Gunner in Squadron Disputes Bush on Downing of Bomber
By The Associated Press
Published: August 13, 1988
The former airman,
Chester Mierzejewski of Cheshire, Conn., said that the plane was not engulfed in flames, as the Vice President has recounted, and that Mr. Bush might have saved the lives of two other men on the plane had he tried a water landing.
In his autobiography, Mr. Bush wrote that his Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber was hit Sept. 2, 1944, in an attack on a Japanese radio installation in the western Pacific's Bonin Islands. Puff of Smoke Recalled
''Smoke poured into the cockpit, and I could see flames rippling across the crease of the wing, edging toward the fuel tanks,'' Mr. Bush wrote. He said he finished dropping the bombs and then, losing control of his plane, ejected over the ocean after radioing his gunner and radioman to jump. He said he got no response and presumed that the men were dead. Mr. Bush's decorations in the war included the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Mr. Mierzejewski, who was the rear turret gunner on the squadron commander's plane, said he was about 100 feet ahead of Mr. Bush's aircraft and saw only a brief puff of smoke. ''No smoke came out of his cockpit when he opened his canopy to bail out,'' Mr. Mierzejewski said.
A report signed by the squadron commander and an intelligence officer on the loss of the plane says ''smoke and flame'' engulfed the engine, according to The Post.
The Post said other squadron members disagreed about whether Mr. Mierzejewski would have had the best line of sight on the Bush plane.
Steve Hart, Mr. Bush's press secretary, told the Post on Thursday that any suggestion that Mr. Bush's account was inaccurate was ''absurd.'' CONSISTENCY CITED
At the Mierzejewski home, a man who answered a telephone call and identified himself as Mr. Mierzejewski's son, Mark, told The New York Times that his father was exhausted from answering reporters' calls and could not come to the telephone. He said that the account given to The Post was consistent with what Mr. Mierzejewski had said for years and that he had given his own version publicly only ''when he heard other accounts he said were off base.''
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/13/us/gunner-in-squadron-disputes-bush-on-downing-of-bomber.html
Specifically, Mierzejewski said Bush's plane "was never on fire" and that only Bush bailed out of the plane.
However, Mierzejewski said in his account, which first appeared in Friday's New York Post, that "no smoke came out of his cockpit when he opened his canopy to bail out."
Mierzejewski contended that if Bush had attempted a water landing, the two men could have been saved, if they were still alive.
He also took issue with Bush's saying that he was "lucky" that he was rescued by the submarine, the Finback, that happened to be in the area. Mierzejewski noted that his own pilot radioed the submarine with Bush's location and then repeatedly circled Bush, indicating that help was on the way.
The Navy confirmed that Mierzejewski served in the Navy and that he was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross on Oct. 25, 1944, in the area of the Philippines. Bush won that decoration for his action in the Sept. 2 incident.
http://articles.latimes.com/1988-08-13/news/mn-194_1_bush-spokesman
= new reply since forum marked as read
Is he fucking nuts? Very few water landings end up well.
