The plane crash of Robert Gray and George Larkin

Thanks to : 

Mervyn Roberts, PhD
History Instructor
Central Texas College

Long but interesting article!

By the spring of 1942, policy makers understood that an air ferry system to China “must be established.” Despite the difficulties of a supply line running from the United States, uninterrupted operations were essential. Airlift from Dinjan began in April “with a handful of airplanes and aircrews…composed largely of Pan Am pilots,” to help after the expected arrival of the Doolittle Raid planes. The original plan was to fly supplies from Dinjan to Kunming via Myitkyina, necessitating the construction of three air fields around Dinjan to make the system work. Ten million dollars were budgeted to begin the program of airfield construction in the Dinjan, India area, which was seen as the ideal launching point due to location and proximity to rail lines. With the looming summer monsoons, completion of the base expansion was not expected until November.22 Dinjan is located in Assam, India and formed the western leg of the ferry route over the hump to China. “Existing airfields were few, and the prospects of using local labor in India to build more were being hurt by Mahatma Gandhi’s nationalist ‘Quit India’ campaign; though directed at the British, their alliance with the United States made for the perception that both were to be resisted, diminishing the pool of available local labor.”23 Work on the Dinjan-area fields began in February using 2,600 native women to manually crush, “the eleven million cubic feet of stone necessary to lay the runway.” Furthermore, local laborers refueled aircraft” by hand and loaded the cargo.24 The austere airstrip sat at the end of among the longest logistical trails in military history. As noted, the Hump became the only route to China after the Japanese closed the Burma road and later captured Myitkyina. All supplies and equipment were shipped from the United States’ east coast, braving the Atlantic U-boat packs and rounding the treacherous Cape of Good Hope, on a 13,000- mile voyage to the port of Karachi in present day Pakistan. At times, more than 200 ships waited in the harbor to be unloaded. As General Clayton Bissel, Tenth Air Force commander remarked, “From the base port at Karachi to the combat units in China is a distance greater than from San Francisco to New York.” From Karachi, supplies traveled by railroad, “a distance about as far as from San Francisco to Kansas City.” Bissel described the need to transship the material several times due to rail gauge changes over the ensuing 250 miles, before being loaded on to boats, cruising “down the Ganges and up the Brahmaputra.” From there, the material was conveyed to Dinjan to fly over the Himalayas to Kunming, China, “a distance greater than from Pittsburg to Boston.” After landing, the supplies went “by air, truck, rail, bullock cart, coolie and river” to sustain operations. Bissel noted that sabotage, and the political situation in India, presented additional “difficulties.”25 Robert Gray arrived in the midst of this tumultuous commotion. After the raid on Tokyo, Bob Gray was technically assigned to the South Carolina based 376th Bomb Squadron through September 1942. The War Department had originally ordered this squadron to China, so it seems the Army assigned Lieutenant Gray to the unit in anticipation of the its arrival in theater. However, the Japanese advances in China and Rommel’s success in North Africa forced a reallocation of forces. The squadron, then traversing Africa via the Southern ferry route, was diverted to support the European Theater and it seems that Gray never actually served with the 376th Bomb Squadron.26 The initial CBI theater development witnessed ad hoc organizations cobbling together a few airplanes and crews,   and a “catch-as-catch-can” attitude. Individual pilots chose who to fly with, and which route to take.27 Gray operated as a freelance at Dinjan Airfield after his arrival on 1 June, initially flying P–40s on reconnaissance missions over Burma, though not officially assigned to a unit there. Others from the Doolittle Raid assigned at Dinjan included pilots Richard Cole and Richard Joyce, and gunner George E. Larken. Eventually, the Kunming, China based Eleventh Bomb Squadron, 341st Bomb Group assigned two B–25s to form a detachment at Dinjan. Gray joined that detachment and began flying bombing missions. A unit history noted Gray and fellow Raider Richard Joyce “were of great assistance because of their previous reconnaissance missions.”28 The danger of flying the ‘Hump’ under these circumstances cannot be understated. For instance, the 341st Bomb Group history noted that on June 3, 1942, six B–25s departed Dinjan for transfer to Kunming, disregarding adverse weather reports. Three of the ships followed each other into a mountain, one was shot down, one ran out of gas, and only one made it to Kunming. The treacherous, cloud-socked mountains were often more deadly than the Japanese.29 Despite living among verdant tea plantations and shimmering green rice paddies in the shadow of the looming Himalayas, this remained a war zone. Against the tranquil backdrop, the constant threat of Japanese air attack, the approaching battle lines, and political instability in India, kept airmen ever alert. Although it is likely that a year prior, none of the Americans gave Indian independence even a second thought, they were thrust into the center of a cauldron of political intrigue. To top it off, Gray arrived with the monsoon, which inundated an average of thirteen inches of rain per month, for three straight months.30 Support facilities at the remote, spartan, base suffered as a result of these myriad challenges. Soldiers dealt with  “a complete lack of mail for many months…[an] absence of newspapers and books,” substandard housing conditions, and organizational equipment that often failed to arrive with the troops. The men slept in a jumble of rickety bamboo huts and tents, washed in buckets and slept under mosquito nets. Lack of cigarettes and pay contributed to morale issues at Dinjan. Most did their own laundry, rather than trust the “tender mercies” of the “rock-wallop system” washing method used by the locals.31 To make matters worse, the 341 Bomb Group received “no spare parts” in June, necessitating cannibalization of damaged planes.32 “Are they squawking? Sure!” wrote the theater newspaper CBI Roundup, while trying to downplay the problems.33 In July, the detachment flew eleven bombing missions and two reconnaissance missions in the vicinity of the Japanese held Myitkyina airfield, but it is unclear which of these Gray was involved in.34 The Brownwood Bulletin that month contained a story in which Gray discussed these operations. While he was on R&R at the Tenth Air Force base in Calcutta, Gray told UPI reporter Darrell Barrigan about the six-days of attacks on river bridges. According to Barrigan, “the stocky, slow-spoken, drawling,” pilot described how the operations may have halted rail traffic along the strategic Myitkyina line. According to Gray, “We understood from intelligence reports that the Japanese were moving plenty of troops up to Myitkyina.” He continued, “The railway was their only means of troop transport since the rains had swollen the rivers and flooded the roads. We determined that destruction of the river bridge about 45 miles southwest of Myitkyina was the best way to halt communications.” On the last mission of the series, Gray said “We flew at about 1,500 feet below a heavy overcast” to attack a rail bridge. He described how, “A .30-caliber bullet tore a two-inch hole in the right wing of my plane. Another punctured a tire and the landing gear hydraulic line (providing power for lifting and lowering the wheels) of Joyce’s plane. We got back okay, though Joyce pumped down his wheels by hand and made a beautiful landing.”35 The repair to the hydraulic line may have contributed to a later incident critical to the story. The Roundup described life at Dinjan by October 1942 as improved, but the base remained a hard, remote post. A story, headlined “The Assam Lads Are Now Cooking with Gas,” describes a barren existence for airmen “at the easternmost American air base in India.” At last, though, the airmen could eat prepared chow in “a neat mess hall full of tables.”Despite the challenge’s airmen faced, operations could not stop; “the vital aerial supply line to China” must continue. Men worked from before dawn to after dark, all cross-training jobs, due to the shortage of personnel. As the Roundup put it, “until recently [they] went without movies or PX supplies” and they “have no baseball equipment and no time to use it if they had.”36 As noted, the Eleventh Bomb Squadron suffered a personnel shortage, meaning all crew members helped in loading bombs and flight preparation. Men could be called “at any hour of the day or night,” to prepare, plan and conduct combat missions lasting up to 15-hours duration. Often the crews had nothing to eat between breakfast at 0430 and an evening meal. Clearly the effects of all of these shortages hit Bob. The Taylor Daily News in October reported Taylor native Malcom Conoley, who spent time with Gray in Dinjan, was relaying letters from Gray’s parents since the direct mail system did not work for him. They had re peatedly sent letters that were undelivered to Gray. In letters home, he sounded philosophical about his chances. Writing his Uncle Fred Page that month, Gray commented that, “If I do not come back, have no fear or regrets for I will be with Him I know.” The tone of the letter shows the worry his family had over his safety. Also, Gray told his uncle he had been belatedly promoted to Captain, another of the sore spots among those in the CBI, as they watched their peers in other theaters rapidly promoted. Indeed, morale at Assam was rated as lowest in the theater. The CBI continued to have the least priority for everything, and many of the problems were not corrected until after Gray’s death, if ever.37 The Dinjan detachment flew another fourteen missions over Burma during August, and three over China.38 The Sweetwater Reporter in a August 14, story discussed this campaign, noting they had “interrupted service on a 125-mile stretch of the vital Mandalay railroad and heavily bombed Japan’s three greatest bases in northern Burma in a two week offensive,” including the critical Japanese air base at Myitkyina.39 By September the Eleventh Bomb Squadron at Kunming consisted of 43 officers and 70 men. The small detachment at Dinjan, comprised of seven officers and seventeen enlisted men, was enough for two complete crews with one relief pilot.40 On September 15, 1942, the Eleventh Bomb Squadron was transferred from the Seventh Bombardment Group to the Three Hundred Forty-First Bombardment Group, and re-designated as a medium bomb squadron, reflecting the B–25s the unit flew. It was at this time that Gray was transferred officially to the unit he had flown with for the previous three months.41 The Dinjan detachment added fifteen bombing missions that month, as well as “five badly needed maintenance men.” On September 9, the detachment had attacked Myitkyina Field with a mix of 100 and 500-pound bombs. The following week they attacked the Katha rail yard, and on September 16, one plane attacked the Mogaung Bridge. The strategic railway bridge linking Myitkyina with Katha was finally destroyed. Two days later the detachment hit Tinghe [Tinka] field and a large suspension bridge. Between September 24 and 30, they carried out missions to hit Myitkyina air field, and the rail bridge and former Chinese airplane factory at Loiwing. At Katha, the detachment struck the bridge and an oil barge north of the town. The B–25s strafed two small river boats, and a large steamer, forcing the latter ashore. On October 1, another mission against Katha destroyed 200 yards of track and later the two B–25s attacked barracks, bridges and warehouses. The relentless tempo, interrupted only by the torrential monsoons, ensured the Japanese could not advance on India at this critical time.42 Brigadier General Clayton L. Bissell, commanding general of all air units in this theater, announced the formation of the China and the India Air Task Forces in early October. Finally, organization emerged out of chaos. As a result, the Eleventh Squadron now fell under the China Air Task Force. This is likely why Gray was preparing to transfer to Kunming later that month, and, may help account for the mail problems he encountered. For the time being though, Gray fell into an awkward bureaucratic purgatory. He was based at an India Air Task Force base, but assigned to a unit of the China Air Task Force. Mail in austere theaters typically is distributed through unit chains down to the soldier. It is possible, his mail went over the hump to Kunming, never to return.43 The Dinjan detachment conducted eight missions in October before transferring to Kunming to take part in series of raids scheduled for the latter part of the month. Lieutenant Joyce was at the field hospital in Dinjan on the eighteenth when his plane was ordered to bomb a Japanese convoy at Hong Kong. In need of a pilot, Gray volunteered for the job.44 About thirty minutes out of Dinjan both of Gray’s plane engines quit simultaneously. Along with Captain Gray, co-pilot Max F. West, bombardier co-pilot Richard A. Walter, Gunners Herbert F. Cromwell and George A. Larkin (who had flown the Doolittle Raid as a gunner with Lieutenant Joyce), and passenger Private Russell D. Juggers were all killed instantly.45 Staff Sergeant Jack Price, an observer with the 51st Fighter Control Squadron based in the Naga Hills on the Burmese border, recovered the bodies. Price reported that while covered with the thick overcast normal to that region at their camp at 7,000 foot, they “heard the B25 and were tracking it when the engines quit. A moment later we heard the crash north of us.” Two days of searching the jungle clad mountains proved unsuccessful. At last, a child came to alert them to the location, and Price found the plane “in a deep gully in a low valley.”46 An apparent second observer quoted in the accident report, Ujan-based Lieutenant Donald Harburg, stated the plane was directly over head at about 100 feet. “Suddenly the engines sputtered a few times then quit completely. A few minutes later a muffled crash was heard in a westerly direction.”47 According to the Tenth Air Force operational diary, a radio lookout, likely observer 2, “reported an unidentified plane with apparent motor trouble, approximately 16 miles to the south of Margherita at 1402 hours.” Ten minutes later, the observer reported “definitely hearing a crash” but visual confirmation was impossible due to cloud cover reaching the ground level. An accident report filed in November noted the plane took off at 1:40 pm and crashed 30 minutes later, in a fog lined valley.48 Fellow Doolittle Raider, Richard Cole, heard one of the two Eleventh Bomb Squadron B–25s taking off from Dinjan that afternoon. Cole watched the plane lift off, he “assumed with a full load of bombs.” Shortly after, he departed for China in a C–47 delivering aviation fuel. As Cole approached the Burma border at ten thousand feet, he saw “a plume of black smoke” to his right. The thin column of dense, oily smoke, scattered by seven thousand feet. He knew “it was either a plane crash or a bomb strike on a fuel depot.” As they flew over the remote jungle area, they saw it was a plane, and with no parachutes visible, knew there could be no survivors. “Cole radioed Dinjan to report the crash…[and, after returning to Dinjan] he heard the news of Gray’s death. Cole himself had flown the same B–25 plane the day prior on a mission, and Gray was “considered an excellent pilot” with over 550 hours in the B–25. The suspicious circumstances led to scuttlebutt at Dinjan, and according to Cole, “many of the pilots suspected sabotage.”49 A number of factors likely contributed to this belief. The accident report listed the crash as “forced landing, engine failure,” but obvious causes eluded those at Dinjan. Weather appeared to not be a factor. On October 18, the average high temperature in Dinjan was 86 degrees and the April to October monsoon had just ended. The Tenth Airforce operational diary for that day noted that the visibility and ceiling at Dinjan was “unlimited locally, with heavy coverage over the mountains” at 15,000 to 26,000 feet. The altitude in the area of the crash was about 6,000 feet, easily outmatched by the B–25’s 24,000-foot ceiling. Gray’s aircraft, a B–25D (tail number 41-29730) had come off the North American Aviation’s Kansas City production line just eight months prior and was rated as “new,” along with the recently overhauled engines.50 Interestingly, another B–25 (tail number 41-29744, and likely produced within days of Gray’s plane), crashed on landing at Dinjan earlier the same day. Hours before Gray departed on his final mission, Clark Johnston piloted the detachment’s other B–25 on a check flight for a newly installed propeller governor. On approach to Dinjan he became aware of a hydraulic fluid leak, causing loss of flaps and landing gear control. Engineer George Larkin managed to manually drop the nose and left landing gears and work the flaps. On landing, the left gear collapsed, causing the plane to careen at a 45-degree angle. Clark, Larkin, and co-pilot Lieutenant Max West all escaped successfully. Subsequent investigation determined that an “improper flaring of hydraulic pressure line connections” was the cause of the failure. This may have been caused by an unsuitable repair from the incident in July. However, given the crash hours later of Gray’s plane, which included Larkin and West in that crew, it is easy to see how many airmen might assume a sabotage cause.51 Therefore, the charge Dick Cole made of sabotage cannot be discounted, though the evidence to support it is circumstantial. Reports across Texas that Fall covered the rising Indian unrest in detail. In one such story on August 15, the Sweetwater Reporter noted the looming “Non-Violent Revolution” in India. Gandhi had declared that the price of accepting allied soldiers in India was the “immediate end of British rule in India.” He threatened to form “a mass movement” if the demands were not met. The following week, an editorial originally published in the New York Herald attacked Gandhi’s move as “unreasonable” and hinted that the Congress Party planned to allow Axis agents into the country. The Fort Worth Star Telegram that month reported that the All-India Congress meeting recommended that Gandhi receive “full powers to lead a civil disobedience movement,” in response to British rejection of demands “for Indian independence.” The Quit India Movement was formed in the following days to manage the effort. Ten days later, the Star Telegram reported that Britain was considering “severe penalties for Indians” involved in the resulting wave of violence. The story noted “wilful damage to railroad property and telegraph lines” led to the threat. In Dacca police fired on a crowd, killing five.52 On August 14, a report from Bombay titled “Rioting Continues in 5 Indian Areas,” noted the death toll there at forty.53 The following week, the Clifton Record carried a story that “Indian Riots Molest U.S. Troops There.” On September 20, the Sweetwater Reporter noted “the anti-British disturbances” were “worse than censorship has told us.”54 Security troubles abounded in the ‘wild west’ environment of the China-Burma-India Theater. Indicating the British Air Headquarters, India level of concern, they conducted a surprise inspection of an airfield in September 1942 in which British undercover investigators accessed the base with impunity. In one case, “Two men dressed as soldiers…inspected aircraft in the hangers” and later that night, “they reentered the aerodrome with a bag of ‘bombs’.” 55 Dinjan had similar security lapses which could have enabled access, and the base had no effective perimeter fence and used local labor on base. Local laborers refueled aircraft, often by hand with five-gallon cans, and loaded and unloaded cargo, providing them access to critical areas of the aircraft.56 Unit members also hired ‘bearers’ and launderers, as was standard in the British Indian Army, who had no background checks performed on. The bases had no method, even by 1944, to check visitors via a pass system. Given the political instability Bissel alluded to, this was a problem.57 As early as December 1942, investigations noted unit manpower shortages at the widely dispersed Assam airfields contributed to security complications. According to a message from General Bissell, “Minor incidents of arson and sabotage are still occurring daily in many parts of India.” The bombers in eastern India each needed “individual guarding” but personnel shortages precluded this. The following month British Commander in India, General Alexander, reiterated the shortage of guards, noting only one Gurkha battalion for all the air bases in Assam, but expressed, “no sabotage has been reported to date.”58 It is likely the situation was far worse in the fall of 1942. But beyond the fears and rising political maelstrom, additional challenges at Dinjan made the sabotage charge plausible. One October story from the Roundup announced, “Jap Spy Caught.” The story appears to come from China, but documents show that a security problem existed. The report stated two U.S. airmen “saw a suspicious stranger loitering about the [Air] Operations Office.” Suspicious the individual was a spy, “they noted that the stranger was able to make his way to the control tower and with little difficulty.” When the man tried to leave, he “was taken into custody by them and questioned by the officers.” After an investigation and a trial, he was “shot as a Japanese spy.”59 Several other reports supported the sabotage theory. The monsoon had broken by the time of the crash, which conversely enabled a Japanese air attack on Dinjan the following week. A report on that October 25, attack stated that, “three telephones were unusable after the first raid” and personnel suspected sabotage. “Investigation proved, strangely enough, that three demolition bombs had neatly severed the wires of each phone where it left the buildings in which the instruments were located.” The fact that the question of sabotage arose indicates a generalized fear that it could happen.60 Meanwhile, under the leadership of Indian leader Subhas Chandra Bose, Japan set up an army of Indian POWs known as the Indian National Army (INA), which fought against the British. The INA also formed the Bahadur Group on September 1, 1942 specifically to sabotage allied operations in India. Bose, with the assistance of Germany, later formed the Indian Legion from Indian students in Axis occupied Europe and Indian Army prisoners of war. The group tried to form a military alliance with Germany or Japan to gain independence. By the end of 1942, the British had become aware of trained Indian espionage agents who had infiltrated into India for the purpose of collecting intelligence, subversion of the army and the subversion of civilian loyalty. A bomb blast on 10 October 1942 derailed a military train at Sarupatrar, killing many British soldiers. The movement reportedly also formed death squads to carry out acts of sabotage, and a Gohpur police station was bombed. These were about 150 miles southwest of Dinjan.61 Weeks prior to Gray’s crash, the Fort Worth Star Telegram reported, on October 4, about Japanese sabotage in India, conducted by “a traitorous network of spies, agitators and saboteurs who brazenly admit taking their orders and inspiration from Tokyo.” The story claims that the level of sabotage “cannot be revealed for reasons of military security.” But, according to the reporter, a propaganda newspaper that was available throughout India, “Do or Die”, as well as Japanese radio broadcasts, urged Indians “to attack civil authorities, to steal arms, and above all, to sabotage the telegraph and railway lines.”62 Bases in general still had no control over local nationals working on bases, and connected with a high turn-over rate, created a situation ripe for exploitation by the Japanese. A counter intelligence report on a nearby airfield in late 1944 stated though few demonstrations had taken place, “many instances of a suspicious nature” had occurred, including suspected sabotage incidents. Another counter intelligence survey of Dinjan that year noted the wide variety of units and civilian air freight companies, as well as Chinese National Aviation Corporation planes, meant that it was nearly impossible to maintain control over the airfield. The understaffed American units were tasked with providing aircraft guards, while a small 50- man Military Police detachment ran patrols. The report noted that while the local villages seemed cooperative, one village eight miles away was “friendly to the Japanese.” The statement closed, saying that “A general tightening up of security…will also help reduce the risk of loss due to accident or sabotage.”63 The Tenth Air Force Security Office, issued a memo alerting units to potential problems, which noted aircraft and vehicle tires slashes that could cause failure. More disconcerting was the report of a German who reportedly “spent the day on a large American airfield in India.” He got on the base without being checked, wandered around for some period, “climbed in and out of planes parked on the runways” and visited the Operations Room.64 Another noted a “series of sabotage incidents occurred throughout India,” in early 1943. In April 1944, Tenth Air Force reported, “a probable sabotage attempt on a B–25” in which the bomb bay doors were tampered with.65 After recovery of the crew’s bodies, Robert Gray was interred in Barrackpore, a British air base north of Calcutta, and home to a U.S. General Hospital and the Seventh Bomb Group. All across Texas communities reacted with sympanthy over the news of Gray’s crash. The Taylor Daily News on October 29, 1942 announced Gray’s death and recalled he had “participated in the raid over Tokyo” along with Taylor native Captain Ross Wilder. The November 5, Coleman, Texas Democratic Voice noted Gray’s cousin lived in the town. Meanwhile the following day, the Olney Enterprise noted “Robert Gray is Missing in Action.” According to the story, “Mrs. Fred Page and children left last Saturday morning for Killeen after receiveing word that Robert Gray is now considered missing in action in India by the War Department. Gray, whose family lives in Killeen, was well known here and had visited here many times.”67 Clearly much of Texas felt a connection to this loss. Through the haze of 80 years, it is unlikely a case one way or the other on the cause of crash can be proved. As noted above, the personnel at Dinjan had clear reason to suspect sabotage, given the political and security context. The airmen clearly would have heard some of these details, and given the suspicious circumstances surrounding the crash, seized on sabotage as a likely cause. Regardless of the reason, his death was not in vain. The bombing raids carried out by Gray and the Dinjan based crews undoubtedly blunted the Japanese advance at a critical moment. They stood in the gap under austere, ad hoc conditions. Had the airfields in Assam fallen to the Japanese onslaught, it is questionable whether China could have remained in the fight. The resulting shift of one-million Japanese troops to the Pacific region might have extended the war considerably.