Lt. Harold William Schmidt was the navigator on board B-29 Superfortress # 44-69961. It was his job to keep his aircraft on course and on time for this mission which was to bomb the Tachikawa airfield located roughly six miles west of Tokyo. The two runways at North Field are parallel and run east-west. Take off would be easy, follow runway heading (west) then turn north towards Japan.

The take off went smoothly that early Saturday morning, but being heavily loaded with bombs and fuel, the Superfortress was slow to climb, even with the wheels up. To gain airspeed and climb, the pilot called for flaps up - too soon. The airplane settled and he was forced to ditch in the Pacific Ocean approximately 2 miles west of the airfield. The time was 04:40. The aircraft was written off (destroyed) as being beyond salvage or repair and seven of the eleven man crew survived and were rescued. The remaining four were listed as 'died while missing'.

Harold W Schmidt