Tex Red and the Colonel

The following is a scene the genesis of which is a manuscript written by Courtney Coffing who, in 2004, was writing a memoir of Malcome Rosholt. Rosholt was a journalist who worked extensively in China prior to World War 2. For two years between roughly 1943 and 1945 he was a Liaison Officer for General Claire Chennault, commander of the US 14th Air Force (The Flying Tigers). Coffing provided a portion of the manuscript to my cousin, Woods King III, but to my knowledge the memoir was never published. Coffing passed away in 2015.

Rosholt also worked with the Chinese Combat Command (CCC). The CCC was activated in November 1944, shortly after the China-Burma-India Theater was divided. The CCC, an initiative of the U.S. Army, exercised no tactical or operational control over the Chinese commands but were instrumental in assisting and advising on tactics and provided ground support, if not troops. The United States Air Force, including the Flying Tigers, provided support, including bombing, from above and U.S. Army provided support and advice on the ground. Colonel Woods King, later to become one of the few National Guard colonels to rise to the rank of general, was part of the army’s ground support effort and part of the CCC.

Photo credit: US Army and Romanus & Sunderland

Independent of the Chinese Army, the U.S. Army conducted its own reconnaissance. The following is a dramatized account of one such reconnaissance mission described in Coffing’s manuscript.

Southeast China near the Chihkiang Front.

1945

From above, Sergeant David Bagdley, “Tex Red,” can see that the airstrip is a mess, pock marked by the Japanese who’d shelled it with mortars. An hour ago the field was in good shape. But now the enemy is at the doorstep. Tex prays the colonel is still hunkered down in the hut that serves as the only shelter at this airstrip in the jungle.

How quickly things change near the front. One minute Colonel King and the two privates with him are doing recon from the ground, only to find that in the last few days the enemy has advanced. Racing back to base their jeep succumbs to the unforgiving mud of the jungle roads and they are stuck in a place they don’t want to be. Luckily they’d somehow made it to the airstrip and radioed for help. The problem was there were three of them on the ground and the only available plane is the L-5, a single-engine tail dragger, with enough seating for the pilot and one other.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

When Tex landed the first time he was surprised it was one of the privates who emerged from the hut climbed in behind him. Usually it is the big shots who get in first. When he landed the second time it was another private. “Where’s the colonel?” Tex asked. “We told him to go first” the private said “He wouldn’t hear of it. Ordered us to go ahead of him.”

Now, coming in for this third trip, Tex flies downwind, parallel to the strip. He scans the approach looking over his left shoulder. The nice thing about the L-5, he thinks, with the wing above the cockpit there’s a great view of the ground below, that’s why it is such a great recon plane. When the field is at about eight o’clock he turns 90 degrees left, and then left again lining himself up to land. No gradual glide slope today, Tex is still well above the end of the strip when he yanks the flap handle all the way up pushing the barn-door flaps down like giant air brakes and slaps the stick forward and against his left leg while shoving the right rudder pedal as far forward as he can. The result is that he is now looking at the tiny landing strip through the window to his left instead of over the nose, and he is coming down out of the sky like a sack full of hammers. This is how the Army trained him, he thinks, let’s just hope this works. “Comin’ in hot.” Tex focuses on the end of the field. Keeping the nose down with the engine a low idle mumble, he can almost see the individual rotations of the propeller and the fast-approaching ground.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees movement. This rodeo is over, he thinks. A group of Japanese soldiers emerges from the margins of the field. They look up at the plane and across the field toward the hut. He can see men taking a knee, shouldering their rifles. Then another group emerges. They too eye the approaching craft. Tex is out of range for the moment but will be well within range when he lands – if he lands.

Just feet from the ground Tex straightens the plane aligning it with the strip and feels the landing gear meet the dirt. He rolls down the runway toward the enemy fire. He ducks instinctively knowing a bullet does not have to hit the pilot to do the job. Hit the engine, a gas tank, any number of things and the plane won’t fly. Hitting the pilot would be a bonus. Tex jams his right foot to the floor, turning the rudder and swinging the tail around. Coaxing the throttle forward, the propeller’s wash kicking up dust, he races toward the hut as fast as he can without overshooting the colonel he came to collect, or worse, becoming airborne again. Ahead, the colonel emerges from the hut as more gunfire erupts from the other side of the strip. The colonel races toward the plane running at a crouch. Tex reaches back with his right hand unlatching the rear door that swings open and slaps the side of the plane. At the hut, Tex swings the plane around again as the colonel reaches the plane and jumps in. Tex doesn’t wait for the colonel to buckle up or latch the door before pushing the throttle hard to the dashboard. There is dust everywhere as the little plane races down the airstrip. The colonel yells something but Tex can’t hear him over the roar of the engine, the crunch of gravel beneath the tires and the rattle of the little plane. To his left Tex sees more enemy fire, blue puffs of smoke from their rifles. A mortar explodes in front of him. He hears the dull thud as a few shot hit the plane but mercifully miss him, the colonel, and any critical parts of the craft.

The airstrip is pock-marked from mortar fire and as the plane picks up speed Tex has to move right, then left to avoid small craters that could put a quick end to any hopes of takeoff. Later it would be described as a halfback racing through a broken field dodging would be tacklers on his way to the end zone. He hears the colonel slam against the sides of the plane as he struggles with his safety harness. “Sorry colonel” Tex shouts above the roar. The colonel shouts something in reply but the words are lost in the engine noise. Tex swerves left, then right again, each turn more violent as the plane picks up speed. He pulls back on the yoke and the plane lifts away from the ground but Tex doesn’t climb just yet. To climb would bleed off speed and make the plane an easy target. He flies just feet off the ground, gaining speed, faster, faster, until the end of the runway and with the jungle approaching he pulls back hard on the yoke, climbing steeply and just clearing the treetops.

Once out of range of the gunfire Tex looks over his shoulder. “You alright colonel?”

“I’m doing great, Thank you. And I have to say, that was some fine flying.”