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CMHomeboy78
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The Flying Tigers' raid on Chiang Mai continued...
After strafing the parked row of Japanese 0-97's, the six Tomahawk P-40's in Neale's 1st squadron bombed the hangars and supply dumps while coming under increasingly heavy anti-aircraft fire in the form of tracer bullets and exploding flak.
The P-40 flown by William "Black Mac" McGarry took a hit from ground fire and started trailing smoke. Immediately heading west - presumably to reach some British held airfield in Burma - he had to bail out near Mae Hong Son. He remained at large for twenty-eight days with the aid of villagers before being captured by Thai police. After interrogation by intelligence officers of the 64th Sentai in Chiang Mai he was sent to Bangkok and interned at the wartime detention centre on the Thammasat campus. He was helped to escape by Seri Thai operatives in early 1945 and made his way to Kunming, staying at Seri Thai safe houses along the way.
The wreckage of McGarry's Tomahawk P-40 was discovered in the mountains near Mae Hong Son in the summer of 1991 by a team led by the Royal consort, Group Capt. Veerayuth Didyasarin. It is on display at the Tango Squadrom Museum, Wing 41 in Chiang Mai.
Jack Newkirk's 2nd squadron arrived on target at Lampang airfield, but nothing was to be seen of the 98th Sentai's heavy bombers. Rreturning as they had come, following the railway, they fired on targets of opportunity until they came under anti-aircraft fire at the Ban Tha Lo railroad bridge near Lamphun. Accounts are conflicting as to what happened next, there are some reports that he was distracted by ox carts that he mistook for armoured vehicles, but that is unsubstantiated. It is generally accepted that he circled to make a strafing run on the battery, but in an attempt to get below the vertical range of the guns he came in too low. His right wingtip clipped a flame tree causing his P-40 to crash in a fireball. Villagers buried his remains in a marked grave at the edge of a rice field near Wat Phra Yuen. In 1949 he was reburied in his hometown of Scarsdale, New York.
The contention that the raid on Chiang Mai was a revenge attack and a tactical failure is based on a considered evaluation by historians of the available first-person accounts - Allied, Japanese, and also Thai, in the person of Boonserm Satrabhaya who witnessed events as a twelve year old schoolboy and recorded what he saw in a wartime journal that became the basis for a book he wrote in later life: Chiang Mai and the Aerial War [bangkok. Saitharn 2003].
The warplanes of the renowned 64th Sentai had played a key role in the assault and destruction of the British airfield and command centre at Magwe where the aircraft of the RAF and Flying Tigers were based. Chennault's remaining Tomahawk P-40's retreated to Kunming, and the RAF with their Blenheim bombers and Spitfires regrouped as best they could at Chittagong. From that day on, the Japanese fighter pilot ace Major Tateo Kato and his 64th Sentai were in Chennault's crosshairs.
Wartime propaganda aside, the air raid on Chiang Mai has to be seen as a failure, or a qualified success at best. At the time of the raid, Burma had already been effectively neutralized by the Japanese, Their Northern Thai airbases were no longer of strategic importance to the invasion because they were quickly establishing bases within Burma itself. Their system of construction work carried out by Japanese Army engineers supervising large numbers of POW's and local conscripts was very efficient. True, fifteen planes were destroyed on the ground in the Chiang Mai attack, along with an undetermined amount of ordnance, but at what cost? ... The loss of two ace pilots with their planes. John "Scarsdale Jack" Newkirk dead, and William "Black Mac" McGarry captured.
Rest in peace... along with the others who died that day fighting for their own country, Imperial Japan, with its watchword "Asia for Asians" and its East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which it was trying to impose by force of arms, a self-defeating impossibility... as they were to learn a few years later on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
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Some more info here - Aces High
This pdf article is more about what occurred in Lampang with some references to Chiang Mai but still interesting. Lampang during WWII.pdf
The Lampang article was new to me and I appreciate you mentioning it.
The Aces High was one of the sources that I used for the second part of the topic. There is a lot of good - and presumably accurate - information in it.
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You have taken on the worthy task of presenting a condensed history of the Flying Tigers' attack on Chiang Mai. The problem with a condensation, of course, is what detail to keep, what to compress, and what simply to discard.
I also am working on a history of WWII here in northwest Thailand, but it's not to be condensed (and it's slow going). In that process, I have come to have the greatest of confidence in Dan Ford's presentation in his book, Flying Tigers, which you note; and I reference him below when applicable.
You note that the name "Flying Tigers" was given by the Nationalist Chinese. Ford closes a review of the name's source with "Over the years, journalists and historians have tried to find a source for the name in China, but its derivation is less exotic: the Tigers were christened by a well-paid suit in Washington". He was referring to the so-called "Washington Squadron", the backoffice support in Washington DC (Ford: p 107).
You write: ". . . Flying out of Kunming . . . they overnighted and refueled at Namsang in Burma . . . A final refueling stop was made at a jungle airstrip near the Thai border". It was a bit more complicated than that. After departing Kunming, they touched down at Loiwing where a CAMCO factory was located; unfortunately services there were a bit helter-skelter and the fighters were delayed 24 hours, to finally take off for Namsang where they also overnighted (Ford, pp 241-243).
There were actually two separate squadrons in the attack on Chiang Mai and, in the early morning departure from Namsang, the first group in the air, led by Jack Newkirk, didn't wait for the second group, but headed straight for Chiang Mai. Having left Namsang first, Newkirk's group arrived in Chiang Mai first and unaccountably strafed the rail station. Unaccountably because the group's target was Lampang, not Chiang Mai. Plus the strafing of the rail station alerted the airfield that enemy fighters were in the area. The arrival just a few minutes later of the second group of Flying Tigers, whose designated target was in fact the Chiang Mai airstrip, had therefore been deprived of the "element of surprise" (see Ford, p 243).
So while you accurately quote Bond "it was clear we had caught them flat-footed without any warning", that wasn't actually the case. I've talked with a friend of a friend who participated in the defense of the airstrip that morning: that friend of a friend, a member of the Royal Thai Army, was in charge of an antiaircraft battery at midfield and he was in position when Bond, et al, attacked, and he claims to have put a round into one of the strafing aircraft (but not McGarry's, of course, which was at altitude, flying cover).
I'm not sure what I-97 refers to with regard to IJAAF aircraft at the field: yes, the 64th Sentai was there, led by the legendary Kato, about whom movies were later made. The unit was flying Ki-43s, or Hayabusas; aka, the "Army Zero". Only three were write-offs as a result of the attack; those plus one "werewolf" Hurricane which had been captured in the Dutch East Indies (Ford, p 246).
Regarding how Newkirk's squadron "broke formation to follow the railway line [south]", he didn't break formation: he never joined with the other squadron in its attack on the airfield --- which was not his assignment; but he did head south, after strafing the rail station, following the railroad track towards his assigned target (Ford, p 243).
To this point in your presentation, I have only specifically researched in detail one subject you mention, the location of Loiwing --- a complicated and misunderstood topic. See discussion on Dan Ford's website, Loiwing and on my site, Locating Loiwing.
Thanks for pointing out some corrections based on your sources. Trying to make sense out of conflicting stories - often by eyewitnesses - is what makes history writing so interesting, and at times frustrating.
In my final part of this topic, which I hope to post tomorrow, I hope you will find time to comment.
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My friend Roy, had a long talk over a glass or two in the Gymkhana Club with 'Tex' (I think ) following the visit by the survivors to the Foreign Cemetery a few years ago.
I can contact him and was down his house today, however he is not in the best of health at 94-95 and I would not like to disturb him without a reason.
If there is a serious question I will go see him after speaking via the net.
john
Thanks for the input.
I'll get back to you about this shortly.
I wonder if the "Tex" you refer to is the Tex Hill of the Flying Tigers?
In May 1942 at what has come to be known as the Battle of Salween Gorge, eight Tomahawk P-40's led by Tex Hill stopped the advance into China of the Japanese 56th Red Dragon Division. After four days of almost continual dive bombing and strafing, the armoured column - or what was left of it - retreated with losses estimated at 4500 men.
If it is indeed Tex Hill here in Chiang Mai, it would validate MacArthur's famous quote: "Old soldiers never die - they just fade away."
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My friend Roy, had a long talk over a glass or two in the Gymkhana Club with 'Tex' (I think ) following the visit by the survivors to the Foreign Cemetery a few years ago.
I can contact him and was down his house today, however he is not in the best of health at 94-95 and I would not like to disturb him without a reason.
If there is a serious question I will go see him after speaking via the net.
john
Thanks for the input.
I'll get back to you about this shortly.
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Coconuts = Tabloid style news for Thailand expats
Waters too muddy for diving on Koh Tao today??
JOC, you'd better hope the cops don't start reading internet forums or you're toast.
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Coconuts = Tabloid style news for Thailand expats
It's more than just tabloid news... it could be the start of something unwelcome indeed.
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I remember reading about a 'British' attach on the railway station that led to many civilian deaths. Possibly my memory or the report I read are inaccurate. Does anyone else know about this British raid.
PS
love these posts.
Thanks Loaded...
I'm trying to get information on the railway station raid, but so far without much success.
I don't know whether the RAF were involved or not. At this point I don't even know the date it took place, other than that it must have been after the March 24th 1942 airfield raid, because that was the first air strike on Chiang Mai.
Tomorrow morning I will post the second, and concluding part of this topic insofar as it relates to the airfield attack. If I can come up with some credible sources of information about the raid on the station I will post it as a separate topic. I only know that 300+ people were killed - presumably Japanese soldiers and Thai civilians. Also that the military goods trains were running again within a few days.
I appreciate you bringing up this point because it may lead to some references to information of interest.
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The history of the Flying Tigers can be read in a number of well researched books; notably: Flying Tigers. Claire Chennault and his American Volunteers 1941-1942. By Daniel Ford [smithsonian 2007]. For an introduction to the subject, an informative summary can be found on Wikipedia, as well as a biographical sketch of Claire Chennault under a separate entry.
The air raid on Chiang Mai was - not to mince words - a revenge strike conceived and put into operation by Claire Chennault, the charismatic and flamboyant founder and leader of the Flying Tigers. Officially designated as the American Volunteer Group [AVG], they were soon given the nom de guerre "Flying Tigers" by the Nationalist Chinese led by Chiang Kai Shek under whom they served; and who were fighting the Japanese in an uneasy alliance with Mao Tse Tung's Red Army.
The attack on Chiang Mai began at daybreak on March 24th 1942. Flying out of Kunming in ten Tomahawk P-40's they overnighted and refueled at the RAF base at Namsang in Burma, one of the last still tenuously held by the British. A final refueling stop was made at a jungle airstrip near the Thai border.
The squadron commander was Robert Neale, the Flying Tigers' top gun with 15.5 kills, but Charles Bond led the attack because he had previously made a recon flight over the target area and was - to a certain extent - familiar with the lay of the land. In a speech at the Chiang Mai Foreign Cemetery during the AVG Memorial dedication in 2003, Bond remembered that pre-dawn morning in March when smoke haze covered the valley: "I took a risk and nosedived 45 degrees to three thousand feet and there below, amazingly, was Doi Suthep and the Chiang Mai valley... As the haze thinned I saw the field and the outlines of the hangers. I flipped on my gun switch and another thousand feet lower I fired my guns in a short burst to check them and let the other guys know this was it... seeing a line of parked Japanese I-97 fighters... I pulled back slightly, preparing to strafe the entire row. Now it was clear we had caught them flat-footed without any warning... We made a pass firing ammunition, not bombs, onto the surprised Japanese below. I still remember the second pass, which was so low that I could see the look of shock on the faces of the Japanese soldiers as I swooped by and let fire." [Jack S. Eisner/Bond obit 2009].
Six Tomahawk P-40's of Neale's 1st squadron attacked the 64th Sentai at Chiang Mai airfield, while four P-40's of John "Scarsdale Jack" Newkirk's 2nd squadron broke formation to follow the railway line to attack the 98th Sentai Ki-21II heavy bombers at Lampang.
In the second part of this post I will use what primary sources and eyewitness accounts that I have been able to find in describing the events that took place during and after the initial assault on the Japanese in Chiang Mai, and the disaster that occured in Lamphun on the way back from the aborted raid on the airfield at Lampang.
To be continued...
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UK TUK'S
Moto-taxis? Many in VN, they even carry a helmet for you. Not bad in quiet places, need some gumption in dense traffic, or superhiways. Those 'trikes' found in Phill Islands are similar but no helmet needed. Both in PI and VN mobs of these guys on every corner. I suspect more of them will be coming here before too long as economy shrinks and tuk-tuks continue to demand more money.
Well, elektrified, ordinarily i would agree with your opinion on mounting one of these, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.
Agreed... there are times when "you gotta go".
I've mounted more ferocious things than moto-taxis and had some wild rides that I'll never forget.
Whether or not Chiang Mai sees more of them will depend upon the degree of regulation imposed by government/underworld forces.
If left to operate freely - or relatively freely - it wouldn't be hard to imagine them becoming omnipresent as samlors were years ago.
The cheapest and most convenient form of transportation for the chow ban and low-budget travellers.
On my first trip to BKK a group of us split into two tuk tuks and stupidly said "Bt100 to the first one there, and Bt10 a wheelie".
I'd recommend it for a near death experience.
Yes, tuk tuk's can be frightening when driven at high speed. You don't have much more protection than you do on a motorbike and they don't take the corners nearly as well.
I'll never forget a white-knuckle, sphincter-puckering tuk tuk ride early in the morning from Morchit to the Southern Bus Terminal with a young lunatic hopped-up on something. Wherever traffic was heavy he would take to the footpath... it was like 1920's slapstick comedy, the Keystone Kops or Charlie Chaplin.
Another memorable experience was with a girl [yes there are a few] on a moto in a Lat Phrao soi that was being excavated for a big drain pipe. She side-swiped a worker carrying a load of lumber and knocked him into the ditch. Without a moments hesitation she gunned it and off we went.
Amazing Thailand!
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Married 32 years to a Chiang Mai girl from an old family here.
Not drop-dead-beautiful now and never was, but neat and clean and attractive enough.
She raised our two daughters in a traditional manner while having them educated for careers in the modern world. They have both turned out very well.
I had a lot of hot fun in my first few years in Thailand playing the field, but having a good Thai family is a whole lot better.
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Moto-taxis? Many in VN, they even carry a helmet for you. Not bad in quiet places, need some gumption in dense traffic, or superhiways. Those 'trikes' found in Phill Islands are similar but no helmet needed. Both in PI and VN mobs of these guys on every corner. I suspect more of them will be coming here before too long as economy shrinks and tuk-tuks continue to demand more money.
Well, elektrified, ordinarily i would agree with your opinion on mounting one of these, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.
Agreed... there are times when "you gotta go".
I've mounted more ferocious things than moto-taxis and had some wild rides that I'll never forget.
Whether or not Chiang Mai sees more of them will depend upon the degree of regulation imposed by government/underworld forces.
If left to operate freely - or relatively freely - it wouldn't be hard to imagine them becoming omnipresent as samlors were years ago.
The cheapest and most convenient form of transportation for the chow ban and low-budget travellers.
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There are some, yes.
But mostly in specific locations, they're not a city-wide form of public transport.
Any clue to these locations?
They used to be at the Arcade and I would occasionally catch a ride home with one.
I haven't seen them for a while... but then I haven't needed them and haven't looked.
Maybe they're still around, or maybe they've been muscled out by some rival mafia.
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Egos must be fed
The problem with that is that the more they're fed the bigger they get.
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Do a little social research...
Ask a wide variety of Thai women how they rate Thai men as faithful husbands and good providers for their wives and children.
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If you have a story like this and print it without an accompanying picture of the crook, then better not print it at all. Would be nice to see whom I have to kick in the face when I see him...
Best would be to get rid of such animals right away by lethal injection. I don't care if they have bipolar disorder or "siamese quadrupeliacough" to show as an excuse. They are best of dead - for their own sake and those of the many innocent others.
There was a close-up photo along with the full story that I saw last evening - but I forget where. I thought it was Andrew Drummond, but I just checked and it wasn't there.
Must have been somewhere else... but it's out there.
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Thailand is like a magnet for the trash of the World,the more they
catch the better,a few years in a Thai prison is what they need,then
deport them to their home countries.
regards Worgeordie
Why's that do you think? Couldn't be anything to do with massive bribe taking, lack of law enforcement and rampant prostitution could it?
This country deserves the trash it gets.
Yes of course, it's Thailand's fault for attracting the scum.
It's good to know that someone on the forum "get's it."
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>>made a trip last week to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They discussed the possibility of getting support from the foundation.<< Quote
Or in other words, they went begging!!
I don't think they were the the first beggars who ever knocked on Bill and Melinda's door.
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No I wasn't there. I spend most of my time in Chiang Mai among family and friends. I avoid tourist areas like the plague.
I've spent most of my adult life among working class Thais - chow ban - and when people gratuitously insult them I get pissed-off.
No one is naive enough the believe that all Thais are fine, upstanding people like your neighbors in CM, especially those in tourist traps like Patpong...
And while you are being smug in your little corner of paradise, how do you think the lady that was scammed feels about Thailand after this incident and what do you think she will tell her friends and family when she gets home?
I never said or implied that all Thais are fine, upstanding people, and I don't live in a little corner of paradise, I live in a Thai neighbourhood.
Frankly I don't give a damn what this woman feels about Thailand, nor what she tells her friends when she gets home.
All of us who have been here for a while have had bad experiences, but most of us learn from them and don't get burned again - we don't blame the Thais and Thailand for our own carelessness and stupidity.
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They don't have access to the internet in prison ....
How many TV members have done time in a Thai slammer... and what have their experiences been like?
That would be an excellent topic. Anyone?
I agree, that would be an excellent topic, if no one starts that topic in the next week or so, maybe I'll have a go myself.
Go for it... I'll read it with interest.
I'm sure you'll get a lot of response - anecdotal if not first-person.
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Well my friend was browsing over the Patpong market while she still had a few hours off before leaving to the airport. She arrived last Monday at 6:20 AM and was sceduled to leave at Thursday 2:10 AM.
First time in Thailand. Now also the last time in Thailand. And I can assure that the company she is an executive and board member for, will withdraw their investments... It's a mayor banking and insurrance company.....
I have hardly seen any one that pi**ed off!!!
Good for everybody that this is her last time in Thailand.
Anybody who can't learn from their experiences here and come out the better and smarter doesn't belong here.
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Lovely thai people at their best.....outstanding once again....and again...
...and your post is disgusting Thai-bashing at its worst.
These were a few slime-bags working a tourist trap... not the Thai people in general.
ok so you were there ?? so you must know all about it then go bishop bash
No I wasn't there. I spend most of my time in Chiang Mai among family and friends. I avoid tourist areas like the plague.
I've spent most of my adult life among working class Thais - chow ban - and when people gratuitously insult them I get pissed-off.
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Welcome to Thailand: the land where nothing works, nobody knows anything and nobody cares!
Disgusting how these "buddhists" don't care about people with a terminal disease, but do care about their silly little business...
It was a Buddhist Abbot who founded what (I think) was the first hospice for HIV/AIDS at a Wat near Suphan Buri. It was his compassion and care that helped overcome a lot of the stigmas associated with the disease. I know it's easy to bag religion, but it was Thai Buddhists who were the first to actually help while the state stood idly watching.
Good response to a clueless post.
Where did the term "Not in my neighborhood" originate? Not in Thailand, that's for sure.
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They don't have access to the internet in prison ....
How many TV members have done time in a Thai slammer... and what have their experiences been like?
That would be an excellent topic. Anyone?
Give Stardust a search.
Thanks for that link to the Udon Thani Forum - very interesting.
There must be a lot of Thai prison stories out there that would be a welcome change from the banality or downright idiocy of so much of the usual fare.
Gold prospecting
in General Topics
Posted
Maybe you've seen the classic movie "The Treasure of Sierra Madre."
Substitute Thailand for Mexico and you will get some idea of what might be in store for you if you strike paydirt here.