We cruised along in our B-24 at the now slow speed of 160 mph, a very long over ocean fright from miniscule Owi Island (between Biak & New Guinea) to Mindanao. Mindanao is the large forested, mountainous southern island of the Philippines (a bit bigger than both Irelands) where the Japanese had built up powerful military defenses, especially in the many bays where they could hide ships & troops. They

At the same time that we were bombing Mindanao, a navy fighter pilot was shot down & crashed his plane on Leyte, Filipino guerillas rescued him & told him that there were no Japanese troops on Leyte, so he relayed that information to a nearby ship, then to Washington, & FDR, Gen. Marshall, Adm. King, they decided to invade Leyte instead of Mindanao; the bombing wasn'6?Tt for nothing, we did destroy & damage lots of their war materiel & capability.

It was a very long flight of about 2000 miles round trip, longer then our fuel would last, so we had to carry a 500 gal. fuel tank in one of our four bomb bays. We were the lead plane with about 50 planes following us. Our Texan pilot, Capt. Morris E. Petty had been a sergeant in the Philippines, had been sent back home on the last ship to leave before the invasion; our co-pilot, Horace V, Petty was a long, lean cowboy from Oklahoma, our flight engineer was Jud Womack from Texarkana, Texas, our bombardier Freeman Keller from Washington was one of the best, & Chicago I was a very good navigator who could be relied upon to get us to the target without detours or misses. It really pissed-off the generals when a navigator missed the target. It was okay for them to get thousands of our marines & soldiers killed unnecessarily, that is what all war-colleges teach generals, sending young men to death is their god-given right.

Sixty years later as I sit here at my computer telling this tale, looking at my wings (polished shiny with toothpaste by my good wife) & a large photo of my crew members posed before a B-24, I want first to say that I am proud of having fought in WW2, but I turned against war during Vietnam, & will remain anti-war 'a? -til DTH do me part. It is true that WW2 was a continuation of WW1, it was another 30 years war, some argue that WW2 could have been avoided if we had been fair to Germany economically & militarily, but do not believe it. We Homosapes are ruled by a minority of war-lords, & war lovers eager to kill enemies until we find out how sadistic real war is in comparison to movie war; then our war genes discharge, become inert, except for the minority of professional war-lovers who continue yearning for enemies & war. If they cannot find enemies, they make them far us, as in Iraq & Vietnam, We climbed to 10,000 ft, I gave the bombardier & pilot the wind direction & velocity, & true compass heading to the target, docks with freightersVIthen it was my job to crawl back to the bomb bays, open them & watch the bombs fall, I had a small wire cutter to cut wires if a bomb got hung up, bombs dropped, bomb bays closed, I climbed up to the flight deck & took over the top turret machine guns from the flight engineer.. 3ud Womack, another Texan, so that he could help the pilots with their instrumentsa?:looking forward I saw a Zero ahead of us, saw the face of a determined veteran leather helmeted pilot as his guns fired at us, bombardier was firing his nose guns also, before I could fire his bullets tore into our outer right wing, fuel gushed out & spread into our planea?:the engineer rushed to his fuel controls & tried to pump the remaining wing gas back into the bomb bay tanka?Itoo much pressure, the bay tank burst & flooded the plane with powerful fumesa?:we waited to explode, I opened the bays to drain fumesPithe gunners opened all of the aft hatches, pilot feathered #4 enginea?Iwe didna?Tt explodea?:gradually we could start breathing againa?

engineer got the gas under control, pilot descended to about 3000 ft., two Zeros started to chase us, P-38s chased them awaya?we were safe but our plane was badly wounded. What to do? No smoking! Our radioman, Sgt. Mel Klegman turned off his equipment, no electric sparks wanted.

The rest of the bombers & fighters had to head back to base, couldna?Tt hang around to aid U5, theya?Td run out of fuela?lso, we cruised on alone, slowly, just above the clouds, I gave the pilots a compass heading to the Island of Morotai, in the Halmaheras, which we were told by intelligence had been captured, & that Army engineers had built a steel mesh airstripPlif we could get back to it we could land safelya?1if not wee? Td have to ditch in the ocean & hope our Navy would find us.

I kept navigating, shot a moon line & sun line with the octanta?1where they crossed was where we were, I was confident we were on course for Morotal, like Molokai in Hawaii, a refuge for lepers, the crew had proven confidence in me, they just had to hope the plane would hold togethera?Iplane struggled on for about 5 hours'a?;I figured out our ETAVIvve let down thru bumpy clouds, ail let out a big cheer, there directly ahead of us about 15 miles was Nlorotaia?;

Morotal, mountainous, heavily forested, oval with a finger-like peninsula jutting from the southern coast, Captain had to feather another engine, we descended to 300 feet to land, but were waved off, the engineers were still bulldozing stumps from the stripa?:what to dos?; pilot climbed as high as he could, 350 feet & ordered all but pilots & engineer to bail outa?;bombardier & I opened the big floor loading hatch just forward of the tails?; pilot ordered, PoOne officer jump first, the other make sure the enlisted men jurnp.a?

Bombardier said, a?ora?Tll jump first, you get the guys to jump,'? He did, making a loud booming sound as he hit the slipstream, the gunners jumped back from the sound, I couldna?Tt get them to jump, so I sat in the hatch opening & pulled myself out, hit the airstream twirling around, pulled my rip-chord & after what seemed like minutes, but was a second of two, the parachute was pulled out by its small pilot chute, & my fall was halted with a jolt, I swung merrily looking down at the sea & island, a very beautiful sight. I could see the parachutes of Keller & the gunners as they drifted earthward. It seemed as though I was caught in an updraft, not descending, because all I could see was water, suddenly I saw that I was falling fast, I detached the chute harness & hung by my hands, let go as I plunged deep into the sea, pulled my Mae West preserver, though I was a good swimmer, like magic an American P-T boat cruised to me & sailors (not Jap, thank Poseidon!) pulled me from the sea, as others did the other parachutists, Harold Elliot, Bert Will, Mel, bombardier, but not tail-gunner Joe Aiello. His parachute got entangled & he fell 300 feet, crashed thru a palm tree, crashed into the soft sand, just as a doctor & driver were passing in a Jeep! Joe was a very husky, muscular, jolly guy from the Bronx. He used to call me on the interphone, a?oTail to nose, tail to nosea?Cl. His huskiness saved him from death, he was put into a cast from neck to feet, flown to the US, I met him again in NY several years later, still jolly, strong, married, working, kids, big Italian family, a true story! We were a very cheerful, humorous crew, & we officers were very friendly with the sergeants, never pulled rank or acted superior, The two pilots & engineer decided it would be too hazardous to leave the flight deck & jump, so they crashed the plane on the coral shelf of the island, where its skeleton probably rests encrusted with coral today, 61 years later. All the crew members were safe, though we worried about Joe.

After a few days living aboard P-T boats we were transferred to a big landing ship tanks, one that transported several LSTs (large, slow targets) & troops. They took us back to our tiny typhus island Owl, just north of New Guinea, & south of Biak, No natives could survive on it, it was a voodoo island, even when they paddled their canoes to trade beautiful shells for rigs, they stood on the coral reef on their tough bare feeta? V°No, no Tuan, no Marl (Marvel) ciga?:Luk Stri, Chesfeel, Kamo, Than. So, Freeman, I wrote the above for Betty, your sons & daughters, & grandchildrena?;you may not have told them about our adventuresP:the following is a poem that I wrote about war, it picks up our R & R trip to Sydney after returning to Ovvia?;You will see it is a novelistic story about my life during the rest of the war, I was our first navigator, from Muroc-Hamilton Field-Honolulu-Canton Island-Guadalcanal-Townsville-OwiClarkField after our bailout I stayed in Sydney, girlfriencla?;came back, you guys were in Leyte by then, you had flown a few missions with a different navigator, then we went to Clark Field & we started flying together again as lead planea?lbut you guys finished your 45 flights sooner than 15?;so I flew lead navigator about 15 missions, when the Group Lead Navigator went home, I was offered that job, but the atomic bombs were dropped, war ended suddenly, I didna?Tt get the promotion to Captaina?;we went homea?;when the Korean War started I was offered a majority to come backa?;they were desperatea?;but I had a good job in England, girlfriend, didna?Tt want to go back to military lifea?:I vvasna?Tt born to be an officer and a gentlemana?Ithe fighting part of Korea was very short, before I could decide what to do, it was over, and if they had seen me in person, theya?Td have sent me back to Chicago, & I wouldna?Tt have had that good job in England.