Neal Dreyfus

There was an obituary in today's paper of a man who had an interesting story.

Dreyfus was a radio operator with the crew of a C-46 cargo plane, flying the Hump over the mountainous region across India, Burma and China. On the return leg of his 26th mission, their plane was shot down. He was listed as missing in action.

Only later would his family hear of his survival in the Burmese jungle. He spent 27 days in the jungle before encountering Kachin tribal people, known to be headhunters.

"Our plane broke out of a storm, and six Japanese Zeros were waiting for us," he told a friend, former reporter Mike Christopulos. "One shot us down. We opened the cabin door and jumped out."

Being in heavy clouds likely saved him from being shot.

His parachute caught in a tree. Then came 27 days of trying to avoid capture and wild animals, of trying to find enough to eat.

"The thing that saved my life was that I was shot down during the monsoon season," Neal Dreyfus had said. "It rained every day, so I had plenty of water."

He later found his crew chief, with a broken leg, in the jungle. Soon they were found by Kachin natives. Neal Dreyfus tried to fire his pistol, but it was too wet.

"He passed out," his brother Lee Dreyfus said.

Neal Dreyfus came to in a hut, surrounded by shrunken heads. His own injured leg was wrapped in leaves and supported on forked sticks above embers. A woman kept throwing water on the embers, creating steam to treat the leg, which had been attacked by jungle leeches, Lee Dreyfus said.

A few weeks later, the Kachin began taking the airmen to a British unit, signaling a plane overhead with a piece of a mirror.

Neal Dreyfus might have been saved just in time.

"I was so starved and tired," he said. "I had worn out one pair of boots and was down to 83 pounds from 145."

Still, experienced crews were desperately needed. Neal Dreyfus was sent to a rest facility and did not return home until 1945, after more than 100 missions.