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This material
is about my Dad's third mission. Diary Entry
Begins Here: |
McNamer's Crew
| Take off -
7:50 a.m. Over Target - 13:45 Altitude - 30,0000 Flak - heaviest yet Fighter opposition very heavy, between 50 and 100 fighters. Came in thru our formation and threw lots of 20's. Unestimated number shot down. Target very clear. Forty- minute running fight. |
 Jack L. Heffner |
Strength
- about 70 B-29's Losses - 1 B-29 (881st lead ship with Col. King and Major Goldsworthy) Returned to Base - 10:30 (Overdue, no gas left, crash landing) Total time - 14 hours - 45 minutes Comments - right before hitting target we got a hit that lowered our landing gears, everybody thought we were going to bail out. About 50 fighters took turns on us as we dropped behind the formation. The last they saw of us (our formation), we were still over target with gears down. Major Goldsworthy's plane was then hit, and most of the fighters took after him. It went down with two engines blazing and was later reported as crashing in Tokyo and burning, no one getting out. We lost our squad leader and our Group Commander (Two cols. on ship- Bruggie and Schroeder). S/ Sgt Welles was Radar operator. We tried to salvo our bombs and couldn't. The landing gears came back up and the doors stayed open. |
| Fighters clung to us and sent 20's thru our tail, making huge holes and knocking out the tail guns. Another tore a huge hole in the side of the fuselage, back of the Radar compartment, and shot up a lot of control cables. One also nipped off part of the rudder. We finally got our bombs off, the gunners still blazing at fighters as we were far behind the formation, Mac, pouring on all the coal we had, pulled away from the fighters and we headed home. Due to many things, we were very low on the petrol and ditching in the Pacific was predicted. We prepared for, it by throwing out everything that was loose, then sat back to sweat. By some miracle we landed a bearing on Saipan, radar being out, Engineer saying, "Not enough gas". We finally reached the runway, using the B-24 strip as the pilot expected a crash landing, due to our landing gears gone whacky. We did! Right in on the nose, the nose gears coming up thru, and the doors still stuck. |
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Pictures were taken, and no one was badly hurt. Number 7 was dragged off the runway and as yet (1944), it's status is unknown. Practically everything gone on it, and the props look like pretzels. To the fast accumulating B-29 graveyard, I guess. The 881st has now lost 4 out of 10. Mac was congratulated by our CO on his crash landing. He's tops for a pilot and we'll ride with him anywhere. (Maybe) PS Those double
shots hit the spot exceedingly well for some reason tonight. |
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"A
lot of things happen in the cockpit that are unknown to the rest
of the crew in the back compartment. We had quite a discussion
about staying at 12,000 feet until the engines quit then make
a dead stick landing in the water if that was the case. As you
know now we kept flying even after the engineer said we were flying
on vapor and landed with only the gear problem."Mac"
made a normal landing and lowered the nose wheel and it folded
back under the belly.
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