CBI Roundup - December 21, 1944 - China-Burma-India Theater of World War II

WELL, WELL LONDON - (ANS) - An Englishman who wants to be a naturalized citizen of Germany after the war said this week the RAF should "bomb" the Reich with Christmas presents labeled "Love from Britain."
He is the Rev. Jenneth C. Scott, vicar of the Church of the Ascension, who served in World War I, receiving a shattered arm in combat. He suggested that English-speaking Germans apply for British citizenship and also recommended sincere reciprocal prayers.

NOT TOO OLD ST. LOUIS - (ANS) - Pfc. William Bell, 67, who enlisted in the Army at the age of 65 after the Pearl Harbor attack, is dead at a Japanese prison, the Red Cross informed his daughter.
Veteran of the Spanish-American War, too old for World War I, he became a casualty of World War II. Taking a Government job after 30 years in the Army, he went to the Philippines. He served on Bataan and Corregidor.

VOL. III NO. 15 REG NO. L5015 DELHI, THURSDAY DECEMBER 21, 1944

MEN OF MARS HIT JAPS AT TONKWA

ONE FOR THE INFANTRYMEN

The sweetie-pie filmed above is Rose Marie Volin, a member of USO Troupe 269. We are informed via one thoroughly signed petition that she is the Sweetheart of the Regiment, the regiment in question being a part of the Mars Task Force.

BHAMO FALLS; AMERICAN TROOPS
120 MILES FROM MANDALAY BASE;
14TH ARMY LINKS UP WITH 36TH

  GEN. SULTAN'S HQ., NORTH BURMA - American Infantry and Artillery troops, known as the Mars Task Force, under the command of Brig. Gen. John P. Willey, are now fighting the Japanese in North Burma below Bhamo, which was captured the past week by Chinese forces after a siege of 28 days.
  First news of the American fighting in the Burma campaign alongside the Chinese and British was released after one American unit commanded by Col. Ernest Easterbrook, made contact with the Japanese at Tonkwa, 65 road miles below Bhamo and approximately 120 miles north of Mandalay.
  The Americans are now the closest Allied troops in Burma to Mandalay.
  Meanwhile, troops of the British 14th Army, after covering 200 miles in four weeks, joined up with the British 26th Division advancing from the north down the Myitkyina-Mandalay Railway. This link-up east of the Chindwin, accomplished by Gurkha troops, liberates 500 square miles of territory in North Burma by the 14th Army, clears 2,000 miles east of the Chindwin, and has freed 800 villages.
  The action at Tonkwa occurred when a small Japanese party attacked American and Chinese positions there. The Japanese suffered 30 killed before retreating southward.
  Meantime, a war of nerves is being waged on the West Coast of Burma as it was revealed this week that a co-ordinated series of sea-borne raids have been made by troops of the Southeast Asia Command, according to an observer of the Royal Indian Navy. The tempo is increasing the navy observer said. SEAC says that the 14th-36th link-up seals off North Burma to the Japs.
  The Mars Task Force is composed of men of the old Marauders who saw action in Burma last summer, Infantry replacements from America and volunteers from men in the India-Burma Theater.
  The men of Mars marched more than 200 miles through heavy jungles, over mountains and through swamps before coming in contact with the enemy. They are using new jungle-green uniforms being tried out for the first time.
  Inside captured Bhamo, Gen. Sultan made a tour in time to see the last remaining four Japs literally dug out of their destroyed bunkers and to see a powerful American and Chinese tank force roar into the ruined town one day later to take part in the subjugation of the Japs.
  In a five-hour inspection tour of the former Japanese teakwood bunker fortress, Sultan walked eight miles through Bhamo. He saw the still-burning Japanese death furnace, saw injured Japanese carried to the hospital, and tasted some of their rations.
  Commenting on enemy defense positions, Sultan said, "Chinese Infantry and Artillery deserve the highest praise for knocking out Bhamo, which I believe is one of the strongest Japanese strongholds in North Burma."
  In view of the great stores of food and ammunition found in Bhamo, Sultan expressed belief that 200 Japanese who broke out of Bhamo had planned to remain, but were put under such pressure they decided to go down fighting in a final charge.
  The tanks which arrived down the Ledo Road too late to aid in Bhamo's capture, pushed on south to help

BRIG. GEN. WILLEY

chase the Jap force which escaped. They were heard firing not far from Bhamo after its fall. The tanks reached Bhamo after a grueling hundred mile run through mountains and rivers from the staging point near Myitkyina. Several tanks had to cross rivers in water five feet deep.
  A patrol led by Lt. Martin Smith was in the lead when the Mars unit tasted its first combat at Tonkwa. The patrol was unexpectedly faced by an overwhelming number of Japs. Chinese and American machine-gunners killed some so close to American foxholes that Jap uniforms were powder-burned. During the attack one private first class, bayoneted in the stomach, pulled the rifle out of the Jap's hands, slapped him across the head with the butt, ran him down and killed him with his bare hands, according to Smith. Lt. Col. Benjamin F. Thrailkill, who led the patrol meeting the Salween Force patrol on the China border east of Myitkyina last September, was one of the unit officers at the Tonkwa engagement.
  Willey, the Mars Task Force commander, 42-year-old Virginian and graduate of Virginia Military Academy, holds the Legion of Merit for meritorious conduct and outstanding service as commanding officer of the forward echelon of the Chinese Army in India from Sept. 21, 1943, to April, 14, 1944.
  Willey proceeded to Tagap, Burma, last September with detailed knowledge of future plans requiring forward movement in six weeks and brought together the varying degrees of military character and experience of the Allied nationalities which considerably aided the subsequent operations.

EYE WITNESS STORY OF BURMA TRIUMPH

By S/SGT. EDGAR LAYTHA    Roundup Staff Correspondent

  GEN. SULTAN'S HQ., MYITKYINA - It's all over now. The flags of the Chinese wave over the cadaver which once was the lovely town of Bhamo. It's sudden fall after 28 days of siege was the collapse of a typical Japanese suicide garrison. To the Nipponese it was a human tragedy, sad and humiliating. To us it was an anti-climax, for we planned the final showdown for the last Sunday. Friday afternoon, however, the Jap garrison was no more.
  It would have been a spectacular Sunday afternoon for all the correspondents and photographers who had the patience to sweat out the 28 days at Lt. Gen. Dan I. Sultan's Headquarters. Two special planes were reserved for the press. We were going to view the kill-off from treetop level. Col. Rothwell Brown's newly-arrived tank unit stood ready to roll over the last desperately-held dugouts, which owed their lengthy existence merely to General Dan's resolution to save the Chinese First Army unnecessary casualties. But the tanks had no chance to enter the final battle. Word came from Bhamo Friday morning: The Japs were trying to break out since dawn, the final collapse will be but a matter of hours.
  The Theater Commander lent us his private plane, and in "Sultan's Magic Carpet" we raced towards Bhamo, with American, Chinese, Indian and British correspondents, and Yank magazine's T/Sgt. Dave "Red" Richardson.
  A squad of Chinese engineers, with mine detectors, led the party out through the rubble from one end of the town to the other. Two enemy machine guns were still active, here and there a sniper was rounded up and shot, once in a while a hand grenade exploded in a dugout; that was hara kiri.
  Bhamo resembled a blitzed cemetery. No building remained intact. This picturesque town of golden roofed pagodas and spacious monasteries suffered a much harder fate than Myitkyina. Gilded Buddhas of clay and Buddhas of marble were blown into a thousand pieces from their pedestals and littered the ground. Only the massive jewel-studded idols of bronze and brass withstood the carnage, sat motionless on their golden thrones in the open air and the stench of rotting Japs was all about them.
  The smell of death came from the dugouts which were deep, solid and elaborate, for the enemy had been digging in for weeks before the siege. The Jap in Bhamo knew that his chances for an escape were extremely remote, he knew that he was sacrificed in order to delay the Chinese 38th Division and he was building his last abode on earth. Unlike in the dugouts, the blood on the Japs on the roads and on the beaches was still fresh and very red. Many a man's chest was blown wide open by his own hand grenade and his arms lay far away. These were the stragglers who couldn't escape and paid the consequences.
  The jubilant Chinese were clearing up the debris, counting the bounty. The smallest Jap item they picked up gave them pleasure. At a road crossing we passed, they piled up proudly dozens of rifles, helmets, machine guns, baby howitzers, a couple of Samurai swords and stores of ammunition. We saw about half a dozen tankettes, large tanks and a

CHRISTMAS COMES TO BURMA

Christmas packages of American troops on the Northern Burma front arrive by the truck-load. Cpl. Rodney W. Robinson, Cpl. Max Spindel and Pvt. Joe T. Fox officiate.

number of trucks which must have been knocked out by our artillery many days ago.
The food and ammunition the Japs left behind seemed plentiful at sight, but considering the daily problem to feed and equip a besieged garrison, it was far from ample. The Chinese soldiers jubilated with every bag of rice they carried out from the dugouts, and at one time, half a dozen fellows fell over a big basket full of dried fish and had a lusty meal. I came across some dugout pastime of a second class private of the Imperial Japanese Army, some sketched dainty scenes of thought life. But most of the loose paper that laid around were our own surrender passes, which must have been their constant companions in the last few days before the finish.
Such was the end of the once-strong garrison. How many Japs lived there during the siege, nobody will ever know. They burned and buried their dead the first opportunity after action. Those couple of hundred who succeeded in breaking out have been surrounded and annihilated by the Chinese. A couple of dozen who finally escaped will roam the forests in search for contact with their countrymen. They will be a nuisance to our patrols and a menace to the natives.

BRUCE PINTER DIES IN U.S.

  Maj. Bruce E. Pinter, former public relations officer for Eastern Air Command and the USAAF in the India-Burma Theater, died recently in Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., a few hours after arriving by air from India. He was 32.
  Pinter, who was born in Jersey City, N.J., was graduated from Columbia University in 1932. He worked on the New York Herald-Tribune and News Week.
  Pinter entered the Army on Aug. 5, 1942, as a second lieutenant.

HUMP SMUGGLING RING EXPOSED BY ARMY
Roundup Staff Article

  A smuggling ring that has been operating over The Hump, taking an estimated sum of more than $4,000,000 since 1942, has been exposed by the work of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Department of the Theater Corps of Military Police.
  Investigations have been completed involving a number of individuals engaged in the illicit smuggling and black market operations, with some U.S. Army personnel now serving stiff sentences in Leavenworth, Kan.
  Large scale operations virtually have been halted and smaller scale operations greatly reduced.
  The principal groups of smugglers that have been identified were members of the U.S. Army; American Volunteer Group, the famed "Flying Tigers"; China national Airways personnel, Red Cross members, technical representatives of U.S. aircraft manufacturers and British, Indian and Chinese civilians.
  The list of items smuggled across the towering Hump and disposed of in China reads like an export index. There were arms, ammunition, clothing, military supplies and equipment, drugs, foreign currency, gems and sundry PX supplies, including, of course, cigarettes.
  There is under charges a total of 87 major cases, with profits of more than $5,000 each and 213 minor cases with profits of less than $5,000. The total profits are estimated at $4,156,000.
  It has been indicated that some major and minor operators yet have not been arrested. Members of the Armed Forces who are still in the India-Burma and China Theaters when the investigation began have been or will be tried by court martial.
  Military personnel who returned to the U.S. before completion of the investigation will also be court martialed, where the evidence warrants.
  One phase to illustrate the growth of the illegal operations showed where some officers of U.S. Troop Carrier squadron had been smuggling cigarettes into China.
  Another phase was the case of a USAAF fighter pilot, who said he had parachuted from his plane near a China base with $10,000 worth of gold bullion and drugs he was carrying from India. The plane crashed and he reported the contraband was lost.
  The Americans in most cases were guilty of seizing opportunities for illicit profit offered by a ring of international smugglers, who were attracted by the golden glitter of American supplies pouring into the Orient. Some of the foreign ringleaders already have been executed by the Chinese Government.

Jap Kweiyang Threat Repelled By Chinese

  CHINESE TRAINING AND COMBAT COMMAND, CHINA - The immediate threat by the Japanese to Kweiyang on the main road between Kunming and Chungking was diminishing this week as the Japs retreated more than 80 miles into Kwangsi Province during the past week. The Japs gave up Nan-Tan.
  As the Japs moved back in the general direction of Liuchow, where they had come from, Chinese troops, advancing from Kweiyang occupied Cheho, 15 miles northwest of Hochin.
  While one column of Chinese troops moved southeast in the wake of the withdrawing Japs, a second Chinese column struck eastward from the Cheho-Hochih road to occupy Leiming Pass, east of Wantan, and mop up any Jap forces in that area.
  Chinese forces, distinct from those engaged in the immediate protection of Kweiyang, reported the capture of Jap-occupied town of Kuote, about 230 miles south of Kweiyang, thus relieving the Jap threat from that point.
  On the Salween River front Chinese troops, who recently captured Chefang and proceeded south along the Burma Road, were reported only 10 land miles or five air miles from Wanting on the China-Burma border.
  East of the Burma Road the Chinese have occupied the border towns of Kawnsha and Mongko.

STRICTLY G.I. BY EHRET

WHAT IS THIS RUMOR ABOUT GOING OVERSEAS?

14th A.F. Sinks 30,000 Jap Tons Roundup Staff Article

  Airmen of the 14th Air Force, flying bomb-carrying fighters, sank a Jap destroyer in Hong Kong Harbor, an American Army summary of operations from Dec. 7 to Dec. 13 revealed this week.
  The Yank flyers destroyed 42 planes, probably destroyed 10, and damaged 22 without one single loss.
  More than 30,000 tons of enemy shipping were sunk in November by the 14th, the week's communiqu� revealed. Six Japanese naval vessels and 274 small craft not included in the tonnage were also sunk.
  Probably sunk were nine vessels totaling 23,100 tons, including two naval vessels. Damaged were 13 vessels of 22,950 tons, including two naval vessels and 626 small craft.
  November attacks brought the 14th's total since July 4 to more than 770,000 tons of Jap shipping sunk, 285,700 tons probably sunk, and more than 500,000 tons damaged, a grand total of 816 vessels, representing more than 1,550,000 tons. Not included in tonnage categories is a total of 29 naval vessels destroyed, 17 probably destroyed, and 23 damaged. Also not included in the tonnage totals are 2,855 craft of less than 100 feet destroyed, 572 probably destroyed, and 8,833 damaged.
  During November the 14th destroyed 57 Jap fighters and eight bombers, probably destroyed 13 fighters and one bomber, and damaged 64 enemy aircraft. Ratio of enemy planes destroyed to those of the 14th was 2.7 to one.
  During November the 14th Air Force destroyed 63 enemy locomotives and damaged 41, destroyed 240 trucks and damaged 424, destroyed 43 warehouses and damaged 65, attacked 68 enemy occupied communities with damage and destroyed two. Enemy casualties due to air operations were more than 1,700 troops and nearly 800 horses.

PILOT BROWN GETS B-29 OFF SMALL ISLAND
By WALTER RUNDLE    United Press Correspondent

  CHUNGKING - (Delayed) - A giant B-29 Super-Fortress raced down the short runway, careened crazily around a 20-degree "dogleg" midway in its run and lifted heavily above the muddy Yangtze River. A crowd of thousands of Chinese, most of whom only vaguely comprehended the drama being enacted, let out a loud cheer - fitting if not entirely conscious tribute to the plane's pilot, Capt. Stanley M. Brown, who had accomplished the unrivaled test of safely taking off the world's largest bomber from one of the smallest airfields in China.
  Brown's story began enroute home from the Nov. 21 Super-Fort raid on Omura, Japan. Under continuous attack by Japanese fighters from the China coast to Hangkow, Brown found the plane dangerously low on gas as he approached Chungking.
  Through the mist-shrouded twilight he was able to spot only the smallest of three airfields in the Chungking area - a tiny island in the middle of the Yangtze River used by CNAC and considered a "hot" field even for a modest-sized DC-3. Its 2,400-foot runway is only little more than 20 times this bomber's length.

TIGHT FIT
  "I knew it was a tight fit," Brown said, "but I had the choice of trying to bring her in or bail out and lose the plane. So I brought her in."
  Co-pilot Lt. Glen L. Pugmire interrupted to explain. "That's something you do with an primary trainer, but don't try with a heavy bomber. I don't believe anyone else could have made that landing."
  Incredulous CNAC officials who saw the plane which dwarfed the runway set down on their field rushed out with the demand, "You'll have to get that plane off right away. We're expecting a transport in."

NOT SIMPLE
  But it was not that simple. Normally, the B-29, which had never before seen Chungking, requires nearly two miles of runway for take-off. With engineers from China Theater Headquarters, Brown sized up the situation and determined to try a second crack at the impossible by flying the plane off the pint-sized field. With the help of several thousand coolies, a make-shift 1,400-foot extension was built at the far end of the runway. Because of the island's size and shape, it had to be at a 20-degree angle to the main runway, posing yet another problem in this delicate job of getting the ship in the air. The plane was then stripped of guns and armor plate to lighten the wing load.
  In the afternoon, Brown, Pugmire, Flight Engineer Lt. Howard S. Lapin and Left Gunner S/Sgt. Jean Baxter climbed aboard to undertake the hazardous task of saving their $1,500,000 plane.

THE CREW
  Tensely watching from the ground were the remainder of the crew: Navigator Lt. Nick Orlawski, Bombardier Lt. George H. Davis, Radio Operator S/Sgt. Glover P. Sanders, Top Turret Gunner S/Sgt. Jerome Boxer, Right Gunner T/Sgt. Leo Rodden and Observer Sgt. James H. Melear.
  It was the second time that Brown had been forced down on a small emergency field. On the other occasion, he brought the Super-Fort Dottie, which was named after his wife, back from an "impossible" dirt field within sight of Jap lines in northwest China after the 20th Bomber Command had written the ship off for lost and after the Japs had riddled it in a strafing attack.
  Before boarding the plane for the takeoff, Brown grinned and said, "We'll probably get back to base and have our rear eaten out for having this happen a second time." But whatever the brass may have to say, to his crew Brown's the "Best damn pilot who ever wore a pair of wings."

COMBAT CARGO GROUP DROPS RUBBER BOATS
  HQ., 10TH AIR FORCE - Teamwork "plus" was recently exhibited by a 10th Air Force Combat Cargo Group and the Chinese ground forces when rubber boats were dropped to the Chinese for a crossing of the Irrawaddy River.
  This joint operation occurred as the Chinese troops approached the banks of the stream. They had advanced faster than had been expected, and it became necessary to ferry these troops across without slowing down the drive.
  At night Lt. Charles B. Petranoff piloted his C-47 to the river's edge and chuted hundreds of rubber boats and amphibious equipment to the waiting Chinese soldiers. This "pin-point" bombing was made with only a ground fire offering illumination.
  There was only room in the boats for the equipment, the Chinese having to hang onto the rear of the rafts in the cold waters of the Irrawaddy.
  The stream was lined for hundreds of yards with an almost endless procession of men entering the icy water. Cautiously the Chinese propelled themselves to the far banks of the river, kicking their feet under the water in an effort to be silent. Slowly a beachhead was formed on the far shore, the troops immediately pushing forward into the jungle. Finally, after numerous trips back and forth, the entire force successfully crossed the stream.
  Continuing the resourcefulness of the Combat Cargo Command, a plane piloted by Lt. John F. Hayes was dispatched to the area. Lt. Hayes landed his plane on a sand bar on the opposite shore. Here the hundreds of boats, which had served their purpose well, were picked up and returned to a rear base for use in future amphibious operations.
  On the mission dropping equipment were Petranoff, Lt. Charles H. Grade, and Cpl. William R. Townsend; on the mission retrieving equipment were Lt. John F. Hayes, F/O George M. Downin, and Cpl. Chester B. Macomber.

By PVT. RAY HOWARD    Roundup Field Correspondent
  When the first Engineer Petroleum Distributing Company arrived in India slightly more than a year ago, only scattered petroleum distributing facilities owned by the Shell Oil Co. were found. It was only at India's ports that equipment and storage facilities were adequate to serve the growing war machine in China, Burma, and India.
  Since that time the pipeline outfits have grown until they are now engaged in one of the major engineering projects on the continent of Asia.
  More than a thousand miles of pipeline have been laid, providing a continuous supply of 100-octane gasoline for the huge air bases of India and Burma and Quartermaster gasoline and diesel fuel so essential to the building of the Ledo Road.
  It is estimated that 40 percent of the traffic on the Ledo Road has been eliminated by operation of the pipeline, thus releasing much-needed equipment for other duties.
  The pipeline is portable in all respects except the river and road crossings, and hazardous spans in the mountains, where heavyweight welded steel line is used.
  In the early days of the pipeline, it was believed that any welder could qualify for pipeline work, but Maj. J. C. Britton wasn't so sure. He wanted to establish a school in India for the training of specialized pipeline welders. His plan was put into effect only after two fires on the Hooghly River.
  Under Britton's supervision, an electric welding school capable of turning out eight welders every three weeks was established at the Budge Budge Terminal near Calcutta.
  S/Sgt. Lou Harris taught welding and maintenance of welding equipment and T/3 J. W. Arrington taught fabrication.
  Value of the course was proved when four welding school graduates with only one week's experience welded extra-heavy pipe crossing over the Rupnarayan River, which was tested under 105 pounds of air pressure without developing a single leak. Civilian welders in the States refuse to do electric welding in the rain, but much of the welding done on the line in Assam and Burma was accomplished during the heaviest monsoon downpours.
  Although few pipeliners have heard a shot fired in combat, personal courage of a different type is not uncommon.
  One man gave his life trying to prevent the second Hooghly River fire. He was guarding the end of the line where fumes were coming out when the 100-octane gasoline exploded. Efforts of two soldiers to rescue him were futile because of the intense heat.
  Before repairs of the Hooghly break could be made permission had to be secured from New Delhi to interfere with ocean-going traffic on the river. Two native divers secured cables around the line on the bottom, and it was raised by winches operated by hand from tugs.
  Britton, working from a pontoon boat, welded the break, and six hours and 45 minutes after repairs were started, the work was completed and traffic on the river was resumed.
  On another occasion, Air Corps men hunting in the jungle, discovered a leak in the line, and while trying to repair it were overcome by the fumes.
  S/Sgt. Charles Russ and T/4 John Koc came upon the scene. Realizing the plight of the airmen, they broke the line in two places to drain off the gasoline at the risk of their own lives. They went into the area and brought the men out. Working frantically, they applied artificial respiration, but they were able to revive only one of the men.
  Many pipeline men have suffered severe burns from wading hip deep in gasoline to repair breaks where a spark would have set off a blaze resulting in certain death.
  The pipeline companies operate as individual units under the supervision of various petroleum districts and are self sufficient in every respect.
  When they first began working in the theater, desired equipment was not always available, and only through a great deal of improvisation were they able to carry on the work.
  In the construction of the portable steel tanks, it was necessary to lift side staves and roof plates 24 feet into the air. No hoisting equipment was available, so the resourceful engineers borrowed a telephone pole from the Signal Corps and lashed it to the body of a dump truck so that it extended as a boom over the cab.
  The winch was run through a snatch block on the end of the boom so that by raising and lowering the dump body, the plates could be lifted into place.
  When bulldozers were not available, level tank foundations were made by building retainer walls 55 feet in diameter and filling them with sand.
  In one place a foundation eight feet high and 35 feet in diameter was built in a swamp in five days by 300 natives carrying dirt in baskets. The fill was packed by their feet.
  At one India air base, a crew was dismayed one morning to find that a storm during the night had staved in the sides of a tank which was completed except for the roof.
  The storage was urgently needed, but repair seemed impossible. The crew went to work with winches, battering rams, and sledge hammers, and before the day was through, the tank was straightened and ready for completion.
  Most of the work going into construction of the pipeline is hard drudgery, but it is always interesting and pipeliners are able to laugh at their own boners.
  Once while checking the line Pvt. John Walters thought an 11-foot python was the pipeline and stepped on it. Needless to say, he soon stepped off. Then he stepped on it. Not the snake. American slang. Get it? The snake was killed by T/5 Charles Marvel and T/3 John Arrington.
  An order was published that slack loops were to be worked into the line, which is to take care of expansion and contraction caused by sharp changes in temperature. M/Sgt. Thomas O. Brigham was most zealous in his work.
  The slack loops were put in and the line was buried. When pumping was started, the line literally marched out of its grave. It shouldn't have done it, but it did. Now it's "Slack-loop" Brigham.
  At a Shell terminal, engineers were required to wear picture identification badges. There was no way to provide for the payment of such badges by public funds so the G.I.'s had to pay rupees two for the "privilege" of working.
  The oil fields of Texas, Oklahoma and California have provided a majority of the seasoned pipeline personnel, but men from every State in the Union carry their share of technical ratings in the pipeline companies.
  Pipeline engineers have been called on for many kinds of work, including barracks construction, bridge building, repairing and general construction work. They have responded with a zest amazing to less hardy troops.
  Indian pioneer troops, working under the supervision of pipeline men, have contributed much to the successful construction of the line.
  For their work, the companies have been awarded the Bronze Star, which the men laughingly say was awarded them "for being good boys."

AL'S ASSASSINS, ONE-FLIGHT MASSACRE
  By Capt. KENNETH E. KAY

  CHINA - In this Theater, where the global war trails off to a ragged fringe, 16 Chinese and American fighter pilots from a Group which calls itself "Al's Assassins," recently shattered all local records for piling up headaches for the Emperor in one mission. Before they came home for their evening rice and "flied eggs," they knocked off a locomotive, burned up a train full of gasoline, killed three railroad carloads of Nip troops, strafed a 60-foot gunboat, shot up a motor launch, and destroyed 20 enemy fighters and bombers which were staging for an assault on Allied air bases - and all without loss to themselves.
  These 16 experts in mayhem and mass murder were led by a lieutenant colonel and an ex-AVG pilot with a total bag at the present time of eight Japanese aircraft. The colonel, a doddering oldster of 27, spotted the gasoline train first, hamstrung it by blowing up its locomotive, and then leisurely worked down its length, igniting one car after another. When the flight found the three carloads of unhappy troops tacked on the end of the train, everybody went to work. As one pilot said, "Caliber .50's don't just kill a man, they blow him to pieces."
  Leaving the train in flames and billowing smoke, the flight continued, hunting further prey. They found it on the river - a gunboat and a motor launch. Polishing these off, more or less as a passing gesture, they swung away, flying over saw-toothed mountain ridges and gorges, and, shortly before sundown, came in on the blind side of one of

HIGHBALLS ON THE BALL

Pfc. Adolph P. Scallon, having had 200 salutes thrown at him by Indian laborers each morning for five months, will soon be qualified to be a second lieutenant. Pfc. Scallon is burra sahib in charge of 200 workers employed by the "Black Ange" Squadron of the "Earthquaker" Bombardment Group.

Japan's most important and best-defended airdromes in occupied China.
  They arrived just as 10 enemy bombers were landing and taxiing. Overhead, a top cover of Oscar Fighters were circling. Top cover, landing aircraft and ships taxiing on the ground were struck simultaneously. Four bombers on the ground burst into flame. Five fell out of the sky and crashed. The Oscars, whose job it was to prevent precisely what was happening from happening, evidently never knew what hit them. In a matter of seconds, 11 of them were shot down and one was damaged. A carefully-planned bomber attack on Allied bases in China scheduled for that night was reduced to a lone sortie by one surviving bomber who sneaked in, dropped his load precisely into the middle of a rice paddy, and fled.
  Two of the American pilots in the formation were on their maiden missions. One of them destroyed two enemy planes and the other two and a half. Of the total destruction of enemy planes, Americans got Seven and one-half and Chinese pilots accounted for 12½. It was a day to be remembered for a long time by Brig. Gen. Morse's Chinese-American Wing and to be remembered with bitter chagrin for an even longer time by the Imperial Japanese Air Force.
  There is just one thing bothering the boys. How did that one bomber get overlooked?

IF MP'S USE BAD LANGUAGE, TEACH THEM COURTESY

  By S/Sgt. ART HEENAN    Roundup Staff Writer

  The Military Police are going to get an entirely new indoctrination course if the words of the Commandant of the Provost Marshal General's School at Ft. Sam Houston can be taken at face value.
  The Commandant, Col. William Maglin, opened the eyes of the Provost Marshal AAF convention in St. Louis this week with the following description of what constitutes the ideal MP:
  (1) He must be mild-mannered and should give orders just above a whisper, never shouting belligerently

as it tends to excite the soldier involved and complicates the situation.
  (No longer will the MP come up and gruffly say, "Get those blankety-blank buttons buttoned up." No longer will he holler "Turn left and go around the block, and I do mean left," as you vainly seek to go straight ahead in the jeep.)
  (2) He must keep his head and only use his club for defense.
  (In case of a riot the MP no longer, as of yore, can bull his way in, waving his club on high. No longer will you be faced with the perils of one of those miniature baseball bats pushed into your stomach, with the Admonition, "Out of the way!"
  (3) He must be taught that each infraction of the military regulations is not a personal affront to himself.
  (If the Gestapo member puts on an act of great dignity and reproaches you for not being the gentleman he is, and in fact, infers you have found a home in the Army ask him where he got that overgrown waistline, then if he takes personal affront, he's not an ideal MP!)
  If you have any professional contact with MP's in the future, remind them of the new rules of military courtesy. In case they haven't heard of them don't blame us if you get tapped on the head with a club. All we do is print the news. We don't guarantee the results.

CHINESE ORPHANS GET G.I. DONATION

  CHINA - There was much rejoicing and many "ding-how's" among the little boys and girls of the Keun Wei Chinese Orphanage recently when Chinese-American Sgt. Kern Lee dropped by to donate 125,000 dollars (CN) to be used for their up-keep for at least one month.
  In a simple, brief ceremony Lee, a 1938 edition war refugee from Kwantung Province, passed out the crisp bills to the smiling "warphans." Through an interpreter, Madame Chiang, head of the local women's volunteer organization, he explained that the gift represented his earnings as a G.I. barber while aboard a troop ship to India.
  Lee's generous donation will also enable the orphanage to give a home to other Chinese children whose parents have been killed by the invading Japs.

GILES PRAISES 10TH AF WORK

  HQS., 10TH A.F., BURMA - A commendation from Lt. Gen. Barney M. Giles, Deputy Commander of the USAAF and Chief of the Air Staff, was received by Maj. Gen. Howard C. Davidson this week in which the work of the 10th Air Force was praised.
  Giles wrote "Tell all of the 10th A.F. units that both Gen. Arnold and myself are watching them with pride. Your personnel seems to be imbued with the offensive spirit."
  Giles lauded the Burma Bridge Buster and said at the rate they were going they would soon run out of targets. He added, "Your heavies, fighters, transports and recon air crews and ground personnel all seem to be imbued with the same spirit."
  In forwarding the letter to units Davidson added, "All units of this command, both tactical and service, may take pride in this commendation as all have played important parts in Allied successes in this Theater. I am confident your outstanding combat efficiency will not slacken until the day of victory."

A Rug For General Dan

Lt. Dan I. Sultan, Commanding U.S. Forces in India and Burma, in the cockpit of his personal aircraft, "Sultan's Magic Carpet," christened this week at Gen. Sultan's headquarters. (Photo by Capt. Tom C. Dillard, A.C.)

EAC AIRCRAFT PAVE THE WAY

  EASTERN AIR COMMAND HQS., BURMA - Eastern Air Command aircraft this week paved the way for the important advances made by Allied ground forces on all of the Burma fronts. The capture of Buthidaung, Dalewa, Indaw, Naba, Katha and Bhamo were all preceded by highly accurate bombing and strafing by RAF and USAAF fighters, fighter-bombers and dive-bombers, who knocked out Japanese strong points and neutralized enemy communications in the immediate battle areas.
  Meanwhile, B-24 Liberators of Air Commodore F. J. W. Mellersh's Strategic Air Force flew almost daily low-level attacks against the important Burma-Siam railroad, destroying stations, yards, tracks, bridges and damaging locomotives and rolling stock. The Liberators set fire to large areas in Kanchanaburi, approximately 60 miles west of Bangkok, and tore up more than 2,000 feet of track in the vicinity. A successful mission against shipping near Tavoy and the waterfront near Khao Huagang was also carried out.
  Enemy air fields in the Meiktila area and the Magwe group were hit repeatedly by B-25's of the 12th Bomb Group and also by RAF Thunderbolts, Spitfires and Mosquitos.

7 NIPS DOWNED
  During the week, EAC aircraft destroyed seven Jap aircraft, two probables and damaged 15.
  The P-47's of Maj. Gen. Howard C. Davidson's 10th Air Force operated against a wide variety of targets throughout North Burma. They fired a road bridge at Mongmit; knocked out a rail bridge at Nam Yao; started 21 fires at Aledaw and 10 at Namkin; scored excellent results against a store area northeast of Hsipaw; leveled half the towns of Pangon and Kunmong; destroyed all the remaining buildings at Nampan; caused 12 fires in Sedo; blew up an ammunition dump at Hohai; took the roof off every building at Kunlong, and destroyed a supply area north of Lashio. Bhamo was under daily bombardment prior to its capture.

'HEAVIEST ACTIVITY'
  The capture of Kalewa and the other advances on the Chindwin front were likewise spearheaded by RAF Thunderbolts and Hurribombers, who were particularly active against Pinlebu, Wuntho and Kyungon. Air activity on the Arakan-Kaladan front was the heaviest in months as Thunderbolts, Hurribombers and Spitfires provided support for the 15th Corps troops as they captured Buthidaung and other objectives.
  Long-range RAF Beaufighters maintained their offensive against lines of communications, operating by day and night against road traffic in the Taungun-Prome areas; against shipping along the Irrawaddy; and railways near Rangoon and Moulmein.
  Transports of the 10th Air Force and a Combat Cargo unit delivered hundreds of tons of supplies daily to the forward areas on all fronts, while Liaison aircraft were active evacuating casualties, flying personnel to the front lines and carrying out reconnaissance missions.

CRIPPLED B-29 LANDS SAFELY, AIR CREW AWARDED DFC'S

  BOMBER COMMAND BASE, INDIA - For bringing their plane back against all odds, crew members of a B-29 Super-Fort of the XX Bomber Command have been awarded the DFC.
  The crew, headed by Maj. I. V. Matthews as pilot, stayed with their crippled ship on a 1,700-mile return flight from a bombing mission over Palembang, Sumatra, despite overwhelming odds against the successful completion of the flight.
  Shortly after dropping their bombs on the target the plane developed a rapid oil leak in No. 4 engine. It was necessary to feather the propeller, but repeated attempts at feathering proved futile.
  It seemed unlikely the big bomber could make the trip home, most of it over water. At any moment, if all the oil in the engine leaked out, the engine might freeze up, causing excess vibration and possibly breaking-up of the wing section.
  Matthews directed the crew to strip the plane of all possible equipment to lessen the weight. Using all the skill at his command the pilot maintained altitude and reduced gasoline consumption to a minimum.
  Approximately 700 miles from their base, and having an opportunity to ditch and immediately be picked up, the crew elected to continue on in an effort to save the plane. Forty minutes from the base, the No. 1 engine ran out of fuel and the propeller was feathered.
  The remaining distance of the flight and the landing at home base was made on two engines. Only 200 gallons of fuel, including residue, remained in the tanks.
  The citation reads, "The performance of the crew was so exceptional and outstanding that they reflect the highest credit to this Command and the Army Air Forces."
  The member of the crew were: Lt. Robert A. Winters, co-pilot; Lt. Herbert C. Hirschfeld, navigator; Lt. C. E. Biehle, bombardier; F/O L. L. Grace; S/Sgt. Ralph M. Smole, gunner; S/Sgt. S. P. Winborne, gunner; Sgt. Leo E. McBride, gunner; T/Sgt. Fred H. Thompson, radio operator; S/Sgt. Delbert C. Glover, gunner; S/Sgt. Stanley V. Sienkiewicz, electrical specialist.

WANTED FOR MURDER

Sentenced to death by court martial for the murder of an American Officer and awaiting final action on his record of trail, Private Herman Perry, 13074419, colored, escaped from the stockade at Ledo at 0200 Saturday, 16 December 1944. This general prisoner is 5'8½" in height, weighs approximately 170 pounds, has a husky build with broad shoulders, has black bushy hair, complexion of chocolate brown, and wears a size 10½D shoe. He is a nervous type of individual, smokes cigarettes in chain fashion and is addicted to marijuana.
His escape may have been abetted by outside help, and it is very likely that he is now equipped with arms. Knowing that his life is forfeit, he will actively resist any effort toward recapture. Perry is a fast and smooth talker with no southern or Negro accent, well educated and exceedingly dangerous. All military personnel are urged to be on the look-out for this man. Any information pertaining to this case should be reported to the nearest military authorities, the Provost Marshal, Military Police or the Criminal Investigation Division without delay. More...

'ROGER-DODGER, OVER AND OUT'

  HEADQUARTERS, 14TH AIR FORCE FIGHTER WING, CHINA - Radio telephone procedure has long been a bugaboo with communications men, who just can't stand to hear pilots violate their carefully worked out "sound sequence."
  A communications major in Randall's Riders, 14th Air Force Fighter Wing, was no exception to this rule when his ground station recently called a fighter in the air and received the acknowledgement, "Roger Dodger, over and out," thus violating all the tenets of the trade.
  Keeping himself under strict control, the major tried again, but got the same results. Finally, boiling over at this flippancy from the air, he roared into the mike, "I'm a major and I'm giving you a direct order to use correct R/T."
  Replied the pilot, "Roger Dodger. I'm a major, too. Over and out."

TEXAS G.I. RIDES BAREBACK, MULE

Cpl. Bill Martin of Seymour, Tex., shows the Karachi crowd how mule-riding is done in Texas. Or is it? A crowd of 7,000 enjoyed the show.

By S/SGT. ART HEENAN
Acting Roundup Sports Editor
  More than 500 G.I.'s are expected to take part in the All-American track and field meet at Calcutta Jan. 13-14 in what promises to be an auspicious start for sports in the India-Burma Theater for 1945.
  The Special Service Office there lists 11 complete teams from camps within the base section. The meet is open to all Americans, who know, or think they can perform on or off their feet. Actually it is an elimination contest for later the cream of the G.I. talent will compete against a picked team of British and Indian thin clads.
  If any of you want to enter as individuals, and not as a team, file your application via the good old Army Postal System. And since this is the Army, send your name, rank, serial number and APO. If any confusion exists in your mind over that procedure just figure yourself giving the usual info to an MP after killing two cows with your jeep. The application must be mailed by Jan. 1. Send it to Special Service Officer, Base Section 2, APO 465.

7,000 SPECTATORS WATCH G.I.'S IN KARACHI CHARITY RODEO

  KARACHI, INDIA - Around 7,000 American and British military and civilian personnel watched the G.I. Charity Rodeo put on here recently by G.I.'s of this area.
  The all-around champion cowboy came not from Texas, but from Arizona. He was M/Sgt. Bill Roer of Phoenix. In second place was Sgt. Bob Fraser of Lufkin, Tex., and third was Sgt. Ralph Graham of Salina, Kan.
  Graham also gave an exhibition of fancy roping that had the spectators thinking that for a moment they were actually going to see the Indian rope trick.
  A special feature attraction was contributed by Roer when he bulldogged a steer from the front seat of a speeding jeep. The jeeps were substituted for the traditional horse. Roer tackled and dogged the steer while the jeep was traveling at a speed of 25 miles an hour.
  The G.I.'s also put on a Camel Relay Race. Each contestant had two camels and was required to make two laps around the arena, one on each camel. The winning camel-jockey was Pvt. James Chewming.
  Complete results were as follows:
  BAREBACK MULE RIDING - Won by Cpl. Tommy Svorinac, Burlingame, Calif., second, Sgt. Bob Fraser, Lufkin, Tex., third, Cpl. Bob Morgan, Jerome, Id.
  WILD BULL RIDING - Won by Cpl. Bill Martin, Seymour, Tex., second, Pfc. Fletcher Wilson, Galveston, Tex., third, Pvt. James Chewming, Palm Beach, Fla.
  STEER WRESTLING - Won by team of Cpl. Don Ross, Salinas, Calif. and Pvt. James Chewming, Palm Beach, Fla.; second, Sgt. Bill Roer, Phoenix, Ariz. and Sgt. Bob Fraser, Lufkin, Tex.; third Sgt. Ralph Graham, Salina, Kan. and Maj. Dal Stephenson, Cadillac, Mich. Time: 11 and two tenths seconds.
  WILD BRAHMA COW MILKING - Won by team of M/Sgt. Bill Roer, Phoenix, Ariz. and Sgt. Bob Fraser, Lufkin, Tex.; second, Sgt. Ralph Graham, Salina, Kan. and unidentified partner; third, Pvts. Leonard Huff and Bill Jamieson, both of Abilene, Tex. Time: 16 seconds.
  BREAKAWAY STEER ROPING - Won by M/Sgt. Bill Roer of Phoenix, Ariz., second, Sgt. Ralph Graham, Salina, Kan., third, Pvt. Leonard Huff, Abilene, Tex. Time: six seconds.

STAR-STUDDED AIRMEN DROP 11-10 THRILLER
By LARRY JAFFE

  APO 627 (China) - The United States Ground Forces and the Air Corps carried their friendly rivalry to the softball diamond in China and despite a heavily-padded all-star aviation team, the Ground Forces outfit won an 11-10 thriller before a huge crowd. Capitalizing on four walks, three timely singles and an outfield error, the winners eked out their one run triumph with a seven run splurge in the last half of the final inning.
  The Air Corps fielded a potent team with its all-star battery of Maj. Gen. C. L. Chennault on the mound and Brig. Gen. Edgar Glenn behind the plate. Three major league baseball players and a "major league" sportswriter, members of a touring U.S.O. troupe were also in the line-up but their presence failed to avert defeat. Luke Sewell, manager of the pennant winning St. Louis Browns played first base. The leading batsman in the majors last season, Dixie Walker, Brooklyn outfielder, performed in centerfield; Paul Waner, with the New York Yankees last year and well known for being one of five major league batters to make a thousand or more hits, was in left field and Arthur "Red" Patterson, sportswriting expert with the New York Herald Tribune, romped in right field.

IT'S QUITE AN OLD NEWS STORY, BUT IT'S WORTH EVERY ADJECTIVE

The Combat Engineers at Myitkyina man a .30 caliber machine gun.

  MYITKYINA - "Thank Gawd for you guys!" said the first Marauder who saw them as they piled out of the cargo planes at the airstrip. He keynoted the attitude of his whole weary outfit, for the day, May 24, marked the end of a fabulous fighting trek for Merrill's men and thrust this particular Engineering outfit into a probably unprecedented 65 unrelieved days of front-line fighting.
  This hitherto untold story is intended to raise from anonymity the Engineering battalion which, after nearly a year's service on the Ledo Road was abruptly ordered to reinforce Merrill's men and to carry on the then beginning siege of Myitkyina. A week after their arrival at the Myitkyina strip, this Engineering battalion had relieved the bulk of the Marauders, and until the arrival of another Engineering battalion and the first of the Marauders replacements, this one inexperienced Engineering battalion was the largest all-American force engaged in the actual prosecution of the battle.
  Despite their singular position in the battle, the Engineering battalion has never known a direct public mention in the news dispatches, which was dictated by essential demands of security which can now be relaxed.
  When a good bunch of Engineers is summarily turned into a raw mob of foot-slogger recruits, credit is due to more than the guts and willingness of the men or the versatility of their officers. The commendable combat record of Lt. Col. Leslie E. Sanvall's Engineers must be shared with the headquarters personnel of Maj. Gen. Frank D. Merrill's staff, and especially with the intelligence and reconnaissance platoon men who stayed to continue the nerve-shattering patrol work which could not be allocated to inexperienced relief troops.
  The departing Marauders turned teachers and did their damdest to instill their hard-learned battle sagacity and jungle savvy into their combat naive relief troops.
  In one not easy lesson, Merrill's mortar men, who could lob a shell into a corner pocket, tried to train heavy equipment operators, who could crack a peanut shell with a heavy pile-driver and not bruise the kernel, in the intricacies of an 81-mm BAR gunners who had shot their way from Buna and Burma showed jack-hammer jockeys where to find the trigger on a Browning, and hard-case veterans who knew jungle skirmishing from Guadalcanal to Warazup gave shrewd advice to Engineers who came to fight with only the M-1 and a morbid curiosity to experience (quote from Roundup) "being shot at a bit by the Japs."
  Rebuttal from the Engineers: "Whattya mean, bit? The Nips did a hell of a 'bit' in 65 days."
  A motor pool crew that could make a GMC run on buggy wheels found out the hard way that mules don't move by an ignition key. With all this abandonment of old skills and the adoption of new tools, the cream of the Engineers, now slightly blood-curdled, watched the gradual evacuation of the meritorious but mauled Marauders, then turned to participate in the battle for Myitkyina.
  The chronicling of 65 intimate days with death, disease and debility can't be compressed into a news feature. Description of the horror, fear, and anguish learned in a nine-weeks course in a school for misery and murder is not to be printed anywhere. Suffice to ignore the silent heroisms, the homely nobilities, and anonymous deaths and to scan the few high spots of a dangerous yet drab episode.
  For instance, there is the night of June 1, on which the battalion struck its first blow and knocked down one of the largest single massacres of the Myitkyina campaign. That night an unsuspecting three-truck Jap convoy drove into a freshly-established road block.
  In the following early morning drizzle, proud, delighted bridge builders examined the first enemy, now gruesomely sanctified, they had seen. The count: two trucks destroyed, one rejuvenated and put into service, extensive assortment of ordnance captured in good order, important materials of value to G-2; 86 bodies of the convoy personnel. The cost: one Engineer killed. After that the enemy took the ball and proceeded to even the odds.
  The reply in kind came from the Japs on June 13. This incident ranks in dramatic effect with the fight of one of Merrill's battalions when it was surrounded at Nhpum Ga. Two companies, commanded each by Capt. John R. Morrell and Capt. Charles A. Stefl, while proceeding to a forward position, were bushwhacked by an unexpectedly superior force and were obliged to seek protection in hasty defensive entrenchments. The last message to reach the battalion CP before communications were cut was so urgent that two companies promptly executed several frantic but nearly disastrous attempts to reinforce their embattled comrades.
  Finally, military necessity dictated that the two companies must be left to their own resources, from then on the position was dramatically tragic, with elements that are frightful only to scenarists.
  Conclusion to this situation, which had resembled Custer's stand, Wake and Bataan, was written three days later when straggling survivors of the ambush came in near miraculous deliverance through the American lines - literally back from the dead. Their story was beyond the limits of even a Hollywood scenario denouement.
  They told of defending a perimeter of 50 feet in diameter for 60 hours. Glaceed from rain and exposure, using M-1's that had to be manually operated, they held against heavy odds of screeching Japs who called out to "surrender or die," who fixed knee mortars at point-blank range from screening underbrush. They rushed individual fox-holes.
  Finally, when supplies air-dropped to their tiny perimeter were easily picked up and used against them by the enemy, when Johnny Maczko, the lone medic without medicine could no longer patch up the numerous wounded, with diminished ammunition being miserably fired in single rounds and with men sick from seeing buddies fricasseed in their own blood, although weak from hunger, they resolved a daring plan of retreat.
  That night in a small group they vanished over a route reconnoitered by Sgt. Alvin Miller. Except for those who drowned in deep paddies or crawled in wrong directions, they found their own rear lines in the early morning. Japs, moving in early to wipe out the pocket, were furious to find "honorable clay pigeons" had disappeared, and that the 150 killed and uncounted wounded Japs could not be avenged.
  After this effort, the exhausted battalion was awarded a brief respite from the attack and a new Engineering battalion took over the offense. In several more days the first battalion returned to share the brunt of the attack with the other, and with the passing of another grueling month, the combined Engineers under Lt. Col. Harold E. Greenlee had advanced the ball to the Myitkyina five-yard line. With the arrival of the Marauder replacements, the Engineers retired to rear positions, now as worn and ill as had been the original Marauders.
  A week later Myitkyina fell. During that final phase of the scrap, Capt. Pierce's company came to the fore and made the last outstanding contribution to his battalion record. Lt. Tommy Ryan, with a platoon of one of the companies, took up watch over Myitkyina's back alley of escape, the Irrawaddy River.
  Japs retreating from the city rafted down the river headed for Jap garrisons further south. None of them got there. Ryan and his boys, once construction men but now adept in cold-blooded destruction, killed 150 and captured 50, including several women.
  The account of the Engineers at Myitkyina is done. Engineer personnel had won a Distinguished Service Cross, several Silver Stars, half a dozen Bronze Stars, and 260 Purple Hearts.

RAZZLE-DAZZLE WARHAWK

The nightmare paint job above is the 15,000th Curtiss Warhawk, recently turned loose from the Curtiss-Wright plant at Buffalo, N.Y. Reason for all the insignia is to commemorate the 28 air forces which have used the famed P-40 since the beginning of the war. Note the red-nosed spinner cap and shark-puss of the Flying Tigers.

'YANKS IN THE ORIENT'
AIRED IN U.S. AND HERE

  In case anybody is interested, the India-Burma and China Theaters have their own weekly network radio program back in Shangri-La, just like Procot and Gamble, General Foods and the Ford Motor Company. The opera, now approaching the end of its first year on the air, is entitled "Yanks in the Orient," and is heard every Sunday at 11:15 p.m. Eastern War Time, over the coast to coast facilities of the Blue Network (it will soon be broadcast out here via the G.I. stations). The two components of the former CBI Theater are the only war areas represented on the U.S. air by a regularly scheduled, Theater-produced radio program.
  A small unit operating out of Theater Public Relations is responsible for this weekly assault on the eardrums of the U.S. listening public. Known as the India-Burma Radio Team (formerly CBI Radio Team) this outfit is now whittled down to three men: Capt. Finis Farr, writer-producer, Lt. Bert Parks, announcer, and Pvt. Howard Lemke, lately of a Ledo Road engineer outfit, technician.
  According to his own statement, Farr is a one-time newspaperman and writer for "The March of Time," while Parks, from the NBC and CBS networks, is known to thousands of fans, 95 percent of whom have him confused with Parks Johnson of the Vox Pop Hour.
  The unit got going late in 1943 under the direction of Lt. Col. Paul L. Jones, who has since become Theater Public Relations Officer and is temporarily in the U.S. after 32 months in CBI. After turning out one 13-week series of recorded broadcasts, the team received a request for 26 more. "Yanks in the Orient" is now established for the duration.
  The I-B and China Theater broadcasters have recorded, among other things, such varied voices as those of the champion dockwallopers of Calcutta; the catskinners of the Ledo Road; combat crews of the 10th and 14th Air Forces and the XX Bomber Command; veterans of the Merrill's Marauders outfit and other jungle fighters of North Burma; rescue experts of the ATC's India-China Division; food-kickers of the "Assam Trucking Corp" troop carriers and combat cargo men; flying medics who ferry wounded over the jungles by air; a choir of Negro voices among the Ledo engineers; WACs on Ceylon; Japanese prisoners; Chinese wounded at the Salween front, and Chinese farmers, 40,000 strong, building the China strips for the first flight of B-29's.
  Current output includes the L-5 fliers recently reported on by the Roundup's S/Sgt. Edgar Laytha, a "Burma Banshees" fighter outfit, and an in-flight recording of a low-level mission of the famed 490th Skull and Wings

Lt. Bert Parks, of the India-Burma and China radio team, interviews Lt. Charles F. Heil, veteran of 500 combat hours in the P-47's. Heil is a flight leader with the "Burma Banshees."

Medium Bomb Squadron. This combat broadcast will be heard in America on Christmas Eve.
  The broadcasters record sound and dialogue on a dingus which Farr describes as "this little magic box we carry around with us." The gadget is known as a magnetic wire recorder and aside from the fact that it needs either a generator or a set of batteries to furnish power, it gives its operators no trouble, except when it breaks down.
  "We recommend the wire recorder unreservedly," says Parks. "It is about 400 pounds lighter than the turntables we originally started out with."
  "We are not the world's best broadcasters," Farr confided to the Roundup on a recent visit to Delhi. "In fact, since we started we have made literally hundreds of mistakes and we are now going back to Burma to make a few hundred more. However, we have promised the network one historic broadcast. Before we get through, we are going to record the sound of the fall of a feather dropped from the top of the Taj Mahal."

LOOEY JUMPS, LOOEY DRINKS

  CHINA - Bound for China, the lieutenant had provided good cheer for the weeks to come. Two bottles of Stateside likker gurgled in his musette bag.
  But this flight over the Hump was destined to be finished a la hoof.
  When it came time to bail out the lieutenant didn't lose his presence of mind. The two bottles of the spirit that cheers accompanied him.
  His landing wasn't a pleasant one. The chute was snagged in the branches of the tree. There he was wafted to and fro in the breeze, 20 feet above terra firma.
  There his sergeant found him.
  One bottle was empty. The lieutenant wasn't. He was full.

CIVILIZATION HITS ASSAM

Journeying down the corrugated Assamese road, the jeep approached a one-way bridge flung across a coffee-colored stream. Suddenly, all eyes were focused, unbelievingly, on the incongruous sight ahead. That civilization had reached primitive Assam was now an incontrovertible fact. Above the husky MP controlling traffic on the bridge blinked an unmistakable TRAFFIC LIGHT!

CHINA CAPTAIN GETS GREETING

  AIR TRANSPORT COMMAND BASE, CHINA - Capt. Milburn E. Brucker is happy these days - his draft board notified him he's in class IV-A! (Essential industry).
  He doesn't quite get the drift of the classification, having been on active duty as an officer for more than a year. But if his draft board thinks he's IV-A, he must be IV-A. The notification reached him at this India-China Division ATC base.
  Capt. Brucker was general foreman of the Sacramento Air Depot.

CRACK NEGRO TRUCK OUTFIT PIONEERS 'COMBAT TRAIL'

  MYITKYINA - Members of a Negro QM Truck Company of the ASC came in with the first truck convoy to pioneer the Combat Trail where the Ledo Road branches off.
  Dusty, with bloodshot eyes and stretching stiff limbs they still showed their traditional cheerfulness. The powder dust of the trail still clung to their fatigues as they greeted buddies who had come in ahead by plane, for Myitkyina was an air-locked installation until these men opened the trail through jungle and forest.
  The arrival was without fanfare. Col. William S. Pocock, commander of the ASC "Burma Peacocks," greeted Capt. John F. McCormick, convoy commander. Only one accident marred the route, when a tree fell on a truck.
  Most of the troops were from the east and south of the U.S. They had been trained as a truck company for convoys and adapted themselves to conditions, despite the fact there were no routes Stateside that could compare to the Combat Trail.
  The men drove in shifts, tore open their K-rations and ate on the move. There were stretches where five miles per hour was considered progress. Trees were cut down to offer a temporary surface over the mud.
  Before the convoy trail was opened, Pocock was spreading his transportation thin for the necessary tidal wave of supplies. Jap trucks were put back into working order to unload the constant stream of cargo planes.
  But, now with the Combat Trail open, things are rapidly improving. Besides the Air Corps supplies so essential to maintain superiority in the skies, the men looked forward to the rapidly expanding PX.

CHINA SALVAGE BUSINESS AT NEW HIGH

G.I. shoes take a beating on China's cobble-stoned streets and rocky, mountainous roads. Above, Pvt. Sam Wong (center) of Services of Supply salvage detachment checks the work of Chinese shoemakers.

In China, junk aluminum is rendered into pots and pans for G.I. mess halls. Lt. Harry E. Fitzner, salvage officer, and Pvts. Jack P. Medana and Lawrence L. Dugan examine the plane scrap and the finished product.

  SOUTHWEST CHINA - Nothing is wasted in China. The Army often gets more for an empty tin than the can and contents would cost in America.
  The prices for salvage materials result from the land and sea blockade, which forces imports over The Hump by air to unoccupied China. Anything brought in brings a big price.
  Salvage operations of Headquarters, SOS, USF, China Theater, which have grown to a $7,000,000 Chinese currency monthly total, reflect many fantastic phases of doing business in China.

GLORIFIED JUNKYARD
  Lt. Harry E. Fitzner, an investment security dealer before he entered the Army, operates a glorified junkyard at this important base, which was formerly a ancient Chinese cemetery. He has developed markets and uses for castoff tin cans, blown out tires, worn shoes, bomb crates, aluminum from salvaged planes and old auto bodies.
  Fitzner, as sales and salvage officer, operates five trucks; has 10 enlisted men, 12 Chinese tailors, 12 shoemakers and nine yard men for processing junk.
  When Fitzner took over in July sales were about $750,000 CN a month. By tightening collections, looking for scrap at outlying bases and digging up customers, he has raised the money value of the business 10 times since July.

TIN CANS
  Take tin cans. The junkyard gets $60 CN for one. Buyers fight to get them, where once they could pick them up for $20 CN. Translated into U.S. currency, which roughly means $20 CN for each dollar, this means each tin brings in $3. At the open market rate, which may vary from $200 to $300 CN per can, the empty can brings as much as it would cost filled with its commodity.
  After purchase, the cans go to Chinese factories, where they are made into tea pots, pans, office supplies, lamps and other utensils. Often the Chinese manufacturer pays $1,000 CN for the cans and turns them into $2,000 worth of profits. And sometime, strange as it seems, the Army buys some of the supplies back.
  Auto tires are about the same story. A well-used, blown-out truck tire of ordinary size brings $18,000 CN, or $60 at open market rates and, $600 U.S. at official rate, in either case it is more than the new tire back home. Chinese use the old tires on rickshaws, soles for shoes and many other things. Mended, they make tires for two-wheeled horse carts.
  The yard has handled more than 10 tons of scrap aluminum, some of it from Jap planes knocked down in the area. The local fabricator turns it into plates, cups and other accessories for Army messes. Manufacturers may also be paid the labor cost in an allowance of scrap. The same goes for iron and steel scrap.
  Clothing and shoes are a different deal. Clothing is repaired for reissue - some as Class B for ordinary troop use and much as Class X, which is given to mechanics, truck drivers and troops employed on manual work so they can save their better clothing.

SHOE REPAIR
  Much shoe repair work is done for G.I.'s just as though they sent their shoes to the corner repair shop at home. Each G.I. gets his own shoes repaired and returned to him. Some of the salvaged tires are used to make rubber heels and soles.
  Shoes beyond repair are heaped up and sold to Chinese merchants - in some cases for $450 CN a pair, equivalent to $22 U.S. at official rate, or maybe $150 at "open market" rate.
  Fitzner gives credit to the Air Corps, Signal Corps, Ordnance and other groups who have taken a new interest in gathering in scrap and advising him when to pick up. Some even send it around in their own trucks. All of which makes the junkyard people very happy.

Pfc. Dora Anderson, American WAC, is complimented by Lord Louis Mountbatten, no less, for coolness in remaining at strict attention when a cobra crawled dangerously close to an inspection formation at Kandy recently.

WAC DISDAINS COBRA SIGHT

  HQ., SEAC, KANDY, CEYLON - Yankee ingenuity did it again here at a recent inspection of the SEAC Photo Unit, and led to personal congratulations of Pfc. Dora Anderson, WAC, by Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supremo of SEAC.
  Dora was the lone WAC representative lined up with a file of men awaiting inspection by Lord Louis. Just then a snake appeared. Although Dora spotted the varmint she didn't move a muscle, unlike the photographer who began snapping pictures.
  After the inspection Mountbatten went up to Dora's desk and, learning she had just arrived from the States, congratulated her on her aplomb.
  (The photographer says it was a cobra, anyway).

HERE'S A REAL SAD SACK

  HQ., 12TH BOMB GROUP - What would you have done?
  Here's a guy, a technical sergeant, who was offered a commission if he would sign up for a year's extended duty.
  T/Sgt. Robert E. Goodfellow of the Earthquakers Medium Bombardment Squadron, 10th Air Force, has flown 92 missions as a bombardier-navigator, flying in four theaters of war - a record that's hard to beat.
  After entering the Army in July, 1942, Goodfellow trained for the rating of bombardier-navigator, going to North Africa to join the Earthquakers in May 1943. Flying in B-25's in support of the British Eighth Army, he was lead bombardier-navigator in his squadron's element.
  At that time there were no navigators in the planes. Goodfellow would navigate to the target, drop his eggs and navigate back home.
  From Africa, the Earthquakers followed the Germans into Sicily, where Goodfellow was recommended for a commission. But for some reason it kept bouncing back. Completing 55 missions in Foggia, Italy, he was sent home under the rotation plan, his commission coming through five days after he left. But because he had left the theater his commission was void.
  Goodfellow on returning to the States, was assigned to the Columbia, S.C., Air Base and was grounded because he was an enlisted bombardier. But he finally worked his way back into flying as a tail-gunner on a B-25.
  Last July Goodfellow came back to the Earthquakers on his second tour of overseas duty and now has 37 more missions completed - as a bombardier-navigator. Again he was recommended for a commission and again it bounced back.
  But at last perseverance won out and Goodfellow was told he could have a commission on one condition - he must sign-up for another year's duty in this theater.
  Said Goodfellow: "No, I'll go home."

USO TROUPE 269 BRINGS LAUGHS, MUSIC TO G.I.'S IN ORIENT

Penny Bancroft visits the mess and chows with S/Sgt. John Star, S/Sgt. Meredith and friends.

Annett MacQuarrie, Gigi Gilpin, and Penny Bancroft groan for the boys at APO 211.

Gigi Gilpin, S/Sgt. Tom Meredith, Capt. Ralph Wire and Lt. Pat Flynn of the Lightning Tigers.

CHRISTMAS EVE - 1944

Myriads of Stars,
Glisten through the still jungle tree,
The gleam of tiny, distant worlds . . .
Winter's night wind,
Sighing an organ sweetly played . . .
Moonlight, sweeping through the trees,
Painting a tinsel of reflection silver.
A man thoughtfully gazes at this,
His Christmas Tree for 1944.
He dreams of loved ones far away.
And bows his head as he slowly kneels -
His tired smile is enlightened . . .
Well he knows the whispered song,
The anthem heard this night,
In every corner of the world:
"Be of good faith, all will yet be well."

S/Sgt. Charles J. Noe

GEN. DAN TO HIS TROOPS

  GEN. SULTAN'S HQS., MYITKYINA - From Lt. Gen. Dan I. Sultan to his troops in the India-Burma Theater:
  "We are celebrating another Christmas in India and Burma. For some of you, it is the third. It may not be much of a celebration, but I hope it will be your last away from home.
  "In addition to wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year. I want to compliment you on what you have accomplished and for your cheerfulness in doing it.
  "Being in a theater of operations located at what has been termed 'The End Of The Line,' you haven't made the headlines perhaps that others in Europe may have made. At times you may have thought you were forgotten.
  "However, you who are the ground troops have defeated the enemy wherever you have met him and will continue to do so. You airmen have not only whittled the enemy air strength to almost nothing and disrupted his communications and supply, but you have also supplied Chinese and British as well as American ground troops in all kinds of weather.
  "You service troops have been building a road and a pipeline which will stand as permanent monuments to U.S. Army achievements. You have made world records for ship unloadings and have improved overland communications until the greatest stream of supplies in local history flows to Assam for trans-shipment to China. You have furnished the Chinese Army with its first medical service.
  "All of you have done the job well and often nobly. In many cases it has been done despite great personal hardship and danger. It has been a job that has lacked the great, elemental drama of huge armies feinting and butting heads on thousand mile fronts, but it has been a job which at the same time will leave permanent, constructive achievement in its wake.
  "I congratulate you on what you have done and what I know you will do in the future. You have been a great team and a solid team. You have been builders as well as destroyers. Above all, you have been men and women in the finest tradition of America.
  "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you."

FROM GEN. WEDEMEYER

  GEN. WEDEMEYER'S HQS., CHINA - From Maj. Gen. A. C. Wedemeyer to his troops in the China Theater:
  "Christmas 1944 finds us all half a world away from home, engaged in one of the greatest struggles in the history of mankind, such a terrible struggle that few of us can be home this Christmas.
  "For us, Christmas must carry its spiritual message, the same message it has carried to men of good will for more than 19 centuries - the message of 'peace on earth.'
  "And those whom we love, those who wait for Christmas as we begin to celebrate Christmas Day, know that we in far-off China pray in one voice with them that peace through victory will be attained in 1945."

The C.B.I. Roundup is a weekly newspaper of the United States Forces, published by and for the men in China, Burma, and India, from news and pictures supplied by staff members, soldier correspondents, United Press, OWI, and Army News Service. The Roundup is published Thursday of each week and is printed by The Statesman in New Delhi and Calcutta, India. Editorial matter should be sent directly to Capt. Floyd Walter, Hq., U.S.F., I.B.T., New Delhi, India, and should arrive not later than Sunday in order to make that week's issue. Pictures must arrive by Saturday and must be negatives or enlargements. Stories should contain full name and organization of sender. Complaints about circulation should be sent directly to Lt. Boyd Sinclair, Hq., U.S.F., I.B.T., New Delhi, India. Units on the mailing list should make notification of any major change in personnel strength or any change of APO.

DECEMBER 21, 1944

Adapted from the original issue of C.B.I. Roundup

Copyright © 2007 Carl Warren Weidenburner

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