I arrived on Guam on June 27 as a member of a cadre of Flight Engineer Instructors from Lowry Field to help with some problems the Wing was having with some of their flight engineers.

Although I was assigned to Headquarters as Assistant Group Flight Engineer to 1st Lt. Jos. E. Smith (Smitty), I did fly missions when they had problems with a flight engineer or, as in the case of Capt. William D. Stackhouse (called himself Billy D. on the Flight Log) he needed someone to replace his crew engineer who was hospitalized or unavailable for the Toyokawa mission and the Isesaki Mission, August 7 and August 15.

On the Isesaki mission, the last one, Capt. Stackhouse was in the last group to leave the island but we had high cylinder head pressures, not uncommon, and we delayed to try to work out the problem or decide if we had to abort. I managed to get the temperatures down and Capt. Stackhouse decided to proceed. By this time we had to follow the last plane in the group.

We proceeded to the target, hoping that we would receive the "UTAH" on the radio to jettison bombs and return to Guam with the war over. No "UTAH" came so we proceeded over the target and dropped our bombs at 3:03. Just a short time thereafter we began receiving the announcements ending the war.

My first mission, 20 July 1945 to Okasaki, I don't recall the AC's name. He was a very young, 22 year old, and just a 2nd Lt which made me the Senior Officer on the flight.

His crew had not been in combat long and I was asked to help his Flight Engineer who had been having problems with his Crusie Control. Shortly after take-off and climb I noticed he had badly accounted for the fuel usage and power settings so we were not sure as to how much fuel was used. Got him squared away for the rest of the mission but when, approaching Iwo Jima, the AC asked if we had enough fuel to reach Guam, I had to tell him I thought we did but that we had some question about exactly how much we had. He decided we go into Iwo.

While on the ground we were waiting under the wing when the engineer dove to the ground, hitting his head and with twisting his face. The young AC calmly took out his handkerchief, reaching into the man's mouth and pulled out his tongue. He had recognized immediately that this crewman was having an epileptic seizure and that he had to free up his tongue. We had to leave the Enginner in the hospital.

I'm sure the AC did not remain a 2nd Lt very long. - I was certainly impressed.

** denotes:
1 Bronze Service Star per General Order 80, dated: 2 October 1945 for participation from 16 April 1944 through 15 August 1945 in the Eastern Mandates Campaign - Issued by the Twentieth Air Force Headquaters in San Francisco, CA.

1 Bronze Service Star per General Order 25 - Section I, dated: 16 August 1945 for participation in the Air Offensive of Japan Campaign from 17 April through 31 July 1945 - Granted to Headquarters, 39th Bombardment Group. Issued by Headquarters, 39th Bombardment Group, San Francisco, CA.