Colonel Richard T. King-WWII
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Rank: Colonel - Pilot on the Rosalia Rocket
Date of Loss: 3 December 1944 on a bombing mission over Tokyo, Japan
Richard E. King, Jr., Colonel, Air Corps was born October 10, 1906, at Georgetown, South Carolina. He enjoyed a typical American boyhood which resulted in a healthy athletic body six feet one and three-quarters tall and weighing one hundred and eighty pounds.
At age twenty-one Colonel King graduated from the Citadel with
a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering. On July 1, 1929, just a few weeks after graduating from the Citadel, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point.
After studying four years at West Point, Colonel King graduated
June 13, 1932 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Military
Engineering and a commission as Second Lieutenant of Infantry.
On September 13, 1933, he was detailed to the Air Corps for flight training receiving primary and basic training at Randolph Field, Texas. His advanced flying was completed at Kelly Field, Texas, on October 13, 1934.
After leaving flying school, Colonel King had the usual career
consisting of service with several squadrons. He also attended
several Army Schools, such as the communications School at Chanute Field, Illinois. He had had experience flying two and four engine aircraft and is a senior pilot.
In Spetember 1939 he was ordered to foreign service in Panama where he commanded a heavy bombardment squadron for approximately two years. On Febrary 1, 1942, he was assigned to the Antilles Air Command in the Carribbean area. Later, he was relieved of duty with the Air Forces in that area and assigned to Staff of the Commander, Carribean Sea Frontier.
On April 27, 1943 was ordered to Washington, DC for duty with the
Operations Division of the War Department General Staff. He discharged his duties in the assignment in a superior manner until April 26, 1944, when he was assigned to the 500th Bombardment Group VH as Commanding Officer, taking command of that Group May 5, 1944, at Walker Army Air Field, Victoria, Kansas, as per Genernal Order number nine of said date and Headquarters.
Both at West Point and the Citadel, Colonel King was a well known Football and Track star. He played end for three years on the
varsity for Army and was selected for the 1932 All-American football team by the Associated Press and several New York newspapers. As Army's outstanding quarter-miler, Colonel King hung up a record that remained unbroken for approximately ten years.
Colonel King married Miss Claire Swanson of Tampa, Florida, in 1936. They have a son, Richard T. King IV, born in 1938.
Source: 500th Bombardment Group Unit Records.
Col. King replaced Robert Sollock (who was a part of the original crew) that fateful flight. He was one of the few of the 500th to have been found alive and come home after being released as a POW. To read his story of that night, and his time as a POW, click below (links will open up into a new browser window):
Branch/Unit: Commanding Officer of the 500th Bombardment Group
A PRISONER OF WAR REMEMBERS
"Now that six months have passed since my release from the
Japanese prison camps, my out-standing thought about that experience is that
the human body has wonderful recuperative ability - Although I lost 69
pounds - from 195 to 126 pounds - my body is now so thoroughly recovered
that I feel almost no ill effects. Time has dimmed both the mental anguish
and the physical suffering from lack of food, privation and the few beatings
I received.
"To go back to the beginning - it was on 3 December 1944 that I
was flying as Flight Commander of a 12-ship formation with Maj. R.
Goldsworthy, one of the flight leaders in the 500th Bomb Group which I then
commanded. [their aircraft was Z-1, "Rosalia Rocket"] Our mission was an
aircraft engine plant in the Tokyo area and we had dropped our bombs from
approximately 32,000 feet, when we were attacked by fighters. Although we
shot down some of the fighters, they hit our left inboard gasoline tank so
seriously that it sprayed gasoline all over the aircraft and the entire ship
began to burn. Slugs from the fighters had apparently also destroyed the
electrical system, making the intercom inoperative and damaging the nose
wheel support so that it came down. By the time the ship had lost altitude
to 29,000 feet I bailed out. At that time I did not realize that I was
injured
in any way. Immediately after bailing out I counted at least eight and
possibly nine chutes as I floated earthward myself.
"Landing in an open field, I immediately cut my shroud lines and
found that I had been burned on one leg and my face. Since Japanese
fighters were diving down directly over the field and it seemed they might
be looking for me, I walked over under the trees at one side of the field
and waited there a few moments. Meanwhile I looked myself over a little more
thoroughly and found that I had landed unarmed since my 45 had been lost on
the way down. I was wearing only suntan shirt and trousers and regular GI
shoes, socks and underwear, with no other equipment.
"Shortly, some Japanese civilians found me and not only
handcuffed but also bound me with my own shroud lines. They delivered me to
the local police station where I waited for two hours until two Japanese
soldiers came to pick me up. As I started down the road in their custody, I
met Colonel Byron Brugge, from Wing Headquarters, and asked him how he was.
He was able to say "Okay" before the guard ordered "No speak." After being
blindfolded the soldiers loaded us into a truck that carried us into Tokyo
where we arrived about 2 a.m. From the speed of the truck and the time
consumed I would guess that I had landed about 40 miles out of the city.
"Immediately Japanese intelligence officers interrogated us as
to our name, rank and serial number. Although this was all the Geneva
Convention allows, they went on to request our home addresses and other
information. When I asked why they wanted this information, they said they
needed it so they could notify our families. This, of course, was never
done. Then they asked me to sign a paper which was written in Japanese. I
signed as it was obvious that I did not know what it said. Next they
stripped me and returned to me my shirt, trousers, shoes and socks. Except
for shoes and socks this was to be my entire clothing twenty-four hours a
day for the next four months. Only when we were taken out for interrogation
were we allowed to put on our shoes and socks. Before daylight I was
subjected to a further severe interrogation about everything on Saipan. When
I answered many of their questions (truthfully) that I did not know, they
attempted to force me to answer by slapping my face and other minor abuse.
"I was put in solitary confinement at the Kempei Tai (MP headquarters) in a
block of six cells with four other men from the crew occupying
the other cells. The only furniture was four dirty blankets. Our food
consisted of three meals a day of rice and barley mixed, with an occasional
small fish and infrequent watery soup for breakfast. I stayed in this
solitary cell without ever going out for exercise or any other purpose
except almost daily interrogation until the nineteenth of February, on which
date Colonel Brugge and I were transferred to a local police station where
we were put in different cell blocks. I stayed in this second prison until
the 3rd of April. There was one period from the fourth to the fourteenth of
March when I was placed in a Japanese military hospital where I ad slightly
more of the same type of food and a little exercise. This
hospitalization was the result of my being so weak that I could not do even
the little that was required of me in solitary.
"The next move was to the Omori prison camp. This was the headquarters camp
for some 30 prisoner of war camps in the Tokyo-Yokohama area and
was located halfway between the two cities on a sand spit projecting
into Tokyo Bay. At this camp we were listed as prisoners of war (special)
and 36 of us were segregated into two-thirds of a barracks with a separate
compound. All but four of the group were B-29 crewmen. The other third of
our barracks contained eighteen other "special" prisoners under charge of
Lieutenant Colonel Boyington, Marine ace.
"We were kept inside our special compound until the fifteenth of
August and then for the next two weeks we were allowed an increasing amount
of food and medical supplies including blood plasma and the privilege of
mixing with the other 600 prisoners in our camp. On the 29th Commander
Stassen took a group of us off in LCIs to a hospital ship. After eight days
I was allowed to go out to Atsugi airfield when I "bummed" a ride to Okinawa
and then to Guam and back to Saipan, where I arrived on the eighth of
September. On the twelfth of September I was in San Francisco and on the
fourteenth in Tampa, Florida with my family.
"There are two other noteworthy items of my experience. On the
seventh of May we were allowed to start a small garden at Omori. This gave
us something to do and some slight exercise. Perhaps the most
exciting moment of my entire captivity was on 9 March when I was able to see
the first night incendiary attack of the B-29s on Tokyo. The light from the
burning city made it as light as day and gave us all confidence that our
liberation was not far off."
[copied from "The Story of the 73rd; The Unofficial History of
the 73rd Bomb Wing", originally published in 1946. These words were
written ca. March 1946]
By Colonel Richard T. King, Jr.
According to the Conclusions of the Missing Crew Report:
"Colonels King and Brugge, Major Goldsworthy, Lieutenant Warde, Sergeants Goffery, Wells and Wright and Corporal Schroeder all bailed out safely and were captured by the Japanese. Colonel King, Colonel Brugge, Major Goldsworthy, Sergeant Goffery and Corporal Schroeder were taken to the same Japanese Federal Prison in downtown Tokyo, and remained there for several months."
POW Colonel King was released at the end of the war.
Please read the information below which contains more details about Colonel King.
| Goldsworthy's Crew #101, 881st Squad
of the ROSALIA ROCKET Crew Picture taken 10/9/44 |
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Pictured Left to Right |
Click on their individual picture to read more about them (links will open into a new browser window.)
Although Robert Sollock (he was a part of the original crew) is pictured above, click his picture to read about Richard King, who replaced him that fateful flight.
Not pictured but present on flight that went down on 12/3/1944 were Col. Byron Brugge, as Observer.
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