DATE: May 14, 1945

TARGET: CITY OF NAGOYA

TIME: Daylight

On this mission we briefed at nineteen-thirty (1930) Ate our chow at twenty-forty-five and then went to out plane. After arriving at the plane we went through the usual process of checking the turrets and loading the guns with ammo. The take-off was at thirty minutes after midnight.

We flew up to Smith Island where our formation rendezvoused. Luckily the radar man found the islands it just sticks up out of the water a few feet. The formation finally gathered together and headed for the Empire. After passing the I.P, the bombardier yelled over the interphone that the doors are open but the bomb bays remained closed. So the radioman (David Schulman) stepped into the bomb bays and opened the doors with the emergency release. Finally the bombe left, and the ship jumped into the air.

DATE: May 17 1945

TARGET: CITY OF NAGOYA

TIME: Daylight

Briefed at thirteen hundred (1300), then went to the plane to unload five hundred and fifty rounds of ammo. This left two-hundred (200) rounds of night all that is carried on night raids.

Next we came in, ate chow, and returned to the airplane, arriving there at seventeen-thirty (1730). This time we checked the guns and turrets, and loaded the ammo into the chamber of the guns. Also pulled through the props, put on our Mae West and parachute, and prepared for take-off, which was at twenty-fifteen (2015).

On these raids there are no assemblies so we flew straight for Japan and the target. Before reaching the target we could see the glow of the fires, the spotlights and the bursting flak over the city. There was no turning back so we flew straight for thin conglomeration of lights. Just before reaching the target, the spotlights picked us up. First one, then two, three, four, and finally it seemed as though all of the lights in the area were on us. Besides the lights, which to me have a physiological effect, there was the flak, which you could see bursting all around. It was easy to tell it was flak by its red balls, which would explode in the darkness of the night. Our position was getting hotter by the second, so the pilot through the plane into all phases of evasive action, including a five-hundred-foot dive almost straight down, leveling out only enough to drop our twenty-four (24) five hundred pound incendiary bombs (cluster type). Finally, as if by the grace of God, we broke away from the lights and they could not pick us up again. On the trip out from the target area we could still see flak bursting around at different places, so we just flew around then.