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Anyone ever heard of this?
April 1942 Kienow, China Air Task Force Base.
A hour before darkness fell over eastern China, the silence was broken by a frantic cry from the Chinese officer on duty in the operations cave that a lone aircraft was approaching. Was it an enemy Japanese plane? The Japanese never sent out single aircraft but perhaps they might be trying a new tactic to catch the eight Warhawk P-40 fighter planes formerly known as the famed Flying Tigers on the ground.
Not taking chances, Flight Leader John Hampshire ordered 2 P-40s up into the air. The unknown aircraft was only 30 miles to the east and fast approaching.
10 miles from the Kienow airfield, the two pilots spotted the mystery plane flying low 200ft above the ground. It was a American made P-40 with American insignia! Where did it come from? The pilots noticed that it was very badly shot-up, the fuselage looking more like a sieve, and through the shattered windshield was the bloody face of the pilot, but the plane held steady, flying straight and true.
However, minutes later, the aircraft suddenly plunged downwards, hitting the ground with an explosion.
Who and what was that P-40 doing so far from the nearest US airbase? Where did it come from?
Apparently, so they learnt much later on that the pilot was one "Corn" Sherill based on the Philippine Island of Mindanao. After the fall of most of the Phillipines to the Japanese in the Spring of 1942, Corn Sheril and 11 mechanics decided to field one last mission against the invaders. Cannibalising parts from a few decrepit airplanes, they put together a single flight-worthy P-40 and fitted it with a few bombs and a large auxiliary fuel tank. The mission? An improbable bombing run at the heart of the Japanese empire, a naval base on the island of Formosa (Taiwan, then a Japanese Colony).
Corn Sherill flew the patched-up aircraft north to Formosa and 5 hours later, so unexpected was his attack that he was able to drop his bombs virtually unopposed, strafing and destroying a large number of grounded Japanese aircraft lined up in neat rows and bearing the rising sun insignia.
Leaving a wake of destruction, Corn Sherill turned westward, towards China and his one chance of survival, the Chinese nationalist airbase of Kienow. However, his plane was now riddled by shrapnel from anti-aircraft fire and low on fuel. Japanese Zeros, scrambled to intercept, poured yet more punishment into the P-40. Flying a desperate weave, a badly wounded Corn Sheril performed the best flying of his life, flying by the seat of his pants and finally escaped his pursuers in the clouds.
Low one fuel and forced to nurse a badly damaged plane without working instruments, he flew by dead reckoning alone. Somewhere between Formosa and Kienow, Corn Sheril died, but somehow his aircraft held true, perhaps from a braced stick against his knees. The plane continued on its course, flown by a dead man, directly towards the safety of the Allied airbase. That was where the two pilots from Kienow found the lone fighter, after a long and amazing flight through the heart of the Japanese empire.
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