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It
is now Thursday 11 Oct as I rewrite my original letter
& I called Lt Cedarholm yesterday - but there has been
no further word. I believe that if Dendy were still alive,
he would have been picked up by now & we would know -
So I am sending this to Pam to give to you, Hammond, so
that you may use your own judgement whether it would be
better for Louise & Suzie to spare them the knowledge
for now - or to accept the enviable finality of a War
Department confirmation that will come later - maybe not
for 6 months - and drag out their apprehension, hoping
for nothing.
It
is usually the procedure to list as "missing", those who
bodies are not recovered.
It
is now Saturday 13 Oct as I rewrite the last part of this
letter once more. Lt Cedarholm called me yesterday to
give me the full details of the crash - as told by the
radio operator who has just been returned to Guam. Very
briefly, this is what he saw - They were cruising 2000'
when he felt the airplane shudder. He got up to look out
a hatch & saw No. 2 engine feathered. At the same instant
No. 1 started throwing oil in a stream - they feathered
it immediately. They started to loose altitude & he went
back to his position & put on the intercom - to hear Dendy
say "we're going down, stand by your ditching positions".
They
all got their ditching gear on & were ready - the approach
was perfect. The next thing he knew was he was standing
on the ceiling just forward of the front bomb bay - thigh
deep in water - the ship was on her back. He was pretty
stunned & weak & he opened the hatch to see sunlight thru
the open bomb bay. Once out, he tried to make his way
back to the tail to help someone out (he thought he heard
someone say they were following him out from up front)
- failing that, he tried to come back forward - but in
the heavy sea it was more than he had strength for. He
was completely exhausted & couldn't even inflate his one
man raft. He was in the water 1 ½ - 2 hrs when he was
picked up by a crash boat but they continued to searching
for survivors ( - both boats and airplanes) - for 5 hours.
The visibility on the water was good & they would have
found anyone else afloat easily. The engineer was pulled
out of the water dead. He said that he was scared half
to death right after he got out of the airplane by the
other B-29 - it came so low, circling.
Also,
both boats and airplanes continued searching the area
the next 3 days - in vain.
The
Engineer's watch stopped at 1209 - .
Lt
Devine was very well liked & respected as a responsible
pilot - that al the men I talked to were emphatic on.
They firmly believe that he would have ordered them to
bail out if he thought it possible. But 2000' is pretty
low for 10 men to get out - you can bail out as low as
700' - but it was loosing altitude fast & he probably
figured the way to save all was by ditching her. Ditching
is not such a dangerous operation - hundreds have been
made successfully without mishap - but by pure accident
- one chance in many - they probably hit in the trough
of a wave, instead of on the swell, & turned over in the
unusually heavy sea that has been whipped into a torment
by over 2 weeks of continuous rain & winds. This probably
killed the others instantly - or knocked them unconscious
so they never knew what happened.
Such
a dual engine failure is not unusual to a B-29. The Wright
engine installation has always been notoriously the most
undependable characteristic of the airplane - and a great
many have ditched because of this. On one of his later
raids Dendy had to abort & come in on 2 engines when 2
cut out right after take off.
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