The Last Fighter Pilot by Don Brown

Author:Don Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621575559
Publisher: Regnery Publishing

CHAPTER 11

Jerry Hopes for a Chance

March 30, 1945

On March 30, 1945, General Moore ordered a large group of Mustangs to execute a round-trip practice fight from Iwo Jima to Saipan. Knowing the first strike on Japan was just days away, Moore wanted to test his Mustangs to see how they’d hold up under longer flight conditions. The one-way flight from Saipan to Iwo Jima was 725 miles, only twenty-five miles shorter than the distance from Iwo Jima to Japan. It was actually the same route Jerry, Beckwith, and others had taken when they first arrived on Iwo Jima from Saipan. Then, distance hadn’t been an issue, since they planned on landing at Iwo Jima rather than turning around and flying back to Saipan. On the planned trips to Japan, of course, there would be no opportunity to land halfway—not if the pilots wanted to come back alive, anyway. The round-trip mission to Japan would take eight hours and be arduous on both Moore’s pilots and their planes. The P-51s had never been pushed to such limits. Hence, Moore and General LeMay wanted to get at least one “practice run” under the pilots’ belts.

Moore selected a hundred pilots for the test flight, including Jerry. Although being picked for the test flight did not mean automatic selection for the actual mission to Japan, those chosen held out hope that if they performed well on the test flight, they would be included.

That, however, turned out to be a big “if.”

The results of the test flight were disappointing. Mechanical problems forced a number of P-51s to land in Saipan, unable to complete the round-trip journey. Others had to turn and fly back to Iwo Jima before even reaching Saipan. Altogether, nearly half of the P-51s on the test flight failed to complete the round-trip.

The development raised concerns for LeMay and Moore. They’d known from the beginning that with such a large amount of planes in the sky, it would be hard to achieve across-the-board perfection on a test run. But issues—even minor ones—with fifty percent of the planes proved worse than they’d anticipated. And if one factored in Japanese fighters and ground-based antiaircraft that would be launching enemy fire toward the American planes, the potential problems compounded. Soon, all the planes that started the test flight were back on Iwo Jima, and Moore put his squadron mechanics and planners to work on identifying problems that had occurred during the test flight, with instructions to engage in aggressive problem-solving and corrective procedures.

Jerry, meanwhile, had been one of those who managed to complete the test flight to Saipan and back without encountering any problems. He hoped this would catch his commanding officer’s attention and guarantee him a slot in the big mission.

But he was dealing in a world with no guarantees.

As March gave way to April, the anticipation among the American pilots stationed on Iwo Jima reached its highest point since their arrival. The date had been set for their first, massive, joint air raid on Japan with the B-29s: April 7.

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