This is part 2 of My Uncle’s WWII story of going from high school to a squadron leader who led the last raid over Tokyo in WWII
On December 7, 1943, I checked out as the first pilot on the four-engine B-24 bomber airplane. I was 20 years old. I was based in Orlando for almost a full year. Effective March 1, 1944, I was transferred to the 1st Bomb Squadron of the 9th Bomb Group at Brooksville, Florida, as were all non-combat-experienced personnel based at Pinecastle Army Air Base. I was then immediately transferred to the Second Air Force, Dalhart, Texas for further assignment. I flew as co-pilot on a B-17 for this transfer from Brooksville to Dalhart. It was the first time I had ever set foot in a B-17.
1 April 1944, I was transferred from the Second Air Force to the 505th Bomb Group (Very Heavy) of the 313th Bomb Wing (VH) based at Harvard Army Air Field, Nebraska. I was temporarily assigned (for approximately 30 days) to attend a “cadre training” school at the Army Air Forces School of Applied Tactics in Orlando, Florida, before reporting to Nebraska. After I attended the 30-day school, I had seven days leave and married Margaret Baker on April 30, 1944, in Orlando. I then returned to my outfit in Nebraska.
May 13, 194,4 I was assigned to the 484th Bomb Squadron, 505th Bomb Group, 313th Bomb Wing. I was assigned a co-pilot named Frederick A. Kays Jr. and a Radio Operator named William G. Coyle. We did most of our flight training in B-17s because there was such a small number of B-29 airplane existent worldwide. I had my first ride in a B-29 on July 22, 1944. I checked out as the first pilot in the B-29 on September 8, 1944, when I was 21 years old. The B-29 was at that time the largest airplane in the skies…airline or military. Margaret and I lived in one of the Showboat Motel detached cottages in Hastings, Nebraska, approximately 30 miles from the Harvard Army Air Base. We had no car. Lieutenant Warren C. Shipp often drove me to and from the air base, but it was difficult for me because the Army scheduled training 24 hours per day.
While flying the return leg of a routine training flight from Harvard, Nebraska to Orlando and back to Harvard in a B-17, Lieutenant Otto Haas and I had an engine failure. We landed at the nearest Army airport, which was Nashville, Tennessee on September 10, 1944. On Sept. 18th, we got the B-17 back to Harvard, Neb. with a replacement engine installed. Our Commanding Officer was very provoked with our absence of nine days because the B-29 training program was such a high priority. We were totally unaware of the urgency of our B-29 training.
Five days later on September 23, 1944, I, and about 300 other men, were relieved from the 505th Bomb Group, 313th Bomb Wing assignment and transferred to the 236th AAF Base Unit Combat Crew Training School (VH)) Army Air Base Pyote, Texas. Our crew was to be trained there as a B-29 Replacement Crew. Margaret and I rode the train from Hastings, Nebraska to Pecos, Texas, where we rented a room with kitchen privileges with a real fine Texas family named Titus. It was at Pyote AAB that I first met the 10 other crew members whom I later took into combat on my crew. Effective January 8, 1945, I was granted 13 days leave, and Margaret and I rode the train from Pecos, Texas to our home in Orlando. I left her in Orlando when I returned to Pyote because I was soon to go overseas. We continued to fly training flights at Pyote, Texas until February 21, 1945, when our replacement crew was fully trained, and we then boarded another troop train for our transfer to a staging base, Army Air Field at Herington, Kansas, to be processed for overseas duty.
March 3, 1945, we boarded yet another troop train in Herington, Kansas for transfer to our intermediate assignment at Hamilton Field, San Francisco, California. In San Francisco, our crew waited a few days to catch a ride on a Military Air Transport Command C-54 transport airplane from San Francisco to Oahu, Hawaii, to Johnson Island to Kwajalein to Guam, sleeping en route at each stop, save Johnson Island, where the airplane was immediately refueled and departed.
Like all B-29 replacement crews, we were first sent to the island of Guam, because that was the site of XXI Bomber Command Headquarters. However, before we spent a night on Guam, we were assigned to the prestigious 73rd Bomb Wing (VH) on Saipan. We caught a C-46 Military Transport to Saipan, and then received Special Orders No. 65 from Headquarters APO 237 on Saipan dated March 14, 1945, assigning us to the 871st Squadron, 497th Bomb Group, 73rd Bomb Wing (VH) on Saipan. At that time, I did not realize what an honor it was to be a member of the pioneering and historic 73rd Wing. I was living among true heroes with those men. Even today some 50 years later, all B-29 men who served in the Pacific look with awe and admiration at the valiant 73rd Wing who stood alone on Saipan, and flew their missions against Japan for so many months. During our first evening on Saipan, we sat through our first enemy attack alarm when we experienced “condition red”, but saw no enemy airplanes.
Our first flight off Saipan was March 29, 1945. We flew several orientation flights, practice flights, test flights, and engine “slow time” flights before we went on our first combat mission April 13th, to Tokyo in a B-29 numbered A Square 52 and named “Teaser”. It was a night incendiary raid with 16,700 lbs. of bombs. Oddly enough, it was the first time I ever took off with my landing light turned on. Previously, I had been taught that landing lights were only used for landing. As was customary with each take off of the heavily overloaded B-29s, we skimmed the ocean for miles and miles always flying the first hour at less than 400 feet altitude on each mission! The loss of an engine in this precarious situation required immediate salvoing of the bomb load or a crash into the sea. The first B-29, which arrived in the Pacific, “Jolting Josie, the Pacific Pioneer” still lies in the ocean of the end of the runway at Saipan because she encountered this impossible situation.
The first time I landed at Iwo Jima was May 24, 1945, coming home from our 9th combat mission with the number 1 engine feathered due to a gradual loss of oil. The runway was unpaved clay at the time. We had foolishly gone over Tokyo on three engines the previous evening, with the approval of each of our crew members.
We flew our 13th combat mission to Tokyo on June 6, 1945, taking 14:10 hours. Some days later, we received word that we were to fly one of the first war-weary B-29s numbered A Square 43, named “Thunderhead”, to Kwajalein, Oahu, and Travis Field (it was then called Fairfield-Suisun airfield) at Sacramento, California. As we passed through Kwaj on June 14th, we learned that the very first crew to complete their 35 missions and return home in “Dauntless Dottie” (which led the first B-29 raid on Japan on November 24, 1944) had crashed on takeoff the preceding evening! What a shame! We were going home to attend a prestigious “lead crew school” for approximately 30 days at the Muroc AAB, California, which is now the celebrated Edwards Air Force Base. We were to report there on June 29th. Upon landing our B-29 at Fairfield-Suisun Fiel,d I immediately rode civilian airlines from San Francisco to Orlando to visit Margaret. That was the first time I ever rode in a commercial airplane, all DC-3s, flown by United, American, Delta, then Eastern. I was in Orlando approximately 8 days before I had to fly back to Muroc AAB, bumming rides on military airplanes (as was quite common by all military personnel during the War).
We finished our training at the lead crew school at Muroc AAB on July 31 and received orders to report to Hamilton Field on August 4, 1945, for transport back to our outfit on Saipan. Again, we rode the Military Air Transport Command C-54 to Hawaii, Johnson, Kwajalein, Guam, and Saipan. Note: on August 6th and 9th, the two atomic bombs were dropped while we were en route back to Saipa,n our second time.
Contrary to popular opinion, the war did not end after the two atomic bombs were dropped. The Japanese Army and Navy stood ready to defend the homeland from the invasion scheduled for November 1945. Exactly 916 different combat crews of the five different B-29 combat wings flew missions and dropped bombs on Japan after August 9th. (See: Resume 20th Air Force Missions, Library of Congress, published by Richard M Keenan, 1945). “Total surrender” was a difficult concept for the Japanese to accept. On the night of August 14-15t,h I flew my 14th and last combat mission when I led the last B-29 raid off Saipan. Earlier that morning, the pioneer 73rd Wing had sent a “maximum effort” of 161 airplanes to bomb Osaka, Japan. The 13 airplanes I was to lead on this last mission were those that were mechanically unable to go on the earlier Osaka raid, but had been repaired and returned to service since the max. The effort raid took off. It was composed of 1 airplane from the 500th Group, 1 from the 498th, 2 from the 499th, and 9 from my 497th. (However, 4 scratched, and 1 aborted). At the briefing, we were instructed that if my radio operator received a transmission that the Japanese government had capitulated, I was instructed to transmit on voice radio the message “UTAH, UTAH, UTAH” to the other airplanes on our raid. My radio operator never received a message of capitulation, so the voice message was not transmitted, and we all dropped our bombs as briefed.
THIS WAS THE VERY LAST MISSION OF THE WAR! It was XXI Bomber Command Mission Number 330, a night incendiary raid of 13:30 hours with 14,940 lbs of general-purpose bombs to Isesaki, Japan. Our time over the targets is recorded as 0108-0315. When we returned from that all-night mission, the “War Is Over!” proclaimed a huge sign in our 497th Group unit’s briefing-debriefing Quonset hut.
We flew three prisoner-of-war missions wherein we dropped food, clothing, and medical supplies to our prisoners in their prison camps. One of the conditions stipulated in the Japanese surrender was that they must clearly mark all of the Prisoners of War camps with a large red cross on the roof, or in the yard, so it could be seen by aircraft flying over. We flew to camps located in Formosa (now called Taiwan), Shikoku, and Tokyo. After dropping the POW supplies in Tokyo, we flew at approximately 500 feet over the remains of the city at our leisure, as did several other B-29 crews. The devastation of the city was unbelievable.
On October 2, 1945, our crew was assigned to be in the first group of airplanes to start home in Sunset Project #5. I flew airplane numbered A Square 47 named “Sweat’erOut” to Kwajalein, Oahu, and Fairfiel-Suisun Field at Sacramento, California landing on October 5, 1945. Approximately two hours out, we had to feather a prop because an engine was running out of oil. Accordingly, my last landing in a B-29 was a three-engine landing. That was my last flight in a United States Army B-29.
The entire military establishment was in a state of extreme confusion after the War ended. It had millions of men in uniform, and most wanted to get out, but not all. I elected to remain in the U.S.Army because I was married and had no skill other than knowing how to fly. I was given 45 days of Rest, Relaxation and Recuperation leave and told to report to my unit, the 73rd Bomb Wing (VH) at March Field, Riverside, California, on December 4, 1945. That date was extended to January 10, 1946. Orders were changed while I was on leave, and we were now told to report to McDill Field, Tampa, Florida, on January 10, 1946…but I didn’t get the change notice. Margaret and I bought our first car, a used one, from Holler Chevrolet on West Central Boulevard in Orlando. It was a 1942 black two-door Chevrolet Cabriolet. We drove it from home leave in Orlando to Riverside, California, carrying my brother John as far as White Sands, New Mexico, where he was to be stationed. We rented a bedroom living accommodation with an Indian family in Riverside, Calif. before I got the word that we should be in Tampa, Florida. We hopped in our car and drove rapidly back across the United States to Tampa.
to be continued
Delusions of Adequacy 