RC Model-
You are correct about Bill Jordan. He personally told me that he used both a pump shotgun and a M-1917 S&W .45 revolver while cleaning out Jap strongholds on the Pacific islands. Bill told me that when it came to saving his life, he always preferred revolvers.
Those interested in B-25 small arms should read Capt Ted Lawson's,
"Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo." Read the book; don't just rent the movie version. However, even the movie did show one of Lawson's men drawing his .45 and asking if he should shoot some approaching Orientals. They declined, and the men turned out to be helpful Chinese. I believe that crewman's name was Clevenger. Many of Lawson's crew were injured when they crash landed, "The Ruptured Duck".
He said that Doolittle's crews all had both service-issued .45's and a variety of personal weapons. He had his wife's .32 automatic, I think, and a number carried knives, too.
In a WW II book (I forget which), a B-25 crew member in the Burma area said that the pilots of his unit arranged to have all crewmen issued .45 autos. Told that in the Air Corps, only officers (apart from such obvious exceptions as MP's) were issued sidearms, they said that the enlisted men needed the guns as a morale issue. They got them!
Next item: in his WW II autobiography, Lt. Col. (Brevet Brigadier) John Masters, DSO, etc told about a ride that he took on an American B-25. He wanted to have a look at the terrain in which his troops would be fighting, and hitched a ride with the US aircrew. He was wary of the 75mm cannon in the nose. Thought it might be too much of a good thing in an airplane. I think he or another officer also mentioned that B-25 aircrew in that theater also carried some shoulder-fired arms in case they crash landed and had to live in the jungle. In that theater, they may have also planned to die fighting, no surrender to Japs.
Why? Masters, who after the war came to the USA and became a bestselling novelist, cited a message sent by an infantry officer to his commander back in India. It involved his casualties in Burma.
In it, the young British officer listed his dead and wounded, then POW's, "presumed killed."
The officer in India radioed back, "There is no such category as 'captured, presumed killed'."
He responded, "Sir, we are fighting the Japanese."
Masters commanded the British strongpoint codenamed Blackpool, and succeeeded in eliminating most of the very strong Jap force that attacked his British, Ghurka, and Indian troops. He lived for moinths in the jungle, and said that the experience burned him out emotionally. Said that he'd as soon shoot a Jap as to step on a cockroach. I believe that he probably considered them on the same moral level.
This was an officer who graduated froim Sandhurst before the war and who had experience in fighting the wild tribes on the NW Frontier of India and the Afghans. They were a pretty fierce lot, but the Japs affected him more, as enemies worthy of a detached hatred.
He was with Field Marshal the Earl Slim's (later Viscount Slim of Burma) 14 th Army, which recaptured Burma.
You may be able to find his autobiography iin two volumes and "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" via Interlibrary Loan, or in older libraries, or at used book stores. Master's prewar life is, "Bugles and a Tiger". The WWII years are in: "The Road Past Mandalay". His novels include, "Bhowani Junction " (made into a major movie) and, "The Venus of Konpara".
Both should be read by anyone interested in the war in that theater. The novels are set in colonial India, where Masters's family served for several generations.
Oh: I don't know which sidearm Masters carried, but he also had a .30 US carbine. Apparently, many Chindits and other British personnel had access to those by 1944. They also had many Tommy guns before the Sten became common.
I read Yeager's account of his bailout over France and his successful escape, I think over the Pyrenees. He definitely had a .45 auto, but I can't recall whether he used it.
Keep in mind that Chuck Yeager was a hunter in civlian life and a woodsman. He had much more skill and motivation than the average pilot in the European theater of operations. However, quite a few Allied airmen were asssisted to return to England by the underground movements in Holland and France.
Other Allied airmen had sidearms, sometimes unusual ones. RAF ace Robert Stanford-Tuck was said to have had a .32 Beretta, and in their books, both J.E. Johnson, the Spitfire ace , and Jack Currie, in "Lancaster Target" mentioned sidearms being carried by RAF officers. "Bob" Braham, the very decorated night fighter pilot, mentioned carrying a Luger taken from a downed Luftwaffe crewman. He had it on him when a FW-190 shot down his Mosquito over Denmark. The Germans weren't too pleased about it, either, although he wasn't badly treated, and was later visited by the pilot (Robert Spreckels) who shot him down. He wanted to meet the famous Braham. Braham blamed his being shot down to combat fatigue. He was too burned out to be as alert as he should have been. He flew mainly Beaufighters before Mosquitos.
In general, if the ISSUE pistol for US pilots is considered, it was normally the M-1911/M1911A-1 for Army pilots and the same for Navy and Marine pilots early in the war. By mid-1942, most Naval and Marine flight personnel and many Coast Guardsmen had Smith & Wesson Victory Model .38 Special revolvers. That is not to say that a pilot who really wanted one couldn't have a .45, and I'm sure that some did. Probably depended on the squadron CO or the ship's captain, or whoever brownnosed the supply officer.
Marine ace Joe Foss definitely had a .45 auto and it has been pictured in, "American Rifleman", I believe. Refer to 1942 issues of, "National Geograhic" to see sidearms worn by Naval airmen during the Battle of the Coral Sea and Midway. All that I remember were .45's. Pictures of top US ace Dick Bong show his shoulder-holstered .45 and a Randall Made knife on his belt.
The P-38 pilot who authored, "War Pilot", Richard C. Kirkland, mentioned the pilots in New Guinea cleaning their .45's and I think, shooting at coconuts and bats. I don't have time to check that part tonight.
It would be rare for a US pilot to have gone sans sidearm except for one case. At one time, there was a general order advising aircrew to leave handguns and "large knives" on base, lest they frighten French civilians who might otherwise help a downed airman. But it seems that many airmen ignored the regulation. After the invasion began, it was probably widely ignored. In the Far East and over North Africa and Italy, no such order ever seems to have been given, anyway.
Lone Star
P.S. Wing Commander J.R.D. Braham's decorations included The DSO, the DFC, AFC, CD, and the Belgian Order of the Crown and the French Croix de Guerre. His book, "Night Fighter" is well worth seeking out.
