players. So it was with Rebori. Cochran relieved Rebori, who was already ill with malaria, and replaced him with Gaty. Additionally, Cochran decided to end the four squadron setup and instead placed them into a single unit. Gaty remained the Light Plane Section leader until he became commander of the 1st ACG, at which time Major Boebel assumed command of the light planes.36
Because of the unwelcome attention of the Air Commandos and other Tenth Air Force fighter units, the Japanese never again mounted an air attack on Broadway following March 18. They did, however, attempt a ground assault on the stronghold in late March. On March 26 a Chindit floater column ambushed an enemy force of some 150 men and killed 31. The following day other Japanese troops succeeded in breaching the Broadway perimeter. Although they slashed the fabric of a few light planes (easily repairable) and did deny use of the strip by C-47s, this success was temporary. Garrison troops evicted the attackers by April 1, inflicting 150 casualties. The Japanese withdrew and never again threatened Broadway. By that time other fields had been opened, and Broadway had assumed more of a secondary role. It was finally closed down on the morning of May 13 after the men and equipment were ferried to the new fields or evacuated back to India.37
The Air Commandos, in the meantime, had been kept busy supporting the Chindits with air attacks, supply drops, and the evacuation of wounded. It should be noted that because the group had only fourteen C-47s, much of the heavy lifting was done by Old’s TCC planes. The gliders continued to be used in the establishment of new fields, but their numbers had been whittled down considerably since March 5. Typical of this attrition was a mission on the night of March 19/20. That evening five gliders landed a small force of sappers known as Bladet Force near Tigyaing in the Meza Valley about eighteen miles southwest of Chowringhee. A sixth glider had been intended to land, but it received a red light from the ground before it was released and was brought back to base. The gliders that landed were burned, and their pilots fought alongside Bladet Force as it operated against enemy lines of communication in the Kawlin–Wuntho area. After about ten days the pilots were evacuated back to Broadway by light planes.38
The Chindits needed all the support they could get from the Air Commandos, for the Japanese had finally realized the danger of having large armed columns operating behind their lines while they were moving against Imphal and Kohima. Such danger was reinforced when Fergusson’s 16th Brigade discovered a major supply dump and destroyed it, thus depriving the Japanese of much-needed supplies for their offensive. Then on March 16, Calvert established a road- and rail block near Mawlu, which lay about twenty miles north of Indaw. This block later received the name White City for the many supply parachutes that festooned the trees and lay upon the ground. White City would play a major role in Chindit activities for many weeks.
Another stronghold that soon drew the enemy’s attention was Aberdeen, which was about fifteen miles west of Mawlu, near the village of Mahnton. Almost completely surrounded by low hills, Aberdeen would be the 16th Brigade’s stronghold. The brigade had finally arrived on March 19, following its grueling and debilitating march from Ledo. Wingate visited Calvert at White City on March 20 and then flew to Mahnton the next day. After consulting with Fergusson, Wingate decided to establish Aberdeen as the base for the 16th and 111th brigade’s operations as well as a reception center for the landing of the 14th Brigade.39
At first light on March 22 six gliders carrying two bulldozers and other engineering equipment flew in to Aberdeen to prepare a C-47 strip. The American engineers swiftly completed this job, and the fly-in of the 14th Brigade and a garrison force from the 3rd West African Brigade began the next day.40
But as Aberdeen was being developed, tragedy struck both the Chindits and the Air Commandos. Following his visit to Aberdeen on the 21st and subsequent visits to his other strongholds, Wingate returned to Broadway on March 23, where he stayed overnight. The following afternoon Cochran sent a B-25 to pick him up and return him to his headquarters. After picking up a couple of war correspondents, Wingate left Broadway for Imphal.41 The B-25 stopped at Imphal for a short time, where Wingate met with Air Vice Marshal S. F. Vincent, commander of 221 Group. The next leg of the trip to India ended in disaster, as Wingate’s B-25 crashed into a jungle-covered mountain and all aboard were killed.
White City was a hot spot for the Chindits for some time. It became the locus of Japanese attention, particularly by the 24th Independent Mixed Brigade. In the process, this enemy force was cut up severely, and playing a major role in the defeat of the enemy were the Air Commandos. Though they had already been busy attacking other targets, March 18 marked the opening of the Air Commandos’ activities in direct support of the Chindits. The first mission, however, was not successful. Six B-25s and a like number of P-51s were scheduled to support Calvert’s brigade at Mawlu. Upon arriving over the target the pilots were unable to contact the troops, and smoke shells that were fired appeared to land in friendly territory, so no attacks were made. Later missions would be much more satisfactory.42
The Air Commandos and Chindits developed a control system that the Chindits preferred to the one used by the RAF. The RAF insisted on detailed indications of target locations so that its pilots could be carefully briefed prior to takeoff. Ground-to-air communications or changes in targets while airborne were not favored. The Americans, on the other hand, preferred to talk directly with a controller on the ground and to combine this up-to-the-minute information with the use of smoke to mark targets. If a target was not exactly where the American pilots had been told it would be before they took off, it did not matter. They would usually find it. This system proved much more flexible, which appealed to the Chindits as being “infinitely” more effective.43
The Chindits had no illusions that air attacks were more accurate than artillery, but the morale effect of bombing on friendly and enemy troops was considerable. Nonetheless, the mutual confidence that grew between the Chindits and the Air Commandos was such that air strikes were often called in and flown within yards of friendly lines.44 An innovation introduced by the Air Commandos during this period contributed to the accuracy of the air attacks. Fergusson’s men had discovered a large gasoline dump south of Indaw. The dump was out of range of their mortars, so the brigade air liaison officer asked the Americans to help put the dump out of business. With the liaison officer as a passenger, Gaty personally flew an L-5 to reconnoiter the area. The two men returned on April 9, this time bringing with them six Mitchells and eight Mustangs. After Gaty marked the target with smoke grenades thrown from the L-5, the bombers and fighters proceeded to beat up the dump with bombs, depth charges, and machine-gun fire. The numerous fires left burning marked a successful attack.45
A second such mission was flown on April 21 at Indaw. After an L-5 marked targets along a road north of Indaw, six B-25s dropped incendiaries and 500-pounders on the markers, starting many fires. In the meantime, eight Mustangs bombed a bivouac area with 500-pound incendiaries, again leaving numerous fires burning.46
Not to be left out of this excitement, the C-47 crews began carrying British mortar shells, fragmentation clusters, and incendiaries, heaving these explosives from their planes when flying over enemy territory. As one pilot commented, “We may not have done any damage, but I’ll bet we scared the hell out of them.”47
The Air Commandos also employed an unusual tactic sparingly, perhaps only once. This involved the cutting of telephone and telegraph lines by trailing a line from a P-51. This ingenious device consisted of a 150-foot length of 3/4-inch line secured to bomb racks on both wings. On this line was a sliding metal ring to which was attached a 150- to 200-foot 5/16-inch steel cable. At the end of this cable were mounted a series of three or four weights totaling 12 to 15 pounds. If needed, the entire device could be released from the bomb racks. For takeoff the cables were strung out behind the fighter in a similar fashion to the C-47/glider tow ropes. The only recorded use of this device occurred on March 20, when a P-51 was sent to cut wires north of Mawlu. The cable broke, so the pilot resorted to cutting the wires with his wings! He did this five times along the railroad tracks near Mawlu, then repeated the process three more times along the Indaw–Banmauk road. Just what condition the fighter returned in was not reported.48