Published: Saturday, September 03, 2011, 5:49 PM
By Brian Albrecht
"There are no ordinary lives," said Ken Burns of those who served in a global cataclysm so momentous that the filmmaker simply entitled his 2007 documentary "The War."
Many who served in so many different ways during World War II are gone now.
Some took their stories with them.
But not this one.
In the summer and fall of 1941, a group of about 300 American pilots and ground crews boarded ships bound for Burma on a mission to help China fight the Japanese during World War II.
At that time, America was not at war with Japan, so these members of the 1st American Volunteer Group -- recruited from the aviation ranks of the U.S. Navy, Marines and Army Air Corps -- traveled in civilian clothes, many listing fictitious occupations on their passports.
They'd been discharged from the service for a year's employment with the ersatz Central Aircraft Manufacturing Co. to "manufacture, repair and operate aircraft" at salaries two to three times their military pay. (Pilots got a $300 bonus for each Japanese plane they shot down.)
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