William Beale ( aviator ) William H Beale , Jr was a US military and paramilitary aviator . In the Second World War he was in the USAAF and flew bombing missions in the northern Pacific theater . In the Permesta rebellion in Indonesia in 1958 he flew bombing missions for the CIA . His career ended on a in 1962 when he was killed in a plane crash . USAAF service . Beale was a USAAF officer in the Second World War who flew Consolidated B - 24 Liberator s from the Aleutian Islands and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel . After the war , Beale spent several years training Republic of China Air Force ( ROCAF ) pilots on Republic F - 84 Thunderjet s . He got married to the sister of a ROCAF fighter group commander , adopted her daughter and settled in Taiwan . AUREV service . Beale left the air force and joined Civil Air Transport , a CIA front organisation based in Taiwan . CAT valued Beale for his connections with the ROCAF hierarchy . In April 1958 , CAT sent Beale to Clark Air Base in the Philippines , where he was assigned a Douglas B - 26 Invader that had been painted black and had its markings obscured . On April 19 , 1958 Beale flew the bomber to Mapanget , a rebel - held Indonesian Air Force base on the Minahassa Peninsula of northern Sulawesi . The rebels were Permesta , led by dissident local army officers opposed to the government of President Sukarno . Beale and his B - 26 formed part of the CIA element in Permesta ' s " Angkatan Udara Revolusioner " ( " Revolutionary Air Force " ) or AUREV . Beale flew his first AUREV mission on April 20 , attacked Palu , the provincial capital of Central Sulawesi , with four bombs followed by machine - gun fire . On April 21 he made a similar attack on the Indonesian Air Force base on the island of Morotai , damaging the runway and setting a line of fuel drums on fire . In the next few days Beale flew two more sorties attacking Palu . Very early on April 27 one of Beale ' s CAT colleagues , Allen Pope , brought a second CIA B - 26 from Clark to Mapanget . Later that morning Pope flew to attack Morotai ahead of a Permesta amphibious assault while Beale flew to Ambon Island further south . Beale attacked Ambon City , the provincial capital , setting on fire a military command post , a fuel depot and a Royal Dutch Shell complex . The CIA instructed CAT pilots to target commercial shipping in order to drive foreign merchant ships away from Indonesian waters , thereby weakening the Indonesian economy and undermining Sukarno ' s government . On the morning of April 28 Beale attacked Balikpapan on the south coast of East Kalimantan province in Borneo . He first hit the airfield with a bomb in the middle of the runway , and then turned to attack the Royal Dutch Shell oil terminal in Balikpapan harbor . He bombed , set ablaze and sank the British 12 , 278 ton oil tanker , that belonged to Eagle Oil and Shipping , a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell . He then aimed a bomb at a second British tanker , the 8 , 139 ton , that belonged to another Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary , Anglo - Saxon Petroleum . However , the bomb bounced off one of " Daronia " s ventilators amidships without detonating and landed harmlessly in the sea . Beale then machine - gunned and destroyed Royal Dutch Shell ' s oil pipes to its wharf . With the last of his 500 lb bombs , Beale turned seaward and sank an Indonesian Navy Bathurst class corvette , KRI " Hang Tuah " , killing 18 crew and seriously wounding another 28 . The CIA ' s plan to intimidate foreign trade quickly scored its first success . Royal Dutch Shell suspended its tanker service to Balikpapan and evacuated shore - based wives and families to Singapore . After his raid on Balikpapan , Beale returned to Mapanget and re - armed . On the afternoon of the same day he attacked Ambon City , hitting and slightly damaging the Indonesian Army barracks next to the marketplace . On April 30 , Beale returned to Ambon and bombed the airstrip again . On May 1 , Beale and his B - 26 returned to Clark Air Base for a rest . Early on May 9 , Beale returned to Mapanget , releasing Pope who then took his turn to go on leave . Later that same morning , Beale attacked Ambon again . Ambon now had several machine guns with which it gave anti - aircraft fire . An Indonesian Air Force North American P - 51 Mustang chased Beale ' s B - 26 but failed to catch it . On May 10 , Beale with his B - 26 , plus two Philippine Air Force pilots flying AUREV P - 51 fighters , attacked Amahai airfield on the island of Seram , destroying an Indonesian Air Force P - 51 on the ground . On May 12 – 13 Beale and the two Filipinos flew two sorties over Central Sulawesi , inflicting heavy damage . On the afternoon of May 13 Beale and his B - 26 attacked Ambon again , this time accompanied by an AUREV Consolidated PBY Catalina flown by CIA agent Connie W Seigrist . Off Ambon , Beale strafed and holed a large sailing vessel , which then settled atop a coral reef . Beale tired of both the heavy flying schedule and personality clashes at Mapanget air base . By May 15 he had quit the operation , leaving Pope as the sole B - 26 bomber pilot . The operation did not last much longer . On May 18 , Pope attacked an amphibious landing force that was steaming from Ambon to re - take the islands of Morotai and Halmahera . Pope was shot down and captured , exposing the USA ' s sponsorship of the Permesta rebellion . Embarrassed , the Eisenhower administration terminated CIA support for Permesta and withdrew its agents and remaining aircraft from AUREV . Covert operations in Laos . After the USA aborted its CIA attack on Indonesia , Beale remained in CAT service . In 1959 the CIA airline became Air America , and by 1962 Beale was flying covert missions in support of . On April 2 , 1962 , Beale was in a de Havilland Canada DHC - 2 Beaver trying to take off from an airstrip in northeastern Laos . The DHC - 2 was overloaded , failed to become airborne and crashed at the end of the runway , killing all on board .