COASTAL OBSERVER

Irving “Jack” Craig Jr. of Murrells Inlet and the rest of the crew of a B-29 airplane named Smilin’ Jack survived 33 bombing missions during the last year of World War II.

The only member of the crew who didn’t make it home was the original pilot, who was killed during a training mission in another airplane.

“We didn’t lose anyone after that, we didn’t even have a scratch on anybody,” Craig said. “It was really rare. … We were very, very fortunate.”

Craig, 98, still remembers returning from missions and finding empty beds once occupied by crew members from other planes who didn’t make it back.

“Sometimes they didn’t get off the runway,” he said. “When you’re loaded down with a bunch of bombs and something happens, you don’t have much chance.”  

Craig was a high school senior in Alexandria, Va., when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

“When Pearl Harbor came, the whole country went to war. We’ve been to a lot of places since then, but the country didn’t go to war,” Craig said. “After Pearl Harbor, everybody went to war. Remember Rosie the Riveter? There were a bunch of Rosies. They built a lot of airplanes.”

After he graduated, he tried to get into the Coastal Guard Academy. 

He was turned down because he has flat feet so he enrolled in college classes.

In late 1942, he was drafted and assigned to the Army Air Corps, which years later would become the Air Force.

Basic training for Craig was in Miami, where the Army had taken over hotels on the beach to use as barracks and golf courses for training exercises.

The next steps for Craig were advanced pilot training in Valdosta, Ga., gunnery training near Panama City, Fla., combat crew training in Lincoln, Neb., and B-29 training in Clovis, N.M.

The B-29s were experimental at the time. They were the first pressurized aircraft and had the largest radial engines ever built. 

Those new engines had to be cooled to run properly, which didn’t always happen. 

Craig said during some of the flights, the plane would fly at treetop level for miles before being able to gain a higher altitude. Flights for other crews ended in crashes and deaths.

Craig called the training in New Mexico “harrowing,” but said at the time, he didn’t worry.

“Once you’re in the service doing something, being afraid doesn’t come to mind because you pick up on the fact that you’re there to do a job,” he added.

When the Army determined it had enough pilots and co-pilots, Craig completed training as a radar operator, which meant he spent his time during flights in a small, windowless compartment near the back of the plane.

After training was finished, Craig and his crew traveled back to Lincoln and hopped in Smilin’ Jack – a new B-29 – to begin a trip across the world with 10 stops before reaching Chakulia, India, which was part of the British Empire. 

It was the fall of 1944, and bombers taking off from that base could reach Japanese-controlled areas in Burma, Siam, French Indo China, Singapore and the Dutch West Indies, now Indonesia.

Smilin’ Jack and its crew also flew bombing missions from a base across the Himalayas in China, which was occasionally bombed by Japanese fighters. 

“The Japanese we saw were coming from bases in China,” Craig said.

The final base of operations for Smilin’ Jack was Tinian, an island 1,500 miles south of Japan.

One day in 1945, a unit arrived at Tinian and was immediately sequestered. 

Craig was intrigued. 

It turned out it was the 509th Composite Group, which dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and Nagasaki on Aug. 9.

“We knew some of the crew members because we had met them in training,” Craig said. “They knew they were doing something special, but they didn’t really know what special meant.”

Normally, bombs would be lifted and placed inside an airplane. However, Craig said the larger atomic bomb could not be lifted so it was placed in a hole in the runway and the plane was rolled on top of it. 

Craig believes without the atomic bombs, the Japanese would have never surrendered.

“They were very fanatical,” he said. 

Along with the 33 bombing missions, Smilin’ Jack’s entire crew survived several missions to drop supplies to American POWs and some close calls, including a a crash landing on Iwo Jima. 

That was the last flight for Smilin’ Jack, which was salvaged for parts.

After his discharge, Craig earned an engineering degree from Virginia Tech in 1949 and starting working as a mining engineer in the coal industry.

A decade later he saw the first high-powered diesel locomotive and he decided to switch to the cement industry.

“The railroads were once of the biggest users of coal,” Craig said. “I figured, if we’re going to lose that customer I’ve got to try something new.”

He is now the last surviving member of the Smilin’ Jack crew.

After years of family vacations along the Grand Strand, Craig and his wife, Lucille, retired and moved to Indigo Creek in 1993. 

Last month, Craig traveled to the Georgetown County Airport to see Doc, one of the last two B-29s still flying.

“That’s a beautiful airplane,” Craig said. “I’m always excited to see a B-29.”