The Worst Possible Fate For a B-29 Crew?

it is the summer of 1945 B-29 superfortresses Roar over Japan pounding its industrial cities to try and end the war quickly but in this video we will cover one of these final raids of the war where a lone B-29 bomber would run into trouble and how her crew would tragically be destined to go down as part of a horrendous and forgotten War crime as the Allies have pushed Japan all the way back to the mainland a new war has become the top priority for American Commanders this would be the crippling of the Japanese War Industry from the air the Strategic leaders of the United States have come to the conclusion that this is the best way to hopefully end the war and prevent an invasion on the ground that would undoubtedly cost hundreds of thousands of lives of all sides but this was easier said than done flying at altitudes of more than thirty thousand feet the b-29s are incredibly difficult targets to attack they are out of range of nearly all of the Japanese anti-aircraft weapons and many of their Fighters struggle to get to the necessary altitudes fast enough to attack them with any success however this tactic is showing that it also has some shortcomings bombs being dropped from the b-29s at these high altitudes are already difficult to aim even with the best bomb sites but The Changing Winds and slip streams in the air are causing the bombs to also blow off Target even further missing their Mark substantially on the ground so the interesting thing about the B-29 was that at the time they were thinking let's fly higher let's fly farther and let's carry more bomb load to the Target right well the interesting thing is they learned a lot about the jet stream which it has to do with these currents of air up high in the atmosphere and how fast the jet stream is I mean we're talking over 100 miles an hour and the Precision of bombing at the time to figure out how to put Ordnance on a Target to pinpoint accuracy we were still learning a lot and we really had trouble hitting the target accurately so at the time it's my understanding that Curtis LeMay came in and said this isn't going to work this how to do bombing is not going to work we've got to go in and we've got to do low altitude incendiary bombing to literally bring the Japanese people to their knees and win this war in addition American commanders have also recently learned that the bombing of industrial buildings alone is likely not going to [ __ ] the Japanese like they had hoped this is because Japan in 1945 was unlike any of the other adversaries that they had faced thus far in that much of their production was in the hands of civilians and primarily even in their homes you know the interesting thing about the Japanese culture compared to say Western culture in terms of industrialization of building aircraft we in America and in Europe for that matter had the the approach of building factories factories where things could be produced for war effort the Japanese culture totally different right so in houses literally the Japanese people would be producing small parts and those parts would go to other houses where they would produce assemblies and those assemblies would go to other locations where they'd build aircraft and so where you could typically go in during a war effort and say we're gonna with pinpoint accuracy bomb this Factory on this day the Japanese culture had a totally different approach to industrialization for war effort so the the the reality was I think at the time that they the the Americans knew in the leadership that the way to win the war was going to be this stop industrialization production of War materials and the only way they could do that would be literally to go into the cities of Japan and do low altitude incendiary fire bombing appropriately the commanders of the Army Air Force adjusted their strategy and now the b-29s would be bombing at night targeting heavily populated areas of these cities with incendiary bombs to inflame the mostly wooden buildings below and while this could make them slightly more vulnerable to Japanese defenses it was obviously the best strategic option for the b-29s so in the spring and summer of 1945 many crews of the super fortresses began to shift to nighttime bombing one of the Brave Young crew members who participated in this effort was a man by the name of Frederick Allen Stearns at the age of just 19 he was assigned to serve as a tail Gunner on board of one of the brand new B-29 super fortresses after passing Gunnery school he was sent to the Pacific Theater of operations in June of 1945. upon his arrival to the Pacific Frederick became part of the 314th bombardment wing which was stationed on the island of Guam after months and months of training and preparation the young Sterns was finally ready to contribute to the war he and his crew took off for their first mission on July 17th of 1945. this introduction to combat was relatively quiet and he and his bomber B-29 serial number 42-94098 made it back without any problem the green crew had unfortunately not yet had time to paint nose art or a name on their super Fortress but they had no doubt planned to do so very soon in the next week Frederick Stearns B-29 took part in two more raids over Mainland Japan and again these would be fairly normal missions with little trouble on July 27th however the 314th bombardment wing would take off for one more Mission and this one would not go quite so well for Stearns and his crew the target for this raid was the Japanese Port City of amuta this was one of the smaller cities and the defenses were expected to be light as there were very few anti-aircraft emplacements on this port a total of 130 b-29s took off and formed up for the mission the flight took a few hours and everything went on as normal but as the formation neared the coast another group of aircraft were spotted in the sky from the glow of their exhaust Japanese night Fighters these interceptors were most likely the j1n gecko the premier Japanese Knight fighter that was used against the American b-29s unlike most other Japanese Fighters This was a twin engine aircraft and was actually not all that agile in the air it did however turn out to be quite an effective night fighter after it was outfitted with both radar and cannons this also made it the perfect adversary to try and take on the B-29 often times however because of the speed of the super fortresses the J-1 in Pilots would only get one single pass at the bombers so they had to make it count and unfortunately for Frederick Stearns on July 27th one of the gecko Pilots would do just that as the b-29s of the 314th arrived over amuta their bombs pounded the city sending a large portion of it into flames but the Japanese gecko Fighters had now arrived and their cannons fired to life and tracers flew throughout the air in this entire attack a few of the 130 b-29s would take damage but only one would be lost in combat this would be the bomber of Frederick Stearns according to the other B-29 crews in their post Mission reports one single B-29 was spotted being hit by the Japanese Fighters and it caught fire and began to lose altitude as it dropped down into the clouds the Flames spread and the bomber broke apart originally from these reports there were no parachutes seen and the entire crew was thought to be lost but that is not correct later that night other air Crews following the same flight path would spot five rafts floating in the bay around amuta as it turns out of the 11-man crew one was killed in the attack and three others lost their lives as the bomber fell to Earth in flames but the remaining seven members of the crew were able to bail out and survive and one of these survivors was the young Frederick Stearns unfortunately though they were far from safe as they dropped down and landed safely in the bay the crews separated in their descent would individually swim to shore all seven of the survivors were now alone in the enemy's country and to make matters worse this was an enemy who had become well known for horrific treatment of pows over the next few days each of the crew members was captured at separate locations in the area in a war crimes trial after the war gunji haraguchi an officer in the Japanese Army who assisted in the guarding of these crew members was interrogated on what happened next one by one six crew members were brought in detained and in blindfolds the seventh crew member was unfortunately beaten to death by villagers for resisting arrest but the rest survived and were captured Frederick Stearns was one of these men sometime in the next week of their captivity they were moved to a new location and joined 19 other downed American Flyers that were currently being held by the Japanese just a few days later though an earth-changing event took place on August 6th the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima by B-29 and nola gay this was a devastating event for the Japanese and while many were still reeling from the news another bomb was dropped this time on Nagasaki on August 9th in response to this news the infuriated Japanese officers decided that they had to take revenge for this attack and so they decided to kill eight of the American pows despite some reservations from the soldiers that carried out the execution eight of the 25 American captive aviators were killed by beheading following this blatant War crime on August 15th the emperor of Japan announced a surrender message to all Japanese forces this was unwelcome news to the officers who now feared that their illegal executions would be discovered it was then decided that they needed to try and cover up the murders so the remaining 17 pows were ordered to be killed later that day on August 15th the remaining 17 American aviators were taken outside and also beheaded it is not known which Americans were killed in what execution but what we do know is that Frederick Stearns along with 16 other American Heroes were illegally executed by Japanese sword on August 10th or the 15th of 1945. these illegal killings were carried out in retaliation for the bombings of Hiroshima in Nagasaki despite attempts to locate and ID The Remains Frederick Stern's bones were never recovered but the real Holocaust took place in Japan itself between June and August 1945 112 Airmen were executed and of these 99 were not trying shortly after his B-29 went down the Sterns family received a letter from the commander of the 314th bombardment wing the following is a quote from that letter if in the end we learn that it has cost us your son's life to win back freedom and peace that through our tears let us take pride in his Noble sacrifice and led us to use and to preserve that Peace and Freedom that he and all of his heroic comrades may not have given their lives in vain signed Colonel Carl's story on behalf of Major General Edward witzel adjutant general of the army August 31st 1945. in the Years following World War II the Japanese officers and soldiers responsible for the murders were brought to a war trial of the 35 brought in front of the court eight were granted Severance or acquitted 15 were given various prison sentences of 2 to 40 years and five received life sentences the seven remaining received death sentences but perhaps owing to the politics of occupy Japan were later commuted to life in prison in time all the sentences were commuted after the reduced sentences the last Japanese prisoners involved in this execution were released by December 31st of 1958. thanks to the commemorative Air Force for helping to provide some of the commentary for this video comment what you think of this story and please consider subscribing

Channel: TJ3 History

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Keywords: Bombing of Tokyo, B29, B-29, B-29 Superfortresss, Superfortress, B-29 Bomber, Hiroshima, Fire Bombing Tokyo, WWII Bomber Crews, IL-2 Sturmovik, WWII Bombing, IL2, Flight Sim, World War II Flight Sim, IL-2 Great Battles, IL2 Game, IL-2 Highlights, IL-2 Flight Sim, Combat Flight Sim, War Thunder, Realistic, History Channel Dogfights, Historic, Documentary, Mark Felton, Yarnhub, TJ3 Gaming, Dark Skies, wW2 Air Combat, Flying Fortress, SuperFortress, Super Fortress

Id: w3xxSOa2tGU

Length: 13min 18sec (798 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 14 2023