"... Some of the pathfinders from the 58th Bomb Wing were less fortunate. Captain John E. "Jack" Siler and his crew were among them. Siler's crew was one of the original crews of the XX Bomber Command  and had participated in most of the missions flown from the India and China bases. One of the best crews in the (444th) group, they had been selected to leave India six weeks before the rest and flew with the 313th Wing until rejoining their own unit (678th BS 444th BG) after its arrival. Siler had named his first airplane after his wife, Eileen; the plane had gone through four "editions". (It was customary for a pilot to transfer the name of his aircraft to another plane if the original plane became unserviceable, was transferred to another crew, or was lost.)  Princess Eileen, flown by another pilot, had been lost over the Hump a year before. Princess Eileen II and Princess Eileen III were still operational in the 678th. Siler was flying Princess Eileen IV. In past months the plane had been featured in newsreels, recruiting posters and bond drives.

     Princess Eileen IV was the first pathfinder from the 444th BG to take off, and it was among the first airplanes of the 58th Wing to reach Japan. Another pathfinder, arriving over the mainland soon after, saw a flash and a glow in the sky over Tokyo. It was Siler's airplane exploding. Another pathfinder, Captain Bright and his crew, also veterans of the air campaign from India and China, who had taken off just after Princess Eileen IV, disappeared without a trace."

- "Flames Over Tokyo" E. Bartlett Kerr

* John McEachern, a new pilot in the squadron, was taking an orientation check ride with Siler on this mission and was one of the crew members who managed to bail out of the Princess Eileen IV. McEachern was captured by a Japanese soldier who apparently thought he had captured "MacArthur" and took McEachern home to show off his prize for a few days before turning him in to the authorities. McEachern spent the duration of the war in a POW camp and appears again in Clarence "Tiny" Lamar's letter regarding his landing the first B-29 on the Home Islands 28 August 1945. - J.S. McCall

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