B-25 Mid-air - 12 Jan 1943 - Chakulia, India - 341 BG
 

On a training mission on 12 Jan 1943 two of three participating B-25s of 341BG/22BS had a mid-air collision near their base at Chakulia, India. All 11 crew of the B-25s involved were killed. Names on airforcehistoryindex, but not who was in what B-25.

Both aviationarchaeology and accident-report.com have 41-12671 (Lt William Alton) and 41-31436 (Lt Samuel Dickinson).

Latter #436 not quite correct, for this serial was a Vultee Vengeance that saw service with the RAAF (A27-520) and later RAN.

Joebaugher refers to more possible B-25 41-12436 instead, but here it says "sold by War Assets Corp. to Paul Mantz Feb 19, 1946"...

Can 41-12436 still be correct after all?

Any info welcome, thanks.

Regards,
Leendert

Re: B-25 Mid-air - 12 Jan 1943 - Chakulia, India - 341 BG
 

Can't help on the numbers, but I do think they listed the men by crew.
So first plane crew was most likely:

ALTON, William J.; 2nd Lt https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...illiam-j-alton
MARICH, Nicholas; 2nd Lt https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...icholas-marich
HARRIS, Vernon M.; S/SGT https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...ernon-m-harris
HORN, Guy V.; Sgt https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...uy-vogler-horn
GANOE, Finley H.; Cpl https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...finley-h-ganoe
NEWSOME, Sydney S.; Cpl https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...ephens-newsome


2nd plane was:

DICKINSON, Samuel R.; 1st Lt https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...el-r-dickinson
WHITE, Samuel M.; 2nd Lt https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...muel-max-white
LEVEE, Jessie C.; Sgt https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...-charles-levee
MONDELLO, Anthony M.; Pvt https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...thony-mondello
PROPST, Robert L; S/Sgt https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...t-lewis-propst

All these men are on findagrave.

Re: B-25 Mid-air - 12 Jan 1943 - Chakulia, India - 341 BG
 

Thanks for further info. It appears that Paul Mantz bought quite a lot of surplus airplanes after the war... The camera B-25 he used not the India one however.

Regards,
Leendert

Re: B-25 Mid-air - 12 Jan 1943 - Chakulia, India - 341 BG
 

I was interested in the fact the Nicholas Marich (co-pilot in the first plane) had been shot down at Hong Kong and had evaded according to his findagrave link:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...icholas-marich

While I could not find a MACR for this, I did find a very interesting pdf file (a Master's Thesis of some 250 pages) which described his evasion among many others. The thesis is called "Fallen Tiger: The fate of American's Missing Airmen in China" by Daniel Jackson (2017)

This link is to a direct download of the pdf file. Some of you might find it interesting. It gets into some history of the war in China.

https://shsu-ir.tdl.org/shsu-ir/bits...=1&isAllowed=y


Also found an interesting account of the Hong Kong raid from the Chinese side: https://www.atroshenko.com/NSbiog004.html

Re: B-25 Mid-air - 12 Jan 1943 - Chakulia, India - 341 BG
 

Yes, I had partly read the story about Marich.

Whole search for this B-25 collision was looking into WW2 casualties from Gladwin (County), MI, where I lived for one year. Person in question was Sgt. Jessie Levee from neighboring town Beaverton.

Regards,
Leendert