Reach for Intimacy

Even from the new airdromes on Saipan, the reach to Tokyo (1,500 mi.) was a long one. The Superfortresses, built for just such a job, had to go out with cut-down bomb-loads and carefully calculated fuel allowances to make the run and get home. But as airmen worked into intimate acquaintanceship with their massive, wondrously complicated weapon, the assaults were stepped up both in timing and in loads dropped. This week, when the B-29s had struck the great industrial center at Nagoya a second time, the force on Saipan could count five assaults on the Jap mainland.

In conferences after assaults, pilots and crewmen swapped stories of their experiences. But none last week had a story to match Lieut. Robert J. Anderson's. He had set out Wednesday for Nagoya, soon found that he could not reach it and get back home--engine trouble.

The Anderson crew began looking for some other target, found a fine fat factory in Hamamatsu (55 mi. south of Nagoya) and plunked their bombs squarely among its buildings. Then came the letdown. Back on Saipan, Anderson reported his emergency measure--and got a big laugh. The plant was a musical instrument factory.

To make things worse, other crews reported that on the way home from Nagoya they had seen the factory burning cheerily. The Anderson crew felt pretty low. Then an intelligence officer heard their story. He cheered them up. The Hamamatsu plant had indeed once catered to Japan's bandmen, but no longer. Best information now was that it had been converted to the manufacture of aircraft parts, it had been a prime bomber's target, after all.

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