Herman
Spain also relates the story that Paul Blackledge was
tall and walked very slowly. One day when walking from
the Quonset hut to the shower, he had a towel wrapped
around him, when unbeknownst to him, some workers were
digging holes (using dynamite) to make latrines. Blackledge
was almost killed when one of these dynamite blasts went
off nearby. Paul dove underneath a nearby prefab building
(under construction) to avoid the falling rocks and shrapnel
which were everywhere. Herman never saw Blackledge move
so fast in all his life!!!!
The
last mission was to drop POW supplies to a camp 600 miles
north of Tokyo. But the fog was thick and the snow and
all prevented the spotting of the target location. So
the alternate plan was to fly to Tokyo to drop the food.
Our crew looked for an hour over Tokyo, to find a POW
camp, but couldn't find it. It was dropped on top of a
hospital instead, before returning, but the door didn't
open correctly, the supplies got hung up on the platform,
tore the center wing section, and the sheet metal was
ripped. Our Crew decided that to land at Iwo Jima would
have severely delayed our Crew, (because of lack of parts
and repair capability on the island). So it was decided
to go directly back to Guam. It was a 17 hour flight,
one of the longest. The fuel was shifted from the inboard
tanks to the outboard tanks (in order to keep wing stability).
The Crew almost didn't make it back. Ran out of fuel on
the runway at Guam, as an engine was lost on the taxis
strip. #3 engine lost. Just barely made it!!!!
The
Flight Engineer, Norman Mills, remembers that the crew
spent the last week rebuilding the plane, replacing parts,
such as an engine, a turbo prop, etc. The crew flew away
from Guam, landed in Kwajalein a small atoll 2,200 miles
west of Honolulu. The prop governor went out, which had
to be fixed. Norman had just gone to bed, when a fire
broke out in the mess hall. Between the repairs, the fire
and the bad weather, it was an extremely rough trip returning
to the U.S. (very little sleep). There was a terrible
storm, with 30 foot waves, zero visibility, Charles Stone
navigated well and the crew made it through in good order.
The Plane traveled the Honolulu, then onto Stockton, California
(or Sacramento, CA).
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