B-29 “Double Trouble” Is “Mister Bee”: Radar Photography of and Bombing Japan During World War Ii My North Carolinian Father in the Crew of the "Lone B-29" Boeing Superfortress Bomber Flying the Longest Nonstop Combat Mission of World War Ii Volume One: Text

By Colonel Charles A. Jones

This book is the story of Elmer C. Jones, a young man who grew up during the Great Depression and who joined the military in 1943, becoming a member of the Army's Air Corps in 1944. He was the radar observer of a B-29 Superfortress bomber crew flying 28 combat missions over Japan in 1945--13 bombing missions and 15 photographic reconnaissance missions, including the longest mission of the war: 4,650 miles in 23:00 hours. He accumulated 489:50 combat flying hours during the war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781796095692

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Copyright © 2020 by Colonel Charles A. Jones. 806305

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

© 2020 by Colonel Charles A. Jones, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Retired)

This book is a private project completed by the author and represents his opinions and not those of the US government, National Park Service, Department of Defense, or any branch of the military service. Section 2-304 of the Joint Ethics Regulations (DoD 5500.7-R) permits the author’s use of his military service and title in this book.

No part of this book may be copied or reproduced electronically or by any other means without the express written consent of the author.

Contact the author at [e-mail].

Xlibris

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Library of Congress Control Number:     2020905811

Rev. date: 11/12/2020

CONTENTS: VOLUME I (TEXT)

Title And Cover Photograph Information

Preface

Introduction

Dedication

Dramatis Personae

Chapter 1 My Father Before The War — A Young Entrepreneur

Chapter 2 My Father In The Military—From Infantry To Air Corps, From Yardbird To Second Lieutenant

Chapter 3 Mister Bee—The B-29 And Piss On You Jones

Chapter 4 A B-29 Crew Forms—Crew Number P-10

Chapter 5 Off To War—The PTO

Chapter 6 Organization For Combat—Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

Chapter 7 One B-29, Two Names

Chapter 8 Life On Guam—Not Bad

Chapter 9 Mister Bee Goes To Work—P-10’s Bombing Missions And Flak Galore!

Chapter 10 Single-Ship Missions — P-10’s Photographic Reconnaissance Missions: Guinea Pig (?) And The Japs Are Not Dumb

Chapter 11 P-10 Flies The Longest Nonstop Combat Flight Of World War II — We Were On Our Own And Japanese Landing Lights For A B-29

Chapter 12 P-10’S Last Mission— Launched In War, Landed In Peace: My Father Asks Why No Surrender

Chapter 13 Losses And Survival — Avoiding A MACR And It’s A Damn Good Thing We Weren’t Shot Down Over Japan

Chapter 14 Iwo Jima—The Hellhole Of The Pacific But A Lifesaving Place To Stop

Chapter 15 The War Ends—Destruction Beyond Our Imagination

Chapter 16 Going Home (Sunset Project), The Near-Fatal Price Of A View, And Postwar Life

Chapter 17 Reunions—Everybody’s Dying, Charles

Chapter 18 Postwar—An Aircraft And Her Crew Vanish

Chapter 19 Victory — A Job Well Done And How It Was Done: The Will To Kill

Chapter 20 The Home Front—Supporting The War And A Virulent Hatred Of Strikers

Chapter 21 Flying Solo—Sole Survivor And Final Flight; Memories And Souvenirs

Chapter 22 The Blackened B-29 Canteen—Luckily Not My Father’s

Chapter 23 Loss—MIA, Names On A Mother’s Memorial Day Program, And Both Dog Tags

Chapter 24 Honoring My Father—The Plaque At The CFOH

Epilogue

Appendix 1 Chronology Of The Life And Military Service Of Elmer C. Jones

Appendix 2 Awards For Elmer C. Jones

Appendix 3 Terminology And Slang

Appendix 4 Induction Letter, Elmer C. Jones

Appendix 5 Good News Envelope

Appendix 6 Tough Shit Card Issued To Aviation Cadet Elmer C. Jones

Appendix 7 Record Of Combat Duty (Elmer C. Jones, Record Of P-10 Missions)

Appendix 8 Sample Individual Flight Record (Elmer C. Jones, June 1945)

Appendix 9 Combat Missions Record (Tom Bell Record Of P-10 Missions)

Appendix 10 In His Own Words: Code Name Mickery [Sic]

Appendix 11 Loyal Order Of Flak Dodgers Certificate (Lieutenant Elmer C. Jones)

Appendix 12 Sample Radar Operator Or Mickey Flimsey (June 25, 1945)

Appendix 13 A-2 Daily News Summary (August 23, 1945)

Appendix 14 Clippings From The Blockbuster (September 1, 1945)

Appendix 15 Sample Radar Operator Information Sheet

Appendix 16 Sample Resume (Bombing Mission, Tachikawa, April 24, 1945)

Appendix 17 Sample Resume (Bombing Mission, Yokohama, May 29, 1945)

Appendix 18 Sample Resume (Bombing Mission, Isesaki, August 14–15, 1945)

Appendix 19 Sample Western Union Telegram Sent By Elmer C. Jones

Appendix 20 Presidential Accolade For Elmer C. Jones

Appendix 21 Naughty Nose Art Cartoon

Appendix 22 SPAM Cartoon

Appendix 23 War Bond Certificate For Aileen Mateer (Jones)

Appendix 24 Lieutenant Elmer C. Jones Calling Card

Appendix 25 Elmer C. Jones Flight Gear And Miscellaneous Equipment

Appendix 26 B-29 Displays And Museums

Acknowledgments

Bibliography and Notes On Sources

About The Author

TITLE AND COVER PHOTOGRAPH

INFORMATION

T itle information: DOUBLE TROUBLE was the name of the author’s father’s Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber in World War II; her other name was CITY of MAYWOOD . Mister Bee was Japanese slang during World War II for a B-29. The longest mission refers to the mission the author’s father’s B-29 crew flew June 25-26, 1945, the longest nonstop combat aviation mission of World War II, flying from Guam to Northem Japan (Hokkaido). and back to Guam (4.650 miles in 23:00 hours). It was the longest flight in distance up to that time (the famous Charles Lindbergh flight was longer in time). Chapter 13 explains how I learned about the term Mr. Bee.

Cover photograph: Iconic World War II photograph of the author’s father. Second Lieutenant Elmer Clinton Jones, Air Corps. Army of the United States, United States Army Air Forces. United States Army. Note lieutenant’s bars on shoulders; navigator’s wings over left pocket; and insignia on collar (U.S. on upper collars, Air Corps insignia on middle collars). The photograph was taken when he was home on leave in his hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina, soon after he was appointed a second lieutenant on July 1, 1944 at Ellington Field. Texas. On that same date he graduated from advanced navigator training. Above his upper left jacket pocket he wears the wings of an aerial navigator. He was just l9 years old when the photograph was taken.

In the late stages of writing this book, I found a print of this photograph and by chance looked at the back of it and read that *THE FOLLOWING CREDITMUST BE PRINTED UNDERNEATH EACH REPRODUCTION OF THIS PICTURE[:] PHOTOGRAPH BY ELSON-TAYLOR." So here is Elson-Taylor’s credit although it is not under the photograph. Elson-Taylor was a photography studio in Greensboro.

PREFACE

ALL ALONE OVER NORTHERN JAPAN

T he situation is one of U.S. Army Air Force aviators facing danger, unpredictability, and uncertainty alone in the skies over wartime J apan.

The date is June 25 or 26, 1945. The place is the airspace over Hokkaido, the northernmost island of the islands comprising Japan. The people are eleven men, the crew of a B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber named "DOUBLE TROUBLE." They have been flying for hours, having left their base on Guam on June 25. They are the original crew members; no relief crew is aboard, and the flight is nonstop, requiring 23:00 hours and covering 4,650 miles if the crew is to be successful.

They are alone; they have no companion B-29s with them and no fighter escorts. They can only use the fuel they have brought with them; aerial refueling is not possible. In case of trouble, they can land at Vladivostok in the Soviet Union, a grim and unwanted prospect at best.

Their technology being that of 1945, they lack the protection afforded by modern military aviation technology—in particular, stealth technology.

The Japanese do not expect a B-29 so far north over Japan, so they turn on the landing lights for the B-29 at Sapporo, an action that must have been a surreal experience for the crew.

The crew does not know if it will or can complete the mission. The aircraft may crash due to a lack of fuel or to a mechanical problem, or it may be downed by Japanese flak or fighters. If the Japanese (military or civilians) capture the crew, the crewmen can expect to be maltreated and probably beheaded.

Or the crew may just complete the mission—taking photographs of Northern Japan—and return to Guam. If it returns to Guam, it will have flown the longest nonstop combat flight of World War II in time (23:00 hours) and distance (4,650 miles), a mission that would have to remain secret until after Japan surrendered.

INTRODUCTION

AT LEAST WE HAD SOMETHING TO DIE FOR

D uring World War II, my late father, then-Lieutenant Elmer Clinton Jones, was an Army officer in the U.S. Army Air Forces and the radar observer in a B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber named " DOUBLE TROUBLE " and CITY of MAY WOOD .

His B-29 crew flew 28 combat missions over Japan and the Pacific Ocean, including a secret photoreconnaissance mission that was the war’s longest aviation combat mission in distance (4,650 miles) and time (23:00 hours), flying nonstop and without refueling from Guam to Northern Japan (Hokkaido) and back to Guam. In making this flight, his crew flew for a time and distance that no aviators from the United States or from any other country flew during World War II.

Of his 28 combat missions, thirteen were bombing missions and fifteen were photographic reconnaissance missions, one of which was the war’s longest combat flight just described—not only the longest in time and distance during the war, but also the longest in distance of any nonstop flight up to that time. Although each combat mission carried one credit and although 13 plus 15 equals 28 combat mission credits, the 23:00 hour mission was so long the crew received two mission credits for it, so my father’s mission credits to this point are 29 rather than 28.

But added to these 29 credits is a thirtieth combat mission credit representing his crew’s twenty-ninth and final mission: flying over battleship USS Missouri after the surrender document ending World War II was signed on September 2, 1945 (Pacific date; September 1 in the United States). The crew, part of an air armada flying over Missouri to commemorate the surrender, was credited with a combat mission for this flight although no enemy action was expected or occurred.

So my father ended the war with 30 combat mission credits for 29 combat missions over Japan: twelve sequential bombing missions followed by fifteen sequential photoreconnaissance missions followed by one last bombing mission and then by the surrender flyover, for a total of 29 missions and thus 29 mission credits to which must be added the additional credit for the longest mission.

And he ended the war with 489:50 combat hours, the equivalent of twenty twenty-four-hour days in a B-29 over Japan and the Pacific Ocean.

Why Did I Write This Book?

Why do I tell the story of my father with the focus on his combat experience during World War II? Such a question is one frequently asked of those who write books or who make movies.

The primary reason for writing this book is to honor a man, one whom I knew personally, for his wartime experience: my own father.

Another reason for writing this book is to memorialize one man’s service during World War II so it will not be lost to future generations.

Another reason is I wanted to combine into one place the details of his life and the details of his service in World War II.

Another reason is to publicize his greatest accomplishment: being part of the B-29 crew that flew the longest nonstop aviation combat mission of World War II.

Finally, I wanted some kind of reckoning or answer: Why and how did my father survive the war? Why was he not the subject of one of those heartbreaking telegrams beginning with DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU and continuing with the phrase KILLED IN ACTION or MISSING IN ACTION? After all, if he had not survived, I would not be writing this book.

Names

This book is primarily my father’s war history, the story of his 29 missions and 489:50 combat hours accumulated either by flying bombing missions or by flying photographic reconnaissance missions, all the while operating his airborne radar set known as Mickey.

Names such as Mickey are important in my father’s war history. As explained in the text, one of the names the Japanese called the B-29 was Mister Bee, and my father’s B-29 had two names on her nose: "DOUBLE TROUBLE" (left front) and CITY of MAYWOOD (right front).

A Long Introduction

This introduction is long and is, in effect, a chapter rather than an introduction.

I do not apologize for its length since I think it is essential to set the stage for my father’s life and death but, more particularly, to do so for his service during World War II. It is my introduction to my readers of Lieutenant Colonel Elmer C. Jones, U.S. Air Force Reserve (Retired).

For example, the layman unfamiliar with United States military aviation history should realize that my father, although an aviator, was a member of the United States Army, not a member of the Air Force as it exists today since that Air Force did not exist during World War II. It did not become a service separate from the Army until 1947. During World War II, my father was in the Army Air Corps (AC), which was his arm of the service, and in the Army of the United States (AUS), which was a component of the U.S. Army. He was also a member of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF), then the aviation component of the U.S. Army. He was in crew P-10 of the 39th Bomb Group (VH), which was one group in the 314th Bomb Wing (VH), which was one group in the XXI Bomber Command, which was one command in the 20th Air Force. VH represented very heavy, i.e., the B-29 bomber.

I believe his experiences in a B-29 to be atypical for the average B-29 crewman given the large number of single ship (solo flight by a B-29, which could be called a ship) photographic reconnaissance missions his B-29 crew flew while assigned to a bombing squadron, not to a photoreconnaissance squadron. These photoreconnaissance missions included the secret single-ship photographic reconnaissance mission just mentioned—the longest combat flight of World War II. The crew flew thirteen bombing missions with other B-29s and fifteen photoreconnaissance missions solo. The number of these missions can be discerned from his official military records; the types of missions can be discerned from his official military records and also from the markings (camera silhouettes) seen painted on the left front side of his B-29 along with silhouettes of bombs to indicate bombing missions. My father thought that the number of solo missions was one factor in the crew’s survival since the Japanese, to prevent disclosing their antiaircraft gun locations, generally would not fire on a single ship.

I feel very strongly that the story of my father’s military service, including the story of the longest mission, should be memorialized in a book, so I wrote the book the reader is now reading. Although this book is a biography of my father’s entire life, the emphasis is on his World War II experiences because I feel that they are the defining experiences of his life. The more I researched and wrote this book, the more fascinated I became with my father’s life and wartime service. I reached a point where I could not NOT write the book.

As just mentioned, names are important in the story, but subject matter is also important, ranging all over the universe of the aerial bombing and photography of Japan and the life of a World War aviator in the Pacific. From a 23:00 hour mission over the Pacific and Japan to eating SPAM, from a samurai sword to a M1 rifle found in a trash can, from colored flak to bomb pin tags, from Iwo Jima to Guam, from keeping as much government equipment as possible to surrendering a government-issued pistol, from bombing the grounds of the off-limits Japanese Emperor’s Palace to having steaks with Seabees—these subjects and experiences and more were my father’s world during and immediately after the war.

As part of telling the story of my father’s life and military career, I wanted the story of the longest aviation combat mission of World War II told—the 23:00 hour mission just mentioned—since it never received the publicity I thought it should have received. I only knew about it because my father told me about it, and I read the two 1945 newspaper clippings he had about the flight. I also read about it in an official intelligence summary and in a wartime publication, the 39th Bomb Group’s newsletter, BLOCKBUSTER. In addition, I saw the entry for the flight in the wartime mission diary he kept on the blank pages at the back of his government-issue copy of The New Testament provided by the Gideons. I saw a mission with a duration of 23:00 hours in his official records. The first and only nationally published telling of the story in detail and at length was the article I wrote for the April 2010 issue of AIR FORCE Magazine, although my father talked about the mission in a newspaper interview published on June 24, 1984, in the Greensboro NEWS & RECORD with this headline: "Vet’s radar mission set record for WWII."

I wanted to document a place in North Carolina aviation history for my father for being a part of the crew flying the longest combat mission of World War II. North Carolina aviation history is rich and should be richer with my father a recognized part of it. The Wright brothers flew the first powered flight in 1903 at the coast of the state. Billy Mitchell, to prove the supremacy of airpower over sea power, sank old ships off its coast in 1923. And the Preddy brothers, George and Bill, are from Greensboro. My father went to high school with Bill. George had, and still has, the most kills of any pilot flying a P-51 Mustang fighter. He was killed in Europe on Christmas Day 1944. Bill died when the Mustang he was flying was shot down in 1945.

Father and Son

I always got along well with my father and was interested in his war history.

I took copious notes on the fly when he talked about the war; I interviewed him on videotape, and I compiled numerous files concerning his time in the war. I organized his war memorabilia while he was living and after he died. After he died, I found many of his original records in the attic.

But I never wrote about him except for one article published in AIR FORCE Magazine in April 2010. My other interests led to three other books about other military subjects: one was a guidebook to the World War II sites on Oahu, one was a history of the men awarded Medals of Honor for actions in the Hawaiian Islands during World War II, and one was about the Battle of Iwo Jima. The titles of these books are found in the ABOUT THE AUTHOR section at the end of this book.

So this book is about my father with a focus on his time in the military during World War II, including his time in combat. I focus less on his recall for the Korean War and his time in the Air Force Reserve since he was not in combat during the Korean War or in the postwar reserve. In short, what I found most interesting about him was his training and active duty in combat during World War II.

Like father, like son

I found some possessions and traits that illustrate the old saying. Like father, like son.

Just as I found sets of arrows my father had as a child, I found in his rifle closet a set of arrows I used as a child.

Just as my father came home from the war loaded with equipment and souvenirs, when I returned from Lebanon in 1983 (l was there in 1982 and 1983 as a Marine lawyer) I kept the Marine Corps equipment (less pistol) issued to me and bought replacements at a surplus store so I could give supply the replacements and keep my originally issued equipment. I also had souvenirs, including an AK-47 or AKM rifle bayonet.

Just as my father kept his wartime checks, I kept my checks I wrote while deployed to the Mediterranean (1982 to 1983) including Lebanon. When I decided to finish filing his wartime items, one of the last things I found was an envelope of his wartime banking documents. I laughed out loud when I saw that he listed outstanding checks on his bank statements the way I do; after all, he was an accountant who taught me how to balance a checking account. I found several wartime checks with his name printed on them: LT. ELMER C. JONES [.] The war did not end mundane activities such as the need for checks and reconciling the checking account.

Guns and Dumb Bombs Define a War

My father was part of what I call the gun and dumb bomb war.

I discovered the gun-war perspective years ago in Norfolk at an air show when I saw a World War II B-17 Flying Fortress bomber parked beside a modern B-52 Stratofortress bomber. The B-17 was very, very small compared to the B-52. Also, I noticed that the B-17, like my father’s B-29, had .50 caliber machine guns for defensive armament. At most, the B-52 had a tail gun or guns. The implication was that the B-17 in World War II took on German fighters, which also had guns or cannons, in man-to-man aerial combat, shooting at each other. The B-52 faced fighters in Vietnam but primarily used missiles, not guns, for defense.

By dumb bombs, I mean that my father’s B-29 crew dropped bombs that were aimed but simply fell toward the target without the guidance that our smart bombs have today. The bombs were dumb in that sense; nothing guided them to the ground but the bombardier’s aim and gravity—they had no laser or other beam to guide them to the target.

So my father’s B-29 dropped dumb bombs, and her defensive armament comprised guns: .50-caliber machineguns in turrets along the upper and lower fuselage and in the tail.

Preserving History

One reason for writing this book is to preserve the history of one man’s service in World War II and the environment and machinery of that service. I want people to know what my father did and how he did it. My fear is that the farther in time society gets from World War II, the weaker the memory becomes of stories like the stories involving my father. In short, history such as his will disappear over time if not recorded.

Japs

Throughout the book, I use Jap or Japs, which is what my father and mother called the Japanese during and after the war. I use those terms to describe the Japanese before and during the war. I make no apologies, for this book is not a politically correct book. On December 27, 2005, my mother noted that publications about Iwo Jima referred to them as Japs. My father said, "I didn’t notice it [use of Jap] because that’s what we always called them." In our 2005 videotaped interview, he said the Japanese were called Japs during the war.

Some readers may find Jap offensive or politically incorrect; my response is, I do not care about offending people in this regard. After the barbaric behavior the Japanese exhibited in China in the 1930s before World War II and after their barbaric behavior during the war, the World War II generation of Japanese deserves to be called what they were called in those times: Japs. As an aside, my father rarely, if ever, used the other term for them: Nips, which comes from Nippon (Japan). The Marine Corps and Navy Iwo Jima veterans I met used Nips frequently; they fought the Japanese on Iwo Jima in 1945.

I also use Jap or Japs to give the reader a flavor of the time, a time when the word Jap was used without a second thought; even President Franklin Roosevelt used Japs in public speeches and announcements during the war. I suspect President Harry Truman used Japs too.

And no one, in the Allied military or the civilian world, had any compunction about killing Japs from the air, on the land, or on or under the sea. The world was not politically correct in that regard as it is today.

I do not know how many Japs my father and his B-29 crew killed, but I often wonder if it was a sufficient number to add to the debt the Japs owed to the world for what they did in China before the war and the barbarity they displayed during the war with little or no adherence to the written or unwritten laws of war. One Jap officer served as a delicacy (as in food) the liver of an executed Allied prisoner: I rest my case. (For his trouble he was executed for war crimes).

And I do not feel guilty about the bomb pin tags I describe in Chapter 9, tags with messages and annotations such as FOR VIVIEN, my father’s wartime girlfriend, and For Mom on Mother’s Day. My father certainly never registered any guilt about them to me. The tags represent bombing missions with bombs dropped on Japan, bombs that killed people. I trust the bombs killed some Jap girlfriends and Jap mothers who were supporting the war effort that was killing United States service personnel and making possible the barbaric treatment of Allied prisoners of war. Perhaps they were the wives, girlfriends, or mothers of Jap soldiers who, in China, held beheading contests or who buried or burned Chinese alive.

But I never sensed that my father enjoyed killing Japs by bombing Japan. Knowing him, his personality, and what he said about the war, the bombing missions were part of a job—his country sent him to the war to do a job, and killing was part of that job. He simply did it with a desire to survive the war. For perspective, the aviator who drops bombs kills at a distance and does not see killing at close quarters as does an infantryman, so my father had no firsthand experience as the infantry did with the unwillingness of the Japanese to surrender on the battlefield or the penchant of the Japanese to feign surrender then open fire on United States infantry coming forward to accept the surrender. After all, he told me he wondered why the Japs did not surrender earlier, before his crew flew its last bombing mission. Had the Japs surrendered, that last mission would not have been flown, saving Japan further destruction and saving Japanese lives. Ironically, his crew received word of the surrender on the radio on the return flight to Guam from that last bombing mission (Isesaki).

I refer to Japanese people today as Japanese, not as Japs or Nips. After all, as a teenage Boy Scout, I visited Japan for the Thirteenth World Jamboree (thirteen proved unlucky since we had a typhoon). The Japanese treated us well, and I saw Kyoto, a cultural treasure that was off-limits to my father’s B-29 and other bombers because it is an irreplaceable cultural site.

I save the shortened form of Japanese for the Japanese combatants and civilians who lived during the war and perpetrated some of the most ghastly crimes against man humanity has known. Japanese civilian workers supported the combatants in the field, so they were legitimate targets of my father’s bombing and deserved to die as one way to stop the war and the Japanese atrocities. As will be seen in the text, wartime newspapers frequently used Jap without any qualms.

I always felt that compared to the Krauts (Germans), the Japanese got a pass in the sense that Germany’s atrocities were on page one of world newspapers while Japan’s atrocities were on the back page. After seeing DVDs about Jap brutality in China and in the Pacific, I wonder if my father killed enough Japs to even the score and to exact retribution the Japs so richly deserved.

One of the major factors offering cover to Japanese war crimes is the Western world’s focus on the atrocities the Germans perpetrated during the war. If the cloud covering Japanese conduct could be parted, people in modern times would know just how barbaric the Japs were from 1931 (in China) to 1945 (still in China and then in other locations of World War II). The Germans had, and still have, the Holocaust jammed down their throats—and rightly so—but the Japs, as I just mentioned, somehow seemed to have gotten a pass. People know about brutality and murder in Nazi camps; do they know about Jap atrocities in China? We have a United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, focusing on what the Germans did, and we have such museums all over the country and the world as we should have; but how many museums do we have to mark Jap brutality and murder? What have we to show the beheadings of Chinese people, the burials of Chinese people alive, and the burning of Chinese people alive?

In short, the Japanese evaded much of the blame and punishment that should have been assigned to them. I think they deserved three atomic bombs: one for barbarity in China; one for December 7, 1941; and one for general barbarity during World War II, such as their treatment of Allied prisoners of war (the Bataan Death March and the hell ships come to mind). In fact, when I lived in Norfolk, I saw a sign posted by some antiwar nuts who wanted to commemorate (condemn) the THREE atomic bombings. Too bad we did not have three atomic bombs for Japan and three for Germany. But Germany surrendered before our atomic bombs were operational.

But I am politically correct today. When removed from my environment of World War II memorabilia and information, I do not call Japanese Japs or Germans Krauts. I would never call the Japanese who make my sushi Japs. I finally got my father late in his life to try and like sushi, but he still referred to those who made it as Japs, but politely so and not to their faces. On January 10, 2013, he informed me, You got some kind of Jap stuff [hand rolls] in here [refrigerator]. For the friends he lost and the dangers he endured in closing out the vicious, barbaric Jap Empire of World War II, I think he was allowed some old habits. By the way, Japan was often called the Empire during the war—not the evil Empire, just the Empire. John Essig, a member of my father’s B-29 crew, used Empire often in his summaries of missions.

Confederate Ancestry

Speaking of political correctness, if one may still mention the Confederacy, my father is in elite company in our family. As will be seen, his family has only three combat veterans: two of my father’s ancestors were Confederate soldiers; the third is my father.

The War’s Long Reach

World War II still has a long reach for me. Often when I hear or see a Japanese city mentioned, I wonder if my father bombed it or if he photographed it so other B-29s (and in one case, perhaps his own) could return to bomb the city. I have a page-a-day calendar with a different geographical location or city for each day. I keep the pages related to Japan and wonder if my father bombed or photographed the site. For example, I have these pages:

Six for Kyoto (off-limits for bombing during World War II due to its cultural value). It must be a popular place to have pages in six years. As mentioned earlier in this book, I visited it as a Boy Scout when I attended the Thirteenth World Jamboree in Japan in 1971.

Seven for Tokyo, with one page for the Imperial Palace and Gardens. My father’s B-29 bombed Tokyo—in his words, Did we ever—and he thought it hit the Palace grounds although the Palace was off limits to bombing (see Chapter 9).

Five for Hokkaido, including two for Sapporo (he photographed or flew over them during the crew’s longest mission, the longest aviation combat mission of World War II). Two include pages for Sapporo, mentioning its annual Snow Festival. A separate page is devoted to beer lists, and world capitals of beer, including Sapporo. As related later in this book, the Japs there turned on their landing lights for my father’s B-29 when it flew over Sapporo. Ironically, just minutes from my father’s grave in Greensboro is a Japanese restaurant named Sapporo.

Six miscellaneous pages for Japan, including one for the annual cherry blossoming. The calendar page for June 26, 2019, is a brilliant photograph of Mount Fuji, reminding me of my father’s notes on a photograph of Mount Fuji, notes about him seeing the mountain when P-10 flew by it on the way into Japan, I think on her first mission. June 26 happens to be the second day of the crew’s two-day mission, its longest flight and the longest combat aviation mission during the war.

Four for Honshu, with two pages for Kanazawa, noting that Kanazawa was one of the few Japanese cities to escape World War II air raids.

One for Havana, Cuba, where his crew did training in 1945 before going to the Pacific.

I think of his B-29 when I sit in my synthetic folding chair with Kawasaki printed on the inside and outside of the upper back support; I wonder if he bombed or photographed the city or a manufacturing plant with the same name. As I learned in reading a newspaper clipping about the bombing of Yokohama, Kawasaki is a city between Yokohama and Tokyo, two cities my father bombed; Kawasaki’s suburbs sustained minor damage when B-29 bombing eviscerated Yokohama on May 29, 1945 (my father flew that mission [see Chapter 9 and Appendix 7]). Ironically, the chair was airborne for a few moments; some moron in the condominium complex where I lived threw it off his or her second- or third-story porch to discard it. I found it, took it, and use it—proudly. It is in first-class condition.

Remembering Veterans

As part of the long reach of World War II for me and its participants, I often called veterans on anniversary dates. On August 15, 2005, I called my parents to thank them for what they did during the war since the Japanese had surrendered sixty years to that date. My mother said, I did a few things—my civic duty as a teenager and I sold [the] most [war] bonds [in Greensboro] one time. My father said, The big day was September the second. He thanked me for the call, saying, That’s the only [V-J Day] call I got. But I think that V-J (Victory over Japan) Day is actually considered to be September 2. Although the Japanese surrendered on August 15, September 2 (the date in Japan, September 1 in the United States) was the date on which the surrender document was signed on battleship USS Missouri and hence was called V-J Day. Joe Callaghan, my father’s best friend during the war and the crew’s navigator, bragged to me in 2003 to the effect that Rhode Island, Joe’s home state, was the only state that officially recognized V-J Day.

Dreaming about the War: Not

The conscious memories of the war have a long reach. On January 12, 2005, my mother said, I still don’t like the Japanese. My father said, I don’t care for them, no. I don’t have to associate with them.

But my father wondered why he did not dream about the war—surprisingly, he had no subconscious memories. On October 22, 2008, my father talked about how he dreamed about his business (he was a General Motors truck dealer for years after the war); he added, You know, the surprising thing is that I never dream about the war.

Those memories were brought to light in our Greensboro, North Carolina, newspaper. On September 7, 1995, the Greensboro NEWS & RECORD published a WWII COMMEMORATIVE EDITION with small photographs of Greensboro natives who were in the war; my father is listed on page 4:

Elmer C. Jones

1st Lieutenant

20th Air Force

60th Squadron

Asiatic-Pacific

I cannot help but observe that the front page of the paper reproduced the front page of a 1945 issue of the GREENSBORO DAILY NEWS with this headline (see Chapter 20 for details about this headline):

WAR

ENDS

Japs Accept Surrender

Terms of Allied Powers

The paper today is politically correct and would never use the word Japs even for historical or commemoration purposes.

And as discussed later in this book, a reporter for the Greensboro News & Record interviewed my father with the article titled Vet’s radar mission set record for WWII.

Bombing Mitsubishi

My father saw the long reach in financial matters. On October 9, 2008, while watching television’s Nightly Business Report on the Public Broadcasting System, he said, We destroyed Mitsubishi [in World War II by bombing]. Now they’re putting money [into the US stock market during our financial crisis]. On October 10, 2008, he said, We wiped out Mitsubishi on a couple of raids, but they’re about to call it off [the company’s aid to the United States during the 2008 financial crisis].

War Taken Seriously

My father took the war seriously. On May 22, 2005, when I told him that an Iwo Jima veteran had sent me an article questioning whether Iwo Jima should have been taken, he sarcastically said, Maybe the whole Pacific War was unnecessary. He added, We should have dropped more atomic bombs if we had them. On the same date, my mother indicated that she realized the seriousness of the war: They [Allied commanders] had an awful lot of hard decisions to make [in World War II].

Travel

My father and I share a travel history. Both of us have been to mainland Japan after the war. As I mentioned earlier, I have been once (1971’s World Jamboree.) He won one or more trips there in contests sponsored by General Motors for its dealers (as just mentioned, my father was a GM truck dealer for many years). We each visited Iwo Jima twice (he in 1945, me in 1995 and 2015); Iwo Jima is part of Japan. I have been to Guam twice; he was based in Guam during the war, but I do not think he ever returned there after the war.

Notes

I do not think my father knew that I was taking detailed notes of what he said about the war, especially when I was older—these note are why I have so many quotations from him: I had four thick file folders because they are filled with pages of my notes recording what was said. Now I have many more folders because I organized his quotations by year.

As far as those notes of what he said, I never sensed that my father was holding anything back; what he said was forthright and candid probably because he did not know I was taking notes of what he was saying. He never cried or got emotional about the war; he spoke clinically about the loss of crews over Japan—he said that they simply did not return. Ironically, he was puzzled by what he thought to be the needless loss of Japanese life: had Japan surrendered earlier, his crew (P-10) would not have had to fly her last mission, dropping bombs and killing people just before the surrender, people who would have lived had the surrender come before the mission. But I suspect some events, such as the death of his best wartime friend Joe Callaghan well after the war, got to him.

I originally wrote that I did not know why I took notes of what he said or when I started doing so. Late in the process, I remembered the why: like father, like son. My father was a compulsive note-taker; in fact, his notes of conversations helped him win a settlement when he sued General Motors. I inherited the compulsion to take notes, and I thank God for it; my notetaking is the source of most of my father’s quotations about the war in this introduction and throughout this book.

In any event, at the risk of distracting or irritating readers, I have included the date of quotations (I have dates for most of them) to give readers an idea of just how late in his life (he was born in 1924) my father made observations and recited memories (and very accurate ones) about war generally and about his war specifically. Most of the quotations were from 2000 to 2014, the year he died. The time span for and quantity of quotations shows how much the war affected him; he did not just make a few isolated statements about the war from 2000 to 2014. While many veterans will not talk about their wars, my father talked about World War II freely and openly, at least with me (but I do not know if he would have talked about it so freely earlier in his life and closer to war’s end). And I never doubted what he said although I think he made some mistakes as any human would be expected to do.

Likewise, I have cited in the text many GENERAL and SPECIAL ORDERS so readers will get a flavor of the importance and amount of paperwork and documents in the World War II Army and in the Army Air Forces. One saying is that an Army moves on its stomach; I add to that, An Army moves by or on paper. Paper is less important now in our digital and electronic age, but World War II was fought in an age of paper, paper, and more paper. Documents and general or special orders conveyed everything from the good (good assignments and commendations and awards), the bad (bad assignments and reprimands), and the ugly (records or notices of the death or missing status of a service member or the loss of an entire B-29 crew). The old saying is that You don’t move without orders. In physics, Sir Isaac Newton had a law to the effect that every action had a like reaction; in the Army, every action had a like reaction in that it was preceded or followed by a document, form, or record.

Thus the contents of my father’s two main personnel files contained paper, paper, and more paper (or documents or records if the reader prefers). Those two files are his Official Military Personnel File, better known as OMPF, maintained at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and his PERSONAL 201 FILE, better known as 201 FILE, which was a large, expandable file capable of holding documents and other files. He had his 201 FILE in our home’s attic.

I found to be stupefying the numbers and types of forms and records just to procure one man—my father—into the military during wartime and to document his time in the military. Multiple copies of the same document or record are common. The number and types of forms and orders just to accomplish travel can be staggering. One example is the variety and numbers of documents and orders required to bring my father home from the Pacific to the United States and to separate him from the service.

Perspectives on War: Quotations of a Warrior

I made notes of what my father said about events other than the war. For example, he hated the main post office in Greensboro, saying that it was the worst main post office he knew (I think I made a note of that comment). But most of the quotations were about the war, and at this point. I will begin recounting them to make this book and my Father’s memory come alive.

The best perspective of the war—or any war—is from a quotation of October 19, 2013, when he was talking about the good deals he had in life:

That’s the best deal I ever had—I didn’t get killed in World War II.

That is my favorite quotation from my father about the war. I think he knew how very lucky he was to have survived the war. At this point, I will add that I do not think he ever felt survivor’s guilt, the feeling or question combat veterans have: why did I survive when others perished? He never expressed survivor’s guilt to me. I think he was just grateful that he survived, that he got that best deal by not being killed; he did not compare his survival with the deaths of others although, as mentioned throughout this book, he often offered explanations of why and how he himself thought he survived, explanations such as luck and the flying skill of Tom Bell, his B-29’s aircraft commander.

My second favorite quotation comes from his visit to his friend from home, Clair Roberts, a Seabee on Tinian. My father saw that Clair or another Seabee had a long white bone. Clair said that it was a Jap arm bone used as a back scratcher. My father wrote an undated paragraph about the incident, closing with War does strange things. He described the Seabees, in the context of using a bone for a back scratcher, as industrious. Ironically, he wrote the note on a copy of a photograph from LIFE magazine of a souvenir Japanese skull (Chapter 14 describes the context in detail).

My third favorite quotation was from our October 31, 2010, telephone conversation: You don’t want to get hit [while flying a mission].

The fourth is about the number of bombs dropped on P-10’s last mission, one he thought unnecessary but flown simply because the stubborn Japs would not surrender: That was a lot of damn bombs we dropped.

My fifth favorite quote is from July 10, 2012: It wasn’t a bad life if you didn’t get killed.

Finally, my sixth favorite quotation from circa 1999 or 2000: I was in the war, but I didn’t see the war. He made a similar comment in our 2005 interview: I was in the war but didn’t see it. On July 25, 2007, he said in a similar vein, I didn’t see anything but the radar scope. As he said on June 14, 2008, I didn’t see all that flak and stuff. . . . I was busy on the radar set. And as he said on April 7, 2008, Well, we were being shot at, but I didn’t see it [since I had no window in my compartment].

The preceding were quotations that he said; I want to add a quotation from a June 18, 1992, document he wrote that is a short history of his war experiences. The context is wondering why his B-29 crew was sent on a single-ship mission (meaning his plane flew the mission alone) to take radar photographs of Japanese cities, the first such mission of many the crew would fly. The sentence shows his great sense of humor and his understanding of the military: "After all these years, I wonder if we just had a good radar set, a good radar operator [him], or were just a guinea pig to find out if the Japs would shoot down a single plane."

And I want to add a quotation at this point from the famous Winston Churchill, who was describing, in his book THE STORY OF THE MALAKAND FIELD FORCE, the experience of being shot at: Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. I thought of this quotation when reading a page of my notes recording my mother asking my father if he was ever shot at: All the time, We got hit a couple of times, You fly right into it [flak]. You don’t know if you’re going to get hit or not. My father’s B-29 experienced result to use Churchill’s word, but fortunately it was not fatal or serious. The crew was not shot down, no crew member was hit by flak, and the plane, while she had flak hits, was not, to the best of my knowledge, seriously damaged. But I go back to Churchill, whom my father thought one of the greatest men in history. My father’s wording was not as eloquent as Churchill’s, but what my father said was the plain language translation of Churchill’s quotation. My father said it on November 17, 2005: When you’re shot at, you’ve got to save your ass. On November 19, 2003, he revealed another insight men in combat learn quickly or die: I finally figured out those Japanese were trying to kill us. Add these quotations to my list of favorite quotations.

Maybe the best summary of the war was what he said on April 14, 2010, when he reflected on the war: Some kind of experience. And add to that this humorous, or maybe not so humorous (see Chapter 13), instance of stating the obvious: on September 22, 2007, he said, It’s a damn good thing we weren’t shot down over Japan. He commented on September 24, 2007, about those who were shot down and killed: No, you don’t see the bodies [as the infantry see those killed]. They’re [just] gone.

On December 29, 2003, he summarized well the nature of the war: Everything was expendable, including us [crews]. I laugh at that quotation—maybe I should not. And he had an insight I share with him about war, having studied war since I was a teenager and having written three books and numerous magazine articles about it: I think war is just about won by who makes the least [number of] mistakes. One can see this in our Civil War: Robert E. Lee made more mistakes than the Union commanders opposing him (the classic example was Pickett’s Charge). On October 8, 2003, he expressed an insight I think is true much of the time about the military and war: The military overall is dumb, but when you break it down to individuals, it gets better. It has to, or you’d never win a war. As to survival, a theme he revisited repeatedly, he said on January 9, 2000, "It [the war] was just a deadly game. If you won, you were OK. If you lost, you were dead."

I think he questioned the need to go to college to be an officer. On August 22, 2009, he said, If we’d waited until everybody went to college, we’d [have] lost World War II. On May 28, 2008, he said, You can fight a damn war without a college degree [but in peacetime, one is needed for promotion]. He expressed frustration at not being promoted to colonel from lieutenant colonel; not having a college or advanced degree probably worked against his promotion chances, but as he said on March 20, 2010, It [only] takes a second lieutenant [without a degree] to bomb Tokyo. He should know—he did it.

My father also had some good quotations about the war in Afghanistan fought by the United States against the Taliban and other terrorists. During one report on NBC Nightly News, he thought the reporter was naive: What do they [the media] think a war is about? On February 23, 2013, he asked a question he frequently asked: What happened to the war [in Afghanistan]? He was miffed by the lack of media coverage of the war, which appeared to have been lost in a cloud of popular culture junk. He had another great quotation: Boy, I hate to think that I could have gotten killed [in a war when society focuses on junk]. He continued, At least we had something to die for. I think the last comment reflects the opinion that World War II was the last good war, with the United States having well-defined enemies and an overwhelming public desire to destroy them; the result was clear-cut victory. As will be seen at the end of this introduction, he thought the war was a good war. Responding to a question my mother had about monuments for the Korean and Vietnam Wars, my father intimated that they were ignored or forgotten. On March 31, 2010, he said, Vietnam and Korea are kind of gone against—unless you got killed.

As can be seen, he returned to the theme of survival repeatedly. I called him on Veterans Day, November 11, 2008, to thank him for his service. He said, I’m glad I could do it [laughter] and survive.

When a local newspaper columnist stated that aircraft were joy riding over Japan after flying over USS Missouri after the surrender document was signed on September 2, 1945, my father was upset, saying the flight over the ship was authorized and any flying over Japan appropriate: You just don’t pick up a B-29 and fly to Japan.

But everything was not life or death or strange. My father wrote on a page with a copy of the picture in a wartime LIFE magazine, mentioned earlier in this introduction, of a pretty woman admiring a Jap skull her boyfriend had sent her, The nicest thing about World War II was the good-looking women.

I discovered two other perspectives when thinking about my father.

One was that my father, who was born on August 11, 1924, was only 20 years old when flying combat missions as a radar operator from the date of his first mission (April 24, 1945, Tachikawa) to his 27th mission (August 7, 1945, radar scope). He became 21 on August 11, 1945 and was that age for his last combat mission (August 15, 1945, Isesaki) and for the surrender flyover (September 2, 1945, various parts of Japan).

Another was that the average combatant is concerned only with his immediate surroundings, leading to isolation from other parts of the battle and from other combatants fighting in those other parts of the battle. In other words, the universe for the individual combatant is small: little picture versus big picture. I had read about this phenomenon as it concerned a Confederate soldier in the Civil War as well as it concerned combatants in modern wars, including World War II. In my father’s case, he was confined and isolated in his radar compartment, without a window, in his B-29 and focused on his radar set. He could not be concerned with the remainder of the crew or with friendly or enemy aircraft while he was doing his job as the radar observer. His isolation led to his observation cited earlier that he was in the war but did not see the war.

Not Politically Correct

Readers must remember the context to which my father’s quotations about the war refers: a no-holds barred politically incorrect war that was not televised, a war in which the Allies reclaimed and saved Western and Eastern civilizations as we know them today and as they were known before the Japs attacked China and the Germans conquered so much of Europe. As he said on November 15, 2005, We’d never have won World War II if we’d had the television. For example, on October 19, 2005, he said while watching a television report about U.S. troops burning the bodies of Taliban fighters they had killed, Are we fighting a war or not? He said, I’m surprised they’re [our commands] kill them [the enemy], I wouldn’t want to be a soldier in combat today.

My father fought a war different from wars fought after World War II. In 2005 or 2006, I heard someone say on the television or radio that he would join the military if the country were not at war. My father commented on the difference in times, that people were anxious to go into combat in World War II. But the irony was that often they wanted out of combat after they had finally gotten into it.

The probability of killing civilians by aerial bombing did not stop that bombing. My father was upset about what he perceived to be restraints on our military when fighting the war in Iraq in 2005. On August 22, 2005, he said, We [in World War II] knew who we were fighting and fought to win. . . . You’d have to kill a bunch of people. . . . You can’t have a war and not kill some innocent people.

Killing innocent people is an example of the imperfection of warfare, something my parents discussed on December 5, 2004: war is not a perfect process, and many mistakes were and are made. My father said, We [once] dropped the bombs on the damn rice paddies [in Japan instead of the target].

Context

The context of the war is also important in another sense. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) promised in the 1930s to remain neutral and stated that he would never send our boys to fight in a foreign land, but his neutrality eroded before the United States entered the war when he sent arms to Great Britain; it then vanished after the attack on Oahu on December 7, 1941, followed by Germany’s declaration of war on the United States. My father said on April 1, 2005, that FDR had to send troops overseas: [Adolf] Hitler would have taken the whole damn place [Europe], The Japs would have taken [the whole Pacific]. In a note to me dated December 2, 2004, my father wrote, The tape on Samurai and Swastika [Samurai and the Swastika] is one of the best overall views of WWII that I have seen. Lots of facts that I never heard of. Germany and Japan came close to world domination—the U.S. saved the world.

Differing Perspectives

What must be remembered is that each crewman of my father’s crew, P-10, had a different perspective of flight and missions (each had a different station on the B-29) and life on Guam (officers and enlisted men had different living conditions and comradery). As my father said to this effect on September 20, 2005, the enlisted men and officers had different experiences and perspectives.

But having different perspectives is not a license to lie or to fabricate, so I did not use any of the information we received from one of the crew members since the information was of questionable credibility. For example, he wrote that P-10 ditched in the Pacific, which of course never happened. The purported ditching is undocumented, and my father and other crew members would certainly have known about ditching, and none of crew members I spoke to ever mentioned ditching.

Fear, Courage,