When they finally got enough airplanes and personnel in Kunming to replace the lost fighting Squadron, it was at that time the base was surprised by a couple of bombing attacks. In spite of the fact that it was a "three ball" day. China was a poor country and when the people were chased from their homes as the Japanese took over a section of their country, those who had to stay behind developed a simple warning system designed to let the Americans and Chinese know the progress and activity of the Japanese. They hung red or yellow balls, maybe 16 – 20 inches in size, made of bamboo and rice paper in every town and hamlet whenever the Japanese were on the move. They were similar to Chinese lanterns, but sturdier. One ball meant they were moving, two balls meant they were heading this way and three balls meant this was the area the soldiers were coming to or bombing in the case of airplanes. The system worked very well, people could hang the balls faster than the planes could fly and they were visible for miles. The Japanese planes would take off 300 or 400 miles away and up would go a ball. At first there were a lot of two and three ball days as the Japanese were much closer but they kept driving them back. Almost every day one ball would be hanging near the barracks and on the airfield. Two balls were up about four days a week and maybe one in five there would be three balls. After a while, it got so common they didn’t pay much attention to them. So the first time they were bombed, they upset the Parcheesi board and nearly tore the screen door off the hinges running out of the dispensary like "it was raining money". With that raid, they all learned to sew up wounds, as they brought in some of the wounded Chinese Soldiers and they sutured them up. It was a nervous time, but they grew to be a unit by working together and by playing Parcheesi together, the official game of the "China Eight".
 

   On days the Squadron took off on a bombing run, the group of eight would take turns with the other two outfits that were stationed there manning the ambulance. Red Carbone and Louis Boucher were usually on duty, but Jim Mauel liked to do it so he could yak it up with the guys going out on the flights. On this day, one of the bombs missed the Airfield, but landed just off the Burma Road and the shrapnel went right through the door of the ambulance and out the other side. It would have taken off both Jim’s legs, but he was in the ditch by then. That ditch is the one next to the road that ran between the barracks and during monsoon season got full of water. During one of the bombings, Boucher ran out and threw himself into that ditch that ran next to the road in front of the Dispensary, but it was monsoon season. That was forever after known as the "Boucher Splash". The rest of them were more careful after they saw that, but when that ditch was full they had to run a block to the bomb shelter.
 

   The bomb had missed the Airfield, but it was right in line with it and that line crossed the Burma Road. The Road was the main highway into Kunming. People, carts, horses, animals, cows, water buffalo. The bombs hit on both sides of the road and shrapnel hit anybody or anything there, including the Chinese Soldiers guarding the entrance to the Airfield. It really destroyed the village and since the Chinese didn’t have a hospital nearby or even any medics, some of the Chinese were evacuated to the American hospital down the road, some to the American Volunteer Group Dispensary and the rest came into the Barracks Dispensary. The Doctor couldn’t handle all of them at once, so after a diagnosis by the Doctor, one Chinese Soldier had his head shaved and then sutured by Dad. Dad said he wished he had time to find an operating gown before doing the sewing. Dad said they weren’t supposed to treat the civilians legally, but they would hand out bandages, disinfectant and Sulfa powder so they could treat themselves.