One Pilot, Impossible Odds: The Legend of Philip Adair and Lulu Bell

Prologue: The Haze Over Assam

December 13, 1943. 9:27 a.m.
Assam, India.

The morning haze hung heavy over Denjan Airfield, blurring the distant horizon. Second Lieutenant Philip Adair, 23 years old, sat in the cockpit of his battered Curtiss P-40N Warhawk, nicknamed Lulu Bell. He’d flown 43 combat missions with the 89th Fighter Squadron, defending the vital Hump airlift. But this morning, as he banked into a climbing turn, he was alone—one pilot against the sky.

Then, through the haze, they appeared. Sixty-four Japanese aircraft, three miles east, heading straight for Denjan. Twenty-four Mitsubishi Ki-21 Sally bombers, forty Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar fighters, layered above and below, like a moving wall of death.

Below him, Denjan Airfield housed fourteen C-47 transports loaded with supplies for China, a field hospital treating sixty-three wounded, and fuel stocks crucial for Allied operations. If the bombers reached the field unopposed, the damage could cripple the Hump for weeks.

The nearest friendly fighters were thirty-eight minutes away. Adair checked his fuel—full tanks, 180 gallons, ninety minutes at combat power. The Japanese formation was 3,000 feet below, moving at 240 mph. Standard doctrine said to wait for reinforcements when outnumbered more than five to one. Adair had sixty-four to one odds.

He could radio for help and shadow the formation. By then, the bombs would already be falling. Or he could attack alone, try to disrupt their run, and risk everything.

Adair pushed the throttle forward. The Allison V-1710 engine screamed. The Warhawk surged to 320 mph, climbing above the bombers, sun at his back, surprise on his side.

Chapter 1: Into the Fray

Adair’s plan was simple: hit the lead bombers first, ignore the fighters, break their formation, force them to scatter. The Sally bombers flew in tight Vs, six planes in two groups. Adair rolled inverted, pulled the nose down, and dove from their 7:00 high position.

At 800 yards, he opened fire. Six .50 caliber Brownings hammered, tracers arcing toward the lead Sally. Rounds ripped through fabric and metal. The port engine burst into flame. Black smoke poured from the cowling. The formation broke, bombers scattering left and right.

Adair pulled up hard, 7 Gs crushing him into the seat, rolled right. Forty Oscars dove toward him, their butterfly flaps bleeding speed for tight turns. The Oscars were some of the most agile fighters in the Pacific, but Adair knew their limits. His P-40 was faster in a straight line, but heavier and less maneuverable.

Standard tactics said never turn with Oscars. Use speed, hit and run, reset. But Adair couldn’t run. If he left, the bombers would reform and destroy Denjan. He had to keep pressure on, keep them scattered, even if it meant fighting forty Oscars alone.

The first four Oscars came at him from his 10:00 high. Adair rolled left, pulled up, fired a two-second burst—missed high. The Oscar broke right, its wingman followed. Adair reversed, dove away to maintain speed. Two more Oscars dove from above. He saw them at 400 yards, pulled into a climbing left turn, fired—no hits.

His ammunition counter showed 800 rounds remaining. Six more attacks at his current rate of fire.

Behind the fighter screen, the Sally bombers tried to reform. Three groups of six closed in. Ninety seconds to their release point. Adair rolled out, shoved the throttle to the stop, and dove again. Eight Oscars followed, but the P-40 accelerated to 405 mph—too fast for them.

At bomber altitude, he lined up on the right-hand Sally formation, fired. Tracers hit the lead bomber’s right engine. The radial exploded in a fireball. The bomber rolled right, streaming fire. Its wingman broke formation to avoid collision. Adair kicked rudder left, fired at another Sally. Rounds punched through thin skin. The Ki-21 had no armor, no self-sealing tanks—designed in 1936, obsolete but still deadly.

Twelve Oscars closed again. Adair’s fuel showed 162 gallons, ammunition 650 rounds. The bombers were nineteen miles from Denjan, four minutes to drop.

Chapter 2: The Warhawk’s Limits

Then the engine started overheating. The Allison V-1710 was liquid cooled, designed for twenty minutes at combat power. Adair had been running at full for eleven minutes. Coolant temp at 230°F. Normal was 210. At 250, the engine would fail.

Three options: reduce power and cool, abandon the attack, or keep fighting and risk engine failure over hostile territory.

He kept the throttle forward. Two Oscars came head-on, closing speed over 600 mph. Both fired at 500 yards—7.7mm tracers walking toward his nose. Adair fired back. His .50 caliber rounds hit the left Oscar’s engine cowling. The fighter shuddered, broke left, trailing white vapor. Its wingman followed. Adair rolled right and dove. Coolant temp hit 240°F.

The Sally bombers were fifteen miles out. Two formations of six reformed into bombing Vs. The third was scattered. Adair dove past six Oscars at 390 mph, leveled out at bomber altitude, fired on the lead Sally. The right wing failed, outer panel tore away. The Sally rolled inverted and spun down—no parachutes.

Bombers scattered in three directions. Their accuracy was destroyed. Even if they dropped now, the bombs would be spread across miles of jungle.

Adair pulled up hard. Coolant temp at 248°F. The engine ran rough, vibration through the stick. Detonation in the cylinders, pre-ignition from heat. If he didn’t reduce power, the engine would seize.

Eight Oscars dove on him. He rolled left—too slow. 7.7mm rounds punched through his right wing. Metal buckled. One round hit the right aileron control rod. He needed more right stick to stay level. Another burst hit his cowling. One round penetrated the coolant reservoir. Green coolant sprayed across his windscreen. Temp climbed past 260°F. Steam erupted from the cowling. Oil pressure dropped. The Allison was dying.

Adair chopped the throttle. RPM fell from 3,000 to 2,400. Not enough to maintain altitude. The P-40 started descending, 1,000 feet per minute, then 1,500. The Oscars circled above, waiting.

Then the engine caught fire.

Chapter 3: Fire and Survival

Fire in a liquid-cooled engine follows a pattern—burning coolant vaporizes, ignites, flames spread forward. If the fire reaches the fuel lines, the aircraft explodes. Adair had thirty seconds.

Standard procedure: shut down and bail out. But he was at 8,000 feet, descending, twelve miles from friendly territory, over jungle patrolled by Japanese troops.

He kept the engine running. The fuel mixture could be leaned manually. Adair pulled the mixture to idle cut-off for three seconds. The fire intensity dropped. He pushed the mixture forward. The engine coughed, caught, ran rough, power at 60%. Not enough to climb, barely enough to stay level.

He was committed to flying home on a burning, damaged engine—or abandoning the plane over hostile ground.

The Sally bombers were thirteen miles from Denjan, still close enough to attack, but their formations had collapsed. Individual bombers headed southeast toward Burma. The raid was broken. The airfield was safe.

Adair turned southwest for Naguli, forty-three miles away, fifteen minutes if the engine held. Six Oscars followed. At 7,000 feet, oil pressure dropped to zero. The Allison needed oil to lubricate connecting rods, crankshaft, camshaft. Without oil, metal ground against metal. Friction generated heat. Components seized.

Adair felt vibration increase. The propeller windmilled unevenly. Power fell. Airspeed dropped to 180 mph. The P-40’s stall speed was 120. He was losing the margin between flight and falling.

The Oscars closed to 400 yards. They didn’t fire—just watched, waiting for the engine to fail. One Oscar pulled alongside, the pilot gestured down—land, surrender. Adair ignored him.

At 6,000 feet, smoke filled the cockpit—not from the engine fire, but from damaged electrical wiring. Smoke burned his eyes and throat. He slid the canopy open. The wind blast cleared some smoke but made breathing difficult. Airspeed fell to 160 mph.

Oscars backed off. The American pilot was as good as dead, his aircraft crippled. They circled higher, watching him descend.

Chapter 4: Flying on Willpower

At 4,000 feet, the right aileron control cable snapped. The aileron flopped to full deflection. The P-40 rolled right, nose dropped into a dive. Adair hauled back on the stick—nothing. The elevator cables were damaged. No pitch control.

Airspeed increased. 200 mph. 220. 250. The jungle rushed up.

Altitude: 3,000 feet. 2,500. 2,000. He was going to crash.

Then he had an idea. The damaged aileron forced the right wing down. The broken elevator left the stabilizer nose down. Gravity and aerodynamics were pulling the plane into a dive. But if he rolled inverted, the aileron would force the wing up, the elevator stuck nose down would push the tail down, lifting the nose up. Flying upside down would reverse the control inputs. The damage killing him right side up might save him inverted.

At 1,800 feet, Adair rolled the P-40 completely inverted. Negative G pressed him against the straps. Blood rushed to his head. Vision turned red. The fuel system struggled to feed the engine inverted. The Allison coughed, sputtered, caught, ran rough but produced power. The nose came up. Descent slowed.

At 1,200 feet, the P-40 leveled out, flying upside down at 140 mph. Adair held the inverted attitude for forty seconds. Airspeed increased to 160. He was climbing slowly.

Then fuel starvation returned. The engine cut out. He rolled right side up. Damaged controls pushed the nose down. The P-40 descended again. 600 feet per minute. Adair waited until he lost 300 feet, rolled inverted again. Nose up, climbed 200 feet before fuel starvation forced him upright.

Flip, climb. Flip, descend. The six Oscars above watched this impossible display—an American P-40 with a burning engine and damaged controls, flying alternately inverted and upright, refusing to crash.

One Oscar dove to investigate. Adair rolled inverted to gain altitude, then upright directly at the Japanese fighter. The Oscar broke away. The American pilot was either insane or desperate. The Oscars decided not to engage. They turned east toward Burma.

Chapter 5: The Final Approach

Adair continued his rolling climb toward Naguli. Fuel gauge: 83 gallons. Oil pressure: zero. The engine should have seized, but it ran on momentum, friction, and whatever microscopic oil film remained.

Altitude reached 3,000, then 4,000 feet. Naguli was twenty-one miles southwest, eleven minutes away if the engine held.

Coolant temperature gauge no longer registered—the needle had melted off. Smoke poured from the cowling, but flames had died down. At 5,000 feet, Adair spotted the airfield—the runway, the tower, safety.

But a new problem: landing gear was hydraulic, powered by the engine. With minimal power, the hydraulic pump wasn’t generating enough pressure. The gear stayed up.

The P-40 had a backup—a manual hand pump. Twenty-eight strokes would pressurize the system enough to lower the gear. Adair grabbed the pump with his left hand, keeping his right on the stick. He pumped—nothing. The hand pump required both hands, but releasing the stick meant losing control.

He rigged his lap belt around the stick, looped it through the seat frame, pulled tight. The makeshift rig held the stick neutral. He grabbed the pump with both hands, pumped hard. At stroke twenty-three, resistance. Hydraulic pressure built. At twenty-eight, the left main gear extended and locked, then the right.

Gear down increased drag. Airspeed fell from 160 to 135 mph. The engine was producing maybe 40% power, barely enough to maintain altitude.

Naguli runway was seven miles ahead, three minutes. Vision tunneled—gray edges from carbon monoxide poisoning. He shook his head, focused on the runway.

Six miles. Engine temperature gauge: 310°F. Metal inside the engine was expanding. Any second, a piston would seize or a valve would stick.

Five miles. The tower saw him coming—a P-40 trailing smoke, gear down, erratic flight. They assumed a normal approach. Lower flaps, reduce speed, touch down on the main wheels. But Adair’s flaps were hydraulic, too. With minimal power, he couldn’t pump enough pressure. Gear down, flaps up.

Landing without flaps meant higher speed—120 mph instead of 90. Longer landing roll. Naguli’s runway was 4,000 feet. A flapless landing in a damaged aircraft required at least 3,000 feet. Doable if he maintained speed.

At two miles, the engine quit. The propeller windmilled to a stop. No power. No thrust. The P-40 became a glider—a poor glider. Glide ratio: 8:1. From 2,000 feet, he could glide three miles. The runway was two miles away.

But his damaged aircraft had extra drag from bullet holes. Actual glide ratio: maybe 6:1. He wasn’t going to make the runway. He would crash short.

Chapter 6: Inverted Miracle

After surviving sixty-four enemy aircraft, flying inverted for eleven minutes, nursing a dying engine, he would crash 200 yards from safety.

Then he remembered a training tip—flying inverted could extend glide range by reducing drag. The principle was mentioned briefly in training. No instructor expected pilots to use it.

Adair had nothing to lose. He rolled inverted at 1,800 feet, one mile from the runway. Blood rushed to his head. Vision reeled. He held the inverted attitude, watching the jungle pass beneath—or above—him. Perspective was disorienting. Airspeed held at 125 mph. Descent rate: 500 feet per minute, better than 700 right side up.

The tower saw an inverted P-40 approaching with gear down—aerodynamically wrong, structurally stressful. The gear doors designed for loads from below now faced loads from above. But the gear held. The P-40 continued its inverted approach.

On the ground, crew chief Technical Sergeant Robert Martinez watched through binoculars. He saw the inverted aircraft, gear extended, smoke trailing. His first thought: a Japanese pilot had stolen a P-40, attempting to strafe the field.

Martinez ran to the nearest machine gun position. Three ground crew followed. They traversed the weapon toward the approaching aircraft.

Adair was at 400 feet, half a mile from the runway, still inverted. Vision fading, gray tunnels closing in. Carbon monoxide and negative G were shutting down his brain. He had maybe twenty seconds of consciousness left.

He needed to roll upright, line up with the runway, and land. Too soon, he’d crash short. Too late, he’d overshoot.

At 200 feet, 300 yards from the threshold, Adair rolled right side up. The damaged aileron pushed the right wing down. He countered with left stick, fighting the aircraft, forcing the wings level. The nose wanted to drop. He pulled back. The broken elevator cables gave partial control—just enough.

The P-40 descended toward the runway, nose high, wings wobbling.

Martinez’s crew tracked the aircraft. It was definitely damaged. Smoke poured out. Friendly or enemy? Three seconds to decide. Martinez held fire.

Adair crossed the threshold at 90 feet, descending rapidly. Too fast, too steep. The P-40 dropped the last 90 feet in four seconds. Main wheels hit concrete—7 G impact. Gear struts compressed fully. Tail wheel slammed down. Metal shrieked. Right main gear collapsed. Right wing dropped, tip hit the runway, dug in. The aircraft ground looped right, spinning 180°, sparks and concrete fragments flying. It skidded backward for 200 feet and stopped.

Smoke billowed from the engine compartment. Fire crews raced toward the aircraft.

Adair sat motionless for twelve seconds. Then he released his straps, stood up, climbed onto the wing. His legs buckled. Ground crew helped him down. Martinez arrived with the fire crew. They opened the cowling—the Allison engine was destroyed, pistons seized, crankshaft warped, oil pan ruptured, coolant everywhere.

Adair walked around the aircraft with Martinez. They counted the damage: sixteen bullet holes in the fuselage, seven in the right wing, four in the left. One round severed the right aileron cable. Another punctured the hydraulic reservoir. A third cut through two electrical bundles. The engine had catastrophic damage from overheating and oil starvation. Lulu Bell would never fly again.

Chapter 7: The Aftermath

But Philip Adair had saved Denjan Airfield. Intelligence confirmed all twenty-four Sally bombers had turned back without dropping ordnance. The Japanese formation scattered fifteen miles short of target. Forty Oscars escorted empty bombers back to Burma. Zero bombs hit Allied facilities. Zero casualties. Fourteen C-47 transports remained operational. The Hump airlift continued.

Three days later, 10th Air Force headquarters interviewed Adair. He described the attack, the inverted flying, the landing approach. Flight surgeons examined him—carbon monoxide levels in his blood were still elevated seventy-two hours after the mission. He had flown with severe poisoning for the final eleven minutes. That level should have rendered him unconscious. He had remained functional through will alone.

On January 8, 1944, Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, Commander of US Forces China-Burma-India Theater, presented Adair with the Silver Star. The citation read: “For gallantry in action against enemy forces on December 13th, 1943, when Lieutenant Adair, flying alone, engaged and disrupted a formation of 64 enemy aircraft attacking Allied installations, continuing his attack despite severe aircraft damage and personal injury, thereby preventing destruction of critical supply facilities.”

Adair flew ninety-five more combat missions with the 80th Fighter Group, achieved ace status with five confirmed kills. On his final mission in July 1944, he shot down two Oscars over northern Burma. He returned to the United States in September 1944, survived the war, and remained in the Air Force for thirty years, retiring as a full colonel in 1971.

The 80th Fighter Group, the Burma Banshees, continued operations until August 1945, destroying 413 Japanese aircraft in aerial combat and 147 on the ground. They lost sixty-three pilots killed or missing. Their death’s head skull insignia became one of the most recognized in the theater.

The P-40 Warhawk never achieved the fame of the P-51 Mustang or P-47 Thunderbolt. It was slower, couldn’t fight effectively above 15,000 feet. By 1943, it was considered obsolete. But in the hands of determined pilots like Philip Adair, the rugged Curtiss fighter proved that what mattered most in combat wasn’t the aircraft’s specifications—it was the courage and skill of the pilot flying it.

Epilogue: Courage Beyond the Cockpit

One pilot. One obsolete fighter. Sixty-four enemy aircraft.

December 13, 1943. Philip Adair proved that impossible odds mean nothing when someone refuses to quit. His solution to damaged controls—flying alternately inverted and upright for eleven minutes—defied every standard flying procedure. His inverted landing approach with gear extended had never been attempted before and was never repeated.

That’s the story of the Burma Banshees and the day one P-40 pilot disrupted an entire Japanese raid.