[bearoutwest]

A snippet more info from Richard Bueschel's book "Communist Chinese Air Power":
- in May 1946, three unmarked fighters of Japanese origin strafed a Nationalist armored train north of Mukden. (Bueschel suspected the pilots were Japanese - "...is little question the pilots were Japanese, for the Chinese did not yet have pilots of their own capable of handling such high-performance aircraft." This comment obviously discounts the possibility of Nationalist defectors.)
- the Chinese Civil War "formally" recommenced in July 1946, despite frequent skirmishes and a Nationalist offensive which almost defeated the Communist forces in 1946. This offensive was curtailed by a US sponsered cease-fire on 6-June-1946.
- The June cease-fire almost ended when the Nationalists demanded the return of the first "acquired" B-24. The Communists claimed the pilot had defected to Yenan (Yan'an). The Nationalists claimed the bomber had run out of fuel from Chengtu.
- In August, the Nationalists raided Yenan with six aircraft and destroyed the B-24.

As to the question of defector or fuel-outage; "Red Wings Over The Yalu" notes that the pilot of the first B-24 defection - Liu Shanben - was later the commander of the 10th Aviation Division and led the bombing raid on the South Korean intel-post on Taehwa-do Island on 30 November 1951.

...geoff