The crew was formed at Lincoln Air Base, Lincoln, Nebr. The members who would make up a crew were sent from category training stations from all around the country. A B-29 crew consisted of 11 men; five officers and six enlisted men. The five officers were two pilots, navigator, bombardier and radar operator. The enlisted men consisted of an engineer, ROM, and four gunners. A complete crew was assigned together within a few days. Upon having the crews formed they were transferred out to various bases that were setup for B - 29 training February 22, 1945.

Our crew, along with several others were transferred to Pyote Air Base, Pyote, Texas. This base was located 12 miles West of Monahans or 50 miles west of Odessa in West Texas. On March 1, 1945 the crew was assigned to the 236th AAF Base Unit for flight training. We were assigned a B-29 plane to fly in and become familiar with this type of plane’s functions and abilities. We went through the various stages of ground and flight training before the crew took the aircraft off the ground. One of the items we practiced was how to parachute out of a plane in flight. During flight training we learned to drop bombs by having a practice run on a target with a practice bomb that usually had ten pounds of black powder in its nose. We had to fly lots of hours in training which include many practice landings and take offs. One particular month we flew over 180 hours of training.

On one of the long-distance training flights we had to fly straight west to California and then north almost to the border with Canada and then return the same route. On the return we had two engines catch fire about 200 miles north of Los Angeles. We used the radio to ask where we could land a B-29. Because of its size, it took a pretty long runway to handle it. There were not many long runways in those days like there are today. The nearest base that could take us was March Field at Riverside, Calif. We made it to the field, but we had a load of practice bombs in the bomb bays and needed to unload them before landing. We were told to drop them in field east of March Field. When we got there, the field was being plowed by a farmer. We were then told to drop the bombs on a high mountain ridge near the farm field. The powder exploded as the bombs hit causing the ridge to catch fire. The base fire department went to put it out.

The fires in the engines had damaged them so much that we were not able to fly the plane back to Pyote Air Base. A B-17 Bomber was going that way, so we were given a ride back the next day. Another plane was assigned to our crew to finish the combat training. When we and the other crews finished the training, a transfer to another base was made to receive a new B-29 and fly it to the combat zone in the Pacific Theater of action.

As we were going to head overseas into possible combat, we were all given a ten day leave before reporting to Herington Air Base, Herrington, Kansas.

Herrington Air Base was the base we were to receive our new B - 29 to fly to an Air Base in a combat area. A new plane was given to each crew that arrived. We flew short flights to get the plane broken and find any bugs. We also need to become familiar with the aircraft and the equipment we were to use. After three weeks of practice we were transferred to the Pacific Theater of War. Our station was to be on the island of Guam. At the time there were three airfields on Guam. Our crew was to be stationed at Northfield Air Base.

Each crew flew alone out of Herrington with a refueling stop at McCallan Air Base. This base was near Sacramento, California. Our next stop was to be at Rogers Air Base. It was near Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. As we left California, we passed over the Golden Gate Bridge. This was my first sight of the bridge and the surrounding area. It was quite a beautiful sight from the air and we were on our way.

We arrived at Rogers Field in the early afternoon and were not scheduled out until the next day. The crew was given passes to go into Honolulu or around the island.

The B-29 was refueled and checked over carefully for the next leg of our trip. The Kwajalein Atoll was our next landing place after leaving Hawaii. Kwajalein had an air strip large enough for a B-29 to land on. The island was so slim that upon landing it seemed like our plane’s wings reached the ocean on each side. The landing was early enough in the afternoon that we were permitted to go swimming in the ocean around the various naval landing craft that had been sunk on the retaking of the Atoll.

We stayed overnight on Kwajalein and then flew on to Guam. We arrived at Guam as a large number of planes were returning from a bombing mission on Japan. We received instructions to land at Harmon Field. This was a naval airfield. Seeing the B-29’s coming back from a mission gave us a lot of excitement due to it being our first experience at seeing this sort of thing. After all the planes had landed, we were instructed to fly on to Northfield--our new Air Base.

We had been assigned to the 20th Air Force. Upon landing and reporting in at the headquarters of Northfield, we were placed in the 314th Wing, 39th Bomb Group, and 62nd Bomb Squadron to fly our missions. We flew a few practice bombing missions against Japanese held islands that were only a short distance from Guam compared to the main islands of Japan. Due to our late overseas assignment, we were limited to complete eight bombing missions against the main islands of the Japanese. We were given Crew #62.