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The next part of this article, that is rather emotional, prompts setting the stage. 1. Our co-pilot had left for B47 School and was replaced by a pilot who was also a rated navigator. 2. The crew that I flew to Hawaii with, and got to know pretty well, had a navigator who was also the "Class A" pay agent for the Wing.  

One payday this crew was scheduled to fly a local (over the water) camera gunnery training flight. I agreed to take their navigator’s (also pay agent) place. After we had loaded up, but had not started engines, our new co-pilot, who had been on leave, came out and asked to take my place. This would get his flight time in for the month. I gave him my oxygen mask and helmet and he took over as navigator.  

The gunnery-training mission involved F4U fighter planes from the Marine base making passes at the B29 , while the B29 gunners fired camera guns for scoring. One of the F4U pilots misjudged and collided with the B29 and both went down. Only the engineer bailed from the front, the pilot, co-pilot and navigator did not, while the radar operator and three gunners made it out the back. The five were picked up from the water by Air-Sea rescue. The fighter pilot did not survive.  

When we got word of the accident, my initial thought was that, except for pure luck, I could have been involved. However, the reality was that maybe if I had stayed on board, some small event could have been different and the accident would never have happened. This rationale did not prevent the thoughts from going back and forth in my mind as Madeleine and I attended the Memorial Services in the Base Chapel.  

We spent a few more months at March AFB in Riverside, California. There were other incidents while flying there that I could go into, but suffice it to say, that some flights made the previous combat missions seem rather calm in retrospect.

Early Days of Cold War

Many of us were anxious to get out of the B29 ’s and into the new six-jet engine B47 aircraft. This was the first USAF all jet heavy bomber to become operational. It was a big move forward. Since there were only three crewmembers, it required multiple ratings. The two pilots had to have at least two ratings and the navigators had to be triple-rated (navigator, bombardier, radar operator), which resulted in the nickname of "triple-headed monster".  

My acceptance for the new assignment came through and we (family included) took off for Houston, Texas, where the bombardier training would take place at the Ellington AFB. This was the same place I took a refresher course when first recalled at the beginning of the Korean War.  

The main objective here was to go through the training required to get the bombardier rating. This involved ground school and flight time. We did our bomb practice in twin-engine B25 aircraft, dropping many "blue boy"-spotting bombs. Incidentally, the B25 was the plane used in the first bombing of Tokyo, by Doolittle’s outfit, from an aircraft carrier. It in no way compared to the B47, but it served for training purposes.

Upon completion of training at Ellington, our next move was to Mather AFB in Sacramento, California. Here, we would get the third rating as a radar operator. The radar equipment closely resembled what we would eventually use in the B47 aircraft, but the actual flying was done in the very slow (in relation to the B47) T-29 aircraft.  

Prior to completion of training at Mather, we were notified that our next assignment would be to the Lake Charles AFB in Louisiana. The move was delayed because of floods in Louisiana.  

Also during this time, another item came up. The Readers Digest published an article very critical of the B47 aircraft for which we had been doing all this training. In short, this caused some concern since it was to be THE bomber for the Air Force in the early 50’s. Of course, the much larger eight-jet engine B52 later replaced it with a crew of five.

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