With Special Order No. 70, Salina, Kansas 19 March 1945, Crew 23 departing Salina, Kansas for Herington, Kansas enroute to Guam. A car struck bombardier, 1st Lt Robert Barnes and his date, walking on the eve of departure. The young lady died and Bob with compound fractures and serious head injuries was hospitalized for quite some time.

19 March 1945, Crew 23 got movement orders to Guam. 2nd Lt Jack L. Clawson, the second of four bombardiers during my combat tour, was assigned to Crew 23.

Crew 23 on their thirteenth combat mission received the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for the daylight formation hit on Kobe 5 June. Flak damage was significant. We lost an engine over the target, cabin ruptures caused partial decompression and pilot, Bob Winn's flak suit prevented loss of "his manhood" when it stopped a 3 inch piece of shrapnel that came through his seat, his survival dinghy and stopped when it hit the flap of his flak suit between his legs. No Purple Hearts, but maintenance people had a field day digging out shrapnel and patching holes in the aircraft and changing four cells. Almost as interesting was the Nagoya during which Col. Mundy had to bail out. Our nose wheel tires were flat as well flak holes in the tail and fuel cells. Shortly after this mission, Crew 23 as assigned its 4th bombardier, Lt George Bucher, who stayed with the crew through its last mission flown 14 August when Japanese surrendered.

On 2 September while General McArthur was accepting the Japanese surrender, Crew 23, with Lt Col. Crumm were over China seeking prisoner of war camps. We departed Guam with maximum fuel load to stage out Okinawa. Our aircraft had new brakes installed just prior to take-off from Guam which had not been adequately deglazed and coupled with a max gross weight we had trouble stopping the landing roll. With smoke trailing from the brakes we finally brought the plane to a stop straddling the perimeter road at the end of the runway. As we rolled, Lt George Bucher, sitting in the nose on the bombardier seat reached back and bent the emergency brake handles all the back to the aisle stand quadrant. He was bombardier on Crew 21 when Capt Senger ran out of fuel after a combat mission and ditched 60 miles short of Guam. Brake handles are expendable!

Since an unarmed B-32 was shot down over China (by Russian or Japanese fighters) a few days earlier, Crew 23 carried a load of gun ammunition. On the second of September we pinpointed a POW camp in Mukden, China. While we were making contact with the POWs, Russian fighters launched from the Mukden airport to look us over. Our gunners were told to turret track the fighters but not open fire unless the fighters turned and pointed their nose toward us. Fighters posed no problem. We established contact with the POW camp and Lt Col Crumm asked if any assistance was needed. They did request beer and ice cream for 1680 men - to us a surprise - but a reasonable one. Col Crumm passed on the request Guam but never knew if it was delivered to Mukden.