War Can Be Fun If You Don't Get Killed
or
Nil Carborundum Illegitimi
The pilot’s Ready Room was a place where the ships company did not go. Only Squadron Officers went there. It was located port side amid ship immediately under the flight deck. It had a connecting pantry complete with a Negro steward. You could get a grilled cheese sandwich there. No alcohol was supposed to be consumed aboard ship. However, the Ready Room was different. There was a sizable stash of LeJons brandy there. For medicinal purposes, of course. When there was to be no flying the next day, the bartender who was the Squadron doctor would on occasion dish it out.
The Ready Room
I flew more than 38 combat runs bombing and strafing mostly on Okinawa, but some runs were on Ishigaki. My log shows only 38 runs but there is a 7 day gap in the log at the first of April along with 2 at the end of March which the Skipper said would never be fixed. Along with Monk DeVries, Ben Beam and Bill Williams we put down the smoke screen for the landings on the west side of Okinawa on April 1, but it does not show in my log.
It was a beautiful sunny day with a few little puffy white clouds. We came in from the north and laid smoke on the west coast from Yontan airfield down past Kadena airfield. The largest invasion fleet ever assembled was to our right. It was larger than at Normandy. Battleships, cruisers, destroyers along with rocket barges and other assorted craft were bombarding the shore. They stopped as we came by. When you are doing a great job everyone stops to look. Multitudes of landing craft with marines, tanks, jeeps, artillery and everything you need for a great beach party were heading in.
Jeffreys, Carnes and Lineback
The squadron had TBM’s which I flew and FM’s which are a single seat fighter built by General Motors to a Grumman design. The TBM had two crewmen for me to command. One had a 50 cal. in a turret atop the fuselage, the other had a radio, radar and a 30 cal. gun in the tunnel under the tail. They strafed when ever possible. The Grumman designed turret on the TBF and TBM was the first really good turret designed. I drove, navigated, dropped the bombs, fired the rockets and forward guns. In all we had about 30 aircraft. There were up to 20 FM’s and 12 TBMs.
The FM had a 38’ wingspan, 28’-9" length and was driven by a Pratt & Whitney R-1830-86 engine. It had a top speed of 315 mph and could carry 6-50 caliber wing guns.
FM landing on CVE-80
Carnes, who was the radio man, and I would have a contest when we returned to the ship to see who could locate the ship first. He used his radar. I used my eyes. He never won.
On April 13, 1945 over Ishigiki, I took a hit in the right wing that took off a lot of the skin from the wing and splattered the right side of the fuselage with shrapnel holes. It went where my rockets had just been. I could see the Jap firing at me and let the rockets loose on him. I’m sure he went somewhere.
My radio man, Normandy Carnes, parachute was punched full of holes. When the gunner Robert Lineback came down from the turret he found Carnes with his parachute on. They were never very friendly after that.
The Parachute with Holes in it.
Ishigaki and Miyako
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