Veteran recalls the B-29 and his World War II glory days

It was the B-29 Superfortress bombers that brought Japan “to its knees,” a veteran of those World War II missions told a rapt gathering at the New Bern Noon Rotary.

Joe Schiffino, now 85, who was a captain of a B-29 for the U.S. Army Air Corps, said those bombers, the most advanced at the time, were crewed by “youth from all over America.”

He was in the 73rd Bomber Group and in 1944, flew five missions in 10 days. The last mission, hitting Kobe, he said they knew “was not going to be milk run.” His plane was hit and he was wounded.

He said the No. 3 engine blade “burnt off at the shaft and flew up over the plane.” One gunner was killed and Schiffino turned over command to the second officer and the bomber ditched in the Pacific Ocean, where he and another survivor were picked up in a life raft by a submarine.

 Many pilots and crewmen did not make it back, ending up as POWs in Japan, some dying.  Schiffino said he learned afterwards that the bombing raids were a “morale booster” to the captured Americans. They told him that “to see those big silver birds up there gave us hope that some day they’d be coming for us.”

The B-29 was the most advanced bomber in the world, Capt. Schiffino pointed out: 99 feet long, a wingspan of 141 feet, 30 feet high, a crew of 11, with a dozen .50-calibre machine guns in remote turrets. It could climb above the flak and enemy fighters to 40,000 feet. Empty, it weighed 75,000 pounds, loaded, 120,000.

Schiffino said although it could carry 20,000 pounds of bombs, they usually had a load of from 14,000 to 15,000, along with a high-tech bombsite that crews were taught to destroy if they got shot down.

The B-29s hit every major city in Japan including Yokohama and Osaka, Schiffino said. While they knew the incendiary bombs caused loss of civilian life, the airmen were told and believed that the population of Japan was behind the war.

The fire raids “destroyed all the cities in Japan.” While China was a refuge for disabled aircraft, they were advised not to land in Russia, which had not yet entered the war against Japan. Men were advised to “save one bullet for yourself.”

Schiffino had high praise for the B-29, but praise he felt was not given due accord in the history books. One book he was shown  had just one page on the B-29s and otherwise focused on the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. A second atomic bomb was dropped three days later by the B-29 Bockscar on Nagasaki.

The very first bombing raid on the Japanese homeland, hitting Tokyo, was made by Col. Jimmy Doolittle, leading a squadron of 14 B-25 Mitchell bombers off the carrier Hornet. That raid took place in April of 1942, four months after Pearl Harbor, an act of “retribution” President Franklin Roosevelt called for to prove to the Japanese they were not invincible.

History and the B-29 proved they were not.

Schiffino said in closing that now, “in the twilight of my life, my 85th year … that was our days of youth … days of glory.”

Those “boys” who flew off from Rogers Field, now Honolulu International Airport in Hawaii, Schiffino said, “flew to manhood.”

Schiffino, who received a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross, was 21 years old when he flew into manhood.

B-29 Superfortress

Maximum Speed 310 MPH

Cruising Speed   220 MPH

Service Ceiling   33,000 feet

Gross Weight (military load)   147,000 pounds

Tail Height   29 feet

Wing Span   141 feet

Fuselage Length   99 feet

Range   3,700-4,500 miles

Armament   12 .50 caliber machine guns

Bomb Load   20,000 pounds

Wing Tank Fuel Capacity   5,828 gallons

Center Tank Fuel Capacity   1,120 gallons

Bomb Bay Fuel Capacity   2,560 gallons

Oil Capacity   85 gallons each engine

Engines   Wright Cyclone R-3350 (4)

Horsepower   2,200 hp each engine