The United States becoming a belligerent by declaring War against Japan on 8 December 1941 and declaring war on Germany on 11 December 1941. Applicable to this period is the establishment of the Army Air Force/Air Force History Program in 1942. Unfortunately, the prepared and submitted unit histories rarely provide comprehensive narratives of units organized as a medical and rescue unit.
such medical and rescue units happens no later than 1943 without no single military or other governmental agency exercising centralized advocacy or administrative control pertinent to the development of parachuting-in physicians and enlisted medics for rescue operations during the Second World War. This situation contributed to the absence of establishing criteria that clearly describe special duty assignment or an occupation specialty that depict the various levels of difficulty and responsibility so they can be understood and consistently applied.
Consequently, reconstructing of the development of parachuting-in physicians, enlisted medics, and other personnel to rescue aircrew during the Second World War must involve correlating the History of the U.S. Forrest Service Smokejumper Program, the civilian Canadian Pararescue Service (1943-July1944) and informative articles published in newspapers, magazines, professional journals, professional periodicals and bulletins.
An immediate aftermath of the United States becoming a belligerent in the Second World War is it was confronted with a complex military global expansion demand and “a critical shortage of cargo shipping which persisted for much of the war period. This created the strategic war fighting necessity to move significant tonnages of cargo and ferrying large numbers of aircraft along long-range air ferry and air shipping routes required for conducting a global war.
This rapidly increased the Army Air Force need to establish inland search and rescue units and the need for physicians and enlisted medics who are trained parachutists. Until 1943 most of these mission needs were limited to the North American Continent, primarily the contiguous United States, Canada, and the Alaska Territory.
The appearance of these inland search-and-rescue medical units is directly connected to the huge Lend-Lease demands that our allies, Britian, the Soviet Union (June 1941) and China (June 2, 1942) had for U.S. armaments, ships, planes, tanks, fabricated materials, and food stuff. Other than a small stretch of the Hump the five major air routes (Alaska-Siberia-1941, South Atlantic-1941, North Atlantic-1942, and the Hump which was initially known as the India China Ferry-April 1942, Middle Atlantic-1943) avoided contested military air space. Consequently, the parachuting-in of flights surgeons and enlisted medics under combat conditions and into contested military surface environments didn’t happen until August 1943.
Anticipating the inevitability of the frequent need to parachute-in physicians and enlisted medics a special training relationship was established between the Army Air Force and the U.S. Forest Service’s smoke jumper training program. This training relationship expanded to the Forest Service being an active partner participant in the Army Air Force’s Second Air Force Search and Rescue Section during 1943 (initiated by Captain Frank Wiley of the Army Air Force).
The meager information mentioned in the History of the U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper program identifies Amos R. “Bud” Little as being among the first military physicians trained to parachute in the line of duty for rescue purposes He entered the Army Medical corps in 1943, shortly after graduating from John Hopkins University Medical School (1942), and was immediately assigned to the 2nd AF Search and Rescue Section. He was sent through the smoke jumper training program and went on to earn national acclaim for his rescues. The most prominent being his parachuting to the surviving crew members of a crashed B-17 Bomber.
This B-17 bomber and crew of 10 crashed at a 11,000-foot location on Crown Peak in the Colorado Rockies on 13 June 1944. Four of the ten were killed, six survivors four of which seriously injured. This feat required him to parachute from 12,500 feet and it was the first of seven rescue jumps during his three years of military service (1943-1946). This jump made both aviation and medical history, at the time, as the highest parachute landing on record. Dr. Little was honored with the Army Commendation Medal, the Air Medal, and the Legion of Merit for his service.
After his service he continued parachuting with the U.S. Forest Survive and assisted other agencies in establishing parachute units and search and rescue organizations. In 1955, Little received the A. (aeronaut) Leo Stevens Memorial Parachute Medal (award discontinued in 1959) for his para-rescue work. The Medal was presented on 29 January 1955 in Helena, by Gov. J. Hugo Aronson of Montana, on behalf of the Awards Committee, while the Montana State Legislature was in session.
Another innovator who received significant recognition after the war for establishing parachute rescue units in Canada is Mr. Wilfrid Reid May. He is credited during the period 1942 through 1943 for conceiving of and developing a functional training program for a first aid parachute crew to take aid to downed pilots in remote areas.
Although the appearance of the training program could be pushed back to 1942 these initial training operation were described as being comical until Lt. Col Frank N. Nightengale, Assistant Training and Operations Officer of the Alaska Wing headquarters arranged to send May’s volunteer parachutists through the U.S. Forest Service smokejumper training program no earlier than September 1941 and no later than December 1942.
Mr. Wilfrid (Wop) May’s reminisce that it was “shortly after smokejumper training was completed that the Canadian Pararescue teams were put into service. This is confirmed by the U.S. Forest Service’s smokejumper program history disclosure that on 10 December 1942 that about 25 individuals of the U.S. Coast Guard, Canadian Air Observer schools, and the U.S Army Air Forces had completed the smokejumpers parachute training.
Regardless, it’s certain his innovative persistence and direct involvement resulted in the furnishing Canadian Pararescue squads (teams) providing coverage of the Alaska-Siberia air ferry and air cargo shipping route in Canada. Affirmation of the significance of his achievement is the Army Air Force awarding him the prestigious Medal of Freedom with Bronze Palm (established 6 July 1945, E.O. 9586) to recognize his notable service as a civilian during the Second World War. The Bronze Palm indicates equivalency to the Legion of Merit, Officer and Legionary.
This Medal was presented to him by Brigadier General Dale Gafney of the United States Army Air Force. The citation identifies meritorious service for the United States Army Air Force during the period January 1942 through January 1946. It identifies he conceived of the idea of ariel rescue crews for rescue of flyers in the bush area and developing a trained parachute rescue squad he furnished as a rescue service indiscriminately to Americans and Canadians thus saving the lives of many fliers.
Although the increased need for aerial search and rescue was anticipated for within the boundaries of the contiguous United States the Army Air Force it lacked the aircraft and aircrews to sustain an adequate number of aircraft to search for and locate crashed aircraft. This lack of aircraft and aircrew situation contributes to the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) being assigned the search for and rescue mission no earlier than 1 December 1941. The Civil Air Patrol had no unit presence outside of the contiguous United States until its Hawaii Wing is established in January 1947, its Alaskan Wing established February 1948, and its Puerto Rico Wing established in November 1949. CAP’s poor record keeping has put the existence of its parachute corps into obscurity.
The existence of CAP’s parachute corps spanned the period between early 1942 and the early 1950s. CAP’s records indicate its first parachutist were integrated as members of civilian parachute clubs joined the CAP. By July 1942 its parachute corps was actively seeking doctors, nurses, skilled woodsmen, and forest fire fighters implying these parachutists had a specifically assigned task or mission to parachute-in to areas that were inaccessible by other means. However, there is an absence in the historical record of any CAP parachutist being parachuted-in to rescue anybody. The historical record does disclose CAP parachutists routinely and frequently accomplished exhibition jumps at air shows, war bond drives, and other public events.
Consequently, correlating CAP’s parachute corps to any significant developmental milestone of pararescue methods, procedures, tactics and occupation specific knowledge, skills, and ability standards and qualifications requirements isn’t possible unless additional records are found.
The historical record establishes the Air Transportation Command (ATC) being the most proactive in formally pairing a contingent of parachuting doctors and parachuting enlisted medics with aircraft. ATC had by 1943 successfully integrated this pairing in its noncombat Air Rescue units of its Alaska Air Division and North Atlantic Wing. By September 1943 ATC had committed to establishing such pairing in its combat air rescue unit of its China Burma Wing.
The China, Burma, India (CBI) Theater air supply routes and the Hump Ferry route during the Second World War provided the only combat search and rescue opportunity to the Air Transportation Command. Although the primary mission of Air Transport Command didn’t change the aircraft and aircrew loss statistics of flying the Hump and other air supply routes in the CBI were comparable to flying a combat mission over Germany.
These loss statistics included the possibility and probability aircraft could be intercepted by enemy fighter aircraft and aircrew surviving bailout or forced landing could expect the need to avoid being captured or killed by enemy ground forces. Additionally, these statistics fail to expose the circumstances “that in many cases there was reason to believe some, or all, crew members had been able to successfully bailout of their planes only to never be seen again.”
The psychological impact of aircrews wondering about their chances of getting back after bailout or forced landing in the CBI Theater, contributed to a decrease in aircrew morale and an increase in the numbers of disgruntled aircrew. Thus, the building of an air search and rescue capability in the CBI produced a positive psychological effect on boosting the optimism, morale, and motivation of aircrew who frequently and routinely flew under combat and or extremely hazardous conditions knowing every effort would be made to rescue them. A positive psychological effect replicated in subsequent conflicts as it was noticed, aircrews performed their duties more efficiently knowing that every effort would be made to rescue them if they were shot down.
Aerial search and rescue as developed and implemented by the India China Division, Air Transport Command during the period 1 December 1942 through 15 February 1946 differed very little from what ATC’s search and rescue units were doing in the remote isolated wilderness of Canada and Alaska. But the parachuting-in under combat condition into a military contested ground environment did introduce subtle differences in the protocols of operational risk management implemented in the CBI Theater.
Specifically, acceptable risk protocols governing the search and rescue of aircrew operations were compelled to accommodate necessary risk. The concept of necessary risk means risks too high to be acceptable are tolerable under certain conditions. Conditions most connected and relevant to the parachuting-in, when necessary, physician and enlisted medics under combat conditions to rescue aircrew located in a military contested ground environment which exposed these personnel to possible encounter with enemy forces which would result in their capture or execution.
Aerial search and rescue of aircrew in the CBI prior to 24 October 1943 were spasmodic and fell impromptu upon the first available aircrew and aircraft that could be spared. The historical records consistently credit Captain John L. “Blackie” Porter an Air Transport Command pilot with putting together an ad hoc unofficial group that borrowed aircraft to fly search and rescue missions in July 1943. Further, his persistence was instrumental in obtaining official approval on 25 October 1943 to establish and command a special unit (team), known as Blackie’s Gang, having the primary mission to fly aerial search and rescue missions in the CBI.This special unit continues-on with its primary mission after Captain Porter was killed in action on 10 December 1943.
The special unit known as Blackie’s Gang acquires the 1352nd Army Air Forces Base Unit (AAFBU) designation effective 1 February 1944. Although the 1352nd AAFBU is discontinued and disbanded on 22 December 1945, it is the unit that most closely mirrors the missions and capabilities of the 66d AAFBU Search & Rescue, Continental Air Forces, Morrison Field, West Palm Beach Florida, activated 5 December 1945 as the Army Air Forces began grappling with determining its post Second World War aerial search and rescue and pararescue mission requirements.
Although there is a lack of certainty of Blackie’s Gang having direct involvement in the first parachuting-in of a physician and two enlisted medics under combat conditions, it is certain Captain Porter as commander of his special search and rescue unit took initiative in October 1943 to work with medical units to form a volunteer group of physicians and enlisted medics to parachute-in to crash sites to save crewmembers and passengers in need of immediate medical aid.
This parachuting-in of Flight Surgeon Lt. Col. Donald (Don) Davis Flickinger, and enlisted medics Sgt Richard S. Passey, and Cpl William Mackenzie on 2 August 1943 under combat conditions into a contested military surface environment within the CBI theater in August 1943 happened without authorization and was significantly controversial.
Part of the controversy was generated by the previous February-March 1943 failure of an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Detachment 101 six-man unit (B Group) parachute-in supposedly having a third objective to assist Air Transport Command crewmen who were shot down in the Lawksawk Valley. All members of B Group were killed or captured and executed. There is a strong possibility Detachment 101s B Group is being confused with Oscar (O) Group led by Oscar Milton, MC, which had its primary objective to rescue downed aircrew. Regardless, OSS Detachment 101 did officially have a mission to rescue downed allied aircrews in the CBI throughout the period from 22 April 1942 through 12 July 1945.
Another part of the controversy “throughout the war there was to be a difference of opinion over whether flight surgeons should fly on combat missions. By extension parachuting-in a physician and medics had even a higher risk of the medical units in CBI suddenly losing a physician and enlisted medics that had no readily available replacement.
The following is what is known about the pivotal rescue mission in the CBI Theater that sufficiently demonstrated the feasibility and viability of parachuting-in physicians and enlisted medics under combat conditions into a military contested environment to rescue aircrews. So much so that it became routine to do so in the CBI Theater.
The C-46, serial number 41-12420, took off on 2 August 1943 at about 8:00 AM to fly from Chabua, Assam, India to Kunming, Yunnan, China, carrying seventeen passengers and a crew of four. At about 9:15 AM, due to engine failure, the passengers and crew bailout in the remote Patkai Range between India and Burma territory.
About two hours later a Search and Rescue C-47 being piloted by Captains Hugh E. Wilds and George Katzman located the survivors and airdropped medicine and food and then departed and returned around sundown to parachute-in Flight Surgeon Lt. Col. Donald (Don) Davis Flickinger, and enlisted medics Sgt Richard S. Passey, and William Mackenzie.
Three of the four crew members and all eighteen passengers successfully bailed out of the C-46 and survived their parachute landings. The body of the copilot, Lt. Charles William Felix, was found under the wreck. He was wrapped in a chute and was buried there. One of the three surviving crew members (Radio Operator Sgt Walter K. Oswalt) broke his leg, and six others had less serious injuries.
After the Flight Surgeon and two enlisted medics parachuted-in they established a base camp at a native village near Lahe Nanyon, Myanmar (Burma) to treat the twenty survivors and provide medical care to the villagers while waiting for British administrator, Philip Adams, two American soldiers, many porters, and 60 shotgun-toting Naga bodyguards to arrive at their location.
This group began trekking on August 18, with porters carrying Oswalt and a Chinese officer on bamboo litters; the others walked. They arrive at the British administrative facilities at Mokokchung, Nagaland, India on 24 August 1943, 22 Days after the crash, after trekking 145 miles through enemy controlled territory, rugged terrain and much feared Nagaland.
There are accounts suggesting Captain Porter recruited Captains Hugh E. Wilds and George Katzman and Sgt Walter K. Oswalt into Blackie’s Gang after this mission. Tragically, there is certainty Sgt Oswalt was killed in action performing duties on the B-25 being flown by Captain Porter when this aircraft was shot down on 10 December 1943.
Regardless, the success of this mission became the pivotal milestone development in rescue jumping as it demonstrated what could be done under combat conditions and in military contested environments. This success permitted Captain Porter to pursue and gain official approval to form the first formal search and rescue team for aircraft flying the Hump. It also allowed Lt. Col Flickinger to form a volunteer group of rescue physicians and medics (Surgical SSN 861/Medical SSN 409) assigned to base aviation dispensaries who kept themselves in readiness to fly and parachute-in when necessary to either the crash site or at a place they could walk in to provide medical treatments and aid.
The resulting side effect is under the influence of Major General William H. Tunner, Commanding General India-China Division, Air Transport Command [India] an agreement was reached in August 1944 with every other Army Air Force Command operating to any extent over Hump route and the CBI region that all search and rescue would be the responsibility of the India China Division, Air Transport Command.
Given the support of General Tunner search and rescue began publishing monthly bulletins to disseminate valuable information concerning jungle travel and survival hints. General Tunner also ordered each base to establish a jungle indoctrination camp with practical training provided by trained jungle scouts.
However, it’s Blackie’s Gang, subsequently the 1352nd Army Air Forces Base Unit (search and rescue) and the volunteer group of physicians and medics being credited for pioneering and honing new imaginative and risky tactics for conducting search and rescue under combat conditions and in contested ground environments. These methods and tactics became the tactical template of similar search and rescue units operated later by the Tenth, the Fourteenth (formerly the American Volunteer Group/China Air Task Force), and the Twentieth Air Forces.
It’s obvious the need for rescue from land areas and from large water bodies (oceans, seas, straits, bays, gulfs) was recognized from the moment the United States entered the Second Word War; however, lack of resources (aircraft/aircrews), diplomatic concerns and the highest levels policy decisions and implementations hindered the Army Air Force acquiring self-sufficiency in search and rescue capabilities prior to 1943.
Diplomatically, “the formal agreement of September 1942 between the RAF and the Eighth Air Force in September 1942 stipulated that the Americans would not duplicate the rescue services the British could provide for saving U.S. aircrews who came down in the North Sea and the English Channel.”[lxix] Similarly, the Army Air Force depended heavily upon the RAF and other British agencies for rescue services in North Africa and throughout the Mediterranean until 1943.
Policy until 1943 collaboratively divided aircrew rescue operations among the Army Air Forces, Navy, Coast Guard, and even to some degree operational units of the Office of Strategic Services (primarily Detachment 101-CBI and Aircrew Rescue Unit 1, 15th Air Force-Halyard Mission. This collaborative policy position the US Navy within the limits of its resources to readily assume responsibility in areas of its primary jurisdiction for the rescue of Army as well as Navy fliers. responsibility in areas of its primary jurisdiction for the rescue of Army as well as Navy fliers.
In August 1943 the Army Air Force drafted plans to make itself as self-sufficient as was possible by organizing seven air-sea rescue squadrons. However, only two of the seven were operational by the summer of 1944. Another was operational by the end of 1944 the others became operational during 1945. Thus, most histories concentrate on the program of August 1943 for the creation of seven emergency rescue (ER) squadrons and the April 1944 and the 8th Emergency Rescue Squadron introducing the Sikorsky-built YR-6 helicopters in May 1945 as a rescue machine in the CBI.
The rapid demobilization and restructuring to a peacetime military spanning the period of May 1945 through September 1947 contributed to the loss of units, training, and a rapid decline of manpower. None of which were collated to inform in depth as far as all the parts involved the development of to search for and find has the combat obligation to protect aircrews and passengers of aircraft downed in military contested environments. This surface rescue capability requirement occurred simultaneously with rapid demobilization and emergence of the Cold War which triggered the need for a new Air Force enlisted occupation specialty. An occupation specialty coequally melding the inherent abilities and qualities of being an enhanced medic, survivalist, mountaineer, rescue swimmer, rescue-parachutist, and combatant.
The lineage rescue parachutist qualifications and abilities have already been connected to the U.S. Forest Service Smoke Jumper Program. The training and rescue operations relationship lineage was retained when the 62nd AAF Base Unit, Morrison Field Florida was established effective 5 December 1945.
The survivalist lineage interlock is a complicated mix of formal and on-the-job training programs due to these numerous formal and on-the-job survival training programs lacking the purpose and capability to train personnel to be qualified to rescue others under extreme hostile environments to include military contested environments.
One formal survivalist-rescue training program having a search and rescue curriculum is the formal arctic survival lineage that originates with a training program activated at Camp Williams, Wisconsin in September 1942. As the need for such training intensified in 1943, this school was relocated to Maine, then to Buckley Army Airfield Colorado in June 1943 and finally relocated to Great Falls Army Airfield (Malmstrom Air Force Base), Montana in October 1944. The relocation to Great Falls Army Airfield was because it had a more severe climate and the 7th Ferrying Group having the responsible for overseeing the lend-lease Alaska-Siberia air route and the secondary mission to deliver combat aircraft to U.S. domestic bases and foreign destinations in all theaters of operations throughout the world.
It’s during the period this training program was located at Buckley Army Airfield that the curriculum/syllabus devoted a purpose to learn the art of rescue under arctic conditions to include how to parachute-in with sleds and dog teams. This training program trained and qualified the survival instructors of the Army Air Force’s school established in 1943 in the wilderness area near Namou Royal Canadian Air Force Base, in Alberta, Canada.
This training program’s rescue syllabus was discontinued in December 1945 concurrent with the shutdown of the Army Air Forces Cold Weather Survival training at RCAF Station Namao, the relocation of this survival training program to Camp Carson, Neveda, and rescue survivalist training requirements being transferred to 62nd AAF Base Unit, Morrison Field Florida, which became Headquarters Air Rescue Service, effective 1 July 1946.
The contributions of the medical training and research agencies of the Army Air Forces School of Applied Tactics (AAFSAT), Orlando, Florida are often overlooked. However, it is here the School of Aerospace Medicine graduates and Personal Equipment Officers preparing to deploy to the combat theaters learned about field aviation operations.
AAFSAT was active from 12 November 1942 to 8 March 1946. It was established to fulfil the primary purpose to train air force cadres–key personnel framework for all new combat groups–in the latest combat tactics and under operating conditions approximating as closely as possible those with which these officers and men will be confronted in the various war theatres. Concurrently it was a tactical development laboratory and a distributor of tactical information.
To carry out both the instruction and tactical developments missions, each of AAFSAT’s Departments operated as a normal tactical command with an academic section superimposed upon it. To make this possible AAFSAT was integrated by design to be part of the infrastructure that turned 8,000 acres of southern Florida into a war theater complete with simulated enemy bases, forces and fleets.
The effectiveness AAFSAT is the resultant of it drawing heavily on the experience of men freshly returned from combat assignments who, whatever their pedagogical skill, had an impressive fund of useful information.
Organizationally AAFSAT had specialized agencies and a variety of units. Three of these agencies had a collaborative relationship that ensured medical tactics, military field medicine, flight medicine, and air force medical operations were covered. The primary unit was the AAFSAT Aeromedical School, the second unit was the AAFSAT Arctic, Desert and Topic Branch and the third unit was the Jungle Survival School conducted by the Aero-Medical Department at Orlando, Florida.
The AAFSAT Aeromedical School was established November 1942 and deactivated March 1946 while the AAFSAT Arctic, Desert and Topic Branch was active from April 1944 and deactivated October 1945. The Jungle Survival School operated from August 1944 through November 1945 with its curriculum being strongly influenced by the improvised medical care and native medical assistance experience gained by Colonel Don Flickinger, MC, during his previous assignment in the CBI theater.
These three AAFSAT agencies fulfilled the aircrew protection research function and staffing training challenge of preparing medical officers for assignment to staffing dispensaries, infirmaries, clinics, small mobile (portable) surgical hospitals and aviation units in the forward areas of combat theaters.
The duty responsibility of the Arctic, Desert, and Tropic Branch, AAFSAT in part was to “collect, record, co-ordinate, compile by investigation and research of all available sources and prepare for publication and dissemination in appropriate form, information bearing on AAF activities in arctic, desert, and tropic regions.” This included investigating and research all incidents of survivors of a crash, ditching, or bailout confronting the hardship of surviving and evading until rescued.
The academic programs of the AAFSAT Aeromedical School primarily focused on the tactical training of Flight Surgeons. The training was tailored to the type of aircraft (fighter, bomber, cargo/transport) and operational mission of the aviation unit being assigned to. Those being assigned to Air/Emergency rescue units went through a training regime focused on providing urgent medical treatment and stabilization in high stress tactical environments encountered during the pre-evacuation and evacuation phase of rescue operations.
A secondary academic program providing the qualification training for the Personal Equipment (nonrated) Officer SSN 1042, established effective 4 May 1943, discontinued effective 21 July 1950. This expanded to include enlisted Personal Equipment Technician (NCO), SSN 594, established no later than 30 June 1945.
Personal Equipment Officers and Personal Equipment Technicians were new specialties established to ensure properly functioning aircrew life support, personal protection, and emergency equipment, and instructing aircrews in the use and care of this equipment and survival methods. This local unit support instructing included emergency procedures and survival techniques. This somewhat establishes the SSNs 1042 and 594 as the closest to being military survival instructor occupation specialty designations established during the Second World War.
Throughout World War II a small number of Army Air Force para-doctors (less than 100) and enlisted para-medics, Surgical Technicians (SSN 861) and Medical Technicians (SSN 409), accumulated an impressive record of daring parachute rescues. As there is no record of screening and selection to put individuals into these duty assignments or existence of a distinct unified centralized parachute rescue team training program this impressive record was gained unintentionally by chance. However, these daring rescues was the result of Flight Surgeons and enlisted medics who were endowed with certain qualities of gumption, grit, courage, physical abilities and knack for practical problem solving.
A sequence of unfortunate events involving less than friendly Soviet fighters causing forced landings of B-29s as early as 1944 foretold the coming of the Cold War and influences causing the distancing of Army Air Force Medical Service (Flight Surgeons/enlisted medics) and the aeromedical evacuation mission from search and rescue missions.
Although these events didn’t cause the need for conducting rescue operations behind enemy lines these events were forewarnings of aerial search and rescue services must adapt to provide a more robust tactical function and combat mission capability.
The first events occurred in mid-1944 during the initial B-29 bombing missions from China. It involves the Soviets seizing three damaged B-29s (B-29A 42-6256, B-29A 6358 and B-29A 42-6365) when forced landings were accomplished in the Soviet Union while Soviet fighters fired upon them.</p>
Another involved the Mercy Missions conducted to locate, contact and rescue allied war prisoners held by the Japanese as there were possibility of POW massacres and the complication of the declaration of war by Soviet Union against Japan on 8 August 1945 and its occupation of Manchuria during the period from August 1945 thru May 1946.
On 27 August 1945 over one thousand B-29s began flying POW supply Mercy Missions to 157 camps through the Far East not to mention the number of troop transport flown to repatriate the American POWs. It’s in this confusing situation that the B-29 Hog Wild was engaged and fired upon by Soviet fighter aircraft on 29 August 1945. This resulted in six of the crew accomplishing an emergency bailout into the Sea of Japan and the remainder of the crew doing an emergency forced landing on a Soviet airfield.
(from Wikipedia…)