On 26 June 1945, Miranda was leading his element on a daylight strategic attack on an arsenal complex at Nagoya. This was the Group's 32nd mission. Accompanying Capt. Miranda that day as Colonel George W. Mundy, 39th Bomb Group CO, flying as command pilot.

Formation was made at the assembly point just off the coast of Japan. P-13 fired the signal flare and Miranda turned the "City of Galveston" into Nagoya Bay toward the I.P. A group of five enemy "Tonys" suddenly appeared and with guns blazing attacked our element. Nearly every turret in formation went into action as the enemy pressed repetitive attacks. As one came boring in toward the nose of Capt. Miranda's aircraft, it abruptly disintegrated into a huge fireball. Pieces of debris whisked past us (P-5), and then fluttered like falling leaves into the sea. Later, their bombardier, 1st Lt Oscar B. Price of Turkey Texas, would be credited for the kill.

As we reached the I.P. and headed north, cloud cover kept getting higher and we were climbing to stay on top. When the clouds finally closed in on us, the whole formation dispersed. We continued to climb and maintain our heading. Finally, breaking out over the top of cloud mass, we found that there wasn't a plane in sight from our formation. We proceeded on toward the target - resigned to go in alone if necessary. At the last minute, we spotted P-13 and two other B-29's and fell in behind them.

Deadly black puffs of flak were bursting all around our four-plane element, and it increased in intensity as we pressed toward the target. Just as Nagoya came into view, the overcast opened up and we made our bomb run at 24,000 feet. Holding straight and level despite being bounced from the shock waves of several near-hits, we simultaneously released our bombs with the lead plane. We watched the finned projectiles plummet downward and witnessed a good pattern exploding around the aiming point. It appeared that we had inflicted serious damage to the arsenal.

Everything was going well but on for that moment. As we turned off the target, trouble really began. A 120mm shell suddenly tore about eight feet off the P-13's right wing, knocked a couple feet off its aileron, and put the outboard engine out of commission. Being behind and just below Miranda, a section of their wing and other smaller pieces came back and narrowly missed crashing into us. Seconds later another burst tore off half of the left door of the forward bomb bay, knocked open the other three doors and jammed the closing mechanism. As a result, their right inboard engine backfired and coughed in a further loss of power.

Capt. Miranda and Col. Mundy found themselves flying an airplane with a short right wing with both good engines on the opposite side. It was all they could do to keep the bomber flying in any semblance of direction. At the dual controls each placed his feet on his left rudder pedal and pushed with all his strength, simultaneously steering hard to the left. With the plane steadily losing attitude, P-13 headed out to sea in search of a friendly vessel.

Following the "City of Galveston's" flak hits P-5 swiftly dropped out of formation to cover the stricken plane from enemy fighters who were always quick to jump a disabled Superfortress. Suddenly, Big John's voice boomed over the radio to Bob Spaulding, A/C of P-5, "Bob get me to a sub." Spaulding replied, "Will do John - just hang on."

By the time we reached the coast, their ailing # 3 engine had quite entirely, and the plane was rapidly losing attitude. We continued maintain radio contact with P-13. Both Capt. Miranda and Col. Mundy remained admirably cool throughout the ordeal as they struggled to stay in the air.

When we reached the water, our heading was southerly (180 degrees). Al Baldi, Co-pilot of P-5 was able to contact the nearest rescue submarine and get a fix on its location several miles distant.

Crew 5's Navigator, Ed Edmundson, set to work on calculating the course and ETA. It was soon determined that a new heading of 270 degrees would be needed to reach the sub. This meant nearly a full 90-degree turn. Baldi relayed this information to Capt. Miranda.