Viewing page 86 of 307

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

They were going to map the entire four main islands of Japan. We were given an offer: immediate promotion to staff sergeant, six months to tech sergeant, and six more months to master sgt.. In three years with 20% overseas pay and 50% flying pay I could make much more than I could at a civilian job. I said that I wanted to go home and get married. They said that I could go home for a month, get married and bring my wife back with me to Japan. There was just one hitch - I had not yet asked her to marry me. Moreover, vertical aerial mapping photography is very boring. I flew out of Atsugi on 9 August on a C-54 for Guam.

About halfway to Guam we passed over Iwo Jima and eight hours later we landed. Several of us got bumped for more important cargo and we were stuck on Guam for three days. It was a great adventure. A fuel tank had leaked and contaminated the drinking water - there was actually a No Smoking sign on the drinking fountain and I could smell the gasoline fumes. I was not a beer drinker so I was cutting the eyes out of coconuts outside our tent and drinking the milk for liquid. There was a beer hall on top of a cliff above us but you had to walk a mile to get there. Some of the guys talked me into going up there. It was a hot day and we were very thirsty so we each bought the maximum two beers. I tried to drink it but I just didn't like the stuff so I gave it to the other guys.

Swimming in the surf was fun. The water was clear and shallow for a long way out, but there was a lot of coral underfoot the farther out you went. I was close to shore when I saw a tropical storm with large breakers coming in fast. I reached the shore and took shelter in an abandoned shack. I could see some of the guys way out on a coral reef. The drenching rain and high winds hit with a fury and within a few minutes it blew over. The sun came out and there were the guys still out there. They were OK except for a few cuts from the sharp coral.

Many of the trees were splintered off by the fierce shelling to capture the island from the Japanese. One day I saw a path leading through the trees. Another guy and I decided to see where it went. When we came to a clearing we saw a native village with huts built up on poles. Out in the water and on the beach it appeared that the entire village of men, women, and children were swimming and walking around nude. Knowing that we had intruded we fled before they saw us.

I left Guam the next morning, arriving on Kwajalein 8 hours later at 6:10 PM where we were served a meal. We took off at 8:10 PM and arrived at Johnson Island 8 hours later at 7:10 AM (a different time zone). Johnson was such a tiny spot that it looked like our wheels would splash down in the water - our pilot hit the runway the same moment that the end passed beneath us, and he used the entire runway. A 4 hour and 20 minute hop put us down at Hickam Field, Hawaiian Islands. There I had my first real milk in eight months. Three hours later we took off for a 13 hour and 5 minute flight to Fairfield-Suisun Air

12