by R. J. Jack
It is not commonly known that the B-17 Flying Fortress, though technically obsolescent by the end of World War II, remained in service well into the 1950s, albeit most frequently in a long range search and rescue role. Military aviation enthusiasts will know that the Israeli Air Force flew three Flying Fortresses during the War for Independence (1948) and some accounts suggest that these B 17Gs were pressed into service during the 1956 Arab-Israeli War.
Incredibly, it was from a secret airbase in Taiwan that the last B-17 missions were flown. This in 1959! The top-secret program involved deep penetration flights into Communist China, for both air-drop and reconnaissance purposes, and ended in tragedy. The details of these Cold War combat missions only began emerging in 1992.
In June 1952 the Republic of China government (then termed “Nationalists”), signed an agreement with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency involving joint reconnaissance objectives. Two un-armed B-17s were flown to Taiwan and assigned to the “Special Task Team.” The Red Air Force had by that time largely converted to jet aircraft and the Taiwan Strait was one of the most heavily fortified and patrolled areas in the world. Each mission the Forts flew was tantamount to suicide, but the extreme importance attached to the information being sought served to motivate the crews. These men knew that, should they be killed or captured, their very existence would be denied by the ROC and U.S. governments. The bombers flew unarmed, in order to extend their range, and had removable registration numbers on their dorsal fins.
A streak of good luck never lasts, and the last combat mission for a B-17 ended in death. In May of 1959, a Special Task Team Fortress left Taiwan on a mission to gather electronic intelligence and photographs of ground installations in South China. All of the equipment was designed and installed by CIA technicians in Taiwan, and the fourteen man ROCAF crew were required to simply operate the sealed intelligence gear. The aircraft had little chance of evading radar and relied heavily on darkness and steady nerve. They were deep into Guandong (Canton) province when they were jumped by Red MiGs. The communists salved the wreck and its secret equipment, but simply buried the crew on site without military courtesy or consideration for the families.
In 1992 an air historian in Taiwan named Fred Liu learned a few details of the still secret B 17 shoot-down in China, including the location of the crash site. He was able to contact a number of surviving family members (who had never been informed of the true fate of the crew), and chose to lead a memorial trip to the spot where the bodies were buried. Human remains, including eleven of the fourteen skulls were recovered and cremated. A number of small items from the wreck were also retrieved. The delegation returned to Taiwan in December 1992, and the crew remains were given full ceremonial honors by an ROCAF color guard at Chiang Kai Shek International Airport. The men now occupy a place of honor in an Air Force cemetery.
A book is planned on the Special Task Team and clandestine B-17 missions over Communist China. The research is a joint effort of Wings of China, a Taiwan publishing firm and MARS Ar-chives, of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
It is interesting to note that a prediction of clandestine B-17 missions over Red China appeared in Milt Caniff’s great newspaper strip “Terry and the Pirates.” After the end of World War II the strip’s hero, Terry Lee, began flying commercial aircraft out of Hong Kong, all the while secretly working for U.S. Intelligence. In 1949 he was contracted to pilot a B-17 for a syndicate flying escaped prisoners out of Red China. Thus the comic strip anticipated secret B-17 insertions into China by at least three years!
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