S_30M

OLD MEN - DOUBLE DUTY - GROUND CREW & FLYING COMBAT

by M/Sgt Sager

When we came over, the old men were on combat and later shifted to ground jobs. We tried to work out some kind of shifts, but there were not enough men available. This resulted in extremely long hours for the men -- sometimes as much as 40 hours with little sleep to relieve a portion of their fatigue. There was much hard labor to do such things as loading bombs, refueling, etc.

Ships would be parked on the field when an air-alert was on. As they would taxi to take off, to guard against being caught on the ground, they would drop their bombs on the runway.

WORK ON NOSE WHEELS

by M/Sgt Sager

Had quite a lot to do with repairing nose wheels of LB-30s in Java. We had 3 in Java and 3 in Western Australia (believed to be the number requiring nose wheel repair, not a count of LB-30s available in the Far Pacific theater), and they were quite a job to keep maintained, because we had no equipment with which to handle the big planes.

When they would go over on their nose it would take 20 men, plus a winch truck to pull them down. The noses would then be filled with dirt and sand, as a result of nosing over, and would have to be cleaned out before the real maintenance could be started. After seeing the damage that had been done, it wasn’t a question of whether or not we could repair it, but how long it would take to repair. We needed the planes badly, having only these few with which to carry on our operations.

Out of the three at Java, 2 were repaired an the other was used for spare parts. They were towed off the field with a tug on each wheel, with the winch truck holding the tail down.

We didn’t do the actual repair of the LB’s in Java, the repair work was done by the Dutch, who were very efficient but progress was slow -- no special tooling was available.

Of the LB’s in Australia in Canderdon, 4 ships were assigned to the coast patrol detail. One ship was undergoing repair in Laverton when we got there.

One plane was badly damaged one day when landing. We got the ship uprighted and dragged it off of the field by using two 2 1/2 ton trucks and about 20 men on the tail to hold it down. The damage required replacement of the nose wheel strut bracing. The fittings were OK but the skin and bulkheads of the nose were crushed. We used sheet metal from P-40 packing crates for repairing damage to the nose, which also damaged the skin and bulkheads of the nose. We had to use angle irons and built a truss system in the airframes nose; then fastened or joined the nose wheel assembly, built out of the iron used from P-40 packing crates, to the new airframe assembly.

Not long after that the 3rd plane knocked the nose wheel off while taking off, with less extensive damage, we repaired it with the use of more angle irons.

After these temporary repairs, these planes were taken to Laverton Airdrome for permanent repair. [Probably replacing heavy angle iron with properly formed anodized aluminum.]

W/O Wyatt was in charge of engineering, and M/Sgt Sager was his assistant.