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pg.65

The pilots were superb - it was thrilling the casual way they responded to our , and I hesitate to use the overworked phrase, messages which for them might have meant life or death.

We learned that Tokyo had been heavily hit by fire bombs in a bad burn job. We lost 12 B - 29's over the target. Flak must have been heavy.

Saw Eddie this evening and brought him back to the unit to show him how it works. It was to be his last evening on Iwo - tomorrow he would be returning to Tinian. For the ocassion I prepared five bottles of beer and produced a treasured bottle of Pepsi-Cola - the first one either had since leaving the States. In addition we had some cheese crakers, vanilla wafers and candy. Ed's contribution to the repast was a can of tuna fish. Things such as these have become very important in our scheme of things. I demonstrated the unit to him, explained how it works and we polished off the crackers, beer and Pepsi-Cola which I had cooled in the home made ice-box which we had made by tapping into the cooling system ofthe unit.

About 11:30 I took him back to his living area and [[strikethrough]] xxxx [[/strikethrough]] said goodby. I reminded him to try and deliver the note to Dave Lowenthal, another friend of mine on the B- 29's on Tinian with whom I had gone to school,