[Floyd Cox] This is Tape 1, Side 2.
(noise) Now, we were talking about
the missions that you were flying out of Guam.
You also had some firebombed missions, is that correct?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yes.
[Floyd Cox] Can you tell me a little bit
about how these worked and
any specific mission that you remember vividly?
[Garvin Kowalke] (laughing) I believe
I remember every mission vividly.
I'm still there. Let me take one example there are,
per se, a firebombing of Tokyo.
We'll run that at about
between 10,500 and maybe 11,500 feet.
Now, there's going to be at least 300 aircraft involved
in the flight on a mission, on a night.
Now, we go over,
we're separated only by a few minutes.
We're separated by 500 feet.
In other words, aircraft one, he'll call out 11,000.
Aircraft two is 11,500,
two minutes behind or three minutes behind.
Aircraft 3 is it 10,500.
That separates both at altitude and gives some distance.
Airspeed is all the same.
They've all got to be at the same airspeed
and going across on their mission.
Now, to set it off,
there is at least three or five 29s
will go in at low altitude.
They're going in at mission altitude right on the left.
What they're going to do is put their bombs on
the strategic outer limits
of the city that go beyond and bang,
bang, bang, and clockwise.
So that the next airplane that
comes through as 11,000 feet,
he sees those fires already
started by the sprawling aircraft.
All they do is then
drop their bombs just short of those wires.
They just keep adding and adding and adding
until the whole top pickling city has been engulfed.
I commented on this like when I was flying,
when fooled my second mission
after the atomic bomb dropped.
I was at low enough altitude that
I looked over Hiroshima, completely destroyed.
But I can recall another city
that we hit that was 90 percent destroyed.
I mean, it was completely burned up,
but it took 300 of us to do it.
It was just something that
you're looking at and computing.
But it took one airplane to do that one time.
We knew that that was going to stop the war.
[Floyd Cox] Garvin, let me ask you this,
how did you feel as an individual
knowing that you were dropping
bombs and the number of people down there,
that these firebombs the effect
it was going to have on it? How did you feel?
[Garvin Kowalke] Well, I guess to be honest with you,
there was no feeling for what they did at
Pearl Harbor and what they're
doing as a country and as a people against the world.
Our job was to stop it.
That's exactly what we're going to do,
we're going to stop it.
Until they realized that they could not keep going in
the direction that they were
and be a country of
the world instead of a country of themselves.
[Floyd Cox] No. her was no real feeling,
you just did your job?
[Garvin Kowalke] No.
[Floyd Cox] Now on some of these firebombing missions.
How many missions did you fly over Japan, totally.
[Garvin Kowalke] All 25.
[Floyd Cox] Twenty-five missions.
[Garvin Kowalke] In addition, I flew some weather
reconnaissance missions.
Well, we had some of the big tornadoes come after
hurricanes coming through. (laughing).
[Floyd Cox] Well, on these firebombing missions,
from what I've read,
quite often we lost some aircraft due to enemy action.
Do you remember losing any out of
your groups all in time?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yes. In fact,
this was not a firebomb mission.
We're destroying a naval area outside Tokyo.
When we make a run from Guam up to Tokyo or to Japan,
quite often, we'll go by
Ewa Gemma and Ewa Gemma will send a P51s up.
They will tag on us and use us as navigators.
As we're reading the bombing mission
on them, they are down, scraping and knocking off
target areas that then as we turn around and come back,
we come back up,
get on our wing and we take them back to
Ewa and we continue unto to Guam.
Well, our aircraft, when commander was flying on
a mission with us and we were heading for Tokyo.
They flew at high altitude.
We were at lower altitude and
he was flying at high altitude.
As they were observing,
checking everything out from the higher altitude,
they picked up the fires from Ewa and they came up,
dropped the fighters off.
As they were coming in then, circling over Tokyo Bay,
a Kamikaze pops up and it takes him a number 3 engine,
right smack dab in the engine blows her up.
Of course they had no alternative but to bail out.
Now they're bailing out right over Tokyo Bay up wanting,
and I didn't realize until that time was that
there a submarine in Tokyo Bay.
Our submarine, and he was surfaced above in Tokyo Bay.
Taking pictures of this whole thing as we're flying
over bombing and what was going on.
He was a rescue mission.
If anybody got hurt, if anything got damaged,
he was right there to use over and
pick them up and take them back home.
Well, it happened when they bailed out.
They bailed out right very near that submarine.
[Floyd Cox] Oh, well, luck.
[Garvin Kowalke] They figured that the commander
didn't even get wet.
When he landed in the ocean so to speak,
he had his vest out and he popped in that
and he's heading for the submarine.
But as he's heading for the submarine,
he takes a look out there,
and there is a Japanese torpedo plane.
He's heading out at the submarine.
He's going to take the submarine out,
whether it was torpedoes.
The commander, apparently, he bailed out of his
(laughing) dinghy swimming part.
This is what I was told in a way.
(laughing) But in the same time,
one of our squadron leaders,
he spotted other Japanese aircraft
coming out over Tokyo Bay, heading for the sub.
He drops down from our altitude.
He just pulled (inaudible) back and
dove down to the ocean level, to the surface and
took the fighter out and took him out of there.
The submarine didn't have to
submerge and picked up
all the rescued people and took us all home.
[Floyd Cox] Can't see you that a B-29 taking on one of
those float planes there? (laughing)
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah.
[Floyd Cox] B-29 is not designated as a fighter plane.
[Garvin Kowalke] Well, I'll tell you that the B-29
was one of the finest maneuverable
airplanes that I had ever flown.
It was stable as a breakfast table.
It was really great. But anyway,
that was wonderful,
(laughing) one of our experience missions.
[Floyd Cox] Did they pick up the whole crew?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah. They've got the whole crew.
Eventually, we all got back to Guam.
[Floyd Cox] You went out on another mission, I'm sure.
[Garvin Kowalke] (laughing) That must have been
a month or so after that happened.
[Floyd Cox] Well then, you flew 25 missions.
Is there any other specific mission that you recall,
once again, real vividly?
[Garvin Kowalke] There wasn't a mission that didn't have
something that was exciting or something that
happened in every mission that I flew.
I can relate that
after I took over and became aircraft commander,
before that when I was with Buck Singer.
Again, we were out on a fire mission on Tokyo.
We were about in the middle of the group.
We add one squadron out ahead of us.
They don't really bond and then here we came.
Well, the cockpit in fires.
The smoke from the fires
was way over the top of our heads.
I'd say the smoke from the fires
had to be up around 20,000
feet and just boiling up there.
Here as we were coming in
and we're taking a look and holy cats,
we're in the searchlights.
The searchlight got us
and there were some fighters coming up above us
and they are on the searchlights
and got us near coming in
the opposite direction down the searchlight after us.
Buck decided he didn't want
to mess around because we were alone.
We were individuals, not in formation.
He says he was just going to
duck into that smoke, turn into the smoke.
There the fighters couldn't see him, couldn't catch him.
Well, unfortunately, as he was turning into that smoke,
what is happening here?
The fires are boiling up.
There's dry air from the outside sucking air
in and outside of the smoke,
the air is being sucked in to go up this way to boil up.
(noise) We hit this air pocket that's
being sucked in, sucked down.
We dropped a ton of bricks.
As the air pilot
(noise) just like that, the nose was down.
The airspeed indicator went pegged.
It just (inaudible).
All Buck and I did was kept the wings level.
I'm pulling back on trying to
get the nose of the aircraft back
up to try and to keep it from diving.
Even important growing the trim back a little bit and
I got my feet up on the propeller.
I got the cockpit and column was just bent.
I'm pulling as hard as I can.
About that time, all of a sudden,
the fires from underneath were starting to
glow and reflect on the airplane.
We were going right down into the fires.
About that time,
(laughing) we hit the other change of velocity.
Now, we're into the air stream,
that is the fire is going up.
The tail gunner in fact blacked out.
The centripetal force was so
strong that he knocked him out.
But anyway, we hit that rolled
up and we did a loop (laughing) over in
Tokyo (laughing) right around
just kept our wings level and came right around and we
leveled off at 1500 feet over Tokyo (crosstalk)
just right above the flames (inaudible).
We climbed up and,
of course, the Japanese didn't expect
us to be on Tokyo Bay at that altitude.
(laughing) We zipped out of there,
climbed out, and they shot at us but didn't hit us.
We headed for home.
But that was an experience.
That experience was also backed up because on board
our aircraft was a reporter
from one of the Air Force magazines.
It got reported. Nobody thought I was
just pulling their leg
while looping over Tokyo. (laughing)
[Floyd Cox] The only B-29 that never did
a loop over Tokyo. (laughing)
[Garvin Kowalke] But the things that
happened after the ditching and when I took over
and we flew one mission coming
into a target which
was just outside of that Mount Fujiyama.
Now, Mount Fujiyama, if I recall,
I think it's around 12,000 feet
and we're flying there again
at 11,000 feet on a firebombing mission.
We turned into Tokyo or turned into Japan across
the island and spotted the target,
dropped our bombs on our target,
and then we had to make
a turn to get back into the Tokyo Bay and head South.
The heading that I
was given by the navigator was the wrong heading.
I turned to that heading and something is clicking here
and that didn't sound right.
But what it did, I turned
the aircraft straight at Mount Fujiyama.
Now, Mount Fujiyama's sitting
way the ahead above me here.
Of course, Mount Fujiyama,
the whole thing was under a tremendous storm.
It was one of the big storms.
I called the navigator,
and he double-checked this and he told
me I should be at this and
by this time all of a sudden I'm in the storm.
I'm hearing it. Again,
the airlift that is up going this way,
going up the mountain, the storm
that's feeding the mountain.
I got caught in that storm and I am
going up (laughing) 90 miles an hour so to speak.
I got the nose pushed down and
throttled slightly back to slide down and see the speed.
I'm being lifted right up into the storm area into
the big strong clouds up above Mount Fujiyama.
That's where it spit me out.
It spit me out at about 20,000 feet.
Great. I had all that altitude that
I could use going back to the base,
going back to Guam.
But I could have read a newspaper in that cockpit.
The static electricity,
all the propellers were just ablaze,
one big, red blaze.
The static (inaudible).
All the metal parts
across the windshield and everything,
static electricity is running.
It was so brilliant, so bright that again,
I'd say you could write
a newspaper in the cockpit (crosstalk).
[Floyd Cox] Quite eerie, wasn't it?
[Garvin Kowalke] You just hung on,
kept the gauges right and kept the speed right, and go.
It was always you'd never
questioned it, never pushed it.
Suddenly it was just happening.
When they pooped us out over the top of the storm,
we just cruised on hold. (laughing)
[Floyd Cox] Every time you see a picture of
Mount Fujiyama I imagine memories coming back.
[Garvin Kowalke] Yes. (laughing) But this is
so typical of all the missions.
Well, that was when I got my own airplane,
that's where I picked up the airplane
that I named after my hometown City of Baraboo.
That's where (laughing) my book came from.
[Floyd Cox] You named your plane. What was
the official name of your plane?
[Garvin Kowalke] The City of Baraboo.
I named it after my hometown.
[Floyd Cox] How do you spell that?
[Garvin Kowalke] B-A-R-A-B-O-O. Yeah.
[Floyd Cox] Baraboo?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah. Baraboo.
[Floyd Cox] Well, you've had these missions,
different various bombing missions
at anytime during your missions,
did you come under a specific attack
of any enemy airplanes?
In other words, did any of your gunners
shoot down any plane?
Did you ever (crosstalk).
[Garvin Kowalke] No. There was very little attack.
[Floyd Cox] Was there point in time,
the Japanese didn't have a whole lot of fighters there.
[Garvin Kowalke] No. They didn't.
[Floyd Cox] Because I've read that B29 crews
that didn't get captured over Japan.
The Japanese were quite cruel to them.
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah.
[Floyd Cox] In fact, as survival rate was,
if I remember correctly,
it was like 200 survived at about 2,000 were captured.
[Garvin Kowalke] In fact when I was being
shipped over to Guam.
I had a week's training in atomic weapons.
I don't know if that had some bearing
on when I indicated I thought I'd had
some bearing on my being elected to do
the weather reconnaissance mission
for the Hiroshima drop.
I was aware of what was going on and what it was for.
They needed the weather,
they needed the temperatures,
they needed the airspeed,
the wind speeds up that altitude,
to make that drop.
[Floyd Cox] I had to discount that you were at that point
in time assigned primarily to
bombing missions and as you
said, some reconnaissance periodically.
But did they come to your crew
or you? How did that work out?
Did they call you to the tents (noise) (crosstalk)
[Garvin Kowalke] They came through my operations, yes.
To fly that mission.
[Floyd Cox] Did they tell you exactly what
they wanted you to do?
[Garvin Kowalke] Right, yeah. I would fly across Japan
into Manchuria background so that
the area that's coming from China area,
Asia area go over Japan.
They needed the wind direction,
they needed what was all
going on over there to make sure that
their planes had all the information for the bomb drop.
[Floyd Cox] Now, this was in 1945.
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah.
[Floyd Cox] When they gave you
this mission did you have an inkling of what it was
about or did they give you any indication
or did they just ask you
to do this mission and get (crosstalk)
[Garvin Kowalke] Well, I individually
did have an indication that was close.
We knew that there was going to
be atomic weapons dropped.
We knew I'd been involved in that.
I was aware of it but I didn't say anything.
[Floyd Cox] Sure.
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah.
[Floyd Cox] What rank were you at this time, by the way?
[Garvin Kowalke] I was Major.
[Floyd Cox] You are a Major by now.
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah.
[Floyd Cox] When they called you for this mission to
get data over Japan,
did you go as a single plane mission or?
[Garvin Kowalke] Just a single plane. Yes.
[Floyd Cox] One plane flying over gathering.
[Garvin Kowalke] I take it back.
I was still a personal attendant then.
(laughing) I'm getting career mixed up with it.
(laughing) I jumped into career area.
[Floyd Cox] Well, once you
flew your mission and they collected your data,
how long after that was the mission over Hiroshima?
[Garvin Kowalke] Next day.
[Floyd Cox] It was the next day?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah.
[Floyd Cox] You were on the ground when the game went over.
You might be interested to know
that General Tibbets is supposed to be in
Wichita Falls 24th of next month.
They're having a Marine Hiroshima survive,
they call it survivors.
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah.
[Floyd Cox] In Wichita Falls and
I was just told the other day he's going to be there.
[Garvin Kowalke] Excellent
[Floyd Cox] Yeah. Did you ever meet General Tibbets?
[Garvin Kowalke] No.
[Floyd Cox] After you completed your mission and
Tibbets completed theirs and dropped atomic bomb,
how did you feel in?
Did you have any feelings?
Knowing what happened?
[Garvin Kowalke] No, it was a job that I felt that
all the training that we had been
given and for the years before,
finally, finally, finally paid off.
But actually they made use of it
and it was satisfying, very satisfying.
Now, that of course two days later after the bomb drop,
then I was called to run the other mission over
the target area to determine
the intensity of the radiation.
[Floyd Cox] You flew over Hiroshima two days later?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yes, that's when we determined,
because we had to find out,
what is the radiation now?
What level, can we still fly over it?
If not, if it is too high, do we have to go round it.
So this is what I did.
I flew various altitudes over Hiroshima.
Everything was flying for future missions.
Nagasaki was right behind that job.
[Floyd Cox] You looked at your plane and of course you
could see the results of the atomic blast,
and could you not?
[Garvin Kowalke] Oh, yes.
[Floyd Cox] I imagined that was quite
awe-inspiring to look down and see there was nothing.
[Garvin Kowalke] This is why I mentioned here before,
looked at the destruction,
and I looked at the destruction
of some of our firebomb missions,
where it took 300 planes to do it.
It's unfortunate.
Yes, it is unfortunate that the radiation or
the atomic weapons that people have to
try and survive that.
[Floyd Cox] (laughing) On your mission to check for
radiation, did you have a lot of special equipment
on your (crosstalk)
[Garvin Kowalke] Like I've mentioned in my book,
my plane looked like a porcupine.
(laughing) It had little stickers on all or over,
and we had a big trail with an antenna on
the bottom and several 100 feet below us.
[Floyd Cox] That was picking up radiation particles or?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah. Determined the level of it, yeah.
[Floyd Cox] When you did estimations,
did you have your regular crew plus some extras,
or did they leave off? (crosstalk)
[Garvin Kowalke] My regular crew plus the people who are
qualified are now determining the equipment
and getting the readings on that.
[Floyd Cox] Where did they sit in your plane?
[Garvin Kowalke] We had plenty of room.
[Floyd Cox] Oh you did?
[Garvin Kowalke] That's a pretty big dose up there.
[Floyd Cox] (inaudible) (laughing) Well,
were you still on Guam when
boxcar dropped the second atomic bomb?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yes.
[Floyd Cox] Then how to proceed did you?
Of course, the armacist was called or surrender,
I should say, and you were
still in Guam when the Japanese surrendered or?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah. That's when I lost the city verbal.
[Floyd Cox] The story you told me a while ago?
That was a different.
[Garvin Kowalke] After all the bombing and everything,
and then our next measure is going to be of course,
to fly crews and planes back to the United States.
This is a direction that they were going.
Right about that same time,
we got hit by a monsoon and we
had a storm in there for about solid range,
solid water for about two weeks.
It was a beauty.
After the monsoon, well,
then new course that we started checking our airplanes
and I flew a couple of weather missions on that monsoon.
But anyway,
we got aboard the airplane check roll-out project,
started engines and everything checked out okay,
and taxi to the end of the runway.
I was going to do another check in in fact.
I had about seven ground crew people,
a couple of Marines coupled with
the Navy, that we're guests.
They just jumped in and stood for the ride.
[Floyd Cox] Right.
[Garvin Kowalke] We brought them with us
to take them for the ride,
got lined up at the end of the runway and put
full power on, check everything.
Checks okay. Kicks to break go up and away we go.
Of course we didn't have any extra fuel,
no bombs aboard so the aircraft was light.
The aircraft just took right off
(noise) It only took a little bit
when I started rotation, bring the nose gear up.
Just as I started rotation,
number 1, started smoking.
Number 2, clock fire, and the scanner gave
a yolk noise to what the hell is going on.
I had no choice, but
we're shutting the damn engines off.
Well, first thing I want do I want to be airborne?
I didn't want to be airborne,
so I chopped my throttles off and slammed on the brakes,
and I just put the nose gear right down.
I blew out a couple of tires, but I went off the end of
the runway just about 150 feet of the coral,
and I only had about 250 feet left to go before I
went over the cliff and got it stopped.
Then I got out of the car,
pick an airplane and that was it.
The other exits were starting to smoke already.
What had happened was during that monsoon,
that water had gotten to
the control boxes in the wings for the superchargers.
When I rotated, that water flooded up and
shorted off the electrical system in that supercharge.
There was 'bang' just like that,
and the blew them up,
but we were able to save the airplane and save our crew,
and that's when we
had to get another airplane and go home.
[Floyd Cox] (laughing) What did they
finally do with your plane?
[Garvin Kowalke] That, we have not been
able to ever find out.
Well, we heard that, yes,
they fixed the engine on it and flew it back
because the plane was perfectly okay.
It was the engines that had to be fixed up.
[Floyd Cox] It was quite a ride that your passengers had
and it wasn't the(crosstalk) marine guys.
(laughing) At that time,
then you're ready to come home,
did you fly a B-29 back to the States?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yes. I flew B-29 back to the States,
back to California.
There we unloaded and I came on home.
[Floyd Cox] Did you get discharged in or?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah.
That's why I got discharged.
(laughing) Well, no,
I wouldn't say discharge, I was a reserve officer.
When I came back, I was still a reserve officer.
What I did, I just applied for active duty reserve.
I stayed on active duty in Wisconsin.
I worked with a guard,
and I worked with the squadrons up in Madison.
We went to training sessions and the whole worked.
In the meantime, then I went ahead and picked
up a job and was an electrical junior,
and I stayed with that job until Korea. (laughing)
[Floyd Cox] I love the rank where you were now
at this point of time.
[Garvin Kowalke] I was a captain.
[Floyd Cox] You were a captain?
[Garvin Kowalke] Yeah, I was a captain.
[Floyd Cox] Then, June 1950 came along
and the Korean war broke out.
Did they call you up?
[Garvin Kowalke] Well, they didn't find me.
(laughing) I found that out a little bit later,
but in a way,
they would call me back to active duty,
and apparently, something got screwed up in
the records and communications
that I was indicated on my record as AWOL.
Well, summers and they couldn't get a hold of me.
I was right there all the time, but anyway,
when I all of a sudden hear it's the aircraft, again,
I got the urge so to speak,
and I reapplied for active duty,
to go back to active duty.
That was immediately accepted and that's where I went.
When I got all my records
(inaudible) well, hey, here I am.
(laughing) By active duty, put me right here
back at Randolph, B-29.
That's when I stayed here that
was at Randolph and went to
B-29 training crews with B-29 for a short time,
until they brought an airplane in to air show,
which was B-57.
That was a 20-engine Canberra jet.
I fell in love with her. Most beautiful
airplane I'd ever seen.
I just thought the world of that airplane.
It's that I am going to fly.
Well, so I went to the boss man,
the commander and tell him, I said, "Hey,
I want to get transferred to
(inaudible) I want to get the B-57."
He started working with me on it
and the next thing I knew,
I've been transferred over to here at Randolph,
I've transferred over to T-33's to give me jet training.
I took my training then and started the B-57 training.
It was right there.
At that point in time, I left Randolph and into jets.
My wife and I had never been able to have children,
and, of course, we wanted to adopt children.
To me, social services and civilian life,
you could have done something,
but me being in the military,
they didn't seem to want to have anything to do with me.
We were stuck out there.
Well, it happened my aunt,
who is of German ancestry, and she's a secretary
for the German professor in the University of Wisconsin.
I'm here at Randolph. She gave me a call and said,
"Garvin, a very dear friend of mine, she's in Marburg,
Germany and she is the secretary for the
(inaudible) which is the mayor of the city.
They also have a large childcare center.
She says a baby German boy has just
been given to the care center
for adoption, available for adoption.
Would you like to adopt him?"
My answer was yes.
Tell them to keep him right there, I'll be right over.
(laughing) Well, besides making
such an outliner's statement,
(laughing) the next day, I went in and talked with
my commander and the field commander.
He said, "Garvin,
take whatever time you need, just go for it."
I never had better help.
A buddy of mine, he's another jet pilot,
he and I, we took a little fighter jet, T-33,
and he took me to the East Coast, dropped me off,
there I got on airlines and went to Germany.
I'm sitting at the hotel there in Germany and
(inaudible) got me on a car and drove on up to Marburg.
Got to this lady,
and she took me over to the orphanage,
and I took a look at
the baby. He's about three months old.
You bet we'd love to have him.
Then, I met with the
(inaudible) and he gave me his approval.
I go back to the city
and get it back to the hotel,
and start working on
the paperwork to get back to United States.
The next day, a car pulls up and it's
the nurse and the driver from Marburg.
They got my baby. Here he is.
(laughing) I took them in the hotel room and
started getting squared away to keep him there.
They came back the next day and we were right straight
to the office that has
the passports and they are all
talking in German and just walked me right on through.
I got to my car and picked a passport,
my passport for my son, and I was on my way.
[Floyd Cox] Was your wife with you at this time?
[Garvin Kowalke] No, I was alone. I said, there I was.
I had his little basket in one arm,
I just had my briefcase in the other,
and my B4 bag in the other,
and he flew with me back to
the United States. (noise)