We met Mr. Hodges, a World War II fighter pilot ace. He flew in support of the Nationalist Chinese war effort against the Japanese. He showed me his wall of medals and honors he received as the commander for the 'China Bombers' figher/bomber group. He was present at moments of history in the making including his meeting with General Chang Kai Chek and his wife, Madam Chang. Madam Chang's story is a fascinating one. She was born in America, spoke beautiful English, married to Gen. Chang Kai Chek while her sister married Mao Che Tung, the 20th century dictator of Red China. Gen. Chang and Mao fought each other for years until Mao triumphed and Gen. Chang moved his troups and people to Taiwan. The world continues watching the potentially explosive conclusion if China invades Taiwan and the U.S. comes to the aid of Taiwan.
Mr. Hodges' heroism was documented in a published book titled 'China Bombers, the Chinese-American Composite Wing in World War II' written by Ken Daniels.
I am very honored to meet Mr. Hodges. He kept his words and has sent me many pictures of his family including Nick's, his first son who is an F-16 fighter pilot supporing the Iraq war. Click
here to see some of the pictures. One picture is of Gen. and Madam Chang Kai Chek, inspecting the 3rd Bomber Squadron in China. The tall American in the picture on the right is Col Tex Hill. He shot down 18 planes during the war. Tex was Mr Hodges' commanding officer at the Proving Ground Command. He married Mazie (see picture) Scales a campus beauty at the University of Alabama.
Below is an article about Mr. Raymond Hodges in the Randolph County's Daily Local News Source in Roanoke, Alabama.
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 16, 2005 Last modified: Wednesday, November 9, 2005 11:32 AM CST
Raymond Hodges displays some of the medals he received for his service during World War II. /Penny L. Pool
A life that could have been a movie
by Penny L. Pool
It could be a movie but it's not. It is the life story of Raymond Hodges and the contributions he made in development of aircraft to fight in World War II; the missions he flew and the contributions he made to the Chinese effort to stop the Japanese.
Now, 86, not the cocky young man shown in the book, “China Bomber The Chinese-American Composite Wing in World War II,” he still has those bombardier eyes.
He loved to fly. He may be one of the few who were in the U.S. Air Force and the Chinese Air Force at the same time. The Third Bomber Squadron, the Chinese-American Wing, was crucial in stopping the Japanese. He was one of its three commanders.
While doing what he loved he met legends. He trained Jimmy Doolittle of Doolittle's Raiders. Terming the stripped-down plane's bombing of Tokyo, Japan “a publicity stunt” he said it did show the Japanese they could be touched.
He had met Doolittle at Elgin, but the flight to Japan was super secret. No one knew what had been planned until they later read about it in the papers. ”The Tokyo raiders were a pretty rough and rugged bunch,” he said.
He knew the famous Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault, who assisted Chiang Kai-Sheik in creating an air force to defend China.
He flew B-25s with the Chinese red star on the tail.
“I worked with Chennault's group. We all loved ‘the hawk,'” he said.
The Nationalists and the Communists worked together but they hid parts in the wall for after the war when they planned to fight each other, Hodges said. Chiang Kai-Sheik's people charged to bring downed pilots out but the Communists did it for free, he said.
After WWII, the Communists ran Chiang Kai-Sheik from the mainland to what is now Taiwan. Hodges' first bomb squadron is still active there, he said.
The war in Europe has always caught the lion's share of attention, he said. “We were kind of the stepchild and got what was left. We ate off the land. We didn't get food and supplies until the war in Europe was over.
“We were just a sideshow-kind of like an orphan,” he said. He came home before the atom bomb was dropped. He left the service in September of 1945. He will never forget flying home over the Himalayas. He had a huge bowl of fruit cocktail and ate the entire thing. The Chinese could cook chicken 100 different ways, he said, and his love of Peking Duck lasts to this day.
How did a Randolph County boy end up there?
“All my life I built model airplanes. I grew up wanting to fly. I guess I was a pioneer in Randolph County. I had the first plane. It didn't have any landing gear. I had to get two fellows to stop me when I landed,” Hodges said.
His flying lessons in 1938 at Georgia Military in Milledgeville, Ga., morphed into his joining the Air Force in September of 1940. From there he went to Jackson, Miss., then Gunter Field in Montgomery, was commissioned in 1942 and finished at Barksdale Field in Shreveport, La.
The country was building up for war and there were flying schools all over the South. Assigned as a training instructor in Albany, Ga., he was one of 10 quickly picked to go to the “Proving Ground” at Elgin Field, Fla.
“That's where as a test pilot I got to fly some Navy, some foreign, some experimental planes. I would come down the flight line and see what I was going to fly that day,” he said. Of the 55 kinds of planes he flew some were “God awful looking,” he said.
He flew them testing how they dropped bombs; how they handled; their gasoline consumption and other crucial requirements for bombers.
“It was fun. I enjoyed every minute of it,” Hodges said. He was 21 when he entered the military and spent every Christmas at a different place. In January of 1944 he shipped out from Goldsboro, N.C. to China.
The aircraft carrier took about six weeks, including stops at Madagascar, Karachi, India, Brazil and Cape Town, South Africa. Taken on a tour in Cape Town, he had tea and scones at the home of Cecil Rhodes of the Rhodes scholarships.
In early 1944 they were training crews and ended up in the rain forests of India, flying missions in Burma. Called the Burma Bridge Busters, they would do everything they could to disrupt supplies to the Japanese.
He got shot down, almost making it home but losing power. They landed in a rice paddy; he borrowed a bicycle and met his rescuers who had come to pick up the crew. He flew 31 missions where he got some of this many medals.
He received the Chinese Silver Star and three Distinguished Flying Crosses, among others, including two air medals, one given for every 25 missions flown.
He went to Kwellin, then moved about two weeks later to Hanchung, which is at the same latitude as Roanoke with about the same climate. He remained there about nine months providing ground support for the troops, flying 30 missions.
The language barrier was difficult. At first they ran mixed crews but some Chinese crewmembers misunderstood and bailed out so they reverted to separate American and Chinese crews. The Chinese pilots who spoke English often did so with a Southern accent because they had trained in the American South.
Madame Chiang Kai-Sheik's mission to get help from President Franklin Roosevelt worked. China's towns were being bombed heavily but after the American group was implemented it turned the tide of the war, Hodges said. The Chinese had had no air force until the Americans began training their people. The British also assisted.
“The Japanese had used China as a sort of training ground,” Hodges said. The Japanese were advancing on the old capital of China but his squadron flew around-the-clock missions night and day to stop them. One day he flew three separate missions, returning to get bombs reloaded.
“That was a turning point of the war. From there the Japanese went backwards. I think we had a big effect on the war,” he said.
Much of the Japanese supplies came by way of the Yellow River Bridge, an about three-mile-long bridge, that was heavily fortified. Pilots had to fly through heavy ground fire to get to it and the bombs would slide off the target and go into the water if not hit just right.
Before him the pilots would come in low and fast, but his experience in Navy dive bombers enabled him to approach the bridge, go into a modified dive and then a 90-degree dive, destroying the bridge spans. A P-38 attached to him would take photos. About six weeks later when the span was repaired “We'd hit them again, which must have been frustrating,” Hodges said.
He is e-mailing his many experiences to his grandchildren and of his stories he says: “There's no place to stop really.”
Flying is a family affair. His daughter, Susan, married Sid Hare, who flies DC-10s for Fed-Ex. Their son, Nicholas, is an F-16 pilot. He flies for a small airline and is in the Air National Guard in Montgomery. He served in Qatar and will go back next year. Twin boys Raymond and Joel his grandsons, soloed when they were 16 years old.
Raymond Hodges, who went to work for his father in the wholesale gasoline business, retired in 1982. He and Eleanor have been married 58 years. His other children are: Eleanor Hodges Eakes and John and Frank Hodges.
His past is always there. He remembers in Christmas 1944 “a couple of boys went scouting for a Christmas tree. They brought a Himalayan bear back. The bear had a mind of its own. I went where the bear wanted to go, not where I wanted to go. He weighed about 150 pounds,” Hodges said.
When the group moved from base to base they would give the bear rice wine, which he loved, holding it between his paws. They would give it to him until he passed out, then they would load him on the plane and they would hope they would get there before he woke up with a bad hangover, he said.
It was really dangerous flying in the Chinese mountains at night and one commander lost his command after saying it was suicide to fly there at night.
One time they got out just ahead of the Japanese, who were closing in fast, but they went back and retook the bases quickly.
His last plane was the Firebug B-25, so named after one run hit a weapons dump that resulted in massive explosions. He was flying home from a mission. Ground fire had damaged his hydraulics and he couldn't get the landing gear down.
He asked the tower what to do but they had no answer. He flew around burning up fuel. His co-pilot wanted to bail out but Hodges wanted to save the plane. Crewmembers decided to stay with him and the landing tore up the plane but everyone walked away, he said. He found out later the plane was salvaged for parts.
Of the danger, he said: “You don't really think too much about it. I told someone a combat pilot spends hours of sheer boredom and minutes of sheer terror. Anybody that says he wasn't afraid isn't telling you the truth,” he said.
Copyright © 2005 The Randolph Leader
Address: PO Box 1267 Roanoke, Alabama 36274 • Phone: 334-863-2819
