Our Supply Sergeant and I were loading our
C-47 at Biak when an Army General, with several of his staff,
arrived beside us in his Jeep. He approached us and wanted to know
if I could have our pilot take him and his men to Hollandia where he
was to meet General MacArthur’s planning staff to plan the
Philippine invasion. He said it was important and I told him that
we were operational at base and that I could stay over and return
the next day. The next day when I boarded
our C-47, I was told about the Japanese bombing of Morotai the night
I stayed over at Biak. I was shocked when I heard that Lt. Harold
B. Smith, our Engineering Officer and Lieutenant
Richard Finn were killed and nine other officers were injured.
Lieutenant Smith was my tent-mate.
I would have been with him standing outside our tent watching the
bombing, as we always did. We got into our dingy foxhole only when
the shrapnel from our anti-aircraft guns showered on us. These
bombing raids occurred from the Halmahera Islands, separated from
Morotai by only a few miles across water. The official record of
the 13th Air Force noted that Morotai was the most bombed island in
the Southwest Pacific: 82 raids!
The General’s request for assistance saved my life.
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December
1944
History...
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