The mess started for Harold in January, 1943 when he was drafted at age 19. After basic training in Miami, where he was taught the manual of arms with table legs and fired four shots with a WWI rifle, he was sent to schools for radio technicians "which I hated" in South Dakota, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Long Island. He was trained as a CDS operator, a portable system of ground-controlled navigation, and then found that every subsequent base already had permanent installations so he never got to use this training. He volunteered to fill in at the control tower, with no training, and spent the rest of his time on that job. Somewhere along the line he made corporal and sergeant.

Finally he became part of the 427th at Bakersfield, California. The talk was that they were to be sent to the China-Burma-India theater of war. They were issued fur lined gear and then mosquito netting and jungle gear. They boarded a troop train, spent one night on a siding in Bakersfield, and headed for San Diego. But somewhere along the line they turned left and ended up in Newport News, Virginia. That is, the ground personnel went to Newport News, the flight people were put aboard two aircraft carriers in New York. All joined the same convoy, he thinks, and headed for Europe. On board this ship they learned their destination was Poltava, Russia to supply fighter cover for planes bombing the Romanian oil fields. But Joe Stalin aborted this plan and the carriers left the convoy and, they learned later, took the planes to Casablanca.

The ground crews were landed at Naples. Here they were housed in "fairly comfortable" bombed out apartments and had absolutely nothing to do for a month. Their only activity was a movie each night "rain or shine." Then they were loaded aboard railway cars and spent a night sporadically heading north toward Rome. Still no planes or flight crews. Somewhere along the line the train pulled off on a siding, sat for a few hours, and then headed south to Casserta. Here they boarded a British cargo ship and were taken to Alexandria, Egypt where they were unloaded. This surprised everyone since they had been told they were headed for India. Problem turned out to be that the Suez Canal Company charged tolls based, in part, on the number of passengers. It was cheaper to haul them around the canal in buses and they got to see Cairo, the Sphinx, and the Pyramids. At Port Suez they were put on board an already overloaded British cruise ship with, according to Evans, "God awful food." The Americans almost caused a mutiny by assigning bunks by unit. This put some corporals and privates on B Deck, a gross violation of class rules, and they had to move them down to C Deck. They landed at Bombay, traveled across India by train to a base 300 miles north of Calcutta.

Here for the first time since leaving California the entire unit was together and they got mail from home. They were moved by a railroad "so narrow the truck tires stuck out a couple of inches on either side of the flat cars" to the Assam Valley. This was the worst duty. In the daytime the metal on the planes got so hot the men couldn't touch them. Their shoes were mildewed and rotted. Here the natives "sweetened" the latrine with aviation gasoline and used the contents for fertilizer. But one GI followed his usual habit of sitting down, lighting up a cigarette, and dropping the match in the hole. He blew up the latrine. Minor injuries to exposed parts.

Now they had to get to Burma. The flight crews flew in but Evans joined ground troops who drove across the newly opened Ledo-Burma Road. This meant 16 days of mud, slides, accidents and terrible food. Meanwhile the squadron had been broken up into four units. Evans went to Myitkiyna along the Irriwaddy River and later flew into Kunming, China. While this was going on at the level where enlisted men live, Generals Stillwell and Chennault were in constant battle about whether the planes should be used for night interceptions or support of the ground troops. The 427th flew both types of missions, had some men shot down, and suffered a large number of crashes. Some crews were able to walk out but they had a considerable number of casualties and quite a few decorations.

Then the war ended. A few days later the CO called everyone together and told them that if they could get to a processing center they would be sent home. But the center was due to close in three days and there was no transportation. It was every man for himself. The flight crews flew out. Some of the ground crews walked, some hitchhiked, some hired native ox carts, but all made it within two days. They were put on transports and flown to Calcutta. A few weeks later they were assigned to a Navy transport with "good food, real eggs, and real milk for the first time in months." The trip home took 30 days, through the Suez Canal instead of around it, several stops for fuel where they got passes, and into New York. They were discharged at Indiantown Gap on October 28, 1945.

In looking back Evans now says, "You think of all the crazy things that happened, but a lot of good guys lost their lives." And after all this bouncing around, what did Harold do as a civilian? He got a job as tour guide manager for AAA and spent the next 34 years bouncing around the rest of the world.

Written by Richard "Dick" Evans.

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