Overview

White puffs of tracers arose from the embankment. Chet fired the fifties. The bridge disappeared under the nose. Bombs away! Full throttle! Climb and turn left and away from the target! A hit! The next ship was attacking the bridge now. Chet Seifert could never have imagined he would be in this situation three years ago when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Since that time, he had been transformed from bank clerk to a bomber pilot about to complete fifty combat missions over China and Burma. Bravery is needed to make that attack, but logistics made it possible. In Chet's case, airfields popped up in what previously were empty fields. Planes by the thousands were designed and manufactured. Men were trained in new skills like piloting a plane. Large numbers of men and their equipment were deployed and supported thousands of miles from American shores. Chet's story reflects what it took to bring overwhelming force against the enemy. His story comes to us through over two hundred letters to his wife. Those letters provide a personal, inside view of what it was like to go through the Army's massive Aviation Cadet Program that trained the thousands of pilots, bombardiers, and navigators needed to fly the thousands of planes being produced in factories across America. Over forty percent of the men who started washed out. Through hard work and some twists of fate, Chet earned his pilot wings and commission. The book details the airfields where he flew, the planes, and training methods used and describes the phased training program for new B-25 pilots. Chet provided wonderful stories about ferrying a B-25 from Georgia to Africa on the South Atlantic Ferry Route before crossing Africa and the Arabian Sea to India, the entry point for the China-Burma-India Theater, the CBI, often called ""the forgotten theater."" Four times Chet crossed as a passenger the Himalayan Mountains or The Hump, the most dangerous air route of the war. Chet's time in China was part fascination, part loneliness, and part sheer exhilaration. Monsoon rains and lack of supplies coming in from India kept planes on the ground and made flying ""fifty"" seem almost impossible. Chet flew against targets now long forgotten as is the overlooked heroics of many Allied aviators and soldiers under extremely harsh conditions. Chet survived harrowing missions flying close to the ground to strafe and bomb targets. Through some twists of fate, he survived the war and lived to old age. Many of his comrades didn't. Some died in training accidents. He saw a good friend meet death on Chet's first mission. His best friends in China were killed when their flight home from China crashed into a mountain. These were stories he never told when alive. This book is an attempt to give them life.

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Colonel (USAF, Ret) Charles Seifert is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy with 25 years commissioned service. He was a C-130 pilot and flew 100 combat missions in the AC-130E during the Southeast Asia War when he also served as the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing and 16th Special Operations Squadron historian recording the exploits of the most technologically advanced units in the Air Force. He served on the Air Staff, the Joint Staff as a strategic planner, and in the Immediate Office of Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Colonel Seifert also led Air Force R&D programs to include test and development of the C-17A. After retirement, he was a support contractor for advanced technology projects for the Defense Department and Intelligence agencies.

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