If My Heart Had Wings: A World War II Love Story(15)
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T HE OTHER GIRL WHO lived in the little rented house was in the same situation as Mom. Her husband was also being deployed, and she was getting ready to move back home with her parents. Together, the two girls packed their belongings and got ready to leave.
“It was so depressing,” Mom recalled.
That is, it was until one of them came up with a crazy plan to see their guys one last time. The squadron wasn’t taking off until the following morning, so why not get up really early, dress to the nines, and go to the base to see them off? Both girls were instantly enthralled with their impulsive, romantic plan. It would be great fun, and the guys would love it!
Mom smiled ruefully and shook her head when she told me this story many years later.
“I suppose it was a silly idea,” she admitted. “I do know that once we got there, the guys weren’t all that happy to see us.”
“Why not?” I demanded. “It’s so romantic!”
“Oh, who knows? They probably thought we’d already said our goodbyes, and didn’t want to go through it all again. All I know is we really wanted to see them off. And that’s what we did.”
Thus, Mom managed to grab a few more precious moments with Lyndon before he took off for Florida and destinations unknown.
It was the last time she ever saw him.
Chapter Four
Off to War!
I T WAS AN INCREDIBLE sight to see: twelve C-47 transport planes, stuffed to the gills with the 1st Troop Carrier Squadron and all their gear, roaring down the runway at Pope Field and blasting off into impossibly blue skies.
In a letter to his father written from West Palm Beach the following day, Lyndon reported that the planes flew in three inverted V-shaped rows all the way to Florida, and he was in the “lead ship,” co-piloting for the squadron commander. Then he added:
Still don’t know where we’ll end up, but rumor is still strong that it may be India by the long way around ...
The rumor turned out to be spot-on: they were indeed bound for India as part of the Air Transport Command located in the China-Burma-India Theater. Their purpose was to help the Chinese fend off Japanese invasions by providing them with desperately needed supplies. After four years of pounding the Chinese, Japan had managed to cut off all land and sea routes to China. Now the only way to deliver supplies to that country was by air, which meant flying over the Himalayas, home to the famous Mt. Everest, from Allied airbases in India.
The guys who did this called it “flying the Hump.” And this was the way they delivered literally everything the Nationalist Chinese army needed—which amounted to some 777,000 tons of supplies by the end of the war.
When Mom told me that Lyndon’s job was “flying the Hump” and explained what it meant, I was incredulous.
“He flew all that stuff over Mt. Everest?”
“Well, not that high up, but in that general area. Still, he had to fly over huge mountains, and there were terrible winds and storms. And some of those transport planes even got shot at by Japanese fighter planes.”
“Yikes.”
“Yes. It was extremely dangerous.”
And that was an understatement. To this day, flying the Hump, which claimed the lives of 1700 men and close to 600 planes, is still considered the most dangerous feat ever assigned to air transport.
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S URPRISINGLY, LYNDON’S letters mentioned very little about his undoubtedly harrowing trips over the Hump. Instead, he described his new home at the airbase in Chabua, in India’s state of Assam. Officers lived in bamboo huts instead of the tents assigned to enlisted men. The also had “bearers,” servants who would do their laundry and other odd jobs.
Still, life was far from luxurious. Insects, Lyndon wrote, flew and crawled into everything, and anyone who didn’t wrap up in mosquito netting at night got eaten alive. Dangerous animals, including tigers and leopards, lurked in the nearby jungle, and hyenas and barking jackals plagued all but the soundest of sleepers. Most unnerving of all, though, were the cobras that slithered into huts and tents, took up residence in beds and drawers, and generally scared the wits out of everyone. In a letter to his brother Bill, Lyndon reported:
The Doc shot a cobra the other night outside our barracks and many other snakes have been seen around here. Remember how “skittish” I used to be about snakes? Well, I still am, and have my .45 handy most all the time to use if and when I ever stop running after seeing one of those things!
The biggest problem, however, was the food, which was almost always either Crations or Spam. The government was funneling most of its money to the European bases, so the guys in the China-Burma-India Theater just had to suck it up and eat whatever was available. And it wasn’t much. Almost anything that tasted good was nonexistent on the base, including fresh fruit, bread, dairy products, and eggs. Eating local food was out because of the high risk of food-borne illness. And no one dared to drink the local water without purifying it first.
Fortunately for Lyndon, pilots usually didn’t spend much time on the base. In fact, the day after he arrived at Chabua, he took off on the first of several jaunts around India, transporting military supplies and personnel. And, to his delight, as an officer he often got to stay in nice hotels and was able to eat at high-end restaurants. For his inaugural trip, he flew a planeload of wounded men 1,750 miles to the port city of Karachi, and afterward enjoyed his reward, as evidenced in this letter to his parents: