Charles R Reyher

Former Major Charles R. Reyher was an Aircraft Commander of a B-29B Superfortress with the Guam-based 315th Very Heavy Bomb Wing of the 20th Air Force. The 315th Wing consisted of 125 B-29Bs. The Wing arrived on Guam in June 1945 with 12,000 support personnel, and saw constant action in the "Air Offensive-Japan", until Japan's surrender by radio on 15 August 1945. The B-29Bs were special aircraft, stripped of all guns except for a tail cannon, but with a top secret radar bombing system aboard....See more

Former Major Charles R. Reyher was an Aircraft Commander of a B-29B Superfortress with the Guam-based 315th Very Heavy Bomb Wing of the 20th Air Force. The 315th Wing consisted of 125 B-29Bs. The Wing arrived on Guam in June 1945 with 12,000 support personnel, and saw constant action in the "Air Offensive-Japan", until Japan's surrender by radio on 15 August 1945. The B-29Bs were special aircraft, stripped of all guns except for a tail cannon, but with a top secret radar bombing system aboard. Shortage of fuel had caused the rapid collapse of Germany, and the Wing's mission, which was the destruction of the Japanese oil refineries and storage facilities, would help bring Japan to her knees. This is the story of one pilot's experience as a part of the 315th that flew only at night, and not in formation, and bombed by single precision attacks. This Wing flew the last and longest mission of World War II and became the subject of a book and a TV documentary. After the war, the author capitalized on his three and a half year World War II experience by serving as an airline captain with Trans World Airlines for 35 years. He was qualified on all of TWA's routes, domestic, international and around the world. He retired as Captain on the world's largest airliner, the Jumbo B-747, in 1982. See less