CHAPTER 20 MAY 26,1945 -- JUNE 10, 1945. REHABILITION CENTER --GUAM

 On May 30th the Petrof Bay returned to Guam where our squadron was transferred to the USS Steamer Bay, CVE-87. Before the Steamer Bay was to return to Okinawa it had to go into dry dock for 10 days. During this time the whole squadron was transferred to a flight rehabilitation center on the southern end of Guam some 20 miles from Agana where we had spent three weeks before. This was 10 days of relaxation, no flying, just swimming and lying around on a beach.

One day a group of the officers decided we should have a party and that we should invite some nurses and red cross women from Agana to the party. We didn't really believe that the women would come but why not try. Jim Wells, volunteered to make the trip to Agana to make the pitch and conned me into going along. We checked out a bus from the motor pool and with the driver, we took off. Upon arriving at the women's compound the driver pulled in and parked in front of the office door.

Ensign R. Kinnard and his damaged FM-2

As Wells and I dismounted from the front door of the bus we were blasted by the terrifying roar of aircraft engines, not one but several. We looked up and saw a B-29 coming straight at us. This plane was coming in to land and there was no runway ahead of him. It passed less than a hundred feet high, directly over our heads and the nurses quarters. It then struck a telephone pole about 100 feet beyond us, passed right along side a NATS terminal. This building was always occupied by two or three hundred service men waiting for air transportation. There were three C-54s lined up next to the NATS terminal. The B-29 broke the antenna that runs from the tip of the vertical stabilizer to the cockpit on the first C-54. It then struck and sheared off the vertical stabilizer even with the top of the fuselage on the second C-54 and then sliced the top half of the fuselage of the third C-54 like the top half of a hot dog bun. The pilot of the B-29 was trying to make the taxi strip at the end of the two parallel runways of the Agana air field. Unfortunately, the taxi stripe was occupied by a C-46 waiting to take the runway. The pilot of the B-29 swerved his plane to miss the C-46 and plowed into a grove of pine trees along side the C-46. The B-29 was torn into a mass of wreckage and went up in  flames. Wells, the bus driver and I took off on the run to view the scene of carnage. The only one to survive the crash was the tail gunner. I only know that he was pulled from

Rest camp - Guam M. I.

the wreckage but I do not know if he survived. I don't know if there were any other casualties on the ground. Anyhow, there were the three of us and about five hundred other service people surrounding the wreckage watching the fire and listening to the exploding ammunition. I gave no thought to the possibilities of there being bombs left on that plane after its attack on Japan. I still can't understand why we were not more concerned.

We had work to do so back we went to the nurses quarters. Wells, with his glib tongue, sold eight of these women on coming to the party. We journeyed back to the rest camp and had a very nice afternoon and evening before taking the women back to their quarters. I don't think there were any "Tailhook" incidents at that time. This guy, Wells, never ceased to amaze me with his abilities and his guts. One Friday, while we were back at Los Alamitos, he checked out a TBM and flew to North Island air station in San Diego. He picked up a Wave Ensign that he had met a couple of months before, flew her back to Los Alamitos, took her out on the town for the weekend and then flew her back to San Diego on Monday. Guts!!! Incidentally she was married.

Japanese postcard found in fox hole at Yontan

Following the party, at which several guys got plastered, somewhere around three o'clock in the morning we were shaken out of our sleep by this blood curdling yell: "For Christ Sakes, get the hell out of here!". Someone turned on a light and there, standing at the end of Varney Lieb's bunk with him sitting up in bed, was "Dad Dunsweiller. In his drunken condition he had to go to the head and in the dark had wondered into the end of Varney's bunk. There he cut loose, urinating right in the middle of Varney. Having been cut off in the middle, Dad staggered to the rear screen door of the Quonset hut, stepped out and fell down a flight of five steps. We heard the crash then nothing more. After a few minutes someone asked: "Do you think he might have hurt himself?" With that, the guy who asked the question got up and looked. Dad was no where to be seen. He then began a search around the camp sight for him. The concern for his safety was that armed guards patrolled the area to protect us from infiltrating Japanese soldiers who survived the invasion and were hiding in the hills. Dad was found several hundred yards from our hut unhurt but still under the influence.