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pg. 8

"To Be Opened One Hour Out".

We all took our last look at the States as we headed west over the Golden Gate. I thought to myself, It'll be a long time before we see [[underlined]] that [[/underlined]] again. Just before we went "over the top" we caught sight of a battleship or heavy cruiser steaming stodly westward. At 8000 feet we were in the clear over a solid bank of clouds, on instruments.

Through the deepening dusk and into the night we droned steadly west. About midnight, most of us in the plane were asleap.

We were awakened at 3 a.m. "We'll be there soon" said the crew chief of the plane. Shortly we circled the Hawaiian Islands ablaze with lightand landed several minutes later. It was 4a.m. Jan. 7th.1945, exactly 12 hours after leaving the States.

The night was warm and dark - quite a contrast after the chilly weather of the States. No one knew who we were or what we were supposed to do (a situation we were to run into more and more often) so it wasn't until three hours later that we were able to wash up. Sleep was out of the question. Spence had left the day before to arrange matters but where was he?

After much running about we finally located him. When pressed for information he said all he knew was that we were headed f[[obscured]] an island still in Japanese possession. I thought what we had been told at school - that G.C.A. would not go to a foreward area and laughed sarcastically.