Missing WWII Pilot Is Finally Home

[Story]

Missing WWII Pilot Is Finally Home
BY JOHN CHAPPELL: Staff Writer
http://www.thepilot.com/news/040706WWIIPilot.html

Hoyle Upchurch is home at last. His family waited 62 years for his return.

Missing in action and presumed dead, 2nd Lt. Robert Hoyle Upchurch was last sighted Oct. 6, 1944. Weather closed in around his P-40N fighter flying over mountainous terrain in China during World War II. Nobody knew for certain what happened to him.

His mother never gave up hope for his return. They carved his name on his parents’ gravestone in the family plot outside High Falls United Methodist Church, but he was not there.

His body lay thousands of miles away, marked by a simple cross with Chinese characters saying only “American Pilot” — buried there by Guidong villagers who brought him back over mountain trails, wrapped him in red silk, prayed and sang and laid him to rest in an honored spot near the foot of a Ming Dynasty tower.

Last summer, DNA analysis identified the remains as those of Upchurch. On Wednesday, the Army brought him back to North Carolina.

He will be buried with full military honors at 2 p.m. Saturday, and the gravestone will be changed to read, “Home at last.”

At Raleigh-Durham Inter-national Airport, family members stood silently as a tall lieutenant marched off American Airlines flight 300. He carried a folded U.S. Flag and a black cloth bag containing a small bronze box.

Lt. Justin Cathcart strode briskly through the terminal, followed by family, USO volunteers, television crews and other media. Outside, he handed the folded triangle of the American flag to Kelly Upchurch with the ritual words expressing “the thanks of a grateful nation.”

Kelly Upchurch was visibly moved.

“It is an amazing story that the Chinese went out and searched for him, and found him,” he said. “They gave him a proper burial, and 60 years later he was found and through the magic of science tied back to our family.”

As family members gathered back in the USO for a light lunch, the room filled with Marines. Some were just back from Iraq, others were outbound.

For a moment after hearing the story of Hoyle Upchurch, the room grew quiet, silent. You could hear soldiers breathing.

Cathcart flew straight from Hawaii, leaving Schofield Army Barracks in Honolulu Tuesday afternoon with the cremated remains of Hoyle Upchurch and a gift.

“I carried a flag to present to the Upchurch family,” he said. “It is an honor to bring somebody home after 62 years. It is definitely an honor, but bittersweet. Words cannot really say enough.”

Born in Indianapolis, Cathcart entered the military through an ROTC scholarship. Someday he may wear the Green Beret.

“If I stay in, I will go out for Special Forces selection,” he said. “I’ll be back in North Carolina at Camp Mackall.”

The story of Hoyle Upchurch spread through the barracks on Oahu after a company commander told Cathcart he would make this trip, and gave him a thick folder of background information.

“It is pretty amazing that, 62 years later, someone is being flown home,” he said. “I guess everybody knew that on the island there is a recovery unit that deals with Vietnam specifically. But the fact that someone was being brought back from World War II kinda shocked a lot of guys. A lot of guys were impressed that ‘bring everyone back’ still applies 62 years later. I didn’t know he had so much family until recently.”

Tending Stranger’s Grave

The Upchurch family is profoundly grateful that villagers so far away would reverently tend the grave of a stranger who had come to fight for them.

“We certainly appreciate everything done for us,” he said. “He was my uncle. I think about our current relationship with China. To think that, 60 years ago, we were over there fighting to liberate them. All this time, they kept up his grave. We are hoping we are going to have some Chinese representatives Saturday at the service. I believe we will. We are very excited about that.”

One Upchurch there was Scott Davis Upchurch, son of Kelly Upchurch, and great nephew of Hoyle Upchurch. He is 10 years old.

“I never knew him,” he said. “But knowing that he died for our country actually to save other people is kind of cool.”

He will join a sea of people Saturday as family members, friends and neighbors, military, state and federal officials, representatives of China, and others honor him. There will be a memorial service inside the church, then a formal burial in the little cemetery outside.

Carthcart delivered the bronze container to representatives of Powell Funeral Home in Southern Pines. At the High Falls service, a general officer will formally present the flag to the family.

Overhead, Flying Tiger jets will streak in the missing man formation.

Then, weather permitting, something particularly special will follow: a restored fighter like the one Upchurch flew is to pass overhead as well.

Hoyle Upchurch had been flying his first mission for the 23rd Fighter Group in a Curtiss-Wright P-40 Warhawk, one of thousands of such airplanes, the only American fighter available in quantity to confront the Japanese advance during the early years of the Pacific War.

A Rare Bird

A total of 13,739 Curtiss P-40s were built, which included the Tomahawks and Kittyhawks built for export as well as the P-40s built for the U.S. Army Air Force.

This was a plane made for young men like 21-year-old Upchurch, says Don Anklin, who will be flying one of the very few remaining P-40s in existence Saturday.

“It will get your attention, flying it,” he said. “A young kid could handle one very well, all full of testosterone. But it will get your attention — mostly trying to keep it straight on takeoffs and landing.”

Upchurch’s plane was called “The Cub” after its regular pilot, whose name was Bear. It was one of the later models with a more powerful GM Allison engine than the Rolls Royce design Merlins of early models.

Anklin will be flying a rare bird.

“I think there are maybe 30, but no more than 10 in this condition,” Anklin said. “It is an E model, exactly the same as the ones sent to Chenault. Our airplane is exactly like the one Tex Hill flew.”

Not many remain.

“There are probably, in this kind of shape, maybe 10,” he said. “The British designated them as Warhawks, or Kittyhawks. We just call them all ‘hawks’ from the P-36 all the way through the P-40.”

P-40s were considered fast planes for their time, but not as maneuverable as Japanese opponents, Najima Hayabusas. Fighter groups like the 23rd learned to go out in numbers using their greater speed to advantage.

Honoring Upchurch and other heroes is why they keep these old planes in flying condition according to Anklin.

“That’s the main reason we keep these old airplanes going,” he said. “Bear in mind, this one is 64 years old, made in 1941. We don’t fly them in high winds, bad weather.”

High wind, or stormy conditions this weekend will ground his aircraft.

Predictions are not good for Friday, so he will remain at home base in Suffolk, Va., rather than coming down a day early as previously planned.

“This is all dependent on weather,” Anklin said. “But I expect to fly down to the Moore County airport some time Saturday. I’ll just fly down there Saturday morning, come back that afternoon. The military fly-over is set for — as they say — 1515 to 1530; and I am to circle 10 miles out, then come in at about 1535. I speak civilian, so that’s 3:35 Saturday afternoon. I’ll probably make a few passes.”

A P-40 has a top speed of more than 350 mph. Anklin won’t push his antique plane that hard.

“I’ll probably keep it to about 200,” he said. “It is not very stable platform in rough weather. It demands your attention.”

‘Rocks Win’

P-40s were designed for low altitude, close-support fighters — the kind the Army thought it would need in the 1930s as plans were being drawn.

High-altitude interception was not what designers had in mind, nor was flying in mountains like those in China or on The Burma Front. Upchurch had been on a strafing mission, his first with the 23rd, and was heading back to base when weather closed in.

“He was last sighted at 1700 hours (5 p.m.) flying through rain and clouds over mountainous terrain,” the casualty report said. “Lt. Gibeault last sighted Lt. Upchurch climbing through overcast dangerously close to the mountains. Rest of flight turned back and attempted a different route … Chinese net reports a plane crashed and burned at Shangpaosu, the exact location last sighted by Lt. Gibeault, which is 90 miles west of Kanchow. Chinese say the pilot and plane (were) totally destroyed with no identification possible.”

That report, it is now known, was not totally accurate. Guidong villagers went to the crash and retrieved bits of the wreckage along with the body of the young pilot, Upchurch.

Flying Tigers had flown P-40s from the beginning, when the American Volunteer Group (AVG) fought under Chinese colors. While U.S. law at the time allowed only for cash-and-carry sales of arms, a China-based corporation known as the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company (or CAMCO) was formed to buy aircraft.

American aircraft production at that time was dedicated to American and British production.

However, the British agreed to divert 100 P-40s to China.

By the time Upchurch arrived at Kanchow, more modern versions were on hand. His “Cub” was a P-40N. It had a more powerful engine, and was redesigned for high altitude combat with a ceiling of 31,000 feet, a top speed of 350 mph, and six .50-inch machine guns mounted on the wings.

It could reach 14,000 feet altitude in 7.3 minutes, and had a range of 340 miles when fully loaded with a 500-pound bomb underneath the fuselage.

But it was not good in rough weather.

“In bad weather, the rocks win,” Anklin said. “The rocks always seem to win.”

John Chappell can be reached at 783-5841 or by e-mail at jchappell@thepilot.com.