First Issue (Gilt) Flight Surgeon Wing From CBI – Operation Thursday’s Medical Warriors – Theological Comments On America Today Relative to Then

Prologue

These are Extremely Rare First Design (Feb ’43 – Sept ’44) Gilt, Theater Made Flight Surgeon Wings, cast in Brass and Silver Plated and 2 3/4 ” in length.  I was Blessed to recently acquire these, which took a great deal of effort to find relative to the average WWII badges of the general die-stamped American-made wings, yet I believe I received much more for my efforts than perceived by the untrained eye.  The wings themselves are absolutely unique and I have yet to locate another First Issue (Gilt) Brass with silver plate Flight Surgeon wing of this Indian make. The Theater Made Wings of the CBI Theater of War are some of the most elegant, in a primitive beauty all there own, revealing the methods used at the earlier stages of Allied Military buildup and the first critical and turning point battles. These CBI wings also include some of the most technically elaborate in those ones chased in the most complex and detailed metalwork artistry I have ever seen, which were forged a little later on in the war, as skills of the natives developed in wing making and victories had eased the tensions a bit. What must be understood is that there is a certain character, an esprit, to the CBI wings of theater-make because of how they speak to the limited resources which these men, of several free nations, used to the utmost effect through the ingenious enterprise and unyielding dedication to a cause amounting to the protection of life and freedom, from the spectre of death and tyranny. The CBI theater was actually a “distraction” to keep the Japs’ several SE Asian divisions occupied  so that the island hopping campaign in the Pacific would go unhindered. BUT this “distraction” with limited resources, rose to DEAFEAT and extricate the Japs from SE Asia, inventing tactics and strategies, new units in Special Ops, firsts, such as the 1st Air Commando Group executing the first Aerial Invasion with Operation Thursday and MUCH MORE ! The theater made wings carry this story and legacy in them as tiny monuments to the time.

The casting on this Gilt Flight Surgeon Wing is breathtaking. The fact that brass was used is magnificent, to adhere to the requirements of the early Flight Surgeon Wing design of a Gilt/Gold color. The absolutely amazing additional characteristic of these wings is the myriad tiny indentions the metallurgical artisan made as the wing cooled, around the Caduceus. The indentions are in straight concatenated lines and at a diagonal aspect to the Caduceus to the sinister and dexter sides and very slightly on top. These lines of indentions held at the correct angle, create strings of dazzling sparkles off the Silver Plate !! It looks as though the Caduceus is framed in lights. Amazing artistry. The aged character of the wing makes me think of Ancient Roman Castings.

These Gilt FS wings were cast by a native metallurgist craftsman who used the skills he had, passed down through the centuries, to create this wing for the Flight Surgeon who commissioned him. The FS, in an occupation of Grace and Mercy amongst a field of slaughter, wears the insignia as a mark of the task God has given him as a symbol of grace amongst Warriors, who works to heal and sustain life instead of taking it, the caduceus being an emblem ALL nations recognize.  As children, we know not the path of vocation or profession we are predestined to walk upon, but each of us will have a purpose and an opportunity to touch the world according to the fruits of our heart.  From the least in the eyes of the world, the janitor, a sanitation worker etc, to the pinnacles of wealth, power and wickedness, the President of the United States, a CEO etc….. These all have their place and purpose in the unfolding Perfect Plan of Our Sovereign God…… that place and purpose was long ago decreed and ever since, has flowed forth unto the manifestation of that decree in the lives and times of mankind…..THIS is History, the revelation of mankind’s unfolding existence relative to the Principles of God’s Justice.  Righteousness or God’s Moral Law, summarized in the 10 Commandments, is the all important Standard by which Good and Evil are determined and when man’s thoughts, words and actions are measured on the Scales of God’s Justice against that Righteousness Standard (which Christ is the Personification of), man will fall short [Romans 3:23 (NASB) ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God] of the nature of God and thus we cannot be in intimacy with Him for Light obliterates darkness. We are all given a time of Mercy where God does not yet punish the wicked for their deviation from Righteousness and one of two outcomes eventually ensues;

1) GRACE – man is granted a portion of the Spirit of Christ and thus a heart to, by reborn Nature, change direction unto Righteousness and Adoption into the Eternal Family as a Son of God or

2) Judgment – Mercy comes to an end and God’s Wrath falls upon that man or society. Both Hitler and the Japanese were given a time of mercy where it seemed their scheme was working….then the mercy ended as God did not change their hearts, so that His Justice would be revealed and Glorified.

Conclusion – This world, this Life, is NOT about Man, it is not about us. This world, this reality, is about the One True God of the Bible and His Glorification of His Being, that all may know from whence their succor comes and the One to whom we ALL must live our lives. God is ALL that matters as God is the Author of ALL you see. We were created in a world manifested to bring to fruition God’s Children made in His Image, unto His Glory, not for the chaotic purposeless chance which this nation wants you to believe. Here is a brief synopsis…

— God IS SPIRIT in His True essence….

John 4:24 (NASB) ²⁴ “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

— Man was created in His Image* (SPIRITUALLY i.e. Adam had a Living Spirit), which means we were given a Living Spirit within our being. This gave us the Moral Character of God, to have Dominion of Creation in God’s Name, unto His Glory and thus our best good.

*Genesis 1:26 (NASB) ²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:28 (NASB) ²⁸ God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

— Man was told by Satan that he could define (Hebrew word YADA for “know”**, much deeper word than English) Good and Evil according to his own will, appetites and desires.

**Genesis 3:4-5 (NASB) ⁴ The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! ⁵ “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Satan was telling Eve that she and Adam would be able to define Good and Evil based on THEIR appetites and desires, because they would be like God)

[[We lost communion with God at this point where Adam and Eve ate the fruit in Rebellion and reality ever since has been God reconstituting a Family made in His Image out of a portion of man He is taking through the process of being apart from Him, to know that hellish state, and then to grant them Spiritual life while still in the Flesh, so that they learn above all other creatures, the value of Relationship with God as His very Child. We learn, by seeing through Spiritual eyes, the emptiness of sin and the eternal foundations of Righteousness in Love. The rest, the reprobates consigned to have their nature stay the way that they want it, are used to Glorify God’s Justice to show His True Children the power of His protective nature and the veracity of His Righteousness in shielding them from those who choose wickedness. God’s Character, after we lost Spiritual Life, was given back in revelation to man (Israel received it first) in the Mt. Sinai dissemination of the Moral Law of God, summarized in the 10 Commandments.]]

— Sure, Eve ate of the fruit BUT Adam was right there with Eve and the entire event was his responsibility as Eve was his wife! In modern American fashion Adam blamed Eve and the Devil….renouncing and casting away any sense of the Responsibility which is what defines a Good and Godly Man and the Men of WWII.  Jesus Christ is called the 2nd Adam because He lived a sinless life as was required of the 1st Adam who failed. This is how we are saved, for Christ, the man, grants the Elect a portion of His Living Spirit which died in us when we sinned and thus we are able to relate to God again because we again have a Living Spirit, from Christ, by His Grace alone, as a Gift and we again are in God’s Image (Spirit) as it was intended for us! Adam lost that Image (Spirit Died) in us but Christ gives it anew in Salvation.

President Carter renounced his allegiance with the southern Baptist Church recently, and one of the reasons was because they said women should not be elders, deacons and ministers. Now Carter is in the modern man mindset. He thinks encouraging women and letting them Spiritually Lead is “right”. No, the reason women are not to enter these Roles is because it is MAN’S RESPONSIBILITY under God to be the Spiritual Leader and to visit the attitude of Righteousness in his new heart upon those great enterprises he is responsible for, from Family to Church to Government. Carter is effectively saying to women, “I do not want to take responsibility for Spiritual Leadership and I want to be looked at as a hero by deceived women who have been convinced to act like men…. so sure, YOU do it!” He makes the Standard, not God who commissions man to this responsibility, but Man who casts aside the responsibility and deceived women who have been told the principle traits and aspirations of woman are the characteristics and responsibilities of man! The Baptists had it wrong too because they said one of the reasons women cannot be pastors, elders and deacons is because she was the first to eat the fruit and sin….NO….first, as I said above, man is responsible in all things for His Family, especially his wife; thus the Responsibility is MAN’s to Spiritually Lead as Christ Spiritually Leads and cleanses with His Living Water Word, His own Bride the Church.

The reason the suicide rate of soldiers in the military overseas now has surpassed the deaths of soldiers in action is that the Standard by which a man goes into battle, is a hopeless and fruitless Standard….man’s will to “help” a people become what they are NOT! Either protect the United States from harm and destroy its enemies or come home, never think that man can change the heart of another man…that is God’s prerogative alone. These men have to face and deal out death. If there is no other foundation, for a man to enterprise in war, than to do the impossible, then there is no foundation at all. An eternal, decisive and Right foundation is what our hearts desire. A man wants to know he is doing something that has value in the foundations of the very best of man’s Character. This nation does not venture forth these days for anything that hints at the very best foundations of man’s Character as World War II….What do we see currently as the heights of “honorable” endeavors in the US??

Answer:  Perverted men and women who want to have sex with their own gender, to infect our children with this rebellious and deadly attitude and to corrupt  the definition of marriage with this filth. This nation endeavors frantically in the media and courts to destroy an Institution created by God to reflect the Christ’s loving, nurturing and saving relationship with His Bride the Church and replace it with Sodomy. In the humanistic delusion of the megalomaniacal and hellish leaders this nation chooses, America purports to have some authority to change that which is instituted by the One who grants even their ability to engage in the refractory perversity they exude, all in hatred of the God and the Moral Law of God which is the injunction bringing their damnation.

The Men we see rise up in World War II were the last generation to give evidence of an America with a Righteous Foundation to its aspirations and enterprise. These men were chastened in the Great Depression, back to a love of Family and the God who created Family to reflect His purpose and to give Righteous and Deeply Loving Roles to mankind in which they could reveal Faith and Trust in God who knows how to give every Good Gift for those who quiet their Flesh and Trust in His Promises (Isaiah 30:15). Those like Hitler and Japan reject Faith and try frantically and desperately to control their environment to assuage the Fear which always rises when there is no relationship with the One who has Dominion over ALL and Who provides restful “sleep to those He Loves”.

The wings we collect represent one of the Billions of souls unified in the telling of the Great Epic of History, a salient moment, with one end to all in the myriad lives lived to forge the Great Message….The Glory of God in the Building of His Family by Grace and Justice in Righteousness……

We ALL have our part…But there is One Sovereign who has decreed all things to the GOOD of those, His Chosen, His Predestined, His Elect; even the most egregious catastrophe rises to their Wisdom and Blessed Assuredness of His Faithfulness to them, but for the Reprobate, even the greatest victories rise to their detriment and destruction just as the immense wave of victory after Dec 7, 1941 for the Japanese, turned to the seed of their defeat. Victory Sickness compounded by a “Samurai” arrogance so replete as to see other nations as far inferior, prevented them from maintaining the initiative in 1943 and subduing India and China from the South out of Burma and Thailand against a then far inferior and unprepared force of Brits and Americans et al.  EVERY nation throughout History which has raised itself up on Pride, Power or the seeking of Pleasures as its foundation apart from the Living God, HAS BEEN EXTIRPATED, from Babylon to Rome to the Holy Roman Empire to Hitlerian Germany to Imperial Japan. Each of these nation’s leaders wanted Authority and Dominion over mankind and the heavens and the earth according to the Standard of MAN’s deluded propositions, ideas, new religions etc etc.

There is ONE Standard by which all mankind may function and attain Life, Love, Truth, Hope and Love, Resplendent Society and Justice….that is the Moral Law of God – summarized in the 10 Commandments and further by Christ ….

Matthew 22:34-40 (NASB) ³⁴ But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. ³⁵ One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ ³⁸ “This is the great and foremost commandment. ³⁹ “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ ⁴⁰ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

The Moral Law is also called Righteousness or the Character of God which in the Bible is revealed in a way Man can comprehend but CANNOT attain in thought, word or action as he is born in sin (spiritually dead); But only Christ can forgive sin and He lived a perfectly Righteous life as a man so as to pass that Righteousness He attained before the Father to His Elect, unto Spiritual Life born within them and thus the capacity to live forth Righteousness. This begins at Christ’s granting of a portion of His Spirit to the Chosen Elect and grows throughout the life of the Regenerated/Born Again. The Germans constructed their own vision and blasphemed God by saying that the Arian Race was the Standard of the Elect Race of Man to save the world…..the Japanese flocked around the idea of the Samurai “Spirit” persevering in all things unto total victory….they were lied to and without Biblical Light they believed their leaders’ own deceived minds and hearts of megalomania, calling the Emeror a “god” who lived through the people.

Isaiah 14:12-16 (NASB) ¹² “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! ¹³ “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. ¹⁴ ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ ¹⁵ “Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, To the recesses of the pit. ¹⁶ “Those who see you will gaze at you, They will ponder over you, saying, ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, Who shook kingdoms,

Proverbs 21:1 (NASB) ¹ The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.

The Americans and Brits of that time, along with those nations we had shared the Truth of Christ with by order of  Christ’s Great Commission, rose to the call of battle to put down the arrogant Pride and Lust for Blood and Power which drives fallen man to control the world by the Standard of his own delusions and perversions of God’s Moral Law which will always be upheld in time (as we saw in WWII) and is a perfect and unchanging Foundation on which to build. The reason we endeavored to undue the machinations of those driven to a death lust by their appetites, instead of joining the lust for domination, and lashing out in our hemisphere for hegemony and tyrannical dominion, is because we still had a foundation in the Word of God and Truth, though it was much deteriorated by then and lost today as a national entity. We had Faith in God’s Sovereign Hand in having bestowed to us the national boundaries extant and not in man’s Tyranny born of lust and pride to gain more and more power by means of aggressive murder and theft as the Nazi’s and Japanese and the South Americans visit upon us without a shot fired today; this because we have in place so called men who have no sense of the evil endemic within them and the necessity of Christ to subdue it; they believe the South Americans coming to take the resources of this nation and ship it south as having ultimately “good” intentions; not based on the Standard of the Word of God and the Moral Law (Thou Shalt not Steal), but on the fleeting and lying standard of there own fallen suppositions of their dead souls.  The so called “stewards” of this nation have given it away and destroy it further daily with God-less counterfeit law making diametrically opposed to the sure foundation of the Moral Law of God (Pentateuch summarized in the 10 Commandments) and thus bringing the dismantling and death of America piece by piece and homosexual marriage by homosexual marriage…….

[Remember; the Holy Institution of Family as God designed it is the venue where God conveys FIRST, the Blessings of Righteousness, Love, Truth and Faith leading to a Life of Hope and Joy as the Godly Home has people Living the Roles of loving unity and mutual support He designed for the institution of “Family” to filter into the Society at large through the interconnected Families of the Church; the Roles of Man and Woman first as Husband and Wife and then Father and Mother produce the most resilient and purest results in lasting dependence, not on the Standard of Fallen Man’s appetites and lusts set as aspirations and protected by the counterfeit laws of America today, but on the Standard of the One True God who Fixed Reality according to Moral Laws representative of His Character as He Governs Absolutely the Reality in which we dwell. A society which relies and acts according to solid Moral Foundations of the Bible, revealed and nurtured in the Family Structure which God Created and Decrees, transcends time, as it is grounded on the Rock of Truth/Law/God’s Character which does NOT MOVE or CHANGE. These Truths are seen through the sense which rises in those given Spiritual Life in Christ, FAITH.  America used to know this and THIS is the America the WWII vets were still trying to fight for, as many knew the only nation which prevails in time, adopts that Rule of Governance Which is Timeless ….James 1:17 (NASB) ¹⁷ Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.]

….. and dead baby by dead baby and ignorant child by ignorant child (God-less Schools with the Bible burned in the flames of counterfeit laws adulterating the Constitution regarding the Government NOT being allowed to SET UP A STATE RUN CHURCH. There is NO SUCH THING OR WORDS AS SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IN OUR CONSTITUTION) ….”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ….” First Amendment…. Do YOU see ANYTHING about how the Biblical Truth and Eternally Fixed Laws our nation was founded on being excluded from giving foundation to Law, Scholastics, Family, Marriage, Life in America? NO.

Prior to and entering WWII we had a still fleeting sense of Justice FOUNDED IN LAWS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS instead of the appetites of fallen MEN, as the Germans and the Japanese. We thus fought to push back those men who trusted their own will to power instead of trusting God’s Grace and Sovereign and Just Rule in the proper distribution of the world’s territories to the respective nations as they were.  The “Great” conquerers of the past were all put down and their kingdoms disassembled by time and Justice, as they ruled under decrees supporting and propagating man’s appetites in the flesh and counterfeit laws (which are LICENSE to sin i.e. — kill Jews, protect homosexuals, kill babies, create a god government– they are NOT Law preventing it). There is a Kingdom rising, as we speak, by God’s decree and the God-less fools of this nation’s “leadership” will be set aside in a simple whim of the One who now sits at the Right Hand of the Father, ruling. His Father  decreed the duration of His Reign, “until Your enemies are made your Footstool”(Psalm 110). This Kingdom does NOT change borders, it changes unto Righteousness, the very HEARTS and Souls within those borders replete with wickedness as ours. New men — Born of Christ’s Very Spirit — give rise to a New Kingdom Come….This is your New War Righteous Soldiers. This war is fought of the Spirit, not the weaponry of Flesh. This war is for the very existence of America which is dying as we speak and coming under the tyranny of a man who KNOWS he can enslave the ignorant to feed his lust for power by giving them money and benefits so they STAY ignorant and step not out into the industry of Righteousness. He knows he can enslave the relatives of the illegal political and economic militants who have an army besieging this nation from within; those relatives who have counterfeit “citizenship” in this country through children illegally born on the soild God GAVE AMERICANS TO PRACTICE GOOD STEWARDSHIP OVER but who have used those very illegal lynchpin babies illegals have to build a base of slaves to the very treasonous leaders who give them that false citizenship based on a child born as a weapon to attack and steal this nation’s resources. You do not think the men in power now knew they were doing just this over the past several years? Creating slaves to feed their lust for power as long as the illegals and the ignorant slothful feed their lust for power? It matters not America….another King is on the Throne and like I said, a Battle of Spirit ensues and we have an eternal and omnipotent King manifesting the changes at His pace…so when you see the darkness at its most poignant saturation Light with do what Light does to darkness…He will Extirpate it unto another and Greater Dawn than the First Great Reformation…….Read of the future…

Isaiah 32:1-8 (NASB) ¹ Behold, a king will reign righteously And princes will rule justly. ² Each will be like a refuge from the wind And a shelter from the storm, Like streams of water in a dry country, Like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land. ³ Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded, And the ears of those who hear will listen. ⁴ The mind of the hasty will discern the truth, And the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak clearly. ⁵ No longer will the fool be called noble, Or the rogue be spoken of as generous. ⁶ For a fool speaks nonsense, And his heart inclines toward wickedness: To practice ungodliness and to speak error against the LORD, To keep the hungry person unsatisfied And to withhold drink from the thirsty. ⁷ As for a rogue, his weapons are evil; He devises wicked schemes To destroy the afflicted with slander, Even though the needy one speaks what is right. ⁸ But the noble man devises noble plans; And by noble plans he stands.

CBI Flight Surgeon Wing – Linked to the time Nov ’43 – Sept ’44 – Operation Thursday Likely 

The Cadeuseus is in relief on the escutcheon and the design is basic yet elegant in its rudimentary elegance. A Beautiful Centerpiece announcing the Flight Surgeon’s Role and Mission.

What I appreciate about China Burma India Theater Wings, is that you’ve got a situation where men were shipped into a destination completely foreign to the basic foundations of their own society and completely alien was the natural environment of Tropical Jungle Terrain which these combatants entered, relative to what they experienced on the other side of the globe. These airmen, in ’43 and ’44 with Project 9 which became the 5318th Provisional Air Unit which became the 1st Air Commando Group, were told to go to war with limited training, but they had the best of the best in leadership under Col Philip Cochran and Col John Allison, both seasoned Airmen with Allison a vet of the famed AVG and later the 23rd Fighter Group.  These men were given great tasks and given great hearts and minds to match that destiny, in this case leading hundreds of men in 30 days time to the other side of the world with a mission; a mission forged of many firsts in many areas of military planning and execution….

Genesis 12:1 (NASB) ¹ Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you;

This pic gives a view in a limited way, of the indention light effect. The casting itself is a work of art in that the tiny indentions and tiny casting cavities create a 1000 tiny shadow- effect across the face and rear of the badge unmatched by anything I have ever seen.

This Dual Shot REALLY captured the “Faceted Glistening Effect” of the linear indentions around the Caduceus…The central round escutcheon and the wing profile in general, is larger and more imposing than the more streamlined and sleek Glider Wing. While the Flight Surgeon cannot be exactly tagged to the actual six Operation Thursday Flight Surgeons, the timing of the Gilt Wings dictates that their manufacture fell between Feb ’43 regulation instituting Gilt Flight Surgeon Wings 3.125 ” wide and the Sept of ’44 regulation which changed the insignia of the FS and Flight Nurse wings to silver in color and usually STERLING/Silver alloy in make, in accord with all other USAAF Wings… which places them within the timing of Operation Thursday; including buildup and after ops, the operation lasted from Nov ’43 to May ’44.  The EXTREMELY Rare Glider Wings are most definately from Operation Thursday as they are Indian Manufacture and this is the only Glider Operation out out India into Burma behind Jap lines.

The medical units attached to Operation Thursday were not by any means conventional. The 1st Air Commando Group had a Supervisory Flight Surgeon attached to the group specifically, named Major Robert C Page.  In all, there were six Flight Surgeons who directly participated in Operation Thursday in February, March and April of 1944 with D-Day being March 5, 1944.

Initial Flight Surgeons of the 1^st Air Commando Group –  Tulloch, Murphy, Enloe Jr, Page (commanding) and Taylor.

Later Flight Surgeon – Captain Rierson

The Flight Surgeons who endeavored into the China Burma India theater of war were a unique group. The men who served the special operations groups in tandem with the more conventional forces under General Stilwell and General Slim, had to overcome situational contingencies which rose from the tropical and jungle conditions they were in, the low priority the China Burma India theater had regarding supplies and the logistics of providing surgical and standard medical care to these units who fought behind enemy lines. They heard from men like Lord Louis Mountbatten when they arrived who said they were “the first ray of light” to touch this theater of war in a long time. There were those who resented the priority this mission had but they had no denigrating effect on morale.  This encouraged them that they were doing the right thing in bringing a solid battle plan and an attitude of courage and confidence in this great task set in motion by the leaders of the free world, Roosevelt and Churchill…..

1 Peter 2:15 (NASB) ¹⁵ For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.

I just appreciate the way the artisan scored the rear face and the pin assembly is ingenious yet this wing is very early, so the artisan, after completing this Flight Surgeon Wing, proceeded to attach the pin assembly UPSIDE DOWN which gives a mirror image of the typical pin assembly, including the pin “hook” with the opening UP and makes this wing the more rare for its unique character! The pin itself is silver-plated brass and carved at the end into a beautiful tip with an Ancient metalwork character.

 

Lalaghat and Hailakandi were the two bases where the 1st Air Commando Group set up shop.  Hailakandi was the first airstrip in the CBI to create what essentially became a hybrid of a dispensary and a field hospital and they were called Air Stations.  The medical echelon had intermittent training in tandem with the commandos such as when Flight Surgeons, Major Page and Captain Taylor endeavored to experience what would become a later necessity in Medical Evacuation.  Called “snatches”, the CO of the entire operation Colonel Philip Cochran and General Orde Wingate, the mastermind behind the original commandos in the CBI theater called the Chindits, boarded the CG – 4A glider with a snatch catch attached to the top as a C-47 Dakota flew over and “SNATCHED” it right up!   Zero to 150 miles an hour in seconds.

Airpower took a gargantuan role in the effective medical evacuation and treatment on-site behind enemy lines.  On D-Day, March 5, 1944, Flight Surgeons climbed into the CG – 4 A gliders with the 1st Air Commando Group and the Chindits of British, Indian and Gurkha origins.  LZ Broadway was the main strip chosen behind enemy lines as the alternate strip Piccadilly had been compromised with several teak logs strewn up and down the landing zone.  The logs were spotted the afternoon of the March 5 and this caused much consternation as to whether it was because of the Jap’s discovering the landing zone or something else altogether inert.  There was a hasty meeting called together and Piccadilly was abandoned but Broadway became the landing zone for all gliders instead of dividing the 64 gliders going into action between the two fields.  In the initial takeoffs of the C-47s towing to gliders at a time, the training had not accurately taken into account the overload which the Chindits would take on the actual D-Day in the equipment et al. Several gliders broke free from their tow ropes because of the extra weight being towed, including a glider with Captain Murphy, Flight Surgeon with his enlisted medical crew and the pilot.  Flight Surgeon Murphy and his crew were now behind enemy lines, dropped somewhere in between Lalaghat and Broadway LZ.  Murphy, under strict silence, never talking above a whisper and eating a third of the day’s rations each day, made an 80 mile trek in eight days from the crash site, not back to India, a huge target to the West, but to LZ Broadway!

Proverbs 16:3 (NASB) ³ Commit your works to the LORD And your plans will be established.

After the initial landing on the night of March 5, because of the wreckage of the gliders along LZ Broadway, the code word Soya Link, which meant “negative outcome” , was given by Colonel Allison, the deputy commander of the 1st Air Commando Group, from LZ Broadway.  This caused great concern back at headquarters as they believed the landing had been compromised by Japanese forces.  Radio silence was maintained that night as they recalled the remaining C-47s and their gliders back to base.  The reason Allison had radioed Soya Link was because of the wreckage strewn all over the LZ Broadway.  38 gliders of the 64 ready for action that night, reached Broadway.  1st Air Commando Group and it lost a glider pilots, copilots and other members of the crews with 19 injured and evacuated.  The Flight Surgeons took care of anyone who needed it and did their best to prepare airmen and/or infantry commando for medical evacuation.

Romans 12:16 (NASB) ¹⁶ Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.

A Look at two wings from a VERY special period of reversal of initiative as Japan was humbled before the tide of Righteous Warriors and those who cared for the casualties of this Just War. The Last Just War Since the Time of its conclusion.

The Japanese eventually assessed the location of Broadway and attempted ground attacks starting March 27 and lasting through 31 March.  These attacks were repelled but the Flight Surgeons were present including Captain Rierson who came in to replace Enloe on the front behind enemy lines.  In the air attacks by the Japs, and entire aid station was lost which the British helped replace in part as they treated the Chindits infantry alongside the Americans. The attacks were eventually repulsed.

Proverbs 16:4 (NKJV) ⁴ The LORD has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom.

Romans 8:31 (NASB) ³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

Throughout the course of operations in March and April, the Flight Surgeons consistently flew in with the liaison pilots who were legendary in there diligence and unyielding dedication to get the wounded out in the most harrowing circumstances with the most primitive and unforgiving landing sites imaginable.  It cannot be overestimated, the contribution that liaison pilots made regarding the saving of lives by granting them access in an expedited diligence, to medical care as quickly as their little L1 and L-5 aircraft could effectively and safely transport them.

Romans 8:28 (NASB) ²⁸ And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

One man of note was Doctor Cortez Enloe junior who had a familial lineage of service in the medical area of the US armed services, specifically his father going back to the 19th century.  His written material in the form of notes and treatises and even for chapters on a book regarding the 1st Air Commando Group which was never finished, is located at the McDermott Library at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado.