_PabloSniper_
Airman
- 51
- Sep 25, 2024
Text from the book God is my copilot from Colonel Robert L. Scott, Jr
One day, during the last of April, two Chinese pilots landed
with two P-43A's. These were good, fast-climbing, little fighter
BURMA-ROADSTERS 89
ships, the forerunner of the "Thunderbolts." But their fuel
tanks had developed leaks, and when you added to that the fact
that the turbo was underneath the rear of the fuselage, the great-
est fire hazard in the world was born. So far had their ill fame
spread that the ships were grounded until the faults could be
remedied. So the Chinese left the P-43A's with us and went on
back to China. Colonel Haynes and I fell heir to the two little
fighters.
Sergeant Bonner worked diligently with everything from chew-
ing gum to cement and finally repaired the leaks, at least to a
point where they didn't catch fire right away on the take-off,
as some of them had done. I took one of these ships and decided
to use it to protect the ferry route. Even one lone fighter that
could fire back at the Japs would be a good morale element for
the crews of the unarmed transports.
12
Two Miles Above Everest
For several days I tested the single-seater around the field for
fuel consumption, and got the guns working pretty steadily by
shooting at crocodiles in the Brahmaputra. Every time I climbed
above the heat haze of Assam, I'd observe the high peaks of the
Himalayas to the North and Northwest, and the longing began
to grow within me to fly up over the highest mountains in the
world. But we had lots to do with the transports, and the days
passed without my chance to fly into Tibet. Besides, we were get-
ting more and more reports about the Japanese air activity a few
hundred miles to the Southeast.
And yet, after each of my convoy flights above the transports,
Fd look longingly at the snow-capped tops of Everest and Kan-
chenjunga. Every day that I put the trip off, I'd look at the
P-43A with its turbo supercharger, all ready to take me into
the stratosphere, and I'd try to plan some excuse for seeing how
high that little fighter would climb. It got so bad that even when
Fd run across passages in books referring to altitude and hills I'd
feel more and more keenly the urge to tackle Everest and the
Himalayas. Finally I saw one night that even Ruskin had read
my thoughts, for he'd written: "Out from between the cloudy
pillars as they pass, emerge forever the great battlements of the
memorable and perpetual hills."
That must have made up my mind for me. I was a creature of
opportunity, and here I was right beneath those great batde.-
ments with just the little ship to climb entirely over them and fly
90
TWO MILES ABOVE EVEREST
9 1
the good old star insigne of the Army Air Force a lot higher
than the highest bit of land in the world.
One morning, when the approaching monsoon period made it
impossible to carry ammunition to the AVG in Burma, I kept
seeing the tops of the greatest mountains in the world as I tested
my little interceptor over Assam. I knew I could just as easily
test this ship for maximum altitude by heading out over that
mountain range, whose lowest valley was as high as Mount Whit-
ney, as by what I was doing here over the safety of my home
field in Assam. So I landed and filled aU the fuel tanks of the
Republic, got my movie camera and plenty of oxygen, and took
off from the tea estates of Assam for the hills of Tibet, via the
sacred city of Lhasa. My decision was well timed, too, for within
two weeks we received specific instructions not to fly over the
country of Tibet or Nepal.
Going out over the Brahmaputra River, I began to follow it
as I climbed. I soon came to our auxiliary field of Sadiya,
and turned North with the river and watched the thick jungle
of northeastern India move higher and higher as the hills
rose and the stream grew narrow. To my right were the Naga
Hills separating India from Burma. To my left and rear was the
densest jungle I had ever seen a jungle for which unofficial
reports claim a record rainfall of 980 inches a year. Ahead I could
see the peak of Namsha Barwa, and I knew that I had suddenly
begun my flight from the six-hundred-foot elevation of our base
to as high as I could make the little plane go.
As I gained altitude to the North and entered Tibet, I kept
looking down at the Brahmaputra and marvelling. Here was a
stream that flowed for more than a thousand miles at an altitude
that must average 13,000 feet; in Tibet, I realized, even the rivers
were nearly as high as our highest mountain in America. From
my map I saw that the Brahmaputra rose on the side of a peak
far over in the West of India and flowed straight East near the
city of Lhasa, then made an "S" turn between these two peaks
that were directly ahead of me, then turned South and entered
92 GOD IS MY GO-PILOT
India, again turning Southwest at Sadiya, and keeping that
course until it joined the Padna or Ganges and emptied into the
Bay of Bengal. I had heard that this great gorge formed by the
river's cutting into the mountains, this "S" turn which I was
nearing, was one of the least known parts of the world, and I
was approaching the Great Himalayas from this direction in
order to look at that canyon.
In less than a hundred miles, the country below changed as if
by magic from the rain-swept paddy fields, the dark green tea
acres, the wide river flowing through relatively flat country, to
jagged mountains. I pointed the fighter ship, still climbing, in
between the two peaks that formed the gorge of the Brahmaputra.
The mountain to my left was named Namsha Barwa on my
map; the one to my right was unnamed. They were both about
25,500 feet above sea level. To the North the map showed a whole
area unmarked with contour lines, an area listed as "unexplored
and unadministered."
My altitude with the P-43A was now 20,000 feet. Under me
I could see white clouds in the canyon. I had made about 175
miles. Continuing through the gorge, I turned with the river in
its "S" through the mountains. Below me now, the mountains
almost made the river reverse its course, but finally it came out
seemingly in the clouds, and from my vantage point it appeared
to me that I was looking into the greatest canyon in the world.
I continued climbing toward the Southwest, following the
gorge. About ninety miles from the turn I reached a smaller
river that came down from the North into the Brahmaputra.
Turning up this, in forty miles I came to Lhasa, the city of the
Dalai Lama. The forbidden city lay North of the little, unnamed
river; it was made up of sprawling, dun-colored houses, and was
built on art open plain. From Lhasa and its listed altitude of
12,555 ^ eet j tfo land rose rapidly to the North, and in less than
thirty miks the mountains were over twenty thousand feet. The
maps are inaccurate, and the distances in that dear air are
deceiving, but that was the impression I gained.
TWO MILES ABOVE EVEREST 93
Circling Lhasa, I photographed the city and the Dalai Lama's
palace in color. The most noteworthy thing was the plume of
dust rising along the road through the town, a plume that was not
so much rising as being blown horizontally by a very strong wind.
Even from over twenty thousand feet, I could perceive that Tibet
was a rugged country.
To the North of Lhasa I identified the peak of Tengri-Nor,
and remembered that near that one mountain peak there rose
five big rivers of Asia: The Irrawaddy, the Salween, the Mekong,
the Yangtse, and the Yellow. Here were five rivers whose sources
were almost within sight of one another yet their mouths were
separated by thousands of miles of Asia, from the China Sea to
the Bay of Bengal.
As I turned from Lhasa and once more flew West, a farewell
look showed me a white road leading East from the sacred city,
and I knew it was the Yak trail that led across to northern China.
The dust was being blown in all directions by winds that swept
down from those lofty pinnacles to make the harshest climate on
earth icy winds that had climbed over these twenty-odd-
thousand-foot peaks from the plains of Mongolia. I had read that
this trail to the East crossed the gorges of the upper Salween,
Mekong, and Yangtse to Chengtu, and that in summer a good
pack train could make it in ninety days.
Leaving Lhasa, I also left the Brahmaputra, which continued
westward to its source some five hundred miles away in the moun-
tain of Gurla Mandhata, over 25,000 feet high. Across that
same mountain, on its western slope, rose the Indus. Two rivers
that almost encircled the borders of India in all her vast area
rose on one mountain yet one of them emptied into the Bay of
Bengal near Calcutta, while the other flowed West and entered
the Arabian Sea.
My course was away from the river as I pointed the nose of
the fighter towards the great peaks that were now coming up
over the curve of the earth. Even at the high altitude I had
reached over 25,000 feet I could only gasp at their greatness.
94 GOD IS MY CO-PILOT
Now, as I swept my head around and made my pictures, in one
glance I took in an area that must have had more than a thou-
sand-mile diameter. In one sweep my eye passed from the steamy
depths of the Assamese jungle, to the Naga Hills, ten to twelve
thousand feet high; then from these mere foothills to the distant
snows of the Himalayas the roof of the world.
Now, straight ahead, I saw Kanchenjunga, with three of its
five peaks visible. On ahead to the West, summit after summit
pointed into the purpling sky. There was Makalu, rearing up to
27,790 feet on the other side of Kanchenjunga. Kanchenjau and
Chamo Lhani were between Makalu and the great one Everest.
The greatest of mountains was still muddled together in its mul-
titude of spires; so that from my distance I could not yet pick out
the highest point of land on this earth.
With the turbo on full we climbed on, above twenty-six thou-
sand feet now. Far to the West, I saw where the Himalayas end,
and above the heat haze of India there appeared other peaks in
other mountain ranges far away hi the Punjab. One of these I
recognized as Badrinath, itself nearly 28,000 feet high. The
entire range of the Great Himalayas now appeared like the giant
vertebrae of some greatest of animals from which during count-
less centuries the flesh had gone. Below me it stretched, from
Burma, some four hundred miles behind me to the East, to that
peak near Badrinath far out to the West. Approaching Kan-
chenjunga, I circled that impressive 28,i5O-foot pyramid and
then wove in between it and the slighdy lower peaks to the West.
Continuing my color photography as the sky darkened in the
substratosphere, I silhouetted the snow-covered pinnacles agains*
the purpling sky.
On I went, now, to the peaks of Makalu and Chamo Lhani,
keeping the little fighter climbing steadily, winding in among the
saddles between the mighty hills. Even hi the lethargy that comes
with oxygen starvation or aeroembolism, as the flight surgeons
call it I was proud of the loud American engine that was pull-
ing me on and on to the top of the world. Looking at those
TWO MILES ABOVE EVEREST 95
massive, snow-covered spires, I respected the magnitude of nature
and the magnificence of the Himalayas, and I perceived the insig-
nificance of man. Then, as my position above it all impressed
itself on me, I realized that, after all, man had perfected that
steadily purring engine which was carrying me on and on above
the greatest of mountains. Perhaps, then, man in all his insignifi-
cance deserved a little credit too.
Rising alone, without the proximity of lofty lesser peaks, Kan-
chenjunga is truly the most beautiful of mountains. Though a
full thousand feet lower than Everest, it sweeps up in isolation
from a fourteen-thousand-foot plain for another fourteen thou-
sand feet in a graceful pyramid, commanding the chain of the
highest mountains in the world.
The little fighter and I "topped out" over Makalu. On the
other side, towards Everest, I saw Kamet. Then peak after peak
met my gaze. There was Chamo Lhani, Chomiomo, Kanchen-
jau, Cho-oyu at 26,870 feet, Gyachung Kang, Lhotse (the South
peak of Everest) until finally and with reverence, as though I
had saved the greatest for last, my eyes centered on Everest, in
Tibet called Chamolang, the Sacred One.
I guess my real reason for finally yielding my eyes to the great
mountain alone was that by now it was the only summit above
me the others had gradually sunk beneath the mounting alti-
tude of the little fighter plane. Now even Everest was slowly giv-
ing way, and I headed directly for that mass of reddish yellow
rock, all of it covered with snow and ice except where the ever-
lasting winds of the upper air had torn the covering away. At
30,000 feet and just South of the center pyramid, I saw the
"plume" of Everest, formed by snow being blown from the sum-
mit. On this day it pointed to the South, borne by a North wind,
and the sun shining through it made a rainbow that was beautiful.
Above Everest now, I withstood my temptation to fly close to
the big peak on the down-wind side there were bound to be
terrible down-drafts there, and I had respected lesser down-
drafts of lesser peaks in lower parts of the world. Passing directly
96 GOD IS MY GO-PILOT
over the South peak, Lhotse, I photographed Everest against the
sky, and as I opened the glass canopy of the plane I felt the chill-
ing blast of the wind. I noted then that my thermometer regis-
tered 22 degrees below zero, which though cold is nowhere near
the temperature one would experience at an equal altitude any-
where else than in the Himalayan region. For there the warm
monsoon winds out of the Indian Ocean are raised rapidly by
the slope of the earth, and thus the troposphere is evidently
higher.
On we climbed, with my turbo moaning its din among the
Himalayas. Everest fell farther below, and there came the feeling
of exhilaration that I was higher than the highest of mountains
and still .climbing. Circling, I set my course toward the peaks
forming the northern Tibetan border the hills of Arma Dreme
(according to my map) and the distant Kwenlun Mountains.
My effort was to get that ship as high as it would climb and yet
leave me sufficient oxygen to get me back to a safe free-breathing
level and at the same time have enough fuel to reach my
selected refueling field to the South, in Cooch Behar. Finally, at
37,000 feet as indicated on my altimeter which is over forty
thousand, probably 44,400 feet true, calibrated from temperature
and pressure corrections I passed the point where for the sake
of my heart and lungs it was best that I go home.
Already I could feel the aeroembolism symptoms to such a
degree that I wanted to yell at myself one minute, beat myself
over the head the next, and pat myself on the back in another.
It's a peculiar kind of "jag" the high altitude flyer gets on, and
it's best to be careful. I surely didn't want to fall suddenly
asleep and dive down to be a permanent resident among the
Lamas in Tibet. Anyway my eyes could no longer see well enough
to appreciate the beauties of the mountains, and the reduced
pressure was causing extreme discomfort in my stomach. Even
with the oxygen regulator on "full" I gasped frequently, and
when I raised my camera it seemed to weigh tons. Then I got to
where I couldn't remember whether or not I had heard the
TWO MILES ABOVE EVEREST 97
camera mechanism run. You see, at that altitude the oxygen that
we carry in the ship, even if you get it to your lungs, is only par-
tially absorbed by the blood. Anyway, as I opened the canopy
the cold air hit me in the face and revived me enough to enable
me to make my decision to go on down.
The temperature gauge on the dashboard was now minus fifty
and on the peg. It had to be lower than fifty below, and that is
cold anywhere. Though my camera had been hung over the
cockpit heater, I know that it had been frozen at times and didn't
run. Below me now were mountains marked on the map with the
familiar phrase: "Territory unexplored and unadministered."
Probably some peak in that chain would be higher than Everest
who knows?
I passed over Everest and took my last pictures from the high-
est altitude that I reached approximately two miles above the
great mountain. To the North I saw, five hundred miles away,
the summit of Ulugh Muztagh, itself over 26,000 feet. Around it
I could see the desert haze from the sands of Chinese Turkestan.
To the West now, and behind the top of Aling Kangri (over
25,000 feet) and Kamet (26,500), the real Western Himalayas,
I could see the summits of Saser Kangri and Distaghil Sar. One
mountain of this range was the 28,24-o-foot bulk of Badrinath.
To the North of these I saw the desert of Kashgar, almost five
hundred miles from me. To the South appeared the hills of
Shilong, nearly four hundred miles away, and around them were
the boiling clouds of the approaching monsoon season. Back in
the East the direction from which I had come was the top of
Namsha Barwa, another five hundred miles distant, where the
Naga Hills met Burma. On this Spring day, as I spiralled down
my eyes must have covered millions of square miles, from my
vantage point above the highest peak.
Just to ease a brain that was rapidly growing "befuddled"
from altitude, I. tried to fire my guns, but they were frozen.
Circling in a power dive to exactly thirty thousand feet, I passed
directly over Everest and into the "plume." Immediately I was
98 GOD IS MY CO-PILOT
thankful that I had heeded my better judgment of the earlier
hour and had not flown close to the down-wind side below the
summit. For I was sucked down in the most violent down-draft
I have ever experienced.
As the nose of the ship went into the "plume" area, it felt to
me as though some gigantic hand had reached up from old
Chamolang and was drawing us roughly towards Nepal, the
country directly beneath. My camera cracked me in the chin.
My maps from the map-case flew all over the cockpit. I got the
nose pointed down towards Asia as quickly as I could, got the
prop in low pitch, fought the maps out of my eyes and almost
before I realized it we were out of the down-draft, sailing
smoothly along at 25,000 feet, at least five miles South of the big
peak. Even in that time we had lost almost a mile of altitude.
Gaining complete control of the ship, I circled for more pho-
tography, and climbed once more for a view of the North Col,
the point where the best efforts at climbing Everest have failed.
Out there now I could see that place, at about 28,000 feet above
sea level, where man had been forced to turn back, beaten by
Nature and the elements. I thought* of the months that those
hardy men had worked to condition themselves and to fight that
high-altitude walk over the i8,ooo-foot passes from Darjeeling
across Sikkim, through these perpetual hills to a failure here in
the very shadow of success, barely a thousand feet below the sum-
mit. Personally, I want to do all my Himalayan mountain climb-
ing right behind the steady drone of "A Loud American Engine."
Fuel, oxygen, and film about gone, I turned now through the
saddle of Everest's main peaks the West promontory and
Chamolang and saluted with reverence the highest point on
the earth's surface. I tried to salute by firing the two fifty-calibre
guns into the glacier, but once more they failed to discharge.
So I just waggled my wings and dove for my refueling base to
the South.
With an aching head but with real exhilaration, I buzzed the
Maharaja's palace and landed at Cooch Behar. Then, with ade-
TWO MILES ABOVE EVEREST 99
quate hundred octane fuel, I went on back East to the Brahma-
putra, up past Tezpur, with my glance going back occasionally
on my old friends, the Himalayas. The great pile of snow-covered
summits seemed closer to me now, for I seemed to know them.
Everest, with its ocherish-brown color accentuating the yellow
sandstone band that traversed it, was back there already over
two hundred miles away, still commanding the horizon and in
reality the rest of the world. Closer to me and over the saddles
of the great ones, every now and then I could see the jagged
Nyonna-Ri range and the snows of Arma Dreme. Appearing
now as another great mass superimposed on Everest, was the
pyramid of Makalu, and from there my eyes swept across a hun-
dred lofty peaks. Looking them all over, I tried to name them
without reference to my map. Last of all my gaze centered in
admiration on the massif of Kanchenjunga.
I had covered the highest range in the world. I had made the
trip of over a thousand miles from our base up the Brahmaputra
by Lhasa and Everest to Cooch Behar in five hours and ten min-
utes. My route had been over territory which was probably the
most inaccessible in existence. Certainly it was forbidden, not
only by nature but, as I later found out to my sorrow^ by the
very religion of the people.
For shortly after I landed in Assam, came the usual letter that
has dogged me throughout my military career. "You will explain
by indorsement hereon why you flew over Everest and crossed
the country of Nepal. 53
You see, on the thread of this "reply by endorsement" there
hangs many a tale. To dodge the veiled girl back in Galata, I had
crossed the Black Sea to Varna and from Rumania had entered
Russia. That had precipitated a letter from the Adjutant Gen-
eral, who demanded a reply by endorsement telling why I, an
officer in the American Army, had entered the USSR a country
then not recognized by the TL S. A. Later, in each year, I had
had to make the same written reply explaining why I had
exceeded the maximum flying time of five hundred hours a year.
There had been many letters, but this one in far-off India had
IOO GOD IS MY CO-PILOT
me guessing. I had flown a routine test flight and could not
understand why it had required an official answer. Later it came
out that the British authorities in India had complained to the
U. S. Headquarters in Delhi about the flight for two reasons.
First, that a plane flying over Nepal, from which independent
country came the fine little Ghurka soldiers, offended the religion
of the people. Secondly, the entire incident had been discovered
from the fact that a Calcutta newspaper had published a story
that had been given world-wide publicity. This correspondent
had dwelt on the ease with which my little fighter had climbed
the 29,002 feet to the top of Everest and on up two miles above
the highest of peaks, but he had closed his article with what the
British considered a slap at their ability. It was this classic ending:
"While it required the British Government many months of
planning and the expenditure of some hundred thousands of
pounds to fly over Everest in 1927, it merely required an Ameri-
can Aviator, Colonel Scott, about five hours of his morning on
a routine test flight and the consumption of a few gallons of
aviation gasoline."
Of course I blush when I think that my gallant newspaperman
did not consider the difference in the advancement of aviation
between the years 1927 and 1942. Oh, well, with the letter
answered, apparently to the satisfaction of all concerned, I am
still at large, and permitted to fly and to breathe a purer air on
high. And there are some magnificent memories locked within
me, memories of nature's rocky masterpiece there in the tops of
the Himalayas.
13
The General Preferred to
The job of being a ferry pilot had to go on nevertheless. As
the leaks developed again in the tanks of the P-43*s, I went back
to flying the Douglas transports into Burma and China. One day
while I was acting as co-pilot for Colonel Haynes, we loaded
two disassembled Ryan Trainers hi the C-47 and headed for
Kunming. Besides this cargo we had some ammunition and food
for the AVG at Loiwing, especially a bottle of Scotch whiskey
to be left as a present for General Chennault.
I was surprised at the range of the P-43, that was quite a flight.
