Reinholt E. Bitz tells his Story

On Pearl Harbor Day, I was only 19 years of age. I had to register for the draft when I was 20 years old. I went out to Bremerton, Washington and worked in the Navy yards for about 7 or 8 months. It was good experience and soon made a believer out of me that I didn't want anything to do with the Navy. We had to work on some of the battleships that survived Pearl Harbor and also had some destroyers and other ships that came in from the Aleutian Islands. There were still bodies trapped in the holes of those ships. I guess war is hell if you get hit.

I was 20 years old on October the 3rd, 1942 and had to register for the draft. They didn't let you sit around very long. I had already decided I wanted to enlist in the Air Corp. I got my dad's signature and on November the 9th, 1942, I went to Seattle and had my physical and was sworn in or whatever had to be done. After that we departed for Fort Lewis, Washington and received our shots and clothes, caught hell for breathing and that was the start of my Air Corp career.

The next morning or the second day, three of us guys were picked for K.P. duty. I was one of them. My arms were so swollen from the shots and I was sore all over. Had to unload spuds and vegetables all day. I was so tired that night that I wasn't sore anymore. From there they shipped us out to Bakersfield, California. Stayed there a few days and had some basic training. It was a cadet school that the guys who washed out of Cadets were our drill sergeants. There were so mean that they even hated their mothers! (They hated new recruits and animals worse...) What an awful place. But I took everything in stride. I knew you couldn't talk back and I always kept my nose clean. From there it was to Hobbs, New Mexico for 6 weeks for basic training. It was tough but I didn't mind. I was in good shape and strong as a young bull.

Had to pull K.P. one time while there for three days. The second day after we got done about 8:00 P.M., the old Mess Sergeant came in and he was pretty drunk and mean as hell. He rubbed his hand under the boards where you slid your mess tray and found a little gravy. He turned toward us new recruits and said, "Scrub that down again!" He had hash marks I believe from his wrist to his elbow. There were also a couple of older corporals there who also had a lot of hash marks. (one hash mark for every three years of service.) Anyway, these two corporals walked over to the old sergeant and they grabbed him one on each side, walked over to the door and threw him out on his hinder in the mud and told him that if he came back in, they would kill the old son-of-a-gun. Then they told us kids to go back to our barracks. Made quite an impression on me.

Basic training went fast. Hobbs was also a B-17 base or at least there were some there. Jimmy Stewart was stationed there for a while. Didn't mean a whole lot to me at that time. From what I've read about Jimmy Stewart, he went into the service and became a pilot. He served in England as a Command Pilot and put in all of his time. Flew all of his missions and was very well liked. He retired as a colonel and served in the Reserves as a 1 or 2-star General. Not bad. (Believe this is correct.)

Also while I was at Hobbs, I had my first pass and went to town and bought myself some new shoes. As I was leaving the store, I had the shoes under one arm and a cigarette in my hand. I ran into two Second Louies as I left the store. I popped the cigarette in my mouth and saluted those two bastards. They proceeded to eat my hind part out until it dropped on the ground that then they had me pick it up and did it all over again because you are never to salute one of those ____ with a cigarette in you mouth! (At least I saved the cig....)

From there I went to Boeing School of Aeronautics at Oakland Naval Station. I was there about three months. Enjoyed that part of my service very much. I did quite well for myself. After school was over, we had our physical and whatever and I was slated to go to someplace around Seattle and meet my crew and pick up a new B17 and go for training. Boeing School of Aeronautics was some to the best duty I had. We went to school either day shift or swing shift. No school weekends. Every weekend was a pass to Oakland or San Francisco. When we went from days to swing, we would get off at 4:00 P.M., had an hour of calisthenics and had to run a mile. First guys in the shower, first on the bus. I and two other fellows, friends of mine, were usually at the head of the pack. Frisco was a good town-lost of fun and lots of girls. Didn't have to be back until noon on Monday. What good weekends!!!

I was to be a Gunner Engineer. One morning they picked three of us and sent us to Gore Hill at Great Falls, Montana. Needless to say, I enjoyed that very much. While there I met my wife-done well for myself!!

They were sending guys to Alaska and I always wanted to go there so I volunteered for overseas duty on the 1st of September, 1943. That's the way the Army works. Two days later I was on my way to India. Left Havre that night about 9:00 P.M. on the Empire Builder and arrived in Chicago a couple of days later. Missed the first train and spent an extra night and then away to Greensboro, North Carolina. Got all of our overseas stuff including that damn toolbox and away we went to Newport, Virginia. No mare talking to civilians after Greensboro.

We went over on what they called Project 8. Orders. They assembled men from all over the States until they had the right amount of everything they needed to start a new base. There were about 800 of us. From Newport we went on a converted France luxury liner, the Louis Pasteur, without escort, and seven days later, we arrived in Casablanca, North Africa. What a hole! The ride over on the Louis Pasteur was more or less a quiet ride. Glad of that. At that time, the Germans had what they called the Wolf Pack. It would be a bunch of subs roaming the seas. They blew everything to hell that they found. We laid perfectly still one night while they attacked a U.S. Convoy. We could see the night glow and shells explode and where ships were on fire on the horizon.

One other thing about the ship. The food was terrible. We were fed twice a day, about 9:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. We took slop buckets and brought it to the men-same as you take it to the hogs. The dictionary defines slop as: good waste fed to animals... and swill as: a semi-liquid food for animals. Nowadays, we use the word 'swill' more than 'slop.' There really isn't much difference, but we had it anyway.

We stayed in an area in Casablanca that was all surrounded with high wire fence. The Arabs would break in and steal everything we had. One time I heard a guard holler "Halt" about three times and then he said, "Shoot that man!" "Boom!" He said no more. Left there by DC-3 or C-47's and flew across North Africa to Cairo. That desert was blown all to hell. They had just defeated the Desert Rat, Rumal. Planes, trucks, tanks...you name it. It was there. From Cairo to Abba Dan, Persia (now Iran). Terribly hot-like 130 degrees. From there to Karachi, India. From there to Misamaro, India which was to be my home for the next two years. It was a brand new base and we had it in full swing right soon.

We must have had the base in full operation by the 15th or 20th of October. Took about six weeks from when we left Great Falls, Montana and the others from all over the U.S.A. We had C-47's but they were soon replaced with C-46's and that is what we flew and worked on for the next two years. They had a lot of problems at first, but all-in-all, there were good airplanes. They had two Pratt & Whitney 2800 engines and could reach an altitude of about 28,000 feet fairly well. They were the largest cargo plane at that time. They had a tricycle landing gear and in some respects looked a lot like C-47 only a lot bigger. I worked on these and crewed one or more until the end of the war.

A little about India. We were stationed in the Assam Valley on the Brahmaputra River and off to the north were the Himalaya Mountains. Also the small nations of Nepal and Bhutan. They were both neutral and they were off limits to us guys. They had a dry season and a wet season. The dry season started about in October and lasted until April. It was beautiful weather. Mild and just nice. Snow in the high country. The wet season ran the rest of the year. It could rain so much and so hard that it was almost hard to believe. There were continuous showers and terrible electric storms. After I got home, I read in the National Geographic that the average rainfall in the Assam Valley was 240 inched a year. That is a lot of water. Would ruin my farm, but then a little of it would have sure helped in the past 35 years!

They had about every kind of snake under the sun except a rattler. Probably could have found one of those, too. Cobras were quite common. Also tigers, monkeys, wild hogs, wild dogs, hyenas, elephants, hippo or rhino, not sure which one, and of course, all kinds of beautiful, brightly colored birds like wild parrots, etc. They were beautiful. The people over there were very poor-they were under British rule. The British never gave them a whole lot, but then the English never gave anybody very much. The natives didn't care if we won the War or if the Japs did. They figured they might get treated better under the Japs than the British. Doesn't do your morale a whole lot of good to have those people around. All-in-all they were pretty good and I got along with them. I stayed out of the villages and left them alone.

They had venereal disease over there that was unheard of to us. Even our Red Cross girls had a few that the officers never heard of. They were off limits to us enlisted personnel. Just as well. Have never had any desire to go back. Never lost anything over there and don't ever figure on finding anything there.

Had a few good R & R leaves while there. One was to Shillong up in the Hims. Was a beautiful place. Clean water to swim in and lots of beautiful girls and cold beer. Enjoyable. You could never eat fresh vegetables over there. They used a lot of human waste for fertilizer and you would get dysentery from eating the raw vegetables. Also water had to be treated for typhoid. They had lots of fresh fruit and peanuts. Real good.

Also got to go to Calcutta a couple of times. Lots of fun. Good restaurants and, of course, the Queen's Race Track. Lots of money bet on those old nags. I won about $200 one day and that was not peanuts in those days. All-in-all, my two years went pretty fast.

Am not going to dwell on my time at the Base except for a few highlights...We pretty much worked all the time, all hours of the day and night. We had a good base and good personnel. Our line officers were real good fellows and I personally got along real well with them. You always have an occasional ass around and you have them wherever you are. We had a line Sergeant who was also a Master Sergeant, had the Purple Heart (if he had one), and he was just a plain ---. "I went over a Corporal and came back a Staff Sergeant." The night the war ended, my crew and I (nobody else, either) didn't do a darn thing. In fact I let the guys go where they wanted to. I was careful not to tell them to go home or the barracks. Anyhow, this --- came around the next morning and wanted to know where my crew was and where I had been. I didn't tell him much except that the War was over and for him to get off my hinder. He told me he thought he would take away my stripes for talking to him like I just did. I told him I had a better idea. If he would get out of his jeep, I would take them off and stick them up his ____ one at a time and would enjoy my work, Never saw him again and have never missed him.

Our regular duty was to keep those airplanes in the air at all cost, night or day, rain or shine, and that we did. We flew up the Valley in a northeasterly direction, climbed as high as we could, and flew the Himmalayas or Hump., to China-about a four to five-hour flight. We hauled all of the supplies for Chennault's Flying Tiger-gas, parts, bombs, beer, food-everything. It was a tough flight as we carried no guns and we

always had a lot of bad weather. Also, the Japs or 'Slant Eyes' controlled Burma and they used us for gunnery practice. Mean bunch of bastards---I flew as Crew Chief for some time.

Have the following to report about one flight in particular. This flight began at Misammori on January 31, 1944 at about 1:00 or 2:00 P.M., Plane #696. It was a new C-46 and a good plane. It was not my turn to go as Engineer but the crew chief was a Tech Sergeant and I was a Corporal and it was a bad day and he had some chicken in him. He told me to go. There wasn't much I could do, so away I went. The pilot was Lt. Coons. I don't remember the Co-Pilot or Radio Operator's name. After we were gone for an hour or so, they tried to call us on the radio to have us come back as China was closed in and I guess really tight. We could send but not receive. We kept on going and we finally arrived over our base in China. They could hear us and tried to contact us, but we couldn't receive. We ran into a bad ice storm and it was night by then. We had fuel for about 8 to 8½ hours. The ice was bringing us down. We were lost and out of fuel. 16,000 ft was not very high and we knew it. It was a matter of time.

We decided that we would try to jump more or less together so we would be able to get together in the morning. (I was 21 years old and the Pilot and Co-Pilot were about the same, Radio Operator was about 30-pretty old.) I was to go back and get rid of the cargo door and get everything ready. Radio Operator and I put on our chutes and the Pilots were to set the autopilot and then, 1-2-3-4 out the door! I knelt down and got a hold of the rings by the door and told the Operator to do the same, but he said he was okay. I waved to the Pilots and they set the auto and slipped out of the cockpit when the plane went wild. I couldn't get out of the plane no matter how hard I tried. I was pinned down. All of a sudden, I was outside-just fell out! I slid along side the plane and hit my knee on the tail section way high and then I was gone like a shot. I opened my chute and the next thing I knew, the chute strap hit me in the face and it also gave me a blow on the family jewels. Didn't have my belt tight enough. I could hear the plane screaming up there with me and I was sure it was going to get me in the dark. I was so scared it wasn't funny. Then it hit the ground and exploded and the night became day. I could see one chute below me. No more. Then it was dark and quiet. Shortly thereafter I knew I was coming into land and about that time my butt hit the ground and I went butt over head and I had arrived on the good old earth. I landed in a mud hole and it was about 10:00 at night. I pulled my parachute in and piled it up around me and made sort of a nest. I explored the ground right around me to make sure I was not on a cliff or such. I was okay. I made myself a place that I could move about in and then settled in until morning. It was raining and snowing and cold. I made sort of a shelter out of my chute and put in for the night. Cold as 'Old Billy Hell.'

When morning came I had everything put away. Didn't know where I was at and if Japs were around. I was sure they would be looking for us. An explosion like last night would wake the dead. I also had no gun. My chute pack had some American flags with some writing on them in Chinese, Burmese, etc. saying I was an American airman and the U.S. Government would pay so much for my safe delivery. Also some malaria pills, water purification pills, big knife and chocolate bars. No cigs. Compass.

About an hour after day break, I saw the Pilot walking down the ravine beside me. I hollered at him and we got together. He told me that when the ship went wild, the Co-Pilot slammed into the barrels which probably knocked him unconscious. The Radio Operator was in the back of the ship and motioned him out. He slid down the aisle to the door and grabbed a ring and pulled himself out. He landed in the trees and was pretty well banged up. I was not hurt-just sore.

We saw the village about a mile away and decided we would walk over there and see what was what. We had landed fairly close to the old Burma Road in China and the village was Chinese and friendly people. They took us into their home and gave us some breakfast which consisted of baked potatoes and some pork. Also some boiled water to drink. We had to boil all of our water. After breakfast we were taken to another village that was of same size. They took us into a large room where the men decided what to do with us. They gave us each a horse and a guide and we took off for another village. We didn't know this at the time, but they also sent a runner to the base where we were to land to let them know there were two of us alive. We traveled all day and pretty much led our horses. They were hard to stay on and they had no saddles and the terrain was pretty rough-up and down. We arrived at another village that evening and we spent the night there. The people we stayed with were very nice to us. They fed us really well that night. I don't recall what we had, but it was filling. We each had a 1-lb chocolate bar in our parachute pack. They brought us boiled water and we broke off a little piece of chocolate and made ourselves hot chocolate. We also gave each Chinese a little amount. They seemed to enjoy it very much. We had one package of cigs between us and we shared every cig with the Chinese. I would light a cig and take about two puffs and then Lt. Coons would take two puffs and then we would pass it on and it went around the table until it was gone.

We slept on the ground on bamboo mats. Had one rolled up for a pillow. Used our flying pants as a cover. The old Chinaman would keep us covered at night. He didn't know it but I had a real good grip on the .45 and slept with one eye open, more or less. He was a good person. Next morning after breakfast, we were off to another village. Arrived there about noon and there was a lot of canned American food and cigs for sale there. They were a great sight to see. Lots of hot coffee and good sandwiches. They took us either to Yunnonyi or Kumming. There they debriefed us and we spent a good night, had a hot shower and the next day it was back to our base.

I had about $100 on me and I went to a Chinese merchant and bought a lot of wine for the boys back at base. For $100 in those days in China, you could get a lot of wine. Needless to say, we had a good party that night back at base. I was the first enlisted man to bail out and walk in, so a party had to be had! Enough said.

When we first arrived over there, food was sort of hard to come by. It was a terrible thing to steal food but a lot of guys did. Not any big amounts, but enough to fill the belly once in a while. One night another fellow and I decided a gallon of peaches would taste pretty good. His name was Robert Alexa. We went to the mess hall and it was so dark you could hardly see your hand in front of you. I stayed at the door and Robert went inside. Pretty soon a guy comes out of the door in full stride and right behind was Robert and away we went. Got to the barrack with our peaches, then Robert told this story. He was in the pantry when he saw this guy, so he reached for him to find out who he was. That was the streak going out the door. The next morning a friend of ours sat down at our table and told us what happened to him the night before. All of us about cracked up. It was just thieves getting together. We never did that anymore-too many guys.

We had a 6x6 truck that was our bus from the line mess or wherever to our area. It was probably about a mile or so. One day when I was going back to the area, there was an older Captain with us. We stopped and picked up a brand new shiny 2nd lieutenant. He was so good that he sparkled like a new penny. The old Captain noticed him and told us boys that when he first joined the Air Corp, he was told of the three most dangerous things in the Air Corp: a whirling propeller, a newly-made Corporal, and third but not least, a new 2nd lieutenant. He said any one of the three could kill you very easily or at least maim you for life. And then he laughed. 2nd Louie got red but was real quiet.

We didn't have much recreation out there. Had a good Chinese Café and this was Government-inspected so it got a good play.

We also had a shuttle plane (C-47) that would fly to Calcutta every so often, about twice a week, for mail and such. (This was towards the last of the War.) If we couldn't get a pass we would go 'absent without leave' (AWOL) as a crew chief. (The other guys would cover for you.) We could buy London Distilled Dry Gin in pints there. We would buy all kinds of other stuff, too, for the guys. We could trade a pint of gin for a case of beer in the Colored Area. We had a friend who ran the food cooler (we got pretty modern towards the last), and he would cool our beer for a price. Had a lot of fun, anyway.

We had to always check each tank for any water in the tanks each day. Then we would safety-wire the petcocks shut. Evaporation is refrigeration. We had eight petcocks on each aircraft. We would hang a beer under each petcock and let a drop of gas on it every so often. After a while we had cold beer-not bad! One day the big General came through and found this. He became a little upset and we had to stop it, at least until he got off the ground. Conscientious old bugger-probably laughed all the way to Headquarters about how G.I.'s could figure stuff out.

One evening about 9:00 or 10:00 P.M. at the Open Air Theater, they interrupted the show and told us that Japan had surrendered. We were all really quiet. It was sort of hard to believe. After that it was "get ready to go home." About a month later, I was on my way. Went to Chabua first then back to Karachi and we were put on a smaller boat and from there through the Red Sea, Suez Canal, Mediterranean, Rock of Gibraltar, through the North Atlantic and on to New York. We had a good relaxed trip home. Good food and more or less a good time. Everybody was a little uptight. Arrived in New York early evening and had to spend the night on board. I can still see the Statue of Liberty. My, what a sight! It brought a lot of tears.

Next morning, we unloaded and went to Camp Kilmore, New York. From there I went to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin and was discharged on the 17th of November, 1945.

And that is the end of this story.