Superfortress Loren Zander of Howard Lake told

Flying the
Superfortress
Page 14
Minnesota Legionnaire
September 2012
I
By Al Zdon
t was not Loren Zander’s job to go back into the
bomb bay and try to free the six 500 lb. bombs that
were hung up on the bomb racks.
Zander was the co-pilot of a B-29 Superfortress during a
bombing run over Japan in late March 1945. It was his job
to help fly the massive airplane.
It was the bombardier’s job to take care of the problem.
Zander took one look at the bombardier, though, and made
up his mind. The bombardier was a married man with a little girl, and he was shaking badly. And he was hesitating.
Zander immediately left his right-hand seat and headed
back to the bomb bay. “I just volunteered. The crew was so
close, all of us. I just said I’d do it.”
The Superfortress was flying at about 10,000 feet, and
the wind was whistling through the open bomb bay doors.
The only way to get to the bombs was to scuffle out on a
tiny cat walk and try to muscle the bombs off the rack while
holding on to whatever was handy.
Zander contemplated the task before him and then put
one foot on the catwalk. And then another foot.
L
ppppppp
oren Zander has lived in Howard Lake his entire
life, all 90 years of it. He was born there in 1922
and went through all the schools until he graduated from Howard Lake High School in 1940.
His dad, Frank Zander, had been a farmer, but hard luck
during the Depression had driven him into town where he
made a living at odd jobs and driving a school bus. Young
Loren helped out his dad.
After high school, Zander went to Hamline University
for a year. His greatest claim to fame during his university
career was finishing 5th in the state college meet in the
quarter mile. The winner of the race was future Minnesota
Congressman Clark McGregor, running for Macalester.
Expecting to be drafted, Zander left college and enlisted
in the Army. “I wanted to be a pilot, so I enlisted in the cadet
program. But they didn’t call me for eight or nine months.”
Zander spent his time driving his dad’s school bus. His
dad was in Greenland doing Department of Defense work.
When the call finally came in March 1943, Zander was
sent to Santa Ana, California, for his initial training.
Following were stops at Visalia and Lancaster, California,
and then twin-engine training at Douglas, Arizona. He got
his wings and his commission in February, 1944.
“My trainer in flight school wanted me to be a fighter
pilot, probably because I was pretty good at aerobatics, but
I told him I wanted to fly the biggest we had. I figured that
if you got hurt in a fighter, you were done. In a bomber
somebody might help you out.”
Zander got his wish and began training on the B-17
Flying Fortress, at that time the Army Air Corp’s biggest
bomber. He was two months from completing his training
and going to Europe when the Army threw him a curve ball.
“The B-29s were just being queued up, and they sent me
to Clovis (Army Airfield in New Mexico) to train on them.”
Soon, he was assigned to a crew of 11 that basically stayed
together until the end of the war.
“The B-29s were very similar to flying the B-17s. They
were just a lot bigger, had a lot more power and more speed.
When you accelerated for takeoff, it would just lay you
back in your seat. They told us that each one of those four
engines had the power of a railroad locomotive.”
The crew headed to Hawaii and then on to Kwajalein
Atoll. By early October 1944, they were one of the first
crews to make it to Saipan in the Marianas Islands. The U.S.
had captured Saipan, Guam and Tinian in July, 1944, to provide bases for the B-29s where they could attack mainland
Japan.
“When we got there, the Seabees were still working on
the airstrip. Part of the strip was still made of coral. They
hadn’t put the asphalt down yet.” It was called Isley Field
for the Navy pilot who had been shot down while capturing
the island from the Japanese.
Zander almost participated in a piece of history when his
plane was one of 15 B-29s that took off on the first mission
from Saipan on Oct. 28 -- a bombing run over Truk.
Unfortunately, Zander’s bomber immediately blew out an
engine and had to return to base.
“We had a lot of problems with the engines at first. It
depended so much on how they took care of them. We had
Loren Zander of
Howard Lake told the
Army he wanted to fly
the biggest thing they
had. He got his wish.
a great ground crew assigned to our plane.” Zander’s log
book only shows one other abort during his missions.
A couple of weeks later, though, Zander was indeed part
of a historic moment. His bomber was one of 111 that took
off for the first bombing run to Japan from the Marianas on
Nov. 24. After the mission, they landed on Guam, and they
were the first plane to land on what had formerly been U.S.
territory after a bombing run to Japan.
All the B-29 bombing runs prior to that had been from
China.
When the Superfortress landed, Zander was an instant
celebrity, along with the rest of the crew. “My girlfriend
saw me in a newsreel at the theater, and my mom heard me
interviewed on WCCO radio. I told the interviewer that we
were just doing what we were supposed to be doing. It was
just like another practice mission.”
Zander recalls the mission being fairly routine with little
trouble from the anti-aircraft cannons or the Japanese fighters. “I don’t think we accomplished much either. We were
flying at 30,000 feet and attacking an aircraft engine factory. I remembered seeing a picture of Mt. Fuji, and it was a
surprise to see it right there in the sky with us.”
Bombing from that height made it safe for the B-29s, but
it also lessened the impact of the run. “I asked the bombardier once how far out we had to release the bombs at
30,000 feet, and he said about 10 miles. I suppose they were
pretty spread out by the time they hit.”
Zander was assigned to the 20th Air Force, 73rd Bomber
Wing, 498th Bomb Group and the 875th Squadron. Within
a few months, there were five airfields constructed in the
Marianas, each accommodating about 180 of the
Superforts.
The flights to Japan were about 13 hours or so, there and
back, but Zander said they were not tedious. “We had plenty to keep track of. We had to watch where the other aircraft
were because we were flying wingtip to wingtip. At night,
we had to watch the lights. And we always had to watch the
weather. On the way out, either the pilot or the co-pilot
would take a nap, and then on the way back, the other guy
would get some sleep.”
The 875th had spent months and months in training, and
Zander said their formations were just about perfect. The
nine planes in the formation would fly in groups of three,
tightly bunched to let the massive fire power on the B-29s
be an advantage. Each plane had 10 .50 caliber machine
guns in remote-controlled turrets, and two more machine
guns in the tail.
The biggest technical advancement on the plane, though,
was that it was pressurized for high altitude. “That sure
made it easier on us.”
The tight formations were invaluable for safety. “While
we were there we only had injuries to three crews out of 20.
The 873rd Squadron had people hurt on 17 of their crews. I
don’t want to say anything bad about West Point, but the
873rd was mostly West Point grads who became pilots.
They didn’t have anywhere near the training we did, plus
LOREN ZANDER AT HOME IN HOWARD LAKE
Holding a piece of a Japanese plate he preserved
LOREN ZANDER IN THE ARMY AIR CORPS
Photo was taken Aug. 6, 1945, with his new DFC.
September 2012
they all thought they were hotshots. They just didn’t keep a
strong formation, and the Japanese fighter pilots could pick
that out very quickly.”
Not every mission was a bombing run. Twice Zander’s
plane was used in search and rescue missions, and one other
time their payload over Japan was not bombs but propaganda leaflets encouraging the Japanese to surrender.
Minnesota Legionnaire
Page 15
A
n early mission Zander recalls well was on
January 6, 1945, over Nagaya, Japan. “We were
coming down the bomb run when a Japanese
fighter came up on the right of our formation, just out of
reach of our .50 calibers.”
The fighter just kept even with the U.S. bombers as they
approached the target. “I suppose he was radioing in our
speed and altitude. Then I saw his exhaust get darker, and I
knew he had accelerated.”
The Zero zoomed out in front of the formation, and then
turned, heading right back at the B-29s, and started firing.
“I could see his wings, and they were all fire with the
machine guns all working. But he hadn’t come around far
enough, and his bullets were all going high. We started to
return the fire.”
Just then, the side window next to Zander cracked. He
was sure they’d been hit. “But it turned out it just cracked
from the vibration from our four .50 calibers in the turret
above us.”
The high level bombing came to an abrupt halt on March
9, 1945, after Gen. Curtis LeMay took command of the
bomber groups in the Marianas. There were some estimates
at the time that the high altitude attacks only hit the target
five percent of the time. Part of the blame went to the jet
streams over Japan.
LeMay ordered night attacks on Japanese cities using
small incendiary bombs. The first attack on Tokyo used 325
B-29s. “We were one of 11 planes acting as pathfinders that
night. I guess we had proved ourselves to that point. We
were carrying the new 500 pound packs of 100 three-pound
phosphorescent bombs. I think each plane had 40 of these
packs, or about 4,000 small bombs.”
Zander’s plane was the third to drop that night, marking
the area for those to follow. “After our run, we pulled up
and to the right and I could look back and see the whole
area below us was on fire. And there were over 300 B-29s
behind us coming in to bomb the same area. I heard later
that the heat was so intense it evaporated the water out of
swimming pools.”
The raid destroyed 250,000 buildings, including many
war industry plants, and killed over 100,000 Japanese –
more than the atomic bombings of either Hiroshima or
Nagasaki.
Did Zander or the other American airmen feel bad about
the attack? “No, you have to understand it was total war.
We did what we had to do. Besides, we didn’t start the war.”
O
n March 13th, Zander’s Superfortress was
involved in another night fire-bombing mission,
this time over Osaka. Just as the crew released
the bombs at 15,000 feet, there was an incredible explosion
below, perhaps an oil refinery.
“Our bomb bay doors were still open, and the explosion
pushed the smoke into every corner of the plane. We couldn’t see anything in the plane. Outside the plane, we could
see huge timbers, like telephone poles, were flying by,
whirling and twisting and on fire.”
The aircraft went out of control for a time. “The flight
engineer was the first one who could see his controls, and
he reported to the cockpit that the plane still had all four
engines running. But as the smoke cleared, we could see
that we were in a very steep dive. We were going straight
down.”
The pilots worked to get the plane out of the dive and
managed to do so. “The amazing thing was that when we
pulled out of the dive, we were still a mile above where we
had started. That’s how far up the explosion had pushed us.”
In a mission at the end of March, Zander’s bomber had
just completed its run. It was the radio operator’s job to
poke his head into the bomb bay and see if all the bombs
had released. He didn’t have good news. Six of the 500pound fully-armed bombs were hung up on a rack.
Zander decided he would try to fix the situation. The B29 couldn’t close the bomb bay doors with the bombs hanging there, and it would be difficult to fly the plane with them
open.
Zander edged himself out on the narrow catwalk, hanging precariously on to whatever he could. When he got to
the bombs, he tried to muscle them off the rack, and he
managed to get one of them to drop. The other five were
stuck fast.
“I tried everything I could, but they wouldn’t move.
Finally, I noticed that there was a bent arm on the bomb
rack. It had been electronically activated, but because it was
bent, it wouldn’t engage.”
Zander prodded at the bent arm, and suddenly it
released. With a whoosh, the payload dropped through the
open doors below and into the Japanese countryside.
“And then I just hung on tight until the bomb bay doors
were closed.”
Many years later, Zander encountered the bombardier,
whose job Zander had done, at a reunion. The bombardier
told him that he had told his wife about what Zander had
A B-29 Superfortress from the 498th Bomb Group lowers its wheels for a landing.
The far Quonset hut was Zander’s home on Saipan.
He was sitting about where the arrow indicates one
day when he saw a Japanese fighter come over the
ridge. The attack did considerable damage.
The whole crew pitched in to turn over the B-29’s massive props before each flight.
done.
“We talked about how some poor Japanese rice farmer
probably wondered what we had against him.”
O
ne other memorable mission Zander recalls was
over a Japanese seaport when an enemy cruiser
opened fire on the squadron with eight inch
shells. “The explosions around us were as big as houses.
Luckily he was aiming a little high, but one piece of shrapnel hit the side of our plane and left a big dent.”
Later, back at Saipan, they dug a piece of shrapnel out of
another B-29 and found that it was American made. “Before
the war, the Japanese were buying all the scrap iron they
could, and they would put it in their shells. They were firing our own stuff back at us.”
Toward the end of his service in the bomb group, Zander
began taking new crews up to train them. On July 26, 1945,
he completed his 35 missions.
Along the way he had earned a Distinguished Flying
Cross and several Air Medals.
H
e caught the first liberty ship he could back
toward the states, taking him as far as Hawaii.
Along the way, news was announced on the ship
that Japan had surrendered. Zander recalled one more war
story from his time aboard the ship.
“A guy who owned a liquor store in Howard Lake gave
me a pint of Old Grand Dad to drink after my first mission.
Well, I didn’t drink it then and I said I’d drink it after five
missions, but then I didn’t drink it then either. It sort of
Zander enjoys some juice in the B-29 cockpit.
After earning his wings, he came home on leave. He
posed with his mom, Alice.
became my good luck charm. But while I was on the ship,
it fell out of my bag and broke on the deck. I guess I didn’t
need it anymore.”
At Hawaii, he hitched a ride on an airplane and got back
to the United States. He had enough points, and a few
weeks later, he was out of the Air Corps and back to farming in Howard Lake.
He married his sweetheart, Lorraine, and they began a
family that eventually included four boys and two girls.
When the Korean War broke out, Zander was called back
to duty. He was assigned a crew and sent to Travis Air Force
Base and then to Guam, but never had to fly missions in
Korea. During this time, he was sent to atomic bomb
school, where he learned how to assemble and drop nuclear
weapons. “Happily, we never carried one.”
Back home, he flew for Northwest Airlines, but when an
opportunity to get a full-time postal route came along, he
took it. “Both jobs paid about the same, and the mail carrier job allowed me to be closer to my family.” He retired 30
years ago. “I’ve been retired for one-third of my life.”
In later years, Lorraine died, and about 12 years ago he
married Mary, a Missouri woman he met while wintering in
Texas. Between them, they have over 30 grandchildren.
He keeps busy by doing wood working, camping, going
over to the senior center to “sing for the old folks,” and by
playing pool. He has won several tournaments through the
years, and he and Mary have done well in couples tournaments.