One of my biggest gripes about the way things were run in the Air Force was the practice of allowing Staff Officers to fly a heavily loaded bomber with very few hours in the air craft and even less in the past couple of months (in other words, not sharp).

At Yokota during the six months period my crew was assigned to the 98th Bomb wing we had three accidents. One occurred while trying to make a go-around with the bomb bay doors open. The plane crashed in to the bowling alley, eight were killed and six survived. This plane had no staff officer flying it. It had a crew that was put together that day, October 14, 1951. It was the first solo flight as aircraft commander for this AC. The radio operator was changed just before taxing out. The radio operator onboard was killed. The radio operator that was taken off this flight did not know why he was taken off, but he was thankful that he was.

The second accident occurred when a B-29 was making what looked like routine take off. During the take off roll, the plane had a run-a-way turbo which the flight engineer can normally control. But after going far beyond the go-no-go point, the colonel in the right seat cut all four engines and the AC couldn't stop the airplane. The plane ran off the south end of the runway and hit an embankment breaking off the left landing gear, which then broke through the wing. The fuel gushed out and was ignited by the red hot brakes. The crew managed to escape -- getting out quick and running like hell. .It had been loaded with thirty-eight 500 pound bombs and gasoline for a nine hour flight. The tragedy of this accident was the firemen didn't know the crew had gotten out and rushed in to try and put out the fire. When the explosion hit some firemen were killed. Another crew of firemen rushed in. About this time another explosion occurred and firemen were killed. A total of 11 firemen were killed -- 6 Japanese and 5 Americans died needlessly.

The AC testified that he didn't have his head in the cockpit so he didn't know what the engines were doing. The Engineer testified that he had control of the engines but the colonel in the right seat reached over and cut the engines. When the Accident Board called the Colonel to testify they were told he had cleared the base and was long gone.

Here is where the story gets personal. We were scheduled to take off after the the one that crashed and the bombs kept cooking off for quite a while. After two or three hours they had all the fire engines re-serviced. We were cleared to start our preparation for takeoff. We got our plane run up, checked out and taxied out. They had us get as close to the end where the other plane still smoldered and we took off down wind. There wasn't much left - but as someone said the other day, "the pucker factor was quite high!"



This next accident had a Staff Officer in the left seat and the Squadron Operations Officer in the right seat was taking off to the north and maxed out at around 140,000 pounds. It was snowing at the time of takeoff. The AC in the left seat had only a total of 216 hours in a B-29 and 54 of that in the last ninety days. The Copilot who was the Squadron Operations Officer had 35 hours in the last 30 days. The airplane got off the ground, but couldn't climb properly and crashed into a hill 4.7 miles north of the base. The hill was 450 feet high. It burned 14 Japanese houses and all thirteen men onboard were killed. Remember that there was not much snow removal equipment in the early fifties -- they only swept it off and it probably had ice under the snow.

The Accident Board said that it appeared that the plane was unable to gain altitude and flew into the hill. This was probably the first time these two pilots ever flew with this crew. They had left the regular AC on the ground, but the regular copilot did fly that night. The crew chief was also on board. The crew chief was one of the best of the group of fine ground crew personnel.. I came into contact with the families -- one in person shortly after the accident and the other in May of this year on the Internet.




The first contact I had was with the family of the tail gunner. I was way out in the sticks of North Georgia looking for this girl I had a date with. I stopped in this little store to ask directions to her house. I had just returned to the states in March of 1952 and was therefore wearing my uniform. The store keeper said, "We lost a boy from just up the road last month."

I ask what his name was and he told me. I said I had known him. He lived in the room across the hall from my crew. The sore keeper asked if I would go over and talk to the boy's Mother. At first I was a little hesitant to say that I would, but then I said, "Sure I'll go over after I pick up my date. Call her and tell her I'll be over in a little while."

We went over and talked to her for about thirty minutes. I'm sure she was glad to see someone that knew her son. I think this helped to put closure to his dying.

The next contact I had with anybody about the accident was last May when I was checking out the "looking for" page on the Korean War project's web site. I saw a listing for someone looking for someone that might have known her Dad. She said he was a Flight Engineer in
B-29s and had died on 2-7-52. I immediately got on the Internet and answered her -- telling her that I had known her Dad well and had gone to Engineer's School with him. It seems her mother never told her or her brother anything about their Dad. I had just gotten the accident report about the plane I was writing about above. I sent her a copy. She said that the report made the best gift she had ever received. She also sent it on to her brother.

- Jesse Richey

 

(Photos are not of the planes mentioned in the articles, just representative of crashes that have occurred.)