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Thread: The B-24 Liberator in China -- A side-bar to Jabarootoo's Travel Review, Wings of War and Peace.
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[quote=GUESTPHIL,372194]The wreck here referred to was that of a B-24 with the latest (at the time) radar equipment, returning from a bombing mission to Canton & Hong Kong, Luinchow (Luizhou and Yang Tong airfield @ Kweilin (Guilin), the nearest, were "socked-in" with heavy rains & overcast... the plane circled at an altitude sufficient to clear all the karst peaks near either of these air-strips, except Maoershan (small cat mountain) which was the highest point in GuangXi. Charts with accurate altitudes were not readily available in China, so we don't know if the crew realized there was something above the 6,000-foot range out there in the impenetrable mist; apparently their sophisticated radar was not able to discern its presence either! They were low on fuel after a lengthly bomb-run, so it was thought by 14th. Airforce Command at Yang Tong, the crew may have been on their last circle some 60-miles N. and may have dropped down thru the over-cast for a hoped landmark at just the wrong moment. If you have ever visited the area of GuangXi where both airfields were located, you would recognize the Dr. Suess-like karst pinnacles that have made this area famous. They have been depicted on Chinese silks, scrolls and more modern souvenirs for hundreds of years - as the fairy-land of crags amongst fields of green rice and golden grains, and that they still remain... but back when Chennault was looking for secure landing-strips, the rice-paddy valleys between them were considered ideal (for fighter aircraft initially); they offered natural barriers and camoflage. The so-called "Eastern Airfields" were strung like pearls amongst the valleys from Luizhou to Changsha; offering a couple hours jump on attacking the Japanese, than from Kunming in Yunnan, or Chengdu is Sichuan provinces - making possible raids almost to the Japanese mainland for the efficient B-24s, and B-25s could easily attack shipping and coastal ports. [/quote]
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