P.O.W. Mayday Over China
()
About this ebook
The courageous story of Jim Young, a B-25 Bomber Crew Member and WWII Prisoner Of War. His Diary of accounts, unedited and kept intact.
Please view my other ebook- flushing fish
Andrew Priddy
life has been an interesting journey, i dicided to share it with others. I currently live in Seattle, have two wonderful daughters and the best of friends. I'm truly blessed!
Related to P.O.W. Mayday Over China
Related ebooks
Tales of Phan Rang Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of Robert Mason's Chickenhawk Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Harry H. Crosby's A Wing and a Prayer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPop Smoke: The Story of One Marine Rifle Platoon in Vietnam; Who They Were, What They Did, What They Learned Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCaterpillar Association of the United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mosquito: Menacing the Reich: Combat Action in the Twin-Engine Wooden Wonder of World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEveryday Heroes: Inspirational Stories from Men and Women in the Canadian Armed Forces Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Flew the Lancaster Bomber Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Was a Jap Prisoner of War On The Death Railway Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spirit of Attack: Fighter Pilot Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Twenty Days in the Reich: Three Downed RAF Aircrew on the Run in Germany, 1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSergeant Kennedy's World War Ii Diary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Short (But Exciting) Time with the Military Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of R. C. Rivaz's Tail Gunner Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMilk Run: A Gunner's Tale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Return to Corregidor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorld War 2 In Review No. 73: Air Power Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Cynic To Believer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRescue Pilot: Cheating the Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Escape to Freedom: An Airman's Tale of Capture, Escape and Evasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reminiscence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Workhorse of Helmand: A Chinook Crewman's Account of Operations in Afghanistan & Iraq Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeep Sea Hunters: RAF Coastal Command and the War Against the U-Boats and the German Navy 1939–1945 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I Was a Pilot for the Mob Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCheating Hitler: Allied Airmen Who Evaded Capture in WW2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLong Ago in American Samoa and Other Memories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHell's Belle: From a B-17 to Stalag 17B Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Norman Hanson's Carrier Pilot Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy 1102 Days of W.W. II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Military Biographies For You
The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scars and Stripes: An Unapologetically American Story of Fighting the Taliban, UFC Warriors, and Myself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ruby Ridge: The Truth and Tragedy of the Randy Weaver Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Rediscovered Books): A Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf: The Original, Accurate, and Complete English Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPersonal Memoirs Of U.s. Grant Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Right Kind of Crazy: My Life as a Navy SEAL, Covert Operative, and Boy Scout from Hell Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Napoleon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Caesar: Life of a Colossus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer - The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Hell and Back: The Classic Memoir of World War II by America's Most Decorated Soldier Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Rumor of War: The Classic Vietnam Memoir (40th Anniversary Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alexander the Great Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for P.O.W. Mayday Over China
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
P.O.W. Mayday Over China - Andrew Priddy
P.O.W.
Mayday Over China
The Dairy of Jim Young
*
Collected by Andrew Priddy
Copyright 2011 by Andrew Priddy
Smashwords edition
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Uncle Jimmy
The Mission
Set Up
Crime Trail Testimony
Uncle Jimmy
Jim Young, my great Uncle, was an extraordinary man. As you will learn by the trials you are about to read, he endured more than most possibly could have, and hopefully ever will. He was a man that never spoke an unkind or judgmental word, climbed Mt. Rainer after his release, ran several miles a day, truly embraced life.
Jim Young passed away from a heart attack during the 6 mile Tacoma- Narrows race, and is truly missed.
His writing was left unchanged with the exception of Japs
being replaced by Japanese throughout his story.
The Mission
October 24, 1942- This is the mission we have all assembled here for,
said Colonel Morgan. We will take off at 0400. All combat crews will be on the flight line by 0330, and that doesn’t mean 0331.
That was about all he told us. There were about 45 of us assembled in the dirty, book-strewn operations briefing room. We were rather excited, thinking that the big push
was finally ready to roll. We, who heard the Colonel, represented 75 or so men who made up the crews of 16 B-25 bombers. The rest of the men were on alert
crew. Two men for each bomber had to be at, or near their planes, which were dispersed over this large base at Kunming, China. Whenever an enemy air raid threatened, it was the duty of the alert crew to get each bomber off the field and to circle around in the vicinity of the Tibetan border until they were called back after the attack was over.
We went out to our planes and loaded each with six 500-pound bombs. As the belly gunner, I had the additional dubious honor of tossing ten, small, 10-pound incendiary bombs through the hole in the plane’s belly where my guns swung. This was a tricky operation, consisting of removing a cotter pin from the fuse. The fuse had a small propeller on it, which prevented the fuse from detonating the bomb until it spun off its fuse shaft. The cotter pin locked the prop to the shaft.
We worked till well past dark on some generator trouble on an engine and squeezing every last drop of gas in the tanks that they would hold.
We who attended the briefing slowly meandered the ½ mile back to the hostel where we ate and slept. The high tree-lined lane along which we strolled took on a new significance for many of us as we felt we were enjoying a rather uncertain existence anyway. This was the first formal full-dress briefing I had ever attended and it all sounded very ominous and important to me. I had little knowledge of the massive flights soon to be employed over Europe in which 10,000 or more crewmen participated with their 1,000 bombers. No this was the largest number (16) of planes I had ever flown with on a bombing mission and I believe we were all quite proud, if somewhat apprehensive. My 34 previous missions had made me rather philosophical about any other missions to come—better not think too much about it; better to give some thought to the condition of the guns, the radios, gear storage, and what we were going to have for supper—fried eggs or scrambled eggs?
Twenty-fifth October 1942 came on Sunday. The weather was clear, cool and beautiful as we walked in the darkness to the operations office where we converged, talked in low tones for a few minutes, and straggled to our planes—carrying odds and ends of flight clothing. As daylight was breaking, the pilots began to start up their engines and test them. Ours started fine, and, as we were waiting for the lead planes to start off, we got the signal from the leader to shut everything off. We did—wondering what the hell was the matter. A car was dispatched with a messenger to tell each plane commander to immediately check his plane for sabotage. It seemed that the lead plane had discovered a loosened oil connection just before taking to the runway for take-off. It lost 27 gallons of oil before it was discovered. We climbed to the ground and checked our own motors and everything seemed all right.
After about an hour delay we were signaled to start up again. This time we got off the ground and settled down for a flight to we didn’t know where. In our briefing the only thing that wasn’t told us was our target. Not even the pilots knew where we were going to bomb. There was much speculation—even that we were going to cross the China Sea to Japan proper. Our group leader apparently feared a leak in security, so he didn’t even entrust the secret of our target to anyone. After about three hours of flight we came in to the airstrip at Kweilin, China. The approach to the small field was rather tricky our pilots all negotiated it well enough. We noticed small smoking piles of debris along the runway. We soon learned that the Japanese had strafed and bombed the field only an hour before we arrived. Coulees were carrying burning dummy planes away and there were soft spots in the runway, which were newly filled bomb craters. It was lucky for us that we were delayed at Kunming, China, for we most certainly would have been caught on the ground at Kweilin when the Japanese paid their visit, and probably would have destroyed all our planes.
It was warm at Kweilin. We were all curious as to our ultimate destination. We had stopped at Kweilin, which was an advance base to refuel with gas and proceed on to we still didn’t know where. Everyone started checking and rechecking his plane as we waited for the fuel truck to get to us; it proceeded along the straight line our planes