1954 Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 shootdown

The Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 shootdown happened on 23 July 1954, when a Cathay Pacific Airways C-54 Skymaster[4] airliner was shot down by fighter planes of the People's Republic of China. The event occurred off the coast of Hainan Island, where the plane was en route from Bangkok to Hong Kong, killing 10 of 19 passengers and crew on board.[2][5]

1954 Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 shootdown
A Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 similar to the aircraft shot down
Accident
Date23 July 1954
SummaryA civilian C-54 airliner attacked by two PLAAF La-7 fighters and ditched into the sea.
SiteSouth China Sea, off the coast of Hainan Island, People's Republic of China.
18°N 110°E
Aircraft
Aircraft typeDouglas C-54A-10-DC Skymaster (converted to DC-4)
Aircraft nameAvro Anson 1 "Silver Wings"
OperatorCathay Pacific Airways
RegistrationVR-HEU, (ex-USAAF 42-72205)[1]
Flight originBangkok International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand
DestinationKai Tak Airport, Hong Kong
Passengers13[2]
Crew6[2]
Fatalities10[2][3]
Injuries0[2]
Survivors9

Although the four-engine propeller-driven Douglas (registered VR-HEU) was a C-54 Skymaster, the incident is known as "the DC-4 shootdown" because the C-54 is the military version of the Douglas DC-4, and the aircraft was flying a commercial passenger run.[3][6][7][8] The crew of six was headed by British captain Phil Blown, and included three female flight attendants. In all, one flight crew member, two cabin crew members and seven of the thirteen passengers were killed in the attack and subsequent crash of the airliner.[2]

Aircraft

The aircraft, registered VR-HEU, was a four-engine, propeller-driven Douglas C-54A Skymaster[4] airliner, the military version of the Douglas DC-4 converted for civilian use.[9]

VR-HEU had been manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company with construction number 10310 and delivered to the USAAF on 16 May 1944, where it served for less than two years.[4][10] It was bought on 19 February 1946 by KLM and first operated by KLM West Indies before returning to KLM main line in February 1948.[10] It was sold to Cathay Pacific in August 1949.[10]

Flight and attack

On 22 July 1954, VR-HEU took off from Bangkok at 20:19 GMT after being delayed in Bangkok for an hour because of mechanical problems on its No. 2 engine. The flight was bound for Hong Kong. A previous flight had taken the plane from Singapore. For the next 4 hours and 25 minutes the routine flight proceeded as planned.[11][12][13]

At 23:40 GMT, when the DC-4 was cruising at 9,000 ft and roughly 10 miles east of the international air corridor line off Hainan Island and only 31 minutes from Hong Kong, two Lavochkin La-11 fighters of the 85th Fighter Regiment, People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), appeared behind VR-HEU, one above it on the DC-4's starboard rear side and the other on its port side. At approximately 23:44 GMT, the fighters opened fire and the two outboard engines (numbers 1 and 4) were hit and caught fire.[14][15] The number 4 engine's auxiliary and main fuel tanks were also ablaze.

While captain Phil Blown took evasive actions to avoid further damage, co-pilot Cedric Carlton issued blankets to passengers instructing them to place them on the back of their seats for protection against the bullets. Radio operator Stephen Wong made an initial distress call at 08:45 HKT (23:45 GMT): "Kai Tak Tower, Cathay XXX, Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! No. 1 port engine on fire, losing altitude, requesting all possible assistance."[7][12] Wong made 10 mayday calls before VR-HEU ditched. Cathay Pacific engineer G. H. Cattanach, travelling as a passenger, tried to make the passengers comfortable when it became known that the plane was going to ditch.

VR-HEU began losing altitude and at 5,000-foot (1,500 m), its rudder control was shot off. Travelling at 350 miles per hour, Blown tried his utmost to evade incendiary bullets coming from the fighters by turning the Skymaster left and right. At 2,000-foot (610 m), the right aileron was shot off and the plane began turning right on its own initiative. The captain then countered the increasing turn by shutting down the engines 1 and 2 and applying full power on engine 3. Approximately 2 minutes after the initial attack, unable to carry on a controlled levelled flight, Blown decided to ditch the Skymaster in rough open seas that included 15-foot waves and a 25-knot wind.

The starboard wingtip was the first to make impact with the water, severing the right wing between the number 3 and 4 engines.[16] The impact caused the tail to break off and float off 50 yards from the main wreckage. The main fuselage now floated at an angle of 45 degrees with the rear open fuselage pointing towards the sky.[12]

After the plane ditched into the ocean, the attacking fighters, flying at around 1,000-foot (300 m), ceased firing at the Skymaster, made a turn around the wreckage, and headed towards Sanya. While ten passengers and crew were killed by bullets and the subsequent ditching, nine others survived and escaped from the sinking plane. Blown and his co-pilot escaped through a broken starboard[16] sliding window, which had water coming in fast.

With all survivors floating on the water with no life vests, co-pilot Carlton suddenly noticed that a Mrs Thorburn was hanging on to a raft still in its case. Fearing the bright yellow rubber raft might attract the attention of PLAAF fighters, it took Carlton twenty minutes to finally inflate the rubber dinghy and lift all nine passengers in. Once all were on the dinghy, concern remained that the attacking planes might return; some of the dazed, injured passengers, with their clothes in shreds, hid under a plastic sunshade covering the edges of the dinghy. Although Blown and passenger Peter Thacher kept watch, the attacking planes never returned.[7][11][12][13][17]

Rescue efforts
US Air Force SA-16 rescuing survivors

An Air Vietnam plane en route to Hong Kong from Hanoi, which had altered its course as a results of the calls, spotted the sinking plane and a dinghy one and a half miles from the Hainan coast. It circled for forty minutes before heading for Hong Kong. Thanks to those calls, the RAF in Hong Kong immediately redirected a Saigon-bound Vickers Valetta military transport and further despatched a Short Sunderland flying boat and an Avro York military transport, as well as two de Havilland Hornet fighters of 80 Squadron,[18] from RAF Kai Tak to the reported position of the C-54. A fully armed French PB4Y-2 Privateer also took off from Tourane (Da Nang), French Indochina (now Vietnam) after intercepting the emergency radio call.

Meanwhile, the civilian-operated Manila rescue control centre in the Philippines, on picking up the SOS call from Wong, alerted the 31st Air Rescue Squadron of the USAF at Clark Air Force Base. Captain Jack T. Woodyard, on first alert duty that day and about to depart on a routine training mission in his Grumman SA-16 Albatross, 51-009,[19] immediately took off. A second Albatross followed Woodyard 35 minutes later.

The Hornets were the first to arrive on the scene, followed by the Valetta, Sunderland, York and the Privateer. While the Hornets carried out a thorough search of the area for survivors, the French Privateer informed the Albatross, which was fifty miles away, "We have spotted the dinghy with survivors; looks like two of them from here."[20] The British and American planes were not able to communicate with each other as they were on different radio frequencies.

Captain Blown, on seeing the Sunderland arrive, tossed a packet of green sea dye overboard to make the dinghy easier to spot. The Sunderland acknowledged this by setting off a smoke flare but, unable to land in the atrocious conditions, had to circle helplessly for two hours until Woodyard's Albatross finally arrived; this too circled for an hour before landing on the calmer side of Dazhou Island, where it taxied towards the dinghy in rough water before pulling all survivors on board and taking off for Hong Kong, escorted by the Sunderland. AAP and Reuters reported at the time that three survivors were picked up by the Sunderland.[21]

The last passenger to be hoisted on board was the badly injured Rita Cheung, who had broken her left leg in two places and had suffered a deep gash on her forehead. She died aboard the rescue aircraft, ten minutes before the plane reached Kai Tak.

Radio operator Stephen Wong was also killed. It is believed his head was impaled on a drift meter during the ditching of the airliner.[7][11][12][13][17]

Theories for the attack

There were several hypotheses for the attack, which included:

  • VR-HEU was carrying a Chinese Nationalist ambassador;[16]
  • The United States Ambassador to Thailand, "Wild Bill" Donovan, former head of the OSS (the forerunner of CIA) was to have traveled on a Civil Air Transport plane that same week.[17]

The official line from Peking was that the Cathay Pacific airliner was mistaken as a Republic of China plane on a mission to raid a military base at Port Yulin on Hainan Island.[22]

Aftermath

On 26 July 1954, during the survivor search operation, two Douglas Skyraiders from the aircraft carriers USS Philippine Sea and USS Hornet shot down two PLAAF La-11s off the coast of Hainan Island. It is not known whether they were the same La-11s that had shot down VR-HEU.[23]

The shooting down of VR-HEU raised tension between the People's Republic of China and Britain and the US. The British Foreign Office, through its chargé d'affaires in Peking, Humphrey Trevelyan, delivered Britain's protest to Communist China two days later. The US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, issued a sharp statement condemning the attack, saying the United States took the gravest view of the act of further barbarity and that the Chinese Communist regime must be held responsible.[12]

The shootdown probably harmed the PRC's chances of admission into the United Nations. US Republican Senator H. Alexander Smith interrupted a marathon debate in the Senate over atomic legislation to read Mr. Dulles's statement before calling the situation "critical". Republican Representative Walter Judd, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed the view that the incident was another reason why Communist China must not be admitted to the United Nations.[12]

The PRC admitted responsibility three days later by apologising and making compensation to Cathay Pacific and the victims.[3][22]

Blown, who had been in command of VR-HEU at the time it was shot down, was hailed as a hero. He continued flying for Cathay Pacific for three to four years after the incident, and then retired to New South Wales, Australia, where he died in a nursing home in September 2009, aged 96. Former Cathay Pacific director of flight operations, Nick Rhodes, has commented on the bravery shown by Captain Blown on that day, and commended him for the dedication he showed to ensuring the survival of his passengers.

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See also

References
  1. "1942 USAAF Serial Numbers (42-70686 to 42-91373". www.joebaugher.com.
  2. The passengers and crew of Silver Wings – 23 July 1954 – and the crew of the rescuing US aircraft Archived 20 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine – The Life & Times of James Harper
  3. Hong Kong – Plane Survivors Archived 27 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine – Movietone News
  4. 42-72205 – Douglas C-54A-10-DC- – USAAF – Taxiway Alpha
  5. Some sources indicate the total as 18 but according to this site "The Passengers & Crew of Cathay Pacific Airways VR-HEU 'Silver Wings' & The Crew of the SA-16 Albatross - 31st Air Rescue Squadron 23rd July, 1954 Passenger List". Archived from the original on 20 August 2008. Retrieved 17 October 2008., it appears to be 19; the discrepancy requires further reconciliation.
  6. Accident details – VR-HEU – Plane Crash Info
  7. VR-HEU Account by passenger: Valerie Parish Archived 27 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine – Major Commercial Airline Disasters
  8. VR-HEU Archived 20 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine – The Life & Times of James Harper
  9. ASN Aircraft accident Douglas C-54A-10-DC VR-HEU Hainan Island – Aviation Safety Network
  10. Eastwood and Roach 1991, page 122
  11. Airliner Disaster Archived 11 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine, South China Morning Post, 24 July 1954
  12. C.P.A. Airliner Outrage, Archived 11 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine – South China Morning Post, 26 July 1954
  13. Incident on the China Coast by Peter Thacher, The Reader's Digest, 19 November 1954
  14. van Hare, Thomas. "Last Act in the Hainan Incident". historicwings.com. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
  15. Woodyard, Jack (8 January 1955). "Murder in the air". The Argus. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
  16. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 20 August 2008. Retrieved 17 October 2008.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Blown's official report to the British Foreign Office, 1954
  17. We Rescued the Victims of Red China's Murder Planes Archived 5 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine By Capt. Jack T. Woodyard, USAF, The Saturday Evening Post, 23 October 1954
  18. No 76 – 80 Squadron Histories Archived 28 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine Air of Authority – A History of RAF Organisation
  19. "VR-HEU".
  20. Woodyard, Jack (8 January 1955). "Murder in the Air". The Argus.
  21. Plane Down In Ocean: Eight Saved – The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 July 1954 c/o Trove, National Library of Australia.
  22. Red China Apologises For Attack On Plane Archived 19 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine – Reuters, France Presse, 26 July 1954.
  23. " Air Clash off Hainan." Archived 19 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine South China Morning Post, 27 July 1954.

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