Farrow thanked him and asked that he “tell the folks at home that we died very bravely.”
Tatsuta later recounted that “I told them that Christ was born and died on the cross and you on your part must die on the cross … you will be honored as Gods.” Highly unusual for an imperial soldier, Tatsuta closed with, “you will soon be bound to the crosses and when this is done it is a fact that that man’s faith and the cross shall be united. Therefore, have faith.”
Clean white blindfolds were wrapped over each man’s eyes, and a black mark placed in the center of their foreheads. Six riflemen lined up barely twenty feet away, and their commander, Lieutenant Goro Tashida gave the command: “Prepare!”
Six long Arisaka rifles slowly rose in unison, and two men aimed at each black mark. The lieutenant dropped his arm sharply. “Fire!”
The 7.7 mm bullets shattered each man’s forehead, and death was instantaneous. A medical officer checked each body for a pulse, and when none was found the wounds were bandaged and the dead Americans untied and laid in three coffins. These were carried to an altar, and the gathered Japanese saluted. Removed to the nearby Residents Association Crematorium, their ashes were later placed in small wooden boxes on the Kiangwan Prison altar. The remaining five men, Lieutenants Bob Meder, Chase Nielsen, Bob Hite, George Barr, and Corporal Jake DeShazer knew nothing about the execution. Meder, sick with beriberi, dropped from 175 pounds to just over 100 pounds and died in his cell, alone, on December 1, 1943. The last four men would face a total of forty months of mistreatment, occasional torture, and desperate loneliness. They also faced that hollow uncertainty of not knowing one’s daily fate, or even if anyone on the outside was aware of their existence.
Ski York and the crew of Plane 8 would have understood that completely. Awakened by the interpreter the morning after their arrival, they were stiff from the iron camp beds, and the scratchy wool blankets did nothing to alleviate their hangovers. The adrenaline had worn off, and the five men were grumpy. “When we went to bed that night,” York recalled, “we were fully confident we were going to leave the next morning.”
They were informed that “the Colonel and members of his staff will breakfast with you at ten.” Believing they would still depart today, Bob Emmens wanted a souvenir, so he swapped pennies, nickels, dimes for kopecks. While dressing, the three officers discussed the plan for the day, with York deciding to press the fuel issue and, if possible, to lift off for China after breakfast. To avoid occupied China, Ski knew they’d have to fly one thousand miles west, almost to the Mongolian border, before turning south for another nine hundred miles or so to Chungking. There really was no other option. Flying down the coast between Japan and Korea, and then over to China, did not appeal in the slightest. Especially with the Japanese thoroughly stirred up and angry after yesterday’s raid. The distances were about the same, either way, and at least via the western route they’d be over Chinese territory for most of it. If, that is, the Russians let them leave and granted overflight permission. If they did not, York intended thank them nicely, take off, and head south over the Sea of Japan. Once out of the Soviet Union, he’d turn west for the Chinese border, which was only a hundred miles away, then to the Mongolian border and south to Chungking.
The “breakfast” turned into a five-hour marathon of vodka, zakuska, pickled fish, caviar, and mounds of black bread. And more vodka. York tried to get an answer regarding fuel, but was told “business must never be discussed over meat and wine. All decisions will be made in due time. First,” the colonel beamed, “you must eat and drink heartily.” It was hard not to do so. Roast goose, fried potatoes, and an entire young pig were all brought in relays, with endless toasts, cheeses, and pickled vegetables. Somewhere in the melee it was decided to inspect the Mitchell, and the entire party made its way out to the bomber. Ski offered to give them a ride, but fortunately the colonel politely refused.
By 1600 the Americans were all back in their iron beds, heads swimming and bellies churning. A half hour later the interpreter threw open the door, quite excitedly, and blurted out, “You must hurry and get up. You are leaving at once. The airplane is waiting!” Thinking they were now allowed to leave, Ski pulled on his A-2 jacket, then all five headed downstairs and out to a dilapidated school bus. To Bob’s surprise and consternation, the bus drove past the Mitchell to a silver DC-3 waiting at the end of the field.
“Where are we going … and what about our bags?”
“You will learn everything in due time,” replied the colonel, who was apparently coming along. Standard Russian answer. Piling into the plane, York’s crew sagged onto the narrow, uncomfortable troop seats, still very much feeling the effects of the huge meal, especially the wine, cognac, and vodka. Lurching into the air, the DC-3 banked slightly and headed north, following a ridgeline up a long valley “containing a fair-sized river.”* Over the deep throbbing of the engines, Emmens and York discussed this latest development and arrived at three options. First, they’d been told the American consul was not in Vladivostok, but that they would “see their American friends soon,” so perhaps they were being flown to see the consul. That wasn’t as good as flying out to China on their own, but if this was the situation, certainly it meant getting back to the United States.
That was another possibility. Both pilots knew there were military flights between the Soviet Union and the United States via Alaska, so they could be on their way to a northern airport and from there back home. They liked this option and decided it was the most likely scenario.
But there was also a third choice: Manchuria and the Japanese. Maybe, in order to mollify Tokyo and prevent a declaration of war, Moscow had agreed to hand Plane 8’s crew over to the Imperial Army in Manchuria. The local Soviets had not seemed upset by the presence of the Americans, but the Kremlin might have other notions.
In any event, both pilots were relieved when the DC-3 started a descent about two hours into the flight. They hadn’t flown long enough to be close to Manchuria, so this had to be something else. Even through the fading afternoon light, they could see a large air base with many rows of aircraft next to a relatively big town. The Soviet colonel pointed out the window and yelled “Khabarovsk.”
Bouncing down on the grass, the transport slowed rapidly, and as it taxied past the parked aircraft, Bob was surprised to see they were all dummies. All the operational aircraft must have been sent west to fight the Germans, and that was another point worth noting. The Soviet Maritime Territory, which would bear the brunt of any Japanese onslaught, had been stripped of its defenses, which would also explain the obsolete biplane fighter that escorted them in to land. York doubted that if the Japanese did attack there was much the Russians could do to stop it. Thinking of the lengths Moscow would go to in order to avoid such a conflict brought another chill to his spine.
There were three cars waiting, and the colonel took Ski and climbed in the first, Emmens and Herndon took the second, with Laban and Pohl in the third. Each car had a driver with an armed soldier, and after a short trip to the edge of the airfield, they were led into a dimly lit building and up to an office. Against the far end by a window was the biggest desk York had ever seen, and beside it “stood a hulking, middle-aged Soviet officer.” Those with them, including the colonel, snapped to attention and stood rigidly in a line. The American officers straightened up a bit, but did not come to attention, and stared at the Russian. “He had a huge girth,” Emmens recalled, “which was all the more accentuated by his shortness of stature and his perfectly round, shiny bald head. The length of his arms gave him the appearance of a gorilla.”
He wore a dark green tunic over dark green riding pants with black boots and an officer’s sword belt. On the collar, York saw five gold stars arranged on a crimson-red background. Gorilla or not, this was obviously a high-ranking general officer who now held their lives in his hands. “He was an ugly individual with small, beady eyes,” Bob wrote. Another interpreter and an expressionless female standing near the desk introduced them to the “commanding general of the Far Eastern Red Army,” then bade them take a seat for there were a few questions. In fact, this was General Iosif Rodionovich Apanasenko, a fifty-one-year-old combat veteran of the Russian Imperial Army who had gone over to the Bolsheviks and fought for them during the Civil War.* The general asked about their target and their route into Japan but was most interested in the route out. Had they been detected? Had they been followed by Japanese planes, or been sighted by any Japanese ships on their way across to Russia? He wasn’t much interested in where they had come from, or the Hornet, or where the other raiders went after Japan, but he asked three times about being followed to the Soviet Union. Now it was quite plain to Ski York that Russian concerns about a Japanese declaration of war were of the utmost importance to Moscow and that this man, who commanded all Soviet Forces in the Far East, had been directed to assess the risk.
After a half hour of back-and-forth statements, Apanasenko made a slow, deliberate statement, his hard little eyes flickering to each American face. When he finished, the general nodded at the woman and she stood.
“The general has asked me to tell you that according to a decision reached between our two governments, and by direction of orders from Moscow, you will be interned in the Soviet Union until such a time as further decisions are made in your case.”
Ski York was surprised, but considering the Russian penchant for deception, he realized this should have been expected. The Mitchell had only landed yesterday, so there had been no time for any exchanges between Washington and Moscow; this was strictly a decision made by the Kremlin. Damage control, Russian style. Ski was suddenly quite relieved that both Doolittle and Hap Arnold knew about this mission, not that it would do them much good at the moment, though Soviet uncertainty on that point was probably why his crew was still alive. They could have been simply shot dead and dropped in a ditch, he knew, though Moscow was unsure of who in Washington was aware Plane 8 had landed here. With the Germans on their doorstep, the Japanese in their backyard, and their continued existence dependent on Lend-Lease, the Soviets dared not alienate the United States by executing an Army bomber crew.
The general stood, said something to the interpreter, and with a slight bow turned to his officers and walked toward the door. The interview was clearly at an end, and the woman cleared her throat.
“You will begin internment immediately.”
PART III
Never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
8 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Admiral William Harrison Standley, United States ambassador to the Soviet Union, was the first American to know the fate of Plane 8 and its crew. “I had no official notification of the landing of the American bomber on Soviet territory until April 21st,” he wrote in his memoirs. “The Soviet Foreign Office sent me word that the crew would be interned near Khabarovsk.”
In fact, they were already there.
As Ski York deduced, the decision had been made by Moscow, not by Washington. Standley, a combat veteran of the Spanish-American War who had commanded the battleships Virginia (BB-13) and California (BB-44), served as chief of naval operations before retiring in 1937. Recalled to active duty in February 1942, he was immediately sent to Russia as the United States ambassador to the Soviet Union. On April 23, while meeting with Joseph Stalin, the Soviet premier stated that the crew was safe but “they should not have landed on Soviet territory.”
Nonetheless, the Russians had officially acknowledged the crew’s presence in the Soviet Union, so they could not now simply “disappear” or be handed over to the Japanese. “We’ll have to intern them,” Stalin affirmed, “in accordance with International Law.” By April 25, the cat was out of the bag as Soviet newspapers ran a headline declaring AN AMERICAN WARPLANE HAD LANDED IN THE SOVIET MARITIME PROVINCE ON APRIL 18. The bomber had apparently “lost their way after bombing Japan.”
Jimmy Doolittle and Hap Arnold knew this was utterly untrue, but said nothing about it because none of the raiders were supposed to have landed in the Soviet Union. In fact, Doolittle expressly ordered them not to land in Russia. Ski York, however, had been acting under instructions from Hap Arnold, who was Doolittle’s superior officer, chief of the Army Air Forces, and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That this endeavor had been sanctioned by Hap Arnold was the reason for the subterfuge and cover stories up to that point, and for future obfuscation by Jimmy Doolittle, Ed York, and Bob Emmens. To understand this extraordinary mission, one must answer two fundamental questions: why, and how?
The genesis for Plane 8’s sub-rosa flight to Russia lies with Doolittle himself, though he had no idea how it would manifest itself during the raid on Japan. In the last paragraph of his February 1942 feasibility study to Hap Arnold, Doolittle writes, “Should the Russians be willing to accept delivery of 18 B-25-B airplanes, on lease lend, at Vladivostok our problems would be greatly simplified” (see appendix one). This suggests that Moscow’s approval of bomber deliveries to the Maritime Territory would streamline the flow of Lend-Lease aircraft to the whole of the Soviet Union.
Arnold took it a step further. If the USSR allowed such an influx of materiel directly to their Far East bases, then they would surely accept American basing proposals from which to strike Japan. After all, Tokyo would know about the Lend-Lease routes and would hardly accept Moscow’s word that such war materiel would only be used against the Germans. Therefore, if Stalin permitted this, then he was willing to accept war with Japan as a consequence; ergo, he completely sided with the Allied cause, and there was no immediate risk of Soviet duplicity or a separate peace.
But how would Washington know that?
Arnold had the answer.
Bombing Japan in April 1942 had been approved and encouraged by Roosevelt himself, and the president would certainly welcome any action by any ally that would relieve the tenuous American situation in the Pacific. These were the darkest days of the Second World War, and the Axis seemed undefeatable, so desperate measures were definitely within the realm of possibility. Lend-Lease, which was extended to Moscow in October 1941, was the lifeblood of the combined Allied fight, and although prodigiously generous, the United States expected a quid pro quo. From Britain, this included long-term basing rights, among other concessions, but from the Soviet Union, Washington desired active war against Japan. Knowing Moscow was unwilling to do this, the fallback position was passive cooperation in the form of air bases in return for billions of dollars’ worth of Lend-Lease credits.
But negotiating is problematic without a clear idea of your adversary’s true strengths, weaknesses, and expectations. The best way to assess Soviet intentions and capabilities would be a firsthand analysis of the Maritime Territory. So, Arnold reasoned, if one of the Doolittle bombers landed at a selected airfield east of Vladivostok, the pilots would know immediately if such a place was suitable as a bomber base. Where would Plane 8’s high-octane fuel come from, if there was any there to begin with? Could oil be replenished, and how long would this take? Just as critical, what would the Soviet reaction to their presence be? Would they be enthusiastic, or fear the consequences; lend political and military support, or hand the crew to the Japanese—or, worse, make the crew simply disappear? It was a terrible risk Ed York and his crew were taking, but in hindsight their risk was no greater than that of the other raiders who met tragic fates in China. Arnold, and obviously York and Emmens, felt it was a risk worth taking.
This answers the question, why?
As for how, this is at times equally simple and complex.
Once he decided to proceed, Hap Arnold needed the right man to bring it off. Just as he’d chosen Jimmy Doolittle as the man to plan and then eventually lead the mission, Arnold required a similar type of pilot to fly the mission to Russia. Someone experienced and senior enough to accept the added danger, a man capable of a fast, accurate assessment of the previously mentioned factors, and one who could deal with the Russians. Excepting Jack Hilger, Ski York had more B-25 time than anyone else and, like Arnold himself, was a West Pointer, the only one on the raid. York was also the 95th Bombardment Squadron commander, and as the raiders’ operations officer he was responsible for the planning, crew training, and oversight of every aspect of the mission.
