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Memories of Ed York
Snugglebunny was probably the oldest B-29 amongst both the 92nd and 98th Bomb Groups. She completed
65 missions in the Pacific Theater during WWII, then was declared "war weary" and returned to the States.
I was told that she originally had electrically-operated bomb bay doors, but had been modified to have the
standard pneumatically-operated doors. This may account for some of the problems we encountered during
our missions with her. I also have been told she had a sag in one wing. The first time I saw this
plane was the day we left Fairchild AFB--we were the last plane to leave for Yokota. What impressed me
most when I looked Snugglebunny over was the big red bomb with the number '65' painted on the nose.
Bill Clausen, with whom I'd served before, informed me about the plane's WWII missions, thus explaining the
number. Few of us who were to crew Snugglebunny at Yokota knew each other. The only crew member I
knew was Bill (Clausen), the Flight Engineer. We had served together in another outfit called Squadron
T in Salina, Kansas (Smokey Hill AFB) in 1947. My path to Snugglebunny was quite 'round about.' I
had been working as a gunnery instructor at Fairchild's Base Gunnery School since arriving at Spokane in
1947. In 1948 I was assigned to the 343rd Bomb Squadron of the 98th Bomb Group for a 90-day training
exercise at Kadina AFB on Okinawa. Upon returning to Fairchild, I was transferred back to the Gunnery
School until the 98th was slated to move to Puerto Rico as a permanent change of station (PCS). I was
reassigned to the 345th Bomb Squadron for the Puerto Rico move. But when Korea happened, I ended up in
the 343rd Bomb Squadron. Bill Hughes and Marvin Root (gunners) were students at the Base Gunnery
School and were "graduated" and immediately assigned to duty as crew members when the school was closed
down. So not only were we the 'tail-end Charlies,' we were also mostly unknown to each other. That
being so, the Scanners, Tail Gunner and I got acquainted real fast. Many of the officers were recalled
reservists, but our A/C (Airplane Commander) Potter was regular AF. Marvin Root and Bill Hughes were
scanners and George Skarpac flew in the tail position. I was the CFC (Central Fire Control) Gunner.
I am not sure, but I think we almost missed the Hawaiian Islands on our way over to Japan. However, we
did arrive at Yokota in late June, to be greeted by signs 'Rum and Coke 5 Cents' or 'Welcome Ramey'--all
put there by our friends in the 92nd Bomb Group. The first thing we learned at Yokota was that the bomb
loading crews had yet to arrive, and the flight crews would have to load their own bombs. I didn't
know how much anyone else knew about loading bombs. I had loaded one bomb while on TDY with the 98th
to Okinawa. I did know that there were two ways to load--one was using a hand crank and cranking up
each bomb into position (we normally carried 38 to 40 500-pound bombs), the easier way was to use an
electric hoist which could be moved from rack to rack. Needless to say, there was considerable
confusion at first. Bill Hughes scrounged an electric hoist, and we eventually managed to get all 40
bombs hooked up. As time went on we got a little better at this, but frankly it didn't give the
gunners much of an opportunity to check their equipment. So for the first few missions, we hoped for
the best. Eventually the bomb loaders arrived, and things got back to normal. At first flights went
pretty well, but after one of our missions the bomb bay doors refused to close. We had to return to
base with them wide open which slowed us down considerably. It also got us a lot of attention from the
7th Fleet when we crossed the Sea of Japan. The Navy didn't take kindly to us flying over them with
the doors open, and invariably sent up a few carrier planes to give us a closer look. Fortunately we
passed inspection, but this was just one of the many times this happened. We usually were the last
ones to land at Yokota after a mission. We also had some occasions when all of our bombs did not release
and they had to be released manually. On most of those occasions, Bill Hughes was the one who
volunteered to go into the open bomb bay to release them. So we had to have someone watch when "Bombs
Away" was called to let the Bombardier know when all bombs dropped. On one occasion it was my turn to
watch the bombs release and call in the 'all clear.' When the 'bombs away' call was made, the bottom
bomb on the right forward rack did not release. I had to sit there and watch the three bombs above
bounce off the hung-up bomb as they released. Finally, the last bomb broke the hung-up bomb's shackle
and it dropped. During the period when things had quieted down, we were sent out alone on a mission to
bomb a road in the northern part of Korea. When we got to our target area, the bombardier wanted to
make a "dry run" first, which we did. When we came back for our final run, we began to pick up flak
from some small ground units, which I reported to the A/C. The Squadron Operations Officer was with us
on that day getting in some flight time. I knew something was wrong after we left the target area
because there was a lot of talking going on in the cockpit. We learned upon landing that we had
overflown (and maybe bombed) a part of China. There was quite a reception of Brass waiting for us when
we landed. The only reason I can offer for this error is that the terrain in Korea made it difficult
to differentiate where Korea ended and China began. On one of our missions we took off in bad weather.
We couldn't see the ground from the time we left until our return. We were to 'radar bomb' the target.
Because we could not see the other planes, we had an assigned slot in the line. When it was our turn
to drop and we were on our bomb run, the bay doors were opened. I was up in my CFC seat, and, as I
watched, the tail section started to shake and vibrate considerably. We dropped out of formation and
had to go around to the tail end of the line. I was told that we had started to stall out when the
bomb bay doors were opened. Of course, this meant that we were 'tail-end-Charlies' again. We
continued to fly this ship on our assigned missions until she was scheduled for a 2000 inspection that would
take some time. During this time we filled in on other crews. All in all, Snugglebunny added 45
missions to her credit. Most of us did about 54 while at Yokota. The crew members (R-33) were:
- A/C - Capt. Eliot "Painless Peter" Potter
- Pilot - Capt. Grady B. Williams
- Flight Engineer - Bill Clausen, replaced by Lee "Shorty" Gordon
- Bombardier - 1st Lt. Albert Barnett
- Navigator - Capt. Karmen Heider
- Radar - Capt. James Masuraca
- Radio - Sgt. Lyle J. Layer
- Scanners - Sgt. Bill Hughes and Sgt. Marvin Root
- CFC Gunner - Ed N. York
- Tail Gunner - Sgt. George Skarpac
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Memories of A/C Capt. Eliot H. Potter
As I remember, Snugglebunny was removed from the nose but you could still see where it had been. By
vote of the crew, we elected to keep the name and had a local artist repaint it because it apparently had
completed 65 successful missions in the South Pacific. The bomb bay doors never did work. After
coming back from one mission with them open, Frank Manley, the civilian Boeing tech rep, said that it wasn't
possible and proceeded to jump on the doors, promptly falling through to the ground.
We did have to load our own bombs. I remember doing some loading myself. On that weather
mission we returned with the doors open and didn't have enough gas to go to an alternate field. It was
snowing on landing, just like flying inside of a ping pong ball. GCA (Ground Control Approach) did an
excellent job of guiding us and at 50 feet when he said, 'Round out and take over for landing,' I watched Al
Burnett (Bombardier) in the nose. As he reared back, I followed. With the new snow on the
runway, it resulted in a smooth landing, but when we came to a stop on the runway we had to have a 'Follow
Me' truck take us in to park. On roll out I couldn't see the edge of the runway, so it was following the
directional gyro all the way. I think we all had over 50 missions. I had 55.
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Memories of Gunner, Bill Hughes
Ed, your story looks good, however, you failed to tell of my most shining moment in the bomb bay of
Snugglebunny. It was one of those missions during which several groups were to bomb what was believed
to be a large concentration of enemy troops. We dropped 100-pound fragmentation bombs. As usual,
one of the bottom racks failed to release. When I went into the bomb bay to release it, I found that a
bomb had fallen from a shackle higher up and was lying on a bomb that had not released. It had dropped
far enough so that the arming wires had been pulled and the little feller was armed. I wondered what
was going to happen when it got tossed out into the slipstream. As luck would have it, nothing happened.
I tossed it out, released the bomb shackle, and went back in the compartment--still scared to death.
You know, you could not wear a parachute into the bomb bay because there was not enough room to move around.
Another worry was catching the ripcord on something and opening the chute. It would tear you to bits
dragging you out of the bay. She was quite a ship--quite a pile of parts.
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Postscript
Snugglebunny (44-69967) was badly damaged on a mission to bomb a bridge over the Yalu River and had to
make an emergency landing in South Korea. She survived and was "reclaimed" at Tinker AFB on 3-10-1954.
Snugglebunny served with the 6th Bomb Group during World War II. The ship we used a lot while
Snugglebunny was out for inspection was called "Squeeze Play" 44-86415. It was lost on 9 October 1951
in the Sea of Japan. There were no survivors. During my tour of duty I bought a second-hand Kodak
movie camera from a local Japanese shop in Fussa. I took movies of my crew and plane on the ground and in
the air. Several years ago I donated them to the 8th Air Force Historical Museum at Savannah, Georgia. |
