Cape vet saw A-bombs' aftermath

Kenneth Bender can still recall the ring of fire that burned at the outskirts of Nagasaki.

A conversation with Kenneth Bender can make history unfold.

Like many veterans of World War II, Bender has a plethora of stories, but one in particular still stands out clearly in his mind. Sixty years ago, Bender witnessed firsthand the aftermath of the atomic bombings in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Bender and the rest of his 12-man Army Air Force crew flew a reconnaissance mission to take pictures of both locations just 24 hours after the bomb fell on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. Bender, a gunner, was only 19.

Bender said clouds prevented the crew from seeing much of Hiroshima on Aug. 10, four days after the bomb fell there. But, as he wrote in his journal after returning to his base in Guam, "Nagasaki was wide open."

What he saw there was catastrophic. Bender described the city in his journal as "a huge pile of ashes." Even 24 hours after the explosion, a cloud of smoke 25 miles wide, 100 miles long and 10,000 feet high filled the air.

Now almost 80, Bender can still recall the ring of fire that burned at the outskirts of the ruined city. But on that day long ago, his mind was less focused on the destruction at hand than on the peace he knew the bomb would bring.

"What I thought then, and what I guess I still do, is how wonderful it was to have something to win the war so we wouldn't have to go on fighting and invading the island," he said. He has always agreed with the United States' decision to drop the atomic bomb.

After flying 22 missions in the Pacific Theatre in a B-29 bomber, the Cape Girardeau native had seen his share of destruction on both sides. Bender saw the remains of Tokyo after it was hit with fire bombs, which he said did more damage over time than the Nagasaki atomic bomb. On the American side, he witnessed some deadly plane crashes -- one happened on his birthday, another on the day of his first mission out of Guam.

Bender said he and his crew always carried on despite the often traumatic things they experienced.

"When you're 20 years old you don't think too much about those things," he said. "You just do what you're told to do."

Bender had a few close calls himself. After the atomic bombs had fallen but before Americans were allowed on Japanese soil, his crew flew a mission to deliver supplies to prisoners in a Japanese POW camp.

As the parachuted crates dropped out of the B-29's bomb bay, some ropes got twisted in the door's closing mechanism. Bender said the open bomb bay doors worked like sails, catching wind and drastically depleting the plane's fuel. The crew was preparing to abandon the plane at sea, but in a last-ditch effort Bender climbed out into the bomb bay above the doors open to the heavens. At one point he would have been sucked out of the plane but for a small strap he clung to with one hand. A friend pulled him to safety. Bender eventually was able to cut the tangled ropes, allowing the doors to close and the plane to return safely back to base.

Another time Bender's crew flew an unassigned photo reconnaissance mission over the Japanese city of Gifu even though one of their plane's engines was failing. The crew managed to return safely, and the photos they took of Gifu showed that a previous bombing campaign there had been a success. As a result, another mission planned for Gifu was canceled, possibly saving lives and aircraft, Bender said. The crew received the Distinguished Flying Cross medal for their efforts.

Despite the close calls, Bender said he thinks things could have been much worse for him.

"I always felt lucky then because we flew missions in dangerous places, but when we finally landed, we were in a safe place," he said. "There were a lot of guys in foxholes where it never quite ended for them."

At the end of the war, Bender got to experience a much more momentous occasion. Along with hundreds of other planes, he and his crew flew their B-29 over the USS Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945, as military officials signed Japan's surrender agreement below in Tokyo Bay.

wmcferron@semissourian.com

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