PLANE CREW LEADER WAS IN THE EYE OF THE STORM
Chelsea man served as chief alongside A-bomb planes
Charles F. Lanzillo had a front-row seat to the Atomic Age.
He was a crew chief on a B-29 bomber on Tinian Island, the launching point for the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
That tiny outpost in the Pacific Ocean “looked like the Garden of Paradise,” Richard Rhodes wrote in “The Making of the Atomic Bomb.” The Air Force transformed the island into “a miracle,” Rhodes added, creating the largest airport on the planet in preparation for the day the world would change forever.
“Everybody around the island was talking about it. We knew they had two bombs,” said Lanzillo, a 99year-old lifelong Chelsea resident who served as a B-29 Air Force crew chief during World War II.
“No one in the world knew what was going to happen when they dropped that bomb,” he said. “It’s why you had a lot of brass on the island waiting for that bomber to come home so they can find out what happened. What did the bomb do? Nobody knew.”
Almost 74 years ago, Lanzillo saw the USS Indianapolis in port. It arrived at Tinian on July 26, 1945, with a world-altering cargo: parts for the first bomb.
Its payload delivered, the Indianapolis met its cruel fate just days later, bound for Leyte Gulf in the Philippines to prep for the invasion of Japan. The Indianapolis never made it. Just after midnight on July 30, Japanese torpedoes scuttled the Indy, which quickly sank. Only about 900 of the 1,195 crewmen made it into the water. In the five days before the survivors were rescued, starvation, dehydration, and worse — shark attacks — left only 316 sailors alive.
“I had a picture of the bomb that cruiser delivered. What happened to those boys on the Indianapolis is a sad story,” Lanzillo said.
Little Boy and Fat Man — the two atomic bombs — were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on Aug. 6 and
Aug. 9, respectively. It was 1945 and then-Master Sgt. Lanzillo was there to see the B-29 bombers come back home to Tinian Island.
“Both planes left from Tinian Island. And it was only days apart. Three days,” Lanzillo said. “So everybody was buzzing all around the island.
“That was a very secretive group,” he added, saying the “brass” and scientists kept to themselves but the rumor mill was in full force on the island. “Nobody knew what that bomb was. What would happen, what it would do? Until they dropped it.”
But it was the one-two nuclear punch that ended the war.
Lanzillo is one of the Heroes of a Generation the Herald is profiling. He turns 100 in just a few months, but this retired printer for the Chelsea Record says he’ll never forget all those men who fought and died for their country.
“Just remember all those boys that died. They were all young boys who died in the war,” he said during a recent interview. The smell of fresh-cooked brownies filled the air in the Chelsea veterans’ home on Admirals Hill where we spoke. Lanzillo, a father of two daughters and a son, is upbeat about his long life and the way the world has turned out. He misses his wife, Dorothy, but he’s still quick to smile.
“I’ve lived a good clean life. Nice family. Good family growing up. Good neighborhood. Good, clean living,” he said, explaining his gift of longevity.
But when you drill down, the pride of place and the task at hand rises to the top. His solemn duty was keeping his B-29 bomber — named “Dynamite” by the crew — humming.
“I was a crew chief on a B-29 bomber. The government said to me, ‘that’s your plane, take care of it.’ You’re responsible for it and for 11 men every time it goes up,” he said.
And it “never” failed, he added.
Lanzillo was given a Bronze Star by the captain of his B-29. “He never told me why,” he added, proudly showing it off. It’s clear — it was for his dedication as crew chief.
“You worked every minute of daylight on that airplane. You had to give those men a chance to get back to the island,” he explained of his job keeping Dynamite roaring.
The B-29s were part of the Twentieth Air Force group in the Pacific. Bombing runs were at night and Lanzillo worked by day and watched his bomber take off and land and then got right back to work.
Once, the B-29 he was assigned to had to make an emergency landing on Iwo Jima — moments after the Marines had cleared the island’s lone runway. A fuel pipe had malfunctioned, but that’s as close as he came to losing a crew.
But the Pacific Theater, he said, was hell.
“We lost so many men — no boys — fighting for those islands in the South Pacific,” he said. “They just threw men into the service.
“I was 24 and a lot of these kids were 18 … young kids who hadn’t even started to live yet. I’ll be 100 in six months,” he added. “I still like a good steak. The Hilltop. Do you remember the Hilltop?”
But his memory of the Enola Gay and then the Bockscar, the two modified Superfortress B-29s that carried the atomic bombs, remains vivid. It ended the war, but that was never a guarantee.
“What would have happened if it exploded while taking off?” he wondered. He wouldn’t be turning a century old. The war would have claimed more lives. He wouldn’t be going out for a steak dinner.
“The second one we knew would end the war,” he added. “They never saw so many Marines gather at once to see that plane land. The second plane. It landed.”
He keeps a photo of that B-29 on his wall. It was flown by pilot Charles W. Sweeney of Milton, who died in 2004. It was, Lanzillo said, the moment when they could all dream again of a life back home.
“I love these soldiers,” he said of the “boys” who gave it all so he could see the other side of 100.
Hear more of Charles Lanzillo’s amazing story in a podcast at bostonherald.com. If you know a World War II story that should be told, email joed@bostonherald.com.