We returned from one long mission to be diverted from home base because of fog. We flew to a base a few hours away arriving after daylight with no fog. We were directed by the controller on the landing approach. I could see the runway from my seat and I yelled we are landing long. Sure enough the plane over ran the runway. The landing gear dropped into a cut roadway which caused the plane to stop but also to break almost in half. There was no fire. The bombardier was sitting in the nose section and both his legs were injured. I was sitting right in front of the crack. The plane was salvage.
At the end of each mission we had the option of going to the Scandinavian Room. This was an exercise, sauna, massage facility. We usually all went. I would sit in the steam room and then go to the massage room. Those Japanese men would work me over from toes to fingers. After that I would just fall into bed and sleep.
Dean Allan's more detailed account:
June 24 was our ninth mission. Our call sign was "Hopscotch 53." We took off at 1830 hours from Yakota (6:30 p.m.) with forty 500-pound bombs.
[After dropping bombs on several targets] We had been over the front lines for over an hour and we needed to head back home for lack of fuel. We then headed for home across the Sea of Japan. It was now 2400 hours or 12:00 midnight.
When we approached Yakota A.F.B., we were told that weather conditions made it impossible for us to land because of dense fog. We were directed to go to Haneida airport in Tokyo to land. When we got there they informed us that we couldn't land because of dense fog and to fly south looking for an open air field to land at. The pilot found a fighter base in Southern Japan that was open. They had light rain but plenty of visibility for landing. The base we were going to land at was Ashiya, a fighter base with a 6000 foot runway. We had been flying for more than ten hours and we were just about out of fuel. The flight engineer informed Captain Funk that we would have to land on our first try because there was not enough fuel to go around and make another attempt.
As we approached the field to land, the wing flaps were set at 25 degrees rather than the usual 45 degrees. Those of us in the gunner's compartment saw a lot of runway pass before the main gear touched the runway, then we saw steel matting pass underneath us, which caused us great concern. Wham!! The aircraft came to a sudden stop with everything loose on the floor boards flying at us in the gunner's compartment.
All five of us ran around to the front of the airplane to see how the guys faired up front. The bombardier, Lieutenant Crandall, had both feet go through the plexiglass in the nose of the aircraft and consequently broke the bones in his feet and ankles. The pilot, co-pilot, navigator, engineer, radio operator and bombardier all escaped through the engineer's window. Justice, the flight engineer, hurt his back, but other than that the rest of us got out without any severe injury.
It was easy to see that the twelfth man, our guardian angel, was with us today. Our airplane had run into a dug way at the end of the main runway and the landing gear as well as the four engine propellers had stopped us from going over a 500-foot embankment. Had the airplane gone over the embankment, it would have surely killed all on board. A big thanks to our angel!
It was July 13, 1952 before we flew another combat mission. Needless to say, we needed an airplane and they flew a new one in from the States. We got together as a crew and decided to name our airplane "Police Action" because they called this war with Korea a United Nations Police Action. We hired a Japanese painter to paint a pretty young lady on the front of our airplane. She wore a bolero and had a six gun on her hip. This airplane was a great airplane and had the best-looking picture and name in the 98th Bomb Wing. Our entire crew was unanimous about that! We flew a local test flight with our new B-29 and then got ready to get back in the rotation of flying combat.
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On his copy of the photographs, Lee drew where he was sitting in the plane
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