Tragic Ending To The Search For C-87 0597

          On April 26, 1944 copilot Graydon “Doc” Todd and I were returning to Chabua in B-25 41-30436 after a 3 ½ hour search mission.  Several miles SW of the First Ridge we encountered a massive air mass thunderstorm.  Since the weather was otherwise generally good we were able to easily circumnavigate it.  After landing at Chabua I reported its location to the weather officer.  I presumed he disseminated the info to the other valley stations.

            The next morning when I reported to Operations for another search mission I was given this message from Jorhat radio (paraphrased)

                        “Captain Phil Burling departed Jorhat just before midnight in

                                C-87 0597.  Some 45 minutes later he reported severe turbulence

                                at 17,000 feet.  Shortly thereafter, he reported loss of control

                                of the aircraft and that they were going to try to bail out.  Nothing

                                further.  The bird failed to show up in China.”

            Having flown out of Jorhat for three months in 1943, I was familiar with their flight routes.  Only a few seconds of calculations indicated the probability that Phil had flown into the violent thunderstorm we had seen the previous evening just before reaching his cruising altitude.

            Todd and I flew out to the area where we had seen the storm the previous evening.  No sign of it.  It had either dissipated or moved away.  We initiated a 15 second-leg expanding square search.  On the fifth leg we spotted two parachutes, dangling empty, high in the jungle trees below, raising our hopes for the crew.  These hopes were dashed, however, for as we flew over the chutes we detected the unmistakable smell of burning human flesh.  We also saw a few wisps of smoke rising through the trees.  Strangely, however, there was no other evidence whatsoever of an airplane crash.  Apparently the 75-100 foot trees had literally swallowed up the C-87.

            We had earlier spotted a British patrol in a clearing a mile and a half due NE of the chutes.  We flew over the Brits and dropped a canister, providing directions and asking if they could check out the crash site.  They signaled acquiescence, and we went about other business.

            Two days later, the Brits radioed the bad news.  The aircraft had gone straight in — much of it buried beyond recovery.  They did find a propeller with a serial number which matched that on Phil’s #3 engine.  They also found a Colt .45 automatic with a serial # which matched that which had been issued to Phil at Jorhat.

            The parachutes?  I can only guess that the out-of-control C-87 dived straight into the ground, broke apart and exploded, with the blast launching the chutes up through the trees.

Incidentally, and in closing, although I didn’t know Phil well, he had been my copilot on my fifth HUMP trip, flying bombs and ammunition out of Jorhat in C-87 107260 on August 1, 1943.

Contributed by Warner F. "Tex" Rankin