World War II Hump pilot says 'God got him through' dangerous missions over the Himalayas - Florida Today

April 23, 2019 at 05:17AM

95-year-old Melbourne resident Eugene "Tex" Ritter spent two years flying dangerous missions over the Himalayan Mountains during World War II Wochit, Wochit

The exact details in the stories are a little hazier than they used to be but the pride of having served his country and the emotion associated with flying dangerous missions has not waned.

With his gentle blue eyes glistening and his bottom lip often quivering, 95-year-old Eugene "Tex" Ritter sat down with me to talk about his days as a "Hump Pilot" during World War II.

The Flying Tigers was the nickname given to the 1st American Volunteer Group, which fought defending China from Japan even before the U.S. entered World War II. Some pilots, including Ritter, flew perilous missions over the Himalayan Mountains, nicknamed "the Hump," because Japanese forces had blocked important ground routes including the Burma Road.

For me, the timing couldn't have been better. I just recently started reading a book called "The Flying Tigers: The Untold Story of the American Pilots Who Waged a Secret War Against Japan" focusing on the exploits of Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault. When I shared that information with Ritter, he promptly produced his Flying Tigers identification card.

"When the Japanese were surrendering, (Gen. Douglass) MacArthur stood up and looked around," Ritter told me, his words vibrating with emotion. "Then he said 'where is Chennault?' When I heard about that, it, it just hit me hard and I started to cry."

Chennault, who founded the Flying Tigers and was Ritter's commanding officer, has long occupied a place of reverence for Ritter. He said Chenault's absence during the Japanese surrender bothered MacArthur because the Flying Tigers had been so important to the war.

Ritter's wife of 73-years, Betty, told me that her husband has only recently started talking about his experiences as a Hump Pilot during World War II in recent years.

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They met during high school having grown up in a suburb of Pittsburgh. She was a cheerleader and he was a football player. He also had a car and would drive the cheerleaders — including his sister — home after practice.

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Ritter graduated in 1943 and posed for photographs with his diploma and his draft papers. After 16 months of training and graduating from aviation school at the very top of his class, which allowed him to pick his own crew. Ritter was ready to fly for his country. He and Betty got engaged before he took off in his C-46 cargo plane from West Palm Beach.

But Ritter received an ominous warning just before he was set to fly out to be part of the China-Burma-India theater known as the CBI as a pilot flying fuel over the Himalayan Mountains — known as the Hump — to resupply American planes in China, mainly B-29 bombers.

"A pilot randomly asked where I was heading to and I told him the CBI and he asked me what I was flying," Ritter said as his eyes wandered off to a faraway place. "I told him the C-46 and he said 'We use those for checkpoints flying over the Hump."

The pilot meant that planes could follow the routes by spotting the crashed C-46 planes down below. The planes and crews could not be recovered, Ritter said, because the terrain made it impossible to reach.

"Imagine telling me that as I'm ready to leave?" Ritter said shaking his head in disbelief. "How much was I expected to take?"

Ritter and his crew took their plane — dubbed "Flying Eagle" — and made the journey to India, making stops along the way in South America, the Ascension Islands and the Coast of Africa.

Then the real work, the real challenges began of making countless treacherous flights over the mountain range known as the Hump.

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"The biggest headache was the weather," Ritter said. "But you had a duty to perform."

In addition to the altitude that could wreak havoc on the propeller-driven planes and the jagged rocky peaks that dotted the skyline, pilots had to contend with violent winds caused by warm air from the Indian Ocean meeting cold dry air from Siberia. The result were turbulent winds that hit the mountain range and then shot straight upward. In addition to the winds, pilots had poor visibility often contending with rain, sleet, hail, snow and icing of the windshield.

"You had to rely on instrument flying," Ritter said, visibly having a difficult time talking about the missions. "We'd fly even when the birds wouldn't fly. No matter what the weather was, we had to fly."

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"He never really talked too much about it much," Betty chimed in, "really just these last five or ten years."

Ritter was a 1st Lt. when he left the military.

After the war, Ritter's record and experience could have landed him a job flying for just about anyone. He thought about flying cargo planes but in the end, decided he saw enough of the cockpit during World War II. A career with Bell Telephone followed along with four children, seven grandchildren and seven great grandchildren -- a full life by any measure.

Even though he was done talking about the war, I gently prodded some more, asking what the experience was really like.

"I tried to surround myself with positive thinking. Positive thinking was my goal. It was actually the Good Lord, God," he said looking upward. "God brought me through."

Contact Torres at 321-242-3684

or jtorres@floridatoday.com.

Twitter: @johnalbertorres

Facebook: /FTjohntorres

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