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pg.33

the runway lights skimming past their airplane. In short order we had saved over a score of P-61's. We were know standing alert for 12 hours a day and for the past several days I had had little or no sleep. The strain and pressure began to add up. Tension in the GCA unit of the crew on duty mounted.

Take the morning of the first B-29: Crew # 2, the crew for which the writer was radar technician had been on duty from twelve midnight until eight a.m. Although the night was bad climate-wise none of our planes landed on the island and hence our services were not required. Nevertheless we remained in the unit on the alert for any eventuallity. At eight a.m. the crew went off duty and, on orders, the writer took the necessary steps to shut down the system. [[strikethrough]] I had been asle[[/strikethrough]] After making sure that all had been taken care of, I crawled into my pup-tent and went to sleep. I had been asleep about ten minutes when Walt Stalla came in and shook me awake. "Hurry up," he said, "there's a twenty-nine up there trying to land". I bounced out of bed, struggled into my clothes, ran out still half undressed and burst into the trailer. I "fired" up the set, worked swiftly to get the system going properly, made the proper tuning measurements and finally had a minute to look around. Woodford and Katzemek were just coming in (they too had been on duty all night) Major Alford was talking into the mike