1917-Milton Roberts Knight

[1dave]

1603 Richard Knight, 1656 David Knight, 1693 David E. Knight, 1721 David Knight, 1742 Samuel Knight, 1768 Rodolphus Knight, 1804 Vinson Knight, 1833 James Vincent Knight, 1887 Samuel Lee Knight, 1917 Milton Knight

by Stepson David Crosby, Knight, back to Crosby

1917-1940-Early Life
1940-1944-Pilot and Bombardier training
WWII
- Airforce Organization -
- Bombardier Training -
- B-29 -
1944-1945-Saipan
1945-Bikini
1946-1960-Army Intelligence



So far I have chased Milton's genealogy back to ~ 1601 Richard Knight. Here is their Fan Chart.



Their Family Timeline Chart (at 2,000 pixels)





Milton was born on the 21st of February in 1917 with his mother's family in Holden Utah, and grew up with his father's family in Hinckley Utah.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinckley,_Utah

Hinckley is a town in Millard County, Utah, United States, in the middle of the Sevier Desert. Irrigation water from the Sevier River, passing nearby, has been used to turn Hinckley into a farming oasis. The mountains that are common in Utah are seen only in the distance, and beyond the reach of the river, a severe desert prevails

His father grew up in Circleville at an altitude of 6064 feet and average of 47.8°F (8.8°C). The warmest month, on average, is July with an average temperature of 70.6°F (21.4°C). The coolest month on average is January, with an average temperature of 27.9°F (-2.3°C).

Hinckley was much lower at 4590 feet.

www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather-summary.php3?s=724710&cityname=Hinckley%2C+Utah%2C+United+States+of+America&units=

The average temperature for the year in Hinckley is 48.0°F (8.9°C). The warmest month, on average, is July with an average temperature of 73.0°F (22.8°C). The coolest month on average is January, with an average temperature of 26.0°F (-3.3°C).

The average amount of precipitation for the year in Hinckley is 8.0" (203.2 mm). The month with the most precipitation on average is May with 1.0" (25.4 mm) of precipitation. The month with the least precipitation on average is June with an average of 0.5" (12.7 mm). There are an average of 52.4 days of precipitation, with the most precipitation occurring in May with 5.7 days and the least precipitation occurring in July with 3.0 days.

In Hinckley, there's an average of 19.2" of snow (0 cm). The month with the most snow is December, with 5.0" of snow (12.7 cm).

1n 1920 the population of Hinckley was 821 people. He grew up the oldest of seven, three boys and four girls; his grandmother Celestial Knight, Aunt Daisy Dutson and her eight children, Uncle James Aubrey Knight and his seven children, and Aunt Almira Pratt and her three children.

The children were "FRISKY."



By 1930 Milton was a Boy Scout and Hinckley had grown to 678 people.



In 1934 he graduated from the Hinckley Seminary.



In 1935 he graduated from Hinckley High School.



In 1936 he began attending Brigham Young University in Provo Utah.





And attended a "Waffle Supper."

The Great Depression lasted from August 1929 to June 1938, almost 10 years. The economy started to shrink in August 1929, months before the stock market crash in October of that year. 1 The economy began growing again in 1938, but unemployment remained higher than 10% until 1941. That's when the United States entered World War II.

He went to work for the Union Pacific Railroad during hard times.

He was dating Hallie Tangrin of Provo, and cared enough that her family photo was found among his effects.

NOTE Milton's handwriting.

1939 March 15th Milton's grandmother, Celestial Roberts Knight died in Hinckley.

In 1939 he met and soon married Melba Johnson Crosby whose husband. Murray Crosby, had recently (27 June 1937) been murdered in Provo Utah.

In 1940 He was again briefly attending BYU.

Jobs were scarce! The only BIG JOB being offered was the Military.

Which should he choose?

One offer was more appealing than the rest!

Do it for Camaraderie!

Do it for Mom and Apple Pie!

He enlisted 23 March 1940 in the U. S. Army air Core.

[1dave]

1917-1940-Early Life
1940-1944-Pilot and Bombardier training
WWII
1944-1945-Saipan
1945-Bikini
1946-1960-Army Intelligence


II-1940-1942





And was sent to Glendale California - the administration Building where he began his Pilot Training. He bought a 1939 Ford for around $500 and off we went!

Photo Milton had taken of me in Reno Nevada. His car is in the background.

1940 April Census of Milton in Glendale California.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Airport_(California)
www.militarymuseum.org/GrandCentralAirTeminal.html

1940:Apr, May, Jun.

1. From there he was sent to the First Bombardier Training Class at Lowry Field in Colorado.

Lowry Field in Colorado.

1940 Photo Milton took of Melba, David and Norma at the Painted Desert.


1940:Jul, Aug, Sep.
www.matchpro.org/Archives/Military/Lowry%20Field.pdf

Beginning July 16, 1940, the 1st class of the AAF bombardier schools was at Lowry and used the nearby bombing and gunnery range through 14 March 1941 graduating 3 classes of instructors who opened the Barksdale Field bombardier school that was being moved to Albuquerque New Mexico.

www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/VI/AAF-VI-14.html

WHEN the Air Corps began to lay its plans for expansion in the fall of 1938, one of its major tasks was the provision of facilities for the additional thousands of men to be trained as flying cadets and for the even larger numbers to be taught to service and maintain aircraft and aircraft equipment. Training officers realized that existing facilities would have to be augmented, yet they expressed concern lest in the process of expanding, the quality of training suffer. Consequently, planners in the Office of the Chief of the Air Corps maintained that if Randolph Field and its counterparts were inadequate for the job, the Air Corps should build more Randolph Fields. This emphasis on a continuance of high standards was understandable, but it took no account of the time lag that the proposed construction would entail, a factor that could not be overlooked.

Time was indeed all-important, and for this reason General Arnold decided to overrule the experts on his staff. Flight training, as it had been developed during the prewar years, was divided into several phases: in the first of these, primary, the student learned to fly a light and stable aircraft of low horsepower; in basic training he made the advance to a heavier plane with more complex controls; in advanced flight training he learned to fly a machine whose characteristics approximated those of combat aircraft; and in transition the student learned to fly the combat plane itself-usually after he had won his wings. It was General Arnold's hope in 1938 that by turning over the responsibility for primary training to other agencies, he could free the Air Corps to concentrate its full resources on later phases of training, and thus in effect expand the capacity

--454--

of its own training establishment. Accordingly, in October of that year he invited to Washington representatives of three of the nation's best civilian flying schools--Oliver L. Parks, of the Parks Air College, Inc., East St. Louis, Illinois; C. C. Moseley, of the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute, Glendale, California; and Theopholis Lee, of the Boeing School of Aeronautics, Oakland, California.

The first step in the development of a wartime bombardier-training

* Perhaps the most interesting example of bombardier training by tactical units was that conducted by a station outside the continental United States. During November and December 1939 Hickam Field, in Hawaii, gave individual bombardier training to a class of enlisted men, an experiment that led to the conclusion that carefully selected men with a high school education could be trained in the art of bombing. This idea was ultimately adopted, not only for bombardiers but for pilots and navigators as well, when the aviation cadet qualifying examination replaced the two-year college requirement in January 1942. (See AHS-2, Initial Selection of Candidates for Pilot, Bombardier, and Navigator Training.) This should not be confused with the question of the commissioning of bombardiers. Prior to 1941 some consideration was given to the idea of training bombardiers for duty as enlisted members of the aircrew. (See, for example, requirements for the 12,000pilot training program, which included training of 1,269 officer bombardiers and 1,868 enlisted bombardiers, contained in R&R, B. K. Yount, Chief, Plans Division to Training and Operations Division, 17 October 1940.)

--468--

---

It had been assumed in 1938 that the Air Corps Technical School, with some improvement and extension of facilities, could take care of current objectives. Those objectives called for a force of 2,320 planes

--472--

and 24,968 enlisted men; estimates based on the assumption that 7 technicians would be required for each plane resulted in the round figure of 16,250 enlisted men that should receive technical training.47 Chanute Field served as headquarters of the school and provided facilities for departments giving instruction in mechanics, communications, clerical work, and basic military training. The departments of photography and armament were situated at Lowry Field, an installation recently developed in Colorado. When legislation in April 1939 raised Air Corps goals to 3,251 planes and 45,000 enlisted men, with a presumed requirement for the technical training of over 22,000 men, OCAC moved promptly to enlarge the resources available for this purpose. First, as has previously been noted,* it contracted with civilian schools for much of the additional training that would be required. At the same time, it took an initial step toward expanding the Air Corps Technical School by transferring to its jurisdiction an old balloon school at Scott Field for use by the department of basic instruction. For a year training in several technical specialties was conducted at Scott Field while facilities at Chanute and Lowry were being expanded, and late in 1940, with the transfer there of the department of communications, Scott became a radio school exclusively.48

The trend of the European war in the spring of 1940 brought quick realization of the inadequacy of the existing program. In conjunction with officers of the War Plans Division of the General Staff, the OCAC drafted a series of plans,49 two of which affected the technical schools, for a greatly expanded training program. The first of these plans, which became operative in July 1940 and was known as the WPD 2,726-airplane program, provided for an Air Corps enlisted strength of 94,415 men, and established a goal of 28,278 airplane mechanics to be trained by 1 January 1942. The plan contemplated no additional schools but would require that existing facilities be utilized at capacity. A second plan, substituted for the above in September 1940 and known as the WPD 3,873-combat airplane program, called for an Air Corps enlisted strength of about 135,000 men and established a goal of approximately 52,000 airplane mechanic graduates by 1 January 1942. Acceleration of the first plan, General Arnold was informed by his staff, could be accomplished by the expenditure of a million and a quarter dollars to increase the existing technical schools to maximum capacity, but he was advised that this

* See above, p. 461.

--473--

added capacity would produce only 40,531 graduates by 1 January 1942 and hence fall approximately 12,000 short of meeting the goal projected in the second plan.50 To overcome the deficiency it was recommended that two new technical schools be established.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Air_Forces_Bombardier_School

The 1st of the Army Air Forces Bombardier Schools was at Lowry from July 1940 through March 14, 1941

plainshumanities.unl.edu/homefront/military.html
In October 1940, 3,200 cadets moved into new barracks at Lowry Field near Denver, and the army planned to spend $13 million to establish a major "cadet training center" for pilots, bombardiers, and photographers. The army also anticipated a major new construction project at Fort Logan. Although this economic stimulus to the Denver area was only a part of the estimated $47.5 million that the War Department planned to spend there for its "urgent" housing needs as it prepared for war, these projects and others in the Great Plains brought large payrolls for civilian workers. From the beginning, then, the new European war had important economic benefits for the Great Plains.

We lived in one of these barracks on the second floor. It was painted a light green.I remember looking out the window, down at Milton who made a light snowball. He threw it at the window and cold flakes came through the screen and I started crying. Later he held my hand and we walked to the PX to buy a Denver Post Newspaper and other things.



At Lowry Field he was trained to be a BOMBARDIER in a B-18 Bolo.





en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_B-18_Bolo

The Douglas B-18 Bolo is an American medium bomber which served with the United States Army Air Corps and the Royal Canadian Air Force (as the Digby) during the late 1930s and early 1940s. The Bolo was built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, based on its DC-2, and was developed to replace the Martin B-10.

By 1940, it was considered to be underpowered, to have inadequate defensive armament, and to carry too small a bomb load. Many were destroyed during the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines in December 1941.

2. 1940 Oct-Dec - After graduating from the first Bombardier Training Class, he joined the 2nd Bombardier Instructor Training class at Lowry Field.

Learning is not an event -

TOO REALLY LEARN -


The more you teach, the more you learn!

www.oocities.org/tempelhof.geo/miltch2.html

MILT-
"We started off in the class being shown the sight and told what it was and was not capable of doing.
And, even though there was no way we could repair the equipment, we were shown the internals to get a better understanding of how it actually worked. There was one part that really impressed me, a metal piece about the size of a silver dollar that had been polished until you could see no scratches under a microscope. We were also given books with information about every bomb the US had, how their figures were entered into the sight and why.

From the classroom we went to a hangar. There we saw hanging from the ceiling a list of about 20 items, which were the preflight checklist for the bombsight. We were instructed to memorize them, but always carried a printed copy with us anyway just in case.

There was also a motor driven simulator on four wheels with three seats, one for the driver, one for the instructor, and one behind the bombsight for the student. In front of this was another motorized device about a foot square, with a target printed on it, which we called a "bug" (Later known as the SHACK). The bug could be stationary or moved with the motor to simulate various situations.

The bombsight was connected to a Pilot Directional Indicator (PDI), which would change as the bombardier turned the sight mechanism to locate the target. The pilot’s job was to continue to correct course in order to keep the needle he was viewing centered, which would more closely position the bombardier over the target. The sight mechanism consisted of four knobs, two of which adjusted the angle of the sight, and two were for fine maneuvering and were connected to the PDI. All four had to be worked in concert in order to get the correct alignment, which was a bit tricky and took some practice. There was also a gyroscope in the upper part of the sight, and in order to calibrate it you would call to the pilot "level, level" and he would hold the plane as level as possible while you locked in the gyro’s horizontal and vertical bubbles. We started out with the bug stationary, then eventually practiced with the bug moving to simulate flight conditions like wind, yaw and so forth. We worked with the simulator for many hours until every movement and instruction became automatic. Then we moved up to the planes.

The planes we trained in were the same Beechcraft model as we used in navigation training, except it they had a Plexiglas nose, where the bombsight was. In order to get into the nose, the trainee go between the pilot and co-pilot seats, and down a step. This maneuver was not for the heavy weight or inflexible body. And while the trainee was worming his way into position, the pilot would protect his overhead instruments with his hands and arms so the student’s parachute webbing wouldn’t catch on it, and whoever was in the co-pilot seat would have to scrunch way back in his seat to make room. The instructor would sit on the step leading down to the bombardier area, which put his feet right on an escape hatch. The routine was to stomp on the hatch to make sure it was closed and locked. It was a tight fit so the instructor took his parachute off. There was a story going around, which might have been an Air Corps legend like the e-mail urban legends we get now. But it told of the bombardier student who was concentrating on dropping his bomb, then turned around to say something to his instructor, and all he saw was an open escape hatch. So he quickly picked up a parachute and threw it out the hatch as hard as he could.

In the middle of the plane were 5 - 100 pound bombs on each side. These bombs were shells filled with 97 pounds of sand and 3 pounds of black powder. The powder was necessary so we could see where the bombs exploded. In the back were two seats for the students, who took turns dropping bombs during the flight. Whichever student was not dropping the bomb had to film the drop with a movie camera, which was pointed through a 4"-5" hole in the floor of the plane. Then there was the pilot, and the instructor sat in the co-pilot’s seat.

1941 January Having graduated from the Second Bombardier Instructor Class of 55 students, he was among 28 sent to Ellington Field in Houston Texas to train new bombardiers.

1. But Ellington Field had been abandoned after WWI and contracts to build runways and buildings hadn't even been awarded yet, so early in 1941 Milton was transferred to Kelly/Randolph fields in Texas where he began teaching new bombardiers.

This was about the time the terms - "gremlins,"

"SNAFU," (Situation Normal: All Fouled Up.)
"FUBAR" (Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition)
came into common usage

1941-2-Randolph was available.





1941 March 31 Milton Roberts Junior was born in San Antonio, Bexar County Texas where Kelly Field (Later Lackland) had just become an AFB training center.








1.In April 1941 Milton was commissioned (became an officer - 2nd Lieutenant) at Randolph Field in San Antonio Texas and then sent on to his original assignment at Ellington Field

BOMBARDMENT TAUGHT PILOTS AT ELLINGTON Army's Largest Advanced Flying School to Teach 5,000 a Year.

Houston, Tex. (AP) America's young military pilots who have learned the ins and outs of ordinary flying will swarm into Ellington field this spring to learn the specialty of aerial bombardment. At the rate of 5,000 a year, the fledgling flyers will move thru the air corps' "bombardment academy" the army's largest advanced flying school.

The training will be in two phases the flying school, for those who will pilot the multi-motored bombers, and the bombardier school, for those who will sight the target and release the deadly cargo.

Ellington field lies between Houston and Galveston, close to the Gulf of Mexico, where aluminum-powdered waters, trapped in big wooden frames, will be churned with bomb fire when the cadets put classroom theories into practice.

LAND RANGES. The army also has land ranges along the coast, where the bombardiers will attempt to hit the bull's eye of great targets whose circles are 100 feet apart. The $4,000,000, 1,900 acre field has not been completed yet, but the first complement of 125 men is scheduled to arrive April 12. Gradually the number will be increased until approximately 4,200 men-cadets, officers and enlisted men will be in service there.

Ellington field pilots, will start working with multi-motored trainers and later will be given larger bombers. During their 10-week schooling period; they will study navigation, instrument flying, night flying, and will be given thoro instruction in ground work. TARGET SMASHING. The bombardiers will work almost exclusively on the art of sighting a target and smashing it.

The army expects to have approximately 300 officers, 3,200 enlisted men and 600 cadets in training when the project is in full swing, probably within two months. The 10-week training period will be so staggered that a new class will be graduated every five weeks. Ellington field is not new to Lieut. Col. W. H. Reid, the 50-year-old commanding officer. He has been stationed there three times since the World war. The field was built in 1917 by the government, which has owned the land in fee continuously since that time, altho the place was abandoned several years war's end. after wars end.

Clipping location on Quad-City Times 1941 Apr 07, page 14

Situation Normal: All Fouled Up!

On April 8 1941 contracts were awarded To dig a water well, build an electrical system, and to build a sewer system.



1941 May 20 - unknown to us - Plans for our next home in Odessa.



1941 May 26 - Finally headed back to where they were supposed to go in January!

1. Army Orders WASHINGTON,. May 26 Army order announced today Include:
AIR CORPS . . .

The following lieutenants Randolph Field to Ellington Field:

Hugh B Gilmour, Kenneth H Goetzke, George W. Hammond, Jr., Edward F. Harrison, Lynn J. Hewitt William W. King. Benjamin B. Klose. Milton R. Knight, James C. Logan, Jack O. McCall, Charles K. McClintick, James E. McConnell, William E. McDonald, Fred L, McGinn. Jr., William C. McLaughlin, Jack E. Morris, Jose E. Moya, Joseph H. Nesblt, Ernest F. Preschau Jr., Orville B. Ross, Richard W. Stillwagon, Lloyd R. Turk, George W. Whitney Jr., Philip R. Zcigler.

It seems to always be the same old army - HURRY UP . . . and wait.


SNAFU CONTINUES

Few planes, construction going on, few students . . . a lot of frustration!
About all they got accomplished was one of the bombardier instructors got married with the help of his instructor friends.

To top off a rough start, early on September 18 a Hurricane began building in the Gulf of Mexico.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1941_Texas_hurricane

In advance of the storm, advisories and warnings were widely distributed by press, radio, telegraph and telephone. About 25,000 residents evacuated their homes; some small towns along the coast were described as "deserted".[2] People in low-lying areas of coastal Louisiana sought shelter as storm surge from the hurricane affected the northern Gulf Coast.[5] Residents in Texas prepared their homes and businesses for the hurricane, and boat owners pulled their craft out of the water. In Port Arthur, structures were boarded up and hundreds of refugees sought shelter in local hotels. American Red Cross workers were dispatched to the state. In Houston, a temporary hospital was erected. Police and firefighters in the city were put on alert. Vessels near the storm were advised to proceed with caution.[6]

The hurricane tipped a tree onto the house we were living in. After it was sawn into logs I remember sitting behind a log, pretending to be driving a car.





Usually these storms lose strength over land, but this one continued on to kill 3 people in Canada.

The most Interesting thing around here, said one selectee, the secrecy that goes on when they install these bomb sights In the planes They guard those bomb sights as though they contained a message from President Roosevelt

Writing on the wall:



The Mayor of Odessa Greets New Commander.

First Graduate.




By Mid November 1941 the WAR DEPARTMENT had had enough !
The entire Bombardier Training section was ordered to be moved from Ellington to Midland as soon as "Adequate facilities are ready"

After Pearl Harbor the first (and last) Bombardiers graduated a week early.

Too little, too late. Ellington Field's Bombardier Training Days are over.

[1dave]

1917-1940-Early Life
1940-1944-Pilot and Bombardier training
WWII
1944-1945-Saipan
1945-Bikini
1946-1960-Army Intelligence


1942-1944

After the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the need for more pilots, bombardiers, and navigators resulted in the rapid expansion of the United States Army's air arm and the Advanced Flying School. Night flying was added to the school program and the amount of training time doubled. Between January 1939 and March 1943, over 6,800 men graduated from Kelly's Advanced Flying School and approximately 1,700 additional pilots graduated from various other courses in the Instructor's School.

Milton Knight - WWII

Here it seems helpful to explain the Air Force Organization

CLICK HERE FOR THAT INFORMATION.

www.flymaf.com/137/Army-Airfield

Prominent businessmen in Midland could foresee the possibility of a military base in West Texas. In 1940, after Hitler struck Poland, they started promoting the airport for use as a training base to the military establishment in Washington. Work was done by the WPA with more runway and taxiway improvements, as well as airfield lighting. A visit by Brigadier General G.C. Brant, Commander of the Gulf Coast Air Corps Training Center at Randolph Field was made and he reported that the situation at Midland was very favorable. It was on Friday, June 13, 1941, that it was announced that Midland would get the air school.

Target Ranges
Immediate search for ranch land to be used as target ranges was instigated and plans for "an advanced twin-engine flying and bombardment school" had begun. Ground was broken on July 15, 1941 with the leasing of 1,030 acres of land for the duration of the war plus six months. Twenty-three bomb ranges were mapped out - located within a 50-mile radius of the base.

The first class at Midland consisted of 103 cadets and graduated on April 30, 1942.

I remember those hectic days! They were training 16 hours per day, 6 days a week and a half day on Sundays.

The only time we ever saw Milton was when he slept in on Sunday mornings.

That was when Mom made his favorite breakfast - poached Eggs on Toast with warm milk poured on top. Then he was off to work again! That has become one of my favorites too.

1942 May - Milton became a First Lieutenant with others from January 1941 Lowry Field.



1942 July 11 Raymond Vivian Knight was born in Odessa, Ector County Texas where Milton was transferred to Midland Army Airfield for special TRAINING of BOMBARDIERS. The sole purpose of the Bombardier College was to train young men to use the bombsight invented by Carl Norden.

en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AMidland_Army_Airfield_-_42-16_Classbook.pdf&page=59

The sole purpose of the Bombardier College was to train young men to use the bombsight invented by Carl Norden.[1][2]

The first group of cadets, Class 42–6, arrived for training from Ellington, Texas, on 6 February 1942. Midland reached a peak base population of more than 4,000 and graduated a total of 6,627 bombardier officers before all training ceased on 1 January 1946.[1][2]

Cadets remained at Midland exactly twelve weeks for combined ground and flight training, rigorous physical activity and rigid military discipline during a sixteen-hour day, with only part of Sunday off. They learned to hit targets with remarkable accuracy, dropping at least 200 practice bombs each from the AT-11 airplane—and learned to handle the complex Norden sight with considerable skill. The first class consisted of 103 cadets and graduated on 30 April 1942.

In September of 1942 we moved to San Angelo Texas Goodfellow Field where he was promoted to Captain and continued training new bombardiers. I was 6 and remember him bragging about making men snap to attention.

Midland Field Davies report" This year—1943 — is "the year of the bombardier," says Brig. Gen. Isaiah Davies, commander of the Midland Army Air Forces Bombardier school, largest outfit of its kind in the world. "Last year was a year of feverish training," says Davies. "This is the year, for which we have been preparing. This is the year, in which we hope to get a firm, clutch on victory and the bombardier, of necessity, plays a large part in strategic planning." The general revealed that the greatest"number of bombardiers in history were trained in 1942, that graduates of 12 Midland Bombardier school classes "are now on duty on many fronts. "During -1943 they will come into their own as bombing missions of unprecedented scale are launched against the enemy," he predicts.

AS EVIDENCE of progress made since the big school began turning out "Hell from Heaven men" in March, 1942, the general pointed out that classes. now are graduating simultaneously every three weeks from schools at Midland, Big Spring and San Angelo."These Classes are numerically larger than the entire Air Forces roster of bombardiers of only a few months ago," he stated. The" achievement is all the more remarkable in that only a few trained men were available to set up and initiate the vast training program for the "lords of the.American bombsight." "Only six officers of the regular army are now stationed at the Midland field. Yet it has been possible not only to speed up the bombardier training program but also to train and supply key personnel to the Big Spring and San Angelo fields and for still another school at Childress which will be activated socn."

Goodfellow Field, San Angelo Texas

We moved to 12100 South Abe Street in San Angelo.




In January of 1943 Milton was the Senior Bombardier Operations Instructor for Section 44-1 DR.

1943 Milton was the Senior Instructor over the 32 bombardier instructors of section 2 (of 4 sections).



Still in the same position in January 1944.



A newspaper clipping found in Milton's effects -

1n May 1944, Major Milton R. Knight was sent to Mather Field in Sacramento County California, home of the 320th Bomb Wing for Observer Training (Lead Bombardier).

His Days with the Norden Bombsight Were Over!

Mather Field was established as an airfield and pilot training school in 1918. The Base was named for Carl Mather, a World War I test pilot. Following World War I, the base was used intermittently to support small military units. During World War II, Mather Field was used for pilot and navigator training as well as observer and bombardier personnel training.

www.afcec.af.mil/Home/BRAC/Mather/History/
Mather's role in World War II and the Cold War

During World War II, Mather Field was used for pilot and navigator training as well as observer and bombardier training. From 1944 to 1945, Mather Field became a departure point for planes leaving the U.S. mainland for battle assignments in the Pacific.

At war, as the size of airplane formations grew larger, the bombardier’s job changed. When flying in a tight formation of several hundred bombers, no single plane could make an individual bomb run without bumping into another. Bombardiers in the lead aircraft (Known as "Observers") of each squadron made course corrections for the whole formation.
Those bombardiers in other planes used their sights mainly to determine release points. Late in the war, the lead ships carried bombing-through-overcast radar known as “Mickey” sets. Other bombardiers did little more than watch for the lead plane to drop its bombs and then release their own.



Bombardiers that used the top secret SHORAN also received the Observer Badge. They sat midship, where the radio operator would normally sit, since they used an electronic not optical bombsight.

[1dave]

1917-1940-Early Life
1940-1944-Pilot and Bombardier training
WWII
1944-1945-Saipan
1945-Bikini
1946-1960-Army Intelligence

1944-1945-Saipan

JUNE

JULY

The 73d Bomb Wing was the first B-29 wing to be assigned to the Marianas. They had been training in Clovis, New Mexico, then moved to Kansas - the 497th went to Pratt, the 498th flo Great Bend, the 499th to Salina and the 8OOth to Victoria.

The first elements of the Wing's· personnel started for Saipan in July. On the eighteenth, the ground echelon of the Wing Headquarters personnel departed from Colorado Springs. Also during July ground echelons of the bombardment groups left their Kansas bases and the Service groups departed from Tinker Field.
These ground echelons and the service group personnel, all of which traveled by boat, really had a serious "gripe". The trip was a long and arduous one.

In the Case of the Headquarters squadron, it took 61 days by ship.

SEPTEMBER

1944-7- Squadron 877 was ordered moved to its combat base at Isely Field, Saipan, in the Mariana Islands. The squadron did not fully arrive there until September 1944. The squadron's first missions were flown against targets on Iwo Jima and Truk Island.
On 24 November 1944, the squadron participated in the first raid on Japan by bombers based in the Marianas.

877 LOGO

The first B-29 of the 497th Bomb Group arrived at Isely Field, Saipan on 12 October 1944. The 498th arrived shortly after, with the 499th and 500th Bomb Groups arriving in early November.

By 22 November, over 100 B-29s were on Saipan.

For a while I thought I had found another photo of Milton -
Until I realized H.F. Milton was standing next to R. Knight. 

Before and After

- Where He Lived -

OCTOBER

1944-10-12; 497th Bomb Group arrived

L2 - October 12 was an historic date for the 73rd Wing. The first B-29 arrived on Saipan on that date. It was piloted by Brigadier General Haywood S. Hansell, Commanding General of the 21st Bomber Command.
His plan of attack was to fly high above any threats and bring all the planes and crew home safe.
Unfortunately he was unaware of the 300mph jet stream at that altitude that slowed the planes down, making them vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire and Zeros, and consumed huge amounts of fuel.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haywood_S._Hansell

Haywood Shepherd Hansell Jr. (September 28, 1903 – November 14, 1988) was a general officer in the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II, and later the United States Air Force. He became an advocate of the doctrine of strategic bombardment, and was one of the chief architects of the concept of daylight precision bombing that governed the use of airpower by the USAAF in the war.

Hansell played a key and largely unsung role in the strategic planning of air operations by the United States. This included drafting both the strategic air war plans (AWPD-1 and AWPD-42) and the plan for the Combined Bomber Offensive in Europe; obtaining a base of operations for the B-29 Superfortress in the Mariana Islands; and devising the command structure of the Twentieth Air Force, the first global strategic air force and forerunner of the Strategic Air Command. He made precision air attack, as both the most humane and effective means of achieving military success, a lifelong personal crusade that eventually became the key tenet of American airpower employment. Unfortunately, his air bombardment campaign over Japan proved a failure due to various elements such as the interference of a powerful and consistent jet stream in that nation's airspace. He was replaced by General Curtis LeMay who reoriented his air forces' tactics in reverse of Hansell's methods for an extremely destructive nighttime area fire bombing campaign over Japan.

What about these B-29's?

Ask T /Sgt. R. A. Hanoock of San Antonio, Texas.
He's Josie's crew chief and a reasonably affable sort of a guy. He suspects neither the General nor the curious KP of espionage. He sympathizes with their curiosity. But they ask too damn many questions.

"First," says Hancock, "they want to know the bomb capacity. They want to know the range. They want to know how high she'll fly and how fast she'll go. They want to know everything about her, but mostly they want to know about bomb capacity and range."

To which the answers are:
"Well," confides Hancock, "the bomb load depends on how much gas you have to carry."

And how much gas do you have to carry on an average run?
"Well, that depends on the number of bombs and how far you're going."

How far WILL this thing go? "Well, that depends on the balance between bombs and gas."

WHAT'S YOUR NAME? "Well that depends on ... What? Oh, Hancock. R. A. Hancock."

After prolonged questioning a talented sleuth eventually will deduce that Josie and her sisters will carry quite a load of bombs quite a distance quite fast. He also will learn that Hancock and his fellow mechanics are concerned with keeping Josie fit for the air and if he wants to know anything else he'd better talk to the Major.

L1 - Eight days after the arrival of Joltin' Josie,  General Rosie O'Donnell  reached Saipan on a plane of the 497th Group with Major J. P. Baird as copilot. General O'Donnell had a very expeditious trip since he did not leave Colorado Springs until October 14. B-29s continued to arrive at the rate of two or three a day.(n 1943 as chief of General Arnold's Advisory Council, a post he retained until he was appointed commanding general of the 73d Bomb Wing at Smoky Hill Army Airfield in Salina, Kansas a year later. O'Donnell became a brigadier general in February 1944. He trained the B-29 Superfortress Wing for six months at Smoky Hill and then led it to Saipan. The B-29s began the campaign against the Japanese homeland on November 24, 1944, when O'Donnell led 111 B-29s against industrial targets in Tokyo. Only 88 of the planes were able to bomb, and results were poor, partly because of bad weather. This was the first attack on Tokyo since the Doolittle Raid in April 1942. )
L3 - On November 1 almost everyone was on Saipan except the Wing Headquarters rear echelon which did not depart from Colorado Springs until the sixth of November. They came through in a B-24 piloted by Colonel Walter C. Sweeney, Jr., Chief of Staff of the Wing. Their trip took only eleven days since they arrived on the seventeenth of November. The entire movement overseas of all personnel had taken from July 2 when the first units of the service groups left Tinker Field to November 17 when our own 499th General Harris and the last echelon of Headquarters arrived.

In spite of the long time consumed, the whole movement was much more orderly than this amount of time would seem to indicate. The TAT equipment actually traveled with the troops on ships and did arrive in good condition for the most part. While the food was very poor on the ships that transported our men to Saipan, it was adequate and other conditions were about as comfortable as might have been expected in a combat theater. On arrival in Saipan, all personnel found it raining, really raining-not a gentle Stateside shower. Throughout September it rained most of the time and with men living in pup tents in cane patches it was most uncomfortable.

In October, all of us, both rated and non-rated, were at work much of the time on permanent housing and office areas. In actual practice it was found that even field grade officers had to work at such lowly tasks as digging latrines and laying tent floors. While this was unfortunate, that was the way it was, and everyone did it without too many grumbles. By the last week in October there were enough B-29s on Saipan to make the first combat training mission possible and the various headquarters and offices were sufficiently organized to start the operations for which we had been training so long •

NOVEMBER

1944-November 1 Saipan

1944 November 1 Milton arrived on Saipan, a newly minted Major, a LEAD BOMBARDIER (OBSERVER); for Squadron 877, therefore entitled to his own private abode and office - BUT rapidly becoming a small cog in a 15,000 man machine.

Home Sweet Home!


Office Sweet Office!

And Headaches, Sweet Headaches. He was now the 877th squadron's Lead Bombardier (Observer) which meant he must know exactly each target, be in the Lead B-29, electronically locate the target for EVERY B-29 in the squadron, and tell them when to drop their bombs. If he misses, everyone misses!

I don't know what happened to the original "Texas Kate" but Milton began with "Texas Kate II."






He was the first of his Bomb Group to arrive, but his squadron, 877, was already active flying with the 497th Bomb Group.
No longer a bombardier, but on entering combat, when heavy cloud cover obscured the target,  It was his job to tell the bombardier when it was time to to drop them.

Bombardier:

Observer:

1944-November 2 Saipan

Japanese aircraft based on Iwo Jima staged a low-level raid on Isely Field on 2 November, damaging several B-29s on the ground. Retaliatory strikes were ordered on Iwo Jima on 5 and 11 November.

The Seabees were in the middle of building the base. Situation Normal for Milton after Lowry, Ellington, Midland, and Goodfellow Fields.

FINALLY Mid November; the rest of the crew (499th Bomb Group) arrived!



He did get a little time to do some sight seeing . . .







But he was busy installing the new SHORAN equipment into the lead B-29 for up-coming attacks on Truk and Iwo Jima.

"Truk atoll" (now Chuuk Lagoon) was the Empire of Japan's main naval base in the South Pacific theater during World War II. It was the site of a major U.S. attack during Operation Hailstone in February 1944, and Operation Inmate, a small assault conducted by British and Canadian forces during June, 1945.



The story of the 73rd: the unofficial history of the 73rd Bomb Wing

The first actual mission the Wing flew against the Japanese took off on October 28, sixteen days after the arrival of the first B-29 on Isley Field. From then until the eleventh of November six missions were flown against Truk and Iwo Jima.

The first three and the sixth hit Truk and the fourth and fifth, Iwo. While these missions were actually of minor importance so far as damaging the Japanese war effort, they did provide both excellent training for the crews involved and a fine opportunity for the staff sections of all organizations to perfect the1r methods and routines before the attacks on the Empire began. Also the armament, ordnance and chemical personnel had opportunities to practice.

The first of these missions had eighteen aircraft - nine each from the 497th and 498th. The briefed target was the submarine pens on Dublon Island in Truk Atoll. Six thousand pounds of general purpose bombs per plane were carried and the total mileage for the mission was only 1,480 for the round trip.

Four of the planes, including the one carrying General Hansell, were unable to bomb the target and returned early. The other fourteen reached the target and bombed from 25,000 feet altitude. Enemy opposition was negligible and our airplanes received no damage.

Two days later the next mission was flown against the same target with the same plan. This time, the first squadron made a visual run but the second found it necessary to make a radar run because of a drifting cloud formation. Some of the bombs from the second squadron landed two miles beyond the target so the results were not good. Again enemy opposition was practically nonexistent.

Mission number 3 took off on the second of November. Since this was intended to be a training mission to afford practice in. using radar in the bomb runs, a day was selected when the weather was expected to be bad in the Carolinas.
The forecast was 7 to 9 tenths cloud cover and proved about right. The 497th sent eleven planes and the 498th nine. Radar procedure was used all the way and since the planes all overran the initial point because the image of a thunderhead had been mistaken for Ruo Island on the radar scope, the bombs were scattered all over Dublon Island. The staff concluded from this mission that more experience was needed by radar operators
so they could distinguish between islands and cloud formations in the Pacific.

On November 5, our fourth mission took off against Iwo Jima to practice daylight visual bombing
and to test night landing Facilities. The number of aircraft flying increased to 36 for this mission and they flew in four squadrons. Two of these squadrons bombed by radar and two visually.
The photographs taken on the mission showed that the Japanese had three operational fields on Iwo and our bomb results showed some satisfactory hits near two of these fields. The opposition was very meager. The object of the mission - the night landing - offered considerable difficulty since the pilots were not able readily to identify the base. It took 95 minutes for 35 aircraft to land. The other plane did not return for almost four hours because it was lost. This mission proved that some changes would have to be made in the night landing procedure to include visual signals as a means of locating the runway. These changes were made and a few days later the fifth Wing mission was flown against the same target with a similar plan, except that the improved landing procedure was to be followed.

Seventeen aircraft took off but one was lost on the way to the target for unknown reasons and another aborted due to mechanical causes. On this raid enemy opposition reached out some twenty miles toward our approaching planes in the form of eight enemy fighters. They sent at least six phosphorus bombs at the B-29s. The only damages, however, were burns on one plane.
One of our squadrons bombed visually through a hole in the clouds and the other overran the I. P. 26 minutes before it broke out of the clouds. This second squadron finally jettisoned all its bombs and returned home. The mission was a failure since the weather did not allow visual bombing for one squadron at all and only through a hole in the clouds for the other.

The last of the combat training missions was flown on Armistice Day with all the planes from the 8OOth. There were only nine. Again enemy fighter and antiaircraft opposition was very slight. The mission did cause some fires in the target area and there were fifteen bomb bursts directly on the target.

After this mission all the groups but the 499th had some crews that had actually flown missions against the enemy. It was felt that the combat crews as well as the staff personnel were ready for the main effort and the next few days were to be devoted to perfecting the plans for the first Tokyo mission.

Warnings were dropped over major cities:







NOVEMBER TROUBLE

Right after the personnel of the various units of : the 73rd Wing began to arrive on Saipan, the only evidences of continued interest in the island on the part of the Japanese Air Force were infrequent reconnaissance missions. This condition lasted until the morning of the third of November when there was an alert about 1:30 a.m. and a little later nine Japanese planes--presumably all Bettys - came over. Some of them made low-level attacks. All our antiaircraft opened up and at least seven were shot down either over Saipan or Tinian. The only damage caused to our installations was in the bivouac area of an engineer outfit near Isley Field where one Betty was shot down by a P-51. Four men were killed near their tents and six were seriously wounded. Our Intelligence was able to recover a map from this plane showing that it came from the Bonin Islands--undoubtedly Iwo.

There were two raids on November seventh, however, they were minor and no damage resulted.
The first alert was again at 1:30 a.m. when one low flying aircraft strafed the runway with very little damage and escaped without drawing fire. Three hours later another plane swept over the runway and neither dropped. bombs nor fired its guns. It might have been taking pictures. This plane also escaped.

L3- Samuel Russ Harris Finally arrived. He was not impressed with what he found. His opinion hadn't changed much from training back in Kansas "The training system under which we were supposed to be operating could not have been dreamed up by any mind other than that resulting from a biological indiscretion involving a monkey and a jackass."

He flew his first mission on the 24th of November 1944 and encountered the normal B-29 problems:

I am finding it difficult to stay in formation. This old girl acts tired or Doug is pulling excess power - anyway, we can't catch up. We are getting more behind and now at 1100 the rest of the formation is out of sight. - . . . - 1331 finds us 45 minutes from the target and 15 miles off the coast and what do you know - #2 engine just gave up the ghost - . . . - two miles off the coast and doing fine except that #3 now has quit. - . . . - and proceeded to have a debate. What do we do? - . . . - We could go to Russia - . . . - we could ditch on the coast - . . . - or we could just head for home with a prayer that we could at least reach the first rescue sub - . . .-

Then on the day of our first Tokyo raid there was an alert at 9:15 in the morning when one Irving was shot down by a P-38 some five miles northwest of Isley Field. It was assumed that this plane was attempting to secure information on our mission. We did not even know about this alert at the time.

On the twenty-seventh, however, there were two important raids. The first one was just after midnight of the twenty-sixth when two Bettys passed over the bivouac areas at low level and then bombed and strafed the 499th Group's dispersal area. Then twelve hours later, at ten minutes after noon, while we were all at lunch, seventeen Zekes came in over Isley Field and strafed it thoroughly. After strafing the field, the planes came over the bivouac areas of most of our units and strafed them. One man was killed and a number of men in the 800th Group were injured by burning and the explosion of ammunition when a Zeke was shot down in their area. As a result of these two raids on the same day, seven B-29s were either destroyed or surveyed because of serious damage. Many others were shot up but repairable.

Raymond Clapper (1892–1944) was a commentator and news analyst for both radio and newspapers[1] who was described in a Life magazine article as "one of America's ablest and most-respected journalists.
He was killed February 1, 1944 when an airplane in which he was riding collided with another plane during the World War II invasion of the Marshall Islands. "Both planes crashed into a lagoon," a news report said, leaving no survivors.

The night attack had caught our aircraft loaded with bombs and ready for a morning takeoff, while during the noon attack about 60 of our planes were over Tokyo. Our score against them was thirteen Zekes shot down by our antiaircraft and one destroyed by P-47s near Pagan and another destroyed on Pagan airfield just after it had landed. It is probable that two other Japanese planes ditched because of battle damage. There was no alert before either of these two raids.

Two days later we had another minor alert at one in the morning when eight bombers came in over the field and caused some slight damage. Only one of them was shot down.

During December there were six raids or attempted raids. The first occurred about ten in the morning on the fifth when a Japanese reconnaissance plane was shot down by a P-38 two miles northwest of Tanapag from an altitude of 30,500 feet.

Two days later, just before dawn, several very low flying bombers strafed bivouac areas, our field and the island generally but especially East Field (later called Kagman Point Field). A few minutes later thirteen more Japanese planes came in over Isley at altitudes ranging from 13,000 to 33,000 feet. Our antiaircraft destroyed six of them. However, the fifteen Bettys that were on this raid destroyed two of our B-29s. Three more were badly damaged and twenty suffered minor damage. The raid lasted an hour and a half.

Casualties to our personnel included one killed and two wounded in addition to many minor casualties.
No doubt the Japanese flew this mission to celebrate Pearl Harbor Day. After it they left us alone for two weeks until on the twentieth when there was another morning alert. At 10:43 a Japanese reconnaissance plane sneaked in behind a B-29 but escaped after a chase.

Three days later there was an alert at a little after eight in the ·evening when five Japanese planes damaged some B-29s at Isley. Two of these planes were shot down. This was the raid that we al1 remember very well since it was the first that came during the movies. Headquarters personnel remember it especially well since we were seeing the mystery whodunit' "Laura" and there was a humorous incident during the raid.

When the alert was sounded the movie was perhaps half over. Of course the lights all went out, the movie stopped and we raced to our shelters. It happened that General O'Donnell was in a shelter that was fairly large and he together with everyone else spent the time in the shelter trying to figure out who had murdered
Laura. People who were in the shelter said that the General expressed his opinion as to the murderer and backed it up with cogent reasoning.

However, an unidentified man in the shelter differed with the General and told him so. He backed up his guess as to the murderer with equally cogent reasoning. Apparently this discussion between the General and the unidentified individual lasted a good while and then the alert was over and the lights relit. The General found he had been talking with one of the assistant cooks in the Headquarters mess, a private first class.
The denouement was when we went back to The movies, it was found that the private first class was correct.

On Christmas Night there was an alert lasting an hour when 25 Japanese planes came in over Isley Field, East Field and Kobler Field. Two more B-29s were destroyed on Isley; one by a very accurate glide bombing attack. Four Japanese aircraft were destroyed with one probable.
While there actually was a lot of damage, relatively the damage was light considering the large number of Japanese planes. They came in at such high altitude that their bombing results were not accurate.

After Christmas there were nine more alerts, the majority coming during the night hours. During most of these attempted raids no Japanese aircraft were actually over Saipan. The last Japanese attack was on the second of February just before the taking of Iwo.

Thanksgiving Day November 23rd.




The Impossible Flight -

Decision over Iwo Jima -

The Untold Story -

www.historynet.com/superbombers-achilles-heel.htm

The grim joke among B-29 crewmen was that more of them were being killed by Curtiss-Wright, the makers of the B-29’s big radial engines, than by the Japanese. Only it wasn’t a joke. Four hundred and fourteen B-29s were lost bombing Japan—147 of them to flak and Japanese fighters, 267 to engine fires, mechanical failures, takeoff crashes and other “operational losses.” Do the math and you’ll see that for every B-29 lost to the enemy, almost two were lost to accidents and crashes.

. . .

There are photos of Japan-bound B-29 formations showing airplanes here and there with broad bands of sharp-edged, solid black atop a wing, directly behind a nacelle. A big invasion stripe? Nope: oil. B-29 engines were prolific leakers, largely as a result of vibration, and routine post-mission maintenance involved a lot of tightening of hose clamps, banjo fittings and compression nuts. And if an entire wing skin was wet, imagine the scene inside the nacelle.

Oil fires, not fuel, often created B-29 engine blazes, though the R-3350’s numerous large magnesium components fed the flames. A literally white-hot, wind-whipped magnesium fire quickly burned through a B-29’s ineffectual firewall—crewmen called them “tin pans”—and then melted the aluminum wing spar close behind the nacelle.

. . .

Nor were B-29s easy to fly. They had the highest wing loading of any WWII airplane: 81.1 pounds per square foot by the time the Superforts took off for Japan, lifting huge loads. The bomber was so heavy that even taxiing was a task. Turns needed to be made cautiously, to avoid rolling the tires right off the wheels, and the B-29’s brakes were so marginal that they’d overheat if an anxious pilot taxied a bit too fast. Maximum ground-running time was 20 minutes, after which the engines were too hot for takeoff.

The climb to altitude was painfully slow, with one eye always on the cylinder-head temperatures, and once a B-29 got established in long-range cruise, typically at an indicated airspeed of 210 mph, flying became a delicate dance of slowly closing the cowl flaps to avoid too much drag yet not letting the heads get too hot. If an airplane began to fall back from its mates, a little more power was needed. But then the temps would rise. Open the cowl flaps some to compensate. But then the speed would drop even more from the added drag. Close the cowl flaps a little, but then more heat. In fact it was impossible to fly true formations in B-29s at altitude. Superforts flew in “streams” or loose groups.

Look at photos of B-29s flying missions over the Pacific and you’ll never see the cowl flaps fully closed unless the bombers are in a throttled-back descent. B-29 cowl flaps created such enormous drag that they couldn’t even be fully open for takeoff; the turbulent airflow they created over the wing could cause a huge loss of lift as takeoff flaps were retracted. Postwar tests showed that fully open cowl flaps created the same effect on performance as an engine failure with the cowl flaps closed.

The B-29 had a remarkably short combat career—just 14 months—and losses of one a day, every day, during that career. Its deficiencies remained so little understood by the public only because of creative spin by Boeing and Army Air Forces publicists and the existence of a captive press corps. Even the much-admired Ernie Pyle wrote a newspaper column headlined “Pilots Adore Cramped B-29,” and in it he gushed, “I’ve never heard pilots so unanimous in their praise of an aeroplane.”

And when the engine cowlings stuck . . . you were a gone gosling!

DECEMBER

There were two missions flown against lwo Jima in December. This was somewhat before the lwo landing and the missions were designed to help "soften up" the island. These missions were flown on the eighth and twenty-fourth. On the first one there were 82 aircraft airborne and the other only 29. We suffered no losses whatever in either mission, nor did we have any bombers damaged. Because of the cloud cover during both missions there were very few pictures taken but what pictures there were showed considerable damage to the runways of the Japanese fields on lwo. There were also, of course, bursts in other areas. Both of these missions were flown at an altitude of a little over 20,000 feet.

Between the Two Iwo missions the Wing started its campaign to destroy the Mitsubishi Aircraft Plant at Nagoya. There were three missions flown against this target-on the thirteenth, eighteenth and twenty-second of the month. The first mission had very good weather and bombed visually while the second mission had only enough good weather for nineteen planes to bomb visually. However, those nineteen did very well. The other planes on the second mission and all planes on the third were forced to bomb by radar. All three missions were over the target both because of planes flying at incorrect altitudes and off course and because of excessive unforecast winds. The mission was an unfortunate one as were most of the missions against the Musashino plant. Not much damage was caused and three of our planes were lost with fourteen suffering battle damage. On this mission a serious blow was struck at Wing Headquarters because of the loss of Major William H. Walker. The major was flying on one of the planes as an observer and his plane was destroyed over Tokyo. He was safe the,.,, but became a prisoner of war. After YJ Day, he was rescued, but was so weak hat he died on the hospital ship.

William Herald Walker was born in Rexburg, Madison County, Idaho. He was a senior at the University of Utah when he entered the Army Air Forces in March, 1940. He was married to Jean Caroline Sorensen.

On December 27, 1944 he was in a group of 72 B-29s from the 73rd BW dispatched from the Marianas to attack the Nakajima and Musashino aircraft factories in Tokyo. He was on the crew of the B-29 Superfortress #42-24642 "Uncle Tom's Cabin". They were shot down and crashed near Tokyo. It was reported that they went down still shooting at their attackers.

He died of beri beri on August 30, 1945 aboard a hospital ship after being taken prisoner by the Japanese.


1945

JANUARY

In a discussion of a report into high abort rates in bomber missions during World War II, which Robert McNamara suspected was because of pilot cowardice, McNamara described LeMay's character:

One of the commanders was Curtis LeMay—Colonel in command of a B-24 [sic] group. He was the finest combat commander of any service I came across in war. But he was extraordinarily belligerent, many thought brutal. He got the report. He issued an order. He said, 'I will be in the lead plane on every mission. Any plane that takes off will go over the target, or the crew will be court-martialed.' The abort rate dropped overnight. Now that's the kind of commander he was.

In January 1945, LeMay was transferred from China to relieve Brigadier General Haywood S. Hansell as commander of the XXI Bomber Command in the Marianas.[7][8]
Major General Curtis LeMay talking with General Joseph W. Stilwell

He became convinced that high-altitude precision bombing would be ineffective, given the usually cloudy weather over Japan. Furthermore, bombs dropped from the B-29s at high altitude (above 20,000 feet (6,100 m)) were often blown off of their trajectories by a consistently powerful jet stream over the Japanese home islands, which dramatically reduced the effectiveness of the high-altitude raids. Because Japanese air defenses made daytime bombing below jet stream-affected altitudes too perilous, LeMay finally switched to low-altitude nighttime incendiary attacks on Japanese targets, a tactic senior commanders had been advocating for some time.[7][8] Japanese cities were largely constructed of combustible materials such as wood and paper. Precision high-altitude daylight bombing was ordered to proceed only when weather permitted or when specific critical targets were not vulnerable to area bombing.

LeMay commanded subsequent B-29 Superfortress combat operations against Japan, including massive incendiary attacks on 67 Japanese cities and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This included the firebombing of Tokyo — known in official documents as the "Operation Meetinghouse" air raid on the night of March 9–10, 1945 — which proved to be the single most destructive bombing raid of the war.[11] For this first attack, LeMay ordered the defensive guns removed from 325 B-29s, loaded each plane with Model M-47 incendiary clusters, magnesium bombs, white phosphorus bombs, and napalm, and ordered the bombers to fly in streams at 5,000 to 9,000 feet (1,500 to 2,700 m) over Tokyo.[7][8][12] LeMay described Operation Meetinghouse by saying "the US had finally stopped swatting at flies and gone after the manure pile".

In January 1945, General Curtis LeMay was transferred from China to relieve Brigadier General Haywood S. Hansell as commander of the XXI Bomber Command in the Marianas.

To start off the New Year right, the Wing began a new type of mission on January 3.
While it still flew at altitude-this particular mission came in at over 30,000 - the target was the city of Nagoya rather than any particular place in that city. Earlier missions had carried loads that were partly incendiary but this mission was the first one that set out to burn a city. The results showed 3,000,000 square feet of residential area and one small textile mill destroyed. Bad weather resulted in only 57 planes of the 97 that took off being over the primary and enemy fighters and anti-aircraft destroyed five of our airplanes and damaged 21.


There was one very remarkable experience in this first 1945 mission when Sergeant James Krantz of the 497th Group was blown out of his airplane at 29,000 feet. Shortly after bombs away over Nagoya, the right gun blister and tail turret of his plane were hit by fighter gunfire simultaneously. The blister shattered and blew out. Then the out rushing pressure blew the gunner and his gunsight out of the plane. Sergeant Krantz must have had a premonition, since he had designed his own safety harness. It was a heavy web that strapped around his legs and shoulders with enough slack to allow freedom of movement. This particular harness had a little too much slack but it was still adequate to save the sergeant's life.

On finding himself out of the blister in the slipstream the gunner was seen by occupants of another airplane instinctively to try to adjust his oxygen mask. At this time he was completely oui of the aircraft except for that portion of one leg below the knee. He next tried to "walk" himself back into the airplane by use of the gunsight cables but lost consciousness in approximately three minutes.

Next the CFC gunner and left gunner tried unsuccessfully to pull Sergeant Krantz back into the plane. The radar operator also tried but because of the cramped conditions near the blister they were not able to pull him back. The copilot went back and by gripping Sergeant Krantz' shoulder holster strap he was able to get the sergeant back with the aid of the twb gunners. Sergeanl Krantz was outside of the airplane apprximately ten minutes. When pure oxygen was applied to him, he opened his eyes and showed signs of recovery in about twenty minutes. At the time he reentered the aircraft ii was flying at 28,000.

The next two missions were a return to high altitude precision attacks with 72 planes on the ninth against the Musashino plant in Tokyo and 73 planes on the fourteenth against the Mitsubishi plant in Nagoya. It was instrument weather both enroute and over the target for these missions. On the first mission, the weather was so bad that formations were never consummated and the planes reached the target singly. In fact, only eighteen did reach the primary target with 33 hitting various targets of opportunity. On the the Nagoya mission, 40 bombed the primary by radar but they had nearly 600 fighter attacks that were the most aggressive and accurate yet encountered. As a result of the bad weather and heavy enemy opposition, eleven airplanes were lost on these two missions with 33 suffering battle damage.

The next Wing mission, number 20, was the most successful of our precision missions. It was flown against the Kawasaki Aircraft plant in Akashi on the nineteenth of January. Sixty-two aircraft of the 80 airborne bombed the primary target and scored at least 129 hits on all but eleven of the buildings in the area causing severe damage to the target. The missed buildings were all small. Forty per cent of the bombs fell within 1,000 feet of the aiming point. We lost no B-29s and only twelve suffered battle damage.

The other two January missions flown were another pa)r against the Mitsubishi and Musashino plants in Nagoya and Tokyo. Both missions made the almost routine reports of very bad weather enroute and over the target. The first mission, which was the one to Nagoya, lost only two airplanes with 32 battle damaged. However, on the second mission, which was flown on -the twenty-seventh. the Wing experienced the heaviest losses on any mission -nine B-29s were lost. There was a total of 984 aggressive fighter attacks. The fighters actually followed our airplanes 50 miles off the coast on the way out. Our gunners claimed the destruction of 60 enemy aircraft with seventeen probables, and 79 damaged.

This mission was also noteworthy because one B-29 flew all the way back to base from the target on only two engines. It was escorted by another plane but it still made the entire trip with just the two engines. Lt. Col. Trickey was the pilot.

APRIL

When the plane is lost there is a procedure for Bailing out:






1945-4-27

When you have to ditch your plane, YOU HOPE there is a "DUMBO" in the area.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbo_(air-sea_rescue)

Dumbo was the code name used by the United States Navy during the 1940s and 1950s to signify search and rescue missions, conducted in conjunction with military operations, by long-range aircraft flying over the ocean. The purpose of Dumbo missions was to rescue downed American aviators as well as seamen in distress. Dumbo aircraft were originally land-based heavy bomber aircraft converted to carry an airborne lifeboat to be dropped in the water near survivors. The name "Dumbo" came from Walt Disney's flying elephant, the main character of the animated film Dumbo, appearing in October 1941.[1]

By extension, "Dumbo" became the unofficial nickname for any air-sea rescue aircraft, including flying boats[2] that had less need to drop heavy lifeboats since the aircraft could land on the water and perform rescues directly.[3] "Dumbo" was also an unofficial nickname for any variant of the PBY Catalina patrol bomber which operated in a wide variety of roles including anti-submarine warfare against German U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic.[4]

After the 1950s with development and greatly increased use of helicopters for air-sea rescue operations, the Dumbo aircraft were retired and the term was no longer used.

1945-8-6- Enola Gay flew from North Field in Tinian just south of Saipan -







1945-1-27 The B-29 that kept Fighting

atheyfamily.org/B29/73rdBombWing.htm

War Conclusion
With V-E, May 8, 1945, and the surrender of the Japanese on August 15, 1945, the signing of the peace treaty on September 1, 1945, on the battleship Missouri concluded the war.

73rd Wing Statistics Aug 1945

Tons of bombs dropped on all targets (65% incendiaries) . . . 48,532
Tons of bombs dropped on Tokyo .,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, . .8,508
Tons of bombs dropped on Nagoya .,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.. 5,938
Tons of bombs dropped on Osaka ..,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,. 5,268
Tons of bombs dropped on Kobe .............................................. 2,369
Total combat sorties flown ........................................................ 9,894
Enemy aircraft attacks ............................................................... 7,663
Enemy aircraft destroyed ............................................................. 436
Enemy aircraft probably destroyed .............................................. 239
Enemy aircraft damaged .............................................................. 422
Enemy aircraft casualties per 100 attacks ..................................... 14.3
Total hours flown (88 per cent combat) ............................... 155,545 ·
Average bomb load per aircraft (July) . .................................. 14,810

Total engines removed ............................................................. 1,628
Average hours per engine removed .......................................... 275:28
Total aircraft lost (including 37 war wearies) ....... 182
Total aircraft battle damaged ............................. 1,044

Personnel Casualties

Killed ...................................................................... 69
Missing ................................................................. 964
Wounded .............................................................. 138

Total Casualties ................................................. 1,171
Crew members known to have ditched at sea ..... 709
Crew members rescued (40%) ............................. 285

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With the war over, Milton was able to visit his parents in Hinckley Utah.



. . . was transfered to Bergstrom Air Force Base seven miles southeast of Austin, Texas.



. . . and moved us from San Angelo to 204 west 16th Street in Austin. We bought a hundred year old house, fixed the upstairs rooms to rent to University of Texas Collage students.

[Admin]

1917-1940-Early Life
1940-1944-Pilot and Bombardier training
WWII
1944-1945-Saipan
1945-Bikini
1946-1960-Army Intelligence

1946- Bikini

www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945-present/crossroads.htm








Milton wasn't in Austin long. The first of the year found him in Roswell Field, New Mexico, training for the Pacific atomic Bomb Tests.



Indeed there was a lot of talk about the upcoming tests. Long before the bombing of Hiroshima and the end of the war, While Milton was floating on his canteen in the Pacific in April 1945. I found this being printed here in the U.S. -


After War II ended, the United States used Kwajalein Atoll as a main command center and preparation base in 1946 for Operation Crossroads, the first of several series of nuclear tests (comprising a total of 67 blasts) at the Marshall island atolls of Bikini and Enewetak.



It was going to require LOT of logistics!



There was opposition -



Four Bombardier crews were brought to Kwajalein, Milton among them.





A short snorter is a banknote inscribed by people traveling together on an aircraft. The tradition was started by Alaskan bush flyers in the 1920s and spread through the military and commercial aviation.














There was some free time -



But there were busy times, like wiring airplanes to turn them into drones -







And lots of "Bigwigs" around -



But only one crew dropped a bomb. The second was placed and detonated under water.



NOTE:
Milton met Betty and Mom divorced him in October of 1946

[Admin]

1917-1940-Early Life
1940-1944-Pilot and Bombardier training
WWII
1944-1945-Saipan
1945-Bikini
1946-1960-Army Intelligence

1946-1960-Army Intelligence









www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/setaf.htm
www.africom.mil/about-the-command

[Admin]

1917-1940-Early Life
1940-1944-Pilot and Bombardier training
WWII
1944-1945-Saipan
1945-Bikini
1946-1960-Army Intelligence

Retirement and Death

HEADQUARTERS
4520th Combat Crew TRAINING Wing (TAC FTR) (TAC)
United States Air Force
Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada
GENERAL 0RDERS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 October 1960
Number 56)
Announcement is made of the retirement from active duty, effective 31
October 1960, of COLONEL MILTON R KNIGHT, A04l2944, pursuant to paragraph 1, Department of the Air Force Special Order C~l027, dated l4 September 1960.

In March 1940, Colonel Knight enlisted as an aviation cadet. From April 1941 to 26 September 1947 he served in many assignments with principal duties as Bombardier Instructor and Staff Bombardier. During this period he served in the Western Pacific Campaign, Japanese Air Offensive Campaign and Eastern Mandates Campaign, flying ten combat missions, totaling 163 combat hours, in B-29 type aircraft in the Asiatic Pacific Theater of Operations.

From September 1947 to July 1950 he served as Chief of Counter~Intelligence Branch, Headquarters 8th Air Force, From August 1950 to June 1953 he served as Chief, Defensive Air Branch, Air Intelligence Division, and Chief, Supplemental Estimates Branch, Headquarters United States Air Force in Europe.

From July 1953 to November 1955 he served as the Air Force Member of the Joint Intelligence Group, Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Headquarters United States Air Force, From December 1955 to July 1957 he served as Chief, Air Intelligence Branch, Headquarters USAF. From August 1957 to February 1958, he attended school at Mather Air Force Base, California, From March 1958 to August 1960 he served with the Sixth Allied Tactical Air Force, with duty
station in Turkey.

On 2 September 1960, Colonel Knight was assigned to the 4520th Combat Crew Training Wing, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada as Special Assistant to the Wing Commander.

Colonel Knight“s awards and decorations include the Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal with three Bronze Service Stars, Afr Medal, Purple Heart, American Defense Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Distinguished Unit Citation, Commendation Ribbon, Army of Occupation Medal (Germany); Armed Forces Reserve Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and the Air Force Longevity Service Award with four Bronze Oak Leaf Clusters.

During his more than twenty years of military service, Colonel Knight has rendered distinguished and exemplary service to his Country and the United States Air Force.

The Commander, officers, airmen and civilian personnel of Nellis Air Force Base, join in wishing Colonel Knight good luck and Godspeed in his retirement.

FOR THE COMMANDER

L S NORRIS -Asst Director of Administration
DISTRIBUTION: S, plus
15 - Personnel . . . l - File
5 - Base Historian
5 - Colonel Knight NOTE:- B-29 of the 497th BG, 869th BS Saipan

1960-Nov1 Washington County News, St. George Utah
Col Knight Retires From U.S. Air force

Oct. 31, 1960, marked the end of an outstanding military career in the United States Air Force. With service time totaling 21 years, Col. Milton R. Knight received ,his certificates of retirement during ceremonies conducted in the Wing Commander’s office, Nellis AF Base, by Brig Ken, John N. Izwbank.

Colonel Knight was born in Hinkley, Utah. He 'spent his childhood in that area and graduated from Hinkley High School. He attended Brigham Young University for 3 years before the ward called him to serve his country. He enlisted as an aviation cadet in March of 1940. From April 1941 to Sept. 26, 1947, he served in many assignments with principal duties as bombardier instructor and staff bombardier.
During. this period he served in the Western Pacific Campaign, Japanese Air Offensive Campaign and Eastern Mandates Campaign, flying 163 combat hours in B-29 type aircraft in the Asiatic Theater of Operations.

After World War II Col. Knight participated in the atomic bomb tests which were conducted in the Pacific under the "Crossroads Project" during the summer of 1946.
Subsequent military assignments included duty with the Strategic Air Command, Headquarters U. S. Air Force in Europe, Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Headquarters U. S. Air Force.

In July of this year Col. Knight returned from Turkey where he has served three years with a NATO organization, the 6th Allied Tactical Air Force.
Upon arrival at Nellis AF Base, Col. Knight was assigned to the 4520th Combat Crew Training Wing as special assistant to the wing commander.

Colonel night’s awards and decorations include the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three Bronze Service Stars, Air Medal, Purple Heart, American Defense Service Medal, WW II Victory Fedal, Distinguished Unit Citation, Commendation Ribbon, National Defense Service Medal, and the Air Force Longevity Service Award with four bronze Oak Leaf Clusters.

Colonel Knight and his family selected St. George as their retirement home because of the mild

climate, beautiful scenery and the wonderful hunting and fishing opportunities in Southern Utah area.

1603 Richard Knight, 1656 David Knight, 1693 David E. Knight, 1721 David Knight, 1742 Samuel Knight, 1768 Rodolphus Knight, 1804 Vinson Knight, 1833 James Vincent Knight, 1887 Samuel Lee Knight, 1917 Milton Knight