By Sophia Woytowitz
I had been without sleep for almost two days, at that point. I found myself scheduled to fly again almost immediately. I didn’t think I was physically able to go another thirty or forty hours without sleep. But there was no time to think about it.
We were going — Period!
The crew and I grabbed about seven hours of sleep while the ground crew prepared the airplane, “City of San Antonio.” It was named this because our captain was from San Antonio, Texas. We took off again that evening for a night strike against what most of us considered our roughest target, Tokyo.
Suddenly, I felt the rumbling of the flak explode. I heard the shrapnel raining off the airplane. I dropped the first sets of bombs on the city of Tokyo.
“Bombs away!”
As the plane turned away from the scene, I could see the city of Tokyo burning to ashes.
After the bomb doors closed, the plane banked to the right and we started our long and treacherous journey home. The pilot said, “Everybody check-in.”
“Jack, here”
“Bob, ok”
“John, here”
“Peter, here
“Jourdan, ok”
“David, ok”
“Mike, here”
“Tim, ok”
“Nathen, here”
The calls paused. Silence.
“Is Bill ok?” the captain asked firmly.
There was a long wait…
Bill’s position was all the way at the back of the plane, in the tail gunner seat.
No answer.
My friend from the first day at Fort Dix was now presumed dead.
“Well, I ain’t cleaning that mess out of that chair,” Tim said jokingly.
Everyone in the plane chuckled at the not-so-amusing joke.
However, the danger wasn’t over.
The trip back took more than 7-hours and was over open ocean. If the plane were to have a mechanical failure, there would be no place to land and no one could rescue us. We would surely crash into the ocean and we would all drown.
As we stumbled out of the plane; our legs were shaky from sitting too long. We got out and faced each other, knowing that someone had to clean up after Bill. Until, suddenly, the door form Bill’s compartment swung open. Two feet jumped out from the plane to the ground. It was Bill! We all ran to rejoice with him and asked him what happened.
“Why did you not answer my calls?” the pilot questioned.
“After the flak exploded near our plane, the connection seemed to vanish. I could hear your discussions.” He shoved Tim in a jokingly manner. “But I guess you guys couldn’t hear me.”
“We’re glad you’re ok,” I said.
“Yeah, I was gettin’ worried that we would have to clean yer guts, man.” He laughed as Bill leaned on the mental plane.