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The Wrong Signal

Heroes Remember

The Wrong Signal

Transcript
There was one time that I had to abort the trip, because the drop zone had been taken over by the Japanese. I was not to drop anyone or anything unless I had a coded signal from the people on the ground, and I got the wrong one. I couldn’t believe it. And so I yelled, “Abort! Abort!” We closed the bomb bays. We burst the engines and took off, and then they started shooting at us, so we knew then that the Japanese had taken over, had probably captured the people. So we had to come back, and I think we had three British officers then. We threw everything out of the plane that we could, even parachutes, harnesses, everything we could, all the supplies that we had. We ditched just off the Penang Island. I’ll always remember that. I thought maybe I’d come back and find it later. Anyway, I dropped that off, but we couldn’t drop the British officers off. Unfortunately, we had to bring them back and that extra weight, we just barely made it to Minneriya. In fact, we landed and halfway down the runway all four engines guit - out of fuel. We had a flight engineer, Jack Thrush. He was screaming that these gauges were reading empty and we were contemplating ditching in the ocean. You have to have power to ditch properly, otherwise you just nose in. And they said, “Oh no, no, wait, wait, wait, we’re close, we’re close.” And eventually, we saw the runway. Just went right in and then the four engines quit. So that was the closest one we ever had, and it’s probably because of the actual weight, you know. We flew, all these trips were between 500 to 1,000 feet high, so it was quite turbulent. The people that we brought back, they swore they’d never go again. They’re not used to turbulence like we were. They were sick, they were - they felt terrible, but we got ‘em back anyway.
Description

Mr. Thomarat talks about a close call his crew had. Mr. Thomarat explains how the weight of the aircraft presented problems.

Armand E. Thomarat

Armand Thomarat was born on the 19th of February in 1922. His father was a carpenter and a highly decorated first World War Veteran who was awarded, among other medals, the Legion of Honor. Following in the footsteps of his father and four brothers, Mr. Thomarat joined the army in 1941. After serving briefly as a clerk, he transferred to the air force, becoming a bomb aimer and a gunner on the front turret. On long trips, he served as second navigator.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
2:31
Person Interviewed:
Armand E. Thomarat
War, Conflict or Mission:
Second World War
Location/Theatre:
Burma
Battle/Campaign:
Burma
Branch:
Air Force
Units/Ship:
357 Squadron
Rank:
Flying Officer

Copyright / Permission to Reproduce

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