You some flavor of this rather unusual bunch of american veterans. Then i will ask a few of these veterans to join me on the stage, and i will introduce them at that time. I will ask them a few questions to jumpstart the conversation, but at some point, i will just turn it over to you all and let you have a conversation with these pretty incredible guys. , is aok, project 9 result of a lot of research from around the country, and i will not go into that. But i was lucky enough to be able to interview several of the remaining veterans from that campaign of so long ago in burma. Pretty remarkable bunch. They were started by a guy named arnold. Ld happ some of you may have heard of him. A guy namedsted by churchill. Winston, i think, was his first name. Let me take you through some of these photos, and we will see what happens. I think i remember how to operate this. By the way, there were some of these flyers out there. I do not know if you all got any. If you did not, i do not know what to tell you. I dont have anymore. But let me tell you a little bit about this book, project 9 the birth of the air commandos in world war ii. Published by the university of Missouri Press. Let me point out to you that if you call this number or order online from the university of Missouri Press and give them the afs14, you will get 20 discount. So, let us begin. For those of you who have really sharp eyes, you might take a look at that 1. [laughter] what can i say . These guys were young guys a long way from home. [laughter] thats all. Im not going to say anything else. The first was Major General orde wingate. Thats him on the left. Colonel Johnny Alison and colonel phil cochran. Wingate was eccentric, pretty unorthodox. He was the leader of a group known as the british show and its the british chindits. You can look that up. Its not dirty. Then there was phil cochran. The reallife inspiration for the character of colonel flip corgan corkin. There he is. Alison was a little pintsize guy, daring fighter ace. He flew with the 14th air force and was considered a natural pilot, a pretty good stick, as they called him. He was the cocommander of this group. Flight officer jackie coogan, movie star turned fighter pilot. Biggest child actor of the 1920s and 1930s. Start with Charlie Chaplin in the kid, and a whole lot of others starred with Charlie Chaplin. Whoops, i dont know what i just did. We are going to go back. I think i pushed the wrong button. Going backwards, im pretty sure. There it is. There it is. Hats dick hi, there. Yeah, hes here tonight. I think i just went too far. This guy, this handsome young man right there is here tonight. That is patt meara. Looks like he has a pretty good ride going for himself there. This guy, charlie turner, i was with him last weekend. You can kind of see the way this guy is looking at you he called that had his i think i can say this he called that hat. Is go to hell can i say this . Im not any good with this stuff because i just skipped one that i wanted to show you. Some of you baseball fans may remember a guy named john kelly ready lewis, the allstar third baseman for the washington buddy john kelly lewis. There was a guy named dimaggio, another guy named williams, and john kelly buddy lewis in the. Utfield of the allstar game he was pretty good. Im not going to talk about you again, patt. Im going to just skip this. Sorry. And charles. This operation featured a variety of pilots. It is quite an interesting organization. They flew a variety of planes, including 100 stinson l5s. 12 b25 mitchell medium bombers. A little bit different, they had a 75 millimeter cannon in the nose of those. Some of the people who were in the airplane when it fired said it sure felt like it stopped it midair, even if it didnt. [laughter] mustang 30 p51a fighters. Dozen c47 skytrains that they used as glider tugs. Thathad this huge thing looked like a boxcar with big, fat, ugly wings, the cargo gliders. You can get a sense of the size of it. Wallah punca charlie said thats what they called the fighter pilots. It means no fan man. They did not have any engines. These, you could load a small piece of artillery, 12 or 15 fully armed combat troops. Thesee commandos had 4 of yr4 helicopters, the first operational choppers, and they made the first combat rescues during their time in burma. Flyingson l1 ambulances. Uyn, thats an ugly airplane, but i think it did some good. Those of you who served know that 523 is an outrageous number of pilots for those that served. This is a guy named jake. This is a guy named bill, who was the pilot of the aircraft that was flying around the pacific, and they ended up having to ditch, and they floated down for 24 days, but i guess they did not have enough of it because he came back. Thats buddy lewis, the baseball player. Ok, operation stop that. Operation thursday. Im going to try to get it to go back. Operation thursday was launched from india on march 5, 19 44. These c47s towed in doubletow. 100 50 miles behind japanese lines in unmarked jungle clearings in burma. Oh, yeah, it was at night. But 15 minutes before launch, aerial photos show that logs were scuttled across scattered across one of the two landing sites, and they did not think they could land there anymore. Alison was on the left and wingate was on the right. They decided they had gone through a lot of trouble and training, and they should go ahead and do this thing. These are some of the british about. S i was talking they are boarding one of the gliders on march 5, getting ready to go into japanesehelp burma. Japaneseheld they took mules along because, well, wingate kind of liked mules. Mulesalked in, so the carried their heavy equipment, and he thought it would be a good idea, even being taken in by gliders, to have a few of those along as well. They ended up taking something close to 10,000 british troops and about 1200 mules. You can see the two gliders c47. Towed by that into this little clearing, and you wonder how re going to get act out back out. They needed a lot of room to pulling a glider behind bc47, so they worked out a thing called national blinders they needed a lot of room to take off pulling a glider behind a see47. You can imagine, that was kind of a jack rabbit starts for the guys in the glider because they went from zero to about 100 and a couple of seconds ina couple of seconds in a couple of seconds. [laughter] here is one of the gliders being towed over the chin hills. Im not certain, but theres a real possibility that is dick coles airplane. Remember i told you they got there at night . It looked like a really nice field in this clearing called broadway. It turned out to also be full of love than a few of water buffalo, and they wrecked almost andy glider full of logs a few water buffalo. In the end, they were able to take in a small bulldozer, and they made a Landing Strip out of nothing. The next night, they began 47s to bring in the remainder of those british troops and supplies. Despite the loss of the gliders, the troops celebrated the aerial invasion that night. I think they were laughing simply because they survived that one. There was a pretty good chance they might not. If you are interested in this book, it is here. It is also on the flyer that we passed out. Remember about that 20 discount, unless you are just rich and like to throw money away. There are some interesting things. Let me just im going to be just a little bit. I will let you meet these guys i promise you but you have to put up with me for a little while. Im going to introduce you to i told you that wingate was a little bit eccentric. You make up your mind. In 1937. He has been stationed by the british army in palestine, and they are having some problems down there at that time. That scene was an idealistic and heewish activist, had been invited to a discussion of literature with a newly posted British Army Captain named you guessed it orde wingate, who spoke arabic and was a graduate of the school of oriental studies in london. It was a hot day. Epstein knocked on the door of the wingate residence and stood waiting on the doorstep as insects swarmed around. He heard stirring within the small house, and he selfconsciously fingered the knot of his time as the doorbell was released inside. The doorbell swung open, and there stood a short, slight, darkhaired englishman with a welcoming smile and intense, dark eyes. T was orde wingate he was stark naked, and he did not get dressed for the next few hours while they discussed persian literature. [laughter] were tasked by hap arnold to take these british chindits into burma anyway they could and support them. It was the idea that they were going to show off what the u. S. And the air force could do. He said hap arnold did they wanted to get back into the big show, and he said he finally talked him into doing this by saying, to hell with paperwork. Get out there and fight. They did take him at his word. Theres very little in the way of actual paperwork, which made researching this kind of a challenge. As i said, they were kind of young guys. They had all these planes. Anything they wanted, they got. They not only got the planes, but anything else they wanted. Heard ofou may have the old paratrooper game designed for specifically paratroopers. They also demanded that each arson in that unit be issued. 45 sidearm or. 45 caliber thompson machine gun. The old jackets, they got too Little Pockets in front they do not hold much. They thought that they needed something with a lot of pockets because bad things can happen in the jungle, and if they go down, they would like some gear, so they put in a requisition for the paratrooper uniforms, the kind that look like a bush jacket with all the big pockets up front and the big pockets on the pants. The paratroopers were not very happy about that, and they yelled about them, but they still got them. They said, you know what . We are going to be in the jungle. We should have some of those marine combat boots, made out of rubber and canvas. They got them. They said, i hear they are testing that new thing called a helicopter. We could use that out there. Absolutely not. They are not even done testing yet. They said, we do not plan to test them. We plan to use them. They got them. Like that. Ound i need to tell you that these guys who did this you know, they are young. They get a phone call, wherever they are stationed. Hey, how would you like to be part of a topsecret project you cannot talk about . You will get no rewards from it. Its dangerous as can be, and you will probably see heavy combat. You know what those 523 guys did . They said, well, sign us up. I think its the same spirit that brought the two guys up from florida and georgia. Yeah, lets do it. So, one of the guys that they. Ecruited was buddy lewis somewhere i have something about him. There it is. Ok, bill, dick, and jake joined. One of those guys was buddy lewis. He was best known as the third baseman for the washington senators. When the war started, he had gone to basic training as an infantryman and then flight training. , he he was posted overseas had called during a game to say goodbye to his teammates. Luckily, no one thought to get. He tail number of the plane he had buzzed centerfield to say goodbye to his teammates. Luckily, no one thought to get the tail number of the plane. Nobody had done Something Like this before. The project nine combat team would not be able to call upon existing forces in the region because everything from cigarettes to combat aircraft would have to be planned for before they headed out. Cochran said, we had to figure out what aircraft we wanted, what we wanted them for, how many pilots we needed, how many mechanics we needed, and how much ammunition you needed because there was not any animal like this in the air force. We were inventing a whole new animal for the air force zoo. There was no precedent. The mule im not going to read that. It is too long. This is interesting. I did tell you that these guys were fairly young. Some of you may have heard of a who was the Supreme Commander in the southwest asia command, and he came out where these guys were training with british troops prior to going , and he was asked to speak. Said, how about getting up on the hood of this jeep over here . He was addressing the men. Cochran and his usual khakis looked up intently. Next to him stood Johnny Alison, likewise wearing the air force uniform and sporting a cold. 20 22 pistol. He carried that because he could not hit anything with the. 45. A p51. H saw at once they have forgotten smith had taken off in his fighter p51. A. He was a consummate fighter pilot, which meant he could be impetuous and highspirited. He stared down from his cockpit at the crowd of soldiers on the field, and seeing a uniform figure addressing the crowd, he could not resist. He pulled up and came in low and fast, heading straight for the jeep at something more than 400 miles an hour. He pulled up at what must have seemed only an inch over the officers head, causing the commander to grab his cap. Cochran, who was never a stickler for military protocol, was appalled at this egregious breach of protocol, not to mention basic safety and common sense. That dam full just arrived arrived. D fool just cochran wondered what kind of courtmartial he would face in his pilot decapitated a commander. He was furious with his aide for placing him in such a position. Thats all right, the admiral said. Cochrans irish temper was in high gear, and he had an in vehicle vocabulary of pejoratives and expletives he had an individual he had an vocabulary of pejoratives and expletives. Smith was finally able to offer explanation. Im sorry. I thought it was you. [laughter] cochran laid into him a second time. You know, remember, these guys were young. Smith at that time was barely 25 and a major. The war introduced so many young officers that at a field in puerto rico, there was a sign over the bar and the Officers Club that summed up the new reality. It had, no liquor will be served to Lieutenant Colonels between the ages of 18 and 21 unless accompanied by parents. [laughter] im just about to the end of what im going to read you. Well, at the end of this , the monsoon finally came in, and they had to leave. It is an interesting story by far. Eventually, the second air Commando Group would deploy, and the third would be active in the philippines with the highly unorthodox methods of the but the highly unorthodox methods of the original group would not be used again in world war ii. Risky night tell night tow of gliders would never be duplicated, and the world would never again see such a highly equipped group of men. Never again would a commander declare, to hell with paperwork. Get out there and fight. Need detail in triplicate has become the hallmark of warfare neat detail. A new breed of irregular war fighters has replaced the devil may care charm of these commandos. This new breed is no less dedicated or fearless, but far. Ess far more anonymous sophisticated weapons and eyes in the skies removed much of the need for boots in the cockpit or on the ground, and weaponize drones now go anywhere without putting a pilot is harms way in harms way. No doubt, this will prove more lethal to our enemies and more. Rotective of our warriors the sheer daring, audacity, and perseverance in the face of adversity, it is hard to beat the true story of the air commandos in the invasion of night. Y glider at i told you that i had some people i wanted you to meet, and im going to introduce them to you now. Three of these air commandos are with us tonight. Patt meara, bill cartwright, and dick cole. Im going to ask them to come on out. [applause] amazing. Tell them to stop. Thank you. Thank you very much. Guys, have a seat. City. E to kansas i told you that we are the heart of the country, and thats not just because we are in the middle. Its because weve got the biggest heart and a lot of love, and you just experienced some of it. Let me start out by asking how did you guys get hooked into the air commandos in the first place . Anybody want to answer that . Patt . Talk to me. I was not in the original group until after we got to india. I was sent to the home base of the 54th air service group. Kind were three other guys of known as im being a little outlandish thats an understatement they came in volunteers asked for for hazardous duty. Could not talk about it. Did not know what it was. Did not know where we were going. Did not know anything. All four of us jumped up. In airplanes with our rifles and bags across our lap. That was in february of 1944. I was a replacement of a pilot. I have been in the states working different jobs. I just flew over to india and joined. I should have told you that b25was a. B. 25 a gunner. Some of you may have heard of him. There was a little raid on japan a little earlier. Sometimes it is known as the doolittle tokyo raid. Doolittles copilot. If that was not enough, he stayed in india for a year as a hump pilot. He was home for a couple of months, and they said, you want to go to burma and train this Strange Group of air commandos . Up. Id, sign me and that is kind of that. ,id you guys ever see wingate the british general . What were your impressions of him . Him long enough alone to really form an impression, but it looked a little weird. He looked a little weird. He did. I had heard stories of him having briefing sessions sitting stark naked with a helmet on. [laughter] eat raw onionso all the time. I heard stories that he had a large alarm clock that he strung around his wrists, and when a meeting was over when that went off, the meeting was over, and he would run to the next meeting. Dick, did you ever see wingate . . Id you ever see orde wingate yes. What were your impressions . He was a member or invited to the canadian meeting of churchill, roosevelt, and stall in stalin. , if you do not mind, i told these guys a little leading gliders in the clearings, and now they had to get them out. They had this device in knee in the c47. The what was it like to come down and snatch a glider out like that . Can you tell us about that . Well, it took a little handling. It took a little technique. We were flying into bowls with a rope about 12 feet apart we sere flying in two bull with a rope about 12 feet apart. The worst thing was doing it at night. Unfortunately or fortunately, the reason we were able to do what we were supposed to do, and everything came out all right, i guess. Night, they would put flashlights out on top of the polls so they could see them flashlights out on top of the poles. They had to fly down at a given speed and hook that thing. What was it like when you knew you had hoped them hooked th em and you are wondering whether you actually snagged that glider how did you know you had actually snagged it . We had a hook hooked onto the , and the rope potentially began to decrease. All you would feel in the cockpit was maybe like a little lunge. Well, what was it like to fly an l5 . We saw one picture of it, but it is not a very big airplane. You probably would not necessarily think of it as a combat airplane, but it was used that way. What was it like . [inaudible] used them forrce evacuating the wounded. Get one woodedy person in the back. Oner on, they developed where you could open the side of the aircraft. Anyone who was wounded had to sit up in the back. They went in behind the lines and clear the runway to get in and out and carry the first wounded out. I should say that the chindit force had done this previously in 1943. They had to walk in. They were worn out by the time they got there, a couple of hundred miles through some of the worlds worst terrain. Thats when this idea of taking them in by aircraft, glider or otherwise, first began to develop and the idea then that this Autonomous Force of air commandos would totally support by bringing in supplies, taking out wounded and ill, and they would provide aerial artillery in the form of these fighters and bombers. During wingates first foray they went in with 2000, and at the end of that expedition, only about 650 were fit to fight. They lost about 900. About half of that figure were killed, and the other half had to be left behind because they were wooded or became ill. They left them propped up against a tree with ammunition and a little bit of food and a note saying, please treat these due gallantspect t warriors. But they all knew what would happen if they were captured by the japanese. Is there any incident in particular that stands out in your mind about your service in burma . Keep it clean. [laughter] yeah. Yeah . I cannot use all the language that was used, but you showed a picture of bill. On the first night of the invasion, i was sitting with an ambulance with the driver in front of our bamboo tower. We had Radio Communication between the ambulance and the tower. We had a sergeant who was the tower operator, and i do not know what happened, and i have no history of that at all except that late in the evening, i heard his call, sitting there in ambulance i should preface this by saying i am a longtime ham radio operator. This call came in. G jet tower, this is 696 blackjack tower, this is 696. Nobody answered. Then the voice comes on and says, blackjack tower, where . E hell are you [laughter] i grabbed the radio. No one was there. He says, what the hell is going on there . I apologized for no one being there but that i can help them get in. He asked me to turn the lights on. I said yes. He asked if i could show him how to get in. There were only two directions. Hat i knew of the told him to traffic to left and land to the west and give me a call when he was down. He told me to stay right there until he got there. And i stayed. [laughter] he came roaring up the ladder, and he said, who the hell are you . He asked if i was a tower operator, and i said, no, sir. Co. He said, you are now. Stay here until somebody relieves you. And iinto bill again, looked up, and he said, who are you . I asked him if he remembered the night of the invasion when he came up to the tower and chewed out this guy, that i was him. He asked if i could still use the radio. But bill made his last flight shortly after that. Got any stories . [inaudible] i had his picture in the living room at home. 7, and he was 5 up at my shoulder, so he was a tough guy. He went up twice in the water. He was only taken up twice. Then he went in. Night, in a field full of , his thirdlogs landing was under these conditions. He was a really tough guy, and i really admire him. [applause] dick, what do you remember most about the operation in burma . , when theye sixth found out the ground had been covered with mahogany logs, and they thought the japs had gotten. Ise to what was going on they were debating whether to. Hange over the landing site thereinally decided that would not be a crowd of japanese and went on and decided to go on in. Were debatingison whether it would be a trap. I wonder if anybody in this audience has got any questions for these guys. I hope you do. Weve got a couple of microphones right here at the end of the aisle. Dont be shy. Get up here and ask some questions of any of them. Ere is one you talked about broadway was that a clearing, a runway that had been there before . Broadway was just a clearing in the jungle. T was codenamed broadway they landed the gliders there, found out it was pretty rough. One of the gliders had a miniature bulldozer, and they a strip, to build enough people to land on the following night. That looked like the best spot to try to land, but the japanese were aware of that and thats why they put the logs out, or that was just accidental, thats the way it happened . A it actually turned out that team of forresters were cutting trees a team of foresters were out cutting trees. Hadirst, we thought they put logs out there, but it was not. How much runway what linked do you need what leng th do you need . About 300 feet for an l5. How much runway do you need glider . 47 pulling a about 4500. Lets go to this side over here, mr. Ymca football. My neighbor helped build the road to burma. He came back, and he said he was never going to eat another grain hisice and his life in life. I wanted to hear from you guys what it was like just on a day by day basis out there surviving . He was talking about people did not want to eat rice anymore after being out there. It was probably for the best we did not have a lot of rice there. We had plenty of food, but it was not too tasty. I came back and was living in chicago, and the eldest man i went with ken back with a japanese girl came back with a japanese girl. [laughter] [applause] lets come back over here. My question concerns which pilot flew first the air commanders or the pilots of the 14th air force . I think it was the 14th air force. The pilots of which organization flew the hump first . Who flew the hump first . Do you know . Flew first . It was a private airplane. In india, on the first of april, flew aanother young man. Ouple of missions also jake was the last airplane out of rangoon. I think most of you heard that he flew out 71 passengers, and when they arrived, it was 72. It wasnt magic. It was a baby. [laughter] they carry fuel to china for the doolittle raiders. They ended up not needing it. What air force with the 14th or not . We will get back to it. What was the casualty rate of the pilots that flew the hump . Know. Sorry, i dont i know it was very high. I think i saw a figure of about 600 aircraft and crews went down. At one point, it was more dangerous to fly that and it was a roundtrip to berlin and back out of england. Not goplanes that would as high in the mountains in the worlds worst weather with no good weather reporting stations, very few navigation aids, and pretty heavily loaded thats not a good combination. Lets see, sir . You mentioned an airbase that you were stationed at. Can you say where it was . The air commandos were in far northeastern assam. Did you ever get flagged by airdrop from any of the other es . Is its hard to remember the names. Were you ever supplied by airdrop rather than just gliders . We were just on a mission. The air commandos themselves did most of the airdrops to the chindits. I was an air commando pilot in vietnam. The most memorable moment in my life was spending an hour with you over our favorite beverages in 2009 at the air commando the mostbut one of significant things i took from our conversation was how colonel doolittle determined when it was time to bailout and the procedures you went through and so forth. Would you be kind enough to describe that moment in time about the bailout and what went on . Can you describe when you bailed out of your bomber after the raid on tokyo . Can you describe that . I can tell you that it was the scariest time of the whole. Ission there was lots of lightning and , looking downrth a black hole in the bottom of the airplane, wondering what you , what you areo going to hit the cause you could not see the ground. It was at night. The governor went out first. Here. Lets go over i was wondering what it was like just day to day when you were not out on missions. Patt, you want to take that . I would like to, except it might not come as a surprise to you people, but all three of us have hearing aids plugged into our ears. Unfortunately, the day before i came up here, mine went on the my wife sent it in for repair, and i do not know what the question was. My grandpa does the same thing. I was wondering what it was like day today on base when you were not on mission. What it was like what . On base when you were not on mission. Can you describe what it was like when you were not flying missions . A madhouse. [laughter] , you would kind maybe it was a paved airstrip. It was not. It was probably the most Homogenous Group that ever know becauser as i there was no differentiation between officers and enlisted men. You all worked together. If something needed to be done, everybody chipped in and did it, and it was happening all the time. Constantly fixing airplanes, working on airplanes. It was one of the easiest times in my life. It was easy. We should point out they had a single mess hall. Everybody ate together. At one point, a general visited and walked in and saw all these enlisted men and officers sitting together and nobody saluting. He said, what in the world . Phil cochran said, its all weve got. If you would prefer to eat outside, we can set you up a table. Did. D, and they they set up a table. We got time for two more questions, one here and one there. Then we will have to shut it off. It has been superseded. The three of you. Lets go to you. Question for dick cole. A lot of people may not know there are famous reunions every year since the war. The doolittle raiders have a reunion each year, and a famous bottle of cognac that general doolittle purchased at the end of the war was supposed to be remaininghe very few members of the raid. Did you make it to the reunion this year . Was the cognac finally opened and sipped . Yes, it was finally opened, but they were kind of chintzy with it. [laughter] [applause] that cognac was from 1896, so, of course they were stingy with it. Were there three of you at the reunion . No, theres 4 ok, thank you. Sir . What kind of resistance to the japanese raise to the invasion . Actually, i dont remember. We were able to operate several. Imes they shot at us. [laughter] was clearing for they were in the clearing for about a week before the japanese discovered and bombed them. They also sent in japanese land troops, infantry, and they surrounded us, so almost every night there would be a firefight. They set up a stronghold at just its kind of hard to believe, but they just kind of got used to the harassment and just lived with it. Yes, sir. Last question. I want to direct this question to dick cole. Covering a lot of time when you were on the raid with doolittle, but what would be one of the most memorable moments that you would remember in that raid . Ive been asked that question before, and the most memorable isng i can remember [inaudible] [laughter] [no audio] when my parachute opened. [laughter] [applause] i think we are all glad it did. [applause] ok, so thats it. Watching American History tv all weekend every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation, like us on facebook at cspan history. Next, civil war historians talk about the 1864 Overland Campaign in virginia, including the battle of the wilderness, Spotsylvania Court house, and cold harbor. They explore the tactics