Keepsake (above)--a piece of the parachute used to bailout, signed by all the people who bailed out that day. Text below courtesy of Elmer Bukey.
This is a story about my bail-out from an 11th Bomb plane named "Chicken Charlie". On the 30th of March 1944 I was told to preflight the B-25 in preparation for a test flight prior to turning it back to the 11th Bomb Sq. We were to take a Chinese Gen. Deng Weiren and a Chinese Col. Zeng Ziming to Chickiang (Zhijiang) during our test flight. Lt. Sines our test pilot, Sgt.Murton our radio operator the two Chinese officers and myself took off from Kweilin with the weather really turning bad.
Shortly after take-off our problems started. We lost our radio contact with the ground and then our navigational equipment failed. After about an hour we knew we were lost and after a taking a vote we decided to try and let down thru the soup and see if we could find our way back to Kwelin. This was a mistake and almost caused us to smack into the side of a mountain. We made it back up thru the soup and decided we would have to bail out if we were going to make it.
The Gen went first and he froze in the hatch opening and we had to force him out.The Col was next and then Murton. I looked at Sines and told him I would see him down below and I left the ship. Just before falling thru the soup I saw Murtons chute disappear in the soup and Sines chute open. After I fell thru the soup I looked up at my chute and almost passed out three panels had ripped out of my chute and it looked like an egg rather than nice and round the way it should be. I think the only reason I didn't break both legs when I hit the ground was I had no idea how fast I was falling and I hit the ground completely relaxed.
Sines fell in the middle of a rice paddy and Murton landed alongside a stream, Sines had a forty five strapped to him and when his chute opened it cracked some ribs.Murton sprained an ankle and I came out smelling like a rose.
We got together with the Gen & Col the next day and I got to see where "Chicken Charlie" had slammed into the side of a mountain and there wasn't much left to see. We walked for five days, stopping in a different village each night, to a railroad head and then rode a train for two days back to Kwelin. The Chinese people in each of the villages greeted us with a parade and fireworks making us feel like real heroes.They gave us great quarters and we had the finest of Chinese food to eat at each stop.
Needless to say I am very happy to be alive to tell this story and very thankful to all the Chinese people that helped us on our way back to our base at Kwelin.
