W45AUTH\UW93P-WU.DOC

Bill Underwoods Crew # 74 at M-49, “City of Milwaukee”, Missions #10-28 {9-27??}

Underwood, Dimock, Cadine, Wolfe, Kuhns, Lucas, Lewis, Lindholm

Tarsi, McCaffery

93d Sqd, 19th BG, 314th Wing, 20th AF, North Field Guam

				1994 address
S1	AC	Lt	William “Bill” S. Underwood	Tucson AZ
S5	Pilot		Robert E. Kuhns	Milwaukee WN
S2	Nav		Robert R. Dimock	Salem OR
S4	Bombardier		Frederick L. Wolfe Jr.	Los Angeles CA
S3	Radar Oper		Godfrev “Joe” J. Cardine	Cheyenne WY
	Flight Eng	*	Irving M. Levin	Hobe Sound FL
K2	Flt Eng	**	Leonard T. McCaffery	unknown
K1	Radio		Armando “Ray” J. Tarsi	Danbury CN
S9	CFC Gunner		Carl F. ( Fred ) Kekko	Hancock MI
S8	R Gunner		Robert D. Lindholm	Jamestown NY
S6	L Gunner		Edaar “Ed” M. Lucas	Denver CO
S7	Tail Gunner		George T. Lewis Jr.	Zephyr Hills. FL

* Missions 1-8 ** Missions 9-27 ????

Ltr 06-13-94 Darrell: .... The crew have held eleven reunions, every 1 to 3 years, beginning in 1965. Each crew member has had all the others and their families at his home, usually 3 or 4 days of tall story telling. The latest, hosted by the tail gunner, in April of this year. We’re all still kicking. Only the Co-Pilot no longer can travel.

The crew went through 3 airplanes. Missions 1-8 in the one crashed on Iwo, which was “surveyed”, wings removed and fuselage returned to Guam on it’s landing gear and used as gunnery trainer in a field behind officers quarters. I tell those who will listen that I was billed $1,240,000 for one each B-29. ....

Back left to right: Joe Cardine, RO; Fred Wolfe, B; Bill Underwood, AC; Bob Dimock, N; Ken Cannon, (Grp Bombardier on this mission only); Bob Kuhns, P

Front left to right: George Lewis, TG; Fred Kekkd, CFC; Irv Levin, FE; Bob Lindholm, RG; Ed Lucas, LG; Ray Tarsi, R

M-49 Ground Crew

William “Bill” Underwood tells of B-29 Operations and Missions

(extracted from newspaper clipping)

Bill Underwood, of the 93rd Sqd, 19th BG, 314th Wing 20th AF Guam WW II, told of the B-29 and how it compared with the B-17 and B-24:

#1. It had fore and aft pressurized compartments connected by a tunnel over the bomb-bays that a man could crawl thru. Cabin pressure was maintained at 8000 feet to provide a "shirt-sleeve" environment. Air was supplied by turbo-superchargers on each of the engines.

#2. The flight engineer has his own position facing aft with a large panel of instruments. He had exclusive control of all engine and fuel operations. His control of fuel consumption became a science of maximum efficiency and conservation.

#3. An APQ-13 radar in a fiber glass dome which extended below the fuselage between the bomb bays. It has a range from 10 to over 150 miles. It came in handy in bad weather and night flying as an aid to navigation and was helpful to the bombardier against areas targets in those conditions.

#4. A unique gunnery system that was different from B-17s and B-24s with gunners firing from open windows or manned turrets. B-29 gunners sat in blisters and aimed remote turrets by means of computer operated sighting. A central fire control gunner could allocate turrets electrically to the gunner who faced the greatest threat.

Underwood also described the environment the B-29 operated in and compared it to the better known European area of England and Italy into the continent.

At first the B-29s had to use India as home base and stage forward 1500 miles into bare bases constructed by coolies in China and then another 1500 miles to Japanese targets. The bombers had to fly the fuel they required for the missions on to Japan into the China bases. It took up to 7 trips to accumulate enough fuel to fly one bombing mission. Conditions enroute and over the target area drastically reduced the bombers' effectiveness.

When the Mariannas Islands became available the entire India force was moved to Tinian. Facilities were better but Japan was 1500 miles away and daylight formation raids under the generally severe conditions required extra fuel which reduced bombload such that results still were not commensurate with the effort expended.

This, said Underwood - 21 years old from Nogales, AZ - is where he entered the picture.

On graduating from flying school, Bill's first assignment was to the 444th Bomb Group, a B-24 unit in training and slated to convert to B-29s and eventually end up in India. As the unit prepared to leave, he was chosen to remain at Davis Montham AB, Tuscon, AZ, as a 3d-phase B-24 crew training instructor and probably could have remained there for the rest of the war but one day a B-29 landed there for maintenance and Underwood liked it so much he volunteered and was quickly accepted.

Bill went to B-29 training at Alamogordo, NM, and Great Bend, KS, where he picked up a crew and was assigned to the 19th Bomb Group - the unit that was in the Philippines when the war started. Colin Kelly and Shorty Wheless, recently of Tubac, were members of the 19th BG. It was the B-17 outfit which moved MacArthur's staff to Australia as the Japanese took the islands. The 19th had been returned to the states for re-equipping with B-29s. Training in the states, included trips to Puerto Rico and Cuba, which stressed long range navigation, high altitude, and daylight formation bombing.

The 19th BG's B-29s moved individually to Guam by way of Sacramento, Hawaii and Kwajalein where training began in earnest, including practice daylight formation raids against Truk, the large Japanese naval base south of Guam. March 9 was the date of the groups' 1st incendiary mission against Japan. When the crews attended the briefings for this mission they knew something was going to be different. (In order to achieve better results it had been determined that night, low-altitude incendiary missions requiring less fuel - thus more bomb load.) Sure enough that's what was briefed.

Arriving over Iwo Jima as darkness fell, the bombers took up a course towards Tokyo. Winds drifted Underwood's craft near Chichi Jima where Japanese ack-ack forced him to take abrupt evasive action. They were in the process of transferring fuel from the bomb bay tank to the wing tanks at the time. There was no apparent damage so they continued towards their target.

Just after dropping their bombs, the no. 2 engine quit. As they set up for 3-engine flight, the no. 3 engine also shut down. In order to maintain altitude and flying speed, everything not needed and not tied down was thrown overboard including five 500-pound bombs which had hung up. The bombardier had to enter the bomb bay to release one at a time. After 4 hours of flying at just above stall speed, at night and in the soup, the aircraft broke out of the clouds, the radar operator picked up Iwo on his scope and P-61 night fighter pulled up alongside and escorted them to Iwo.

Of the 3 airfields on Iwo only one, a small fighter strip, had been taken by the U.S. Marines. Underwood managed to land on it and learned that the Japanese lines were about 300 yards from the end of the runway. On being refueled it was discovered that a fuel transfer pump had failed -- more than likely as a result of the violent maneuvers over Chichi Jima. This permitted gas to be siphoned back into the bombbay tank and then overboard. The two engines had simply run out of gas over Tokyo. Refueled, the bomber took off for Guam, receiving several small arms hits, but no one was injured.

Underwood recounted a humorous incident involving a huge boiling cloud of smoke over target Osaka. In order to get their bombs on target, they had to penetrate the cloud and encountered very severe turbulence - resulting in loss of interphone communications. The dangling co-pilot forgot to fasten his safety belt. The navigator sat quietly waiting to die after discovering his part of the cabin covered with blood! Actually it was tomato juice from a can he had been partaking of. On return to base they found partially burned Japanese newspapers in the engine air intakes.

On Friday the 13th of April the crew flew their 8th mission, it was Tokyo again -- night at low level. As they were in the final phase of their bomb run, flak stopped, though they were picked up by searchlights -- a night fighter got off a burst from behind and below! One explosive round detonated just below the bombardiers seat causing a severe ankle injury. Another blew out the bottom of the left outboard wing tank causing the gas to spew out. It caught fire. It seemed like the whole sky lit up. The left gunner shot through the fire at the fighter which had come alongside to watch his handiwork. He blew up. When all the gas drained out the fire went out and the crew again headed for Iwo.

On arriving they discovered Iwo was socked in. Not having enough fuel to go on to Guam and not wanting to bail out with a wounded man aboard, Underwood elected to try a new landing system -- GCA [Ground Controlled Approach]. The landing was long, brakes didn't work, airplane went off the end of the runway into deep sand ending up with the tail partially over a 50 foot cliff. All got out okay. They were told the plane hit a truck, injuring the driver.

Back on Guam, the Flight Surgeon determined that they had had enough so the crew was sent to Hawaii for 10 days' rest leave.

Crew 74’s Missions Log

20th AF Mission	Crew’s Mission	Date	Target	Type	Remarks
40	1	03-09-45	Tokyo	Night Incendiary	two engines out recovered at Iwo
44	2	03-18-45	Nagoya	Night Incendiary
45	3	03-24-45	Nagoya	Night	Mitsubishi A/C Works, 3 passes; 12 flares, 8 flares,8 flares
46	4	03-27-45	Omura	Day	Formation, 0 flak, 1st Fighter, Kekko a probable
55	5	04-04-45	Shzuoka		Wolfe’s appendix ruptured before target.
59	6	04-08-45	Nagoya	Day	Formation landed Iwo for gas
67	7	04-13-45	Tokyo	Night Incendiary	Fri, Lucas a Fighter, Crash landed at Iwo
78	8	04-18-45	Kanoya
105	9	04-26-45	Kanoya		Went to rest camp, May 5-21, after this
183	10	05-26-45	Tokyo		20th AF worst
186	11	05-29-45	Yokohama	Day
187	12	06-01-45	Osaka	Day	Wires in tunnel shot out, lost pressure, went on oxygen
189	13	06-07-45	Osaka	Day	O’Brien missing, Heath bailed, P-51 escort, stopped at Saipan for gass
203	14	06-15-45	Osaka		Bad weather, bombed secondary, Tokushima
206	15	06-18-45	Kagoshima		Real Thermals, newspaper in intake
212	16	06-20-45	Shizuoka		314th Wing Citation, lots of aggressive fighters
216	17	06-23-45	Tamashima	Day	Miller shot down at Assy Area
250	18	07-04-45	Tamashima		Heavy thermals
254	19	07-07-45	Kofu
260	20	07-09-45	Gifu
266	21	07-13-45	Uwajima
274	22	07-17-45	Hiratsuka
301	23	07-29-45	Ogaki
309	24	08-02-45	Mijo
314	25	08-05-45	Nishinomiya
323	26	08-11-45	Ogikuku
	27		Fukuoka	POW
	28
				SECRET

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

William S. (Bill) Underwood

Retired from the US Air Force in 1972 in the permanent grade of colonel and as a command pilot with 4500 flying hours following 33 years of continuous active service in the Plans and Operations fields.

Chronology

| Born 1921 in Nogales, Arizona. National Honor Society in high school. Lettered in football, basketball and track.

| Radio operator/gunner on A-17, B-10, B-18, B-18A, B-23 and B-25 aircraft of the 17th Bomb Group - the unit Jimmie Doolittle took his Tokyo raid crews from. (Radio operators didn't get to go.) Missions included anti-sub patrol off the Pacific coast on outbreak of WW II.

| Upon graduating from twin-engine flying school, became instructor pilot of B-24 combat crews receiving Phase III training at Davis Monthan Field.

| Upon completing B-29 Flight Leader school, joined the 19th Bomb Group and flew 28 missions against Japan from Guam as a B-29 aircraft commander and flight leader. Awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses and three Air Medals. During this time the Group received two Distinguished Unit Citations.

| Between WW II and the Korean War, helped form new B-29 Bomb Groups - including the 43d Wing at Davis Monthan - as instructor pilot and squadron operations officer. Married Jayn Yeary of Fort Worth, Texas. Bill Jr. born in Spokane, WA.

| At SAC's 15th Air Force Hqs, helped plan the deployment of B-29 units to Far East Air Forces for Korean War duty.

| Worked on war plans in USAFE's 12th AF Hqs 1950-1953. Helped plan the development of 4th Allied Tactical Air Force and the deployment of British, French and American fighter units into Central Europe. Daughter Lyn born in Landstuhl, Germany.

| As member of the joint-service Armed Forces Special Weapons Project in the Pentagon 1952-1956 worked on studies involving atomic tests and control of nuclear weapons and materials. Also helped draft and promote changes to the national Atomic Energy Act.

| Spent four years on the faculty of the Air Command and Staff College. During that time:

· was responsible for the development and presentation to the student body of a 4-week block of instruction on the Air Force planning and programming process.

· Participated in the development of the Air University's closed-circuit television system.

· Presented stage and television lectures to the 600 man student body.

· As faculty advisor, supervised the activities of field grade officer students - including Allied Officers. Advised on and graded theses of officers participating in Air University's masters degree program.

· Was awarded the Air Force Commendation Medal.

| Next were four years in the Pentagon in DCS Plans and Operations, Hq USAF. Developed support materials for and conducted studies relating to nuclear weapon accuracy and yield. Served as action officer in the processing of Joint Chiefs of Staff and Hqs AF papers. Also conducted one - and participated in another - Air Force-wide study relating to the conduct of low intensity warfare. Participated in the long range planning for the A-10 aircraft. Promoted to the grade of colonel at age 43 in 1964.

| As Director of Programs. Hq. 7th Air Force. Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Viet Nam 1967-1968. had planning responsibility for improvements to accommodate units and personnel at all Viet Nam and Thailand air bases. Had additional duty as Chief of 7th Air Force Civic Action program under the guidance of MACV Director of Pacification. Awarded the Bronze Star Medal. The Viet Nam Service medal and a Vietnamese medal.

| As Director of Data Automation in Has. Logistics Command, supervised all Air Force logistics computer operations including the activities of some 900 analysts and programmers. Also supervised the faculty of AFLC's school training computer programmers. Retired in 1972 on completing this tour of duty. Received the Legion of Merit.

ON RETIREMENT

Joined and actively participate in local and national organizations promoting:

A strong national defense posture.

Improved educational opportunities

Preservation of Arizona historical heritage and history of flight.

Improved American-Mexican relations

In this regard, became a member of the following organizations:

a. Pima Air Museum (Founding Member)

b. Air Force Association (Chapter Vice Presidents

c. Order of Daedalians (3-time Flight Captain).

d. Wright Flight. Inc. (Member Board of Directors)

e. Aero Club of Arizona (Member Board of Directors)

f. Early Birds of Aviation. Inc.

g. Quiet Birdmen

h. Nogales Masonic Lodge. Tucson Scottish Rite and Sabbar Shrine.

i. Arizona Historical Society

j. Pimeria Alto Historical Society

k. Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame selection board.