|
By Leah B. Del Castillo, Deskperson
Conclusion
FLYING at 6,000 feet over the China Sea with a
.45-caliber gun pointed to his head, PI-C38 co-pilot Felix Gaston
kept one thought in mind: “I must survive for the sake of my
passengers and my unborn child.”
Thus, when Chinese Nationalist aircraft suddenly
appeared in the sky, he immediately flapped the DC-3’s wings,
which in aviation language meant that he was friendly and that he
wanted to land. However, hijacker Ang Chio Kio wanted to fly to Amoy
— and one did not argue with a cocked .45.
“What really killed my thought to jump him was
when I saw him, after shooting through the door two shots, put in
his gun another magazine,” Gaston said of his not too gun-shy
passenger.
The Nationalists — who were flying the T6
Harvard, which had been used first as a training craft, and later
reconfigured by many countries involved in the Second World War as
an attack plane – then chased the C38, and sprayed machine gun
fire. As if by miracle, Gaston’s plane survived the gunfire, and
flew to Amoy.
At Amoy, however, where he got rid of the
Nationalist planes, Gaston flew the plane low and in between
structures so as to avoid more gunfire, this time from the ground in
mainland China.
And again, by some miracle, Gaston managed to
convince Ang that they must look for the Nationalist planes. They
circled the skies for some minutes, then found the pair of T6
planes. Gaston made the same friendly signals, and was allowed to
follow the warplanes to Quemoy, the last Nationalist stronghold
closest to mainland China.
Quemoy was a port just outside Amoy, a distance
comparable to that between Metro Manila and Sangley Point in Cavite.
Those kilometers, however, spelled a whole world of difference to
Gaston and his passengers.
In Quemoy, the DC-3 was met by hundreds of
Nationalist soldiers carrying fixed-bayonet arms, prepared to attack
enemy forces. But as it turned out, the enemy came in the form of
only one man — Ang Chio Kio — who was still oblivious that they
had landed in Nationalist China.
Gaston had flown the plane into safety, albeit
with much trepidation and much interrogation from the Taiwanese
authorities afterwards, and Ang had met with the law.
Two days after PI-C38 took off, it flew back to
Manila with a bleak load – the bodies of Capt. Perlas and flight
steward Diago. Earlier that same day, Gaston and his six passengers
— now safe and sound — flew to Taipei and back to Manila on
board another PAL flight, to end the world’s first-ever major air
hijacking.
Gaston, who now dreams of having a reunion with
the passengers of the ill-fated C-38 and the Taiwanese pilots of the
T6 that accompanied them to safety, credits his training in the Air
Force for his handling of the crisis.
“I never forgot one thing — my training in
the Air Force, which is to keep cool and to plan,” Gaston said.
Ang, after questioning and processing by the
Taiwanese authorities, was repatriated to Manila, and was made to
face trial in Baguio City. However, even as the law reached him,
justice was not delivered. Ang was later pardoned by then President
Carlos P. Garcia.
“I wrote the Free Press, and condemned that
act of Garcia,” Gaston recalls with a hint of bitterness.
Aside from becoming a personal tragedy for many
of those involved, the hijacking also served as a coming of age for
the aviation industry. “At that time, people would go up the plane
without surrendering their guns,” Gaston said. “(Dec. 30, 1952)
was the time the airline people grew up.”
Though certainly a defining moment for Gaston,
an international pilot, the hijacking did not diminish his love for
his profession and skill. “My love of the air is still there, my
love as a pilot is still there,” he affirms.
Gaston was awarded the Legion of Honor medal
(officer’s rank) for his “exceptional valor and devotion to
duty,” through general order 208 signed by then Armed Forces chief
of staff Maj. Gen. Jesus Vargas.
And in tribute to Gaston, The Manila Times wrote
an editorial on Jan. 3, 1953 thus: “When medals for cold-blooded
bravery, far and away beyond the common conception of the most
exalted type of heroism are handed out, the first one should go to
Felix Gaston … Here is an example of heroism unequalled in the
chronicle of man’s courage.”
First part
|
