Fire from the Sky: A Diary over Japan

by Ron Greer

This is the story of the last few months of WWII in the Pacific, seen through the eyes of one man, a radio operator aboard a B29 Superfortress who kept a diary of 28 missions over Japan. The diary tells of the horrors of war. It was written in darkness, and often fear, with a pen-light during lonely hours confined for up to 18 hours at a time. Herb Greer our main author, 23 years old, frightened and sitting on up to 20,000 pounds of jellied gasoline (napalm), while blindly flying through constant flak bursts and fighter opposition. The plane is blacked out save the dull red glow of the instrument panels as they pass through the target area. Suddenly the most intense bright light floods the aircraft, blinding us - the tension in the aircraft shot up, hearts started beating a whole lot faster as we instantly realized that we were being singled out of the sky by a searchlight and were now firmly in the sights of air and ground fire, we were the main act, and center stage. From that moment everything went into slow motion as we pass through the target - seconds felt like minutes and minutes, hours. BOOM, an explosion, the plane rocks, bucks, flak is searing its way through the fragile fabric of the fuselage, loose items are flying around, I'm scared - they say you can taste fear - well they're absolutely right. This personal view gives us two perspectives, the first is the story of Herb Greer speaking to us aboard a B29 through the written entries of his diary and then the second recounted from his armchair 60 years later. Written with an immediacy that can only be shared by those who were there, while capturing for posterity their bravery and dignity of sacrifice.

Genres: Nonfiction, World War II

292 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2005

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is based on the war diary of a crew member of a B-29 that flew missions over Japan from May to September 1945. Being a diary it is a very personal story. Although a lot of the missions seemed very similar there are enough interesting stories to make the book worth reading. It gives one a good idea of what these missions were like, a mixture of danger and boredom.

['Aussie Rick' · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting account of one-mans war in the Pacific. Herb Greer was a radio-operator flying in a B-29 over Japan in the closing stages of WW2. The book is made up of entries from Herb's wartime diary, interviews conducted 60 years after the end of the war and official sources. The book offers the reader a look into this terrible war through the experiences of a participant; the smells and sights of a burning city under the bomb-bay doors of the massive B-29 Superfortress.