Christmas 1944 in one of the 491st Bm Sq enlisted men's hostels at Yangkai base, Yunnan province, China.
In his book "Diary of A Bomb Squadron" McKay Nelson wrote, "Christmas was celebrated quietly. A truckload of Christmas packages for the squadron came in, early in the evening. Midnight Mass had to be cancelled due to a 'Jing Bao' air raid warning that drove everyone to the slit trenches."
According to William "Wild Bill" Gornik, engineer-gunner, (on the right, sitting on the bunk) " My roommates and I decided it would not be Christmas without a Christmas tree. There were plenty of trees in the foothills to take care of the tree problem, but what to do about decorations? Good old GI ingenuity took over. We fashioned decorations out of live ammo, cartridge belt links, burned out light bulbs, silver foil from cigarette packs, etc. Voila!! We had a Christmas tree."
From the collection of Wozniak, combat photographer for the 491st Bomb Squadron, in the CBI.