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It’s the calm afternoon on December 8th, 1942, in the province of Fujian, China, near the strait of Taiwan.
A lookout scans the sky, when he spots a lone dot flying in the distance on the horizon…
approaching from occupied Taiwan.
Alarms sound in the airfield below, pilots Robert Lee Scott and Johnny Hampshire from the “Flying Tigers” scramble.
They take off in their trusty P-40s and rush to intercept the mysterious craft.
Flying in formation they radio the mystery plane
but receive no response.
They try again as they stalk it, getting closer from behind.
It is then when they realize the plane is another P-40 much like their own,
and not only that, but it appears to spot American markings that haven’t been used for more than 10 months.
They radio one more time, to the same result now starting to get concerned.
Could this be a P-40 captured by the Japanese?
They decide to shoot over its wing, making sure the pilot is aware of their presence,
but the plane doesn’t react at all.
Confused by the situation they decide to investigate, but as they get closer the mystery deepens.
The plane has extremely heavy damage;
bullet holes riddle the fuselage, pieces of the wing are missing,
it has ad-hock repairs with mismatched paint and bare metal in places,
and one of its landing gear wells is completely empty.
Taking a closer look at the canopy they see it destroyed, and the pilot unmoving.
Chills travel down the spines of the Americans, what they are seeing can’t be described as anything other than a ghost.
A dead aviator from 10 months ago, still flying.
They radio each other, trying to figure out what exactly to do, but there’s simply nothing to be done.
The ghost plane begins slowing down and losing altitude, her engine out of fuel.
Gradually she disappears into the clouds and crashes into the rice fields below, out of sight.
The next day the pilots visit the site of the impact.
Pieces of the plane lay scattered across the field.
They find the pilot, long dead and missing any identifying information.
Alongside him in the cockpit they spot a diary and in his jacket a bunch of intact letters,
they grab them all before returning back to base.
The letters are mailed, and the diary is surrendered to superiors,
where it is promptly lost in the vast archives of the military.
The story behind the plane would remain a complete mystery and morph into legend,
with many different variations springing up over the years.
Upon the end of the war Japanese records revealed that on December 8th, 1942,
a lone P-40 had attacked military installations in Taiwan
and was chased away by intercepting fighters with no kills confirmed.
It wasn’t until years later that some more information would arise and shed some light on the Ghost plane.
One day, a writer by the name of Curt Norris mentioned this story at a veteran’s reunion
and an old man by the name of Milton McMullen stood up and said,
“I helped build that airplane!”
Later he sat with Curt and told his tale.
It’s May 1942.
Milton is a Sergeant of the 701st Aviation Ordinance Squadron of the 19th Bomber Group.
He was stationed in the island of Mindanao, Philippines when the Japanese fell upon the island.
The unprepared Americans and Philippines couldn’t deal with the Japanese onslaught,
and they were ultimately ordered to surrender by their General.
But Milton refused.
Alongside fellow soldiers from both the philippines and the US they formed a resistance,
hiding in the dense forests, fighting in guerrilla warfare, sabotaging Japanese efforts, or simply surviving in hiding.
During this time, they scavenged pieces from two P-40 wrecks.
One was crash landed with mostly intact wings in the forest,
but the rest of the body was in rougher shape and the engine had seized up.
The second wreck was found by locals, and it still had a turning engine.
Over the course of many weeks, they hauled the 2.5 ton husk of an aircraft into their hiding place deep in the forest
and the mechanics then got to work.
They tinkered with the aircraft, tearing them apart, diagnosing their issues,
and patching together a single working example.
The plan was to evacuate an important Philippine general,
allowing him to escape to tell the tale of the many brave men that served alongside him.
He would take letters written by the soldiers.
One issue, however, was that the P-40 had a range of only 730 miles.
China was over a thousand miles away at the closest.
To try to fix this the men stripped everything unnecessary from the aircraft;
virtually all armor, the wing-mounted machineguns, and some instruments.
The nose machineguns were kept, just in case.
They also added a makeshift 50-gallon underbelly fuel tank.
Another issue was the landing gear, or rather, how it was missing one on the left side.
For this they created a skid out of bamboo and scrap metal
that would hold the plane until takeoff, then it would fall away.
And lastly was the runway.
Every allied runway had been taken over and it was impossible to sneak such a machine into a clearing
long enough for takeoff.
Instead with the help of locals they cut a strip into the forest,
the first half was under the canopies of the taller trees, hidden from prying eyes.
Only the very end was open to the sky above, the minimum needed for an up to speed P-40 to sneak through.
Towards the end of the year, the beast was ready.
In her ragged, scrappy glory, the engine came to life, and the roar of the V12 tore through the forest of Mindanao.
They test all the instruments, passing with satisfactory results much to the celebration of the crews.
But then, the plane sat.
The general didn’t want to leave his men behind just yet.
Nobody knows how long the Ghost P-40 sat in the makeshift hangar, waiting for her time to shine.
Then, came that fateful day.
On December 8th Milton McMullen was sleeping in his tent close to the hidden airfield.
A roar jolts him awake, he listens as it grows louder,
the unmistakable note of the aircraft engine bringing everyone out of their sleeping spots.
He runing for the airfield, listening the aircraft he’s spent so long working on speeding down a runway,
he can barely believe it.
Emerging from the forest he sees her already airborne,
catching only the shortest glimpse before she escapes into the heavens.
A pilot, unknown to history, had had enough.
If the general didn’t wish to leave, then he might as well save himself and the letters the hopeful men had written.
Milton watches teary eyed as she flew away, off to wherever she may head.
The daring pilot would travel 1,090 miles until he found land, but sadly, he didn’t find China.
He found occupied Taiwan.
Upon the realization where he is he dumps his little ammunition into whatever he could see on the ground,
damaging some buildings and planes as the Japanese scramble to intercept.
He runs out of ammunition and flees for China, but it’s too late.
Zeros catch up to him riddle his plane with machineguns,
tearing through his fuselage and striking him multiple times before he can escape into the clouds.
The plane gets away, but he does not.
He bleeds out somewhere over the strait of Taiwan, flying adrift.
The Ghost P-40 would crash 1,300 miles away from Mindanao.
Milton and his men would be captured and taken to a POW camp a few weeks after the flight,
never knowing what had happened to their precious P-40.
Milton would endure brutal treatment during his stay as prisoner but would survive,
regretfully very few of his compatriots would get to say the same.
He is the only person ever to claim to have worked on the Ghost P-40.
He died at the Hospital of Jackson, Mississippi on the 1st of December 2014, aged 93.
As sad as it may seem, the final mission of the Ghost P-40 was in some ways a success
as the families received the letters from the brave men who chose to fight.
We hope you like our video. To support the channel and a great cause, please go to omaze.com/yarnhub
Thank you!