With
last week’s celebration of our veterans still fresh
in our memories, one Valley Center resident remembers
serving with the brave men in the 38th Bomb Group, called
the “Sun Setters,” in the Pacific Theater
of World War II.
Second Lieutenant David Gunn was a B-25 pilot in the 405th
squadron that flew missions against the Japanese in the
South Pacific, including New Guinea, Borneo, and Australia.
“The 38th was formed in December of 1940, and was
split into four squadrons,” Gunn says. “The
69th and 70th flew missions in May and June of 1942, while
the other two squadrons, the 71st and the 405th, flew
to Australia in August of 1942. We were engaged early
in the war, but I was in training and didn’t get
to Australia until 1944.”
Once he got there, Gunn piloted his B-25 through a series
of missions in and around New Guinea until he returned
home in May of 1945.
One such mission, and one that Gunn recalls as his most
exciting, took place around New Year’s Day 1945.
Gunn and his crew joined 11 other planes on a bombing
run against a Japanese target on the coast of Borneo.
“I had already begun firing the twelve fifty-caliber
guns in the nose when I suddenly flew through the bomb
blast from a bomb dropped by the number three plane in
the flight ahead of us,” he recalls. “Mud
covered my windshield. From then on, I saw nothing of
the target but tried to stay low, for best protection,
by twisting my head from side to side to see trees on
each side of us.
“My copilot dropped the bombs by observing passing
targets through his side window. I didn’t know it
at the time, but the number two man in our flight was
blown out of the air over the target, possibly because
he encountered a bomb blast as the force was going up
while the blast I flew through had already expended its
energy and was falling as I went through it.”
Gunn and his crew managed to drop their payload, and he
even managed to clean some of the mud off his windshield
by reaching his hand out the side window. But the mission
turned out to be far from over for Gunn, as he and his
crew were instructed to keep watch over another downed
crew until the rescue plane, called a Catalina, could
pick them up. But since the Catalina had been called to
another rescue, Gunn and his crew couldn’t stay
airborne very much longer and he decided to stay with
the downed crew at all costs.
“About three hours after the first craft ditched,
my fuel gauges were bouncing off empty,” he says.
“ I circled this little island a few miles north
of Tarakan one more time to be sure there were no Japanese
personnel coming in that direction. I lined up parallel
to the shore of the island and made as near a perfect
ditching as there could be.
“We were in about four feet of water and stopped
about a hundred yards from an injured man floating on
a cushion. Our first effort was to reach the man on the
cushion, and it turned out he was still alive. We quickly
gathered all survival equipment and headed for the beach.
In two or three trips back and forth we managed to secure
two rafts as well as other emergency gear.”
From there, Gunn and the two crews sought shelter in the
swampy terrain of the small island, fighting off hunger,
mosquitos and jungle rats until help could come.
The crews also had to be wary of Japanese patrols in the
area, and at least one of the groups of enemy soldiers
came within 15 feet of the downed crews.
“The other pilots had been injured, so I was the
new [commanding officer],” Gunn says. “But
on New Year’s morning, we heard the drone of aircraft
engines, and soon, a big black B-24 came into view to
the south and we began to flash our mirrors and wave the
tarp. In just a few seconds, the [Catalina] came into
view close behind. It was the best New Year’s celebration
we had ever had.”
After serving with the Sun Setters, Gunn, who grew up
in Escondido, returned home to his wife, Katherine, finished
college and worked in the defense industry in Chicago
for five years before moving to Anaheim. The Gunn family
bought a home in Valley Center in 1975 and spent the weekends
in town before permanently moving down after David retired
in 1986. David and Katherine, who have been married for
66 years, have three daughters who live in San Diego,
Fullerton and Reno, as well as two grandchildren and a
new great-grandchild.
Gunn still gets together with other veterans from the
Sun Setters at reunions in various parts of the country.
The group last met in Honolulu last September.
“It’s so important for us to remember all
the experiences we had, and be able to share them with
the younger generations,” Gunn says. “I get
e-mails from lots of people who had relatives who flew
B-25s, and it’s such a wonderful thing to talk to
the families about what we were a part of.”
For more information on the Sun Setters, visit the group’s
newsletter Web site at www.38thbgpsun-setter.com.
