A Hell on Earth
	Dangers in the Air			4 of 8

Harry George B-29 co-pilot Survived fighter plane attacks

When the flak stopped, then the fighter planes would come in and try to ram you. You've probably heard of this thing called a baka bomb. It's a suicide Japanese rocket plane. We first heard them described as an orange ball of fire. They'd strap his baka bomb, his rocket plane, under a twin engine betty bomber and they'd go over the target when there's a lot of B-29s streaming over the target. Then they'd release down. He'd have about 10 minutes of fuel, and an arming lever on the front of it, and he's the only one in it. No landing gear. He was told to go ahead and ram a B-29. And they did that several times. Matter of fact, the 25th of May mission that we had, I looked out to the right and I could see another 29. A friend of mine, it seemed like the baka bomb came down right from behind him, and just hit the plane in about the center. And the whole thing blew up at that time. So it's quite a fearsome sight.

Learn more about Harry George's wartime experience, and why the U.S. needed Iwo Jima.