THEY TOLD US that CBI would be hot.
They briefed us and prepared us and told us what to wear.
I believed them. So here I was flying over the Hump to China in bright red-to-knee socks, two turtleneck sweaters, a borrowed flight jacket, a pair of khaki shorts, and an oxygen mask. It was freezing and this was the extent of my warm clothing. We all sat huddled on the floor, there were no seats on the plane, and four of the group, using parachutes as seats, played cards. I could feel myself off in my litte corner getting dozier and dozier. This, I was sure was the first sign of freezing to death, but it was such a wonderfully gentle sensation, I didn't have the strength to resist. We were flying 19,000 feet in the air somewhere between Chabua, India, and Kunming, China. We had already given a few shows in India and were now flying on to China "over the Hump" of the Himalyas, the graveyard of thousands of plane. You either flew at a freezing altitude in bad weather, as we were doing, or if the weather was good, flew just above the treetops. It wasn't very much of a choice either way. Somebody was shaking me so vigorously my teeth shook.
I had forgotten to turn on my oxygen mask.
I wasn't tired or freezing. I had merely stopped breathing air!
Everybody thought it was very funny, or at least they laughed to release the tension.
But it really wasn't funny. It was a terribly rough trip.
Three hours of it.
"Oh, we're going to ..." I didn't finish as we dove into an air pocket and a large mountain came looming up at us. Suddenly, out of nowhere, in the middle of mountain peaks, in the middle of nothing at all, there sat a tiny toylike shrine right on the top of one of the peaks. This, the pilot informed us, was a Japanese prison camp! It was a perfect day and I wondered how pretty it looked to American boys down below.
This air route was used for everything. Everything from plane engines to beer cans had to come through here. I was astonished to think of the courage the boys had to have to make this flight day after day, but I supposed even that could become routine.
Suddenly, out from under a mountain, the Kunming field appeared. Our plane circled down in a tight spin, tighter and tighter, as I got sicker and sicker--and hotter and hotter. As we descended the temperature rose, rose up and over my turtlenech sweater, until I was sure I was close to death by suffocation. We could hear the pilot of another plane calling on the inter-com and the intercom answering back:
"Four stars coming in, four stars, coming in. . ."
"I've got six stars in my ship," our pilot said.
"And I've got General Stillwell on my level."
The plane finally embraced the ground and out came a little jeep to meet Stillwell and his plane. Nobody expected us.
CBI had had notoriously bad luck with scheduled shows that didn't arrive, and, although we weren't aware of this, the Army newspapers and magazines were full of bitte GI comments abut the attitude of show people in CBI. We hadn't expected a picnic, but we were also unprepared for the hostility of a lot of the brass toward camp shows. CBI Roundup had run a headline that day, coincidental with our arrival: "No thanks, Hollywood. We don't want any more!" Major John Nixon, who ahd been assigned to us, knw and explained that we should not be too surprised at anything. We were so lucky to have him with us. He even dreamed up the idea of the Ping-pong matches we played with the men in every camp, a very successfully received stunt.
The Kunming GI's had seen so few American girls since the'd been stationed there,it wouldn't have made any difference if we three girls had six heads between us.... Read Remainder of the Story