Chapter One
The 426th Night Fighter Squadron
had
a special priority mission in China -- that was to discourage and stop
Japanese night aerial bombardment. It was in the fall of 1944 and
our day fighters had halted enemy daylight raids. The Japanese
had begun making night attacks on our airfields. The squadron had
been in action for about two months when we came in as a replacement
crew. We were Captain Carl J. Absmeier (Ab), pilot, and me, 2nd
Lt. James R. Smith, radar observer. At the time we arrived, the
squadron had confirmed three Japanese planes destroyed, two of them by
Capt. Robert R Scott and F/O Charles W Phillips, and one by Capt. John
Wilfong and 2nd Lt. Glenn E. Ashley.
We were first stationed in
Ondal,
India, far from any action, for transition training in the new P-61,
Black Widow aircraft. During this training period we flew almost
every day, at times, restricted to 200 feet of altitude -- no
higher. It was the first time I had ever "buzzed" and didn't get
into trouble. Ab and I loved this low level flying; most of the
time we were just a few feet off the deck -- hustling along at a good
250 mph clip, stampeding "sacred" cattle, tipping sampans on the river,
startling citizenry and generally playing hell with the
countryside. The rest of our training at Ondal was taken up with
exploring and learning the flight characteristics of our exciting new
aircraft. The six-week transition period went by fast, and we
found ourselves one sunny morning looking at the snow plume on Mount
Everest as we flew over the "hump" (aka the high Himalayas) to Kunming,
China. We were assigned to the 426th's "D" flight stationed there.