Staff Sergeant James Wherry
Branch of Service
Honored by
Frances Bekafigo
Activity During World War II
Flew 31 missions as radar man on B-29s over the Japanese homeland and was on Tinian
Island the day the Enola Gay lifted off with Little Boy bound for Hiroshima.
Island the day the Enola Gay lifted off with Little Boy bound for Hiroshima.
U.S. Army Air Corps
Awards
Distinguished Flying Cross
Air Medal with Oak Leaf Clusters
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with Four Stars
Aircrew Wings
Good Conduct Medal
Air Medal with Oak Leaf Clusters
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with Four Stars
Aircrew Wings
Good Conduct Medal
B-29 Forever Amber
| Jim Wherry Recalls Tinian Island, B-29 Missions and August 6, 1945 |
Jim Wherry had never heard of Tinian Island when he landed there in the belly of the massive B-29 Superfortress in February 1945. Nor
could he ever imagine what would take place there in August of that same year. He was not alone. Only those directly involved in the
top secret Manhattan Project knew that the U.S. had been pursuing the creation of a weapon that would end WWII – the atomic bomb.
James Irwin Wherry born October 19, 1922 in Ohio was raised in Auburndale, Florida where he still lives today. He will soon be 88 and
with amazing clarity he has recalled his service in WWII to me informally and recently in an interview at his home. When I first met him
I realized that he was among the few living veterans on Tinian Island when the Enola Gay took off loaded with her secret weapon, the
atomic bomb.
Jim Wherry had tried to enlist and go to war but had been rejected four times. He remembers hearing about the bombing of Pearl Harbor
while in a drugstore. All of the young men in Auburndale were enlisting and he was embarrassed to have been rejected repeatedly for his
vision problems he told me. He left the state and worked for Glenn Martin aircraft manufacturing. A year later he got the draft notice. It
was 1943. This time he was accepted.
Wherry entered the U.S. Army Air Corps at Ft. Blanding and completed basic training in Miami Beach where hundreds of thousands of
young men took over the hotels for housing and training. Wherry remembers marching on Collins Avenue.
Gunnery school was next at Ft. Myers, Florida. Wherry learned to shoot 20 mm. guns at tow-targets which were being dragged by the B-17
Flying Fortess, the plane that won the war in Europe. When asked about the B-17 Wherry recalls the bomber as being extremely cold –
minus 30 degrees in the unheated fuselage. It did not matter though – he was in the U.S. Army Air Corps.
Next PFC Jim Wherry was on to Grand Island, Nebraska for more training – this time on a much larger plane, the B-29 Superfortress.
The B-29 was a long-range very heavy bomber whose prototype had been submitted to the Army in 1939. By the time Wherry would see
his first B-29, these monstrous planes were in production in assembly plants in several states. One of the most serious problems was
engine failure during take off. Jim Wherry would find this out soon enough.
At Grand Island Wherry would train for three months in the B-29 as a radar operator. Asked how he landed that particular job on the
10-man crew he laughed. Someone pointed to him and said “ Jim, you are now a radar operator.” The radar equipment on the B-29,
Wherry explained to me, was much larger than today – about six feet long and four feet high. He quickly learned how to identify
targets and to navigate even with no visibility.
It was then I asked Wherry if he understood the enormity of the war and what he would be doing. Without hesitation he replied “Yes.”
After training, Wherry would leave the states in a B-29. His destination was unknown he told me. He would become aware of engine
problems as his plane was forced to make several emergency landings. He arrived at an island called Tinian, about a hundred nautical
miles north of Guam in February, 1945.
He was now on the largest and busiest air base in the world with four 8500 foot long runways – marvels of the Seabees. Wherry’s group,
the 6th Bomb group, 39th Bomb squadron of the 20th Air Force would now be charged with very long range bombing raids on the
Japanese homeland. Their effort would help bring an end to the war.
Jim Wherry was about to start the first of thirty-one missions. His plane, Forever Amber, would fly with up to forty other B-29s on
missions of 13 to 15 hours. Some sorties were mining missions, dropping mines in shipping lanes. Others used General Purpose bombs,
antipersonnel bombs and incendiaries to bomb Tokyo, Nagoya, Fukuoka and other Japanese cities.
He remembers his first mission at 30,000 feet with a strong tailwind making it hard to drop the bombs. He described the salvo of bombs
if engine problems occurred while on a mission. He recalled looking down at the horrible destruction of repeated bombings of the great
city of Tokyo. Wherry told of the exhaustion and relief upon returning from missions of 15 hours after successfully hitting their target. I
asked what he did on days he did not fly. Sleep. Sometimes for twenty-four hours or more until the next briefing. He also recalls living
in a tent on Tinian. He was allowed four cans of hot beer a week at a dime a can. A carton of cigarettes was fifty cents. Cokes came in
white bottles and candy was a nickel. He grew tired of mutton from New Zealand.
Wherry described the feeling of going up in a Superfortress. Planes would line up and take off about every three minutes. Horribly, on
one fateful night he watched as eleven B-29s before him crashed and burned right after take off from engine failure. Almost all airmen
were killed. The Forever Amber was now in line he would recall. The main problem for a B-29 lift off was to quickly get enough speed
with its heavy load. If one engine failed the plane could not take off on three. Each man in the crew sat on the floor of the huge plane
with his legs around the man in front of him. They were braced against a back wall. Forever Amber took off successfully and gained
altitude.
I asked Wherry if he was aware of anything unusual going on at Tinian Island during the months he was a crewman. Any unusual
activity? “No. Nothing out of the ordinary,” Wherry would say, “except that we were going up in enormous four-engine bombers day
after day in what was the most important war in American history.” But there was certainly no activity that he was aware of that foretold
of August 6, 1945.
The secret of Special Bombing Mission Number 13 on Tinian had not been breached. Wherry was not aware that the USS Indianapolis
had delivered “with all possible haste” a lead-lined metal container to Tinian on July 26, 1945. Only much later would he learn that the
box contained the radioactive components of the newly developed atomic bomb. Nor would he realize that a special shed had been built
by the Seabees and that the secret container was under heavy guard. Wherry was unaware that bomb pits were now ready to load the
enormous weapon into the bomb bay of a B-29.
He was unaware of the presence of Colonel Paul Tibbets and his hand picked crew on the Island. Nor was he aware that Tibbets had
named the B-29 that would deliver the world’s first atomic bomb the Enola Gay.
The day before the first atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima a friend of then Staff Sergeant Jim Wherry told him he had overheard
that “we would be dropping a weapon that would devastate a whole city.” Wherry told him “George, you don’t know what you are
talking about.”
The next day, August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay lifted off from the North Field of Tinian Island laden with the atomic bomb “Little Boy”
which would be exploded over Hiroshima seven hours later.
Asked how he heard about the news, Wherry did not recall exactly, except to say there was a lot of loud celebrating on Tinian Island that
day.
The last mission during the war for Wherry and his crew was over the Marifu railroad yards in Iwakuni on August 14, 1945. But he flew
one more mission after Japan surrendered. That mission was a humanitarian mission over allied POW camps in China on September 1.
That day Wherry and his crew were one of nearly 800 B-29s dropping food and other supplies to survivors. Being a part of that mission,
seeing thousands of parachutes dropping those critical supplies is something that Jim Wherry will never forget.
could he ever imagine what would take place there in August of that same year. He was not alone. Only those directly involved in the
top secret Manhattan Project knew that the U.S. had been pursuing the creation of a weapon that would end WWII – the atomic bomb.
James Irwin Wherry born October 19, 1922 in Ohio was raised in Auburndale, Florida where he still lives today. He will soon be 88 and
with amazing clarity he has recalled his service in WWII to me informally and recently in an interview at his home. When I first met him
I realized that he was among the few living veterans on Tinian Island when the Enola Gay took off loaded with her secret weapon, the
atomic bomb.
Jim Wherry had tried to enlist and go to war but had been rejected four times. He remembers hearing about the bombing of Pearl Harbor
while in a drugstore. All of the young men in Auburndale were enlisting and he was embarrassed to have been rejected repeatedly for his
vision problems he told me. He left the state and worked for Glenn Martin aircraft manufacturing. A year later he got the draft notice. It
was 1943. This time he was accepted.
Wherry entered the U.S. Army Air Corps at Ft. Blanding and completed basic training in Miami Beach where hundreds of thousands of
young men took over the hotels for housing and training. Wherry remembers marching on Collins Avenue.
Gunnery school was next at Ft. Myers, Florida. Wherry learned to shoot 20 mm. guns at tow-targets which were being dragged by the B-17
Flying Fortess, the plane that won the war in Europe. When asked about the B-17 Wherry recalls the bomber as being extremely cold –
minus 30 degrees in the unheated fuselage. It did not matter though – he was in the U.S. Army Air Corps.
Next PFC Jim Wherry was on to Grand Island, Nebraska for more training – this time on a much larger plane, the B-29 Superfortress.
The B-29 was a long-range very heavy bomber whose prototype had been submitted to the Army in 1939. By the time Wherry would see
his first B-29, these monstrous planes were in production in assembly plants in several states. One of the most serious problems was
engine failure during take off. Jim Wherry would find this out soon enough.
At Grand Island Wherry would train for three months in the B-29 as a radar operator. Asked how he landed that particular job on the
10-man crew he laughed. Someone pointed to him and said “ Jim, you are now a radar operator.” The radar equipment on the B-29,
Wherry explained to me, was much larger than today – about six feet long and four feet high. He quickly learned how to identify
targets and to navigate even with no visibility.
It was then I asked Wherry if he understood the enormity of the war and what he would be doing. Without hesitation he replied “Yes.”
After training, Wherry would leave the states in a B-29. His destination was unknown he told me. He would become aware of engine
problems as his plane was forced to make several emergency landings. He arrived at an island called Tinian, about a hundred nautical
miles north of Guam in February, 1945.
He was now on the largest and busiest air base in the world with four 8500 foot long runways – marvels of the Seabees. Wherry’s group,
the 6th Bomb group, 39th Bomb squadron of the 20th Air Force would now be charged with very long range bombing raids on the
Japanese homeland. Their effort would help bring an end to the war.
Jim Wherry was about to start the first of thirty-one missions. His plane, Forever Amber, would fly with up to forty other B-29s on
missions of 13 to 15 hours. Some sorties were mining missions, dropping mines in shipping lanes. Others used General Purpose bombs,
antipersonnel bombs and incendiaries to bomb Tokyo, Nagoya, Fukuoka and other Japanese cities.
He remembers his first mission at 30,000 feet with a strong tailwind making it hard to drop the bombs. He described the salvo of bombs
if engine problems occurred while on a mission. He recalled looking down at the horrible destruction of repeated bombings of the great
city of Tokyo. Wherry told of the exhaustion and relief upon returning from missions of 15 hours after successfully hitting their target. I
asked what he did on days he did not fly. Sleep. Sometimes for twenty-four hours or more until the next briefing. He also recalls living
in a tent on Tinian. He was allowed four cans of hot beer a week at a dime a can. A carton of cigarettes was fifty cents. Cokes came in
white bottles and candy was a nickel. He grew tired of mutton from New Zealand.
Wherry described the feeling of going up in a Superfortress. Planes would line up and take off about every three minutes. Horribly, on
one fateful night he watched as eleven B-29s before him crashed and burned right after take off from engine failure. Almost all airmen
were killed. The Forever Amber was now in line he would recall. The main problem for a B-29 lift off was to quickly get enough speed
with its heavy load. If one engine failed the plane could not take off on three. Each man in the crew sat on the floor of the huge plane
with his legs around the man in front of him. They were braced against a back wall. Forever Amber took off successfully and gained
altitude.
I asked Wherry if he was aware of anything unusual going on at Tinian Island during the months he was a crewman. Any unusual
activity? “No. Nothing out of the ordinary,” Wherry would say, “except that we were going up in enormous four-engine bombers day
after day in what was the most important war in American history.” But there was certainly no activity that he was aware of that foretold
of August 6, 1945.
The secret of Special Bombing Mission Number 13 on Tinian had not been breached. Wherry was not aware that the USS Indianapolis
had delivered “with all possible haste” a lead-lined metal container to Tinian on July 26, 1945. Only much later would he learn that the
box contained the radioactive components of the newly developed atomic bomb. Nor would he realize that a special shed had been built
by the Seabees and that the secret container was under heavy guard. Wherry was unaware that bomb pits were now ready to load the
enormous weapon into the bomb bay of a B-29.
He was unaware of the presence of Colonel Paul Tibbets and his hand picked crew on the Island. Nor was he aware that Tibbets had
named the B-29 that would deliver the world’s first atomic bomb the Enola Gay.
The day before the first atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima a friend of then Staff Sergeant Jim Wherry told him he had overheard
that “we would be dropping a weapon that would devastate a whole city.” Wherry told him “George, you don’t know what you are
talking about.”
The next day, August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay lifted off from the North Field of Tinian Island laden with the atomic bomb “Little Boy”
which would be exploded over Hiroshima seven hours later.
Asked how he heard about the news, Wherry did not recall exactly, except to say there was a lot of loud celebrating on Tinian Island that
day.
The last mission during the war for Wherry and his crew was over the Marifu railroad yards in Iwakuni on August 14, 1945. But he flew
one more mission after Japan surrendered. That mission was a humanitarian mission over allied POW camps in China on September 1.
That day Wherry and his crew were one of nearly 800 B-29s dropping food and other supplies to survivors. Being a part of that mission,
seeing thousands of parachutes dropping those critical supplies is something that Jim Wherry will never forget.
Raised in Auburndale, Florida (Born in Warren, Ohio)
Hometown
Staff Sergeant Jim Wherry and crew pose
in front of Forever Amber. Jim is 2nd row
fourth in from the right.
in front of Forever Amber. Jim is 2nd row
fourth in from the right.
B-29s in flight.
Closer view of B-29s in flight.
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Bombs dropped on Japan.
