To Brighton resident Norman Allen, the duties he carried out as a pilot in World War II were “no big deal,” but the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medals and two Battle Stars he earned tell a different story.
Allen, now 89, flew more than 200 missions for the U.S. Army Air Force — most of them out of Chittagong, India — for the 4th Combat Cargo Squadron.
Allen piloted the C-47 — what he called the “workhorse” of the cargo squadron — to supply Allied troops in China with weapons, food and munitions in their battles against the Japanese in what’s commonly referred to as the China-Burma-India Theater.
“We had a couple near misses; we were very fortunate,” said Allen, whose missions often required him to fly at tree level, putting them at constant risk of enemy fire. By the same token, some missions forced Allen to fly at high altitude over the Himalayas, a dangerous proposition for fully-loaded C-47s.
“If anything had to be hauled, we hauled it. It didn’t matter the time of day; we knew what we had to do, and we did it,” Allen said.
The middle child of three boys raised in Detroit, Allen felt pressure to enlist in the armed forces as a 21-year-old because both brothers had already joined the war. At the time, Allen worked as a floorman in an ammunition plant. His older brother, Tom, handled artillery in Panama, while his younger “kid” brother, Archie, was an infantry soldier in Europe. Like many World War II patriots, Allen elected to enlist after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
“All of the sudden, I felt like I wasn’t doing my job,” Allen said. “I knew I didn’t like the mud, and my kid brother (Archie) was already in the infantry, so I decided to take a shot at the Air Corps.”
In hindsight, Allen said it was “the right decision.” Allen received flight training at different bases across Texas in 1942 and eventually shipped out of Florida to Asia. By 1943, Allen and his 4th Combat Cargo Squadron comrades were the lifeline for the 14th British Air Force and a slew of other Allied troops spread across China.
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