A Bad Day For Flying: The story of a WWII B-24 Commander shot down over Hankow
By Alan Foster

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In mid-June 1943, the crew was assigned a factory-new B-24D, one with the newly introduced “hi-tech” ball turret in the belly, and learned they were headed for the China-Burma-India Theater. Before they left the States, a former Disney artist airbrushed a sexy cowgirl and the name Belle Starr on the nose of 42-40879.

In later years my dad mused: “Let it be said that I never boasted of having much flying skill. Yet the Army Air Forces was handing me a fresh new quarter-million-dollar B-24, telling me, at age 24, to fly myself and my crew to China on my own. Was the Air Force so desperate? Or so overconfident?” His crew included Lieutenant Sheldon Chambers, co-pilot; Lieutenant Harry Rosenburg, navigator; Lieutenant Lionel “Jess” Young, bombardier; Tech. Sgt. Bill Gieseke, engineer and top turret gunner; Tech. Sgt. Jack Miller, assistant engineer and gunner; Staff Sgt. Alvin Hutchinson, ball turret gunner; Staff Sgt. Ray Reed, tail turret gunner; Staff Sgt. Don Smith, radioman and waist gunner; and Staff Sgt. Ray Pannelle, armorer and waist gunner.

Belle Starr left Homestead, Fla., headed for Trinidad, then Belem and Natal. After that came the hop across the Atlantic to Ascension Island, and finally on to Chabua, India—the primary supply station for the 308th Bomb Group. The next day Belle Starr made its first crossing of the Himalayas—“the Hump”—and continued on to Kunming, where it would be based.

After pulling the B-24 into a revetment, the weary fliers relaxed, pleased that their nine-day, 12,000-mile trip had at last come to an end. But while they were still in their seats, filling out the usual reports, the crew got a shock. “Alongside came a truck,” dad recalled, “and with it came a carrier piled with very real bombs and, as one group of men hurriedly threw boxes and baggage from our airplane onto one part of the truck, others were bringing aboard boxes of .50-caliber ammunition and pushing the bomb carrier under the bomb bay and starting to load. Someone said, ‘We have a mission in the morning.’ I was stunned because throughout our bomber training there had been the consistent message that when we reached our particular war zone there would be a period of training in local tactics.”

After a restless night, my father was told early the next morning that Belle Starr had a fuel leak, so they wouldn’t be going along on that mission after all. “I don’t remember going back to sleep, but I do remember the wave of relief,” he recalled. Three weeks of waiting, interrupted by one supply flight back over the Hump, still brought no training for Belle Starr’s crew. Finally on the evening of August 23 came word that there’d be an early call the next morning for a mission.

In the dim light of the briefing tent the next morning, they learned that seven B-24s from the 425th Squadron would rendezvous en route with seven more from the 373rd. Then a major said, “They clobbered our friends over Hankow the other day, and we’re going back to show they can’t do that to us!” Another officer announced they were going back to “get those Zeros” that had mauled the 374th and 375th squadrons on the 21st.

Last to speak was the charismatic squadron commander, Major William W. Ellsworth, who had previously impressed the men as a confident leader. My father recalled: “I watched and listened, and suddenly I felt a growing chill—not so much from the words I was hearing but more from growing recognition that this was a very different major than the one I had expected. This was a very uncertain man. His voice shook. His words were slow. The man seemed aged. We were going back to Hankow, and the major was as frightened as I was!”

Oddly, the name Foster came up three times during that briefing. Major Horace Foster, the group operations officer, would fly the lead plane. Captain “Pappy” Foster, the squadron’s intelligence officer, would be waiting at Kweilin, where the flight would land and be debriefed before returning to Kunming. Then Major Ellsworth said: “I’ll fly you, Lieutenant Foster. Meet you at your ship.”

Tags: Aerial Combat, Aviation History, World War II

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