DATE: May 10, 1945

TARGET: Otake Oil Refinery

“Finally first mission with my own crew. Hit an oil refinery at Otake. It was one of the best missions our group has run and best of all OUR squadron led the group. We were the first over the target and our bombs hit dead center. By the time the other squadrons got there the flames and smoke were 10,000 feet high. What a sight! We had some opposition. Flak was pretty heavy and fighters attacked us. Got hit by flak but only put a small hole in the tail. Gunner Hinds got damage on one fighter when it made a pass at us. As it went over, Hinds gave it three squirts. We saw pieces fly off its wing and then peeled off. The lead plane in the next squadron shot him down. My crew performed beautifully. I’m proud as a peacock of them. They didn’t get excited and everyone did there their job very well. I had to fly a close formation and was almost too busy to be scared! Got worried a couple of times and was very relieved when we left the Japan coast behind. A long flight but a good feeling to know we hit the target and at last are doing something toward ending the war. A very good ending for crew 18’s first mission together.”

DATE: May 14th, 1945

TARGET: Nagoya

"Flew to Nagoya on a big fire raid. Was the biggest raid the B-29’s had run. Really blasted the target. We were the fourth wing over it. By the time we got there tremendous fires were raging. Had a little bad luck on this trip. About 10 miles before we got to the target our number 4 engine quit on us. We flew over the target and back on 3 engines. Our formation ran away from us. We flew out of Japan by ourselves. Really lonesome over Japan during that time. Lucky that no fighters jumped us, for I’m afraid I would not be writing this letter. Planned to land at Iwo Jima but it was closed in so we flew back and landed at Tinian. Couldn’t make it back to Guam for lack of gas.