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by bkshoe55 »
More info on the experiences of the 40th group.
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April 1944 saw the first of 38 B-29s and 60 40th Group fiight crews land at Chakulia, India, where the heat was unbearable for both the men and the planes. The 100-degree-plus temperatures made work impossible during the period between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.
‘The B-29 at the close of the war was a very good airplane,’ Carmichael says, ‘but when we first received it in 1943 and took it to the China-Burma-India [CBI] theater, it was a very poor aircraft. Nearly everything on that airplane was changed or modified before the end of the war.
‘When we were in India, the Wright engine representative told me that they had made 1,800-plus modifications to the engine alone. The engines were the prime factor in our operational losses because they were of damn poor design, and we didn’t have the proper maintenance people to maintain them.
‘The allowable engine cylinder head temperature was 265 degrees. I never saw a temperature on the early B-29s that was under 300 degrees on takeoff. As a result, we were losing engines and aircraft even before they left the runway. It wasn’t uncommon to replace all top cylinders four or five times to try to reach the 400-hour overhaul limit on the engines. We also had a tremendous problem with exhaust stacks and exhaust collector rings. These would blow out, and you either feathered the engine or risked the danger of a fire in the engine or nacelle.’
Tennessee resident Ivan Potts, a pilot with the 40th Bomb Group’s 25th Squadron, recalls: ‘The first time I saw a B-29 up close I couldn’t believe something that big could actually get off the ground and fiy. Structurally they were very strong. [No U.S. Army Air Force plane made] was more challenging or exciting to fiy. We hated it on occasion but loved it most of the time. It was completely efficient, with no wasted space anywhere. The visibility was great, due to the plexiglass nose. One pilot once said that fiying the B-29 was like fiying a three-bedroom house from the front porch.
‘Many problems became apparent during the plane’s first couple years of existence. The Wright engines were sometimes nicknamed ‘Wrong’ engines, or ‘fiamethrowers.’ They were known to conk out or catch fire in the air. They’d overheat constantly, cylinder heads would blow off, and they also acquired many leaks. The engines even ran too hot on the ground. But as time progressed we had more and more respect for the Superfortress. Its only shortcoming was that it was needed before it was ready.’
As the engine quirks were being worked out, men from the 40th Bomb Group, along with other groups from the 58th Wing based in India, were the first to deploy the Superfortress in combat. Ninety-four planes took part in a June 5, 1944, mission, whose target was the Makasan railroad yard at Bangkok, Thailand. Fourteen planes in the wing aborted before reaching Bangkok 1,000 miles away, most because of engine malfunctions. The target was overcast, forcing the bombardiers to use radar. Only 18 bombs landed inside the target area. To make matters worse, a tropical storm hit as the bombers returned. Five of the planes crashed on landing, and 42 pilots put down at other bases before their fuel ran out.
Although it was a disastrous first strategic mission, it was a learning experience. The targets soon became places in Japan itself, in addition to others in Thailand, Japanese-occupied portions of China, Burma, Manchuria and Formosa. One of the group’s most prestigious achievements in the Pacific war effort was its aerial support for General Douglas MacArthur’s invasion of the Philippines in September 1944. On the 14th and 17th, the B-29s hit key Japanese airfields and installations on Formosa. During the ensuing months, more 40th Bomb Group raids followed from bases at Chakulia as well as at Hsinching, China.
One of the missions from China made a special mark in the news media. On December 7, 1944, O’Keefe’s crew was in a formation heading to bomb Japanese-occupied Mukden (now Shenyang), China, when it encountered heavy fighter opposition. Enemy shells punctured the plane’s nose, destroying O’Keefe’s gun sight and causing the cabin to lose pressure. O’Keefe and the others plugged every hole they could find with rags, but they were still losing pressure. After a thorough search, they finally found more holes on the deck but, alas, were out of rags. Crewman Edwin Mann then eyed his in-fiight meal, which contained a small package of K-ration cheese. ‘Whatever they used to preserve the cheese gave it properties of remarkable toughness and rubbery resilience,’ O’Keefe says jokingly. Mann opened two of the packs and pushed the bits of cheese into the holes. The cabin pressure returned to normal levels and held until they returned safely to base.
‘Several months later,’ O’Keefe recalls,’someone in the 40th received a magazine from home and in it found an article on the B-29s operating out of China. Tucked away in a long paragraph were a couple of lines describing the use of K-ration cheese in effecting in-fiight repairs of a battle-damaged B-29.’
