Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [93]
Whatever the assets, a successful rescue effort involved equal commitment between men determined to live and other men—usually strangers—determined to save them. That was proven on June 26 when B-29s attacked the Nagoya Arsenal. The only loss over the city was to flak, erratically described as “heavy, meager to moderate, inaccurate to accurate.”
Leading the mission was the 39th Group’s commander, thirty-nine-year-old Colonel George W. Mundy. A West Point classmate of Rosie O’Donnell, he had graduated in the same pilot class as Curt LeMay. Like most airmen of that vintage, Mundy rose fast. At the time of Pearl Harbor he was a major but he pinned on his eagles the next year and took over the group in March 1945.
The Nagoya mission was Mundy’s fifteenth. He flew with Major John Miranda’s crew in the daytime strike, bombing at 24,000 feet. City of Galveston took two crippling hits from 120mm flak that shot off six to eight feet of the right wing, jammed the bomb bay doors open, and damaged two engines. With no chance of making base, the pilots got the crippled bomber headed out to sea.
Meanwhile, radio problems prevented City of Galveston from transmitting normally so another B-29, Lord’s Prayer, acted as radio relay, contacting the lifeguard submarine. The escorting bomber was flown by First Lieutenant Robert L. Spaulding, at twenty-three probably the youngest aircraft commander in the group. Miranda called, “Bob, get me to a sub.” Spaulding’s navigator, Lieutenant Edward S. Edmundson, immediately went to work, calculating that the City needed to turn from its southerly course to due west.
Precise navigation was crucial, as the stricken bomber could not maintain altitude, and an error in the course to the sub would put the crew in the water short of safety.
Nevertheless, Edmundson hit the position spot-on, with only 2,000 feet altitude to spare. There, eight miles offshore, Mundy and Miranda held the faltering bomber wings-level while the crew bailed out near the submarine Pintado. The pilots jumped seconds before the plane dropped into a spin.
Aboard Pintado, an officer recorded the scene. “We came in sight of a burning aircraft, plunging helpless into the sea. As we looked up into the sky, following the burning smoke screen, twelve men were merrily gliding down towards the sea. . . . The two sister airplanes that were giving us air cover dipped their wings in a ‘well-done boys’ and disappeared, homeward bound.”
Miranda and Mundy got out at nearly the last moment—about 800 feet. But in forty minutes the submarine scooped up the dozen Army men, who enjoyed a mixed reception. The sailors quickly “commandeered” everything resembling a souvenir, from sunglasses to pistols, but the airmen did not object overmuch. As Mundy observed, “You don’t come out with a thing except your life.”
Later Miranda’s crew expressed its gratitude by christening a new B-29 USS Pintado. It was probably the only time an airplane was named for a submarine.
Bomber crews represented nearly a dozen lives, but extraordinary efforts were made to save one American from the Japanese or from the sea, and no better example exists than Captain Edward Mikes. On August 3, as the 506th Fighter Group strafed near Atsugi, Mikes’s Mustang took a lethal hit in the engine. The Merlin ran long enough to get him to the bay, where he bailed out. Once in the water he lit a flare to mark his position four miles offshore.
Capping the “splash,” another P-51 pilot called Jukebox 70, the B-17 rescue aircraft standing by with a droppable boat. But the Japanese also were interested. A picket boat that ventured from Misaki was promptly sunk by Mikes’s guardians, but enemy aircraft were reported inbound.
Meanwhile, Jukebox arrived, flown by Second Lieutenant Burt Klatt with an eight-man crew. On the first pass over Mikes the twenty-seven-foot boat refused to drop so Klatt banked around for another try. Finally the boat fell free on the third pass—just as bandits were reported