Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
2:14 | At the air strip in India, there was a company clerk who was a real character. He was a good guy, he just didn't like to work all that much. Fred Eichenbrenner recalls the stunt he pulled after being reprimanded.
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When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Fred Eichenbrenner couldn't believe it. He and all his friends were eager to serve and he got into the Army Air Corps as a result of his test scores. After his training as a mechanic, he languished in a unit training pilots. He began to think he would never get to some combat.
Flying from a small airfield in the far north of India, the Army Air Corps was supplying Chinese and Indian troops in Burma. Flight engineer Fred Eichenbrenner had a memorable first flight, flying over a battlefield and sweating over a rumored Japanese machine gun nest at the end of the runway.
The Japanese were a fading presence when flight engineer Fred Eichenbrenner began flying back and forth between India and Burma, supplying Allied troops. He soon had a new mission, flying over the Hump to China.
When he got to 600 flying hours, flight engineer Fred Eichenbrenner got orders to return home from India. After a slow trip on a troop ship, he sailed into New York harbor to a dazzling display and welcome home.
It turned out to only be a rumor, but when Fred Eichenbrenner was told there was a Japanese machine gun nest at the end of the runway, it was the most scared he ever was while he was in India. After a supply run to Burma, he found what he thought was a perfect souvenir. He should have hung on to it.
They never encountered Merrill's Marauders, but Fred Eichenbrenner's squadron flew over Burma frequently, supplying Indian and Chinese troops. Sometimes they landed and unloaded and sometimes they air dropped the cargo.
As the pilot revved up the engines on the C-47, one of them sounded really bad. Flight engineer Fred Eichenbrenner pointed out that the plane could fly just fine on one engine. That was a good aircraft. You needed one to fly over the Hump to China.
Mechanic and flight engineer Fred Eichenbrenner's most difficult repair was right at the beginning of his deployment. The tail wheel was damaged almost as soon as they picked up the new C-47 and they had to deal with it at every stop between West Palm Beach and India.
Some got passage on a luxury liner but Fred Eichenbrenner sailed home from India on a slow troop ship. He had been a flight engineer in the Army Air Corps, so he tried to pursue a similar civilian job. Unfortunately, so was every other discharged flight engineer. He came home uninjured except for a painful shoulder.
The hundreds of hours in the sky over China, Burma and India earned a Distinguished Flying Cross for flight engineer Fred Eichenbrenner. He had a good friend there who kept saying to him, "I'm afraid of these planes." Was it a premonition?
