Fresno

Was called at 4 AM this morning for a mission. Took-off, after much unnecessary delay, at 0630 in a B-24, or Consolidated “Liberator” (LB-30). Weather was nice here but got quite nasty as we approached the Pacific. Circled once over south pier of Golden Gate bridge — dropping and retracting our wheels as we did so — a signal? Was in the nose at the time, and found that the dropping of the nose wheel, cut me off completely from the rest of the ship.

A long hop north along the coastline — saw beautiful heavy surf scenes and many seals — and then out about 400-500 miles — a heavy wind blowing from the southwest was, unknown to us, blowing us north of our course. On the eastbound leg we hit the coast about 30 minutes before we expected it, and found ourselves very low, in very rough air, and mountains — Mt. Shasta being in the near vicinity, from later calculations — had a scary few minutes till we got our altitude.

Trip back very slow — I slept most of the way in the barn-like compartment aft of the bomb-bay.

The Army is lousy on navigation!