Mission #2   TODO   TODO

was right behind us in the formation (we flew in position No. 8) brought down one of those Oscars.

Those little Jap devils did something that wasn't too nice. The fighters would perch up over us out of machine gun range and drop white phosphorous bombs on us. The ones I saw were dropping about 500 yards to the left and front of us. They look beautiful as they explode but I don't think they'd be too pretty if they hit us. They would probably burn a nice hole in the wing.

The flak also wasn't too accurate. It was mostly below the formation. However, it just takes one hit. It was a funny feeling being on the other end of the anti-aircraft fire.

After leaving the target we flew directly over the island of Kyushu, over Shimabara Kaiwan and over Kumamoto and Kagoshima. One of the other ships failed to drop their bombs and dropped them on Kagoshima. Over Kagoshima we saw more fighters and phosphorous bombs. Our bomb load on the mission was 8- 500 lb. General purpose and 7- 500 lb. delayed action demolition.

We left the Jap coast at 31-15N 131-10E at 0035Z and headed for Iwo Jima. I shot sun lines and read drift and did DR. Also got a few Lozan fixes. As one of our bomb bay tanks was salvoed with the bombs we were getting pretty low on gas so, although we probably could have made it back to the base, we decided to land on Iwo for more gas. We arrived there at 0320Z and began let down. Saw some crew men who had parachuted out of a B-29 and circled them until a PBY came out to pick them up. We were cut in on twice in the traffic pattern and had to make a go-round once. That was tough. When the flaps went up we just couldn't get any air speed. Made it O.K. and finally landed at 0445Z. The run was plenty rough and we took quite a bouncing on landing.

Iwo Jima is quite a desolate spot. We didn't see even one tree on the island. And there's a lot of volcanic dust. A person can really get dirty there. We were only there about three hours and were plenty glad to get off.

Soon after we landed there a P-51 came in for a landing and got caught in the prop wash of another ship. He nosed over and cracked up. The pilot walked away. He was sure lucky. It's a wonder they don't have more accidents there. P-51s, TBFs, Black Widows and a lot of other kinds of planes buzzing the run-way at all times.

Well, we got our gas and left Iwo at 0727Z. Went down and turned at 1020Z South of Pagan (17-25N 145-35E). Followed the island chain down to Guam. Arrived there at 1133Z and landed at 1145Z. Interrogation, chow and bed. Flew for 17:57 and covered about 3500 N.M.

Flight crew: AC- Johnson, P- Knuth, N- Turnock, B- Blythe, K- Kokenge, E- Watts, RO- Vincent, CFC- Helton, LG- Sparks, RG- Snyder, TG- Sparling