A Date with Danger.

Dick Uyehara had his share of adventure while in the Air Force

He was expecting an easy flight. But suddenly - bang - the left engine of his airplane blew up. The right engine jammed at 95 percent thrust.

First Lt. Masaru "Dick" Uyehara was in trouble. What had started as a routine flight turned into a nightmare for the veteran observer. He called in a "mayday" as his pilot fought to control the B-57 Canberra. Seconds later the jet plummeted toward Earth near Washington, D.C., at 600 mph.

Uyehara fought for his life and managed to eject.

That event in 1955 altered his way of life. He would later say for the better.

Life interrupted 

After the start of World War II, the Uyehara family left their home in Dominguez, Calif., avoiding internment in the relocation camps set up for Japanese-Americans. They worked as farm laborers in Idaho and Colorado and returned home in 1947. Young Dick entered Compton Junior College and earned an associate's degree in pre-dentistry in 1950. By then, war was raging in Korea.

"I worked at a cardboard carton factory, and the draft was hot on my tail," he said.

So he enlisted in the Air Force in January 1951 to avoid the Army. Private Uyehara wanted to become a dentist. More importantly, he wanted to fly. But not yet 20 and one-half, he was too young for the flight training program. Until then, he worked as a dental assistant.

But soon Corporal Uyehara got his wish to fly and became an aviation cadet. He went to navigation, bombardier and observer school at hot and humid Ellington Air Force Base, Texas, near Houston. When he graduated and pinned on his "butter bars," he went into the Reserve. After combat crew training, he went home and became engaged to his college sweetheart, Ten. Then it was survival school and on to South Korea.

As he recalls, he was "young and proud, but still wet behind the ears" when he arrived at K-9--no, not a dog kennel -- air base. It's what airmen called Pusan Air Base on the southern tip of South Korea. The busy airfield was home to the deployed 95th Bomb Squadron (Light). He said the unit "feared no death" as it flew menacing black A-26 Invaders into the night.

"This was before night-vision goggles," Uyehara said during a January visit to the March Field Air Museum in California. "During rail recces, we'd fly on moonlit nights deep into North Korea at 300 to 500 feet off the treetops. So low, anti-air-craft fire came down from ridgelines."

Although the flights were bone-chilling cold, he loved the attack aircraft. With up to 18 .50-caliber machine guns and an assortment of bombs, it "put a world of hurt on enemy trains and convoys," he said.

And that's just what they did flying between 2,000 and 6,000 feet on a road recce one night in July 1953. With pilot 1st Lt. John Wright and Airman 3rd Class Clifton Coppock, he flew what their boss later called the "mission of the week." They patrolled a main supply route north of the 38th parallel near Wonson.

"Luck was on our side," Uyehara recalls. The crew spotted a truck convoy. "And we blew the hell out of them." They destroyed 10 trucks, and secondary explosive fires lit up the devastated area.

Riding the Fails

Peering through the glass nose of an Invader on display at the March museum brought memories of when Uyehara knelt over the venerable Norden bombsite during night sorties.

"The only thing we could make out was the glint off railroad tracks," he said.

He recalled how trains would run for cover in tunnels. "We'd fly fast and low, straight toward a train tunnel. The trick was to skip 500-pound bombs into the openings without us slamming into the mountain."

Even simple landings in the A-26, Uyehara said, were heart-stopping when seen from the glass nose. "I felt like the pilot was driving right into the ground. Then the nose came up at the last second. Until then you'd be chewing your seat cushion."

Aircrews flew at least 25 missions before their tours were up. But Uyehara got a reprieve. The Korean War ended at midnight, July 27, 1953. Until then, both sides continued to fight. But, that was the last thing on the minds of aircrews. No one wanted to end up a last-day statistic.

On the final day, Uyehara flew his 18th sortie. "We used every bomb and bullet on the plane," he said. Then nearing the "midnight hour" they flew home, across the 38th parallel over the demilitarized zone.

"It [the DMZ] was normally a no-man's land because floodlights lit it up from the east to west coast," he said. "But that night, it was a sight to see soldiers in firefights right up to the last minute."

The zone dividing the two Koreas remains one of the most fortified in the world.

Fast forward

Uyehara returned to the States the day before Christmas. He married Ten and continued what he hoped would be a promising career. Then he was chosen for jet upgrade training to the Air Force's newest bomber, the B-57 Canberra, at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

He recalled memories of the aircraft while sitting on the fuselage of a B-57 at the March museum. Looking up to the sky, he said, "It climbed like a homesick angel."

The B-57 was the first light bomber that could loop and roll. Quickly its edge was found when training against F-94 and F-89 fighters of the Air Defense Command. The high-speed wings of the fighters lost stability at high altitude.

"But we would come around with our wings -- as big as a dance floor -- and it would be all over for them," said Uyehara, tapping his foot on the wing under him.

The new Uyehara family had not settled enough to set up a household. Teri and their three-week-old son, Steven, were in Gardena, Calif.

Uyehara was assigned to Hill Air Force Base, Utah, where he supervised 16 observers at the 761st Bomb Squadron. They eagerly awaited word to pick up their first five operational B-57s. When word came to get them, Uyehara assigned five observers to the team. But one dropped out, so he filled in. The aircrews went to the Baltimore plant to fly the planes back.

"On the ramp were five glossy black beauties rarin' to go," he said.

However, he learned there were questions about the jet's turbine engine compressors. So their first stop was Robins Air Force Base, Ga., for engine tests.

It was overcast and dreary when they took off in February 1955. The pilot, Capt. William Todd soared into the gray skies just before noon. Nothing felt wrong during the takeoff, and Uyehara got green lights for the post takeoff fuel transfer to keep the engines fed and the aircraft balanced. But, Todd said the tail felt heavy. He had to keep trimming the horizontal stabilizer to keep flying level. What they didn't know was the transfer pump was missing.

Then it happened. The left engine blew up. The wing was still intact, but absolutely nothing worked. On the right, the engine throttle controlling nearly 7,000 pounds of thrust was no help to the now severely tail-heavy tumbling mass of metal.

That was 46 years ago. But the experience still draws powerful emotions from Uyehara. He stumbles over words to describe the nearly 30 seconds between the explosion at 20,000 feet, and his ejection at 7,000 feet.

Although getting banged around, he kept calling "may-day." Then Todd signaled him to eject. "I blew the canopy and went first, not knowing which way I'd get shot out."

Uyehara was about to find out why nobody else had ever survived an ejection from a B-57.

His seat had an explosive charge that fizzled at first, but continued to build up pressure, slowly raising him up until the wind caught him. Todd didn't make it out.

"We didn't have self-actuating parachutes," he said. "So because I'm here talking to you is proof that I blew the explosive bolts to the seat, pushed it away and pulled my rip cord,"

Luckily, Guy Lewis Jr., an off-duty deputy sheriff was hanging diapers on the clothesline outside his home that day. He heard the explosion and spotted a parachute. He jumped in his cruiser and met the mangled airman when he landed in a tree about a thousand yards from his house. The bloodied Uyehara dangled from the tree, holding a tourniquet around his right knee. The bomber's horizontal stabilizer had tom-off his lower right leg.

"I kept telling him, 'I think I'm hurt really bad,"' Uyehara said. Then he started to fade in and out of consiousness. Lewis stood on the roof of his car, but still couldn't reach him.

"He had to keep yelling at me to keep me awake," Uyehara said.

Rescue crews freed Uyehara and rushed him to Bethesda Naval Hospital, 15 minutes away. He was in surgery for nine and one-half hours and suffered two cardiac arrests the first day.

When he awoke, there were flat sheets where his right foot would have been, and the other leg was a doomed mess with several fractures.

Briefly, "I had that sick feeling that my life was over," he said. Eventually he realized he would survive -- he had to survive.

Uyehara had eight reconstructive operations, but after eight months and little progress, he decided to get on with life and asked for his left leg to be amputated.

Traction weights pulled at the skin on his legs so it wouldn't draw up. Then he was in a body cast. Followed by 10 more months of agonizing physical therapy and five more operations.

Life triumphs

The whole time, Ten said she never doubted his drive and determination. He was never depressed.

"He never let it beat him." She said, although he was in great pain.

After being released he never used a wheelchair, preferring to walk -- unaided -- on prosthetic legs. He still does all the driving, Ted said.

The same drive to recover and provide for his family allowed him to focus on dentistry again. He started a dental laboratory in Hollywood, and became a dental technician, assisting dentists of Hollywood celebrities.

When he hung up his lab coat, he and Ten retired in Grand Junction, Colo. He wanted to try motor home life, and see the States.

Uyehara survived his date with danger. Today, he stands proud.

"I'm at peace," he said. "I feel better about myself today than at any other point in my life. I'm a very fortunate human being."

A lesson learned

First Lt. Masaru Uyehara -- born and raised in Southern California -- didn't know much about his great uncle in Japan. He did know that Sentaro Shimamoto was a vice admiral in the Japanese navy during World War II. But he wanted to know more.

So when he made a stop in Japan in spring 1953--while ferrying an A-26 to the Royal Australian Air Force at Iwakuni Naval Air Station -- he decided to visit him. He took a train to his relative's home near Hiroshima.

When he told his uncle who he was and why he was there, the old man burst into tears.

"First in gratitude to see someone from his family in America. And then because he saw I was an officer in the service of the United States," Uyehara said. His uncle thought there would have been retaliations against Japanese-Americans after World War II.

"He was relieved to see that wasn't true," he said. "Then he apologized, not only to me, but to all Japanese-Americans for having caused us grief in our country."

The flood of emotion surprised Uyehara who mentioned "that's not a Japanese trait."

During the visit, he learned much about his great uncle -- now a farmer. That he'd done his post-graduate studies in naval architecture at England's Oxford University. And that he had commanded a shipbuilding yard near Hiroshima. His uncle helped design the battleship Yamato.

And he learned that some of his family had perished in the atomic bomb strike on Hiroshima. Uyehara left forever impressed by the small and gentle farmer with the sharp intellect and impressive achievements.

That afternoon, he visited ground zero at Hiroshima. The devastation was evident. At the center, the lone skeleton of a building stood with stark vacant reality surrounding it. It's still etched in his mind.

"It ripped Out my gut as I stood there looking at this reminder of man's inhumanity to man," he said. "And knowing that the [family] blood which courses through my body spilled from unknown relatives in Hiroshima changed my life profoundly."