14th AF, post Flying Tigers, veteran recalls time in China

Antipodean Andy · Aug 18, 2008

Central Ohio - www.centralohio.com - Central Ohio, OH - videos at link.

MANSFIELD -- When Sgt. Earl Hershey came home after World War II, he had little to say.

"I didn't tell anyone really about where I had been or what I had done. I just wanted to get on with my life," Hershey, now 84, recalled.

Had he bothered, he might have told friends about China and the Flying Tigers. He was there.

"They called us 'Flying Tigers,' but I was not a pilot, which is generally the first impression, but in the ground crew. I was not a member of the American Volunteer Group who were ex-military personnel that fought for China before Pearl Harbor. I got there after the AVG were taken into the Army Air Corps to form the nucleus of the 14th Air Force," Hershey said.
He said the Chinese people bestowed the "Flying Tiger" name on the American volunteers. He said the symbol was the shark's teeth and eye painting on planes before and after America entered the war.

Hershey grew up on Sturges Avenue hill and watched his buddy, Les Griebling, win the first Soap Box Derby there in 1937.

He graduated early from Mansfield Senior High School just after Pearl Harbor and registered to be an Army pilot.

"They turned me down because of a broken nose that hadn't healed right. They said I would have trouble breathing at high altitudes," Hershey said. Upset with the decision, he traveled to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton and signed up for the Army Air Corps. He wound up as a trained aircraft mechanic and was sent to China to join the newly formed 14th Air Force.

He said the trip, by ship, took him to Perth, Australia, and Bombay and Calcutta, India, and over the Himalayan "Hump" via the newly constructed Burma Road.

"About all we took over the Hump with us was our tool boxes. Once you got to China, you were cut off from the world. All we got from the outside were cigarettes, mail, bombs, fuel and ammunition," Hershey said.

His first impression of inland China was the persistent smell of human waste used for fertilizer, and garlic.

"You had to use a knife to cut through that smell. It took months to get used to it," he said.

To this day he can live without water buffalo and rice in his diet.

"The Japanese outnumbered us 10 to 1, so we moved from one airfield to the next to keep them off balance," he said.

Even so, he said, the bombings and strafings were constant, and a slit trench was a man's best friend.

Hershey was a key member of the test and crash crew that raced the Japanese to every downed American plane to remove bombsights and other classified instruments. He remembers working his way through the thick Burmese jungles to reach crash sites, careful always to avoid Japanese search parties in the process.

He vividly recalls when an American B-24 crashed and his team was first on the site. There was at least one dead man and several seriously injured crewmen on board who had to be rescued.

The worst moment for Hershey came when he entered the cockpit.

"The B-24 pilot was crushed and screaming with pain. He saw the .45 I carried and begged me to shoot him then and there. He was pretty much mangled up, but that would have been plain murder."

Hershey wouldn't say if the pilot lived or died, but he did say, "I think I've seen enough torn up bodies to last me for a lifetime."

The jungles of Burma and the interior of China remain strong in his memories, including the sight of Chinese babies left to die on tree limbs because they were female. Hershey hated the huge rats that would nibble on a sleeping man's hair. "If they got inside the netting there was hell to pay. Their bites carried deadly diseases," he said.

Drinking water had to be purified, and the men were constantly getting booster shots to protect them from a huge number of local diseases.

Still, Hershey said, "I believe my two years in China were the greatest experience of my life, so long as I could forget the bad and remember the good."

He came home, then married Betty Walker in 1948. They had two children, Brian Hershey and Laurie Sturtz.

After Betty died in 1959, Hershey married Rosemary Schie-ber, who died in 1993. There were no children from that marriage and Hershey said, "I was done with marriage."

He started and operated an auto collision repair business until he retired in 1986. He now lives in a condominium on McCullough Drive off South Main Street. He is still active in golf and enjoys dancing to Big Band music.

He also likes traveling to Las Vegas and Atlantic City with friends.

Hershey wasn't the only member of his family to serve during World War II. He said an older brother, Richard, was a bombardier in an Army Air Corps B-25. He said Richard was killed when his plane crashed during a mission in the Philippines on Dec. 23, 1944. He is buried in Louisville, Ky.
Click to expand...

Kyt · Aug 18, 2008

I don't have a crew list but his brother was probably lost in B-25 43-4178

Antipodean Andy · Aug 18, 2008

She was an H (possibly with 75mm cannon) with the 7th BG according to this link: http://home.mchsi.com/~anderson.kevin/docs/b25h_known_airplanes_sorted.txt

7th BG was B-17s and B-24s though...

Antipodean Andy · Aug 18, 2008

B-25s hit San Roque airfield in the Philippines on Dec 23, 1944.

American Missions Against San Roque Airfield

Kyt · Aug 18, 2008

Seems that the 11th and 22nd Bombardment Squadrons were B-25

Log in or Sign up

14th AF, post Flying Tigers, veteran recalls time in China

Antipodean Andy New Member

Kyt Άρης

Antipodean Andy New Member

Antipodean Andy New Member

Kyt Άρης

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

14th AF, post Flying Tigers, veteran recalls time in China

Thread Tools

Antipodean Andy New Member

Kyt Άρης

Antipodean Andy New Member

Antipodean Andy New Member

Kyt Άρης

Share This Page

Useful Searches