Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
IN THE MARIANAS (delayed) – I’ve always felt the great 500-mile auto race at Indianapolis to be the most intriguing event – in terms of human suspense – that I’ve ever known. The start of a B-29 mission to Tokyo, from the spectator’s standpoint, is almost a duplicate of the Indianapolis race.
On mission day people are out early to see the start. Soldiers in groups sit on favorite high spots around the field – on tops of buildings, on tops of bulldozers along the runway, on mounds that give a better view – and even a few bold souls stand at the very end of the runway to snap amateur pictures as the thundering planes pass just over their heads.
As the planes taxi out, it is just like cars at Indianapolis leaving their pits to line up for the start. You wave farewell to your own special friends and then get as fast as you can to your own favorite spot to watch the spectacle.
My nephew, Lt. Jack Bales, wasn’t on this mission, so we drove in a jeep 10 the far end of the runway. and parked on a raised place alongside it, at a point where the planes better be in the air by that time – or else.
Never a blank spot
Most of the planes would be in the air long before they reached us. But a few either had trouble getting off, or else their pilots were holding them down, for they just barely raised in the last few feet of runway, and the amateur photographers down there hit the dirt so hard we had to laugh.
The planes were staggering just a little as they took off. The spacing between them was perfect. There was never a blank spot, never a delay. When you turned from seeing one safely off the ground, here would be the next one coming down the runway.
These Marianas Islands are so small that any plane taking off is out over the water within a few seconds. It is a goose-fleshy sensation to see a plane clear the bluff by a mere few feet, and then sink out of sight toward the water. This is because the pilots nose down a little to get more flying speed. Pretty soon you see them come up into sight again.
Like burned-out cars
There are no accidents at the start of our mission, but not all the planes did get off. Two were canceled on the ground before starting. Two ran halfway down the airstrip, then cut the power and came rolling off to the side, just like burned-out cars at Indianapolis.
One of them had locked brakes. and was just barely able to pull itself off the airstrip and out of the way. He stayed there alongside the runway as all the others roared past him, seeming, from our position, almost to lock wings with him as they passed.
Finally, they were all in the air, formed into flight, and vanished into the swallowing sky from which some would never return.
I had the same feeling watching the takeoff that I used to have before the start at Indianapolis. Here were a certain number of cars and men. Some of them you knew. They had built and trained for weeks for this day. At last, the time had come.
And in a few hours of desperate living, everything would be changed. You knew that within a few hours some would be glorious in victory, some would be defected in failures, some would be colorless “also rans,” and some – very probably – would be dead.
And that’s the way you feel when the B-29s start out. It is just up to fate. In 15 hours, they will be back – those who are coming back. But you cannot know ahead of time who it will be.
