ALASKA'S SENATOR TED STEVENS RECALLS FIRST FLIGHT TO PEKING

by Everett Long

I parked my C-46  right up there next to the Japanese Bettys .  The 46 dwarfed their Bettys.  We had taken a striped down weapons carrier on board for our ground transportation.  They couldn't believe it when we just opened the doors -- drove off the ramps -- and drove off with that weapons carrier.  They (the Japanese) had never seen a plane that size on the ground ........

Left Photo: We had to hastily make up our own (approach) using an old radio station they had in the city.  I remember the time I went to Peking again, sometime after the war.  They were using the let-down (procedures) I had made up that first day after the war.

 Lt. Ted Stevens, 20, was flying Douglas C-47's  and Curtiss C-46's for General Claire Chennault deep in the mainland of China.  Chennault, who began fighting the Japanese invaders to China with his famous Flying Tigers commanded the 14th Air Force.  Stevens, who is Alaska's senior senator, recalls those flights at the close of World War Two in 1944-45.

Stevens went through pilot training at Douglas, Arizona, and earned his Army Air Corps wings in May, 1944.  I went in when I was 19, and got my wings when I was 20, Stevens recalled.  Three of us in that class were immediately sent to China.  Chennault sent a 47 (C-47)

out to pick us up for the flight through Burma.  He needed some replacement pilots in for the 14th Air Force Transport Section.  The 14th was the successor to the old Flying Tiger Transport Section, who had been flying for Chennault before the US government turned Chennaults's group into the 14th Air Force.  The new group became the 322nd Troop Carrier Squadron.
 I flew 47's for about five months in 1944 -- then we went into 46's in about September, he said.  From the squadron's primary base at K'un-ming flights ranged from inland China, to Indochina (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam), and up into Mongolia.  We were flying Chinese troops and supplies around the country, as well as supplies to our small fighter bases throughout China. 

The C-46 was a great plane -- that was --after they got rid of the electronic feathering mechanism.   We lost about half of our planes in the first week we got them.

 There were several places like at Lo-ping where the airstrips were camouflaged and hard to locate.  One strip was called Postage Stamp because it was so small and narrow.  The airstrip was cut into a hillside with a few inches to spare for a C-46's wing tips.

The Japanese solders couldn't believe it when we just opened the cargo doors, drove off the ramps, and drove off with that weapons carrier.  They had never seen a plane that size on the ground.

We had to fly our own gas in wherever we went.  So we would stage gas into one place, then fly out of that area into another part of China.  All along the rail-belt in Southern China and Indochina, there were a series of small (American) bases coming down from Hangchow.  But Hangchow was in Japanese hands.  We lost those bases at about the time I got there.  The Japanese invasion forces had over-run the American and Chinese positions.

 We then set up a series of small bases between (Southern) China and areas where American forces still held out.  We flew from places such as K'un-ming, Chiki-yang, or Lo-ping which were across the other side Japanese lines.  We kept our own people in the OSS (Office of Strategic Service) supplied as well as the Chinese Nationalists.  Both the Americans and the Chinese were operating covertly along the China coast and fighting the Japanese from behind.  Stevens described a special exhaust which was installed on their planes.  We knew the Japanese could hear our airplanes, but a modified exhaust collector hid the exhaust flames from view at night. We did most our flying across the Japanese lines at night and would try to get to our destination at about daylight.  We would land and camouflage our planes during the day and then take off again at night.

 For a time I flew a Navy C-47 called the Little Admiral' out of Sian.  It was an OSS plane modified with extra long range fuel tanks and had been placed in the control of Chennault.  Sian (China) is near the location where life size sculptures of entire armies were found in later years.

But it wasn't all flying for Stevens.  As the war was ending I volunteered to take a convoy of new gas trucks up to Sian from K'un-ming, Stevens continued.  We were not quite to Sian when the war ended in 45.  We had been preparing for the invasion of Japan, which we were expecting.

Then the bomb' (Atomic bomb) was dropped and the war was over very suddenly.  I was selected to take a plane into Peking (Beijing) and try to pick up some of the Doolittle flyers. This was two or three days after the war was over.  I took the first plane into Peking (Stevens was the first American to land an American plane in the Japanese occupied capital of China), Stevens continued.  While others went on up to get the Doolittle flyers and brought them down to Peking.  They were the survivors of the Doolittle raid.  I remember meeting them.  They were
quite colorful guys even after being held prisoner.

I parked my C-46 right up next to the Japanese Bettys.  The C-46 dwarfed their Bettys.

On April 18, 1942, 16 B-25 bombers took off from the aircraft carrier Hornet and bombed Tokyo.  It was a one way trip to China where they hoped to escape capture.  Many were captured as they ran out of fuel over the Japanese held parts of China.

 We did a lot of flying literally by the seat of our pants.  Nothing was available to the Americans about the (flight) approach to Peking.  Stevens designed and flew his own approach to the airport at the Chinese capital. We had to hastily make up our own (approach) using an old radio station they (the Chinese) had in the city.  I remember the time when I went into Peking again, sometime after the war.  They were using the same let-down (approach procedures) I had made up that first day after the war.

I parked my C-46 right up there next to the Japanese Bettys.  The 46 dwarfed their Bettys.  We had taken a striped down weapons carrier on board for our ground transportation.  The Japanese solders couldn't believe it when we just opened the cargo doors, drove off the ramps, and drove off with that weapons carrier.  They had never seen a plane that size on the ground -- nor had they ever seen a truck come out of a plane.  Our (maintenance) crew chief thought that one up -- it was very effective.

When I opened up the door of my plane, there was a fellow (Japanese Officer) waiting for me who was wearing a letterman's sweater from California.  He was a graduate of Santa Clara College and the English speaking officer assigned for us.

Later I took Chaing Kai-shek's (Nationalist leader of China) son from Peking to Shanghai.  His father had appointed him to be the Chief of Police in Shanghai.

Once enemies, Japanese fighters parked along the airstrip at Peking.  Part of Lt. Stevens' C-46 wing is visible on the right

After the war Stevens completed his flight training for a commercial pilot rating, and signed up with Chennault to fly for the new Flying Tigers Line.  But I changed my mind, he said, and came back and went to college and studied law.

We (his wife Catherine) went back to China in the late 70's.   The airfield in Shanghai is the same airfield we landed at in World War Two.  Some of the old facilities are still there.  I also got back to the airstrip at Kwiline, and found that they were still using those old A-26's  we left for Chinese pilot's training program. 

After returning to Fairbanks, Alaska in 1953, Stevens practiced law and joined the Civil Air Patrol squadron as the squadron's legal officer. Following the death of Alaska's Senator E.L. Bob Bartlett in December of 1968, then-Governor Walter Hickel appointed Stevens to fill the vacancy. Stevens was subsequently elected for a full term in 1972, and is now the second highest ranking Republican Senator in Washington D.C.  Stevens is Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, and serves on several other committees.

Everett Long is a private pilot who had lived in Alaska for 28 years. Long is the author of Cobras Over The Tundra a photo and short story history of the Lend-Lease flights through Alaska in WWII.  Long and his book were featured on War Stories with Oliver North.  During Long's Alaska residency he wrote an aviation column and had the opportunity to interview many Alaskan pioneer pilots.  The interview with Senator Stevens was conducted in Washington D.C. in the senator's office.   He can be reached via email at: arktika@gbis.com