Claude V. Allen

Claude V. Allen is a decorated U.S. military veteran and Purple Heart recipient who honorably served in the United States Army Air Corps and experienced combat in the Pacific theater of operations during the concluding stages of World War II.

Allen was born in June 1924, and grew up in Richmond, Virginia alongside his three older sisters. From a young age, he displayed an impressive degree of skill with his drawing ability and went to school to specialize in Mechanical Drawing. During the early years of the war, Allen was working as a draftsman at the Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia. Like all able-bodied men at the time, he had registered for the draft; but, due to his defense work and employment status, he was deferred. After having his name selected for a second time, Allen decided to respond to the call and waived his deferment to defend his country.

On July 14, 1943, Allen reported for duty at Camp Lee in Petersburg, Virginia, where he went through basic training and received his military branch assignment. Recalling his childhood admiration of flight and aviation, he requested the U.S. Army Air Corps. What is now the United States Air Force was, at the time, part of the Army.

The luxury of receiving your pick was something most draftees were not fortunate enough to receive, as most were sent to the front lines as Infantrymen. Allen was delighted when he got word to report to Miami Beach, Florida, to become an Air Force flight cadet. He was the first member of his family to serve in the U.S. military.

At the age of nineteen, Allen adjusted quickly to the structure and discipline of military life. Following six months of rigorous physical training and schooling in military tactics, he graduated from the Academy and proceeded to the next segment of his training, at San Antonio, Texas, where he expected to be trained as a Pilot, Bombardier, or Navigator for flight missions. Allen’s cadet class was “washed out,” however, due to large-scale cutbacks and a high rate of applicants for the Air Corps at the time. Not becoming a pilot is something he would reflect on gratefully later in life.

Allen was reclassified and began training as a radio operator and mechanic at another school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Corps also deemed that the duties of this position would include serving as the flight crew’s First aid medic during operations in the air. Other responsibilities of the radio operator focused on operational communication using Morse Code. He found himself subconsciously tapping along to the distinctive tone of the dots and dashes from his training long after his service.

Following his first flight training, Allen was ordered to Lincoln, Nebraska, and received his official assignment to the 20th Air Corps, where he would serve as the radio operator/mechanic onboard a Boeing B-29 Superfortress. After traveling once again, this time to New Mexico, he was introduced to the eleven-man crew he would be serving with. The hot desert environment presented intense training conditions for several months, as the crew awaited their orders. After picking up a newly assembled B-29 plane in Kansas, the crew flew west to California for refueling, and then on to Hawaii and the small island of Kwajalein for additional fuel. The young crew was eager to finally put their long months of intensive training to use as they headed towards their destination, Tinian in the Marianas Islands.

The recently recaptured island territories served as active airfields and living quarters in Quonset huts for soldiers and officers. The living arrangements were, Allen recalled, “as comfortable as a foxhole is for infantry” and provided with a cot, footlocker, and place to hang clothes. It was important to keep morale up, so the base and surrounding areas offered a variety of entertainment options, like movie screenings and U.S.O shows to boost spirits.

One of the first responsibilities of a crew before embarking on their initial combat mission was to create and name a “nose art” design for their plane. Each member entered a name suggestion, and then the crew voted. Allen distinctively recalled the last song playing at the farewell banquet before deployment was “Stardust,” which inspired his submission of “Starduster,” that became the name selected. It inspired a nose art painting, which, along with a large circle and an “X” on the center of each tail and the plane number 35, decorated the B-29. Nose art created a distinctive appearance recognized in many World War II books published about bomber commands. 

The 5th Bomb Squadron, 9th Bomb Group, 20th Air Corps flew its first combat mission out of Tinian on May 6th, 1945, in a fleet of twenty-nine other B-29s. Each plane was armed with six two-thousand-pound mines with water soluble fuses, which were engineered to dissolve underwater and to detonate once a ship passed over them. The mines needed to be dropped from extremely low altitudes, between 500-1000 feet. Targeting the North Bay of Kyushu, the planes laid the mines in the harbor, where they encountered significant Japanese resistance, yet received minimal damage. The crew’s next two missions were also mine dropping operations in Japanese harbors. The mine dropping missions were conceived by the Navy as a form of secondary combat tactics to disrupt Japanese commerce.

During operations, Allen sat by the bomb bay doors to make sure they were clear before a drop over the targets. One memorable drop that stuck with Allen was when the crew hit a Japanese ship in the harbor with a bomb in an impressive display of accidental accuracy for the B-29s. The missions were often long, spanning seventeen plus hours, most of which was spent flying to and from the target zones. The flights would take off in the middle of the night from their island bases and fly for hours to Japan.

The squadron flew missions roughly every third day, with days off on the island providing rest opportunities. Living and working conditions aboard the B-29s presented challenging obstacles for the crew, with long strenuous hours sitting in one position, and limited space taking its toll on their bodies. Allen and the rest of the crew maintained a good attitude throughout, however, recognizing their important contribution to the war effort. On the positive side, the planes were pressurized, and temperature-controlled. Other minor luxuries included Army-issued peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and all the pineapple juice the men could drink.

The crew’s first daylight bombing mission was a memorable one for Allen.  On June 5, 1945, “Starduster” and thirty-nine other B-29s flew to Kobe, Japan’s fourth-largest city and a major industrial center. One of the engines on Allen’s plane was leaking oil, which left a visible black streak on the underbelly of the craft. Positioned on the outside edge of the formation, the plane began to lag the rest. The “Starduster” quickly became a target for enemy fire. As the radio operator, Allen was the only one who did not have a specific task while flying over the target area, as he had to maintain radio silence. He sat in the navigational astrodome and called off the approaching fighters for the gunners. Projectiles were flying. Some hit the astrodome, and one hit Allen in the arm. His responsibilities of acting First aid man quickly kicked in, as he received word over the “throat communication” rig around his neck that two men had also been hit at the back of the plane. The Radar Operator, 2nd Second Lieutenant Richard Hughes, was killed from an exploding antiaircraft shell that hit his stomach with shrapnel, while the Tail gunner sustained minor injuries.

“Starduster” and the rest of the fleet split up as it was “every man for themselves” as they flew back to Tinian. Because of engine damage, the crew needed an emergency landing. Thankfully, after eleven hours of flying on one good engine, the recently captured island of Iwo Jima was in sight. After a difficult landing, with several trucks damaged on the ground, the plane touched down safely. The squadron sustained significant losses and lost nine B-29 bombers during their campaign over Kobe. Tons of incendiary bombs had been dropped, and sixteen Japanese fighters destroyed. While the loss of their crewmate weighed heavily on the minds of Allen and his crew, they recognized this was the cost of freedom and part of their duty to serve. Allen always believed even through such difficult times that he would return home.

Allen would continue to fly eleven additional combat missions in the Pacific theater following the events of the daylight operation. While most that followed were routine in nature, they all left a lasting impression on his personal experience of combat. Although the crew had to constantly handle the expected challenges of navigation, high fuel consumption, and dangers of flying over the night sea, they were proud of their contributions to help end the war. Allen’s most admirable mission came after the official end of the war, on September 2, 1945, “Starduster” embarked on its sixteenth and final operation, as the crew delivered over six thousand pounds of critical supplies to a POW camp, Zentsuji. Flying as low as five hundred feet above, Allen could see the U.S. prisoners waving up at the first sign of hope they had seen in months. Even during this peacetime operation, Allen’s last mission was less than routine, as one of the engines caught fire forty miles out from Tinian and almost forced an emergency jump. Thankfully, the fire was able to be controlled, and the crew was able to safely return to base.

Because of the government’s point system to get servicemen home following the end of World War II, those who flew more missions earned more points and could return sooner. Allen had a short wait; and, during this time, he continued to fly several short missions within the area. One of them was a search and rescue for a high-ranking officer who had gone missing.

Allen had seen enough combat and eagerly looked forward to receiving the clearance to go home. After sailing aboard a U.S. Naval troop transport, he returned to the West Coast of California, as the warm embrace of the Golden Gate Bridge welcomed the vessel home, making “it all worth it”.