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Mr. Brown: The Japanese float plane. They put wheels on them also and they looked just like a P- 47 from up above. We covered the sub and we went home. It was an exciting day. Mr. Cox: It sure was. On any of these escort missions, did you run into any anti-aircraft or Japanese intereceptors? Mr. Brown: No. The last ride I was on was May 29 and it was a fairly clear day. We came in just southwest of Yokohama. We could see Mt. Fuji sticking up beautifully. It was kind of a very, very pretty day. We could see the bombers. We were climbing up and preparing to cover them. Up ahead, here comes a Zero. My flight leader and I were shooting at that air plane and we were having all kinds of fun. All of the sudden, there was no sound. My engine stopped. My flight leader disappeared in the sky some where. I looked around and I couldn't see the Zero we were shooting at. So I pushed over reasonably and got a lot of speed up and went out toward Tokyo Bay and south. In a few minutes, I saw some B29's who had already left the target and were heading south again. I stayed far away from them and just went parallel with them for a while. Not very long. Then I eased in a little closer. All of the sudden I looked down and I didn't have instruments anymore. I looked out on the wing and the gasoline caps had popped off and were smoking. They had shown us movies on how to get out of an air plane. When you are in that condition, you have to trust your chute. So I rolled the thing upside down and tried to fall out. Our CO said that was the only way to go. Well, I followed that rule and it didn't work. So I rolled it back and quickly crawled out on the right side. I had already dumped the canopy. The chute worked. Just a month before, they had taken a dozen chutes from our squadron and put sandbags on them and dumped them off over the field and half of those parachutes didn't open. So the chutes of some of the guys that had jumped previous missions didn't billow. The bosses were worried that those chutes were not going to billow. But mine did. I guess I was at about 8,000 feet. I went through these light cumulus clouds and on down to the water. I was able to see a little Japanese island over a few miles to the side. I saw the little circle that my plane made when it went plop. When I got in the water it was just like in the movies. Nothing to it.
They had trained us in Richmond, Virginia, in a swimming pool. They had shown us some movies on how to do this. We had a sergeant who showed us over and over and over again how to get in and out of a one-man life raft. It was a piece of cake. I got into that raft and had to decide whether I was too close to that Japanese island to mess around. I thought about it for a moment and let go of two of my smoke bombs and waited a while. Maybe waited 10 or 15 minutes. Then I let the rest of them go. I was ready to be picked up. Before you know it, a submarine, the Pipefish, must have seen me. Or, a bomber saw me and called me in. So
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Bill Brown. Brown was studying at the University of Texas at El Paso whe nhe joined the Army Air Force in 1942. Brown discusses his flight training, which occurred throughout Texas. With training cmplete, Brown was sent to Hawaii where he continued training with the 45th Fighter Squadron, 7th Air Force. Soon his unit was shipped to Iwo Jima where they flew bomber escort for bombing missions over the home islands of Japan. Brown was shot down over Yokahama and bailed out over the Tokyo Bay, where he was resuced by the USS Pipefish (SS-388). Brown was taken to Hawaii to recover and was eventually shipped back to the US, where he was discharged in September, 1945.
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Brown, Bill.Oral History Interview with Bill Brown, June 26, 2000,
text,
June 26, 2000;
Fredericksburg, Texas.
(https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1603374/m1/7/:
accessed July 16, 2024),
University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu;
crediting National Museum of the Pacific War/Admiral Nimitz Foundation.