Commando 41-24714

VARIANT: Curtiss C-46A-25-CU Commando

USAF SERIAL NUMBER (S/N): 41-24714

CURTISS CONSTRUCTION NUMBER (C/N): 26635

COMMANDO LINE NUMBER (L/N): CU275

FATE: Written off

  September 1943 to April 1944

  41-24714 - USAAF (USA)

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25 September 1943

Delivered from the Curtiss-Wright factory in Buffalo, NY.

14 December 1943

Assigned to ATC India-China Wing based at Station 7, Sookerating, Assam, India.

30 March 1944

Went missing over the China-Burma-India theatre. [MACR 3503]

Crew:
Charles G. Allison, Pilot
Edward Salay, Radio Operator
And probably two others

The Commando was on a return flight from China to Sookerating, Assam, India. Following engine problems, the crew bailed out over the upper Salween river valley, in China. They were rescued by Christian natives and the Morse family, American missionaries established in the area, who agreed to help the surviving American airmen and to give non-survivors a Christian burial. The crew lived with the Morses for about two months until the mountain pass was sufficiently open and then began their long trek with the Morses over the ice-covered 11,000-foot mountain pass from China into Northern Burma, and then through the lower mountains and jungles of Burma. The party arrived at Fort Hertz, Burma after 93 days missing in action. [their ordeal is described in details in Robert Underbrink's "Somewhere We Will Find You", in Stephen Otnifinoski's "Pilots in Peril" and in Gertrude Morse's "The Dogs May Bark But the Caravan Moves On"]

1 April 1944

Condemned for salvage.