FP-1945-EO.DOC
Ordnance people loaded bomb bays in
accordance with mission orders:
Bombardiers released the bombs when his Norden Bomb sight indicated it
ws on target.
A bomb shackle was an electrically operated
mechanism which connected a bomb to a bomb rack. Bomb racks were major
structural members at the side of each bomb bay, extending from floor to
ceiling. They also hung from the center on each side of the overhead crawl
tube. Each bomb shackle mechanism included an electrical solenoid which
operated dual latches which clasped the bomb in two places. The Bombardier was
in charge of the electrical controls which tripped the shackles and released
the bombs. He could release them in any combination of his choice.
This table shows the combinations of
bombs that can be carried without bomb bay tanks.
|
Number |
Bomb Weight |
Total Weight |
|
80 |
100 |
8000 |
|
56 |
300 |
16800 |
|
40 |
500 |
20000 |
|
12 |
1000 |
12000 |
|
12 |
1600 |
19200 |
|
8 |
2000 |
16000 |
|
4 |
4000 |
16000 |
Take off weight was mission
dependant. One bomb bay fuel tank
weighed 4232 lb (allowing 500 lb for the tank, 640 gal per tank and .70
specific gravity for gasoline) and consuming 1/4 bomb bay capacity – one tank would
be about 85% of a max load. 500 lb
incendiary clusters were bulky and full count would not fit, 18650 being a max
load. Ordnance personnel tired after
hours of sweaty work loading bombs would leave extra shackles not needed for a
particular mission on the hardstand. Though rugged these mechanisms were
vulnerable to being run over by Cletracks, fuel trucks, etc --- they were
disliked by the maintenance crews who'd sometime slip on them and fell, an
additional frustration they didn't need. Keough felt these were sufficiently
complex mechanisms that they should be stored so as not to be smashed and
unreliable. Ordnance claimed they didn't use them if damaged, besides they
didn't work for Keough.
The
Battle with Ordnance Keough had
been having a running battle with the Ordnance people who persisted in throwing
left over bomb shackles to the side of the maintenance areas. As one of my first assignments Keough showed
me the bomb shackle problem and asked me to have the Ordnance people pick them
up. I got in Keoughs Jeep and drove up
to the Ordnance tent and introduced myself to the three officers sitting
there. I said Keough sent me to request
that they pick up the extra bomb shacles and not leave them scattered about the
hard stands. In a polite but firm tone
they told me those shacles were their equipment, their concern and they were
satisfied with the way it was. Adding we
know Keough doesn’t like it but we don’t work for Keough and it’s not Keoughs
equipment. They didn’t know me and I
didn’t know them. While we looked at
each other eyeball to eyeball I realized this was a long time disagreement – it
also occurred to me that Keough was testing me.
I found myself saying it just so happens I agree with Keough. It seemed pointless to say more so I started
the Jeep and drove off. I realized the
Ordnance people needed an incentive.
I remembered Johnson, crew chief of
M6, saying the ordnance guys were always complaining about his plane almost
blowing their tents away when it was checked out. I drove over to M6 for a visit with
Johnson. I told Johnson the problem and
asked if he'd rotate the plane so prop wash would be aimed at the Ordance Tent
and find some reason to run up one of the engines and give them a blast – to
not blow their tent away but cause them to think it might go. In the meantime I filled the jeep with bomb
shackles. Johnson gave a engine almost full power and I thought if he wasn't
careful he'd deposit those tents in the jungle. When Johnson cut back I pulled
up to ordnance with the jeep and deposited the shackles at the feet of those
three officers. They gave me a sullen glare and were going to speak when I said
lets make a bargain, you keep your shackles picked up and we'll be more careful
with how we run up the planes. They groweled
and said your as big of an SOB as Keough.
I smiled and perhaps so – no hard feelings, just so you understand we
mean it when we say we don’t want those shakles underfoot when other people are
trying to do their job. We later became
good friends and got along fine. Word
got back to Keough how I'd solved his running problem, but we said nothing to
each other about it.
Keough to
Group, Landau to Squadron Engineering Officer
Keough told me we were moving to
Okinowa & that I was to be the Engineering Officer of a new 4th Squadron to
be added to the Group. I doubt if those doing the planing had any idea there
was an Atomic Bomb.
Not long after Capt Keough became Maj
Keough and became the 19th Bomb Group Engineering Officer and he
turned the squadron over to me. Several lst Lt's in line for promotion were by
passed by this action. The table of
organization called for a Captain and I was still a green 2nd Lt. I believe my solving his running battle with
Ordnance had something to do with it. I
later found even the Ordnance people even supported his choice in this
action.
Now the highly visible tasks at
take-off-time were my responsibility, thankfully the top notch Line Chiefs,
Crew Chiefs and Specialists were still there. They solved most of the problems;
each day I learned more from them.
The Radio and Radar people had to
service their sets. The ground crews of various specialty had to check out the
guns and service the automatic fire control systems, automatic flight control
systems, instrument panels, control mechanisms auxiliary power supplies, cabin
pressurization systems, photo, navigational systems, etc., including the
thunder mug. All these people competed for access in and around the plane.
Maximum
Effort Missions: When the last
plane had taken off we'd return dog tired, stop for some chow and head to our
quarters. Getting off a Maximum Effort mission was exhausting. A Maximum Effort
did not permit substituting planes if malfunctions developed. It was necessary
to get all aircraft airborne if it was at all possible to do so. Maximum
Efforts had become the rule rather than the exception. This could not be
sustained. The ground crews had long since passed the point of normal fatigue
and were approaching the point of exhaustion. Maximum efforts demanded that
planes be flown though not in full repair provided it was not critical.
Navigators often flew without the full contingent of Navigational aid
originally provided. Good ground crews strived for perfection. It was
disturbing to them to not have time to make all repairs they knew of – knowing
there may be some they didn't know of.
Flight crews gave their plane a visual inspection and the Flight
Engineer checked out the plane to the extent it's instruments could tell
him. To the ground crews these flight
crew checks were cosmetic, the real ground crews worried about what could not
be seen. We knew things could be much
worse. After removal of a major item you
could inspect parts, some critical to a system. I recall a check valve with
wall chafed paper thin from hours and hours of vibration. New airplanes became
old airplanes. A Maximum Effort with new planes was not the same as Maximum
Efforts with old planes. Many were flying with some equipment inoperative or
performing marginally adequate at best. Since I first wrote this flight crew
personnel have said they always felt the
planes were well maintained, and they were.
However my memory is distorted by the fact that all I ever heard about
was those things that didn't worked. I'd hear of it if the ground crew needed
help or were stumped, I'd hear about it from the flight crew if they felt
inconvenienced by having to make do because something didn't work; and we'd
receive complaints from Operations if a plane, not in the Depot for major repair,
could not be made available. Thankfully most systems were redundant. I had no reluctance to go along on a test hop
-- my concern was if the flight crew could land with an engine out -- some
couldn't.
Hardstands
the B-29's Home: Everyone worked from early morning at the
steady efficient pace of men who knew their jobs and recognized they were
working against the clock. In addition to basic repairs to the aircraft, the
planes had to be physically turned around. The repair areas were black topped
branches called "hard stands" off the taxi strips which ran parallel
to the main runways. Some were short with room for one plane and some longer
with room for two planes. Returning from the previous mission, the planes were
taxied into the hard stands. They had to be towed out onto the taxi strips and
backed into the hard stands so they could taxi out at take-off-time.
The planes were normally turned
around using a Cletrack before they were loaded with fuel and bombs. It was a
real struggle to back a 70 ton loaded plane up even a slight incline.
A hard stand could become very
crowded. The maintenance crews required hoists and platforms in order to reach
and work on the engines. It was essential that Ordnance people had room for
their bomb dolly's. Tank wagons and oil trucks needed access in order to load
the 6700 gallons of gas in the wings and add 60 gallons of oil to each of the
four engines oil tanks. The Armament people had to load the (10) 50 caliber
machine guns and service the complex automatic gun turrets that responded to
Scanners sighting mechanisms.
Experimental Aircraft: Persons of a later era may find it difficult to
realize that this involved new experimental equipments, maintenance had to make
up for many design deficiencies. The aircraft industry had started to build up
after the fall of France but it didn't really get into high gear untill after
Pearl Harbor. The vacuum tubes associated circuits in the Radar & Radio
were not consistent, some sets worked better than others. Most of these difficulties
were solved by later designs and upgrades. To me who started on Model T's only
a few years before, it seemed absolutely remarkable how the nations industry
and people mastered what they did in such a short time. After the war industry completely modified
it's design and test methods – I know, I worked in the aerospace industry.
Pre Take Off:
Few of the planes were ready when the flight
crews arrived. This as a rule was not good. The ground crews were tired but
working at a feverish pace to make the deadline. The flight crews were always
tense before take-off-time and naturally finicky about the condition of the
plane. Out of a squadron of 15 planes there were bound to be a few sharp impatient
exchanges.
The status of each plane had to be
checked and ground crews shifted to help those having trouble meeting the
deadline.
The flight line became an inferno of
engines being given final checkout. Each of the 60 engines had to be run to
full power. Torrents of air whipped the landscape. Conversation in the vicinity
of a plane was impossible except by shouting in the person's ear, hand signals
were used when practicable. As the
planes were turned over to the flight crews the inferno would diminish and
permit identification of those having trouble. Troubles came in all kinds of
packages. The obvious ones were of crews trying to clear fouled spark plugs by
running up engines to 2/3 power for longer than normal periods or those
bellowing black smoke and backfiring due to flooded engines. The carburetors
rarely malfunctioned but an engine could be over primed at start up and bellow
smoke till the carburetor took over.
Invariably there was a liquid lock
where oil had settled into the piston heads of the bottom cylinders. With the
valves closed the engine would not rotate in the forward direction. The
orthodox remedy was to remove a spark plug and drain the oil, but which one or
ones? This method took time and delayed take off for that plane. An unorthodox
remedy, described later, was technically all right and quite pragmatic, but got
us in trouble.
Standby Take
Off Crew: There were many types of problems which
required hurried trouble shooting to find the fault and led to tedious
frustration in accomplishing a repair in time. As take-off-time arrived the
planes would move out into single file along the taxi strips. A special crew
would stand by in the "Weapons Carrier" (a pickup type truck) and the
Line Chiefs would join the Engineering Officer in the jeep. Each ground crew
would gather around the Engineering tent. Each Crew Chief would report as his
plane entered the taxi strip and then rejoin his crew to watch for their plane
coming down the runway.
180 B-29's lined up for take off is a
noisy, windy, dynamic sight but attention was always on the runways. These
B-29's were in effect experimental planes, engines their weakest link, had to
be driven to their maximum in order to lift the 10 ton bomb load and a 16 hour
fuel supply. The plane did not exist at the start of the war and here it was
carrying a load equivalent to that of (5) B-17's, a distance equivalent from
Los Angeles to Chicago and returning with a crew of 11. The armament and armor
plating was an awesome load in itself without the bombs. The same engines were
used by airlines after the war; however, they were only called upon to deliver
1/2 the horsepower.
As each plane came down the runway
it's ground crew would listen to the pitch of its engines, watch the color of
the exhaust and look for hot spots on the ring cowl (an aerodynamic shroud) in
front of the engine. Turbo superchargers were used to pump extra air into the
engines. These were driven by exhaust gases from the engines. These gases were
collected via ball joint pivoted exhaust pipes from each cylinder. The engines
rested on rubber mounts while the exhaust collector rings were rigidly mounted
to the air frame. This required the ball joints in the exhaust pipes to allow
for the torque caused motions of the engine.
If these ball joints burnt out, the flames would impinge on the ring
cowl and make a bright spot before burning through. It was a rare occurance but
each ground crew watched for any kind of fault symptom as his plane roared down
the runway. As each crew saw its plane take off they climbed in the truck to
head back to their bunks. They were too tired to be interested in the dynamic
spectacle - they'd seen it many times before, most fell asleep sitting up
waiting for the shuttle truck to fill.
The planes took off at one minute
intervals on each of the two runways, one plane became airborne every 30
seconds. Even so a take off could take up to two hours.
The Standby Crew listened for a phone call from the tower via the
Engineering tent identifying a plane in trouble, giving it's tail fin number
and location. There followed a mad dash past, through and around planes moving
into position. The canvas top of the Jeep would be caught in the slip stream of
an engine revved up to move a plane ahead to take up slack in the queue line.
If caught from the side, the blast would almost blow the Jeep over. Typical of
such problems was the copilot would open his window while waiting in the taxi
line up and then not be able to close it just before their plane got to the start
end of the runway. One of the "Specialists" would run to the plane
climb in and in a few moments return with the window shut. The plane would
regain its taxi position. As frustrating as it was we were thankful if a minor
fixable thing was the problem. It was a good take off if there were no aborts;
ie, planes that started but didn't deliver.
I'll Have You
Court Martialed for That!: A Colonel told me he was going to have me court
martialed!
The incident began when one of the
ground crew ran up to me in the last most active phase just before take off and
said, "Lt you'd better hurry over to M6. They have a liquid lock on No. 2
engine and can't pull the prop through. A Colonel has his crew gathered in
front of the plane just waiting for someone to move that prop backwards. The
Flight Engineer told the Crew Chief in confidence that the Colonel would have
anyone’s ass that tried pulling that prop through backwards. Everyone's afraid
to move and times running out!"
From that I knew we were in for a
show down, we were running out of time to get off this Maximum Effort mission.
The Colonel and part of his crew were new arrivals and didn't know me and I
didn't know them. I made some quick inquiries and found that the Colonel had
been in charge of a training base in the States. I also knew from my mechanic
days in the States that it was a classic situation for a CO to have posted on
bulletin boards in maintenance areas: "Warning, never clear a liquid
lock by pulling a prop through backwards!"
Liquid locks had become a chronic
problem and I made a considerable study of the safety with which we could pull
a prop backwards to hurriedly clear one. I'd consulted with the best of the
ground crews and we knew it was safe, and the experienced flight crews knew it
was safe but new arrivals not used to B-29's and the warm climate didn't know
it was a common practice.
If oil is in a cylinder head, and
there is if you can't pull the prop through,
a prop pulled backwards will push
oil back up into the intake manifold. If the engine were abruptly started
without clearing this oil there was a good chance the glob of oil would be
regurgitated into the cylinder head and being trapped it could break a piston
or cylinder.
After some experiment we found this
could not happen on a B-29 in the tropics. The aircraft had a nose wheel and
not a tail wheel and the slope of the intake manifolds permitted them to always
gravity drain. Also the intake valve openings were larger and the warm climate
kept the engine oil's viscosity low; enough to readily flow forwards. If the
prop is subsequently pulled through you'd be assured the liquid lock was
cleared and the engine safe to start.
A crowd had gathered around M6. The
flight and ground crews knew we were in for a showdown. I went over and talked
with Crew Chief Johnson. He reappraised me of the situation. I asked him about
the condition of all the engines particularly the Mag (magneto) drops.
Each cylinder had two spark plugs.
Each set driven by a different magneto. One of the tests was to run on both
sets of plugs and then on each set only and note the drop in rpm. This was a
measure of how well the engine was timed and how well both sets of plugs fired.
If a flight crew was trying to find fault with a plane, to abort a mission, they'd
run an engine rich on fuel while it idled and they checked out other engines.
Thus when they came back to it, it would perform as if it were out of time or
had bad plugs. This damage could be cleared by running the engine at high rpm
with a lean mixture causing the engine to burn off the built up carbon. The
crew chief assured me the engines were OK but might not check out if they were
deliberately fouled.
I told the crew chief and others to
stand back and clear as I was going to pull the prop backwards and I wanted it
to be obvious that it was me that was doing it.
I only had to pull the tip back about
three inches or so before I could get it to move forward. As I pushed the first
of the four blades through it's arc the Colonel rushed forward and pointing his
finger at me yelled "I saw you do that, you can't do that, that plane is
now unsafe by fly!". I'd been expecting this and had already decided to
heed the advice of my old high school football coach, the best defense is a
good offense.
I behaved as if he wasn't even there
and continued pushing another blade through then waved to the mechanics
standing by to take over, then turned to him and said, "I'd like for you
and your crew to wait back there out of the way while we finish checking this
airplane out. I'm the one who's been charged with the responsibility for making
these plane fit to fly, the orders are for this to be a Maximum Effort. We
don't have time now to deal with your complaints about how we do our job. When
we decide it's ready we'll let you and Operations know. In the meantime stay
out of the way and don't interfere."
He reacted as if I'd stunned him with
a 2x4 across the forehead, he'd been used to persons jumping to his every
command. My ignoring him then telling him to get out of the way was completely
unexpected. It was not so much my words but my behavior in treating him like a
subordinate, it was like a slap in the face when he'd made a big issue of this
in front of his own flight crew. I immediately turned to the ground crews gathered
about and started giving instructions as if I were the meanest SOB in the
Pacific. They'd been delighted by what I'd said, their adrenaline was also up.
Everyone jumped to respond to whatever I said. This indication of flight line
authority was not wasted on the Colonel. He turned and walked back to
consolidate, where his word was law.
We pulled the prop through an
exaggerated number of times, then they turned it over about 20 times with the
aircraft Put Put (a two cylinder gasoline engine driving an electrical
generator) before starting it. I watched as the Crew Chief checked the engine
out. I told the Crew Chief I wanted him to stay with the Flight Engineer as he
did his check. The Crew Chief said the Flight Engineers OK. I said fine, then
lets not give the Colonel a chance to foul things up. I walked from the plane
to the Flight Crew and said "I want the Flight Engineer". He stepped
forward. I told him in front of the Colonel, "The engines a good one. I've
asked the Crew Chief to stand by while you check it out, if you have any
questions ask him." Then I turned to the Colonel and said, "She's
yours, take over."
As I started to walk away he called
out, "You've made that plane unsafe to fly, I'm not going to fly that
plane, you've violated regulations by what you've done, I'm going to see that
your court martialed for this!"
He'd regained his tongue!
I turned around and looked him square
in the eyes and said "Colonel I'm going over to the Engineering Office and
call that plane in as on Flight Status for this mission. I'd highly recommend
that you make sure you plant your butt in that plane and fly this mission. If
you choose not to, your going to find yourself so involved in your own court
martial that you won't have any time to worry about me." I turned and
walked away as he yelled at me, "Mark my word, I'll have you for this,
you've not heard the last from me!" Flight Crews and Ground Crews were all
ears, they'd known it was a show down! I just kept walking, there were still more
planes to get off.
I remember reflecting as I walked.
My, what happened to that green Yes Sir, No Sir, No excuse Sir, Cadet? You got
the plane off but you sure didn't make any friends in the process. I could
understand why Keough was considered an SOB and had trouble keeping food down.
I no longer felt like a 21 year old kid.
As the last of the planes began to
take off many of us discussed the grounds for a court martial for such a thing.
I said one could probably be made to stick if there were Technical Orders saying
that such was not to be done. We had long rows of books filled with 8 1/2 x 11
pages called Technical Orders that provided information and instructions,
"Military Orders", for
maintenance of all the complex equipment's in such an aircraft. I was surprised
to find that many of the mechanics stayed and helped comb these files like a
bunch of lawyers through volumes of books trying to find a precedent. We found no directive to the contrary.
Yet each of us had read the Warning notices common on any flight line in the
states.
During this search I informed now
Major Keough at Group Engineering of what had happened. Later he called back
that the Colonel had radioed a complaint via the tower to the Squadron CO. Then
he added - forget it for now, get some sleep, they'll be landing soon enough.
The next day Keough and Maj Uhrich
came by and said to forget the incident. Just worry about getting ready for the
next mission. It helped to have the best squadron maintenance record in the
20th AF.
Via others I found out the Colonel
had his fanny chewed for his behavior. It seems that some of the old timers on
that flight crew had also been a little irked by his behavior and had brought
flight crew peer pressure to bear.
After the war one of the ground crew
wrote back and asked me if I remembered that night, it had been a salient event
for them too.
Promotion to
1/Lt: 1/Lt Nevill, the Engineering Officer on the
left below, was graduate of Texas A& M.. You could never "read his
face" because one side was fixed due to a stroke, after while you assumed
he was smiling because he was a terrific guy & a darn good friend. One day
he showed up saying the new advancements had just been posted – adding, it’s
too bad you didn’t make it. The Table of Organization & Equipment had
called for Captain for the job I held, but I didn't have enough time in grade.
The fellows knew this and said, don’t worry your sure to make it soon. With
that expressionless face I couldn’t read if it was a joke or for real. He audible
laughed and said, I was just kidding, and handed me an extra pair of 1st Lt
bars he had. He said congratulatins, you’ve earned it. I was pleased to make
1st so fast, they were very good to me
Weighing a
B-29: This
Wind Break was the site of having to back a B-29 using a Cletrack. Wt & Bal
books were obsolete because crews could not back the planes on to the built in
jacks. The Air Inspector caught this
and ordered me to correct this – I passed his order to the crew chiefs.
The middle of the morning a
frustrated crew chief burst into the Engineering Office tent. His B-29 was over
due to be weighed to determine its
center of gravity. An area prepared for this purpose had a high wooden fence
which served as a wind break. Inside the wind break were concrete pads on which
jacks with scales were accurately placed. The aircraft was to be backed into this location, jacked up and
weighed and a new weights and balance record made for that aircraft. It seemed
simple enough. Although I'd never been party to weighing a B-29 I knew
intuitively that it would be a problem backing a B-29 into the exact location
required to match the fixed jack
locations.
The crew chief was disgusted with the
whole set up and particularly himself in not being able to back the plane into
place. He'd been working at it for two hours and as far as he was concerned he
was through, somebody else was going to have to do it. Many, including the Line
Chiefs, had tried it and although they didn't say so, they felt certain I
couldn't do it either. This explained why so many planes were over due for
weight checks and why I'd had to almost give a Direct Order that morning to
start with this man's aircraft.
We got in the Jeep and drove to the
Weighing Area. As I drove I thought that
it odd that a number of the top men had not been able to do this job. As a
general rule B-29 ground crews were the best in the Air Corp, these men I knew
to be good mechanics, and I was sure they had tried.
When we got to the area the first
thing I studied was just where the plane had to be placed. Then I looked at the
aircraft and vehicle used to move it. Cletracks were used to move B-29's as an
empty B-29 weighed about 50 tons (70 tons loaded ).
A Cletrack was a cat type of tractor
with rubber covered tread on the tracks. The Cletrack was coupled to the Nose
Wheel of the aircraft with a Tow Bar. The Tow Bar was a tube in a tube affair
which contained a spring; i.e., it would telescope against the spring when the
plane was pulled or pushed and helped absorb shocks on the aircraft nose gear.
The tractor end was a large ring through which a pin was passed to hook it to
the tractor. It was free to move like a trailer draw bar on the back of a car.
The nose wheel end attached like a hinge. It moved up and down for height but
would rotate the nose wheel if moved from side to side. It was like backing a
three wheeled trailer full of concrete against a coil spring for a tow bar with
ball joints on each end of the spring and be expected to place all three wheels
on exact spots inside a garage. From past experience I knew there was a
tendency for the tractor, tow bar, and aircraft to jack knife; i.e., fold up on
each other when backing. There was no problem when pulling as they would pull
into a straight line. I asked the crew chief to climb on the Cletrack and try
it. He let me know he'd had it and wasn't going to try it anymore........ I
looked at him and said "That's an Order, I can't determine what to do if I
can't see what's going wrong, OK?". He didn't take offense to what I said,
he understood the need to observe what had been happening, his mood changed to
one of cooperation. They were a terrific bunch, just human. First he pulled the plane forward to make a
straight line with the tow bar before backing. Then he started backing slowly.
He began making corrections to keep the aircraft aimed right. Each correction
caused the next correction to be greater till the situation ground to a halt
with the nose wheel pointed the wrong way and the Cletrack unable to swing its
nose around as can be done with a car to rotate the nose wheel to a straight
position. One needed to make the Cletrack move sideways to straighten out the
nose wheel before backing any more.
My first thought was to use another vehicle
to bulldoze the Cletrack sideways. Or to uncouple the tow bar, swing it
straight and then rehook up to the Cletrack. However, the tow bar could not be
moved by hand due to the weight of the plane and it would be a drawn out affair
of repeatedly uncoupling the Cletrack and relocating to rotate the tow bar and
relocating to back again and inch ones way back.
Then I remembered when I was a kid
driving a cat on my Uncles farm and the stunts I used in handling it in tight
places. Each track has an independent brake and each track may be independently
clutched to move forward or backward. Although I'd never tried it exactly I
mentally envisioned a process of locking one track, rotating the other and
reversing the process and alternating in going forward and in reverse with the
net result of moving the tractor sideways with an insignificant forward or
backward motion of the aircraft. With this in mind I asked the crew chief to
straighten the thing out again by towing it forward for a new start. By this time
many had gathered to watch the Engineering Officer make a flop of it.
I climbed in, took careful aim and
slowly started back. I was soon also entering into a jack knife position. I
could almost feel the "We told you so's" but no one said a thing.
Then without hesitation I stopped the backward motion and walked the Cletrack sideways, became realigned and backed again. In
very little time the plane was eased into place. The ground crew sheepishly
approached as I jumped down from the Cletrack. I just winked at the crew chief,
slapped him on the back and said "It helps to have been a Kansas farm
boy", I didn't explain that my Dad was a banker and I only worked as a
Farm Hand for my Uncle. We had no more
trouble getting the planes weighed.
Starting
engines produces a cloud of smoke: There were the frequent sounds and sights of
engines being started; after engine change, during checkout, before takeoff
time. You would hear a deep throated coughing sounds, see clouds of smoke and
hear a sounds become a roar as the engine caught on and revved up, a dynamic
display of awakened power. For the mature engine a quick start was expected and
achieved. For the new engine breathing air for the first time there was always
a degree of apprehension – especially if the operator had experienced things as
reversed throttle linkages, etc. before. A newly connected accumulation of
parts was an unknown – except to the methodical expert who knew when it was ready to be started.
Scottie
Salvos the Bombs – prematurely on the hardstand!: Scottie was a likable, bright, tall,
quick moving, red headed, electrician always eager to do his job. I was not present at the time and Scottie
didn’t like to talk about it. It seems
that Scottie had been called upon to help check out something that was not
right with the electrical system. The aircraft was fully loaded with fuel and
bombs. Other ground crew were off to the side letting Scottie work his magic
when – Crunch – Thud – Rumble! The bombs fell through the bombay door onto the
blacktop!! Some nearby responded to reflexes and ran, when nothing happened
they pause and went back slowly. Then is when they saw Scottie coming out of
the airplane “shaking like a leaf” saying I’m not certain what I did – but it
was certainly the wrong! Until then Scottie had an impeccable record – he was
not reprimanded, he was scare was enough, and it was unknown what cause the
event.
Near
hardstand was Scotties folly. The far dual hard stand is site of backup
difficulty.
Check the
Sump Plug & Disposal of Used Oil: Used oil served to moisture proof the coral.
Each engine had an 85 gallon oil tank. Oil tanks were topped off before a
mission. Crankcase oil was pumped from engine to tank when engine was running.
Residual oil was removed to check magnetic sump plug and to feel for any
foreign particles, oil drained from the sump (crank case) was poured on the slope.
Backing a
Fully Loaded B-29, up hill: Shortly before Take Off time a Crew Chief came
up saying they were having trouble backing one of the B-29's onto the
hardstand. Upon returning from a mission the planes were driven into the hard
stand and then shut down. The ground crews had to back them out, turn them
around, and back them into place again. Whenever it was possible this was done
before the planes were filled with 19.5 ton of fuel and up to 10 ton of bombs.
In this instance the plane was fully loaded, a 70 ton load, that needed to be
backed up the incline onto the hardstand. The companion hardstand plane still
blocking the taxi strip, it was waiting to be backed onto the hard stand in
front of this one. Traffic was being blocked and the planes had to be moved.
This arrangement was not the best but never in the history of aviation did they
have the problem of handling this many very large aircraft.
One of the crew was on the Cletrack
and one was in the airplane. The Cletrack did not seem to be running properly,
every time it tried to move the 70 tons, the rear of the Cletrack lifted up,
the carburetor loaded up, stalled out and quit. The Cletrack operator would set
the brakes to keep from loosing progress and the airplane rolling into the
Cletrack would almost nose the Cletrack over before the fellow in the airplane
could set the brakes and stop it. The tow bar had a heavy spring which was
compressed as the plane was pushed. The tracks of the Cletrack sloped up at 45
degrees on the front and back. From the side it looked like a kids rocking
horse with three flat segments as the rockers. There is no seat belt in a
Cletrack and the operator had the feeling that he was being bucked over the
front of the Cletrack except for the reflex of the guy on the brakes in the
airplane.
I watched what was going on from the
side when I came up, there was a large crowd gathered about. When they saw me
they made way for me to get on the Cletrack with each telling me his version of
what was wrong. Many thought the problem
was the Cletrack, it didn't have enough power and the carburetor on this one
was out of kilter.
I made my first attempt as if it were
a conventional task and experienced what had happened to the others, it was a
scary feeling as you think your going to be tossed forward in front of the
Cletrack!
I paused and tried to put the problem
in focus, it wasn't going to be solved by acting on impulse. The planes had to
be backed into place as time was running out and the taxi strip had to be
cleared.
This hardstand had the steepest slope
in the area, they'd probably never been stuck with a loaded B-29 to back up
this slope before. I felt that there was enough power if the engine could be
kept revved up high enough. The carburetor didn't seem to be working right, but
then it wasn't designed to work right when tilted to a 45 degree angle. I
released it's brakes so it would sit level and revved up the engine for a while
to clean out the spilled gas and hopefully unfoul the spark plugs.
When in high school I had worked for
the Oberlin Milling Company, one of the Harvest Season tasks was to move grain
cars loaded with wheat, also a very heavy load. It became obvious to me that
this loaded B-29 had the inertia of one of those wheat laden cars; force had to
be applied for a period of time to get it moving. I set the manual throttle so the engine was
running at about half of full speed, I knew it needed rpm to deliver enough
power. I also knew from driving a cat on the farm that the clutches on each
track of a cat are heavy duty as compared to the main clutch and could probably
stand the heat caused by slipping them; I used to slip the clutch on an old
tractor to get a grain car moving. Previously when the fellows let out the
clutch and applied throttle for more power, and the tail end of the Cletrack
went into the air, the huge inertial load was like a concrete wall, up was the
only direction it could go. The operator in that last moment was almost glad
the engine sputtered and quite.
With recollections of moving grain
cars in mind, I used the big track clutches rather than the main clutch to ease
into the plane and start it in motion. By easing into the load the Cletrack
stayed level and as the load started to move I was able to revert from clutch
to throttle control and keep the plane moving along. What had seemed to be an insurmountable
problem had a simple solution, none of those who had tried had the right
background experience.
Engine
Change, Repeated: Some efforts tested the endurance and self
discipline of the men. I stayed through one night to help a crew. By about 4:00
am we were ready to start the engine.
Each of us had been working silently without conversation unless it was
essential. The moon's illumination was
poor, each man worked by feel and with dogged efficiency to save time and
energy. We'd been through the frustrating phases like holding the 9 front
swivel jointed exhaust ports to simultaneously align while installing the
aerodynamic cover over the engine. Also, the long fine threaded bolt that
fastened the air duct to the carburetor. A man had to awkwardly lay back into
the engine compartment and reach up into a blind spot and make 1/16 turns
flipping an open end wrench on the bolt for about 15 minutes. Your arm felt
like lead, your back warped out of shape and your disposition wore very thin.
All the time you thought there had to be a better way. Messerschmitt engineers
who had done a superb job of design on the ME-109 for quick engine change would
have laughed at such an arrangement -- such refinements had not been addressed
yet.
We'd managed to pull through the prop
and the Crew Chief climbed into the plane to start the engine. I stood in front
so I could see him and the engine. Another man stood to one side with a fire
extinguisher. The Crew Chief turned over the engine and hit the primer switch
to inject some gas before turning on the ignition. The engine expelled the
excess gas through the regurgitation
tube. In the dim light I watched the gas arc from the tube to the ground, but
something was wrong! A material that looked like rock salt had flushed out with
the gas. I took a second look then waved my arms overhead to get the attention
of the Crew Chief, drew my hand across my throat for him to cut activity and
waved him down.
Each of the crew walked over and had
a look and said nothing as they joined me seated on a sand bag to one side of
the hard stand. I lit the cigar stub I'd
put out before starting the engine and they lit their cigarettes. We were still silent except for someone
asking what time it was. After a while I walked back over and started the
processes of removing the engine. One by
one they joined me. Finally one of them
said, "How in the hell did that silica gel get into the intake
manifold?" Someone packaging the engine had broken a bag of silica gel,
used to absorb excess moisture in a sealed shipping container, and it had
spilled into the carburetor. They had proceeded to seal the carburetor opening
and pack the engine anyway.
Cylinder Changes,
a Bloody Job: Most of the Crew Chiefs had at some time tried
to change the individual cylinders in lieu of doing a complete engine change.
What seemed a more simple solution turned out to be a bear and the practice was
avoided. I learned of the difficulties first hand when one of the mechanics
came to me with bloody hands and asked if I'd help him finish. The problem was
access to the safety wire through the cylinder hold down bolts.
The cylinder heads were of cast
aluminum but the cylinder walls were steel with fused on sheet metal fins.
These fins were stamped out of sheet stock and their edges were razor sharp.
Without special tools one had to shove hands into the confined areas between
the cylinders and work the stiff safety wire through the bolts with fingertips.
There was no way to get this done on an installed engine without scraping or
slicing knuckles or palms of ones hands. They'd bleed and are sore when you
most need them to work tools. We settled for some real crappy looking safety wire
jobs but they were all safety wired.
At the time we didn't tumble to the
fact that it was always cylinders in the HOT quadrant region that needed
changing.
Changing the #1 master cylinder was
rare and required special care. As the cylinder was lifted off the piston, it
was necessary to rig a holder to keep the master rod centered in the open port.
All articulating rods, those to the other cylinders, connected to it. If it
tilted beyond certain bounds, attached articulating rods would pull pistons too
far into the crank case and the piston rings pop to full expansion making it
impossible to put them back. The entire engine would need to be removed to
correct the problem. Remove and Replace was not always as simple as it might
sound.
Cylinder
Changes at 20th AF Headquarters: I received a surprise call, a request was made
to take some top mechanics to 20th AF Headquarters to change cylinders on two
engines on an airplane they were preparing for a special long distance flight.
They didn't want to use new engines and were reluctant to trust their own
mechanics to change cylinders. I asked how soon? Right away. Yes Sir.
I got hold of Johnson and two others,
told them what had to be done, they loaded some tools in the Jeep and we took
off to Harmon Field. Others had removed the ring cowl so that saved time. The
fellows changed the cylinders and left it for the regular crew to replace the
ring cowl. Johnson and I went back the next morning to check it out. Johnson
inspected what had been done, and when he signaled I started the engines and
checked them out. It seemed strange, only a brief time before across the
highway from where I ran up the engines was the 20th AF Engineering Officers
office, who'd considered me to be way too young & inexperienced. The Col
planning & preparing for this record breaking flight taking pains to find
experts, would really be disturbed if he knew his plane was being checked out
by that kid who'd never seen a B-29 a brief time before. I'd selected Johnson
because he ranked with the best, he'd catch any mistake I'd make.
Exhaust
Valves, the B-29's Achilles Heel: The exhaust valves were the Achilles heel of
the B-29. The 3350 cubic inch 18 cylinder twin row Wright engines were a crash
development during the war. The prewar 1820 and 1830 cubic inch 9 cylinder
single row engines were used on the B-17 and B-24. The next jump was to twin
row 18 cylinder engines. The first of these R2000 (C-54) and R2200 (C-25) then
the R2800 (P-47, C-46, B-26 and F4U (Corsairs)). These had matured to a
military life rating of 1000 to 2000 hours before the B-29's reached the
Pacific. These were very important improvements. The B-25 made it possible for
Doolittle to reach Tokyo from Carriers. The C-54 and the C-46 performed so well
the Burma Road was never used as planned. One C-54 could haul more supplies
over the Hump in 1.5 days and use less gas than 60 truck trailers in two weeks
over the Burma Road. Airplanes were good for more than just flying airmail.
The B-29's 3350 cubic inch engine's
were rated at 450 hours, very small relative to the task, in reality they only
averaged 98 hrs!! This amounted to only 7 takeoffs per engine, many even those
flying them, were unaware of this. The plane they flew always checked out as
good engines. I only knew of one engine
that lasted 450 hours and it failed due to Flight Engineers error. It had
overheated because the cowl flaps would not open. Cowl flaps would open or
close the aft part of the nacelle housing over the engine to let more or less
air flow over the engine to cool it. The crew chief, finding nothing wrong,
fixed it by replacing the blown cowl flap fuse with the spare in the Flight
Engineers console!
As Keough's assistant it become my
task to catch up on UR (Unsatisfactory Reports) which had gone unattended while
Keough was understaffed. 90% were engine failures. Because of this I was
reviewing not one but many failed engines.
Being curious I began taking valve covers off to see just how bad some
of them were, this included adjacent cylinders which had not yet failed. It was
then I noticed a pattern of failure, it was always those in the upper right
quadrant as seen from in back. Other cylinders were just fine! I found the
lubricating oil for the valve guides was cooked
to carbon! I still have a valve head
that was removed from those engines. It is beaten almost round being hammered
some 2500 times per minute for 14 hours between piston and cylinder head. I
marveled at how the piston-cylinder had taken such a beating and yet not cause
serious mechanical damage to the engine.
The flight crews often didn't know
the extent of the damage, often writing in the Form 2A: #3 Running Rough or Oil Leak
on #2, 17 good cylinders were
making up for one bad one. They were very aware when an engine failed to
deliver maximum power at the critical time of take off. When they didn't need
maximum power they could tolerate an engine running rough under reduced power.
Temperature gages would read normal and the flight crew didn't feel concern
unless it was leaking oil and providing some visual indication of trouble.
I went to 314th Wing Headquarters to
see what their record could tell. I was surprised, though I should not have
been, engines were only lasting 98 hrs.
R3350 Wright 18
cylinder engine, powerful light weight and small
Full Power 2600 rpm, 48 in hg 2200 HP; Take Off 2800 rpm, 48 in hg, 2364HP
(6) Eng driven Elec Generators of 200 amp at
28 vdc; 34.5 kw of aircraft power
85 gal oil tank per engine.
Aerodynamic and Engine efficiency to carry 10
ton pay load 1600 mi and return
Blow-By-Crew: Keough, was a very conscientious
person and had initiated preventive maintenance efforts to detect what engines
were about to go bad. Richard Bixby
and another fellow had developed the knack of listening at the exhaust port as
the engine was turned through to see if they could hear compression leak past
the exhaust valve. With experience they became quite good at picking those
which proved to be near failure. This extra effort contributed to our excellent
maintenance record.
At 15 hours average per mission and
four engines this meant that we averaged an engine change every 2 missions. The
manpower estimates for B-29 needs had been based on B-17 and B-24 experience
turned out to be totally inadequate.
Floyd Maupin AC of the crew who flew Crew Chief M/Sgt James McCall's
M-11, sent me a copy of his Mission Log for their 35 missions from 03-14-45 to
07-20-45. His log shows an average
flight time of 15.63 hours per mission. My estimate from his records show an
average fuel consumption of 7.3 gal/min. They flew a mission on the average of
every 3.7 days. Airplane turn around was
2 days 23%, 3 days 34 %, 4 days 11% of the time assuming they always
flew the same plane. The flight )crews had intervals from 5 to 8 days 28% of
the time but others may have been flying M-11 during those periods.
The first thing checked when planes
returned was for bad engines. Planes started landing about 8:00 am. We
ordered rebuilt engines as soon as
possible from the Service center and the ground crew would go to work. By
working all day, all night and the next day they could have the engine changed,
checked out and the plane ready for take off by 4:00 pm. If one of the planes
had been lost, was still at Iwo Jima, or at the Service center for structural
repairs; that planes ground crew was available to help a crew with an excess
work load; often working nights so others could sleep.
Cause
of Swallowed Valves: The UR
assignment caused me to want to really know why the valves were
failing. Having often been up all night helping crews change engines I felt
motivated. Attention was being given to
early detection of failures but not the cause. It soon became obvious that if
the oil cooked to carbon, the valve stem would soon wear out, the valve would
not seat well and become hotter and hotter. In time the head would burn off.
But why was the oil cooking? The oil cooked then the valve failed.
Looking up at the engines as I
pondered the cause, I became aware of the size and location of the large distributors
and prop governor. My gosh they could
block air flow! But #1 cylinder directly behind this obstruction, the only
cylinder with a thermolcouple temperature sensor, was not running hot! It was
supposed to be the hottest, the worst case indicator but that cylinder seldom
went out.
A while later watching an engine
being started I observed how the air swirled counter clockwise over the engine.
That was it! The hot cylinders were counter clockwise, when observed from the front.
Those big mechanical globs on the top front of the engine were as if designed
to block off air flow. Especially when the air passage was reduced by the
Nacelle air duct which came down sharply so it could house the front exhaust
collector ring. The nacelle's cooling air annulus, intended to reduce drag,
aggravated the blocking effect.
When it was necessary to change
cylinders it had always been these HOT ones. Once recognized, the cause seemed
so obvious. Engine manufacturers had been making radial engines with these
parts in this location for years. But the combination of: collecting exhaust
gas, supercharging for take off, large piston sizes relative to frontal area,
extra high Take Off power setting, --- all added up to exceed the limits of the
design.
The problem in part was aggravated
because of poor instrumentation and the crash effort by Boeing under pressure
to get airplanes into the field. Thermocouple temperature sensors were ideal
but required a special instuments which consumed a lot of space on an
instrument panel. Today thermolcouples are connected through electronics to
amplify their feeble signals and one indicator can commutate over many
sensors. Persons planning
instrumentation had reasons to believe the #1 cylinder was the hottest; that
they had done a good job.
It is now
known that Boeing was having much trouble with engine-airplane problems during
a critical time in the B-29's development. Eddie Allen, Boeing's Head of Test
and Chief Test Pilot was killed while pressing hard to obtain test data,
production was already under way in the effort to get planes which could reach
Japan. The test program came to a halt, AF took over and trained Boeing pilots
so testing could proceed. Properly instrumented
flight testing would have revealed the cause of engine failures – but
technology was limited at the time.
Solution
too Late: Obviously the
valve stems of these vulnerable cylinders had to be cooled. We had large
amounts of engine oil which was continuously cooled by it's own radiator, this
could be used as a valve coolant. I
evolved a plan. There were two sump pumps returning oil from the crank case to
the oil cooler and tank, both were not required and part of the oil from the
forward one could be routed up to the hot cylinders, it could feed back to the
engine via the push rod housings. I made a study of how we could hollow certain
bolts to get oil into the rocker arms without impairing their function as
mounting brackets. I felt excited about modifying an engine to prove it would work.
I'd gathered parts and tubing and a couple of fellows to try it out the next
day. That next day the war ended. Abruptly the world changed, nobody gave a
damn about making the engines better. All thoughts were of going home.
The Wright Field solution had been to
convert to Fuel Injection, to cool all cylinders by evaporating fuel in the
cylinders. To me this seemed unnecessary – but the choice had been made and was
being implemented on newer planes sent to Oakinowa. Water injection a stunt similar to this was
used on fighter planes. As more power was demanded and as the engine would heat
the fuel mixture would be increased. This would work until the mixture became
too rich to burn properly. At this point the fuel mixture was kept the same and
water was injected. It would cool the engine and not impair combustion. The use
of this "War Emergency Power" required special engine inspections for
damage when the fighters returned.
Now 47 years later the story seems
worth telling, especially to those who flew them at a time when the risks were
known to be plenty. Now is the time for them to know they enjoyed a little bit
of blissful ignorance.
If someone
had found & implemented this simple solution earlier there would have been
no need for the costly conversion to fuel injection, the tremendous turn over
in engines and the lost operational effectiveness.
Connect
the Wires "Wrong" to Make it Work:
I
was stopped on my rounds and told by one of the mechanics they couldn't get the
rpm indicator to work on No. 3 engine. I knew this subsystem had a permanent
magnet 3 phase generator mounted on the engine and that 3 wires led from it to
a 3 phase indicator mounted on the Flight Engineer's instrument panel. The Crew Chief said he had put on new
generators and new indicators and had checked the continuity of the wiring; but
it still didn't work. I asked what was wrong before you fixed it? He said they had replaced the engine and had
to repair wiring in the engine compartment caused by flak damage.
I asked if he'd checked to see if the
new engine drive actually turned, he said it did.
I asked if he'd checked for voltage
from the generator when the engine was run, he said he did and it was putting
out voltage at the generator and at the wires to the indicator.
I looked at the generator connector.
It had three pins marked A, B and C. I looked at the indicator connector, it
also had three pins marked A, B and C. I asked how they had connected the
wires. He said we checked and rechecked them; A is to A, B is to B, and C is to
C.
I knew you reverse the direction of
rotation of a 3 phase motor by reversing any two wires. Somewhere in the back
of my mind I also remembered that while in Engineering Cadets at Yale
University I'd noted that one of the instruments was unique and did not wire
A-A, B-B, C-C.
I got in the flight engineers seat
and started the engine, then carefully watching the tachometer indicator reved
up and cut back, the engine rpm. I could detect an almost imperceptible attempt
of the needle to drive backwards into the stop. Ah, this must be the
instrument! I told the Crew Chief to take the connector apart at the engine,
the easiest to get at, and reverse wires A and B. When he did that it would
work. Without further word I got in the jeep and drove off to face another's
problem.
Later the flight crews taxied out,
cueing up for their turn at the runway, and the ground crews gathered to check
in and wait. The Crew Chief came up to me and said, "Lt, how in the hell
did you know that the leads needed to be reversed?" Other Crew Chiefs were
near by waiting for their plane to take off. I waved them to a brief huddle
telling of the problem and explained the action, concluding; pass the word to
others. It wasn't till later in college that I really learned how reversing the
leads worked. The fellows appreciated this type of exchange, I learned far more
from them than they did from me.
Fix the
Fluxgate Compass With Belt Buckle PolishL
There
was a similar yet different problem with a flux gate compass. Early planes used
a regular magnetic compass. However, WW II aircraft were required to fly all
over the globe and in regions near the magnetic poles of the earth where a
regular compass wanted to stand on end rather than tell you the direction. The
first difficult problem of this type was when Bennet flew Admiral Byrd over the
South Pole. At Yale we'd been shown how Pioneer Instrument company made special
weighted needles for that trip. At the equator, they'd hang weight down and
point up, but near the poles they'd rest horizontal and suffice in providing
direction.
The Fluxgate Compass had a
transmitter mounted in the left wing tip. It had an electro magnet held level
by a gyro. The electro magnet's position was sensed and sent over 3 phase wires
to an electronic amplifier then to a Selson indicator for the navigator and
Magneson repeaters for pilot, bombardier, etc. This permitted flying with
quality directional indication close to the poles.
A crew had worked for many hours but
this system was still performing erratically. They had gone through the usual
remove and replace of send and receive instruments and had checked the wiring.
They'd become frustrated and felt like clubbing the works with a sledge hammer
but were trying to keep their cool as they knew that would be the only way to a
solution.
Trouble shooting was simplified by
the fact that one could stand on a ladder in the bomb bay and check the wiring
to and from the wing and to and from the electronics by disconnecting a pigtail
cable to the connector on the pressurized compartment bulkhead.
After my usual questions I took the
volt-ohm meter and checked the wiring from this location myself. The instrument
leads had sharp points and one could poke the point into the desired close
spaced pins and sockets. It checked. I stood staring at the bulkhead trying to
reason the problem. My mind was distracted by the traces of corrosion on the
aluminum parts. The bomb bays were always open on the ground and the humidity
of the tropics was showing its slow but steady corrosive advance. I wiped the
gray chalky aluminum oxide with my finger so I could concentrate on the
problem. Then I wondered if the electrical terminals were corroding? I called
for a flash light and carefully inspected the connector. The meter probes
penetrated the surface tarnish to bare metal but when the two halves of the
connector came together their combined surface tarnish caused a poor contact. Oxide is an insulator, anodize treatment of
aluminum is an oxidation process and creates an insulation. The fact that
these were low voltage signals which had to be amplified so the electronic
readout detecting their difference could be read, good connections were
critical. The exposed bomb bay and time had caught up with this plane first. High
voltage power circuits could break through the contact resistance but not this
sensitive instrument with feeble output.
I got down and called the guys
together telling them what I thought the problem was. I asked them to crush
some jewelers rouge, used for polishing uniform brass, and mix it with some
oil. (Model-T valve grinding compound was made by mixing oil and carborundum
grit.) Contining I said to put the paste on a single pin (and socket) and
polish each contact. I left convinced it would work. Later they told me that
had fixed the problem, it became a standard practice cure for an erratic
compass. (This was one of the first applications of passing low level
electronic signals through pins and for such a distance. Post WWII designs made
use of non-corrosive pins and established standards such as 3ma minimum current
to sustain current through a switch contact. We knew none of this at the time.)
Throttle
Set to Idle: I stopped to
look in on a crew finishing an engine change. They asked me to help do start up
and checkout. I sat down at the flight engineers console at the proper time to
start the engine. I turned the engine through with the starter and it turned
free. I set the throttle at about 1/8 open and the mixture control at automatic
rich. I put one hand on the primer switch, which would release gas into the
engine to help it start until it could pump and meter its own supply. I put the
other hand on the starter switch. I flipped the starter switch to energize, the
starter motor with a flywheel like armature revved up storing energy. When my
ear detected it had reached the right pitch I flipped the switch to engage so
it would connect the starter to the engine. I hit the primer switch. The engine
coughed, began to catch hold and then, VROOOOM!! The thing surged to maximum
RPM with a screaming roar violently shaking the aircraft and pulling against
its locked brakes!
Instinctively I pulled the throttle
back to full cutoff to stop the engine, but with no effect. As this didn't work
one part of me said shove the throttle forward, the other part said no that
would drive it to full power, but that's what its doing now! With will power I
overcame instinctive reflex by placing both hands on the throttle and shoving
it forward. At full throttle setting the engine settled down to a comfortable
idle. Someone had connected the
carburetor link backwards.
As I sat there I wondered why it had
taken me so long to implement the needed action. I was reminded of a time when
the throttle had stuck open on my Fathers car when I was driving and had been
slow to think of turning the ignition off to stop it. I wondered why I hadn't
thought to turn off the ignition on this engine rather than hang up in a tug of
war with my instincts over the throttle setting. Our minds have difficulty
deviating from a well trodden thought pattern.
Feather Test
Shuts Down Field: We had
received special instruction to pull a full feather test on all engines.
Failures in flight had shown some of the mechanisms were malfunctioning.
B-29's used a Hamilton hydromatic
propeller. A large dome at the center housed a piston which was pushed forward
or backwards by engine oil under pressure. The piston was connected by gears to
rotate the propeller blades. An engine is most efficient at a given rpm. B-29's
used 2800 rpm and 48 inches of mercury manifold pressure for takeoff and 2000
to 2200 rpm and 30 to 35 inches of mercury for cruise. The pilot would set a
control for the speed he wanted. This set a force on a spring in a prop
governor. Flyweights in the governor were spun by the engine and these moved a
valve which would control the porting of engine oil to the big piston. The
spring force and flyweight force would balance and result in setting the
propeller blades to hold the rpm constant by biting into more or less air as
the throttle was changed to achieve more or less power while rpm remained
constant.
If an engine failed in flight, the
propeller, acting as a windmill, would keep the engine turning over. This was
not only a drag but could cause severe vibration if the engine was damaged so
it wouldn't turn smoothly. This was solved by driving the big piston to one end
and turn the blade parallel with the wind. This was known as feathering the prop.
Our feathering tests had just got started
when a Line Chief ran up to me and said several had stalled the engines at full
feather and couldn't get them started or keep them running again to unfeather
them. About this time we had a call from Group Headquarters to the same effect.
If the engines couldn't be kept running the only solution would be to pull all
the props and reset them by hand, that would have the air base shut down for
several days, there weren't that many hoists around.
When airborne the wind would help turn
the engine. On the ground with the blades like flat paddles no air flowed over
the engines and they'd heat up. Also the normal idle speed was slowed way down
by the extra load but carburetors would still meter gas for higher rpm. The
engines would flood and quit.
I sent word up and down the line to
stop further tests until we found a solution. I discussed the situation with
some of those who'd tried, in order to understand what was happening. It became
clear the engines were flooding, they must be kept running, but how?
I decided to try an experiment by
cutting off fuel to the carburetor and meter it by hand via the primer pump.
The first time it was touch and go till I got the hang of it. It was like
running a car up hill by squirting gas in the
engine with an oil can. It
worked. Others watched and passed the word. I called Group Headquarters who
were relieved and in turn called other groups.
Dear
John: Not all requests for help or
consultation pertained to aircraft. Maximum age for military enlisted personnel
was 38. One of the fellows nearing that age and an excellent mechanic came to
me one day. I was very busy when he first arrived but he waited patiently till
he could find the right moment to tell me he'd like to talk with me. He said it
was personal. I could see that something had him upset and he was not the kind
you'd expect to be upset or have problems. I broke away and we walked off to an
isolated spot.
He pulled out a letter from home and
in a voice that became choked told me that his wife had run off with another
man and this was a Dear John letter. I realized that he was taking this quite
hard - he didn't want the others to know - yet he had to confide in someone.
Thoughts went through my mind that they forgot to give us training in the needs
of people as human beings. I rejected the idea of suggesting that he see the
Chaplain - he had that option before he came to me. I felt awkward because I was much younger,
wasn't married and realized that he was not confiding in me in the context of a
best friend. His problem was too
personal to go to just anyone. I was the figure to whom they had become
accustomed to taking their problems for solution.
I felt compassion for him and his
problem and did my best to help him. We talked for a long time although others
were also seeking my attention. He appreciated my devoting time to him and his
needs.
I became a better officer because of
that experience and kept my mind more aware of the fellows needs. Personnel
needs were supposed to be the charter of the squadron Adjutant, Chaplain, and
others in charge of living quarters, personnel supply, etc. In practice it didn't work that way. The
ground crew were only in their quarters area to sleep and eat. There was no recreational time during the war,
they lived on the flight line.
The Air
Inspector: The military
organization had a pyramid structure with a chain of command from the General
down to the private and visa versa. It was a part of the military code that you
never broke the chain of command. Since this left no alternative to appeal a
decision the military had established the Inspector Generals office so
grievances could be filed through an alternate channel. If the complaint was
legitimate the Inspector Generals office had the authority to cause the normal
chain of command to correct the situation. This channel was also used to
investigate and rate the performance of the regular chain of command in their
performance of their assigned functions. Air Force personnel in this branch
were called Air Inspectors.
Wing and Group engineering had
maintained their normal function of surveillance of squadron activity by
conducting inspections and writing up a list of squawks. The squadrons would be
given the list to work off. There were also persons given the title of
inspector who were to inspect aircraft repairs and sign off on maintenance
forms before the aircraft could be used. During the intense activity of maximum
effort missions these formalities were set aside and everyone worked to yield
flyable aircraft. This however did not apply to the Air Inspector Operation.
The CO called Keough and Keough
called me that an Air Inspector had selected 28th squadron for a shake down
inspection. I was told he'd be there the next day and that I'd better have
things in order. I said fine but I didn't see what we could do that we were not
doing. I was told to treat him with kid gloves because he had the authority to
raise a lot of hell.
I had expected some Lt like myself
but was surprised when a full bird Colonel walked in early the next morning,
introduced himself and said he wanted to go over the maintenance records.
We did in fact have excellent
records. The aircraft maintenance system had been set up on the basis that
records were to be kept by the crew chiefs. There was a Form lA filled in by
the flight crew before a flight and Form 2A after the flight, a Form 41B for
the aircraft, Form 60 for props, Form 61 for engines, etc. Keough had found the
records kept by the crew chiefs were always in arrears and almost
unintelligible from carbon blackened oil smears. He had set up a clerk to keep
the records and make the rounds each day so the crew chiefs were relieved of
this worry.
I introduced the clerk and requested
that he provide the Colonel with whatever records he needed. I then told the
Colonel that if there was anything I could help him with to ask the clerk to
get me as I'd be out on the flight line checking the returning planes.
I found out later the Colonel was
quite impressed with the clerical quality of our records, however, he didn't
say so to me. He only informed me of his complaints. His main complaint was
with the status of incorporating modification kit changes. He became quite
demanding and insinuating in his behavior. He had probably found this form of
intimidation quite effective in getting fast response and corrective action. It
simply ruffled my feathers and I tended to be reactive. This set the tone for a
difficult two days. He was determined to show this young Lt who was boss and
the young Lt was determined to immediately correct any discrepancies but not
take any guff.
It really began when he said the
planes should be grounded for not having incorporated the mod kits. I told him
they were red diagonal items not red X's, that we carried them on the records
as such and any pilot could sign off and fly the plane.
A red / (diagonal) mark was placed in
the maintenance form status block for a major but not critical fault and a
description given for what the problem was. A pilot could sign the preflight
form acknowledging same and assume the risk of flying the plane. A red X in
this block indicated that there was a critical fault and that the plane could
not be flown. An engineering officers signature was required to remove the red
X which was certification that the fault had been corrected.
In airplane mechanic school I had
taught how to keep these records and knew the fine lines of authority
established in technical orders. There was a degree of legality to the entire
procedure and definitions of authority. This had been evolved over the years as
a protection and definition of liability in the event of crashes with loss of
lives and property damage.
The fact that I was correct on this
issue didn't help and he told me he'd have to write me up for being negligent.
I couldn't see that I was negligent about anything and that such a report would
reflect on those I reported to, so I told him if he did, I would appeal it,
because he had no grounds for such a report. The conversation became heated.
I asked him the degree of my
responsibility. For example were we to be considered negligible if the mod kits
were not available? He said yes, you have to order them. I responded, that was
a lot of malarkey, the mod kits didn't sit in the warehouses, the system was
set up to have them delivered to the aircraft on arrival.
Now he knew he had me, I hadn't
attempted to get them but had just sat back and waited. He let me have it with
both barrels. I walked over to the desk, pulled open the drawer and tossed a
stack of requests for mod kits on the desk and said help yourself to these.
They are all request for mod kits and all marked not in stock.
He leafed through them, he was
impressed but wouldn't admit it. Then he said but these are over 30 days old.
They have to be requested every 30 days. He had searched till he found some
over 30 days old.
With that I leaned out of the office
and yelled to the Sergeant in our supply tent, who I could see behind his
makeshift counter giving a guy a hair cut. I told him to close his barber shop
and run these requests to the supply center, get the parts or have them stamped
not in stock, pronto.
We broke up to go to chow shortly
after that. When I got back to the flight line I had a call from the CO wanting
to know what the hell I was doing to the Air Inspector. He said he was as mad
as a wet hen and determined to nail us with something. I told him what had been
going on.
The CO responded that he understood
but that I should stop contesting him; i.e., let him write up something so
he'll go away.
That afternoon he was all over the
place writing up squawks and by the end of the day presented me with the list.
I looked it over, grinned and asked if he thought he'd missed anything. Then I
told him I'd put two guys on it till it was done and asked if any of the items
were of a nature that needed immediate attention. His mood softened and we
parted with courteous amicability. Sometime later after he'd inspected other
squadrons I found that he'd given us the highest rating in the Group. I
respected him for doing his job well, but I’m certain he was that enthusiastic
about me.
The
Roar-- Then Crash, Eleven Dead: I had given a
lift to a flight crew member to pick up a chute and May West and had commented
on the homemade aluminum watch band he'd made with unique engraving. Later while driving from the service center
in a jeep I heard the roar of engines groaning under emergency power. I looked
in time to see the crash. The classic error had taken its toll again. When landing
with one engine out the pilot saw that he was not lining up with the runway and
decided to go around. He'd applied full power equally to all three good engines
then found he was falling into the bad engine. Too late he'd slammed the lone
engine on the weak side to max power.
The area on both sides of the main
runways was full of bull-dozed tree trunks. It was a horrible sight to see a
plane burst into flames as it would auger into the trunks.
I rushed there in my jeep and was the
first to arrive. I searched the rubble on the runway. A wing section, engine
and fuel tank were strewn there. I passed what I thought was a burning piece of
fuel tank in my search for bodies, a bit later others rolled a body out of what
I thought was the burning rubber fuel tank.
I rushed down among the tree trunks
and helped get a stretcher to a body and helped carry it and pass it over tree
trunks to others to the ambulance. In this instance as I lifted the stretcher I
saw the left arm dangle and on it was the engraved watch band I had admired
about two hours before. None survived.
These images were in the back of my
mind whenever they'd land with one engine out.
Moral
Support, for Test Hop: The man I
replaced had been killed in a test hop. The plane had crashed near the tower.
The pilot and some of the crew survived. Vern
Chandler said the pilot of that plane was at the 20th AF Reunion in Seattle Aug
92, unfortunately I didn't get to see him or recall his name.
I found it helped on occasion to take
such hops myself. Engineering officers were not permitted to go on mission
flights. The rational was that the training system had not been set up to
provide replacements for those lost.
After an engine change the engine was
run on the ground for 1/2 hour of Slow Time, then the oil was drained and the
permanent magnet in the drain plug checked for metal particles. If all was well
the plane was flown for an hour by a flight test crew. When they returned the
oil was drained and the plug checked again. The flight crew would report any
items in need of repair and the ground crew would make repairs and prepare it
for the next mission.
I usually called operations for a
flight test crew as soon as we'd start the slow time. This way they'd be ready
with the parachutes, etc., so no time was lost in getting airborne.
M/Sgt Hunt and I were visiting with
the flight test crew who had just arrived, waiting till they completed slow
time. Suddenly right before our eyes it looked like the engine had exploded,
oil and smoke going everywhere in the prop wash! The Pilot turned and said,
"and you expect us to fly THAT!"
Hunt and I were already on our way to
have a look. Hunt said, "damn, they must have only put the sump plug in
finger tight and it fell out!" The crew chief was embarrassed, at having
made such a mess, saying, "it's my fault I should have taken time to
tighten it with a wrench." I said nothing. Then glancing at the flight
crew he added, "it must have looked like hell to them. I'm sorry Lt it
will take us about 15 min to get it cleaned up and ready for them." His
crew were already at work with solvent and the means to clean up the mess. Hunt
stayed with them to help and I walked back to the flight test crew.
They were a new green crew, I didn't
know them and they didn't know me. My
explanation that everything was all right didn't sell well. To indicate my conviction I said I'd be
willing to fly in it – they immediately took me up on that – telling me how to
get a parachute as if this act would guarantee it really was all right. Actually I was delighted, I'd never been up
in one, now I could go without permission.
They showed me how to put on the chute, but as we accelerated down the
runway I wondered how high you had to be before it would do any good and what
the procedure was to operate it. I decided to hell with the chute just enjoy
the flight and did, my concern was not of the aircraft's maintenance but if
these guys knew how to fly it, a couple weeks before was when I'd been one of
the first to arrive at a crash from a three engine landing.
I was always apprehensive about an
inexperienced crew. I had watched many
landings where the plane wasn't level and one gear hit and then the other. I
had observed the amplitude and speed with which this would throw the tail
section from one side to the other side of the runway. In the zip-zip time
between tire screeches the tail would whip across the runway and back. Aware of
how bad landings cracked the landing gears on B-26's and how crews training in
UC-78's would crack the horizontal stabilizers ---- my thoughts never ceased to
wonder if such treatment could cause hidden damage to a B-29. I often wondered
how well I could have done if it hadn't been detected I was color blind when
Bob Nelson and I tried to become a couple of hot rock pilots. On this flight I
was reminded that flunking that test had probably saved my life.
Bernard B
Bug, Adjutant and Confidant: Bernie was a
most unusual character who lived in the opposite end of the barracks I was in.
He'd been trained as a navigator but became air sick, was grounded and assigned
as Sqd Adjutant. He was quick, bright and liked by everyone and became the
confidant to most crew members. His serious poker face veiled his active but
dry sense of humor. The crews trusted him implicitly and he carried all sorts
of instructions in his head or in special notes to be sure letters from girl
friends were not sent to families, etc.
My first acquaintance with Bernie was
when he asked me if I'd loan him some money - he told me he needed $300 for a
stake in a poker game. He didn't want to borrow from flight crews or those who
gambled. I loaned him the money and he returned $350 to me the next day. His
poker face put him in good stead, no one knew of him being a loser after a
nights play. He was often broke and borrowed money. Keough told me it was
because he sent his winnings home making sure he couldn't loose what he'd won!
I have a feeling he really did come out ahead.
Poker was played at the officers club
with the standard ante being $25. This was usually in the form of bill's tied
together. It was not a game for amateurs.
Jets Stream
blows B-29's out to sea, Smitty modifies Bomb sight: Smitty a ground maintenance Radar
Officer, Brownell a ground maintenance Radio-Radar Officer and Pultz a
de-briefing Intelligence Officer told me about early missions which were flown
at high altitudes to evade flak and fighters. They had encountered high
velocity winds of over 200 mph. These were later called Jet Streams and used to
advantage in commercial flying. It was found that when trying to fly into them
to reach a target they were sometimes actually being blown away from Japan with
a negative ground speed. Brownell told how Smitty had devised a new scale so
they could correct for these strong winds as they were beyond the Bombardiers
Nordon bomb sight scale. They dropped by Smitty's modified Radar scale as an
alternative.
Smitty's
Chemistry Set: Smitty
(left), Bernie (right) and I plus some others distilled some spirits one night.
Smitty was a graduate Chemical Engineer who'd been converted to a Radar
Officer. Smitty had formed up with others at Kearney Nebraska to fly overseas
with one of the crews. Just before their leaving for overseas Smitty went to
town and looked up a Chemistry Teacher & from him bought some chemical
paraphernalia, for use “in the name of science”. After arrival overseas he put
some ingredients in bottles to ferment.
On this memorable night he recalled his advanced planning and got out
the now dusty bottles he'd set aside to ferment. Smitty also opened his
footlocker and placed his Chemistry Set out on the bed. Immediately all about
became interested. Bernie Bug had a home made table which he placed in the
walkway under a rafter. Someone came up with a Colman type gas burner for heat.
Smitty assembled a beaker, a thermometer into the fluid via a hole in a cork
and the vapor output connected to a condenser (tube in a tube). These were
suspended from the rafter so the burner heated the beaker and a steel helmet
could be placed to collect water from the condenser. Using helmets we'd bucket
rain water through the condenser to cool the vapor. Bernie read the thermometer
and collected the condensate keeping a record of what boiled over at what
temperature. Bernie had studied to be a Pharmacist and would announce what
PROOF was being distilled from the thermometer readings, classified good,
better and potent.
One bottle of raw stock was really
producing a high alcohol content when all of a sudden Smitty came off the cot
from which he was overseeing the production and grabbed up the dusty bottle. He
said "no wonder it's so good, stop!
We're distilling the real thing, this is my last bottle of Old
Overholt!"
You could smell the potency of the
condensate, no one wanted to be the first to try it. Some guys came back from
the movie, with knowing glances we knew
we had our guinea pigs. Assuring them it was great stuff Smitty measured one of
them a shot in his homemade bamboo 10cc jigger and handed it to the volunteer.
His eyes and mouth came wide open as he fanned his breath until he could
finally croak out a "Wow! that's powerful stuff! But it sure warms you
inside!" We all grinned, but diluted ours with rain water.
We didn't have ice until after the
war and seldom any mix. We had a liquor ration via the club. Lots were drawn
for what you got. My first drawing was Gin. To this day I don't like Gin. The
smell of it reminds me of that volatile warm stuff that overwhelmed your sense
of smell and tasted like kerosene. I traded most of my ration for boxes of
cigars from guys in the Navy. The pictures of the plane crash cost a bottle of
bourbon.
Uses for the
Carbine Bayonet: Near the end
of the War beer was no longer rationed. We still didn't have ice but even cans
of warm beer tasted good after a long hard day. I didn't have a can opener but
didn't need one. I found my carbine bayonet was an excellent can opener. Two
cuts to make a V fold-down segment and one punch for an air hole.
The barracks had a 2x4 frame covered
with plywood sheets for floor, sides and roof. I kept the bayonet stowed by my
bunk stuck in the floor. I'd pluck it out, open a can and throw it to stick in
the floor.
One night the guys saw a rat walking
along the 2x4 roof beams. Rats were common on the island. Some threw shoes,
etc., trying to hit it. I plucked my bayonet from the floor, flipped it to hold
it by the blade, called to the guys to stand clear and threw it end over end.
Thud and squeak, the rat was pinned to the rafter, in moments it was dead. This
really impressed those present. Later I'd throw at stumps doing well to stick
it 1 out of 10 tries! Yes I scrubbed the
blade before opening beer cans again.
After the war ended I was laying on
my cot for a brief siesta after chow. My senses were suddenly aroused to full
pitch and I instinctively rolled out of the bed, came up with the bayonet at
waist level, pointed at a man standing beside my cot. He was a Jap POW, part of
a crew I'd seen cleaning up the area. His eyes popped wide open, put his hands
up and chattered incoherently as he backed out of the barracks. My heart was
pounding and I incredulously observed my stance, I was as if I intended to rip
the man open! I knew the POW's were there. Apparently I'd become semi
consciously aware of his presence and instincts caused my reflexes to respond.
Living
Quarters Shortly after
my arrival and assignment to that barracks I rigged a writing table against the
outside wall near my cot. I had also mounted a wooden ammo box on the wall and
installed a light bulb in it. Stamps and envelopes were stored in this to keep
them dry.
Movies and
Flashlights Our movie
theater was a bulldozed clearing with a picture screen at the apex and bomb
boxes for seats. There are no photos of this early version. Wearing apparel was
helmet, poncho (rain coat), flash light and cans of beer. There were no lights
except the projector and our flash lights. It was necessary to change reels for
every movie. Flash lights would come out, and someone would shine a spot on the
screen, others would chase it with their flash lights.
Those who had to relieve themselves would do so during the reel change. For sanitary
reasons they climb on the tree trunks and aim off into the rubble. Searching
flashlight beams would invariably find someone. He's soon be illuminated in the
sum of their flash lights. The audience would applaud the stance and amber arc
as if it were the main feature. The performer would shake and tuck it away then
turn to the audience and bow. On occasion there would be nurses present but the
fellows behaved as if oblivious to their presence. The ponchos were because it often rained but
the movie would go on without pause. Curls of smoke indicated a hunched
silhouette was enjoying the movie.
Radio
Repair One night I
decided to try to get my radio to work rather than go to the movie. I'd asked
my Radio-Radar friends what might be wrong. They said they couldn't tell
without instruments. With the benefit of good luck it was playing when they got
back. It was my 5 tube high school
radio. It had been smashed when packed inside my clothes in my barracks bag. I
made a wooden case for it and it played for a while then quit. After receiving
my commission I'd been shipped by train from Dodge City, Ks to Mariana, Fla, to
Santa Ana, Ca to Pecos, Texas. Along the way I purchased a book on
Superhetrodyne Radio and had struggled to comprehend how a radio worked as the
rails clicked by during that long, long ride. I really didn't know much but
decided to at least try. The tubes lit and all seemed fine but there was no
sound. It was equipped with an electromagnet speaker and had four wires between
it and the radio. I disconnected that speaker and connected a Signal Corp.
permanent magnet speaker. Since the new speaker had a permanent magnet I
coupled the wires to the old speaker's electromagnet together. It played!! But had an awful gravelly sound.
I then reconnected the old speakers electromagnet. It played clear as a bell,
beautiful! I was delighted. When the experts returned they were soon grinning
ear to ear surprised to hear it play. I showed them what I'd done and asked
"why does it work now?" They said 110 VAC was converted to DC by
using a rectifier tube and used a capacitor and coil to iron out the ripples in
the power supply. To save on parts the speakers electromagnet did double duty;
serving as the speaker magnet and as the filter for the DC. The electromagnetic
design was not used after WWII.
The
Laundry South of our
barracks was the laundry. Four washing machines had been placed on a concrete
slab and covered by a tent. Guamanian women ran the machines. One of them, an
attractive young girl, would bring her baby with her. It's father had been a
Japanese soldier killed when the island was taken. We'd leave a barracks bag of
clothes in the morning and pick them up in the evening. They washed them bag
and all, dumped them back in the bag and hung it on a peg. Our fresh clothes in
the morning were always cool because they were still damp.
The coveralls used by the mechanics
would become too oil soaked and carbon smeared to launder. The fellows on the
Flight Line made their own washing machine. Initially they rigged a stand to
hold and rotate an oil drum, like a pig on a spit. They cut a door in the side
which was sealed with a rubber gasket then clamped shut. They would dump
clothes and solvent in the drum and then turn it on. It was rotated by using an
aircraft vane vacuum pump as a motor, driven by compressed air. The air was
provided to an air tank via the air compressor on a Cletrack.
The clothes laid out on the coral
near the jungle were sometimes stolen, presumably by Japanese soldiers from
over the cliff.
Gold
Teeth The north
perimeter of the island had a 600 foot cliff that dropped steeply to a narrow
beach. The Japanese had retreated to caves in this region in their last stand.
The Marines who took the island found it impractical to clear them out. They
set off charges in entrances to some of the larger caves and after repeated
efforts using loud speakers to get straglers to surrender, simply defined the
area as being off limits.
One of our mechanics was missing for about two
weeks. Then one day he showed up. He'd been down over the cliff looking through
the caves, this was dangerous particularly if armed because a number of persons
had been shot. He had a Bull Durham tobacco sack stuffed with gold teeth he'd
knocked out of skulls be found in the caves. He was a bit of a loner before
this act and even more so afterward. This seemed a bit ghoulish to most of the
fellows.
Mechanic to
KP by Choice Pfc Patsy P
Peluso 33721107 assigned as an airplane mechanic was missing for some time. I
began to inquire of what had happened to him. We found that he had voluntarily
assigned himself as a permanent KP, something most fellows tried to avoid! I
inquired about him and found he was a hard working conscientious fellow at KP
but had a total dislike for being a mechanic. I located him and we had a talk.
He said he was happy and delighted in doing things to improve chow for the
other mechanics. We shook hands and I arranged for his formal transfer of
duties.
Alert
Crew Six fellows lived in a tent
near the Flight Line and were called the Alert Crew. They lived on the flight
line in case planes came in late at night. M/Sgt Wilber O Hunt 5297842 was one
of them. Hunt had found a Jap skull. He'd rigged a table in the center of the
tent, covered it with a GI blanket, put a light bulb inside the skull and used
it as a combination centerpiece and night light! Most of the fellows didn't
care for his concept of living quarters decor, but it was out of sight to
almost everyone, most didn't know it was there.
Home made
Motor Scooter The line
chiefs had to do a lot of walking to traverse the spread out area.
Transportation was solved by making scooters. The gas engine from fuel transfer
pumps and rubber tired wheels from bomb dollies were ingeniously arranged to
make two wheel scooters. The scooter shown below was in constant demand and
considered one of the best of it’s kind. Our “welder” was not just a craftsman
but also an innovator.
The most ambitious was a 4 wheel job
using a V-2 engine called the Put-Put which powered an electrical generator
used to start the main engines. The term Put-Put was a carry over from earlier
models that were one lungers that did "Put-Put". The V-2 ran with a
high speed hum.
Black
Bottoms The bottoms
of the planes in our group were painted black as an experiment to see if it
helped escape searchlight detection, it was generally believed it helped. V
Chandler reported to Gen LeMay following the 19th BG test mission on
the use of black bottoms. When Vern reported he believed it helped, LeMay said
to his staff, “Paint Em”
Someone in the 28th Sqd
started painting the M numbers yellow over the black under paint, using the
same yellow paint we would later use to paint PW SUPPLIES under the wings. Initially
the Black Bottom experiment and used “dull” black, later ones used “glossy”
black. Our yellow PW Supplies paint was also “dull” tending to clog the spray
guns.
The 30th and 93rd
sqds continued to use black nacelle M numbers above the black bottoms. I always
thought our 28th planes had a neater appearance.
Bomb bay
Doors: The start up
of a plane created a calliope of sounds. Another sound was the air compressor
for operating the bomb bay doors. The early model B-29's had electrically
operated doors & our new planes had pneumaticaly operated doors. The
electric doors were slow. An electric motor turned a long threaded shaft that
had a high gear ratio to overcome the aerodynamic loads on the large doors.
Some of the planes had pulled lots of G's trying to evade search lights and
others had experienced severe structural loads due to thermals from massive
incendiary bomb raids. M-3 and M-11 were such planes.
One of the planes had been so badly
bent that when loaded with bombs a motor was burned out just closing the doors.
This was replaced before take off and another given to the Bombardier as a
spare. I was there at the last moment before take off when Keough and the crew
chief were showing the Bombardier how to change the motor in flight if necessary.
It was to be used for closing the doors if the new motor just installed failed
after opening the door. This was a new crew flying one of these older planes
and not happy with this procedure. I happened to be there when one of the crew
complained to Keough, "this damn thing won't even fly straight!"
Keough responded, "If you had as many missions as this plane then you'd be
able to fly it straight." Sometimes Keough had a short fuse.
He was demanding of himself, the
mechanics and the crews. If he said a plane was OK to fly he was backed 100% by
Operations. If a crew aborted a mission Operations would call him to find out
if there indeed had been a problem with an airplane, they knew they'd get a
straight and honest answer.
One returned claiming they had an
engine problem, the ground crews could find nothing wrong. After some checking
it was found the "smoke" had been a vapor trail, they were soon back
in the air again. Operations could be demanding too.
Bill
Clipped The air
operated doors were great. Whish-bump! they'd open or close against their stops
in about one second. They were also an unexpected hazard. As flight crews would
load, forget something, unload and reload several times, like a family trying
to get started on a vacation, the air compressor would have trouble keeping up.
The control switch for the door was handled by the Bombardier in the nose. When
an experienced crew was actually ready to pull out the Bombardier would wave to
the Crew Chief who'd go to the bomb bay door, hunch his back against the door
and snap it shut. This also turned off the Bombardier's "open"
indicator light. A new crew was flying M-15 when Parks the Crew Chief hunched
his back into the door at the same time the new Bombardier flipped the switch
to open again thinking a recycle would help close the door. The engines were
running and the arc of the prop and fuselage came within about 6 inches of each
other. Parks found himself hunched over staring into the whirling prop, like a
saw blade aimed between his eyes, with the door pushing on his back with
increasing force as the air compressor built up more pressure. He knew he had
to do something because there wasn't room for him with the door full open. He
abruptly dropped himself on the black top, none too soon. His ball cap was
knocked off his head, the bill was split! No one envied his experience.
Fix for
Electrical Problems Some
maintenance problems were unusual and called for unique solutions. The B-29
used many electrical systems and was a maze of wires. The electrician found
that wires had been eaten by rats and had shorted out. Setting baited traps,
etc, didn't work. The solution was to call Operations who would send down a
crew equipped with old style oxygen masks, B-29's had pressurized cabins, who
would take the plane to high altitude and suffocate the rodents. Sometimes
their location was apparent but they had to be allowed to dehydrate rather than
take the plane apart to extract their remains.
Left:
Flag, weapon, on Jeep bumper
Japs in the
Jungle I made a trip down the island for parts and
stopped at the mess hall to eat before leaving. During small talk in the chow
line a friend of mine said he'd like to go along if I'd take him by the main
Navy base near Agana as he wanted to send a money order home.
We obtained the parts I needed at
Harmon Field in the center of the island, completed his business and were on
our way back. There was little traffic and we were traveling through a jungle
lined region of the road when we saw a Guamanian policeman come out onto the
road and wave us down.
He was very excited and spoke to us
in a low voice between quick glances back into the jungle. He said there were
Japanese back in the jungle, he knew they were there because he had heard them,
he didn't want to go in again without a gun or more help and wanted us to help
him, like go get the Marines.
The situation seemed both foolish and
realistic. The war was still on and it was well known that there were still
Japanese on the island. They periodically took food and clothes mechanics had
left to dry near the jungle. It was known that they hid out in the cliff area
rimming the north end of the island. This coral/jungle cliff region was
militarily off limits as some soldiers had been shot exploring the region and
the numerous caves and nature of the area made it impractical and generally
pointless to search out and make safe. However, we generally never thought of
Japs being in the jungles of the main plateau of the island.
It seemed a little ridiculous to go
charging into the nearest Marine base and cause a search based on what might be
an over-imaginative native policeman.
There was little doubt he believed
there were Japanese there. He was unarmed and wanted to know if we had any guns.
The guns issued to us were in our barracks with little thought of their being
needed.
I asked my friend what he thought.
His only comment was that as far as he was concerned there might be Japs there and
he'd just as soon leave it that way. He had no interest in finding out.
The policeman then turned to me with
a look like, well its all in your hands now, what are you going to do. I asked
the policeman how far it was and he said he'd take me as far as where you could
hear them but no more without some guns and help. I felt rather foolish looking
around the stuff in the jeep for a weapon of sorts and finally decided I'd be
as well off with nothing. The Guamanian had a knife and insisted that I should
take something. I pulled out the pipe with the flag on it mounted on the front
bumper. Jeeps used on the airfields had flags on the front bumpers to attract
attention of taxiing aircraft that were to follow them to a parking place.
Thus "armed", the native
policeman, myself and friend headed for the jungle. He led the way when we
entered and then pointed to where I should go while he and my friend followed.
We proceeded like kids playing cowboys and Indians. My friend stopped
following. At this point I began to wonder if maybe this was for real and
perhaps I was being foolish rather than it being a foolish adventure.
The native policeman's mode of action
changed to that of silent alertness and hesitancy while motioning me to go on,
be quiet and listen. I listened and went on and listened some more wondering
what I'd do if I came across a Jap, or if one came at me, an intruder to their
domain.
After going on a way alone I could
hear the sound of human voices. It was high pitched and had a sing song pattern
to it but I couldn't hear well enough to be certain so I went on, now alert to
the tips of my toes and crouched as I moved, not making a sound. As I began to
hear better it still seemed unintelligible, I wished I knew what Japanese
sounded like, there would be a pause, then a sound something like "Oh
God" followed by unidentifiable sounds.
I proceeded a little further and
could make out the form of a man laying on the ground in a small clearing
ahead? He was face down and seemed to be beating the ground with his fists and
making noises. As he couldn't see me I went closer. He had on GI fatigues but
that didn't prove anything. Then I could definitely catch words, English words!
It was a GI! Was he nuts or something! I stood erect and walked toward him wondering
if he was off his rocker and might be dangerous.
He abruptly rolled over and saw me
there. His mouth opened in sudden silence as we stared at each other. The
native policeman was not in sight and I didn't know what the man might do. I
was about to speak when he jumped to his feet, came to attention and saluted
me. I was so dumb founded I don't recall if I saluted back or not. I asked if
he was all right, was he sick or something, was he in any kind of pain?
In a very soldierly military manner
he explained that he was worshipping God in the manner of his belief. I said
this seemed to be an odd place for worship and he explained that he went out
alone away from others because they didn't understand. I told him that the
native policeman who had now also come into the clearing had thought he heard
Japs and that from the sound of his voice it almost sounded that way to me. He
said he'd never though of that but could see how it might be mistaken.
Although the whole thing seemed odd
to me, he was perfectly rational in his manner and attitude, identifying his
name and outfit and stating he was off duty. I then left him with the
recommendation that he consider doing something about where and how he sounded
during his worship because it would be most unfortunate to get shot by mistake.
He thanked me for being more understanding than most and the policeman and I
left.
A month after the war ended, about 40
Japanese walked out onto the road a few miles from there and surrendered.
Ack Ack
Battery Sandbags Engine Stands Working
conditions were very primitive. The initial ground crews had been flown over
with the planes and the only maintenance equipment had been their hand tools
plus essentials as engine and propeller hoists. However there were no fixtures
for holding engines or maintenance stands to climb up on to be able to work on
the engines. Sandbags from Ack Ack batteries, set up when the Mariannas were
being secured, were used as padded blocks on which to sit the engines. Boards
from shipping crates were nailed together to create maintenance stands. These
were still in use when I arrived.
Homes for the
Homeless Guam
experienced a dry and wet season. During the intermediate phase it would rain
almost every day for perhaps an hour as a shower passed by. If a plane was on a
test hop the ground crew had no shelter from the rain and there was no place to
keep tools and assorted servicing equipment while the planes were gone on
missions. It was war time and I could understand it for the beginning but it
seemed like a hell of a way to treat good men. I wanted to do something about
it.
One day as I drove by the Supply and
Service Center I noticed a collection of large wooden boxes, used shipping
crates for the large engines. I had a good look at them and determined that
with very little modification they would make excellent sheds. I checked with
the supply officer and he said I could have them.
With the help of one of the line
chiefs we found a steel cable. I rigged the cable from the skids under the box
and the tow hitch on the jeep. Within a few hours I had delivered a box to each
hard stand where a plane was parked. The fellows were delighted.
I gave instructions that they be
placed in a certain way. This was to adhere to the military penchant for uniformity.
I said to their smiling faces, "you can arrange them any way you pleased
so long as they look clean and uncluttered to anyone driving along the taxi
strip on an inspection. Our 28th Sqd was the only one that had
anything like this.
They soon had a lean to porch on the
far side as extra room and protection and rigged shelves on the inside for
canned food and tools. Some put up signs on their side applying a name to their
home.
While moving the boxes I was stung by
a wasp on my left hand, instinctively I slapped it and crushed the stinger and
its content into my hand. It was quite painful. The hand almost doubled in size
and it affected my whole system although I continued on the job. It took almost
a week before the soreness was gone and the hand was back to normal.
Mother Hen
for P-51 Chicks, Mine Laying, and Missions against Oil Industry The airplane numbering system had
been set up for 28th Sqd airplanes of the 19th Bomb Group to be numbered from
M-1..M-20. When I got there M-15 was the largest numbered M airplane in the Sqd
and some of the others were missing. I later found at one time had airplanes
numbering to M-20 but not all at the same time. When I asked were some of the
planes were, holes in the number sequence, I was told with a shrug they must be
on Iwo playing Mother Hen to P-51's or assigned to laying Mines.
Mine Laying The Resume of 20th AF Missions, a collection
of Summary Sheets prepared by 20th AF Headquarters, shows that mine laying
operations were assigned to the 313th Wing on Tinian, the 6th BG given the
task. Mining Missions were flown at night, repeatedly reseeding the waters
about Japan. These operations had a lower loss rate than General Purpose or
Incentiary raid missions. The Japanses used their Search Lights to make sightings
of where the Mines were dropped.
315th Wing
against the Oil Industry and Supply
The Resume data shows that the planes from the 315th Wing operating from
North West Field Guam never merged with other wings on missions, that they
always flew at night, always carried heavy high explosive bomb loads, their
targets always some part of the Oil Industry and Supply. These were the latest
B-29's equipped with the latest radar and all but the Tail Guns had been
removed. This accounted for the heavy loads they carried and for the missions
being almost loss free due to Enemy Action.
The
Foghorn One of the
pilots was a most interesting character. The flight crews rated him as one of
the most capable pilots they knew. He always had a twinkle in his eye and seemed
to posses an abundant reservoir of energy and an imagination plus an
inclination to harness it. Many of his personal buddies he’d trained with were
Majors & Colonels though he was
still a lst Lt. He had a history of
mischief even if it meant ignoring orders which had resulted in his being
reduced in rank as often as he'd been promoted. He was gregarious, didn't know
a stranger regardless of rank or branch of service.
He became acquainted with some Navy
personnel and obtained a foghorn. It
was designed to work off steam or compressed air. He found that our Cletracks
were equipped with air compressors and storage tanks. These were normally used
to charge the landing gear shock struts. (The tubular aircraft landing gear
struts were like a huge shock absorber with the lower end like a piston shaft
and the inside filled with oil to damp movement. Compressed air was used to
extend it and serve as a spring because an air spring is more light weight than
a metal one.)
The Wing Commander had a hut set up
in a somewhat isolated area on the jungle side of where others were quartered.
This placed him further away from the noise of engines and thus permitted some
quiet and good sleep.
I was told this guy borrowed one of
the Cletracks one night and with the aid of some cohorts mounted the fog horn
on it. While the CO was away he maneuvered the vehicle close to the CO's
quarters but still camouflaged by the jungle. The CO returned, turned in and
went to sleep. The pilot and his buddies waited until the near silence of about
4:00 a.m. and then released the charge of compressed air through the foghorn in
urgent blasts!!
I have no idea what went through the
Wing CO's mind to be abruptly jerked from deep sleep to visions of a huge ship
bearing down on his quarters through the jungle! There had been no doubt who was behind this
prank.
He also had the foghorn placed in the
bomb bay of his B-29 and with a supply of compressed air buzzed the air field
with the foghorn emitting its deep tones earthward. He was reprimanded again,
with no detectable deleterious effect, buzzing was a No No even without a
foghorn.
Fuel Tank,
Flak Damage - Fuel Valve, Human Damage
I helped replace a wing fuel tank
damaged by flak, such maintenance was time consuming and difficult, we were not
equipped to handle such things. Wing jacks had to be placed to lift-twist the
wing so the phillips head screws could be removed-replaced to get the tank
out-in. The tanks were large and it was quite a task to lift-locate-and replace
the underside skin. Again wing jacks were used to to distort the wings in order
to align plates and doublers with the screw holes. There were many, many screws
designed for a very tight fit as they were under high stress loads in flight. I
was called in by one crew whose arms and wrists had just given out on them. I
soon understood their difficulty. We had to use drift pins to align and jacks
under the screw driver to keep it engaged. The torque required became
considerable placing an excessive strain on the wrist. My wrist was sore for at
least two months after three hours work.
Another fuel problem had to do with
an electrically operated fuel valve inside the leading edge of the wing. It was
designed for momentary duty to operate a latch. However some crew members
didn't know this and would keep the spring loaded switch held on for long
periods of time. This would burn out the solenoid making it necessary to remove
and replace the leading edge of the wing to get at it. We cussed the Boeing
designer and crew member sleeping on the switch.
Abruptly the
A-Bomb It was of
considerable surprise to all when we too heard of the dropping of the Atomic
Bomb. The operation had been launched from Tinian which is within sight of
Saipan. Smitty, the graduate chemical engineer, was quite concerned about what
had been turned loose. It was beyond our comprehension, it simply explained
that our maximum efforts had been a distractive support activity for the coup
de gras.