Frank Wrublevski Offutt AFB 1990

Our crew flew to Guam with our assigned plane piloted by Lt Heimlich and Lt. Quinn. It was a long flight from California to Hawaii and the weather was perfect. Our second stop was Wake Island for fueling; the weather was rainy and misty which made it difficult for our navigator, Lt Doty. The island was a speck in the ocean. If we missed it, we could have ran out of fuel and been lost at sea. Thank God we landed safely. On the following day we arrived at our destination - Guam.

We were assigned to our living quarters and met with the other crews. We went on only one practice mission and bombed Rota before we got the word that we were going on our first mission. It was an incendiary attack on Tokyo. For a green and inexperienced crew, we really got the hottest target in Japan. Also it was Friday the 13th but we were lucky that it was a night mission. This meant we waited for no other crews to make a bomb run and had less chance of detection. Somehow we came in on the wring heading and bombed Tokyo against the grain but came through without a mishap. Someone was watching over us and we returned safely to our base.

Our second mission was Kawasaki of April 15. It was also a night mission. The flight to the target was uneventful so we were able to rest before we reached the destination. We were unlucky this night; the Japanese caught our plane in searchlights and we were able to use every available weapon they had to shoot at us. Again, we were in and out and returned without a scratch.

By the time the war was over, we had 24 sorties to our credit plus two aborts. Our crew always sweated take-offs because of the bomb load and the short runways but we all returned to our loved ones after the war was over.