"Chuck" Castle recalls an incident involving Crew 20's radar operator Porfilos Rios. It occurred along about their 2nd or 3rd mission - target location now forgotten. Castle's story follows:

"No one had ever briefed us or warned us about flying into a heat thermal caused by fires set by bombers going in ahead of us. We had to bomb by radar that night, and Rio had just announced "bombs away." He got up out of his seat and started to make his way to the gunner's stations so he could see the results of his work. At this point, we entered a column of intense heat and smoke. We shot upward from 18,000 feet to 21,000 feet in a seemingly split second. The momentum picked Rio up and threw him to the floor, knocking him unconscious! We in the front believed the aircraft had been hit by flak. I began calling each crewmember on the intercom. First the tail gunner answered, "I'm okay, what the hell happened?" Next a call went to the radar operator - no response. The three gunners reported that they were in good shape - shaken up but not injured. We in the nose compartment were equally shaken but no on had been hurt.

After leaving the coast of Japan, Lt Post asked one of the gunners to check on Rio. When he came back on the intercom, he was laughing like mad - so much so, we had difficulty in understanding him. He finally regained his composure enough to explain what happened. It seems that after being knocked to the floor the, the urine can had broken loose from it's mooring, showering its contents over the unconscious Rios. The gunner reported that the drenched radar operator was okay but understandably madder then hell.

When we finally landed and taxied to our pad, Rios flew down the ladder missing the last three steps, and hurled himself into a stagnant pool of muddy water that had accumulated nearby. It did little to relieve the terrible odor. He continued to smell like a fish that had washed up on the shore and had been lying on the sun for a week or two."

It's likely that Rio would remember this mission more than any of the others he had flown.