The employees of Japanese-based Fujita construction company were in China concerning a project to dispose of chemical weapons abandoned by Japanese military forces after World War Two.

During the Second World War, Redstone was part of an intelligence unit responsible for breaking the communications codes of the Japanese, which meant learning the language and culture.

The young aviator was part of the famed Flying Tigers, who fought the Japanese in the air over China and Burma before and after the United States got into World War II.