HAL D. LE DUC
Age: 87
Born: Nov. 22, 1922
Hometown: Anaheim
Residence: Bermuda Dunes
Military branch: U.S. Army Air Corps; 5th Air Force; 380th Bomb Group; 529th Bomb Squadron
Years served: February 1943-December 1945
Rank: Staff sergeant
Family: Wife Carol; eight children, Jim Le Duc of Galveston, Texas, Mike Le Duc of Placentia, Dena Le Duc, Ron Young of Albuquerque, N.M., Connie Winn of Glendora, Randy Young of Yorba Linda, Jim Young of Yorba Linda and Joan Hill of Coto de Casa; 23 grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Army Air Corps veteran John Waggaman of Rancho Mirage.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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During World War II, while waiting to take off on a bombing mission to Hong Kong from an air base in the Philippines, B-24 tail gunner Hal Le Duc witnessed a terrible accident that claimed the lives of 10 airmen.
As Le Duc's plane sat in line on the runway of Murtha Airfield on Mindoro Island, another bomber had a mechanical breakdown soon after it went airborne.
“Two of its engines quit and the pilot turned around and tried to come back and land,” Le Duc said. “When he came in, for some reason, he came in too high and couldn't get the plane down.”
Because of the plane's loss of power, the pilot was unable to pull the faltering aircraft high enough to clear the bombers parked on the runway.
“It hit the plane right behind us,” smashing into the tail section and killing two crewmen, Le Duc said.
The other plane crash landed, killing eight crew members — “The pilot and co-pilot were the only survivors,” he said.
Once the rest of the bombers were safely in flight, the group started on its long-distance mission to Hong Kong.
After more than five hours, the planes approached a land mass — but soon realized it wasn't their assigned target.
“I remember looking out and not seeing Hong Kong,” he said. “All I saw was the China coast and water.”
“They (lead bombers) turned the wrong way when they hit the coast,” Le Duc said. “We made a turn and came back and dropped our bombs on Hong Kong.”
The bombers came under heavy flak near the target.
“The ‘ack ack' (anti-aircraft fire) was coming up and it was pretty noisy when it would explode,” he said. “You could hear them going off around you. After ‘bombs away,' it was a diving turn to get away.”
“Two-thirds of the way home, the flight engineer — he decided, along with the pilot, that maybe we don't have enough gas to get back,” Le Duc said. “We were throwing everything out of the plane,” that wasn't tied down or needed. “We shot all the ammunition out of all of our guns. Then the radio operator — he sent out the May Day that we weren't going to have enough fuel.”
They ended up making an emergency landing at Clark Field in Luzon, Philippines.
The bomber picked up some fuel and made it back to Murtha Airfield — two hours away from Luzon.
Le Duc flew 25 missions, taking off and landing on a crude runway hacked out of the jungle.
“We were always worried about takeoff,” Le Duc said. “We always had so much fuel and so much weight from the bombs and our ammunition.”
From the airfield, the B-24s bombed and strafed targets held by the invading Japanese military at that time, he said. “The targets were airfields, harbors, cities, ships, submarines and railroad yards.”
Before the crew's 18th mission — a bomb run to Formosa — the men were briefed about where to land if they had engine trouble, were shot at or forced to bail out.
There was a mountain range near the target and the men were warned not to land on the western side of the mountain.
“They said, ‘Bail out on the east side because the Aborigines live there. They would treat you a lot better than the Japanese.'”
“It was terrible weather,” Le Duc said, recalling the mission. “I'm sitting back here in the tail and all I could see was the clouds.”
The order soon came to, “Pick a target of opportunity and go home,” Le Duc said. “We turned to go over the range of mountains. We got in a down draft over the mountains. We started dropping, dropping. The bombardier was yelling, ‘Pull her out, pull her out!' They (pilot and co-pilot) were pulling back as hard as they could. I couldn't move from the force,” as he was slammed against the back of his tail gunner's seat.
“When we came out of the clouds, we couldn't find any of our other airplanes,” he said. “We're all by ourselves. By now, we're over the ocean on the west (Japanese) side of Formosa.”
In the distance, they spied a line of buildings on the edge of the sea. Deciding it would make a good target, the plane lined up to drop its bombs and opened its bomb bay doors.
Looking around for any sign of the enemy, “From the corner of my eye I caught these red flashes,” he said. “I said, ‘Tail to pilot — ack ack coming up! Take evasive action!'”
The plane was hit with flak in the midsection, tail fins and wings.
“We didn't know the extent of damage from the ack ack,” he said. “We (dropped) our bombs in the sea (because) we felt maybe we'd have a tough time getting back to our home base,” four hours away.
Once the men landed they were interviewed by intelligence officers. That took place after every mission.
“They want to know everything you saw,” Le Duc said. “The good part about it was the (interviewers) poured two ounces of whiskey in everybody's (mess kit) tin cup.”
