The Wyandotte news-herald. (Wyandotte, Mich.) 1943-1963, 1945-03-22
3-2o Superforts Answer TO Prayer


The boys speak frequently of the
unbelievably high winds they hit
at high attitudes over Japan. It's
nothing unusual to have a 150-mile
an-hour wind, and my nephew, Jack
Bales, said that one day his plane
hit a wind of $50 miles an hour.
There are five officers and six
enlisted men on the crew Of B-29.
All the enlisted men of crew stay
in the same hut, because that's
the way the boys want it. Thus
these are usually three crews of SIX
men each in Quonset hut.
my" crew is a grand bunch Of
boys, as suppose most of them
are. They have trouble sleeping the
night before mission, and they're
tense before the takeoff. AS one
of them laughingly said at the plane
just before takeoff one morning.
How do you get rid of that empty
feeling in your chest?"
But they relax and expand and
practically float away with good
feeling once they get back and have
another one safely under their
belts.
The six enlisted men of my"
crew are SgtS. Joe Corcoran of
Woodhaven, L. l.; Fauad Smith of
DeS MoineS, N. M. (near Raton)
Joe McQuade of Gallup, N. M;
John Devaney of Columbus, Ohio;
Norbert Springman of Wilmont,
Mimi, and Eugene Florio of Chi
cago.
Springman and F1orio are radio
men, and all the others are gun
nerS.
Sergeant Corcoran is the oldest
of the crew. The first time I walked
into their hut he called from his
cot, Hi, Ernie, the last time I saw
you was in the Stork club"
But I've never been in the Stork
club in my life" I said.
So we puzzled over that while,
and finally decided it must have
been two other guys, or else I'm
living a double life which 1 don't
know about.
Sarge Continues
To Ply Trade
Sergeant Corcoran was a chiro-
practor before the war, and still
gives the boys amateur treatments.
He practiced for three years at
Jamaica, L. l., and had a fine
business worked up. 1 asked him
how chiropractor ever wound up
to be side-gunner on a B-29, and
he said damned if he knew.
It's unusual to find two men from
thinly populated New Mexico on
the same crew. Smith and Nc
Quade never knew each other until
they met on his crew, and then it
turned out they had joined the
army the very same day. Now they
are great buddieS.
McQuade was a fireman on the
Santa Fe, and Smith owned a gro
Gerry store, but finally had to sell
it. They'd just had letters saying
it was below zero back home, and
they were at least thankful to be
away from that.
Both the boys have had expert
ences. McQuade made two trips to
the AleutianS as a gunner on a
ship. And Smith is serving his sec
ond tour of aerial combat overseas.
Smith was in the South Pacific
in the early days, and flew SO mis-
sionS as gunner on Bits. He has
all his missions painted on the
back of his leather flying jacket
yellow bombs for the South Pacific,
and red ones for Japan. He says
he's only got room for 81 more mis-
sionS on his jacket, and then he'll
just have to quit.
I asked Sergeant Smith if he
hated to come back overseas as bad
ly as I did.
Twice as bad" he said.
"You couldn't"
well. as bad then" he said. But
I haven't griped so much about it
since we got here. It's not near as
bad as I expected. In fact we're
living as good here as we did in
| America"
Sergeant Smiths odd first name
Fauad-iS Syrian. He is growing a
funny little rectangular goatee,
black as coal asked him how long
he was going to keep it. He said,
Probably only until the colonel
happens to notice it."
Smith and Corcoran are the only
two sergeants on the crew who are
married. Both their wives are liv-
ing temporarily in California.
BIS Takeoff an
Exciting Spectacle
I've always felt the great 52O-mile