Memoirs of a B-29 Pilot

This memoir is of the author’s wartime experiences leading up to and as a B-29 Superfortress Aircraft Commander.. He was engaged in the Air Offensive--Japan from the Marianas Islands in the South Pacific. He looks back at those experiences from the professional view of a retired airline captain, having flown over 35 years of service with Trans World Airlines.

After graduation as a pilot cadet, he became a bomb approach pilot at a bombardier training base for one year. Then, rated as a B-17 Flying Fortress 1st Pilot, he spent six months duty as a B-17 instructor pilot at an airbase training new B-17 crews as replacements for the 8th Air Force in England. Many months of training to be a B-29 Aircraft Commander followed.

He arrived at newly constructed Northwest Field, Guam, in early June 1945. 125 factory-new B-29B Superfortresses made up the new 315th Very Heavy Bomb Wing. He and his crew flew 13 missions before the end of the war, all against oil targets.

• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Why the B-29 Was Built
• Deming, New Mexico
• The China B-29s
• Hobbs, New Mexico
• Sioux City, Iowa
• Formation Flying
• Harvard, Nebraska
• My First Look at a B-29
• Meeting My Crew
• The Solo Flight With My Crew
• The 315th Bomb Wing Readies for Guam
• The “Chicago Queen” Leaves for Guam
• Northwest Field, Guam
• Air Combat Begins
• The Special Mission of the 315th Bomb Wing
• Status of the Air War in June 1945
• Mission Planning and Getting Ready
• Maximum Gross Weight Take-offs
• A Typical Bomb Run
• My First Mission, Kudamatsu, A Near Disaster
• The 509th Composite Group and the Atomic Bomb
• The Blockade of Japan
• The Fire Bombing of Japanese Cities
• The 7th Fighter Command
• Air and Sea Rescue in the Pacific Combat Theaters
• More About Iwo Jima and Okinawa
• The Planned Invasion of Japan
• The Kamikaze
• Japan’s Preparation for an American Landing on Kyushu
• More Combat Missions
• The Last Mission of World War II
• August 15, 1945
• MacArthur is Appalled
• Flight to the Philippines for Prisoner of War Supplies
• My Prisoner of War Drop
• A Legal Buzz Job of Japan
• My Flight to Bolling Field, Washington, D.C., and Discharge
• Post War
• Addendum
• Testimony
• B-29 Ditchings at Iwo Jima
• About the Author

• First Edition (April 2008)
• Paperback: ISBN 978-1-4357-1508-0 — $19.95
  • Perfect bound, full-color wrap-around cover
• Hardcover: ISBN 978-1-4357-1509-7 — $34.95
  • Blue linen cover with title stamped in gold on spine, full-color dust jacket
• PDF file on CD disc
  • Complete copy of the book including the cover images in a single PDF file — $6.95
• 228 6 × 9 inch pages 
• 1 color photo
• 26 B&W photos
• 10 documents
• 1 map