War Memories - typed, 1950, written for Freshman English II

August 10, 1944, a group of radio operators, including myself, arrived by plane at the airfield in Calcutta, Indai. We left La Guardia Airfild, New York City, August 5, and flew to Casablanca, Cairo and then Calcutta. We rested a few days at Calcutta and then proceeded east three hundred miles to Mohanbari Airfield. Mohanbari Airfield was once part of the dense jungle of the upper Assam Valley. The screaming of wild animals at night would remind one of the constant danger that lurked near by.

The purpose of this airfield was to transport troups (sic) and supplies by air from India over the Himalya (sic) Mountains into China. I was briefed on flight conditions and given the radio code book which had the call letters of all the radio towers and airfields on our route to China.

The weather was our worst enemy. On the ground the heat and rain became unbearable. In the air, flying through heavy storms made radio contact almost impossible. Ice forming on the wings of the airplane would add dangerous pounds to the already over loaded plane. 

It was during a heavy rainstorm that lighting hit our plane and knocked out one of the engines; the second engine caught fire a few minutes later, and the piolet gave the order to abandon ship. The crew consisted of the pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer and myself. I was the second one to leave the plane, and a feeling of doom came over me as I tumbled out inot the dark void below. I seemed to lose consciousness as I pulled the "rip cord" on my parachute. The next thing I knew I was floating through space; a few minutes later I felt branches of trees striking my body and then a thud: "thank the Lord!" I was not hurt. The pilot and flight engineer landed near by. We build a fire and waited until daylight to look for the co-pilot. It seemed as though hundreds of eyes were watching us during the night; the first rays of dawn were indeed a welcome sight. We salvaged what we could from our jungle kits, and then we began our search for the co-pilot. A few hours later we found him lying prostrate on the ground. "Articulate speech was beyond his power; it was impossible to know if he were sensible to anything but pain. The expression of his face was an appeal; his eyes were full of prayer. For what?. . . For what, indeed? For that which we accord to even the meanest creature without sense to demand it, denying it only to the wretched of our own race: for the blesses release, the rite of uttermost compassion, the coup de grace."1

The storm must have ripped a hole in the co-pilot's parachute and sent him crashing to the ground. We did what we could for him during his few remaining hours, and then set out in the direction we thought to be the Burma Road. Four days later we stumbled up a road construction camp and were later taken to our base in India.

Footnote: The Assam Valley in India lies at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains, and it was used during World War II by the United Sates with the consent of England, to lauch (sic) the Chinese offence.(sic) 

1. Ambrose Bierce, "Coup De Grace," Modern Minds,  (New York 1949), p. 521

Bibliography
Bierce, Ambrose, "Coup De Grace," Modern Minds, Ed Howard Mumfor Jones, et al, 1949, D.C. Heath and Company, p 521

Written by Edward Jager 1950
Freshman English II