By mid-1942 Allied submarines, warships and aircraft were starting to close the sea route to Rangoon via Singapore and the Straight of Malacca. Increasingly desperate for an overland route to supply its troops in Burma, the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters directed its army to build a single-track railway from Siam (Thailand) to Burma. The railroad was to transport 3,000 tons of supplies daily from Ban Pong in Thailand via the Three Pagodas Pass on the Thai-Burmese border, thence to the existing Burma railway at Thanbyuzayat, located between Moulmein and Ye.

Work was begun in October, 1942 with an August, 1943 deadline for completion. The more than 250 miles of track, much of it through dense jungle and over many streams was finally finished in October of 1943. work parties consisting of Allied prisoners of war, and later, impressed laborers from many parts of Southeast Asia, progressed eastward from Thanbyuzayat and westward from Ban Pong. The lines met just south of Kon Kuta. Thousands upon thousands of the laborers had died building the railroad. Thousands more would die maintaining it from floods, creeping jungle, and Allied air attacks. The bridges of the railroad were especially vulnerable. Considered the most vulnerable of these bridges were the bridges near the town of Kanchanaburi, the headquarters of the Japanese 5th Railway Regiment. This Japanese unit supervised the work westward from Ban Pong.

The Japanese chose to cross the very wide Mae Klong River at a point just above its convergence with the Kwai Noi, then follow the Kwai Noi westward. The wooden bridge across the Mae Klong was completed in February of 1943 and a steel and concrete bridge, brought in piecemeal from Java by the Japanese, was completed some three months later. (Perhaps its nearness to the Kwai Noi is the reason that the Thai tourist industry has designated this as the location for the novel Bridge Over the River Kwai and set up a locomotive and other tourist sights. Returning to the site in 1971, I found the steel bridge rebuilt and still in use, but only a few broken and barely visible support piles of the wooden bridge remained. Pierre Boulle states that his book is strictly fiction and he chose no particular site on the railroad for his book--letter to Ray Hertzlin, tail gunner.)

These two bridges were several hundred yards long. our headquarters calculated that if these two bridges were knocked out, all supplies would have to be unloaded, transported by boat across the river, reloaded and thus be vulnerable to further strikes as they accumulated. The tedious delays in transporting supplies would be important to the war effort.

While we were in China, a number of missions were made against the two bridges. They had little success. Curly and Brad flew with other crews, on the 5th of February and one of them on the 9th of February, against the bridges. Still the bridges stood.

Our crew had flown on February 7th and 12th, so we did not fly on the big strike of the 13th. The Kanchanaburi bridges had become almost a grudge battle with Group Commander, Colonel Harvey T. Alness. On February 13th four Liberators from the 493rd Vanguard Squadron and six from the 9th Cobra Squadron attacked the bridges. In the lead was Lt. Gene Morris. Skimming in at 300 feet, his bombardier, Lt. Frank Nelson, brought down two spans of the steel bridge. Follow-on crews inflicted further damage to the steel bridge as well as some damage to the wooden bridge.

In March of 1944 photo recce planes had reported that the slight damage to the wooden bridge had been repaired and the "bypass bridge" was once again taking traffic.

On April 2nd, our crew was alerted for a mission the next day. This began a sequence of events that had some peculiar facets from the outset. For example, our mission briefing was just past midnight at 0030 on April 3rd, with a takeoff time of 0230. Our missions usually took off near dawn or later. When the route and target were revealed, a groan went up f rom the crews. Back to the bridges. Sure, the new cruise control techniques and bomb bay tanks made this possible, but it was an awful long haul and anti-aircraft fire from Japanese gun emplacements seemed to be increasing in intensity and accuracy.

Since the wooden bridge still stood, it simply had to be put into the water. Previous missions at very low level using the fixed angle D-2 bombsight had not been as successful as desired. Low level aircraft presented little aiming time for the enemy anti-aircraft guns, but the bombing inaccuracy, time delay, and skipping of bombs did not do the desired damage. Accuracy of flak at our medium bombing altitudes or not, the aircraft would be staggered in at altitudes from four to six thousand feet bombing altitude. on the plus side was the fact that this altitude represented the best bombing altitude for synchronous bombing with the Norden bombsight.

The Outlaw Squadron would lead the pack and Crew T-333--our crew--would be lead crew of the bridge busters! Six 1000-pound demolition bombs in the rear bomb bay, instantaneous fuses, to be dropped at minimum interval, two at a time on each of three passes. A Liberator loaded with frags would precede us to drop anti-personnel bombs on the anti-aircraft gun emplacements. If the flak- suppressant ship was successful, this would in theory run the Japanese to cover and the bomb carriers would be home free.

For some reason, George Twelvetrees was not flying with us that day and Cliff Webb was nose gunner. I could never recall who the substitute gunner was. Should this have been omen #17.

Takeoff and navigation to the target area was normal. Long hours of very low flying. As usual, low and slow to conserve fuel and avoid enemy detection. We were becoming one of the older, more experienced crews and perhaps a little complacent at this juncture in time. These long hours prior to and after the target were near being hours of boredom.

We passed east of the Three Pagodas Pass area and I went into the nose section to talk to Ray Hanson and prepare the bombing equipment. I entered the bombing tables and calculated the information to get the trail, actual time of fall (ATF) and disc speed, and placed the information in the bombsight. Next the number of bombs to be released and the interval between bombs was set into the intervalometer. I was ready for the initial point to head into the target on the bomb run heading. I then set in the pre-determined drift and calculated dropping angle to prevent excessive killing of rate and course on the bomb run with the course and rate knobs.

As we neared the IP we could see the entire target area. There was no evidence of bombs having been dropped on the suspected anti-aircraft sites. No smoke, no dust. We scanned the skies for the flak suppressant aircraft. They were late. Decisions, decisions. Had they been forced to abort because of mechanical difficulties? Did we have enough fuel to delay and wait? Had we already been spotted?

The decision was the pilot's. Curly didn't wait long to make it. He made the only sensible decision he could have made under the circumstances when he stated, "Crew, this is pilot. Get set, we're going in."

At this time we were over the IP and headed toward the wooden bridge target. "Pilot, this is bombardier, level the aircraft for bombsight gyro leveling-steady ... steady. Gyro leveling is complete; give me control of the aircraft through the autopilot for the bomb run."

Now it was time for extended vision in the sight to pick up the exact aiming point as early as possible. It appeared thin as a knife blade. Precision, precision. Then, after the target traveled through extended vision, lock onto the target and kill drift of the course and rate. Pre-computation had been excellent, for little adjustment had to be made. Bombsight trigger up! At this time, one of the gunners reported a few bursts of flak, high and to our right. The air was smooth and the crosshairs stuck. Bombs away. But only one bomb went down! Quickly I checked the intervalometer. It was correct. Then I again looked below and saw that the one bomb hit squarely at the center of the spans over the water portion of the river. Not just damage, but total destruction of the center spans. The wooden bridge was down!

Still no other aircraft. I double checked the intervalometer by going back to zero and once again setting two bombs. We cut slightly short of the IP and headed in on the second run. Again everything looked perfect. The gunners again reported flak, heavier, at our altitude, but off to one side. Bombs away. Two bombs. Cross hairs had drifted just to the left edge of the six-foot wide bridge. The bombs hit about ten feet to the left with no apparent damage.

Still no other aircraft. We quickly returned to the IP (slightly west and south of Chungkai prison camp). This time I went ahead and cranked all three bombs into the intervalometer to insure completion of the bomb load. With no flak suppression aircraft, we couldn't afford a fourth run. Leaving the IP, we noted the flak almost immediately. Again the cross hairs of the bombsight stuck right on the target. Just before bombs away , two other aircraft arrived. Also, we could hear the flak bursts. The gunners reported flak very close to us. I could see some bursts beneath us. Bombs away. Then I made a foolish mistake. I asked the pilots to hold heading just as the bombs hit so we could get photographs. Another very near miss.