JJB17463rdBombGroup wrote:I'd like to hear about AC's sorties and missions.
It must be amazing(and dangerous !).Thanks AC for your extensive service in the U.S.A.A.F. and later the U.S.A.F.
I remember watching a documentary on the TV history channel called
"The last mission" about the very last mission in a B-29 superfortress over Japan.It was a fascinating story with a lot of coincidences that ended the war.The B-29 the bomber that ended the war with Japan.
My mom worked on them for a while as a worker for a subcontractor.
But mom mostly worked on the B-17.
Still a lot of credit should be given to naval aviators in the P.T.O.
They helped win the war too.
I found the very last mission "Interesting" but I doubt if it was the one in the documentary even though we may have very well been the last B29 to drop bombs on Japan in WWII.
Because we lost an engine on the way to the Japanese Empire, we were very, very late to our rendevous...so late that as we approached the mainland of Japan all the formations of '29s were returning to base after having been over their targets and dropped their bombs.
As we coasted in, all alone, we were intercepted by a Jack 11 (Raiden) who lingered at our one o'clock just out of range. Every time he got up nerve to make a pass on us, as he would start in, I would throw a burst at him from the four gun upper nose turret and two gun lower nose turret, and he would change his mind.
The aircraft commander told me to choose a target of opportunity since we had one engine out, were alone and under attack, so I chose a complex of heavy flak batteries that had fired at us several times during earlier missions.
I figured it was my last chance to pay them back for sniping at us.
I turned my guns over to the CFC and lower right gunners , and while they took care of discouraging the fighter I laid two bomb bays full of 500 pound GPs right down the center of the complex.
After following through on the salvo control and before I closed the bomb doors I was tolds by the CFC gunner that the bomb bay gas tank had come loose on the left side and was hanging down between the doors, thus I should not close them.
Because a B-29 with an engine out , bomb doors open and a huge tank hanging down in the slipstream doesn't perrform well, and because we had a fighter on us, I wasted no time in leaving the nose, scrambling through the tunnel,asking for depressuriztion and then stepping across to the catwalk to get to the aft right front racks; while my CFC gunner followed me and stopped at the aft right rear racks.
At my count of three we each tripped the shackles holding the tank in the bomb bay.
The suction of the tank leaving the plane, pulled both of us out over the open bomb bay with 20,000 feet of air between us and the blue Pacific: each hanging onto the racks with one hand and one foot still on the catwalk... no chute, no oxygen masks.
I remember wondering if I were to spread eagle myself as I fell. and went in feet first, I would survive my 20,000 foot dive. I also thought regretfully that it was a helluva way to end the war.
Somehow, though we were literally hanging on by our finger tips, we managed to pull ourselves back onto the catwalk and get back into the aft gunery compartment , where I got on interphone and told the navigator, (Who had taken over my guns in the nose), to close the bomb doors.
I returned to the nose and got there in time to see the Jack 11 turn toward his home, as we headed out toward our base.
So ended WWII for both of us!
