The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1943-05-14
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1t. Robert II. Mitchell, Fl, 900
West Nevada street, Urbana, ILL.,,
navigator.
1t. Louis Zamperini, &c, Tor
rance, Calf, bombardier. He Is
the former NC4A and NAAU
mile champion.
Staff Sgt. Stanley p. Pillsbury,
Shapleigh, Me-. assistant engi-
neer. Left foot perforated. AT
least rs holes in his left leg and
hip. Lost his left toe.
Tech. Sgt. Harold V. Brooks,
GAINESVILLE, Mich, radiOman. So
badly injured in the head and
chest he died after the plane
reached its base.
Now for the story, Zamperini
talking:
Our mission was to bomb the
left side of the runway at Nauru.
Our reorganization bombs hit
stores and planes alongside the
runway.
"Anti-aircraft hit our tail and
knocked out one rudder on our
bombing run. Then we took
evasive action. We were in a
three plane formation but both
of the other bombers were cut
off when Zeros attacked.
Three Zeros came in to at
tack us. l saw the gunnerS put
shells through their fuselage and
their wings but the Japanese
turned and came on anyway. We
had hoped they'd quit.
Il saw a Zero 60 up over our
ship. Then | saw the upper tur-
ret hit by an explosive cannon
she'll. That she'll filled Sgt.
Pillsbury's left foot full of frag-
mentation and perforated his
left leg up to his hips. 1t looked
as if there were IS holes in his
leg. 1t looked as if he'd lose his
/ foot, but he lost only his big toe.
But Pillsbury kept on shoot
ing at that Zero. That Jap went
down and exploded on the
water.
Il saw another Zero wing off
and 60 down. We never saw it
again and our crew claimed it.
The third never came back,
SO we think someone else got
him.
Just one more pass and
they'd have had us. All Of our
gunncrs were out Of action
/ (wounded) and some guns were
knocked out.
If Sgt. Pillsbury hadn't hit
that Zero that went up over us
he (the Jap would have turned
and got us sure.
There in the nose we
couldn't tell how badly the ship
had been hit. After the last
Zero disappeared 1t. Phillips
called TO 1t. Mitchell and me to
come back. The first thing
saw was our radio man (Brooks)
lying there bleeding. He couldn't
talk. He's the one who died.
The bomb bay doors were
still open. Evidently he had
crawled along that narrow cat
walk from the waist gun. l got
him comfortable and then
closed the doors manually. One
cannon she'll had knocked out
our power and had to do it by
/ hand.
5 HOURS TO RETURN
1t took us over five hours to
get back to our base.
I'VE always were trying to
figure how to land without
brakes and with a flat tire. One
shell hit tire and we knew ii
would so out the second it
touched the runway.
Mitchell and | had to pump
the flaps down by hand. We
hand pumped the wheels down.
Then we cranked the bomb bay
doors open TO slow up another )
or 10 miles an hour.
I'm the tail, ! awaited orders
to throw out parachutes TO slow
us but we didn't need to do that.
When we hit, tire blew out and
that slowed the plane consider
ably. II was really a beautiful
landing. We had been afraid one
or two of the men would be kill
ed if we hit hard.
Actually il took six of us
cooperating to land our ship.
That's how badly ii was dam
aged. Next day, the ground crew
cunted 594 holes in our plane. II
took them six hours and they
had to mark the holes with chalk
to tell which they had counted"
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