A B-29 radar navigator arrived late in the Pacific theater, but flew a dozen missions, including the last—and one of the longest—heavy bomber raids of the war.
Richard Almand saw his first Boeing B-29 while training as an Army Air Forces navigator at Ellington Field near Houston, Texas. “Even at a distance, it was huge,” he said. “I wondered how something so big even could fly.” But before long the Atlanta native was training in Superfortresses, and by mid- 1945—and by accident—he found himself in the Pacific theater.
For months, B-29s had been attacking the Japanese homeland from the Mariana Is lands of Guam, Tinian and Saipan. The Superfort was the world’s most sophisticated heavy bomber, able to haul 10 tons of ordnance. A force that would grow to more than 1,000 B-29s was pounding the Allies’ sole remaining foe on a clockwork schedule reflecting the doctrine, distilled while fighting Germany, that air power could end the war by reducing enemy industries and oil refineries to ashes. When that end did come, it surprised even the unflappable Almand.
Richard Henry Almand Jr. was two semesters short of an engineering degree from Georgia Tech when he volunteered in May 1943 to be an Army aviation cadet. Flying out of their Texas base, students learned to use Midwestern cities as waypoints— landmarks for maintaining course. In June 1944, 21-year-old Almand emerged from Ellington a second lieutenant and aerial navigator, bound for radar school at Boca Raton, Fla.
Radar students trained in B-17 Flying Fortresses, the mainstay bomber of the American air campaign over Europe. “A Flying Fortress looked big, but the interior was cramped and cluttered,” Almand said. “You could see how, in combat, the waist gunners would almost be in one another’s way. At combat altitudes, the plane was noisy and cold as heck.”
The students knew that over Europe they would have to wear oxygen masks and fleece suits, and they had heard all about the Luftwaffe fighters, the anti-aircraft fire and the Eighth Air Force’s high bomber loss rate. Over Florida, however, conditions were a world apart. Cruising to the Bahamas, students wore summer khakis and no face-pinching masks. When another student was at the radar display, Almand could enjoy a beautiful view of the Atlantic.
In July, seven days from graduation and the prospect of facing German flak batteries, Almand hit the beach to play volleyball. Spiking a shot, he landed badly, snapping his right ankle. It healed, but he had to start radar training over. At graduation he heard his assignment with relief. “We were headed to the Pacific,” he said. “I knew that meant flying in a heated, pressurized B-29—no oxygen masks or fleece suits.”
Radar navigation certificate in hand, Almand went to Harvard, Neb., home of the 315th Bombardment Wing, which was training to join the campaign against Japan that Allied planners hoped would end the war. The unit had a link to dicier days: In 1942 wing commander Brig. Gen. Frank A. Armstrong Jr. had led the first B-17 sortie over Germany. Boarding a B-29 after hours on Flying Fortresses, Almand felt as if he was stepping up to a Cadillac from a Ford. The stylish way into a B-17 was to vault feet-first upward through a hatch in the big plane’s belly. Less athletic fliers clambered aboard using the door between the waist guns and the tail. The B-29 was totally different, Almand said. “We climbed a ladder. This was so much easier. There was no claustrophobia.” The big bomber was quieter than a Fort, and hardly shook at all. Its four turrets each mounted twin .50-caliber Brownings, remotely controlled with the aid of analog computers.
Over his short-sleeved flying suit, Almand wore a backpack parachute, life vest and holstered .45-caliber Colt. Even his seat was fairly comfortable, set by a wall that separated him from the navigator just ahead. The flight engineer and radio opera tor worked across the aisle. At his back a tunnel led to the rear crew compartment. “If I leaned to my right and looked forward, I could see the copilot,” he said. “There was a small window at my seat, but to see ground or water I had to stand.”
The bomber was quiet and stable enough for Almand to get up and chat with his comrades during a flight. He could have climbed down into the bombardier’s space or squeezed through the tunnel to the back, but never did. “I didn’t want to be too far from my station if anything went wrong,” he said.
Crews trained on five- to seven-hour runs at cities in Colorado and Texas and on the Gulf Coast, but to simulate the 3,000-mile circuit between the Marianas and Japan they flew to the East Coast. These 11- to 12-hour missions to urban settings added realism; their actual targets would be near Japanese cities. The longest hauls aimed at Boston, Mass., and Charleston, S.C. “We didn’t have bombs,” Almand said. “The bays never opened, so there was no possibility of a terrible mistake. We looked at it as just a training exercise, like the cities we used as waypoints in navigator school.”
Training emphasized standard procedures, but surprises abounded. At 30,000 feet, headwinds could gust to 250 mph. When an engine died on takeoff, the pilot had to scramble back to the runway. Six miles over Colorado, Almand was standing behind the pilot when a Plexiglas window at his left cracked. He rushed to his station to buckle in before the plastic potentially gave way, causing rapid decompression and blowing him into the void. The plastic held.
In March 1945, Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, commander of XXI Bomber Command in the Pacific, began sending B-29s from the Marianas on low-level sorties at night, dropping incendiaries on Japanese factories. Firebombing worked well despite the flak and fighters, and soon the Japanese, with their backs to the wall, had to conserve airplanes and ammunition for the expected invasion. That retrenchment inspired USAAF planners to fine-tune the Superfortresses coming off the production line. Going forward, their defensive armament would consist solely of tail-mounted guns. Losing an aimer, four turrets, eight Brownings and all that ammo improved performance. As soon as the faster, higher-flying, longer-range B-29Bs became available, the 315th took delivery. “We nicknamed ours Ten Knights in a Barroom, with nose art caricaturing each man,” Almand said. “We heard that when we started bombing, our targets would be oil refineries.”
The B-29Bs also boasted the new AN/ APQ7 Eagle radar, its 18-foot antenna slung beneath the fuselage like a miniature wing. Unlike the set Almand had trained on, the Eagle showed the ground 30 degrees right and left of the bomber’s nose. “This narrower view was just what we needed,” he said. “I could give the pilot course corrections to the bomb release point without having to wait for a 360-degree radar sweep like on the older sets.”
While aircrews finished training, the wing’s 1,500 enlisted men headed for Guam to work on the fields and build their prefab barracks. Not long after, Ten Knights hopscotched the Pacific, refueling at Hawaii and Kwajalein before reaching Guam on June 18. By the time the crew reached Northwest Field, the rank and file had barracks. Almand and his fellow officers got tents; between missions, they would have to help build their own housing. Home to 180 planes, Northwest Field featured 8,400-foot-long runways that ended at a cliff 500 feet above the sea.
Guam was an ascetic scene. “It wasn’t much like the movies of the air war in Europe, where crews stay up until all hours drinking themselves silly after missions,” Almand noted. “We had an officers’ club, but all it had was Coca Cola and beer, both warm. There was no ice. We were allowed one bottle a day.”
Almand found island life primitive until he considered what Army and Marine infantrymen endured in capturing the Marianas. The temperature wasn’t bad—it never broke 90 degrees. “I couldn’t get used to the rats, though,” he said. “And mess hall chow beat C rations, but it was hard to get down the veal or goat they laid on for supper. The smell of it cooking almost ruined our appetites. I lost weight.”
On June 30, Almand’s squadron, the 485th, flew its first combat mission, against the enemy naval base at Truk. But the real targets lay far north. On their first pass at the Home Islands, July 6-7 against the Maruzen oil refinery at Shimotsu, the men of Ten Knights were jumpy, and the crosswinds cruel.
“We were at 15,000 feet,” Almand said. “I gave the pilot three course corrections. I wished afterward that every time I told him to turn left six degrees, I said 12. I couldn’t believe what that crosswind was doing to us. We never got on a straight line to the target and missed it badly.”
Trouble trailed them to the hardstand, where a mechanic ran up to report that the bomb bay had a 500-pounder jammed in it. Ground crewmen defused the ordnance, but nothing could calm LeMay. “I heard he threatened that if we couldn’t do any better he’d send us in at 10,000 feet,” Almand said. “If we missed again—5,000 feet.”
Almand had to explain the snafu to the bomb group CO, who lit into him, but gave a backhanded benediction. “You’re not the only radar navigator who missed the target,” the boss said. Next raid Ten Knights was on target. LeMay declared that mission his command’s best radar bombing yet.
A routine developed. The day before a mission, crews got a briefing and maps. Pilots conferred, deciding which way to bank after bombs-away to avoid colliding with the plane behind. Next morning crews slept until trucks ferried them to the flight line, where armorers had loaded each bomber, usually with 40 high-explosive, general-purpose 500-pounders. Flight engineers and pilots started engines. Crewmen checked gear—except the tail gunner, who had to clear his Brownings over water. “We each reported to the pilot over the intercom,” Almand noted. “When he was satisfied that our equipment was jake, he got in line to taxi to the runway.”
Takeoff began at 5:30 or 6 p.m., with the bombers going wheels-up at 30-second intervals. Even at full power, a loaded B-29 weighing more than 60 tons could drop 100 feet before it began climbing. The runways on Tinian and Saipan were at sea level, so a bad dip could—and did— land planes in the drink. Guam’s cliff and its “sink margin” saved many a crew and bomber, including Ten Knights. “It felt like going down in an elevator. We’d drop out of sight,” Almand said. “Our ground crew sweated until we climbed back into view. They weren’t alone. You’d better believe our aircrew sweated, too.”
The B-29s climbed to 15,000 feet, LeMay’s preferred bombing altitude. The sky and sea merged in the darkness, and no vessels were visible. “We would see Iwo Jima on our radar, but no lights,” he said. “Our course usually never brought us that near.” Even out of sight, Iwo Jima, 650 miles south of Tokyo, was a comfort. The B-29’s Wright R-3350 engines were notorious for catching fire, forcing crews to try to limp to Iwo or bail out, hence the parachutes and life vests the men wore the whole flight. The last thing anyone wanted was to bail out over Japan. Almand knew that if he did, he would save the last round in his .45 for himself. But he didn’t brood. “You got there and back or you didn’t,” he said. “Worrying wasn’t going to affect the outcome.”
By the time Ten Knights reached Japan, Almand generally had the B-29’s Eagle set going. His screen let him spot the initial point of a bomb run at least 90 miles from the target. “As soon as I saw it, I’d tell the other navigator I had control of the airplane,” he said. It helped that the Japanese refineries were almost always near water. “The contrast between land and water made our targets pop out on the Eagle screen,” Almand explained.
That 90-mile head start gave him 15 or 20 minutes to nail wind direction and speed for the drop. He kept Ten Knights on line over the intercom. “I would tell the pilot, ‘Turn left three degrees’ or ‘Turn left to a heading of 353 degrees,’” Almand said. “My scope showed range lines. When I saw them pass over the target I’d say, ‘Mark,’ which cued the bombardier to enter settings into the Norden.”
The Norden bombsight (see “Not-SoSecret Weapon,” March 2014 issue) computed the drop point and let the bombs fly. When those 10 tons of ordnance abruptly exited, the plane bucked. “I’d just feel that little shudder,” Almand recalled. “The pilot would say something like, ‘Let’s get the hell outta here’ and bank to steer clear of the plane following.”
Sometimes, especially in “Flak Alley” be – tween Kobe and Osaka, searchlights stabbed at Ten Knights, illuminating the cabin and making the crew wonder if flak was headed their way. It never was, but Almand sat on his flak vest anyway.
On the return trip, Almand might spell his counterpart so the navigator could nap in the tunnel. “Sometimes I napped there myself,” he said. “Unless a thunderstorm blew up and I had to use the Eagle to guide the pilot around storm cells, my duties on the flight back were minimal.”
Finally, the radar showed Saipan and Tinian, then Guam—always welcome, especially in bad headwinds. “One night Ten Knights ran so low on fuel from headwinds the pilot asked to forgo the traffic pattern and make a straight-in landing,” Almand said. They landed with barely enough gas to taxi to the hardstand.
Even smooth missions wore on ma – chines and men. To restore a B-29 to flying trim, maintenance crews needed about three days; psychologically, airmen required roughly the same. Almand always descended the ladder sleepy, relieved and happy about doing his job well. “We could get up and stretch, so I wasn’t stiff or cramped,” he said. He had a restorative ritu al: debrief, shower, sack out, then work on the barracks, mainly carrying lumber and propping wall sections for the nail gang. “We’d work two or three hours,” he said. “Then it was time for supper and whatever movie was playing that night on the outdoor screen.”
Between diligent maintenance and cooler-running engines, Almand’s squadron lost no planes—though a balky radar rig did get Ten Knights left behind once.
On August 8, 1945, unscathed in 11 missions, the Ten Knights crew joined in the squadron briefing. That evening’s target, a Nippon Oil Co. refinery at Tsuchizaki, was 300 miles north of Tokyo. Flight time would be a backside-numbing 16.9 hours. But before they could take off, orders came to stand down.
Rumors circulated that the war might be ending. On August 6, a specially modified B-29 from Tinian had dropped a new kind of bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later, with security still drum-tight, another atomic weapon hit Nagasaki.
Japan still refused to surrender, however, and LeMay ordered sorties resumed. Tsuchizaki was back on. Given the 3,740- mile round trip, armorers packed on a lighter load. Carrying only 7¼ tons of 100-pounders added 360 miles of wiggle room—if all four engines kept working and headwinds were nil. Crews were told that if the code word “Chicago” was broadcast, the war was over, and any airplane that had not dropped its bombs was supposed to turn back immediately.
At 4:27 p.m. on August 14, ahead of 142 aircraft, wing commander Frank Armstrong lifted off in his B-29, Fluffy-Fuz III. He reached Tsuchizaki at 12:48 a.m. on August 15. By 3:39 that morning, when the last ship peeled away, the Superfortresses had dropped 954 tons of bombs, wrecking three refining units and two-thirds of the plant’s fuel storage capacity. They were flying in sunlight when the radio barked: “Chicago! Chicago!”
“Everyone plugged into the intercom heard the radio operator relay the news to the pilot, who said, ‘The war’s over,’” Almand recalled. “I felt happy that no more lives would be lost and that the grunts wouldn’t have to invade mainland Japan.”
There wasn’t much cheering. Ten Knights still had far to fly, and who knew what enemy pilot might not have gotten the word, or got the word and decided to go out in a blaze of glory? The 315th, bomb racks long since emptied, was southbound, and its commander, the man who had been the first over Germany in a B-17, was the last to lead a B-29 raid over Japan. Around the time the squadron was landing at Guam, Navy pilots were hitting Home Island targets, qualifying as the last Americans to bomb Japan.
Back at Northwest Field the mood was subdued. “You still could get only one warm beer a day,” Almand said.
Demobilization broke up the crew. Seven guys soon had the necessary points, and headed home. But three men had to wait more than six months to join the 35-point club: the copilot, the bombardier…and the radar navigator.
Almand and his fellow prisoners of peace filled some of that time completing their barracks. They got rid of their tents but not their neighbors—one night a clumsy rat fell from the rafters onto Almand’s roommate, whose screams reached the runway. Twice explosions rocked the base—perhaps Japanese holdouts sabotaging the ammo dump. Otherwise Guam was quiet. The officer’s club never did get an ice machine.
Flying milk runs to keep their flight pay coming, Almand and the other fellows spent time at the beach, read and played cards and sports. Getting in a little softball—but at all costs avoiding volleyball— Richard Almand stayed on Guam until March 1946. He came home to marriage and family and career, but his war stayed with him. “I loved the whole time—especially the camaraderie and the discipline,” he said 67 years later. “I wish we had more of that in our country today.”
John Ottley Jr., a former Master Army Aviator, infantry platoon leader and journalist, lives outside Atlanta. Richard Almand Jr. completed his college degree and bought a partnership in his father’s Atlanta printing firm, which he sold in 2009. Additional reading: The Last Mission: The Secret History of WWII’s Final Battle, by Jim Smith and Malcolm McConnell; Mission to Tokyo: The American Airmen Who Took the War to the Heart of Japan, by Robert F. Dorr; and Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan, by Barrett Tillman.
Originally published in the September 2014 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.
