BW-1945 PostWar

FP-1945 PostWar

With war’s end, everyone thought of going home. Most accepted there were still many things to be done, and did so as part of the war time process.

Return was based on the point system, everyone accepted that as fair. GI's had become used to a transient life, making new friends with each change of assignment.

The following Post War Topics are covered on the CD and omitted here to save space.

Topic

00 The "War's Over"

01 Overview Flights

02 PW Supplies

03 How Dumb Can You Be.....

04 Expressions on Kids Faces

05 Landing on Iwo

06 If Granddad were here

07 Promotion Time

08 Russians Kept a B-29

09 Rescue Yacht

10 7th Presidential Citation

11 Congratulations from Navy

12 Buzzing Nimitz All Day

13 Change Engine, in Japan

14 Ham Radio

15 Inspector General Tales

16 Typhoon Hits

17 1^st Old Timers Go Home

18 Ailerons Torn Out

19 Maintenance Stands

20 The General's Jeep

21 Strikes Across The Pacific

22 Now it Was Our Turn

23 Plan to fix Airplanes

24 2^nd Ground Crew leave

25 GI Rank increase

26 Scottie the Electrician

27 Start Diesel Power Plant

28 Clerk & EO Change Prop

29 Producton Line Maint.

30 Court Martial That Man

31 Post War -- T/Sgt Stedge

32 3^rd Last Grd Crews leave

33 Basic in PI to Flight Line

34 Operations Sunset

35 Rest Leave to Hawaii

35.1 Johnson Island

35.2 Low on Gas

35.3 Out of Gas

35.4 Honolulu

35.5 Return by Boat

35.6 Hawaii to Guam

36 Sign up to Stay in

37 Webber and Wycoff

38 Mercury II Camera's

39 Free Beer

40 Origins of Our Pool Table

41 Fun Photos

42 Sight Seeing the Cliff

43 Equipment Grave Yard

44 Pick a Plane and Fix it

45 Making a Home

46 The Fisherman

47 See Air Inspector

48 Pack, You're Leaving

00 The "War's Over", Some Went Wild, Some Fell Into Silence

It was evening, not long after the second A Bomb was dropped, that we received news the war was over! The guys went wild! Normally sane people grabbed guns, ran out of the barracks and fired into the air. Full clips of sub machine gun ammo was sprayed like from a fire hose. Some of the more sane yelled to watch where they aimed that stuff. Very Pistols were shot and their burning flares fell among the tents and barracks.

The loud speakers came on:

"STOP FIRING!, repeat, STOP FIRING!

Do Not fire into the jungle, I repeat,

DO NOT FIRE INTO THE JUNGLE!

Your ammo is landing on an Ack Ack battery!

Their CO insists that if this does not stop,

THEY WILL FIRE BACK

with his ACK ACK guns!"

The guns stopped and the drinking began. Strangely the wild behavior left me with no desire to join in the melee. Three of us sat on the porch and watched the crazy spectacle. The months of long hours with little sleep seemed to catch up with me. I felt weary and as I thought of people who I'd known that wouldn't be coming home I felt sorrow, first for them and then for their families. For their families it wasn't a time for boisterous rejoicing. I felt very fortunate. I'd survived the war and was in good health, It wasn't until I returned home that I realized I'd been affected by the war in many ways I didn't realize.

Our first impression was that we could relax now that the war was over. Not so, we hadn't counted on maintaining an air blanket over Japan, dropping supplies to POW's, flying post typhoon supplies to Okinawa and keeping the large numbers of flight crews drawing Flight Pay by flying Training Flights with the tired worn out planes and weary ground crews. It seemed there was no rest!

More “missions” were flown in the month after the war, than during the war. POW supply drops and supplies to Okinawa following a typhoon were especially heavy drains. The war weary planes went back first then planes were flown to collect flight pay, at a time when maintenance personnel were few and tired.

Set up PLM: The order was handed down to set up a PLM (Production Line Maintenance) system after the original personnel had gone home. Our new CO Capt Lomax asked me to meet him at Wing Headquarters. A full bird Colonel was in charge stating they intended to make use of the successful experience with PLM in the states and apply it to the 314th Wing. Are there any comments? I was the lowest ranking person there, all others were captains or higher. They talked about it a bit and Lomax, whom I’d only recently met, turned to me and asked what I thought. I said I think it’s a lousy idea for B-29s. For small aircraft even up to the size of a B-17 I think it’s great. They knew I had a mind of my own. They asked why & I told them. I said the standard application in the states was to move aircraft past stationery people and equipment much like mfg cars. A B-29 was just too big and would be a real bear to try to move, especially if some guy has a wheel off when others want to move. You will also loose the “free overtime” a dedicated crew applies to “their airplane”, PLM people would work their shift only and not through the night as well. Besides almost all qualified ground crew personnel have gone home.

Having been in the military long enough I knew if an order came down that's what would be done, they had said nothing and waiting for me to continue. I continued, if you insist on doing this, then move people not airplanes. You can provide maintenance stalls for multiple aircraft and move the people. The specialists can cart their tools much as they do now on the flight line. But it can’t be done without trained mechanics, and we have none, the sqd clerk and I changed a prop yesterday to put one on flight status; I just sent back some untrained recruits someone sent to the flight line to help. I stated all this in a burst of dialog, abruptly aware they were pilots and not tuned to what I was trying to convey. Having “said it all” I abruptly stopped. The Col. looked about at all there and said in a pleasant voice, "now did every one get all that?" They chuckled knowing he wasn't asking for a replay. I felt like two cents, speaking my mind like that; at least they were polite. After a few more pleasantries Lomax turned to me and said, "That's all they needed for now, go on back and I'll call you later." I was convinced that was the last I'd hear of it, they wanted someone who said "Yes Sir", not a lecture from a 21 year old.

Later I was quite surprised when Capt Lomax called saying, "They talked it over after you left and decided to assign you the job to set it up. You'll be assigned 160 men and start immediately. They'd like to have it set up on that large apron by the 19th Group Maintenance Headquarters. Let me know tomorrow if you need anything special to get it started. That's when I said, "Yes Sir", and hung up.

There were a lot of newly arrived maintenance stands that we had started to assemble. But we’d need Quonset huts, one for supplies and one for records and personnel. I called Lomax and in two days they were in place. The next day there were some 170 trained airplane mechanics drawn from other parts of the Mariana’s and Pacific as they promised.

I knew what we did would be inspected, so we put three airplanes in place with four maintenance stands each. I had one of the fellows build a shed in front of each and others cut an oil barrel in half as place to clean parts and set up yellow painted “trash” & “rags” barrels. It soon looked like we knew what we were doing. I also noticed Jeeps slowly pass, giving what we were doing a “drive by” inspection.

Sign Up to Stay In: I told to report to the Group CO, a Bird Col I’d never met before. He was a real gentleman and professional. The purpose of the meeting was to ask me to sign up to stay in the military. I said, my plans were to go back and finish college, that I had 2 ½ more years to finish mechanical engineering. I said I liked the military and would like to stay in – but I thought it more important that I finish school. He pleaded with me to reconsider, saying we are very much in need to officers like you who have been trained for this work. He said we have an abundance of flight personnel but a shortage of trained engineers. We parted as newly acquainted friends. As I left I knew he had to replace me. It was posted I was cleared for Rest Leave, and was soon off to Hawaii. When I returned the PLM was going full swing under “other management”.