Mission Stress 1945

have posted previuosly my expierience while in VMA-121 AD squadron during Korea 1953. That was the Reserve Pilots called back on duty & placed in Mid winter Korea , night interdiction missions. That with little to no refresher training since WW2. Many would taxi out & return after pulling circuit breakers. Something recently brought back an incident in VMTB-232 TBM Squadron June/Aug 1945 Okinawa. I posted before that after the battle for Okinawa was secured in mid June ;we were tasked to bomb the Islands up to the Mainland of Japan an extreme range for our TBM A/C. We had recieved an in flux of new Pilots 2nd Lts fresh out of training. They were certainly stressed when they learned of the long flights & the stretching of the range with their fuel capacity. This one mission a new 2ndLt was in a full Squadron mission & as was the usual take off procedure taxied out of the revetment with folded wings to the end of the runway. There the wings were spread & went through the full power checkout than made the takeoff run. This Pilot was obviously sweating & fretting when he arrived. He taxied out to the runway . With wings still folded he did his power check & roared down the runway trying to takeoff with the wings folded. The Gunners were old hands & had flew many missions. They were screaming on the intercom, "THE WINGS ARE FOLDED DAMNIT" frantically trying to get his attention He was near the end of the runway before he realized his condition Those Gunners would never fly with that Pilot again I hear men talking about how they wished they could have been fixed wing pilots back in those days. It was not all glamor & fun missions PM