12 Jul 1945: USAAF 1LT Theodore H Demezas1 was assigned to the 10th Air Force, 33rd Fighter Group, 60th Air Squadron, stationed at Myitkyina East Airfield, Burma2 (offsite link).
On this date, he flew one of two P-38s in a mission about 800 km (500 mi) SSE to reconnoiter Lampang Airfield3 (Google Maps link). Demezas last flight:4
Apparently hit by ground fire, his aircraft was unable to maintain altitude and he had to bail out. Landing unharmed, he was captured by Thai military personnel and sent to a Thai POW camp near Bangkok for the duration of the war — which lasted only about a month more.
Missing Air Crew Report (MACR) 14710:5
Page 1:
Transcript of key items in Page 1:
Organization: 60th Fighter Squadron, 33rd Fighter Group, 10th Air Force, Myitkyina East, Burma
Date: 12 July 1945
Type of mission: Reconnaissance
Circumstances: Aircraft was lost as a result of small arms ground fire
Aircraft: P-38L
Installed weapons:
1-20mm AN-M2 cannon
4-50 caliber Machine Gun Basic M2
Pilot: Theodore H Demezas, 1Lt
Page 2: The key item is a statement by flight leader, 1LT Jules C Stanton, USAAF:
Transcript:
On 12 July 1945 at 1320 hours I was leading a two ship reconnaissance mission to Lampang Airfield. Lt Theodore H Demasas [sic] in P-38 Serial Number 44‑25115 was my wing man. After reaching the target area we made one circle of the airfield at approximately 1000 feet. A second circle of the strip was started at 500 feet. Half way around I lost sight of Lt Demezas and leveled out to look for him. When I first saw him he had headed out on course for home. It appeared that he was syphoning [sic] gas from the left side, then I saw it was white smoke from the left engine. I could not read him but he was able to read me so I asked him if he was in trouble and he acknowledged by rocking his wing. At that time the smoke turned black and he started losing altitude, then he pulled up and started to dive to the right. He bailed out and landed in a rice paddy approximately 35 yards from where his plane crashed and exploded. Map coordinates 99 degrees 25 minutes East and 18 degrees 25 minutes North. I made five circles and saw him pick up his chute and start for a ditch approximately 50 yards away. He did not wave and the last I saw of him was when he was going in the ditch. While still at approximately 3000 feet, it appeared that there were two persons running away from where the ship was about to crash. After I had gone down to circle I could not see what appeared to me to be people.[sic]
JULES G STANTON
1st Lt, Air Corps,
Pilot
60th Fighter Squadron Weekly Status and Operations Report, Myitkyina East, Burma:6
Transcript:
Date: 12 July 1945
No of acft: 2 P-38
T/O: 1330
TOT: 1520
Mission and Target: Reconnaissance mission to Lampang A/F
Result: Airfield 1 1/2 miles of Lampang is serviceable. 30 freight cars in yards at Lampang. No ground fire. Left engine of wingman’s plane caught fire. Pilot was observed to bail out and land safely 8 miles south of Lampang (MACR #14710)
[Notes: while the entry references MACR #14710, it provides a completely different location from that in the MACR. Further, it states “no ground fire”, though MACR page 1, item 5, states, “Small arms ground fire”.]
Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command JPAC report, undated:7
Sample newspaper coverage
No newspaper articles were found announcing Demezas’ crash or capture. Wire services first mention his name on 03 Sep 1945, 53 days after he was captured, and almost three weeks after the end of the war in the Pacific. The article is in the East Coast Pittsburgh Press (PA),8 a newspaper on the far side of the continent from his Oregon hometown:
Transcript key items:
Two others who escaped were Sgt Laurel D Kinsey of Indiana, and Lt Theodore H Demezas of Silvertown [sic], Ore.
Lt Demezas called his stay in the internment camp a “welcome rest”.
And then two weeks later, Oregon’s Capital Journal, 25 Sep 1945, p 7:9
Transcript:
Silverton Flier Leaves Thailand Internment Camp
Hq, India-Burma Army Air Forces, Calcutta — Now returned to his home at Silverton, Oregon, after being released from a Thailand internment camp and under observation at a general hospital, First Lt Theodore H Demezas, before leaving for the States, told his story of a 500-mile fighter sweep into Jap territory and then of being shot down by enemy ground fire and of confinement by the Thai government for two months.
Based at Myitkyina in central Burma with the 60th fighter squadron of the 33rd fighter group, Demezas, a P-38 pilot, last July made his 75th mission, a fighter sweep into Thailand for strafing and reconnaissance of a Jap airstrip at Lampang, in northerm Thailand.
Taking off from Myitkyina, Demezas and his squadron rose to 500 feet, crossed the range of mountains that separate Burma from Thailand and then dropped down to the deck, 50 feet above the ground, to lessen Jap radar effectiveness.
Coming into the strip at Lampang at less than fifty feet, the planes before their passes, working over the aircraft on the ground, the hangars and other ground installations. After 20 minutes of this, with his guns wide open and a full throttle, Jap ground fire found a vulnerable spot in the Ligntning Demezas was flying. The Silverton man fought for altitude, made enough to bail out and then jumped. He landed unhurt a few miles from the landing strip.
My first reaction was to put some miles between me and Lampang,” the pilot said, “but after consideration I knew that it would be foolish to try to walk the 300 miles to the Burma border. Instead I set out to find some Thai official to whom I could give myself up. Luck was with me and the Thai police found me in a few hours.
“They brought me to Thai headquarters at Lampang where they refused to leave me with the Japs, but made them do their questioning in the presence of Thai officials.”
After a brief interrogation at Lampang, Demezas was sent to Bangkok where he was questioned again and placed in the Thai stockade with 19 British, two Chinese, five Thai, and five other American airmen, all internees of the Thai government. Treatment here was unlike the usual Japanese handling of prisoners. The men were well fed, made as comfortable as possible and treated with respect by Thailand officials.
When the Japanese capitulated, Demezas was informed by his warders that the war was over — shortly after that he was released to a detachment of British troops who flew him into Rangoon from where he was flown to the General hospital [Calcutta] here for observation.
Demezas, son of Mr and Mrs John D Demezas, of 508 North Church Street, Silverton, was a student at Oregon State College prior to his enlistment in the AAF as an aviation cadet in March 1942. Upon release from the hospital here he was returned to the United States.
Miscellaneous coverage:
In his 1992 review of events in Lampang during WWII, Sak Rattanachai mentions the rescue of Demezas from capture by the Japanese:10
Translation:
Lt Col Sarit Thanarat, cooperating with the Seri Thai (the Thai underground resistance movement), sits in an Austin driven by Mr. Gwang rushing out to rescue a pilot whose P-38 Lockheed Lightning had been shot down by the Japanese Army before the Japanese captured him.
Summary of different landing points reported:
- USAAF Missing Aircrew Report (MACR 14710): N18°25 E99°25
- Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command: N18°23.94 E99°22.46 11
- USAAF 60th Fighter Squadron Weekly Report: N18°09.62 E99°30.1012
(Continued: Finding Demezas Crash Site)
- Photo extracted from Statesman Journal, 09 May 2003, p 5C, “Lt Col Theodore H Demezas” (obit); my ref: (20030509 obit Statesman Jl) \02500 Tango\_Crash sites N TH for Tango\DETAIL SHEETS\A450712 Demezas [A12]\Newspapers\Demezas photo.jpg[↩]
- N25°21.43 E97°27.20, 1600 foot runway with heading 06/240; from map dated 1958 which was apparently after airfield had been decommissioned:((Source: \bPROJECT\_MAPS\SE ASIA MAPS\Maps not Thailand\BURMA Maps\Burma (~TXU)\U542 BURMA-250k 1950s-1960\25,96 to 26,97.5 NG47-09 Myitkyina txu-oclc-6924198-1958.jpg
Extract: \02500 Tango\_Crash sites N TH for Tango\DETAIL SHEETS\A450712 Demezas [A12] (1)\Map extracts\Myitkyina East.jpg) [↩]
- N18°16.33 E99°30.24[↩]
- Google Map excerpt; annotated by author using Microsoft Publisher; my ref: \02500 Tango\_Crash sites N TH for Tango\DETAIL SHEETS\A450712 Demezas [A12]\Map extracts\Demezsas flt pathA-red.jpg[↩]
- MACR 14710: from Sakpinit Promthep email of 01:39, 19 Feb 2012; my ref: \02500 Tango\_Crash sites N TH for Tango\DETAIL SHEETS\A450712 Demezas [A12] (1)\MACR\aMACR 14710-1.jpg[↩]
- From Jack Eisner (AFHRA File #SQ-FI-60-SU, Jul 43-Aug 45; my ref: \02500 Tango\_Crash sites N TH for Tango\DETAIL SHEETS\A450712 Demezas [A12] (1)\Misc\Demesas Acct Rpt at LPG.jpg[↩]
- Provided by Jack Eisner; my ref: \_Crash sites N TH for Tango\DETAIL SHEETS\A450712 Demezas [A12]\Jack Eisner file\JPAC_Report.jpg[↩]
- Pittsburgh Press, page 3, provided by Sakpinit Promthep; my ref: \02500 Tango\_Crash sites N TH for Tango\DETAIL SHEETS\A450712 Demezas [A12] (1)\Newspapers\19450903, The Pittsburgh Press fm Sak P.jpg[↩]
- My ref: \02500 Tango\_Crash sites N TH for Tango\DETAIL SHEETS\A450712 Demezas [A12] (1)\Newspapers\Capital Jl melded.jpg[↩]
- รัตนชัย, สักดิ์, ปาะวัติศาสต์ศึกษายุทธเวหาลำปาง [Rattanachai, Sak(sern) S, Historical Studies of Air Warfare in Lampang (Lampang: self-published, 1991), p 32] [↩]
- Calculated from “12 miles northwest of the Lampang airfield, 1st Lt Demezas successfully bailed out”[↩]
- Calculated from “Pilot was observed to bail out and land safely 8 miles south of Lampang”[↩]