history · 19 December 1944 · 80 years ago
Colonel Edward Rector, one of the original Flying Tigers pilots, was shot down by anti-aircraft fire near Jinmen Island, Fujian Province, China while flying a P-51 fighter. He was rescued by Chinese civilians, who also helped him to reach the Sino-American Special Technical Cooperative Organization (SACO) headquarters in Zhangzhou, Fujian. He would later make a 200-kilometer trek inland to Longyan airfield to be picked up by a 14th Air Force aircraft to Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.
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