On 5 June, the 39th struck Kobe and for Crew 19 this was not an easy mission. Dick Curry describes it this way:

"After passing through moderate flak at the target area, we spotted approximately 50 fighter planes. Around 11 of these made concentrated attacks on our plane. The first, a twin engine "Nick" attacked from 10 o'clock high. The nose and top gunners received credit this one. As it passed by me in the tail, it was in the process of disintegrating. At the same time, there was three-single engine "Tojos" attacking my position from 7 o'clock high. As one of them came into range, I fired a few short bursts; the closer he got the longer the bursts. About 200 yards out he erupted onto flames, nosed up momentarily, then spun downward. As the second fighter dove in, I picked him up and fired - he decided not to continue the attack. While I was busy with the, the right gunner was firing at another "Nick, " who had come boring in on a frontal attack. As he passed by the tail, he was in several pieces. All told, our crew received credit for four "kills" that day. Damage to our aircraft was confined to the bomb bay area.

The Chiba strike on 10 June was the next but this turned out to be a "milk run" - light flak and no fighter opposition.

"On 15 June, I met up with a friend from back home in Pennsylvania - Norman "Dutch" Retting. He had enlisted in the Navy and stationed at the other end of Guam. We ate together at his outfit and it was the best meal I had had since arriving on Guam. Our Air Force diet was largely Spam and lima beans on the good days and sandwiches, "K" or "C" rations in between. The Navy treated consisted of pork chops, mashed potatoes with gravy, vegetables, salad and desert. Inasmuch as the Navy had the advantage of bringing in the supplies, their meals were much more appealing than ours.

In the following days, we went up to Shizuoka on 19 June, and Tamashima on the 22nd. At Shizuoka we encountered tremendous thermal columns and was tossed into the air many hundreds of feet then would suddenly drop uncontrollably as if the bottom had fallen out of the airplane. We continued to toss, roll and flounder for several minutes until we finally passed through this area of rising superheated air. At Tamashima, nothing much happened except I flew with a painful earache. Upon return to base, I reported to the Flight Surgeon, and he found that I had a severe case of a fungus infection. He found it necessary to lance both ears.

This proved to be the final mission for our Airplane Commander, Capt Thomas Wren. The strain of battle fatigue had finally necessitated that he be grounded.

On the 4th of July, our crew flew its first mission with a new A/C - 1st Lt Richard Previdi.

There followed a string of easier missions - Kofu, Uwajima, Hiratsuka, Okazaki and Omuta. Flak and fighters were light. Our main concern was mostly the inclement weather, particularly on our trip to Uwajima. At Omuta, we witnessed a B-29 that was flying to the side of us get struck with flak. It went down.