Toward the end of World War II, in 1944, the Army Air Corps started ferrying B-29 Superfortress bombers out to Tinian island, which was its principal bomber base for air raids against Japan.
Tinian is in the Northern Marianas, 5 miles south of Saipan and 50 miles north of Guam. At 39 square miles, it’s about half the size of Niihau.
The B-29s would fly from the West Coast to Hawaii, refuel and later fly on to Tinian.
A 14-year-old Makiki Heights boy remembers many of them flew right over his home, some less than 100 feet off the ground.
The trip from Hawaii to Tinian was long — 3,800 miles — and took 18 hours. “They had to top off their fuel tanks when they took off from what we called John Rodgers Airport,” Alan Lloyd, 86, says.
“That was from runway No. 4. Hickam had its own airport, but runway No. 8 wasn’t as long as it is today.”
Lloyd remembers the B-29s would take off from Honolulu just after sunrise. “I lived in Makiki Heights right above Roosevelt High School. Our house looked over the top of Punchbowl, out to Kewalo Basin and Honolulu Harbor.”
The B-29s didn’t have the power and speed of modern jets and couldn’t turn as quickly as they do today. “The B-29s would be climbing out at about 200 miles per hour and couldn’t turn until they built up speed,” Lloyd says. Planes lose altitude turning.
“Their flight paths took them over Kalihi, and most of them would turn to pass in front of Punchbowl. That was a pretty sharp turn for those heavily loaded bombers.”
Punchbowl is about 550 feet in elevation, and the fully loaded planes barely cleared it, Lloyd says.
“We would see them emerge from the front of Punchbowl and go right out over Ala Moana Park.
“They would get down to 100, 200 feet above ground, build their speed back up again and then start to climb and turn to the west.
“Every now and then the bomber pilot would decide, ‘To hell with that sharp turn in front of Punchbowl. I’m going to go behind it.’
“They would come right over the bridge to Papakolea, level with the top of Punchbowl. That was pretty darn close to the ground and directly over our house!
“It was loud. The first few times, some of the neighbors dove under their beds. We would run outside and wave to the bombardier, and sometimes they would wave back.”
The wingspan of the B-29 was 141 feet. That must have been startling to see them 100 to 200 feet off the ground.
“When a pilot did that, he was taking a chance because if he lost an engine, he might not have made it over the bridge.” All the B-29s made it safely past Punchbowl, Lloyd recalls.
Tinian is approximately 1,600 miles from Tokyo and was chosen by the military as the home base for bomber attacks. Several bombardment wings were based there and flew combat missions to Southeast Asia and Japan.
Lloyd believes over 600 bombers were flown out to Tinian. He says a group would fly out, one at a time, every day for months, always at breakfast time.
“The ones that came right over the house rearranged all the crockery in the kitchen, to put it that way,” Lloyd concludes.
Lloyd has been the subject of several of my columns. He was the youngest flight attendant for Hawaiian Airlines at the age of 14. He worked as an engineer for Hawaiian Electric Co. for many years and is a leading expert on the Battle of Midway. He lives in Kailua.
Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
