SOME CAME NOT BACK

"War" is a three-letter word,

A sound we wish we'd never heard.

A four-letter word is "flak",

Some B-29's came not back!

Three thousand miles to fly.

With flak and fighters in the sky.

Crews always anxious to "hit the sack."

But some 29's came not back!

Many eyes and ears looking west.

Ground crews knew they did their best;

Yet, no sight or sound in the sky;

Lord, not another dozen men to die!

Maybe they stopped for a cup of joe

On that lonely Rock called Iwo.

Could it be that its faith we lack,

And perhaps "tomorrow", they'll be back?

Sometimes "tomorrow" never comes,

But we strain our hearing for the hum

Of a long-delayed flight of 57 years;

Six decades of anxious tears;

And waiting on Saipan and Tinian

Are old men with long white beards'

"Welcome home", we'll say,

"We knew you'd return some day."

Could it be the Navigator made a fix

On some bright star in another land,

And a shiny B-29 is safe in her hardstand,

Without loss of a single man?

And so, who is waiting for whom?

I have heard that in Heaven there is room

For all the B-29's and their crews.

It is God's runway that they choose!

Up there, all the bombs are defused,

And the engines, not a drop of oil they lose.

Every cylinder of every engine in perfect tune.

If I am dreaming, don't awaken me

For row on row of shiny B-29's I see!

HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE B-29

Have you heard of these B-29's

Of World War II fame?

There was the "Enola Gay"

Which set Hiroshima aflame.

Colonel Paul Tibbets of Memphis TN,

Flew this plane from Tinian,

To drop the very first

Atomic bomb on the Isle of Japan!

From 31,600 feet at 8:15 a.m.

And seven seconds past,

He loosed the dreaded load

And that was her last!

Down, down, the "Thin Man" fell,

'Til and when the Uranium split

There was a flash from hell,

And a tremendous scorching from the pit!

The date, August 6, of 1945

In seconds thousands lost their lives!

What is this thing we've loosed

To kill husbands and their wives?

Have you heard of the B-29

By the name of "Bock's Car"?

It came to fame on August nine

When Nagasaki felt its jar!

Now "Bock's Car" dropped the bomb

That we called the "Fat Man".

It was plutonium, not uranium,

That scorched the city's land!

Both these famous planes and their crews,

Were from the 509th Bomb Group,

Of the 313th Wing, twentieth Air Force,

And their pilots could make them do a loop!

From Wendover Field they came

To Tinian's Island site,

Prepared to end World War II

And to close the shade of night!

On August 15th date of forty-five,

Japan agreed to end the fight that day;

And on the Battleship Missouri Sept. 2nd

They signed the papers in Tokyo Bay!

I loved the 509th of World War II fame,

Have stood in the bomb bay

Of that great and noble ship,

The one we call the Enola Gay!

There were other super bomber B-29's,

Which made a difference in their day;

Their names are now forgotten by all,

Because the War has gone away!

Yet some lie at the bottom of the sea,

Or on some high mountain side,

Their props all bent and mangled,

But where they lie, they lie in pride!

The War is passed, some men returned

To homes and loved ones from whence they came,

But to all who saw men bleed and die

And witnessed airmen fall from the sky,

Never shall remain the same,

For memories are not a winning game!