Among the Headhunters

by Robert Lyman

  This was not correct. Pangsha is located at N 26°15′35″, E 95°5′57″. The original location provided by Hugh Wild was in fact seventeen miles northeast of the wreck’s actual location as the crow flies, farther along the Patkoi Range inside Burma.

  The absence of the noise of the aircraft above them enabled the men to hear sounds for the first time that unequivocally confirmed the existence of other human beings in the area—close by. Suddenly standing to listen, they heard the rhythmic sounds of many voices in unison, an eerie and slightly unsettling noise that sounded like a chant or marching song. It grew rapidly, and before they had much time to do anything other than shove Miller into the bush with the unbroken rifle and a handful of cartridges, a war party of muscled, spear-wielding men wearing little more than loincloths and singing a cadenced chant came trotting into view over the nearby ridge. The warriors ran up to them and formed a rough semicircle in front of the Americans. The chanting stopped. Sevareid wrote, “They had straight black hair, cut short around the head so that the effect was that of a tuft of trimmed thatch. Some had faded blue tattoo markings on their chests and arms. All carried long spears with splayed metal points, and some also held wide-bladed knives a couple of feet long, heavy and slightly curved, almost like a butcher’s cleaver.” For the five Americans, the sight of their sudden visitors was profoundly shocking. Sevareid grabbed a knife and stood protectively over the injured Oswalt. With the exception of the injured Oswalt’s holstered Colt .45 and Miller’s ancient Springfield, they were unarmed. The two groups stood looking at each other. The atmosphere was tense but was one of silent inquiry rather than of hostility. Then, surprising both himself and his comrades, Sevareid stepped forward, raising his palm in a sign of peace, and said instinctively, “How!”

  It could have been a comic moment. The only word that came to his mind was a long-forgotten product of youthful reading of the stories of America’s frontiers. But it seemed to do the trick. Placing their spears in the ground and slipping their daos back over their shoulders, the tribesmen moved forward calmly and began to smile. They were clearly intrigued with their unexpected visitors and fascinated by the Americans’ equipment and clothes. Touching their boots, weighing the ax, and feeling the parachute silk, they sized up the extraordinary sight before them. Here were the inhabitants of the machines they had seen repeatedly in the skies above their mountain homes over the past year or more, come unexpectedly to earth. In fact, they knew exactly who these men were but had never seen them close up. During the previous six months Philip Adams had sent messages as far as Pangsha, via Chingmak and his sons, with instructions that if any men fell to earth from these kepruosb they were to be looked after and not killed. Villagers would be rewarded with 500 rupees’ worth of salt for their protection of any white men who might inadvertently parachute into their territory.c Adams could have had no absolute confidence that these white men, whom the Kalyo Kengyu would consider mortal enemies, would be entirely safe if they fell into their hands. As the minutes passed, however, it was clear to Sevareid and his colleagues that these inquisitive natives intended them no immediate harm. The villagers could see the power that the white men represented, with their beautifully machined equipment and the aircraft that had just spent thirty minutes circling the crash site above them, and appeared interested in their welfare rather than their demise. That was good enough for Sevareid. Although knowing nothing about the near-naked and fierce-looking men, the survivors could see that they were not Japanese and appeared friendly. It was a good start. Then, in a further gesture of comradeliness, the Americans were offered food and drink. A bamboo container and gourd were passed around, dispensing a sickly-sweet alcoholic beverage of some kind and a sticky maize paste that reminded Sevareid of pig feed. Each American endeavored, for reasons of diplomacy, to partake of the revolting substances.

  Kepruo is the Angama Naga word for “airplane.”

  The equivalent of US$500, a vast fortune at the time.

  By now Miller had emerged cautiously from the brush where he had been hiding. Indicating by sign language to their visitors that a package from the plane remained to be collected, a number of the men rushed off to fetch it, returning triumphantly a short while later with the container holding the broken transmitter. They touched everything, Sevareid noticed, but didn’t attempt to steal any of it. Neveu attempted to communicate with the natives by reading a number of phrases from a language card he had in his pocket for such eventualities. Unfortunately, the phrases were in Kachin, and blank stares were the only response. During this time other survivors made their way to join the small congregation around the embers of the plane, entirely accepting of the goodwill of the natives whom they saw standing there. Most flopped down, exhausted, to rest on the wet ground.

  Then, suddenly, the atmosphere changed. Trotting up the hill came another warrior, alone. The warriors in front of them tensed noticeably. Dropping into a walk, he cautiously approached the group. He looked different from their present company, Sevareid noted: “He was a beautiful specimen of manhood with long, rippling legs. But he was different. His hair was long and tied in a knot behind his head. His face was longer, and his appearance was very much that of a Sioux Indian of the American plains.” Looking around, the man singled out Sevareid and presented him with a piece of paper. It was the note from Jack Davies. Sevareid scribbled a reply, and the man, with the gift of the orange parachute silk and a silver dollar, turned and trotted back in the direction from which he had come.

  Pleasantries and introductions concluded, the next move was to get Oswalt to a place of shelter. The village lay perhaps a mile farther on, and with Oswalt in a makeshift litter formed by two army jackets buttoned together, the tribesmen seemed happy enough to lead the little procession to their home. On the way Sevareid described passing through cultivated fields full of millet growing in rough terraces on the hillside. The village appeared to be made up of fifty or sixty thatch-covered bamboo houses nestling “in a planless huddle along a ravine halfway up the mountain ridge.” The fronts of the houses were raised on stilts, with verandas running the width of each house. In the distance, across a deep gorge, were other houses. This appeared either to be a suburb of a bigger village or an outpost of it. As they approached, and to their intense relief, five passengers—Bill Stanton, Colonel Wang Pae Chae, and three American enlisted men—emerged from one of the houses. “Come on in,” one young American shouted; “the chicken and eggs are swell!” It appeared that they had all landed close to the village and had each been brought in by villagers and provided with shelter and hospitality. As with Davies’s experience at Ponyo, the survivors were taken to a large building in the center of the village, which appeared to the men to be a central dormitory. What Davies and his colleagues at Ponyo had seen was a morung, a prominent—and often grand—building usually sited at the entrance to the village designed as a place where the postpubescent children in the village lived communally and where they were taught what it meant to be an integrated member of the village, learning its culture, traditions, and customs. Boys and girls lived in separate dormitories, sleeping on a raised wooden platform that ran down each side of the building, with a circular stone fire pit in the center.

  The survivors stepped between scuttling pigs—ubiquitous in every Naga village and useful for their ability to ensure that the ground remained clear of human and animal excrement—and were ushered into the imposing morung. Sevareid was impressed with the extensive bamboo piping system that carried water around the village. What he was not to know was that these systems had been designed primarily to ensure that the women and children were not exposed to the threat of losing their heads when collecting water at the nearest stream. As at Ponyo, they saw women. Had they known it, this was a good sign, as it indicated that the villagers expected no threat from their visitors. When potentially dangerous strangers were nearby, women and children would be safely kept out of sight.

  The men had arrived in the Pangsha colony of Wenshoyl
. The last time white men had been seen here, they had been involved in a battle that had cost a number of Pangsha men their lives. The survivors had barely reached the morung before the beautiful sound of the twin C-47 engines sent them scurrying outside once again, joined this time by the squealing pigs and children in a mayhem of excitement. Along the valley toward them flew the majestic aircraft, turning tightly above the village and dropping by parachute a dozen large bundles. The startling arrival of these gifts from the heavens caused a flurry of excitement in the village as eager young men rushed to recover the bundles and take as personal booty the rope and canvas covers in which they were wrapped. Despite some angry pushing and shoving—and noisy waving of daos—violence was averted and the bundles recovered. Among the parcels was another message:

  The most important thing is for you to remain where you are. This is absolutely imperative for several reasons. Do not go to the native village, as they probably are not friendly. Also be on guard for any natives that may approach you; as they may or may not be friendly. An effort is being made to inform the village chief that you are friendly, but this information will take some time to reach him. Do not antagonize any natives. We will drop you anything you may need, and if it is not in the code-groups of the air-ground liaison code we dropped with the panels, use the alphabet code-groups. . . .

  Again, do not leave the area you are now in, and keep the party together. If you follow instructions we will get you back to the base much quicker. Be assured the entire wing is working on your rescue. Enclosed is a more complete air-ground liaison code.

  It is clear from this message that from the moment the team at Chabua were able to plot the crash location they knew that the survivors were in danger. The wing intelligence officer, Major St. Clair McKelway, a celebrated journalist with The New Yorker in civilian life who knew Sevareid well from before the war (although he had no idea that Sevareid was in the CBI theater at the time), had almost certainly been briefed by Philip Adams at Mokokchung on the relations that existed between the British and the various peoples of the Naga Hills. He must have been told explicitly of the situation in the Patkoi Hills, given the specificity of the typewritten message dropped to the survivors. As intelligence officer, McKelway made it his task to seek out all relevant information about the nature of the country over which crews of the ATC would fly and in which they might find themselves if anything went wrong with their aircraft. At some stage that day or the following day McKelway spoke directly to Philip Adams. There was a telephone at both Kohima and Mokokchung, linking them to Shillong, that might have been utilized to elicit information about the area of the crash, and there was a radio telephone at Chabua in a “shack,” as McKelway described it, which could connect the base with either of these locations. It was not secure, however, and all conversations were held in code to prevent Japanese eavesdropping. McKelway knew, therefore, that the survivors were in the midst of the lion’s den and sought to warn them without panicking them unduly.

  Sevareid read the note, looked around him, and shrugged his shoulders. They were inside the village, the locals seemed hospitable enough, and in any case Oswalt needed protection from the rain that threatened to arrive in the next few hours. Sevareid watched a group of important-looking tribesmen gather in a neighboring house, wearing elaborate headdresses to signify their rank, talking animatedly. He was too tired to think much of it. While he was contemplating these issues the C-47 made a wide sweep of the area as if awaiting something. Fortunately, the men cottoned on, quickly read the ground-signaling panels, and, using the code that had been sent, spelled out “Medical assistance needed.” With a waggle of its wings the C-47 departed for the north, and within half a minute its comforting drone was but a memory.

  As dusk began to fall the fourteen survivors in the village—they had no idea of its name—had sorted themselves out, stacked the gear dropped by parachute, and settled to rest in the morung. Oswalt’s leg was by this time in a bad way. Clearly broken, it was badly swollen, and the skin around the break was dark blue. He would need medical attention soon if the leg were to be saved.

  When it departed for home Wild’s C-47 had radioed forward to Chabua the information that the survivors had asked for medical assistance. When it landed back at base nearly an hour later the aircraft was met by a delegation of four men on the apron, all wearing parachutes. As he approached the airfield Hugh Wild was instructed by control to refuel and prepare to return for his third trip over the Patkoi Hills that day.

  The ATC wing surgeon at Dumbastapur was Lieutenant Colonel Don Flickinger, a Stanford-trained surgeon who had considerable experience of flying on search-and-rescue missions. As soon as Wild and Katzman had radioed to say that they had found the survivors, Brigadier General Edward Alexander had had Flickinger brought into the operations center. The men on the ground had indicated that they needed medical assistance. But what sort? Would it be sufficient to merely drop medical supplies to them and issue instructions by radio? It was agreed that Flickinger and two of his medical assistants would return in Hugh Wild’s Gooney Bird and assess the situation from the air. As they were discussing the options Alexander—fearful of losing his wing surgeon, given all of the other medical needs at Chabua—gave Flickinger an explicit order: “You are not to parachute in there. That’s official!” Without committing himself either way, Flickinger replied that he would let Alexander know what he came up with when in the air.

  Flickinger had in fact decided that he would parachute in to join the survivors and administer the medical help that they had requested. No one else could do it, and he had no way of assessing from a distance how serious the injuries on the ground were. It was an extraordinary decision. As the ATC wing surgeon Flickinger had no need to risk his life in such a manner, but he unhesitatingly decided to jump. He indicated to his two assistants in the sick bay at Chabua that they didn’t need to accompany him, but he would be pleased if they decided to do so. Flickinger had parachuted before—in Hawaii before the outbreak of war, and had torn the ligaments in one of his knees in so doing—but neither Sergeant Richard Passey nor Corporal William McKenzie had ever done so. They nevertheless accepted the challenge. The fourth man on the plane was Major St. Clair McKelway. He wanted to accompany the flight to see the terrain at first hand and to brief Flickinger during the journey on the nature of the people among whom the survivors had landed. Knowledge of the true nature of the Nagas of the Patkoi Hills, as described to him by McKelway on the flight, made Flickinger’s decision to jump even more admirable. He knew he would be jumping directly into danger but was not to be diverted from his course. They agreed that at first light one of the ATC C-47s from Chabua would return and drop weapons and ammunition for the survivors as well as gifts for the Nagas.

  Dusk was now settling over the Patkoi Hills when the weary survivors, resting in the morung, heard the sound of the C-47 yet again. “What could they be dropping now?” Sevareid thought grumpily as he struggled to his feet, his body feeling all the aches, abrasions, and strains of the parachute jump: a sore throat (caused by the jolt of the opening parachute—although he did not know this); bruised legs and shoulders from the ill-fitting straps; and cuts, bruises, and sprains from landing in the trees and chest-high brush. As he came out of the building and looked skyward he saw the C-47 at a much higher altitude than it had flown at earlier in the day and three parachutes descending in a neat clump. It took a few seconds to realize that each of the packages had legs. Flickinger had jumped quickly and calmly when Hugh Wild had turned in the cockpit and signaled him to do so and had been quickly followed by the slightly less sanguine Passey and McKenzie, who later admitted to much nervousness about the prospect of leaving a perfectly good airplane and committing themselves to parachutes without ever having received any training.

  On the ground Sevareid was astonished at the sight, instantly recognizing the significance of what he was watching. Men were coming, of their own volition, to help them! He had not considered, in his wildest dr
eams, this outcome to their predicament and was humbled by the personal commitment men were making to those whom they didn’t know, yet who needed their help. Running excitedly out of the village, he met Don Flickinger as the surgeon landed. Unlike Sevareid, Flickinger was the epitome of calm, as Sevareid wrote: