Ken wrote:
The reports of the bomb doors "jammed open" don't seem to be quite accurate, although the film quality is just poor enough that one can't see if the doors are fully closed either. Reports of a failed fuel transfer pump seem more plausible, although we may never know the real truth.
This is actually a very good example Ken of just how much bad information is out there; perpetuation my lazy authors and "historians" in their books over the years - not just limited to this particular incident! Some of the more fantastic claims had Malo shot up over the target, bracketed by fire when landing, making his approach low over Japanese lines, landing on the "Japanese half" of the runway and rolling out to the "American side," etc and others had Marines running up to the B-29 carrying helmets full of fuel, and it goes on and on. It's not easy to discern fact from fiction in a lot of these works!
We can though say for certain 1) the bomb bay doors would not immediately close after bombs away, and 2) they could not transfer fuel. This is what the crew stated in interviews after the fact, but they did not elaborate on the causes.
Ken wrote:
The only sequence that I couldn't nail down was the initial flyby; gear down and very little flap extension. I almost wondered if that was their departure, but, as the film says, it may have been a flyby just to inspect the runway.
They made 3 passes before landing, one of which is seen in the beginning of the video.
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