OMUTA
– The plane along side of us was badly damaged.
I saw the plane lose altitude quickly, but no one bailed
out. I hope that they were able to make it to safety
somewhere.
July
31, 1945
PAGAN
ISLAND – After dropping our bombs on this island,
our bomb bay doors failed to close. Since we could land
with the bomb bay doors open all of the gunners were
“volunteered” to get them closed. These
doors are normally operated by hydraulic cylinders,
while the emergency system used the “hand crank”
method. The plane was taken down to within 100 feet
of the ocean. I then proceeded to crawl into the open
bomb bay to crank the doors closed. At one time I thought
I would be blown out of the opening. I did not wear
a parachute, as it would not have time to open. After
a lot of effort and fright we were able to get the doors
closed and made a safe landing.
August
1, 1945
MITO
– Light flak and automatic weapons were seen on
this mission. One of the planes ahead of us crashed
into the ocean and just after he left the runway on
take-off. There is a cliff several hundred feet high
at the end of the runway. This was nice to have, as
it would permit our planes to drop some and pick up
air speed.
August
4, 1945
Awarded
“OAK LEAF CLUSTER” to my “AIR MEDAL”.
August
5, 1945
KOBE
– I counted 22 search lights directed at our plane.
We had some phosphorus bombs dropped from above by enemy
fighters again. We had rockets, flak and automatic weapons
fired at us. We received no damage. After landing on
Guam, I was in the process of clearing the chambers
of my guns, a routine procedure, when I heard a loud
shot from the airplane parked along side of us. This
tail gunner was in the process of doing the same thing.
He was on the top rungs of a 12 foot high step ladder
and had his right leg over the end of the gun barrels.
The gun that he had his leg over misfired. I rushed
over to the plane and helped him get down from the ladder.
We placed him in the back part of a Jeep and rushed
him to the Dispensary. That was the last I saw of him,
but I knew that they would not be able to save his leg.
August
6, 1945
HIROSHIMA – The crew from the “Enola Gay”
dropped the first Atomic bomb known as “Little
Boy”. Although this bomb caused enormous destruction
and loss of lives, all of us in the war zone at this
time thought it was the proper thing to do. The Japanese
had committed atrocities against us and the Asian countries
in the Pacific area. By bringing the end of war to a
quick end, it would save many American lives. The American
forces had a far superior advantage and we could see
that we would have caused much more devastation and
loss of Japanese life had we needed to invade Japan.
I laud President Truman for being able to make this
difficult decision.
August
9, 1945
NAGASAKI
– The second Atomic bomb was dropped by the crew
of a plane named “Bocks Car”. They named
this bomb “Fat Man”.
August
12, 1945
TOKYO
– This was a day raid that we flew over the target
in Plane formation. The Japanese were responding to
our dropping the A-Bombs. Flak was so thick that it
seemed like you were able walk on it. We had P-51 airplane
escorts to the mainland. With all the flak, we were
lucky that none of it found us.
August
15, 1945
ISESAKI
– This city is located 150 miles north-west of
Tokyo. Several fires were burning at the target area.
I believe that all of us felt that this would be our
final mission. Our bombs were dropped and we headed
home. We experienced severe thunder storms again. While
on our final approach to the landing strip on Guam,
the news that we waited for came over our radio compass.
“JAPAN
ACCEPTS OUR TERMS OF UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER”
So
ended the worst war in history. Let us pray that it
will never happen again. I had mixed feelings that day.
I was glad the war was over, but very sad tat David
and many of my other friends were lost because of it.
August
30, 1945