Joseph Now

Joseph Then

The tale of our 16th mission . . .

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On May 29th 1945, our sixteenth mission we were assigned to bomb Yokahoma Japan which I understood to be a suburb of Tokyo. We bombed with incendiaries and the reported results were excellent Over the target we encountered flak that was thick and accurate.. A piece of flak hit and cracked my left window coming through and tearing off a piece of cloth from my jacket over my left shoulder., missing my skin by a quarter of an inch. Flak hit our number one engine whereas we headed for Iwo Jima with three engines.

Our plane had sustained numerous flak hits all over. Gruever, on Lt. Gipson's plane was wounded. Part of his wrist was taken off by a piece of flak. At Iwo Jima we saw planes coming in with engines shot out, parts of wings blown off. We stayed on Iwo Jima for four days while our plane's engine was being repaired. On May 30th while on Iwo at about 3AM air raid sirens wakened us whereas we ran out of our tent . My buddy, Radar Operator Joe Ryan, and I jumped into a ditch lying down on our stomachs. Japanese bombers were overhead dropping bombs.

The bombs were not dropping near us but close enough for us to feel the waves of concussion. For a moment I felt compassion for the Japanese
people that we were bombing. It I was a feeling of helplessness being bombed and nothing you
could do about it. Some bombs hit a asphalt plant and others missed the island dropping into the sea. That morning we were asked to volunteer and fly a photo reconnaissance B-29 to the coast of Japan near Tokyo bay, to search for survivors who had bailed out of a shot up B-29.

Of course we volunteered. There were submarines off the coast of Japan assigned to air sea rescue. They were submerged. However at certain times they surfaced enabling them to be contacted . We flew a rectangular pattern at an altitude of 100 to 150 feet over the ocean. The reason for this was to enable us to better locate survivors floating in their one man life rafts. We sighted two rafts and circled over them until we contacted the submarine. After some time the sub appeared and picked up the men. AMEN. The next day we volunteered again and flew another search mission for survivors.

We spotted a Japanese junk which had what appeared to be a 20 mm cannon on deck. The boat had masts which had laundry hanging from the supporting lines. We had been informed that the Japanese were using these boats for the purpose of warning the mainland about approaching B-29's. They were called picket boats. Our pilot Capt. Percy Tucker called back and said " how about we sink it?"

Capt. Tucker

We were about 40 miles from the Japanese coast, We dived down giving our bombardier Joe Krogman first shot at him. The side gunner Bob Ryan strafed him and last of all I shot away as we passed over and away . On the first pass we set it on fire as it was smoking. We made another pass and finally left him half sunk and burning. We did not locate any survivors on that search mission. Our plane had still not been repaired so we flew back to Tinian in a 58th Wing 29. We often thought about painting a Japanese junk next to the mission bombs painted on our fuselage

Joseph Majeski was a tail gunner on Capt. Percy Tucker's crew based on Tinian. He completed 35 missions which earned some of his crew, including Joseph, the DFC. You can read more of Jospeh's tales when I get his section of the site, Joseph's Journeys, completed. Contact Joseph at: JSMajeski@webtv.net