“Living On and Under the Wing” A Biography of: 1st Lt. Joaquin Castro 7th and 13th Army Air Corps 42nd Squadron Eleventh Bomber Group WWII Pacific Campaign His Life and Service for our Freedom July 4, 2008 By Arnoldo Guerrero Jr. Living on and Under the Wing 2009 by Arnold Guerrero
[email protected] Most images courtesy of Wikipedia, and are used under their GNU Free Documentation License and noted on pages 160-163 Other images used by permission. See page number 160- 163 for credits. 2 Dedicated to my Father (Ret.) 2nd Lt. Arnoldo Guerrero 1939-2006 49th Armor Division Army National Guard Dad Dad’s Tank and crew just won Top Gun competition at Ft. Benning GA (top). Dad and I (bottom) 3 4 Table of Contents Preface 7 Getting Started Not Easy 12 Life before the Air Corp. 14 Training with the Air Corp. 22 Hawaii Here I Come 39 The Attack on Pearl Harbor 45 Preparing for War 54 Hawaii in 1942 (January-April) 59 On Captain Hall’s Crew 66 Midway 68 Leaving Hawaiian Home 72 Busy-Busy-Busy Month of August 76 Calmer September 83 October Skies 87 New Zealand in November 91 Another Christmas Away from Home 96 Final Days 107 Final Mission 117 Photo Gallery 122 The Crew of Brothers 137 Transcribed Flight Log from Journal 146 Newspaper Article 150 A School Honors his Name 153 Bibliography 161 Appendix : A-2 Report 166 5 Lt. Wuertle “Kayo” Sgt. Raymond “Bud” Heilman Lt. Carl(Kayo) Wuertele and Sgt. Raymond (Bud) Heilman and crew of 42nd were friends of Joaquin.