Warhawk in Action - Operation Alpha

The Warhawk was not the most suitable fighter for use in China, but it was the among the few available combat aircraft assigned to this theatre. In 1943-44 the P-40 equipped Chinese American Composite Wing was proceeding at a solid pace, especially after the then supply-guzzling and inefficient B-29 withdrawn from China. Though proved to have disappointing high-altitude performance, but P-40 had proper maneuverability and fire power against Japanese aircraft in middle-altitudes, and good capabilities as a ground attack aircraft. Only a small portion of the production of Warhawk was allocated under Lend-Lease to the CBI theatre, but they will be remembered for as long as men record and discuss the history of air war over China.

The Qijiang attack was the last Japanese offensive in China. Initially they forced back the Chinese army but, reinforced by newly built “Alpha Force” divisions and the CACW’s B-25s and P-40s (5th FG), the defender halted the Japanese by early May. Soon they had driven the Japanese back to their start line in June.

CACW offensives on Nanking, Hankou, and Hong Kong started in December 1944 had been aimed at destroying the Japanese supply routs and depots. With the full strength of eight Warhawk squadrons (3rd and 5th FGs, ), plus the shifted supply from the original B-29 quota of the “Hump” airlift, allowed the CACW to push ahead without much opposition. Thereafter under the Operation Ketsu-Go, the Japanese began to withdraw troops to defend their homeland, and the Chinese moved to the offensive.

"All for One - One for All" was the comradeship between the Chinese and American personnel of the CACW, which leaves nothing to be desired. The crewmen from two countries worked together like two fingers on the same hand, for they were fighting the same battles in the same planes and to help their “brothers” meant helping themselves.

The last of the Curtiss Hawks in China, the P-40 has always been something of a legend. My CAF Warhawk, Tomahawk, and Kittyhawk works:

The Massacre in China after the Doolittle's Raid on Tokyo

After the Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo in April 1942, Chinese civilians and resistance guerrillas, rescued the surviving B-25 crewmembers and risked their own lives to bring them to safety. The disgraced Japanese mounted a furious search by sending 53 infantry battalions, torturing and slaughtering 250,000 Chinese, obliterating villages, and destroying crops in an effort to force the Chinese to give up the Americans. Besides the two months massacre in Zhejiang and Jiansu provinces of the bomber landings as a punishment, the enraged IJA plowed up every airfield in an area of 52,000 square kilometers.

Despite the worst attempts of the Japanese, for more than a month after the raid the Chinese helped 64 crewmen to evade capture, eventually return to US forces via inland airfields and the war time capital Chongqing. Nevertheless the Japanese killed numerous Chinese, their pride was severely wounded, removing at one stroke Japanese confidence in Yamato superiority, unparalleled might, and predictability of their cause. Ended in August 1945, the Samurai advance in China was reversed in a long series of land and air battles with the final crushing defeat of their empire. As for the Chinese, who endured not-so-short term (15 years) pain in pursuit of long term gains, unfortunately that gains turned out to be a hollow one.

China failed to be transferred the 16 desperately needed B-25Bs from Doolittle’s one-way raid, which all crash landed. Nonetheless the earliest Mitchell bombers fought in China were the seven B-25Cs of the AVG, better known as the Flying Tigers, 1942. The CAF Mitchells remained in service throughout the postwar struggle which led to the Communist overthrow of the Generalissimo. Small numbers of captured aircraft were used by the PLAAF while most of them withdrew to Taiwan, the island newly liberated from the Japanese occupation for half a century. During the counter-offensive, the CAF struck the Communist coastal positions on Sept 1954, wherein B-25Js and F-84Gs had been in action. These vintage B-25Js remained active with the 34th Bomber Squadron until 1958.

Please note the B-25H armorers maintained the Browning M2 .50s and T13E1 75mm nose canon at the Nanking airfield. Other Mitchells in my drawings are the early model B-25C, major production model B-25J, and photo-recon model F-10.

Big Beechcraft vs. Little Beechcraft (大比機 vs. 小比機)

In 1940 the Chinese government bought 10 Beech D17S Staggerwing utility transports as air ambulance. After these light biplanes were assembled in Hong Kong, they were directly flown to inland and received by the Central Aviation Committee (中央航空委員會), then passed on to the CAC transport unit and front-line army HQs.

However, in their “Seisen”, the Japan’s so-called Holy War in 1931-45, there’s no shortage of examples those days as to how Japanese attacked armless air ambulance. Though with salient red crosses on the overall white color scheme, the Chinese mercy birds still repeatedly inhumane strafed by the modern Samurais, soon the olive drab camouflage was over painted for better protection of the Beech D17S and DeHavilland D.H.89A. The sad fact about the Yamato race is that their immorality was not really an anomaly at all, instead it’s part of their standard operational procedure per Bushido.

Under the 15-years long marauding, Chinese were coping with unprecedented assault of areas of their country with dignity and sacrifice, that people can’t imagine those in the West would demonstrate in similar circumstances. Though the Japanese tried fighting for an impractical just end, their malicious means of achieving it created more catastrophes. It’s our duty to make sure history gets the story right, otherwise it is getting wrong from the aggressor's respective.

Hope my Chinese Beechcraft portrayls will be fascinating to the knowledgeable aviation buff: Beech D17S, UC-43, C-45 Expediter, AT-18R, and AT-11 Kansan.

From Hump Operation to Gold Evacuation - Chinese Gooney Bird

February 6, 1949, the 101st Transport Squadron was assigned an urgent withdrawal of gold stock from the Bank of China in Shanghai, that was the 4th of the 5 deliveries of the total 225 tons of gold reserve secretly evacuated from mainland within half year. During the 2 hours flight from Jiangwan airfield at Shanghai to Songshan airfield at Taipei, 27.7 tons of gold safely arrived Taiwan by this 9 ships formation, then all the badly-needed transports flew back to Shanghai. Right after the PLA consolidating their grip on Shanghai, an upset Mao was reported that nothing left in the empty BC building.

At the end of the upheavals of the 1945-50 Civil War which brought the Communist to power on mainland China, CAF's C-47s, along with C-46s, conducted personnel and material withdrawal to Taiwan, with their new headquarters at Jiayi AFB. Chinese Communist, after the mainland victory, turned to a policy of "bloodshed of Taiwan", and seized control of Quemoy, an islet off the coast of the mainland. The beginning of the operation (金廈戰役), was the bitter battle at Quemoy. CAF's C-47s and C-46s were fighting a nasty campaign of air supply to the Nationalist garrison on this islet. Although Communist concentrated their barrage on Quemoy's aerodrome and supply dumps, little damage was inflicted on shuttling Skytrains. Finally the defenders won the battle.

This blog section shows my Douglas DC-2, DC-3, C-47 Dakota, and Showa L2D3 charts:

Kamikaze was on its knees - War Trophy

For the CAF After the Victory over Japan Day, the captured enemy aircraft was not a logical prize to seek. With an air strength of 8 and 1/3 groups of the US first line types, let along the continuously transferred USAAF surplus, the CAF reluctantly took the war trophy of less value with empty logistic supply. On Oct 1, 1945, the 6th Composite Group of Japanese types was established, which included the 5th Bomber Squadron, 18th Fighter Squadron, and 19th Fighter Squadron, stationed at Nanking, Beijing, and Jinan, respectively.

However, there is a deep-seated dissimilarity between the VE and VJ Days. Unlike the Germen who admit their mass brainwash under the Nazi sovereignty, the Yamato race had indisputably denied any unprecedented atrocity it committed, until today. All its inhumane acts were justified per pseudo theories and extreme heritage, e.g. bushido, samurai, and kamikaze. In 1946, a USAAF survey on Japanese of all levels revealed that, they unanimously envisioned their glorious IJA had never lost any land battle to the Americans, let along Chinese. The only shame they were defeated in the Holy War of Great Eastern Asia and Co-prosperous Circle was the B-29 strategic bombing. As another fine example of an egocentric racial supremacist mindset, this is chilling, but not shocking for a state of jackals. As a species of Mikado fanaticism, their arrogance is matched only by their incredible chutzpah.

Among my following drawings, except for the Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate, all the Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero-Sen, Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa, Nakajima Ki-44 Shoki, and Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien were not officially adopted by the CAF.

Better Late Than Never

Even with over 10 F-47Ns destroyed in 1953-55, thanks to the superior quality of the CAF pilot, the Thud operated highly successfully as an interim fighter until 1957. During the islet battles off coast of Zhejiang, a F-47N from the 5th FG damaged a MiG-15 over the Taiwan Straight, and set up an unique world record by being the first jet shot by a piston-engined fighter.

In mid-May, 1953, the entire strength of the 26th FS, 25 F-47Ns and 3 AT-6s, moved to Songshan air base in Taipei in order to minimize the target course. For weeks, combat for Dachen consisted of many quiet, scoreless patrol missions and fighter sweeps. At 0848 of July 25, Capt. Luo (羅輔傑) and Lt. Tian (田熙三) flew a combat mission cross the Taiwan Straight. At 1106 on their way back, a pair of MiG-15s unprecedented appeared over the south-east coast and chased them down over Sanmen Bay. Luo (s/n 241) ordered Tian (s/n 321) split into dive, so Tian lost contact with the leader, with both MiGs on his tail. Keeping the enemies in sight, he headed for the ground and making rough turns until downed to 500 ft. Thus Tian made the enemy missed him six times.

Estimating the MiG's next assault moment, Tian planned a suicidal collision. As the leading chaser popped out, the stunned MiG pilot mistakenly flew into Tian's K-14 gun sight. Despite the leaking oil on the wind shield, he fired a burst with eight .50 calibres and hit the MiG, the bullets tore the MiG pilot's right leg open. The MiG pulled up and fled away. The other chaser renewed three more loose attacks, then gave up.

Fighting with two jets for 20 minutes, the lone Thud build up speed and returned, until the safer area was reached after 40 minutes. By using his radio compass, Tian headed southward for home. In the end, his signal was picked up by an AT-6 who was searching for him. Setting up a world record for 5 hours and 7 minutes in a Thud, Tian's F-47N landed safely at Songshan with empty fuel tanks.

Mustang on the VJ Day - Chinese American Composite Wing

Before the Sino-Japanese War was over, the Mustangs of the 28th FS/3rdFG/CACW had flew the last combat mission. On August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito accepted the terms of unconditional surrender offered by the Allies. Several regional surrenders of Japanese armed forces were held in China, and the 28th would escort the IJA delegates to one of the formal surrender ceremonies took place in Qijiang, Hunan province.

0900 August 21, six P-51Ds, flown by four Chinese pilots and two American pilots, took off from Qijiang to escort the oncoming Japanese envoy. Their mission was to drive off the potential ambush by the ultranationalist Japanese pilots who refused to surrender. Later on, the Mustangs reached their rendezvous position over Changde. At 1015, a camouflaged transport appeared, it was a Mitsubishi Type-100-II 15-seat army transport (modified Ki-21-II heavy bomber). As being ordered, a white circle was added to its national insignia, and a 12 ft red cloth band was tied up on each wing tip for identification. The IJA pilot called the Qijiang tower using 5,866 KC then 4,493 KC in a 10 minutes interval before landing.

Yells of joy from the fanatical audience when the leading Mustang touched down, following by the Type-100. A valuable souvenir - one of the red bands attached to the transport's wings - was removed and signed by these four Chinese pilots. Today this signed band is still in display in the CAF 3rd FG's history hall. My Mustang variants plus a Mikoyan Gurivich MiG-15 opponent:

The Earliest Sidewinder User - Sabre of Taiwan

In July 1958, the Red China declared the "Bloodletting of Taiwan". Ominous drones of over 100 MiGs overflew Quemoy, an outpost islet off coast of mainland, to spread terror. Meanwhile troops concentrated opposite Taiwan. The Outbreak of a full-scale conflict was unavoidable. On Aug 14, a group of CAF Sabres shot down three MiGs over Matsu without a single loss. This was an overture of the overall victory for the upcoming battle. The maneuverability of F-86 was slightly inferior to that of the Communist Mig-15 and MiG-17. But the training of pilots, quality of maintenance, and survivability of the Sabre far exceed their Communist counterparts. The result was an impressive kill-loss ratio of 31:1 in Aug 14 and 23 air combats. 18 of the 31 kills were claimed by the 5th FG. This group and the 6th Recon Group were attached to the 5th Composite Wing based at Taoyuan.

What’s more, the CAF i.e., RoCAF (中華民國空軍) had undergone a quiet revolution in its air-to-air firepower. Code named "Bright Star", in the midnight of Sept 18, the first batch of GAR-8 air-to-air missiles, later known as AIM-9B Sidewinder, along with the auxiliary training equipments were ferried to Taoyuan by a gigantic USAF C-124 Globemaster. This early version of Sidewinder had some operational limitation: pilot's estimation of the minimum attack range, the position of the sun, search angle of the missile's infrared sensor, etc. had to be taken into account.

In the air battle on 9/24/1958 during the Taiwan Strait Crises, the missile-equipped 11th FG's F-86Fs achieved a kill-loss ratio of 8:0. None of the Sabres inflicted a single bullet hole.

The remarks in my following North American F-86 Sabre and F-100 SuperSabre provide the significant dates and events in the operatioanl live of each CAF variant:

The Last Air Combat over Taiwan Straight

On January 12, 1967, one unescorted RF-104G of the CAF 12th Recon Sqn carried out a high level raid over the mainland coastal area. The returning Stargazer was then chased by a pair of Sino-Communist MiG-21s, this was the first time the MiG-21 appeared over the straight. The MiGs withdrew just before the four out of eight CAF F-104Gs sent out for covering fired their Sidewinders from a distance of three miles.

A deadly battle occurred on the next day. At 1240, four F-104Gs of the 3rd Fighter Group took into air to back up a returning RF-104G, s/n 5632, which encountered a pair of MiG-19s while returning from Amoi for surveillance of Communist submarine activity. On final approach over Quemoy, Starfighters spotted enemies from 18,000 ft at Mach 1.8. After the leader failed to launch missiles, his wingmen (s/n 4344 胡世霖, 4348 石貝波) came in immediately and scored two direct hits on the MiG-19s. The first MiG disintegrated in a violent explosion, and the second one was trailing huge sparks and its left wing was falling off. One F-104G crashed into sea while returning.

This air combats over Taiwan Straight served to demonstrate that the supposedly dangerous F-104 can be operated safely under difficult conditions. My works on F-104 and MiG-19(蘇殲6/國殲6) in the form of close-up drawings:

The Only Photo-Shootingstars Saw Combat - The CAF RT-33

The "Bloodletting of Taiwan" was the hallmark of Chinese Communist's launching of the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1958. Frequent surveillance operations had been flown long before the bitter battle started.

On June 27, 1955, a pair of RT-33s flew a daytime mission over Shachen Bay, Fujian, in response to a navy's request through the Joint Operation Center. At dawn of that day, a navy fleet spotted large enemy vessels in the area. The big questions were when the battle might initiate and on what scale. In general, the faster RF-86Fs were responsible for the surveillance actions in this area, where the MiGs would scramble from their sanctuary bases anytime. But, all Photo-Sabres were not combat ready at the time.

Forewarned of the approach of the RT-33As, four PLAAF (中國人民解放軍空軍) MiG-15s took off for the approaching T-birds. Preparing for their returning courses, the CAF were totally unaware of the MiGs diving upon them until crossing Taishang Islets. For a moments the attackers believed that they had achieved the desired element of surprise. Suddenly two RT-33As broke the formation in opposite directions when the tracers from the 23 mm and 37 mm canon shells flashed past their cockpits.

After the leader, Lt. Zou(鄒寶書), yelled to his wingman, Lt. yu(余錦澤), to bank to left when he himself turned right, for some reason, Yu pushed his T-bird to right again, right in front of the MiG's flare cannons. Zou hunched into his seat, hiding behind his armor plate. When he looked behind, Zou saw Yu's RT-33A flicked over, shedding parts, then a huge water spout springing up. Twenty minutes later, Zou landed at Taoyuan with the valuable films. Official credited Yu as the first reconnaissance pilot killed in action after 1949.

My portral F-5 Photo-Lightning, F-6 Photo-Mustang, RT-33 Shooting Star, and MiG-15: