After the show of air power, the formation dispersed, each plane setting its own course back to its base. As we were flying near Tokyo, Bill said, “Let’s take a closer look.”

He went down to what would have been tree—top level if there had been any trees left in Tokyo. Everything bad been leveled by the heavy bombing they had sustained. We dodged a few tall chimneys that still stood. We flew over Hirohito’s palace close enough to see the guards’ faces looking up. Surprisingly, the palace had been left unscathed, with his gardens and trees looking lush and green. The Japanese people had been led to believe that the Emperor was divine, and this must have been the proof.

We buzzed the countryside, amazed by the devastation that the people had been made to endure before the leaders were finally convinced to surrender.

We flew over Mito, the last city that we had bombed. Rubble was all we could see of it. Some of the people that we could see looking up must not have heard that the war was over. They scattered and ran when they saw us coming.

Jesse Molina (tail gun Charlie) was laughing as he reported over the intercom that some poor guy had fallen of f his bike and had scrambled under a culvert as we roared by.

Level—headed Stettler broke up the fun when he said, “We’d better head for home before we run out of gas.”

Bill agreed and said, “I’ve been wanting to get that out of my system.”

We took a last look at Japan and headed for Guam.

We saw Japan again in December of that year. I wrote home and told them that I had gotten to see snow for Christmas. Mt. Fujiyama on the island of Honshu is always covered with snow.

The reason for flying over Japan was that North Korea was doing some saber rattling over South Korea and the 20th Air Force was sent over as a show of force. We had extra fuel tanks installed in the bomb bays for the extra long flight that took us to the northern border of South Korea. We carried ammunition for our guns with orders to use them if we had to. It was an eighteen hour flight, our longest ever. However, we returned without incident.

Within five years there was a shooting war in Korea, but that is another story for someone else to tell.

With the cessation of hostilities, we didn’t immediately pack up and go home. There were bases to close and the mess of war to clean up. Personnel who had been overseas the longest were the first to be released, which was only fair, but we late—corners were anxious to get out also.

Carpenters installed platforms on the bomb bays and the proud bombers were utilized as cargo planes. More than once, we carried passengers in the cargo holds, not too comfortable for them but they were happy. They were starting home. We would pick them up at small islands where there were no port facilities and take them to Saipan where they could catch a troopship headed for the United States.