My Life in the Sky

            We were late taking off, so when we arrived over the target, the air was already full of anti-aircraft fire. The Japanese battleships were lined up in the harbor. Their gunners were shooting off anti-aircraft fire and boy, those guys were good. They knew just how high to time their explosions. They had already lined up on the flight by the time we got to the harbor, and it looked like the whole sky was exploding as the pilot took us in.

            Our target was the docks of Singapore harbor. The Japanese had taken the island from the British near the start of World War II, and now they were using the base to repair the Imperial Fleet ships. They not only had ships firing at us, but they were also using land-based guns to try to knock us out of the sky.

            Man, we were scared. But we had our mission; we had our training, so we didn’t turn back. We made it through the flak, dropped our bombs, and turned around. That’s when they zeroed in on us. It sounded like the plane was tearing apart as pieces of flak sliced through the metal fuselage. The flak made a scary whanging sound, like metal was being torn or crushed, as it battered the plane. Suddenly the radioman screamed. I looked up, and all I could see was a sheet of blood where his face was.

            I was riding along on a flight of B-29s, the ship I had been trained on. The B-29 was the most modern bomber in the world, and it was supposed to be the safest. But that only held true when we were high up, at about 28,000 feet. However, we had orders to take the planes down low enough to hit what we were aiming at. That put us just low enough for the Japanese gunners to do the same.

            “Help him out,” hollered another crewman, as the radioman screamed and fell back in his seat. The noise of the plane’s engines and the flak made it seem as if we were in some giant factory, with huge hammers banging on the plane. With the mission accomplished, the pilot took over from the bombardier and began shifting and jinking the plane to avoid the bursts of flak. But each time he did so, the radioman screamed again.

            His head had been sliced open by a piece of shrapnel. He had lost an eye and he couldn’t see. I bandaged him and took care of him as best I could. I pulled him close and reached for the morphine styrettes we all carried. But I remembered that we weren''t supposed to use the drug for a head wound.

            All I could do was hold on to him, muttering softly that he’d be all right even as I prayed to make it back alive.

            But, as we cleared the harbor, another danger loomed. We had lost two engines; making us slow, fat sitting ducks for any Japanese fighter plane looking for a sure kill. We had been trained to fly in formation, so that we could use our guns to help one another. A lone B-29 was vulnerable.

            The B-29 was fast enough and flew high enough to escape most fighters. But with only two out of four engines, we didn’t have a chance.