Crew 7

Members were assigned to the crew in mid 1944 while at Smoky Hill Army Air Field in Salina, Kansas. They trained there and at Batista Field in Havana, Cuba until March of 1945. From Kansas they went to Mather Field in Sacramento, CA and then on to John Rodgers Navy Base in Hawaii. Their next location was Johnson Island and then on to Eniwetok, Kwajalein. Finally; North Field, Guam. Chester Juvenal tells this about Crew 7's activity and the where abouts of "Old P-7" at the end of the war: This may be helpful in trailing the where abouts of "City of Laredo": When the war was over the B-29s and their crews were to fly back to the USA. Realizing that anything could happen dealing with so many planes the plan was developed to send an especially fitted out B-29 to the Pearl Harbor area (John Rogers Air Base) to act as an "Air-sea Rescue Unit". Guess who got the duty? None other than P-7 with its sophisticated radar equipment. We remained there on alert round the clock (mostly playing bridge) for the entire movement of "The Sunset Mission" as it was called; returning all flyable planes back to San Francisco. When our duty was complete our original orders were to fly the plane back to GUAM! Well, when that time came our flight engineer reported to me that the plane had a severe landing gear problem that would take some time to repair! As this was relayed to our headquarters on Guam, back came orders that when the gear was back in operation that the plane should be returned to the USA, following the a same procedure as the Sunset Mission. Needless to say the gear got operable in short order and back home we came, seeing the welcome home sign hanging from the Golden Gate bridge and upon landing at San Francisco and deplaning was the last time we saw the City Of Laredo". I think all of us were only interested in getting discharged and back home to civilian life. Let someone else take care of her!

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