Earl - Feb 25, 1945

Every crew member flying in the B-29 operation in the Pacific got a sinking feeling in their stomachs during the take-off run with a load of bombs or aerial mines. If they say they didn't they're not being completely truthful. This little episode I am about to tell you about might give you some idea of that sinking feeling and how the take-offs were handled on the four-runway, North Field, Tinian, the only B-29 field with more than two runways.

North Field's four 8,500-ft. runways ran essentially east-west. The west end of the runways was approximately 25 to 35 feet above sea-level. The east end of the runways was 50 to 60 feet above sea level (give or take a few feet). Most take-offs were to the east due to the trade winds. There was a slight increased rise about the middle of the runways so that once a B-29 got beyond that point someone standing on the ground at the west end (or sitting in a B-29 cockpit) could not longer see the airplane taking off. This may seem unimportant but read on and you will see how this physical characteristic of North Field enters into the worst ground accident of the B-29 operation in the Pacific.

A loaded B-29 took approximately a 50 to 55 seconds take-off run to get airborne and many used the entire 8,500 ft. or runway. This meant that during the last 15 or 20 seconds of the take-off run the airplane was not visible to the next B-29 due take off on the same runway. And with a take-off interval of one minute the next airplane had no way of knowing if the guy in front of him had made it. In fact, he would have to start his take-off roll never really knowing if the runway was clear unless someone on the ground told him via hand signals or flags.

To further complicate this situation, the B-29 next to take-off had to throttle up to full-power to insure his four-engines were up to the job of lifting the 140,000 lbs. of gross weight. I didn't tell you that the B-29 was designed for only a gross take-off weight of 120,000 but that's another story. Suffice to say that the two most dangerous parts of a B-29 mission were (1) the take-off, and (2) going over the target.

At North Field we had to design a system to insure that the next airplane in line could begin his take-off roll with assurance that when he came up over the rise in the middle of the runway, he wasn't going to find another B-29 staring him in the face having aborted its take-off for whatever reason.

The system we devised was simple. A B-29 pilot was stationed on a pile of dirt about half-way up the runway with a hand-held light which could flash red or green. If a taking-off B-29 was running good at the point where it passed the guy with the light he flashed "green" to a starter on the ground alongside the next B-29 with amber, green and red flags. The pilot on the hill with the light insured the runway would be clear because once a taking-off B-29 got that far he was going to leave the runway either flying or running off the end for there was no way he could stop and the next airplane would have the runway to himself.

Once the green light came back to the flagman, he green-flagged the waiting B-29 to "bring up his engines" to full power then when he dropped his flag the pilot released his brakes and started his take-off roll. Actually, the next B-29 had probably had been flagged by the ground flag man to start bringing up his engines before the green light on the hill was flashed. All this flagging engines up, a green light, flagging a start roll, next B-29 into position, took exactly one-minute between airplanes. It sounds amateurish in the computer age but it worked.

Now let's go to May 20, 1945. The mission for the 9th Bomb Group of the 313th Wing was to drop aerial mines on Miyazu Bay, Japan. Each of 33 B-29's scheduled from the 9th carried (7) aerial mines weighing 2,000 lbs. for a total load of 14,000 lbs. Total gross weight was probably 140,000 lbs. plus with gas, ammo, crew and box lunches. Other Groups of the Wing were probably busy on the same type mission. I, as a Group operations type was the flagman that late afternoon at the "power-up" end of the runway. My light man on the pile of dirt halfway up the runway was in place and we had previously checked his light. Twenty-five airplanes had taken off and we had had one runway abort which had taken about an extra minute to get him off the runway. The next B-29 had taxied into position when I got the green light and gave the green flag to 2nd Lt. Caldwell. (I had flagged him to bring up his engines perhaps 15-seconds before). He released his brakes and started his take-off roll. Everything sounded all right from where I was standing. The next B-29 was taxiing into position and was getting the "power-up flag" while I looked for the green light from the hill. It didn't come on! Something was about to happen. It probably was another runway abort but I didn't know what.

The next thing I remember was seeing a huge cloud of black smoke followed by a tremendous explosion up the runway. Thus, it didn't take a genius to know that there was an accident. Now an aerial mine blows with a sound all its own since it has a thin skin. I remembered running my hand across my throat signaling the next B-29 to "power-back" his engines, jumped in my Jeep, which was nearby, and started up the runway for I knew something terrible had happened. The Jeep was running wide open at about 65 miles per hour when another tremendous explosion took place. It blew the windshield of the Jeep back into the steering wheel, the canvas top peeled off and instead of doing 65 mph I was suddenly doing about 30. I figured this was no place to venture and went back to the remaining (7) B-29's to get them moved to another runway that wasn't going to be covered with debris. If such a catastrophe happened today the runways would be closed for days, but we got those (7) B-29's over to another runway and got them off albeit a little late.

The next day when one could see without all the fire trucks and ambulances, I went out in my Jeep now without a top to look at what had happened. The explosions had taken out several B-29's parked nearby, B-29 engines were lying around here and there, and the Seabees were already out repairing the runway and adjacent taxiways.

I will not venture to say how many lost their lives but many of them were Marines who always came out at that end of the runway to watch the take-offs. One crewmember, the tail gunner miraculously survived. The crew had been on two or three missions before this one.

As I said before there were two dangerous parts of a B-29 combat mission. One was the take-off and the other was going over a Japanese target especially a firebomb target if you were late in the bomber stream after the fires got going good. But this ground accident was by far the worst of the many ground accidents suffered by the overloaded B-29's taking the war to the enemy's homeland.

Earl L. Johnson
Maj. Gen. USAF (Ret)