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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Ms. Linda Fitch Sutton

August 14, 1945 was a great day for Les Urquhart's crew. We finally completed our 35th combat mission by flying a special RCM (Radar Counter Measures) equipped B-29 to the Straits of Shimonoseki. After safely returning to Tinian and completing our final interrogation, the news we had all been paying for finally arrived. WORLD WAR II WAS OVER! We considered it "perfect timing".
August 15th was a Sunday. Chaplain Raitt held two services. I attended the evening one. However, instead of a sermon, he just talked about our going home and how we could help to build a new and better world. At last I could believe my chances of going home were almost guaranteed. I could imagine no more dangers here on Tinian while waiting for the trip home.
August 16th started out like any other day. Joel Feigenbaum, our right blister gunner, and I boarded a truck that would take us to the flight line where we were to give our plane, ACE OF THE BASE, a final wash down. The truck driver suggested that as long as the war was just over, he would like to take an island tour on the way to North Field. We thought it a great idea. Suddenly, as we came over a hill near Tinian Town, we observed a huge twister or water spout just off the southern tip of the island. The truck stopped and as we watched it slowly moving along, we suddenly realized that a second funnel was coming down from the same cloud, but several hundred feet behind the first twister. The second funnel never quite touched the water. After about thirty minutes, the two funnels began to break up and appeared to withdraw into the cloud that was above them.
We had spent so much time there that the driver now headed north on Broadway for the flight line. The tour was over. As he drove up onto the flight line at the southeast end of North Field, we were suddenly confronted with a very strange swirl of dust and leaves. Although our driver slowed down, he continued driving through the swirl. There was a canvas top over the truck but the wind was so strong that the dust stung as it hit our faces. We stopped about 100 yards on the far side trying to figure out what was happening. Suddenly, we realized that the dust was beginning to swirl upward into a great funnel. Then it slowly began to move toward us and the runway. Between the funnel and our location were four big tents and a wooden mess hall, all used by a Marine anti-aircraft group. We just sat there fascinated by what was unfolding before our eyes. The Marines came out of the tents and tried to hold the corners down. The funnel suddenly scooped up the first tent, stakes and the wooden floor into the air. The floor first tipped 90 degrees toward the sky. Then board after board was torn off the base platform and flew into the funnel. By now, all the Marines but one were running from the area. The Marine remaining was trying desperately to save some belongings. Finally realizing it was too late, to even run, he fell flat on the ground. At this point, all four tents and platforms had disappeared leaving only the mess hall. We began screaming at our driver to move on but he just sat there.
I couldn't believe what was taking place less than 100 yards away. There was a deafening roar as the mess hall tipped upward on its side and the wood flooring flew up into the funnel. I suddenly realized that if our driver didn't move now, Joel and I would never see the USA again. We were about to leap from the truck when the driver finally decided that we were all in real danger. He drove up the flight line yelling and beeping his horn to alert the ground crews, as the twister headed toward the ocean.
THE ACE OF THE BASE never received its final wash-down by Les Urquhart's crew. Instead, we headed back to the Quonset huts to tell the other crews how after completing our 35th mission, we almost died in a funnel at the end of
the runway on North Field.
I don't know for sure the aftermath of this incident, but believe that the twister changed course and headed out to sea. Fortunately, it missed the airplanes. The fate of the one Marine caught in the funnel is unknown.