East Texas News - The Polk County Publishing Company

Honoring World War II Veterans
Groveton News - January 2009
By DAN BARNES
   Born in August 20, 1918, Carr Burke, known to his youthful contemporaries in Groveton as either "Tudd" or "Took", or both, was the son of Ben and Harriet L. Burke. Living on a farm in Trinity County's Precinct #1, the Burkes had three additional children, older brother James, Carr's twin brother Bennie (Ben, Jr.?), and a daughter named Maurine. By 1930, Mr. Burke appears to have died, leaving Harriet a widow, but Carr and Bennie were nevertheless able to graduate from Groveton High School in 1939.
   When Carr entered the Army Air Corps is unknown, as his enlistment records are not available, but having a seven digit serial number (6290314) that begins with a "6" indicates he enlisted as a "regular" before the war began. It is also not known when he went overseas, but by the Spring of 1944 he was stationed in Kumitola, India with the C.B.I.'s (China-Burma-India Theater) US 10th Air Force.
An armorer/gunner in the five-man crew of a B-25 bomber, he was flying with the 490th Group's 341st Squadron. His outfit was locally known as the "Burma Bridge Busters" and was the oldest such unit in the C.B.I. It spent much of its time assaulting the Japanese transportation system in Burma, especially their bridges and river traffic. By 1944, though Burma was perpetually the lowest priority Allied Theater of Operations in the war, it also was a battle area on the rebound.
   The Allied had been unceremoniously "booted" out of Burma by the Japanese in early 1942. Since then they had busied themselves rebuilding and training old and new units, protecting the Indian border from Japanese incursions, and damaging the Japanese war effort in southeast Asia when and where they could.
   For the Allies, further fighting in Burma and China centered on the two related issues. One was a desire to deny Japan possession of the "Jewel" of the British Empire, India. The other was to keep China's vast manpower engaged in the war, thereby tying down and inflicting casualties on the million-plus Japanese military presence on the Asian mainland so that they could not be utilized against the Allies elsewhere in the Pacific War.
   Training and supplying the Chinese were deemed the keys to this effort but both these related enterprises were hampered by the fact that the Japanese Navy had gained control of the seaward approaches to China's Pacific coast long before Pearl Harbor.
   The Burma Road, an overland supply route from the seaport of Rangoon, Burma to Chunking, China, was initially used as an alternative, but the Japanese conquest of Burma in early 1942 eliminated it as an option thereafter. This disaster promp-ted the Allies to build and utilize another route, the Ledo Road, which ran from the east Indian border town of Ledo on to Chunking. To accomplish this, however, the Allies would first have to reconquer Japanese occupied northern Burma.
   From the beginning of the war America's presence in southeast Asia was dominated by the personality and strategic thinking of one man, Lt. General Joseph W. "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell. Always and at best a difficult personality, he worked there as Chiang Kai-shek's main military advisor in the building and training of an effective Chinese land army even as he warred and bickered with both Chiang and the British.
   Nevertheless, the spring of 1944 saw the beginning of the Allied reentry into and eventual reconquest of Burma. Joining Stilwell and his Chinese Army units in this offensive was the highly innovative and con-troversial British commander, Orde Wingate, leading his famous "Chindits"; Brigadier General Frank D. Merrill and his soon to be famous American jungle fighters, "the Marauders"; and, newly cherry-picked from the small 10th Air Force, innovation US airman Col. Philip Cochran and his less well known "Air Commandos" of the 5318th Provisional Air Unit.
   The remaining 10th Air Force cadre, including Carr Burke, was to aid the efforts of this odd-ball and multi-national collection of offensive military experimentation by providing additional transport, supply, bombing, and close air support for all these often widely separated units.
   The air support was the key in Burma, especially concerning supply. The Allied ground forces were at the mercy of the primeval nature of the mount-ainous Burmese countryside, a region blessed with few roads and covered largely by jungle. It did have many rivers but they tended to run at right angles to the direction of the Allied assault.
   To add to the difficulties normally to be expected, the Chinese, American, and British forces were often operating independently of each other and, initially, would have to fight and survive with what they could carry with them. After that they would have to rely on airdrops or resupply via makeshift airstrips chopped by hand from the jungle. Their direct air support was the primary mission of the "Air Commandos".
   The Allied effort in Burma began in February of 1944 and unleashed a whole series of engagements, so unintended, that dragged on through the summer. In northern Burma, the Marauders and Chinese took Myitkyina, providing a juncture of the Ledo and Burma Roads. South of them the British also engaged Japanese forces. But the Allied successes in the north lead to a Japanese reaction in the south, a phenomenon that manifested itself in the latter's attempt of a counter-invasion of eastern India.
   This was halted by the epic, weeks long battles of Kohima and Imphal that, with a British victory, was the beginning of the end for Japanese in south-east Asia.
   Carr Burke's squadron was part of the 5320 Air Defense Wing (Provision), a formation that appears to have been whatever was left of the 10th Air Force after the "Air Commandos" were detached. What this unit's exact function was is unknown but on February 12, 1944 Burke's B-25-D took off from Dinjan Station, India on a bombing mission to Walawbum, Burma, a Japanese-held village soon to be visited by "the Marauders" during their sojourn to Myitkyina.
   This flight required them to cross the dangerous southern end of the Himalayas, a barrier then more popularly known as "the Hump", their plane suddenly crashed into the jungle, killing not only all six members of the crew but the three additional passengers assigned to the flight.
   Carr R. Burke was 25 years of age at the time of his death and is believed to have been single. He is now buried in Groveton's Glenwood Cemetery with his parents and brother Bennie. Some of the information on his headstone differs from that in the official record, as the date of his death on his marker is April 12, 1944 and his unit is noted as the 311th Fighter Bomber Squadron. The discrepancy relative to the unit number is probably explained by the fact that two of the passengers killed when his plane crashed were members of the 311th Squadron. As to the different dates of his death, if he was originally declared missing in action, the later date on his stone may signify the day the government officially declared him deceased.
   No picture of Carr Burke has been forthcoming so far.
   As a final, related note, three weeks after Carr's death, Trinity's Joe Bartee Klaus was killed in action while flying with the "Air Commandos" in their part of the Allies' 1944 offensive in Burma.

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