He dropped on the target and let 'em fly. The bombs spun dowand Bush banked away hard to the east. No way he'd get to the rendezvous point with Melvin. Then, the plane shrugged with release, (^)
smoke was so bad he couldn't see the gauges. Was he climbing? Have to get to the water. They
were dead if they bailed out over land. The Japs killed pilots. Gonna have to bail out. Bush radioed
the skipper, called his crew. No answer. Does White know how to get to his chute? Bush looked
back for an instant. God, was White hit? He was yelling the order to bail out, turning right rudder totake the slipstream off their hatch...had to get himself out. He levelled off over water, only a few
miles from the island...more, ought to get out farther....that's it, got to be now...He flicked the red
toggle switch on the dash--the IFF, Identification Friend or Foe --supposed to alert any US ship,
send a special frequency back to his own carrier...no other way to communicate, had to get out now,
had to be ... NOW.
It will be seen that these versions contain numerous internal contradictions, but that the hallmark of
"red Studebaker" orthodoxy, especially after the appearance of the Mierzejewsky account, is that
Bush's plane was on fire, with visible smoke and flames. The Bush propaganda machine needs the
fire on board the Avenger in order to justify Bush's precipitous decision to bail out, leaving his twocrew members to their fate, rather than attempting the water landing which might have saved them.
The only person who has ever claimed to have seen Bush's plane get hit, and to have seen it hit the
water, is Chester Mierzejewksi, who was the rear turret gunner in the aircraft flown by Squadron
Commander Douglas Melvin. During 1987-88, Mwatched Bush repeat his canonical account of how he was shot down. Shortly before the Republicanierzejewksi became increasingly indignant as he (^)
National Convention in 1988, Mierzekewski, by then a 68 year old retired aircraft foreman living in
Cheshire, Connecticut, decided to tell his story to Allan Wolper and Al Ellenberg of the New York
Post, which printed it as a copyrighted article. [fn 8]
"That guy is not telling the truth," Mierzejewski said of Bush.
As the rear-looking turret gunner on Commander Melvin's plane, Mierzejewski had the most
advantageous position for observing the events in question here. Since Melvin's plane flew directly
ahead of BusWhen the New York Post reporters asked former Lt. Legare Hole, the executive officer of Bush's, he had a direct and unobstructed view of what was happening aft of his own plane.h's
squadron, about who might have best observed the last minutes of the Barbara II, Hole replied:
"The turret gunner in Melvin's plane would have had a good view. If the plane was on fire, there is a
very good chance he would be able to see that. The pilot can't see everything that the gunner can,
and he'd miss an awful lot, " Hole told the New York Post.
Gunner Lawrence Mueller of Milwaukee, another former member of Bush's squadron who flew on
the Chichi Jima mission, when asked who would have had the best view, replied: "The turret gunner
of Melvin's plane." Mierzejewksi for his part said that his plane was flying about 100 feet ahead of
Bush's plane during the incident - so close that he could see into Bush's cockpit.
Mierzejewki, who is also a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, told the New York Post that
he saw "a puff of smoke" come out of Bush's plane and quickly dissipate. He asserted that after that
there was no more smoke visible, that Bush's "plane was never on fire" and that "no smoke came
out of his cockpit when he opened his canopy to bail out." Mierzejewski stated that only one manever got out of the Barbara II, and that was Bush himself. "I was hoping I would see some other
parachutes. I never did. I saw the plane go down. I knew the guys were still in it. It was a helpless
feeling."
Mierzejewski has long been troubled by the notion that Bush's decision to parachute from his
frankie
(Frankie)
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