Capt Harry Kozik Guam 1945

"One night over Japan - I have forgotten the target - a twin engine fighter "Betty", came up under us firing, and we dumped our load of bombs on him and knocked him out !

On another night we an incident much more serious, although we didn't know it at the time. On the run to the target, Ed (Williams) told me we had lost 200 gallons of fuel almost instantaneous ! As we were busy over the target, I brushed it aside as nothing to worry about other than to wonder if we had enough to get back home. We did get back to base with only enough fuel to make one pass to land. It wasn't until the next day when our Crew Chief handed me a handful of 20mm shrapnel that he had gotten from our inboard fuel tank, that I learned the reason for the disappearing fuel.

To this day, I don't know why that shell exploding in our tank didn't blow the wing off. The only explanation I can give is that, as per procedure, we topped off our inboard fuel tanks before the bombing run and because they were full of liquid fuel there were no vapors. Therefore, the liquid with no vapor to ignite absorbed the force of the exploding shell. Luck as surely with us that