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We were going up to ChiChi-Jima, which was 130 miles north of Iwo. We bombed that strip up there every hour all night long to keep the Japanese to keep from coming down on the fleet around Iwo. We had picked up a radar man Dick David, right after in November after we got there, he joined our crew in November, we had 8 missions and he joined us as a radar man, so we became a radar crew. That way we were flying some night snooper missions. One plane harrassed my missions. So, we got up over at ChiChi at night and it was about 2:00 o'clock in the morning. They caught us in the search lights and they shot us up pretty good. We lost one engine over the target and we were losing power on another one and we left and we started throwing things out. We threw everything out that was loose and we dealt with the power they had to pull on the other engines, we were not going to have enough gas to get back to Guam where we were going to land. They had a conference up in the flight deck and I was not involved in it, because I was in the back, but they decided, maybe, they knew that the Marines had one air strip working on Iwo that they flew medi-vacs there. They thought well maybe they can get into Iwo. They tried all kinds of ways to communicate with Iwo. We were told to stay at least 50 miles away. It was forbidden to go into that area. We were kind of desperate that night. So, we kind of violated and we got in there and we all listened on the command set and it come on there that, "chick-so and- so, there is a boggie in your area." Well, we were that boggie and this chick is a night fighter. We are looking out and I am looking out there and I don't see anything, first thing you know, I see him. We had our lights on IFF on emergency. He
turned his lights on when he recognized us but he still wanted the code of the day,which they sent him. He contacted the pilot then. He told them how to contact the command ship. Well he did and he got a hold of a command ship down there. 28.
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Doyle Ebel. Ebel was drafted into the Army Air Forces in March, 1943 and trained at Miami Beach before going to radio operator school in Missouri. He also attended gunnery school before becoming a crewmember on a B-24 and shipping overseas in July 1944. He was assigned to the 26th Bomb Squadron, 11th Bomb Group at Saipan in October. Ebel recalls an emergency landing on Iwo Jima. He flew 37 combat missions before the war ended and returned to the US in November, 1945.
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Ebel, Doyle.Oral History Interview with Doyle Ebel, July 30, 2013,
text,
July 30, 2013;
Fredericksburg, Texas.
(https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1606583/m1/28/:
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.