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pg.43

if someone told you to jump into blackness, into, what? No answer from the first plane... Guess they jumped... Now the second plane...Up the middle of the island... Three thousand feet up there in the blackness... Okay,jump!... No, they didn't want to leave the plane...Jump, damn it, jump...Silence... We called the plane. The pilot responded. Hold it now, you're past the island. We'll have to bring you around again over the island... Now, bail out...The pilot had his transmit key on."Sure hate to leave this plane. Jump, go on, jump." He apparently was talking to his crew, the radar officer and the gunner. "Get the hell out of here," he yelled... Then silence... We called the plane again. No response... I guess they are all out... The third nightfighter had enough gas to circle until nine a.m. Maybe it would lift by then. It was six-thirty or seven o'clock now. The other GCA crew was routed out of bed to relieve us. Spence thought we had had enough for a while. We filed out of the unit, quite shaken.

Later we learned that all the men who had bailed out had landed safely on the island. I was awakened by a tremendous explosion which shook the ground and almost threw me out of bed. I thought, "There goes that damn volcano blowing its top," but I was too tired to care at this point and went right back to sleep. Later that day I found out a big TNT dump had blown up nearby... Captain Jolley returned from the Mariannas, took one look at us and declared a three day holiday - provided the weather was good. It was.