Nearly 50 years ago, four American airmen huddled in a hut on an island off the coast of China, eating a meal cooked by a Chinese fisherman`s wife.
They were cold, wet and in shock from crash landing in the China Sea after taking part in the first American attack against the Japanese homeland during World War II. Led by Lt. Col. James Doolittle, it was one of the most daring bombing raids of the war.
Forced to crash land or parachute over China after the raid, the Americans were in danger of being captured by Japanese occupying the country.
But 64 of the 80 airmen on the mission were able to escape the Japanese and return to a hero`s welcome in the United States, thanks to Chinese villagers who hid them, doctored their wounds and helped them escape.
On Friday, eight of the airmen gathered in a Red Wing hotel to reunite with five of the Chinese villagers, including a farmer, a doctor, a postal inspector and a school teacher.
The airmen of the famous April 18, 1942, attack said their heroes were the villagers who risked their lives to rescue them.
Griffith Williams, who took shelter in the fisherman`s hut, was reunited with the Zhao Xiaobao, the fisherman`s wife.
”I think it`s fair to say we owe our lives to them, that they saved our lives,” said Williams, who was a 21-year-old copilot of one of the 16 carrier-launched B-25 bombers in the Doolittle raid.
Eight of the Americans were captured by the Japanese, and three of those were executed while a fourth died in captivity.
Bryan Moon, a Red Wing area resident who organized the reunion, said an estimated 200,000 Chinese were killed in retaliation by the Japanese.
A retired Northwest Airlines vice president, Moon got the idea for the reunion after leading an expedition in 1990 to China to try to recover remains of the lost Doolittle bombers.
Speaking through an interpreter, Zhao said, ”We were afraid that perhaps the Japanese soldiers would retaliate against us,” for helping the Americans. But the woman, who was 19 at the time, said, ”All that was on my mind is we wanted to save them. We wanted to bring them to a safe place because they were fighting the Japanese.”
After nearly five decades, Williams said he still remembers the meal of rice and tiny shrimp that Zhao served him.
Williams` plane had to ditch during a stormy night in the ocean near the coast of China after bombing Japan.
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The bomber had run out of fuel after failing to find the airfield in China where the crew was supposed to land.
Four crew members of Williams` plane swam to a nearby island off the coast and headed for the lights of a small village. Cold and wet, they hid in the straw of a pigpen near a fisherman`s hut.
They heard a dog barking, then saw a lantern thrust around the corner of the hut and then a face.
”After some trepidation and uncertainty, we both decided the other was friendly,” Williams said.
The face belonged to a Zhao`s husband, who ushered the airmen into his home.
Zhao said the villagers fled into the mountains when they heard the B-25 roar overhead and then saw four men walking up the beach. But she said her husband returned to the village and recognized the men as Americans.
The crew members were taken to the mainland of China hidden under the floorboards of a fishing boat.
Williams and Saylor said they finally returned to the U.S. at the end of May 1942, dumbfounded to learn they were national heroes.
”It was the biggest surprise of my life after I got home,” Williams said.