John Regan - India - 1944

John Regan's minor league career was brief; just a handful of appearances with Cubs' farm teams during the summer of 1942. On this day in 1944, he went missing on a flight to India and it would be 64 years before his fate was known.

John J. Regan was a pitcher on the varsity baseball team at Mount Carmel High School, an all-boys Catholic school on Chicago's South Side. In 1942, he was signed by the Chicago Cubs' organization and sent to the Ashland Colonels of the Class C Mountain State League. After a brief stay he joined the Janesville Cubs of the Class D Wisconsin State League, where he made two appearances.

Regan's fledgling baseball career was put on hold in November 1942, when he entered military service with the Army Air Force and trained as a radio operator. He was sent to the China-India-Burma Theater in November 1943, where he served with the 373rd Bomb Squadron of the 308th Bomb Group, Fourteenth Air Force, at Yangkai, China. Technical Sergeant Regan flew regular ferrying missions in a Consolidated B-24J Liberator over "the Hump" to India, and on May 25, 1944, he was the radio operator/gunner on B-24J "Zoot Chute" piloted by First Lieutenant Robert M. King. On board were five other crew members in addition to Regan and King, plus three passengers. The plane was bound for Chabua, India, and the last radio contact was made 30 minutes east of its destination. It was never heard from again. One year later the crew were officially declared dead and due to the mountainous terrain where the plane was lost, it was believed that if the wreckage were located, it would be impossible to recover the remains.

T/Sgt. John Regan served as a radio operator/gunner aboard this
Consolidated B-24J Liberator nicknamed "Zoot Chute"

John Regan was posthumously awarded the Air Medal, and is memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery at Fort Bonifacio in the Philippines. On October 26, 2008, 64 years after "Zoot Chute" disappeared, it was discovered by aviation archaeologist Clayton Kuhles. Kuhles conducts regular expeditions to Burma, India, Bangladesh and China, to locate and document missing-in-action Allied aircraft lost in that area during World War II. He discovered the B-24 at over 11,000 feet elevation on a rugged mountain north of Damroh, India. The nearest village was Milang, a five-day trek. Kuhles intends to locate and notify the surviving family members.