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Rain of Fire is the remarkable story from a
26 year-old Captain in the US Army Air Corps, piloting B-29s
during the final stages of WWII in the Pacific Theater.
Beginning on Thanksgiving Day 1944, B-29 fire bomb raids began
on Japan from Saipan in the Mariana Islands. Receiving a
Distinguished Flying Cross for piloting the largest planes used
in during WWII, his last mission was August 6th, 1945 — the
day of Hiroshima — the same day he was forced to ditch his
aircraft into the sea.
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9 x 12 inches - Oversize
225 Photographs; 210 pages
ISBN: 1-891030-32-9
-- OUT
OF PRINT --
Contact the
Publisher
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Rain of Fire
B-29’s Over Japan, 1945
By
Charles L. Phillips, Jr.
Colonel USAF (Ret.)
A first person account of a historic record of
events from the perspective of a combat aircraft commander and
squadron operations officer, some sixty years ago.
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“As we approached the coast of
Japan, about 1,200 miles from Saipan, we developed a
large oil leak in one of the engines. We did not make it
to the target that day. Bonner had to feather the
propeller on the ailing engine and abort the mission.
The bombs were salvoed into the sea. We logged 12 hours
and 30 minutes of flying time, none of which counted as
combat time or sortie credit. Most of that time the B-29
was operating on three engines en route back to Saipan.
It was my first experience of being aboard a B-29 during
an engine failure.” |
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"To
me, it is important for us all to realize that the time
period he covers was the only time in the history of military aviation that true strategic air power was
actually put to proper use and air power had done what all its early pioneers had said could be done.”
-- General Curtis
E. LeMay |
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