China Blitzer

Combat Over The Hump

- Lt. Col. Benjamin H. Ashmore,

There have been countless tales of U.S. Army Air Forces World War II fighter pilots weaving over boxes of bombers pulling contrails high over Europe and then slugging it out with the Luftwaffe, taking the fight from the lower reaches of the stratosphere down to the deck. The majority of war correspondents were stationed in Europe during WW II, so it was only natural that many of these documented exploits came from the European theater. But this story takes place in a far-off corner of the world, over inhospitable terrain filled with malaria, high humidity, and subzero temperatures—not a place many war correspondents dream of traveling to. Nevertheless, the fighter pilots that protected the Hump routes always seemed to be outnumbered, outgunned, and short on supplies. Follow along as one young fighter pilot from Texas cuts his combat teeth in the skies over China.

Go Get Those SOBs!

When the war broke out in December 1941, I was a 19-year-old kid from north Texas, and like most guys my age, I wanted to enter the fight. My father had other ideas, though. He had made it as far as earning his wings at Kelly Field in Texas, flying Jennys before WW I ended. I’m sure he knew guys who never made it back and had read many accounts of the horrors of war, and understood a lot more than I did what I would face. Finally, in early 1942, with constant nagging on my part, he said, “Go get those sons of bitches!”

I followed in his footsteps and entered flight training, flying PT-19s, BT-13s, and the AT-6 Texan. It was while I was flying the BT-13 that one of my instructors casually pulled me aside and said, “I think I’m going to recommend you for fighters.” And in my poor old Texas farm-boy accent I said, “What’s that?”