The Hunt for a Dragon

Go to more Invader Mysteries.

Some people have asked why I have devoted so much time and attention to this plane, to this project in particular. That's a fair question, given the enormous complexity of the project. The answer is that it's personal to me. My maternal grandfather was a gunner on an Invader during the Korean War. He was attached to the 13th Bombardment Squadron, 3rd Bomb Group.

I didn't know my grandfather very well. There's a lot of family history stuff that I won't get into here. But, I did get to meet him before he passed away and he regaled us with several tales of his time over there. I know that he flew on the crew of pilot Captain Emil Pindzola. My grandfather said that the plane they flew the most was called the "Assam Dragon". From what I recall of our conversation, that plane had a mechanical issue and they had to switch planes. Then, the plane was repaired and a different crew took it out on a mission and got shot down in it.

After a hell of a lot of searching, I did find nose art on an Invader that shows "My Assam Dragon".

So, I have a picture of an Invader with that painted on it. But how do I know that it's THE Assam Dragon? Unfortunately, based on this photo alone, I can't. There's nothing immediately identifiable about this image. But, I wanted to put my research skills to the test and see if I could positively identify the Assam Dragon.

The name "Assam Dragon" itself has a long history of being painted on bombers fighting in the Pacific Theater, especially in the 5th Air Force. Based on that fact, it's most likely a bomber in the Pacific.

The plane itself is painted black. That's important because the only group in Europe using a black paint scheme was the 47th Bomb Group, based in Italy. So, it could hypothetically be a black bomber from the 47th. But, there's the name, which seems to rule that out. To further that point, the dragon is painted in what is clearly an Eastern/Asian style.

So now that I can reasonably deduce that it's a black bomber in the Pacific, that narrows it down to the Korean War era. During WW2 the Invader units in the Pacific Theater used either unpainted aluminum or olive drab green paint schemes. The black paint scheme wasn't introduced until circa 1950.

There were two different Bomb Wings in Korea that each had 4 squadrons, plus at least three reconnaissance squadrons that I know of. Each squadron typically had 24 planes at full strength. Rounding up a little bit to err for caution, there were potentially as many as 288 Invaders in Korea at once, give or take (A dozen squadrons using two dozen craft each).

288 planes is a lot, but not an unmanageable number. Unfortunately, at one time or another, all of the squadrons in Korea used the black paint scheme, so that really doesn't help. I could try evaluating the records for process of elimination.

The process is challenging because the records are spotty. A lot of the records are on microfilm and in bad shape. I have two rolls that I'm processing, but I need to clean them up. A lot of the other records are incomplete. The easiest way to identify the plane is with a photo. But many of the photos are bad quality. I can clean up photos with bad lighting with some photo editing tricks, but photos that are blurry or low resolution don't help. Also, if the photo doesn't contain any useful information (like serial numbers or tail letters), then it is of limited use.

I'm assuming, because of the glass nose, that the plane is a C-model invader. This is a little dangerous because the squadrons swapped noses on those planes whenever the mood struck them. In fact, I have a few pictures of the same plane wearing different noses. So, it's possible that this plane was a B-model that had a C nose installed. But I'm going to start the other way and assume that it's a C because Occam's Razor. It's easier to disprove something like that than assume the opposite.

I'm also assuming that the plane stayed in the 13th. It is possible that it was transferred to another squadron after the repair my grandfather spoke of, but it doesn't seem likely - especially based on how he told the story. And, although there were potentially 288 Invaders in Korea at once, I find it unlikely that more than one plane had that name at the same time. Many missions were multi-squadron missions. If there were two planes with the same name, it could get confusing. On the other hand, there is also some precedence for re-naming a new plane after one that had been shot down: Noop Gnat and Noop Gnat II, and Chadwicks 5 through 7, for example. Korea was 60 years ago when I spoke with Grandfather about it. It's possible he was on the Assam Dragon 17 for all I know and he forgot the number. But, again, I have to assume for now that he's right as my initial starting point.

Based on the above criteria, there are 10 potential candidates that match the criteria: 1. C-model, 2. 13th Bomb Squadron, 3. Shot down in Korea.

My next step was to try to go through those planes by serial number and see if any of them can be identified as another plane. If so, then that would exclude it from the list. I was also going to try to find mission reports, pilot diaries, and other personal family records and photos of the crews who were MIA/KIA to see if they contain clues that might confirm or disprove the preceding assumptions. It turns out that I didn't need to do any of that.

I remembered that I had another photo of my grandfather, standing on the tail of his plane after a mission. He regaled me with the story about how the plane was getting all shot to hell because they were doing a low-level night mission and the pilot, Emil Pindzola, had the running lights on, which was illuminating the clouds and giving away their position - so the story goes. He quickly turned the lights off and they returned to base unharmed. I remembered this photo because it was a funny story, and because I did some digital mastery to clean up the image. You can still see many of the bullet holes dotting the top edge of the tail fin that my grandfather is hugging.

If you look closely at the fuselage in the above image, you can read the "buzz-code" of the plane. It says "BC-882". This is significant because of the planes that was on my potential list of candidates from the KORWALD Database is serial number 44-35882, a B-26C bomber assigned to the 13th Bomb Squadron that was shot down 17 MAY 1953. That's the plane my grandfather is hugging, so he was clearly flying in the plane at some point. And, that plane was shot down, as the records show, so that corroborates that part of my grandfather's story. But, this still feels a little circumstantial. If only there was some other piece of evidence that could help prove this hypothesis.

I told my friend and fellow IHF Researcher, Ryan Rees, about this second photo. He beat me to the punch and pulled the flight crew rosters from 44-35882 listed in KORWALD.
CAPT Raymond W. Quesnell - Pilot - RMC
CAPT John E. Walseth, Jr. - Navigator - RMC
1LT Clifford "Cliff" G. Selman - MIA
A1C Jerome "Jerry" Karpowicz - MIA

In scanning online records, Ryan discovered that Captain Quesnell and Walseth were rescued and that Captain Walseth wrote about their experience. The article was posted on the 13th Bomb Squadron website. He sent me the link. In the link, I noticed a very telling picture...

The image is that of Captain Raymond W. Quesnell standing next to a plane he flew. Of note is the text written beside his head...The original text there is "Myassisa Dragon". It's not the same plane as pictured above, but it's very close (this plane in a B model, and the one shot down according to KORWALD is a C model). And, as I mentioned, renaming planes was a common theme in this unit. So, we have my grandfather, who said he flew on the Assam Dragon - a plane which was shot down on a mission while he wasn't on it, and he's pictured on the tail of a plane that was shot down just two months before the war ended. We also have that plane being piloted by a pilot who, at some point earlier, flew a plane bearing the name Myassisa Dragon. It's still not definitive proof because there's not a photo that I know of that shows poor ol' BC-882 in her entirety. But, there's enough circumstantial evidence here to make a strong case.

We're calling this one probably solved, for now. If you happen to have a photo that shows all of plane 44-35882 and can either prove or disprove what we have outlined above, or if you have other first-hand stories or documents which can shed light, please let us know.

Go to more Invader Mysteries.