VOL. III          NO. 4          REG NO. L5015          DELHI, THURSDAY          OCTOBER 5, 1944
 B-29  BOMBER  RAIDS  BLOW  TO  JAP  STEEL

  The B-29's are continuing their campaign for reduction of Japan's steel production, with announcement of the third raid on Anshan, industrial center in Nip-occupied Manchuria, last week by a force of over 100 bombers.
  Results of the mission were obscured by heavy clouds, but diversionary strikes by other Super-Forts on Darien, Manchuria, and at Loyang in occupied China, resulted in what were described by crews as "good results."
  Enemy ack-ack fire was light and fighter opposition was meager. Not a single American plane was lost on any of the raids.
  This was the first time since the B-29's began operations from the CBI in June that the size of the attack group was given by the 20th Bomber Command.
  In describing the safe return of all ships, Brig. Gen. Lauris Norstad, chief of staff of the 20th, said safe return of all the planes was a "tremendous tribute" to the engineering by makers of the B-29's, their crews and ground crews at their China and India bases.
  "The record of no mechanical failure should make the Japs about as unhappy as the pounding of their industries," commented Norstad. The distance coverd by the huge bombers is comparable in miles to flying from Atlanta, Ga., to the Arctic Circle, Norstad added.
  From Gen. H. H. Arnold, chief of the USAAF, came a congratulatory message to 37-year-old Maj. Gen. Curtis E. Lemay, commander of the 20th Bombardment Group that "the attack was a splendid military operation."
  The strike at Manchuria was announced as a daylight raid from China bases.


The above pictures were taken during a recent B-29 mission.  Left, Lt. Warren D. (Deacon) Dailey, navigator, and Lt. Tom C. Evans, bombardier, are not only crewmates but are married to twin sisters who live together in Los Angeles.  Right, a man aboard Maj. Gen. Curtis Lemay's lead plane shows how his flak vest may have saved his life.



B-29 Super-Fort Almost Lands At Nip Airfield

  SUPER-FORT BASE (Delayed) - Lt. Col. Edward J. Potter, 29-year-old Super-Fort pilot of the 20th Bomber Command has revealed the story of how his bomber, deeply mired in a Chinese cornfield after a forced landing on the return from Nagasaki on Aug. 10 was recovered and flown out 13 days later on a strip improvised by thousands of coolies.
  The big B-29 had spent 50 minutes over the Jap mainland target during the raid, and when the gasoline supply ran short on the flight home, Potter started looking for a place to come down. For some unknown reason - "I guess I'll never know," says Potter - they passed up an attractive concrete landing strip to choose the emergency field farther on. Later, they learned the first strip was a Jap fighter base.

WHEELS BURIED
  landing the huge airplane buried its wheels out of sight in the soft dirt, leaving it apparently hopelessly bogged down. To add to the crew's troubles, Jap fighters soon afterwards spotted the grounded bomber and strafed it several times, until American fighters appeared on the scene and drove them off, destroying three.
  Potter, uncertain whether he was in enemy or friendly territory and expecting to see a Jap ground patrol any minute, was greatly relieved when a Chinese coolie appeared and led him to a telephone line where he reported his plight to headquarters.
  After posting a guard on the plane, the Americans were led to a house in the nearby hills where they were well fed and offered clean, comfortable beds. "It was the most welcome sight I ever saw," says Potter.
  Their pleased Chinese host told them, "You are the first Americans who have ever been here." Then quickly he corrected himself, "Except Wendell Willkie."

SUMMONED TO PLANE
  Potter was awakened from sleep sometime later and summoned to the airplane, where he found two Chinese major generals, the president of a railroad, thousands of coolies, some Chinese troops and an assortment of railroad ties and jacks. Despite the pilot's doubts, they were engaged in trying to get the helpless bomber out.
  Two large ramps were built with railroad ties, then the airplane was slowly jacked up out of the dirt. The machine was then laboriously tugged out on a stone ramp built behind it.
  The B-29 pilot asked one of the generals if any guards were posted and was staggered by the answer. "Five hundred," was the reply and 1,000 more men were backing these up, said the officer.
  Potter was returned soon after to his base to report on the salvaging operations, so was not present when the big ship, considerably lightened, was finally flown off from an improvised strip and limped back to base.
  "The combat crew and mechanics who were sent in worked under constant danger," said Potter, "and dived for foxholes so often it became a part of the day's routine."



Washington Now Safe From Bombs

  WASHINGTON (ANS) - The Joint Chiefs of Staff have decided that Washington is not going to be bombed. Officially.
  The Librarian of Congress, Archibald MacLeish, has announced that he has received permission from Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, Adm. Ernest J. King and Adm. William D. Leahy to display publicly the most prized documents of the Library - the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the British Magna Charta.
  He added that the permission had been granted after the conclusion that there is no likelihood now of even a token bombing.



Air Corps Captain Walks 115 Miles in 11 Days

  The spectacle of a member of the USAAF walking in the line of duty is, admittedly, fairly weird, but nevertheless . . . . . Capt. Lawrence C. Paulson, an air-ground liaison officer attached to the Seventh Bomb Group of the 10th Air Force, has spent a good deal of his time hoofing about CBI.
  Paulson is the ground end of that air-ground liaison and as a consequence, he finds it necessary to plough through the jungles along with the infantry. The captain has covered up to 115 miles in 11 days, all via heel and toe, which is a hell of a way for an Air Force officer to navigate. (What ever happened to that old "High Blue Yonder?")
  Paulson did his trudging with full pack and, in between trudges, he pointed out likely targets to the airborne personnel. At the moment, he is back at a desk with the Seventh, but is ready to hit the road again at the drop of an Expert Infantryman Badge.



'HUMP' HAPPY C-46 GETS MORE SPEED

  BUFFALO, N.Y. (UP) - The Curtiss C-46, work-horse of the flight over The Hump, has had its payload increased by approximately 100 pounds and attains greater speed now that its camouflage paint job has been removed.
  The plane is now produced with an unpainted aluminum alloy finish, displacing the rough aerodynamic drag of the paint.



LT. DONALD KOSTEFF
Leads The Field
CLAIMANT TO TEST PILOT RECORD
Kosteff Has Logged Over 1,000 Hours In CBI

  Until it can be refuted statistically, Lt. Donald L. Kosteff, 24, a native son of Michigan who arrived in this theater with 5½ Jerries to his credit, is the claimant to the CBI test-piloting record.
  Kosteff has just crossed the 1,000-hour mark and, during this time in the skies, he has waved his dhobi-white handkerchief at the undertaker in 30 different types of aircraft, including single, twin and four-motored jobs - Fortresses, Liberators, Mitchells, Lightnings, Thunderbolts, Warhawks, Mustangs, Bostons, all types of transports, and liaison ships, besides such renowned Nazi-baiters as the Spitfire and Hurricane.
  The Roundup told last February of his daring exploits in aerial warfare since the days, four years ago, when he left for Canada to join the RCAF; he fought in the Battle of Britain, was downed once there but got 4½ Jerries before he took off for Africa and added a Heinkel to his credit.
  Just recently, he was awarded the Air Medal for bailing out of a P-38 in flaming condition, but he stayed with her until she was safely away from a congested area where a landing would have inflicted considerable casualties.



AH, G.I. INGENUITY
THERE'S NOTHING (PRACTICALLY)
A YANK SOLDIER CAN'T INVENT

  Americans at home who may think the present generation of young citizens has lost the inventive genius of its pioneering ancestors, and are no longer capable of building houses with wooden pegs and the like, should take a trip around CBI.
  Americans fighting the Japanese in this part of the world have invented everything from burglar alarms to electric fans, including such other luxurious articles as semi-comfortable beds, reading lamps, portable cook-stoves and means of cooling beer in a hurry.
  All of which, put up against grandpa's wooden peg house, makes him look pretty much of a jerk.
  Down below Mogaung, and in other sections of the Theater where living conditions are on the minus side of Park Avenue, G.I.'s have devised a bed which, taking everything into consideration, is rather comfortable. In that section, everybody sleeps in a jungle hammock. Sleeping in a jungle hammock requires a certain sense of balance without which the sleeper is liable to have to be extricated from his bed with a knife. To avoid rolling over in the air, like a signer of the Constitution in his grave, G.I.'s have built a rectangular frame from bamboo, covered it with a ground sheet and then placed the hammock above this. Thus, when the G.I. gets in his hammock, it rests on this cot-like frame and acquires considerable stability.
  In the same sections, where the time of arrival of flashlight batteries is a question which is not even debated any longer, inventive G.I.'s have constructed general utility lamps, used for everything from reading to lighting oneself to bed. These lamps are made from discarded C-Ration cans, a short length of parachute rope as a wick, and a fuel, believe it or not, of insect repellant.
  It is generally easy for G.I.'s to acquire small supplies of coffee. They save the little bag out of K-Rations, or they get it somewhere else. But the problem of heating the water was a stiff one until some genius invented the sand stove. The sand stove, like the lamp, is made from a C-Ration can. The can is filled with sand, and then gasoline is poured over the sand. When ignited, the stove will burn for long enough to make hot coffee. In a country where not even the air you breathe is pleasant, hot coffee is a luxury of luxuries.
  Cooling beer (when a G.I. can get beer) is another trick with gasoline. A hole is dug in the ground and the b eer is placed in the hole and then covered with dirt. Gasoline is poured over the covered hole and ignited. (When it burns out, the beer is dug up - and it's cool. - Ed.)
  One burglar alarm, of a sort, was built by a unit which kept missing articles of clothing from its clothes line.The boys in the unit finally tied 220 volts to the line, which made wet drawers too hot to handle.
  The electric fan was recorded in the Gremlin, published by the personnel of an air base in India. The fan is made from an electric razor. Says the Gremlin:
  "The process is simple. The men simply take the razor motor out of the case, remove the cutting head, and place a paper fan blade under the screw on the spinning wheel. Then place the motor back in half the case upside down. The gadget puts out a real breeze, and is easily hung inside the mosquito net."



VETERAN 14TH CREWS DEPART FOR STATES

  CHINA - A number of men in the "Flying Horse" Fighter Group, a unit of Maj. Gen. C. L. Chennault's 14th Air Force, have left for home after 32 months overseas. Thirty-two months after embarking from the United States, the men who had their orders were wandering about aimlessly, trying to realize that they had only to board a plane, fly over The Hump and the first leg of their journay would be complete.
  The Group landed in India in March, 1942. The men who have gone back to Shangri-La are still telling of the amazement of the Indians, of how inexpensive jewelry was, of sending a detachment to study AVG tactics and maintenance problems, and of transferring personnel to the newly activated 10th Air Force.

BAD SITUATION
  In July, the situation looked serious. Two squadrons were rushed to Assam to help stem the threatened Japanese drive into India; the third squadron went to China to replace an AVG squadron.
  The Japanese were not too pleased to see these squadrons, in spite of the frequent visits that the Nips, at a great expense to themselves, paid. The "China Blitzer" and the "Assam Dragon" Fighter Squadrons helped stop the Japs in their abortive drive into India and then proceeded to pound all the Japanese installations in Burma.

COMMON EFFORT
  After a year and a half in India, these two squadrons joined the "Flying Wall of China" Squadron which had been in China. In China, the "Flying Horse" Fighter Group was joined by the "Lightning Tiger" Squadron, which had seen action in the Tunisian Campaign. All squadrons have been active if effectively hampering the Japs on all of the Chinese fronts.



New Club
INSIGNIA, TOO

  HQ., ICD-ATC, INDIA - CBI character known as Lt. Robert E. Fillet, an aircraft type, has thought up a new switch on the fairly hoary "Late Arrivals Club."
  (The "Late Arrivals Club" started during Stonewall Jsckson's campaign in The Valley. The boys who couldn't stand the pace and showed up at Winchester four days late were dubbed by the wags of the day "Late Arrivals." Get it?)
  Well, anyway, our man Fillet has inaugerated a CBI chapter of the "Late Arrivals" and a Calcutta jeweler is prepared to make up the insignia, same being a silver boot, with wings, for those who cracked up and walked home and a goldfish, also winged, for those who had to swim.
  (The goldfish deal was originally thought up by a British manufacturer of life rafts who handed out the baubles to those who survived the English Channel dip with the aid of his raft. The boot wearers first appeared during the North Africa campaign, also among the British. Neither decoration is authorized by the War Department, but if you're entitled to one and wear it, no one seems to mind.)



The Chaplain Pitches A Strike

  The Roundup hereby passes on to you a note on an on-the-ball Chaplain inserted in the Gremlin, fishwrapper published by the EM of a Service Group "somewhere in Assam" -
  "Have you heard the latest rumor?"
  "Honest fellows, if I had a good one, I'd spill it right now. (As, for instance: This 18-month business is the real thing.) Now there is a good rumor. - if you mean by 'good' that it will get us home sooner. But I must confess that this is only a rumor. It is unproven, untried and even non-existent.
  "The things the Chaplain provides for you in this group are not rumors - history and experience have proved them true and needful.
  "If you are tired of just rumors, why not have a change to things that are REALLY TRUE?
  "ATTEND CHURCH THIS SUNDAY."



The C.B.I. Roundup is a weekly newspaper published by and for the men of the United States Army Forces in China, Burma, and India, from news and pictures supplied by staff members, soldier correspondents, Office of War Information and other sources. The Roundup is published Thursday of each week and is printed by The Statesman in New Delhi, India. Editorial matter should be sent directly to Capt. Fred Eldridge, Branch Office Hq., U.S.A.F.C.B.I., New Delhi, and should arrive not later than Monday in order to make that week's issue. Pictures must arrive by Sunday and must be negatives or enlargements. Stories should contain full name and organization of sender.










OCTOBER  5,  1944    

Original pages of C.B.I. Roundup shared by Miriam Burrows.

Copyright © 2006 Carl Warren Weidenburner. All rights reserved.




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