Kenji, one of the guards who had become a friend, invited me to his home, where I met his wife. He took me on walks through the exotic countryside. I was a kid from Portland, Maine, and there I was, being guided through some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. These farmers became […]

During my time in Japan, I would go into the hangar and meet with all the Japanese guards. One of the perks of meeting them was that I had coffee. When the crews came back we had thermoses of hot coffee and lots of cream and milk and sugar. The guards didn’t like coffee particularly, […]

Shortly after I arrived in Tokyo, my High Security Clearance let me reassign myself to the area where enlisted men, non-commissioned officers, sergeants, lieutenants, captains and majors were scheduling all the maintenance on the aircraft and writing the work orders to send to the engine man or propeller mechanics, hydraulics technician or whatever was needed. […]

It would take the troop ship I was on 30 days to reach Korea. I used to shave in the head, which was located in the prow of the ship. When the waves caused the ship to sink its prow under the water, the urinal would slosh from one end to the next. Standing at […]

Shortly after my Texas training, I was shipped to Fairbanks, Alaska for six months. Thankfully, I wasn’t on the hot stand. I was in the shop. The B-29 was a very large aircraft with a difficult propeller system. You had to have something sensitive enough to change the plane’s angle, but you couldn’t do it […]

I went for basic training for the Air Force in upstate New York. Immediately, I learned that they were doing a theatrical production, Conquest of the Air, that had been written by a young Frenchman who had joined the United States Air Force. When I learned that the Air Force was gathering talent to produce a […]