The Big One - WWII

Arthur L. Manning Jr.

Fairmont Nebraska-and B-29 school. The biggest airplane I had ever seen. It was at that time the largest and most sophisticated aircraft in the world. As they would say today the "cutting edge of technology" all the guys referred to it as the big a_ _ Bird, the vertical stabilizer was higher than a two story building. It was the most complex plane ever conceived-60 tons of fighting fury...four 2,200-horsepower engines...20,000 pound bomb capacity in two bomb bays...137,000-pound maximum overall weight with bombs and gasoline...an instrument panel like a mad-man's dream...50,000 separate parts...one million rivets...thousands of miles of complex wiring...141 feet wing span...99 feet long...27 feet high...capable of flying a 16 hour mission...dwarfing the B-17 Flying Fortress-all in all, the biggest, fastest, most powerful bomber in the world. It was equipped with two radar systems, one for navigation and one for use with the tail guns and the 20mm cannon. This was the "Superfortress." The wing span was longer than the flight the Wright brothers first airplane flew. She had eighteen caliber 50 machine guns and a 20 milimeter cannon, enough armament to take care of just about any fighter opposition. I was assigned to the central fire control position where I sat in a seat on a rotating platform with my head in an astrodome where I commanded two gun turrets each with four machine guns. I had primary control over one turret and secondary control over the other. If need be I could also take control of the tail guns with two machine guns and the 20 mm cannon. (Should the tail gunner get hit). We did not have computers in those days and the turrets and guns were operated by solenoids. Briefly it works like this: solenoids are little motors that respond to each other, one is usually the master, the other the slave. When the master is moved the slave unit does likewise and can then activate other drive motors to move the gun turret and to fire the guns. Four "Hot Shot" Gunners "The Four Ms" Manning-Marr- Marshall- Marchalonois It was now winter in Nebraska and I have never experienced such cold and fierce wind making it even colder. Flying was just about out of the question, so they moved us all to Puerto Rico for flight training. We did not realize it at the time but this was also to prepare us for jungle living in the South Pacific. We enjoyed our brief stay here, often trips to the swimming pool, delicious fresh pineapple, and ideal flying conditions. We also had a practice "ditching" session in the ocean. We were taken out into deep water by a Navy vessel, dumped overboard and left to act as though we had ditched the aircraft. We had to inflate our life jackets, (always worn on every combat mission) find the rubber dingy, inflate it and set up the "Mae West" homing transmitter for rescue. Dump shark repellent and hang on to each other until rescued. This was a fun day, we had lots of laughs and a nice swim with all our clothes on. After a few hours the Navy rescued us. Back to Nebraska where the weather was much nicer now for completion of our training. We were now given a furlough, the last before going overseas. While on leave I celebrated my twenty-first birthday, I could now legally drink. Prior to that I could go into combat and get shot at but I could not legally drink a beer. I never liked beer anyway, so it really didn't matter. Before returning with the rest of the crew I became engaged to a nurse, but that's another story. When the war was over I broke off the engagement because this young lady could not make up her mind about when to set a wedding date. This was a hard decision for me to make. I mention this to show, as you will see later, how the hand of God was leading me whether I was aware of it or not. We reported back and went to Harrington Kansas where we picked up a nice new B-29 and headed for Mather Air Force Base near San Francisco. Here we received lots of briefings, all new summer uniforms and flight gear. A couple of nice seafood dinners on the Wharf in Frisco and we were off. We did not know where our next stop would be until we were airborne and Pappy opened the sealed orders. A shout went up over the intercom when we learned the next stop would be Hawaii. We spent the week end here enjoying sight seeing and the beaches. We thought we would be in more of a hurry to reach our final destination, but the orders told us to delay a couple of days, as you will see, we found out why later on. We finally left Hawaii and our next stop was Kwajalein an atoll in the middle of the Pacific. If the runway had been any shorter we could not have landed there, it stretched lengthwise along the island and reached from water to water. We heard that one plane lost hydraulics on landing and ran off into the ocean onto the coral reef, fortunately they were towed back and managed to make repairs and move on. We were not flying in any sort of formation with others, we were a single flight. Crew #7 "Loaded Dice" Our Ship To continue reading about Auts' military career, click Guam here, or in the frame on the left.