Black Projects GBJournal of Major Raymond Shepherd USAAF, pilot of
“Eleanor’s Rose” a B-29B assigned to the 20th AF, 502 BG (VH), 411 BS based on Okinawa.
February 4, 1946
Got my oak leaves today, though I wish it was under better circumstances. Seems like we lost “Daisy’s Wagon” only yesterday but the brass doesn’t like lowly lieutenants as squadron execs and I was next in line. Big mission tomorrow night, guess I should at least try to sleep; lot of prep work to do before then.
February 6
We sure left Kyushu in ruins; you could hide battleships in the craters! God bless the Limeys and their Tall Boys. Ever since we turned Mount Suribachi in Suribachi “Crater” the brass has mandated all similar geographical features be wiped from the map. The stories told about the maze of tunnels and fortifications they found in the rubble boggle the mind. I don’t even want to think about how many guys we would have lost had we taken it the normal way. Time to wrap this up; first reports from the landings are coming in.
February 7
Between our raids and the Navy’s fly boys and big guns, the Marines had a relatively easy going on the beaches. Always good to know we’re saving lives on the ground. The island was turned into a veritable featureless wasteland and what tunnel complexes remain are being sniffed out for future raids. We’ll have to wait another night for our next turn though thanks to Number Three throwing several pistons during a post-overhaul run-up. Tore up the housing and Number Four really well and even managed to send one through one of the cockpit windows, thankfully no one was hurt. We’re going to go give Cooper and his crew a hand in changing them out and bore-sighting the guns. With all of the action lately the mechanics could use some extra help. Jack always wants to do the guns himself anyway.
February 8
The “Rose” is all ready to go and running fine. Been hearing reports from last night that the Japs put up some jets over Kyushu; great… Only saw them once in Europe but once was enough. Good news is the guys barely reported seeing ten or so and they didn’t stick around for long. Guess translating German into Japanese is harder than it looks. The Intel guys want those of us who have previously encountered them to speak at the briefing this afternoon. I don’t know how helpful I’ll be but word is a couple of the Mustang pilots bagged a handful of the Kraut variety so we’ll be all ears for them.
February 9
They certainly have jets all right! Strange, I could have sworn they were faster over Germany. Guess they don’t have all the bugs worked out yet. Jack managed to down one with his new radar gun sight and 20mm; never seen a brighter fireball. Only saw about ten ourselves but they were enough. Twenty-two beds are empty this morning and twice as many in the hospital. Wish we had armor to counter those 30mm shells but then we wouldn’t get off the ground. Commands ordering the turrets replaced and more daytime fighter sweeps but I doubt they’ll do much good. What airworthy planes they have left they save for us at night.
February 10
No flying tonight! Weather guys called it this time, or so we were told. The next few days don’t look good either apparently. Not like anyone’s anxious to dance with the jets anytime soon. Wish the Widows could come with us but they’re lucky if they can make the half way point.
There’s an unusually large amount of Navy guys hanging around lately. Saw some of their Corsairs and Avengers over on the aux field. The ground crews are crawling all over the 15’s Mustangs in the shelters with more in the paint shop getting shot completely black along with a bunch of what looked like smoke canisters. They got to be radar pods, only thing that makes any sense. Here’s hoping…
February 15
They certainly were radar pods and the Mustangs used them to great effect tonight. Those jets didn’t know what hit them! They were able to intercept them before they even got close, at least on the way in. On the way out a few managed to get through but were beaten off before they could cause any serious damage. “Mother Mable” bailed out over the water (just heard a Catalina picked them up), and “Green Trumpet” and “Dixie” made it back but won’t be flying anytime soon.
February 28
Jets came back again tonight, looks like they got the bugs worked out now. My God they were fast! They broke through the Mustangs and caused even more damage this time. Two passes and they were gone along with four from our section followed by another eight from the other sections. I still don’t know how we got back on only two engines. I haven’t been that scared since I nursed back a Fort on one engine in ’43. We lost Manny and Joseph and Ralph are in the hospital. We’re off the line for a few days now.
Something wasn’t right about those jets. The exhaust light patterns were way too small and numerous and I could have sworn I saw one with three fuselages? Nah... Must have just been three of them in a close formation, I hope…
Word’s getting around. The other squadrons saw them as well as some of the Mustangs. We spent the afternoon sketching and arguing over what we all saw. Matt approached me earlier with a photo he took last night. Son of a…I wasn’t seeing things that’s for sure. The Intel guys got wind of our meeting and as soon as they saw the sketches and photo, they scooped them all up and told us all “you didn’t see anything if you ever want to fly again!” What in the world is going on?!
Went and saw Joe and Ralph after chow tonight. The Intel guys had visited them too. Ralph hid a drawing though and this one I kept. It looks and awful lot like a Widow. Did they get a hold of one and reverse engineer them?
March 7
I have a new appreciation for Doug and the Navy now. As the sun came up so did the Catalinas, I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight. Thanks to them we only had to spend half a night in the water. Weather kept the Cats grounded for the night so we were able to thank them properly at the O-Club. Man those Navy guys can drink. My head’s still pounding and its 2100.
Whatever those new planes are they tore through the squadron again the night of the 5th and took a heavy toll. The “Rose” had brought us home safe for twenty missions but her luck ran out on twenty-one. She held together until we were well out to sea before the Number 3 finally quite. Two guys from the 15th rode herd on us until we were in the water. We owe our lives to their accurate position report just as much to the crew of the Cat.
By now all of the Mustangs and Thunderbolts in theater, tasked with nighttime escort have radar pods. Even heard they figured out how to stretch the Widow’s legs so they’ll be joining us as well from now on. Hopefully they’ll be enough to counter those twin boom bats out of Hell! Whatever they are they sure have a whole lot of them.
We christened “Eleanor’s Rose II” this morning. We’ll take her on her maiden mission in two weeks. God willing she’ll see us through another twenty and beyond.
*Note: Doug is Ray's younger brother and a USN pilot flying float planes off of light cruisers in the Atlantic against the Germans.*Ralph's Drawing:
The "Twin Boom Bat out of Hell":
Backstory on the design: The A7M3 was all ready for its final flight tests when disaster struck its hiding place in the form of a B-29 raid. The first 12 prototypes were decimated to all who saw them except for a few engineers involved in its original design. After seeing three of wrecked planes lying together they hatched the idea of combining them into a twin boom layout with three engines. They gathered up the remnants and got to work and after three months of building they had an airworthy aircraft. Initial trials showed a blistering top speed, matching and at times exceeding the best the German supplied jets could do. Granted they were having trouble getting the advanced jet engines to run properly and their special fuel was scarce. The new aircraft gave them a real advantage and since it was based heavily on one already in service, it would be a lot easier to produce in sufficient numbers.
The German jets did contribute to the project though by providing a nose mounted internal radar and lending a portion of its nose and its 30mm cannons. The cockpit and canopy was re-designed to house a radar operator and the A7M4-S was born. Workers began gathering up surviving A7Ms, re-engineing them with supercharged Mitsubishi Ha-43 radials and turning them into twin boom speed demons. The underground factory resembled Frankenstein's junkyard but after six months they had a sizable number of aircraft ready for combat.
Initial combat trials showed them to be excellent bomber destroyers. Their four 30mms and two 20mms were devastating to the Allied bombers on their low level nighttime raids. The new planes were found to be a bit stiff and dog fighting a Mustang or Thunderbolt in one was a quick way to get to the afterlife. They quickly adopted hit and run attacks which called for a very low level approach. Once they picked up the bombers on radar they'd accelerate past them and climb high behind them and then dive on the formations from 15,000 feet or higher, shredding any bombers in their path. They'd repeat this one time and then firewall the throttles and scream home on the deck. Speeds nearing Mach 1 were recorded in their dives and actually caused several to either shoot straight past or into the bombers and into the ground being unable to recover from the dives.
The Allies were never 100% sure just what these aircraft were until after the war in 1946 when they discovered the underground factory that originally made them, still full of the pieces and parts for plenty more. Back in one corner they found a few which they initially deemed incomplete but upon further inspection realized the rear engine had been replaced with a locally built Jumo turbojet. After reading through some notes they learned that the hybrid design was meant to give them a massive speed boost during the dives but actually proved too fast for the airframe to handle causing them to tear apart. The war ended before they could iron out the kinks in that version, much to the relief of the Allies. The TAIC didn't get a hold of any until after the war and came to much of the same conclusions while testing them. Their findings though led to several adaptations of USAAF aircraft including a P-47 based clone and a jet boosted P-61 for postwar bomber escort.
Alright, I'm done, enjoy all!
Any and all comments, questions, thoughts, etc... are appreciated as always.
-Mike
