Somewhere We Will Find You

Paperback $19.95 — Hardcover $36.95 — PDF on DVD disk by mail $4.99

Somewhere We Will Find You

Search and Rescue Operations in the CBI, 1942-1945

by Robert Underbrink

Merriam Press Original Publication
Military Monograph 115

• First Edition (March 2010)
• Paperback (ISBN 978-0-557-28537-2) - #MM115-P — $19.95
• Hardcover (ISBN 978-0-557-29898-3) - #MM115-H — $36.95
• PDF (Adobe Acrobat) file sent by mail on a DVD data disk — $4.99
• PDF file with immediate download after purchase ($4.99) available here.
• 260 6 × 9 inch pages
• 92 photos
• 2 maps
  

In the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater of Operations, 1942-1945, during the war with Japan, search and rescue activities in most instances focused upon flight crews who were lost while transporting military cargo from India to China. The objective of such efforts was the location and recovery of personnel who had gone down in Western China, North Burma, or in the state of Assam, India.

The creation of the airlift between India and China in 1942 was forced upon the allies by the loss of Burma and the imperative need to continue supplying China to keep its forces engaged with the Japanese. In the words of Barbara Tuchman, “The effort to supply China, and the air and ground forces in China, presented the greatest logistics challenge of the war...”

The air ferry service commenced in April 1942, and continued until 1945. Early on the commanders recognized the hazards of flying over the mountains and jungles of India and Burma, and the importance of rescuing pilots and crewmen downed while traveling over the “Hump,” the range of 15,000-foot mountains between the Salween and Mekong.

It’s no wonder pilots who flew the Hump referred it to being the “Skyway to Hell.”

Initially search and rescue operations were of a haphazard nature utilizing available aircrews and aircraft. However, following the “mass jump” of twenty-one passengers and crewmen on the border between Burma on 3 August 1943, the location and return of “lost” personnel was given highest priority. and India

This work offers a clear picture of the combined efforts that were made to bring back pilots and aircrews who, because of pilot error, equipment failure, weather or enemy action, found themselves stranded in the inhospitable terrain stretching across North Burma between China and India .

Contents

• Dedication
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: BOY NEVER HAD A CHANCE
• Desperate 1942 Trek to India
• Chapter 2: ADVENTURES OF LITTLE FU
• Chinese Letter of Appreciation
• Chapter 3: TWA TO PAOSHAN 
• Stilwell’s Chinese Soldiers
• Chapter 4: “OUR FRIENDS THE HEADHUNTERS”
• “Please Sir May We Have the Fish?”
• Chapter 5: MY .45 AUTOMATIC
• Not a Pleasant Lunch
• Chapter 6: “SOMEWHERE IN HELL"
• Jungles of Assam and Burma
• Chapter 7: “SPLENDIDLY KACHIN FOOLISHNESS”
• Kachin Rangers
• Chapter 8: NINETY-THREE DAYS GETTING BACK
• “You Die in Twenty Minutes”
• Chapter 9: SAVED BY A HALF-NAKED ABORIGINE
• “If You Have to Parachute”
• Chapter 10: NATIVE BOY SAVED MY LIFE
• John Masters and the Gurkhas
• Chapter 11: MONEY FOR YOUR FATHER
• Human Compass
• Chapter 12: HUNG HIGH UP IN THE TREES
• Fuel and Ammo for Naked Soldiers
• Chapter 13: BURMESE TREACHERY
• “A Rare Fight”
• Chapter 14: LUCKY COURT-MARTIAL
• Supreme Indifference to Time
• Chapter 15: AGAINST ALL ODDS
• Training Gurkha Soldiers
• Chapter 16: DR. HERMIS OF HANKOW
• Intelligence Wanted Map
• Chapter 17: WON’T BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
• Photographs
• End Notes
• Acknowledgments
  
• Bibliography
• Index