For the first five months in VP-23 I was assigned to the beaching crew. Our PBY-5s were not amphibious (that was the -5a) so when they landed in Pearl Harbor we would wade out into the water with snap-on undercarriages, which fit onto attachment points on the fuselage and under the rear of the keel. The aircraft could then taxi up onto the ramp under its own power.

Eventually I was assigned to a plane (number 23-9) as the flight engineer. My primary duty station was in the pylon that connects that large wing to the fuselage. Inside the pylon was a small room for the flight engineer. Access was up a ladder, through a narrow hatch. The room was just barely big enough for one person and had small windows on each side. On the front side were a number of engine instruments. The engines were on the wing just forward and to the side of my station. I sat on a seat facing the instrument panel, with my feet on the access ladder. It was very noisy in my compartment, so close to the engines, but the intercom headset quieted most of it.

Our task out of Pearl was patrol the surrounding sea, to protect against surprise attack by a foreign enemy. My particular task was to monitor the engines, adjusting mixture controls to minimize fuel consumption, and cowl flaps to control engine temperatures. We kept records of fuel consumption and periodically compared that data with the flight plan. I normally pulled about two-hours of this duty at a time, trading off with the second mechanic. Then I doubled as waist gunner. Patrols typically ran just under 20 hours. It was also up to us to preflight the plane and to help maneuver it during beaching operations.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor they destroyed all 34 PBYs of VB-23 and its sister squadron VP-22. When the raid began I was in Pearl City on overnight leave. I immediately started back for the base. At the water's edge I caught a gig belonging to the CO of the Utah, which was sunk. While we were still crossing the harbor the second wave attacked. Bullets were bouncing off the metal roof of the gig and we were all crouching pretty low. When we arrived at Ford Island all but one of us dived into a sewer ditch -- any shelter from the falling bombs. One crazy guy was out on the tarmac in the midst of it all digging bullets out of the asphalt with a knife, for souvenirs. Our worst injury was a broken ankle one guy who had dived too enthusiastically into the ditch. Afterwards, with a lot of cannibalizing and ingenuity, we managed to get a total of three planes back in the air.

We were then shipped to Midway Island, just in time for the famous Battle of Midway (June 4-7, 1942). There we ran the same kind of patrols we had at Pearl. Each flight lasted about nine hours and covered an arc 700 miles to sea. There were 30 PBYs on Midway, including VP-23's.

We were not among those who spotted the Japanese fleet on its way in, on June 4th, but we did locate that fleet later that day after it had suffered the devastating attack by our dive bombers. I spotted some smoke on the horizon and when we arrived there we saw a fantastic sight, three fast carriers (Akagi, Soryu and Kaga) lying dead in the water, burning heavily and sending huge columns of smoke into the air. They were surrounded by a large number of smaller craft, trying to rescue the crews. On one carrier the deck looked like it had just caved in, considerably higher at the bow and stern than in the middle.

We had bombs aboard but we were ordered not to drop them but simply to maintain surveillance as long as we could, so Midway would always know exactly where they were. A bunch of B-17s were then sent out to "finish them off" but none of their bombs fell near the ships.

Out of nowhere a single Zero fighter showed up. He made a couple of runs on us and shot a hole in one of our fuel tanks. I was manning the single 50 cal. gun in the starboard blister. His first run was from the port side but the gunner on that side was half asleep. He then recovered on the starboard side and came in on us again. I could see his wing guns winking away as he bored in, doing his very best to kill us all. I got a good, almost no deflection shot at him and fired off four 10-round bursts. When he passed underneath I could see in the cockpit and he was slumped over the controls. He continued on down and we never saw him again. Shortly thereafter we reached the safety of some clouds. The Navy was very stingy about medals at that time so instead I got an instant promotion, from second to first class. I had only achieved second class machinist a few weeks earlier, and never drew pay in that rate.

We maintained contact with the burning fleet for four hours. I squeezed fuel consumption down to a measly 23 gals/hr/engine. However, we did not have enough left to get back to Midway and we had to ditch at sea. We were quickly picked up by a destroyer, leaving our plane adrift in the sea. The destroyer then joined the convoy that was sheparding the wounded and badly listing carrier Yorktown out of the area. However, a Japanese submarine slipped in and slipped a couple of torpedoes into the Yorktown and into a destroyer standing off nearby. The destroyer disappeared beneath the waves in about 30 seconds. The Yorktown was eventually lost as well.

We were later transferred to a fleet oiler and transported back to Pearl Harbor. A tug located our plane and towed it back into Midway, and another crew flew it to Pearl.

After Midway VP-23 regrouped and was transferred out to the South Pacific, to places with such famous names as New Caledonia, Noumea and Espiritu Santo. There we operated from two seaplane tenders, the Curtiss and the Mackinaw. We mostly did more of the uneventful 15 or so-hour patrols (we could go as long as 28 hours). We made only one of the dangerous night patrols of an enemy-held harbor, a mission like those made famous by the "Black Cats" of VP-11.

We carried bombs and sometimes torpedoes on the wings but rarely found occasion to drop them. Nobody wanted to drop torpedoes anyway. A torpedo attack consisted of a slow 65 knot (the PBY stalls at 62 knots) flat run just 50 feet above the water, right into the guns of some ship, eventually skimming right over that ship and those guns. Torpedo 8 at Midway showed how disastrous such attacks can be.

FLYING THE B-24

I left the South Pacific in November 1942, some 2-1/2 years since I reported to Pearl Harbor and to VP-23. I was given a total of 21 days leave in the states and then was shipped off to a Marine Air Station near the Salton Sea, in California (probably 29 Palms), for training in B-24s and in convoy patrol duty. That plane was known in the Navy as the PB4Y-1. Within a few months I was on such duty, stationed at Dunkeswell, in Devon, England, with VB-103. We patrolled the area around the Bay of Biscay and covered convoys traveling from Newfoundland to Scotland. I was once again a flight engineer and gunner, this time manning the top turret.

After the war Frank stayed on active duty for another 18 years, finally retiring, at March AFB, California, on January 31, 1963, as a M/Sgt. On June 1, 1997, in Glendale, Oregon, he married Milda Ruth. They have five children, Lynne, Eric (Frank), Bryan, Cheryl and Melody.

BRIEF BIO:

Hitler was ravaging Europe, I was 17 in July, and started pestering my parents to let me enlist. They said NO!, I insisted, and finally in desperation they agreed. I enlisted in the US Navy at the San Diego County Courthouse on October 7, 194l. After an accelerated Boot Camp, I was sent to radio school, then in May 1942 I was transferred to Sand Point Naval Air Station, Seattle, WA to become a member of VGS-9.

Since I did not care too much for radio and had no rank, Seaman 1st, I decided to change my career to Ordnance. That gave me the unique opportunity to fly as both a gunner and a radio operator. I was the only one so qualified in the squadron.

As more and more people were assigned to the squadron, the officers and enlisted men began to form units or teams. My team consisted of Lt(jg) Robert L. Stearns, Elton L. Myers and myself. We flew TBF-1s. Most of our days were spent practicing in familiarization flights, torpedo runs, bombing runs, depth charge runs, carrier landings, bounce drill, night landings, etc. We were waiting for our ship, the USS Bogue, CVE-9, to be finished. She was being converted from a cargo ship to an aircraft carrier in Bremerton, WA. She was finally commissioned on September 12, 1942. VGS-9 was commissioned on Aug 6,. 1942.

Our squadron consisted of 12 TBFs and approximately 12 F4Fs. Bogue left Seattle September 22, 1942. The flying members of the squadron and the aircraft made our first landings on board ship as we proceeded to San Diego for more training. All aircraft landed on board without mishap, showing that the training worked. During the daylight hours, all crews were kept busy landing and taking off as we proceeded south, sometimes three and four flights a day. This training went on constantly while the ship was underway.

Bogue arrived at Naval Air Station, San Diego after a shakedown cruise about the middle of October. The Squadron stayed at North Island while the aircrews practiced extensively at Brown Field and Border Field. One experience that I had was when we were practicing night bounce drill at Border Field. After several landings our plane caught fire. I was riding in the turret and could see the flames. Lt Stearns was watching what he was doing unaware of the fire right away. We were up fairly high but not high enough to bail out. When he did notice the fire he made an abrupt turn around, and made a very nice down wind landing. The fire trucks put out the fire and it was determined that an oil line had broken,. The next day the repairs were made and we were none the worse for wear. Training continued as usual and there were no more mishaps.

December 11th we were on the way to Panama heading for the East Coast. Training as usual. We got to Panama on the 20th. That was a new experience for most of us. We didn't have too many old timers in the squadron, four Chiefs, the Skipper and Exec were all, as I remember. Our, skipper, LCDR William Drane was a peach of a guy. Most every one called him "Pappy", with respect of course!

Most of us hung out in the ready room waiting for a call to fly in case the schedule was changed or someone was sick. The squadron clerk, Yeoman 1st class Joe Holl was very efficient and kept us all informed. I've never run across a better clerk, he was a friend of all.

I remember going up on the fo'csle and watching the flying fish during the day and sometimes at night the wake would light up the phosphorous in the water. It was a new experience for this kid from Montana.

We went through the Panama Canal on Christmas day and arrived in Norfolk, VA on December 31st. More training, always more training, but we were all young, anxious to get on with it. So far it had just been a good time. No one had been hurt, there were a few accidents, tires blowing out, hooks pulling out. The worst was yet to come.

After more training we were finally assigned to operate out of Argentia, Newfoundland. Our assigned duty was to escort convoys to Europe and to locate and attack enemy submarines. There had been heavy shipping losses and with the advent of escort carriers, it was hoped to reduce the losses.

I remember one such incident. We took a convoy across and left them just before arriving in Liverpool. Six ships were sunk that night.

On may 22, 1943, Lt. Stearns and crew members, flying in TBF-1 #47526 attacked what was to be the first of many German Submarines. I do not recall too many details now, but the ship was U-569 and she was sunk with no survivors. On June 12 flying another TBF-1, #01739, U-118 was sunk. On July 23 flying a TBF--1 #24090 we sank another, 15 survivors from this one. We swooped down low and I took some pictures, which I have. When we circled again some of the survivors clenched their hands together and others of them waved. Later, when. they were aboard our ship, we learned they were waving because the white star on our plane indicated that we were not Russian. That made them happy. Lt Stearns dropped the wheels and flaps, our airspeed was about 80 knots. With Myers holding onto my belt I attempted to drop our life aft for the men in the water. It was a 12 man raft and the slip stream jammed the raft.

The pilot was informed and he was able to cut the throttle a little more and I got out on the wing while Myers held on to my belt and I was able to get the raft loose. We were all called before Captain J.B. Dunn (the ex-heavyweight boxing champ of the Navy). He really read the riot act to us and said we had endangered all of us and could have lost our lives had the plane gone down. We were not thinking of that, only of getting the survivors as prisoners on board, which the were. That is another story I'll tell later on. Then on October 4th, in TBF-1 #24295 we sighted four submarines carrying out refueling operations.

Since they were in the superior position, we darted from cloud to cloud while the anti-aircraft fire was intense. As near as we could tell all four ships were firing. I got on the radio, Morse code, and sent the following message, "five Smith on surface" ("Smith" was code for submarine) and I repeated it. The message was garbled, it could have been my excitement, at any rate there was no help coming and we stayed in the area. Soon the refueling was over and the ships started to move and submerge. They could not fire on us and Lt Stearns picked one of the subs and we made our run, dropping our charges and sinking it. That one was U-460. All together my crew and I participated in attacking seven submarines.

I crossed the Atlantic 16 times, visited three continents, crossed the equator, served on four carriers, had two deck crashes and 201 combat missions. I was awarded the Air Medal, by Admiral A. C. Read, USN, and the Presidential Unit Citation and did not get scratched, although I lost many of my friends. My squadron was awarded four PUC's.

For the escapade with the life raft, Lt Stearns was assigned to the black gang, "engine room", for a month and he had to write a report on what he had learned. He also wrote a not too complimentary poem "The Ode to the Bogue", the last line of which said "Oh Lord, deliver me from this bucket of rust." Capt Dunn found out about it and the ice was melted. He apparently appreciated a good sense of humor.

We had three and sometimes four destroyers with us in our Task Group. The destroyer that picked up the survivors had British Officers and a Polish crew. The Polish sailors did not like the Germans for what had happened to Poland. The survivors were brought aboard, the Poles would take them to the other side of the ship and throw them back in. After a while they were discovered and their little scheme was foiled. When the prisoners were transferred to our ship the Chaplain, Lt Bell, presented each one of them with a carton of cigarettes which he purchased in the ship store.

One of the prisoners was a young man who was very sick and was confined in the sick bay, he had swallowed Diesel fuel. Anyway, his one regret was that he had lost all of the goodies he had collected for his little sister in Germany. Lt Bell got a package together and mailed it to the little sister! One of the survivors was the skipper, a Captain Lewandowski. Not many sub skippers have the rank of Captain.

A lot of information was learned from the survivors. They knew the names of each of the ships in the Task Group and the names of some of the crew. At night they would go though the trash that we dumped over the side. Needless to say we did not dump any more.

The USS Bogue and her squadrons sank more enemy submarines in the Atlantic than any other ship. I served on USS Bogue, USS Card, USS Mission Bay and USS Solomons.

On November 16, 1944 1 was assigned to Goodyear Aircraft Corporation, Akron, Ohio. I was a Navy inspector, working in different departments. Primarily I inspected the installation of the guns, gunsight, boresighting and test firing of the 50 cal. Machine guns, six for each aircraft. These aircraft were the same as an F4U Corsair built by Chance Vought. They had a 14-cylinder, R2800 Pratt and Whitney engines.

After the Atomic bombs were dropped and Japan surrendered, I was assigned to Defense Plant Corporation for the sole purpose of certifying the closing down of operations. Goodyear built fuselage assemblies for the B-29, which were shipped to another location for further assembly. The Army canceled the contract and the assemblies on line were destroyed. All of the special jigs and tooling along with thousands of hand tools were destroyed. I certified the destruction of electric quarter-inch drill motors, among others. They were put in a big box holding several dozen then crushed in a 25 ton press. We were told that if the tools were sold as surplus they could flood the market and render the economy a bad blow since manufacturers were switching from war to peace economy and they needed to sell their products

Goodyear is where the big blimp hangar is located. The airships Akron and Macon were built there. The hangar is so big it makes it's own weather. The experimental section is in the big hangar and was not affected by the ending of the war.

When Firestone Tire and Rubber went on strike, President Truman seized the Plant and all Navy inspectors from Goodyear had to go to inspect the Sherman tanks which were being outfitted with flotation devices. We also inspected 40 mm anti-aircraft guns. These were four guns on a turret mount that fired sequentially and were called Pom Poms.

I was discharged from the Navy on November 11, 1945. In December 1945 I reenlisted and was assigned to NAS San Diego. November of 1948 I got out of the Navy one day and enlisted in the USAF after a one day break.

I was in Guam when the Korean War started. Even though I was in a different career field, the Maintenance Officer, Lt Brewster, knew of my Navy ordnance experience and he asked me if I would go down on the flight line and wring out the bomb bays on the B-29s which were going to make a run over Korea and land in China. They were to be loaded with bombs for the run and there was no one who could check the bomb racks. Other people arrived and, after training, they were able to complete the job. The planes left and I heard nothing more of them. I assume all the bombs were dropped successfully.

I was promoted to M/Sgt, permanent, by General Gilkeson, Commander, 19th
Bomb Group, Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, M.I. on December 15, 1950. From there I was assigned to 15th Air Force NCO Academy as an instructor and supply sergeant.

In April 1958 I was assigned to Director of Materiel, 4083rd Air Base Group, Thule AFB, Greenland. That was a really outstanding assignment, for it was there that I asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior and I have been standing by His side ever since.

In April 1959 I was assigned to Hq. Strategic Air Command, Western Equipment and Evaluation Team (WEEAT). This is very similar to the Inspector General. I handled a portion of the Materiel Readiness Allowance List for all of the far flung 15th AF deployment bases. I participated, on two occasions, with an officer from our team in no-notice inspections, throughout the Pacific, Johnson Island, Wake Island, Guam, Okinawa , Philippines and Japan. These trips usually lasted a month and our job was to determine if the forward bases were maintaining the materiel SAC would require, in case of a deployment. We had top priority, answered only to the Commander, Strategic Air Command. Our credentials were presented only to the Commanding General of the command we were inspecting. I stayed in this job until I retired, on January 31, 1963.

At my retirement ceremony the Vice Commander of 15th Air Force presented me with the Commendation Medal. My wife and children were in attendance. I declined to have a parade in my honor.

BOB DOVE -- PB2Y-3 Coronado

BRIEF BIO:

Bob Dove was born on May 4, 1924 in a sod house (half-dugout) on the prairie in eastern Colorado, near Haswell, where his father was a farmer/coal miner. As a youngster he lived in several mining communities. In 1940 he moved to Pueblo, Colorado, where, in June 1942 he graduated from Central High School. In September of that year, in Denver, Bob joined the Navy and was immediately shipped to the San Diego Navy Recruit Training Base. He was designated an Aviation ordnance man and was sent across the harbor to North Island NAS. There he received training in gunnery and in bombardier school, including aerial gunnery in the PBY-5 Catalina.

Bob's first operational assignment, on March 5, 1943, was to VP-102, Fleet Air Wing 14, a seaplane patrol bombing squadron based at North Island, equipped with the Consolidated PB2Y-3 Coronado. His squadron soon transferred to Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii and thence to Kwajelein. For some of their missions, they operated from Eniwetok Atoll, on a small island called Parry Island, and they frequented other islands such as Makin, Majuro and Ulithi. In August 1944 they were repositioned to Saipan, operating out of a former Japanese seaplane base called Grappa. Near the end of the war Bob was assigned to VPB-4, later to VPB-100 and again to VPN-13. He was discharged November 2, 1945, at NAS Alameda, California.

After the war Bob went into law enforcement, became a detective, earned a degree at Long Beach State University and ended up the Police Captain at Half Moon Bay, California. Along the way he also earned a pilot's license with commercial and instrument ratings. On December 12, 1955 Bob married Joyce. Together they had four children; Gary, Linda, Barbara and Teresa. Since Joyce was from Roseburg they retired there.

HIS STORY:

I was born on the prairie in eastern Colorado in a "soddy". This was a half-dugout. The dirt that was dug out was used to make adobe bricks, which was then used to make the walls of the house. Timbers was used for the roof which then was planted in buffalo grass. I don't remember this house. I know I had a mid-wife deliver me. My birth date is May 4, 1924 and the place is listed as Haswell, Colorado. My father was a farmer/coal miner. His education was completion of the third grade so he was a manual laborer all his life. He died young (42) of an aortic aneurysm in 1941.

As a youngster we lived in several mining communities; Walsenburg, Ravenwood, Pictou and Crested Butte. In 1940 we moved to Pueblo, Colorado and that is where I graduated from Central High School in June 1942 Looking back on it I guess we were some of the poorest of the poor. The depression hit my father real hard as he had no skills to make a living. I had an older brother, Ray, who quit school in the 10th grade to go to work in the coal mines and help make a living for the family. Ray got married in 1940, so my mother and I were the support of the family. ( I have a younger sister). I went to school and then worked in local theaters as Usher and Ticket Taker and brought the money home to help out.

My mother remarried in early 1941, I know, in order to let me free to make my own choices about what I wanted to do. I promptly joined the Navy in the middle of July but I wasn't called for processing until the 23 of September in Denver.

When I formally enlisted in the Navy on Sept 24, 1942 I was asked which recruit training depot I would like to go to, either Chicago or San Diego. Naturally, I chose the latter, so I went to Denver to be sworn in then traveled with a number of other recruits to the San Diego Navy Recruit Training base. The rail journey was miserable, took four days in crowded conditions and only boxed lunches for every meal.

Such was the need for manpower at the time that the normal three month boot camp was reduced to just three weeks training. We were given aptitude tests which were matched with our choices for the type of training we should receive. I requested and was accepted as an Aviation ordnance man and sent across the harbor to North Island NAS for training on October 29, 1942.

Initially, I attended classes on guns, bombs, ammunition and explosives used by the military. An important part of this training was a course on aircraft and ship recognition. This was followed by aerial gunnery training in PBY-5 Catalina flying boats and PBY-5A amphibians. Coincidental with this, I trained at a bombardier school which was located in one of the two large curved-roof hangars still to be seen at North Island. Here was used a ground trainer which was a rig which moved along a track suspended some twelve feet over miniature scenery. Equipped with a Norden bomb sight, we could practice our bombing techniques. The cage could be set to represent a specific altitude and scale speed. When we released the "bomb" a plumb weight dropped and shut down the system so we could assess how accurate we had been.

Later, we fired our guns over the Salton Sea from the PBY-5s. During one gunnery training flight, I almost killed our pilot! I was in the exposed bow gun position in the 130 mph slipstream. As I fired the twin 30 caliber guns, the ejected cartridge cases accumulated at my feet. As I tracked the target, I slipped on these cases, lost my balance and swung around, ending up staring at a very startled pilot in my cross-hairs. Fortunately, I had taken my finger of the trigger.

We were introduced to the PB2Y-3 Coronado for actual bombing training, mostly over the Salton Sea. On some training flights, I would also fire the twin 50s in the nose turret above my bombardier's position in the lower nose. Most of this gunnery was against either an aircraft-towed sleeve or a ship-towed target for low-level strafing practice.

On completion of this course, I graduated as an air-gunner/bombardier with the rank of Aviation Ordnance man 3rd Class (AOM3c). This equated to a Petty Officer, so a combination of my base pay, rating and flight pay gave me a monthly salary of around $ 200, a fortune in those days to a young man. Later, I was promoted to AOM2c. During this training, I had accumulated 87 hours in the air.

My first operational assignment, on March 5, 1943, was to VP-102, Fleet Air Wing 14, a seaplane patrol bombing squadron based at North Island also equipped with the Consolidated PB2Y-3 Coronado. This was a four-engined flying boat which carried a crew of eleven men, pilot, co-pilot, pilot-navigator, two radio men, two aviation mechanics, two ordnance men including the bombardier who doubled as the bow gunner...my assignment. and two other gunners.

The Coronado was a large aircraft with a wing span of 115 feet. Its maximum take-off weight of 68,000 lbs. The main wing tanks carried 2,900 gallons but, augmented by two 500 gallon auxiliary tanks carried adjacent to the galley, it had a range of well over 3,000 miles. It was powered by four Pratt & Whitney R1830-88 engines, each developing 1,200 hp. A total of 252 were built, though some 33 were used by foreign nations. The picture below is of our crew. I am second from the right in the front row.

After a period of working up to opera-tional standard, we left San Diego in October, 1943 and flew to Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. As our aircraft cruised at only 140 mph, it took us fourteen hours. The aircraft was fitted with eight bunks, so were able to spend most of the flight horizontal. Equally, its climb capa-bilities were minimal. On a test flight, it once took us seven hours to climb to 21,000 feet, which we only achieved as fuel was burned off. As a result, we never had a need to wear the heavy flight suits worn by bomber crews.

We spent several months continuing our training and carrying out anti-submarine patrols around Hawaii. In our off-duty hours, we would go into Honolulu and cruise the bars. Most had a three drink limit, always rum and Coke, hence the bar-hopping.

Eventually, the War beckoned and we departed Kaneohe Bay on February 8, 1944 to island hop our way to Kwajelein via Johnson Island and Tarawa. We arrived there on February 12 and began regular operational sweeps the following day, most missions lasting over eleven hours.

Our arrival at Kwajelein was a shock to me, an 18-year old. Burial details were still recovering bodies of Americans killed in the recent assault and laying them in rows. The Japanese were left where they lay. Just off the beach, a couple of bulldozers were creating large pits to accommodate the Japanese bodies. Later, when operating from Saipan, we were to see many of these mass graves for the Japanese.

For some of our missions, we were detached to operate from Eniwetok Atoll where we were based on a small island called Parry Island. Usually, we were operating from a seaplane tender, either the USS Kittyhawk or USS Curtiss, where we ate and slept. However, from time to time, we lived aboard our own aircraft. At all times the aircraft were at moorings, at least one pilot and an aviation mechanic would remain on board. We visited several other of the islands such as Makin, Majuro and Ulithi during the course of this tour.

One of the side benefits of being based at Parry Island was that it was used as a "Party" base for warships. Because US Navy combat ships were dry, they would come to the island and bring ashore LST loads of booze from the supply ships. We would trade Japanese mortar shell cases for beer or money. We would empty the powder from the cases, polish them up and, with the Japanese writing on them, they would go for $15 each!

On a normal combat patrol we would take off usually an hour or two before dawn. The plane had been preflighted the day before so all we had to do usually was make a quick double check, start the APU (auxiliary power unit) run up the engines, check magnetos, cylinder pressures etc. and then all personnel would certify to the pilot that all was "ok" and we would then proceed to take off. I never really knew where we were. The Navigator (usually the junior pilot) had the courses all plotted out and, since it almost always over nothing but water, it got kind of boring. The top turret and the tail turret was always manned during the patrol. We usually took turns in manning these two positions. The plane Captain (senior Aviation Mechanic) was in overall charge of the enlisted men and made out the rosters of duties.

That's me in the adjacent picture. I'm sitting on the stairs to the flight deck. Behind me is the cockpit and at my feet are sleeping quarters for up to four people (officers' country).

We had a complete galley with an electric range and almost always had some of the best steaks available to eat. A coffee pot was always on and one of our prime duties was to see to it that the pilots' coffee cups were always full and hot. One of our pilots, an Ensign Plunk, was a real nice guy from Texas. Apparently he was from a wealthy family because he was a complete klutz when he tried to do something for himself. I watched him one day try to get himself a cup of coffee. He poured the coffee O.K. but then tried to put milk in. The can of milk had not been opened and he kept shaking it with no results. He finally set the can down on top of the stove, took a large kitchen knife and tried to stab it. The knife bent and the can went flying, but didn't puncture. I went out to him and showed him the can opener we used and how to use it. He told me that he didn't realize how much he didn't know until he joined the Navy. He had always had servants and just never had to do any of these things for himself. He was always into everything; he always wanted to help me clean the machine guns and didn't mind getting oil and grease all over him. A real nice guy-- I've always wished him well.

On most flights, the crew members that were not on duty usually slept on one of the bunks (the forward bunks were considered Officer's Country) or read. We had a small library ashore and aboard the seaplane tender and I loved to read so that is what I usually did. The watches in the turrets usually were two hours until relieved. Two hours was a long time to try to keep alert when you are looking mainly at water.

Some times while flying at night, we would see the red glow of under water volcanoes and once in the Sea of Japan we spotted a large school of Giant Manta Rays. They were really huge; we estimated their spans to be around 30-35 feet. On one patrol, we spotted a Japanese patrol plane about three miles behind us.. The pilots discussed whether we should reverse our direction and try to engage or continue on back to base. They decided to continue on back to base (apparently fuel was one of the factors in the decision) We finally lost sight of the plane in the distance.

To our delight, we returned to Kaneohe Bay on March 15, 1944 and continued patrolling out of there. We also continued flight training including bombing and gunnery exercises. But our respite was short-lived and we returned to the combat zone, arriving at Eniwetok on June 23, 1944 and commenced operational flying two days later.

At the end of August, we were repositioned to Saipan and restarted our regular patrol routine. Our base here was a former Japanese seaplane base called Garapan. We had Marines guarding the base perimeter as Japanese survivors carried out several suicide raids at night to try and penetrate our defenses. Fortunately, they never got into the camp area.

Here, we lived aboard the USS Kittyhawk; we only used the camp accommodation when we had to beach our aircraft for overhaul such as cleaning the marine growth off the hull and repainting it. A typical rotation would be as follows:- We would fly a mission on day one, spend the second day preparing our aircraft for the next flight and relaxing on the third day, mostly spent fishing or snorkeling. The squadron had fifteen aircraft on roster, so five aircraft would be out each day, each flying a triang-ular search segment which averaged about eight or nine hours flying time. There we are in the adjacent picture, skinny-dipping off the port pontoon. I'm the naked one sitting down.

Although were assigned our own aircraft and flew most of our missions in it, occasionally we would operate other aircraft. Our crew named our home from home "Hotel Airdale" with appropriate nose art. "Airdale" is the sailor's pet name for a naval aviator.

One day, I didn't have guard duty that night so I was aboard ship. Hearing gunfire from the direction our planes were anchored. I went on deck and saw that two aircraft had started engines and someone in their top turrets were firing at each other! One of the planes was mine! Several Japanese had swum out to the planes from shore during the night. The first aircraft they came to, (not mine) they opened the side hatch, threw in a grenade and boarded it. The two guards who were sleeping on the wing promptly jumped off and swam to my plane. My radioman notified the ship of what was happening.

The Japanese managed to get two of the engines started but were under fire from the top turret of my plane which was moored nearby. However, they were unable to slip the moorings before a third aircraft managed to get airborne and machine-gunned their plane. Shortly after, it sank but I'm not sure whether the gunfire was responsible or the Japs had managed to scuttle it by some means. I watched boats retrieve some of the bodies but couldn't tell if any had survived. The whole incident lasted about 45 minutes. Needless to say, there were some very embarrassed crewmen facing an inquiry.

From Saipan, we patrolled the Caroline island chain at about 8,000 feet to give us a wide viewing area. The primary mission, called a "Dumbo" patrol, was to search for downed B-29 crews who were then bombing Japan; we were to land on the sea and retrieve them. Coming back to Saipan from these patrols, we would swing by Ponape Island and bomb the Japanese air strip there to prevent any aircraft from taking off.

The first time we did this, I forgot to uncage the gyros, so had a hard time lining the aircraft up on the bomb run. Our skipper wanted a photo of the bomb bursts and had someone open a photo hatch at the rear of the aircraft to takes pictures. He held the plane straight and level to get he bomb fall long after I'd called "bombs away". This resulted in us being hit by flak as we gave the gunners an easy target. Eventually, by screaming at him, I persuaded him to turn sharply away from the run. When I got back to my seat in the turret, I found that some shrapnel had hit the seat. That was my most scary moment!

We usually carried four 350 lb bombs, though we could carry eight, carried in bays in the wings, two in board of the engines and two between the engines on each side. These could be used as either depth charges or bombs. By selecting one of two switches, I could decide which method of fusing was to be used. If it was as a bomb, then the setting would allow the small propeller in its nose to spin, thus activating the fuse to explode on impact. If a depth charge attack on a submerged submarine was intended, the setting would lock the impact fuse thus allowing a pressure fuse to activate once the depth charge had reached a pre-selected depth, usually 50 feet. It could be set for as deep as 300 feet.

On a typical bombing run, I would crank open two small doors in the lower part of the bow which would expose a window over which the famous Norden bombsight was mounted. As we approached the intended target, I would turn the sight on and through a variety of small wheels on it, I could move the aircraft left or right to align the target in the cross hairs. The sight was connected to the autopilot system. Prior to this, the pilot would have to stabilize the aircraft's airspeed and altitude so that I could set these numbers into the sight. The autopilot corrected any drift variation.

As the war progressed, the Japanese shipping of any size became very scarce. They tended to use small ships, well camouflaged, which would sail only at night and spend the day anchored in small bays along the coastline. We made several attacks on this type of target (See photo). Usually, if we did see a surfaced submarine, by the time we had reached the area, it had submerged so we were unable to make an attack. However, we did make a couple of attacks and, on one occasion, were treated to the sight of an oil slick. We were never sure if we had destroyed it as a typical ploy was for a submarine to discharge some oil and small debris through its torpedo tubes to represent a fatal hit. One of our squadron bombardiers invented a low-level bomb sight for attacking submarines from 500 feet, but we never had the opportunity to use it in anger; we were just too slow.

We returned to Kaneohe Bay on November 29, 1944 by which time I had accumulated over 1200 hours flying. I managed to get Christmas leave back home then was reassigned to my same squadron. However, on October 1, 1944, our squadron had been re-designated VPB-4. We recommenced flying early in February, 1945, though at a much reduced rate and much shorter trips. These were mostly training flights for new pilots, though occasionally, our old skipper, Lt. Myers would be in command. In August, we had a period of low-altitude bombing training for anti-submarine warfare.

Though the war was almost over, we continued to train and, on July 21, 1945 I was transferred to VPB-100 only to change desig-nation yet again to VPB-13 on August 28, just after we had set off for a six day transit across the Pacific again, this time to Okinawa. From here, I flew just four long patrol missions, each over 10 hours, over the China Sea, the China coast, the Yellow Sea and the coast of Japan (see logbook, right).

Happily, I had accumulated enough points ( Forty-six )for early discharge, so at the beginning of October, I was transferred to Cavite in the Philippines to await transportation by ship to Honolulu. From here, I made the voyage back to San Francisco on one of our seaplane tenders. On arrival, I went to NAS Alameda for discharge on November 2, 1945.

Returning to "civilian street", I eventually went into law enforcement, became a detective and earned a degree at Long Beach State University in California. While I was doing this, I also got my pilot's license, adding a commercial license and instrument endorsement at Salinas, CA. when I became the Police Captain at Half Moon Bay, CA. My wife came from Roseburg, so on retirement we moved there.

RALPH LAWRENCE WILEY - TBM

In the spring of 1945 someone must have been watching over me. I was in Operations Training at Opalocke Field, near Miami, Florida, as an ordnanceman / turret gunner in TBMs, when I had a small problem with the decompression chamber. That was part of gunnery training since we were likely to fly at oxygen-requiring altitudes from time to time. Just at that time that my squadron left to go overseas, to Japan, and I didn't go. To get me back into the pipeline I was sent to Grosse Ille, Michigan, for a couple weeks of radar refresher training. While there I got married and the war ended. (I didn't plan it, I swear!)

I had joined the Navy in 1944, just a couple of weeks out of high school. I was first sent to Jacksonville, Florida, for boot camp. There we were billeted in a huge hotel. The owner had pretty much completed the outside but then went broke. It was just a big empty barn inside. After boot camp I was sent to Memphis, Tennessee, to ordnance school. There we learned to disassemble and reassemble 30-, 50-caliber and 20-millimeter machine guns, and to load bombs on planes. It was after that that I was sent to Opalocke for Operational Training.

At Opalocke we had several kinds of gunnery training. One was simply to shoot 50-cal machine guns from a stationary bunker at a target. This was just to give us the feel of firing the guns and of carefully aiming at and hitting a target. Another was very much like skeet shooting, using a shotgun and the plastic skeet targets. Supposedly this taught us (over and over again) that you had to lead moving targets to hit them.

They also had a number of SNBs, modified with a plexiglass nose containing a mounted 50-cal gun. The SNB was a twin-engine Beechcraft tail-dragger with two pilots seats. It was usually flown by just one pilot, and each gunnery group had a pilot assigned. Our special nose position was forward of and below the pilot seats and could be accessed in flight through a passageway between the pilot seats. We flew quite a bit out over the Atlantic and across Florida out over the Gulf, shooting at military targets anchored in the water. This as our training in air-to-ground strafing.

We also had some trucks with 20-foot towers on the back. In the tower was a simulated gun turret. We would sit in the tower-turret and fire at targets towed past by a plane. The target was a banner about 3 by 30 feet, towed about 100 feet behind the plane. The tips of our bullets were colored so (if and) when our rounds went through the target they left smudges of color. This was the closest we got to real air-to-air gunnery. We were moving, the target was moving and the angle of fire and the necessary lead were constantly changing. It gave us practice tracking a moving target, adjusting and holding lead, and firing in bursts, at the right times.

After all that training my gunnery group went overseas, to join in the assault on the Japanese homeland, and I went to Grosse Ille radar school, to a new wife and to the end of the war.

Of course, the end of the war did not immediately return us to civilian life. I was assigned to VT-150 flying TBMs at Quonsett Point, Rhode Island. There we did get to fly and I got familiar with the TBM top turret. It consisted of a light metal seat attached to the turret, and the turret was power operated. You faced backwards with the guns (two 50-cal) in both hands. A button under your left thumb rotated the turret (and you) right and left, you could elevate the guns up and down, and you fired with a trigger in your right hand. The art was to judiciously combine operations in these four dimensions, three of space and one of time. We managed a two-week tour aboard the USS Lake Champlaign, then we flew the TBMs down to Norfolk and decommissioned VT-150.

I was then sent to Westly, Rhode Island, to Carrier Air Service Unit (CASU)-28 and then to East Greenwich, Connecticut to VT-97. At East Greenwich I had an apartment just outside the gate, a new wife, and almost no duty responsibilities. Normally I would report for duty at 0800, secure at 0815, and be done for the day. One (1) day I had to stay over an hour or so to load a full set of miniature bombs on a TBM. These were cast iron bombs for target practice. They were about six-inches long, had fins on the back, and were loaded with a shotgun shell. When they landed the shell went off and provided a puff of smoke that could easily be seen from the air.

The powers that be finally concluded that I no longer had a useful purpose in the Navy, and I was discharged.