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).