Born 20 Feb 1919 Blue Mound, Macon County, Illinois

High School Class of 1937

Employed as a metal worker with the Mississippi Valley Structural Steel Co. of Decatur, Illinois.

16 Oct 1940 registered for the "draft"

Enlisted (16036170) in the Air Corps on 16 Dec 1941 at Chicago, Illinois

Basic military training and classification at Keesler Field near Biloxi, Mississippi

Rifle range qualification on the .30 cal carbine rifle at Atlantic City, New Jersey

B-29 Flight Engineering School at Lowry Field near Denver, Colorado

B-29 combat crew training at Pratt AAF, Kansas

1944: deployed to Chakulia Airfield, India in the CBI Theatre

Hsinching Airfield (runway A-1), China designated as forward staging base

KIA 14 Dec 1944 on the mission to bombard the railway yards at Rangoon, Burma

Tail Gunner: 16036170James A Vermillion TSgt ILL 14-12-1944 B-29 #42-24726

TSgt James A Vermillion (1919-1944) - Find a Grave Memorial

B-29-45-BW (Boeing Wichita) Superfortress serial #42-24726, tail fin marking: four red horizontal rudder stripes, assigned to the 25th Bomber Squadron, 40th Bombardment Group (VH), 58th Bomb Wing, XX Bomber Command, 20th Air Force, USAAF, stationed at Chakulia airfield, India in the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theatre of Operations.

KIA 14 Dec 1944 on the mission to bombard the railway yards at Rangoon, Burma

MACR 10401

Note: According to Robert A. Mann's B-29 Comprehensive Registry of the planes and their missions, B-29-5-BW serial #42-6269 was nicknamed "SMOKY STOVER"

B-29 #42-6269, construction number C-3403, was delivered to the 40th Bomb Group on 21 Dec 1943 and 'reclaimed' at Pyote, Texas on 21 Dec 1949. Pyote Field had been nicknamed the "Rattlesnake Bomber Base" and after World War II, thousands of excess aircraft were stored there, one of which was the B-29 Enola Gay.

2nd Note: As part of "Operation Matterhorn" to bombard Japan, his B-29 aircraft would fly over the Himalaya Mountain Range and logistically stage bombing missions through Hsinching Airfield (A-1) at the Chengdu Aerodrome in China.

Around Chengdu, four runways were built, using 350,000 thousand Chinese laborers, as bases for B-29 Superfortress bombers. The four runways were named A-1 (40th BG), A-3 (444th BG), A-5 (462nd BG), and A-7 (468th BG). Runway A-1, located at Hsin Ching, was the forward base for the 40th Bombardment Group (VH).