Dean Allan: Survival and Combat Training

 

Forbes Air Base in Topeka, Kansas was the training center for all B-29 crews being sent to the Korean War.

The entire crew met together January 3, 1952 at a briefing room on Forbes A.F.B. The colonel giving the briefing informed all of the air crews present that they would be required to go through a ten-day survival training program at Camp Carson, Colorado. All crews were to fly out to Camp Carson on January 7th for the ten-day adventure.

When we arrived at Camp Carson the military bussed us up to a campground near Pike's Peak. Captain Funk divided the crew into groups of three, with one officer and two enlisted men in each group.

Each group was given a double mummy sleeping bag, each person a Pemmican Bar, and one third of a parachute canopy with the nylon cords attached. Each crew was taught how to make a tent out of their parachute and how to make a pack out of the nylon cords to carry our sleeping bag and gear. Each crew was assigned an instructor who would follow along with the crew as they made their way across the mountains to a designated site for pick up at the end of the 20 mile trek.

After completing our survival training our crew did a lot of flying from January through March 1952. Intensive training for combat included many simulated bomb runs and long navigation missions up to 14 hours long. 

Our crew had trained for nearly three months at Forbes A.F.B. in Topeka, Kansas to prepare for combat over North Korea. We had gone through survival training, long training missions, gunnery practice, radar and visual bomb runs.

The crew received orders to fly a new B-29 from Travis A.F.B. in California to Yakota A.F.B. in Japan. April 6, 1952 we took off from Travis A.F.B. a second time for Hawaii. This time   everything worked fine and we arrived at Hickam Field without any problems.

On the morning of the 10th of April we got ready to fly the next leg of our flight to Kwajalein Island, an ink spot out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This is one of the islands our Marines captured from the Japanese during World War II. There were two B-26s parked on the ramp next to our B-29 and the pilots talked to Captain Funk and asked if they could follow us to Kwajalein and Guam. They had more confidence in our navigator, Lieutenant Reasor, than themselves. Of course we invited them to follow us. Some ten and a half hours later we arrived at the island of Kwajalein. We all applauded our navigator for finding this little piece of dirt out in the middle of the Pacific. The island is just big enough for a good runway. You could nearly throw a rock from one side of the island to the other. Needless to say, the B-26 pilots were glad to be with us.