a VIP passenger on this flight which gave the crews excellent familiarity with airfields, flight conditions and navigational problems unique to the Caribbean. The Squadron received a single Boeing B-17B Flying Fortress to augment its four B-18As by 25 August 1941 and, on 28 September 1941, deployed to Beane Field, St. Lucia, in the Antilles, from Rio Hato. By January 1942, unit strength at Beane Field consisted of but four B-18A's and a single B-18, where the unit was attached as an clement of the Trinidad Base Command. In May 1942, the Squadron was formally assigned to the Antilles Air Task Force/Antilles Air Command, still at Beane Field, and, in October 1942 the squadron was relieved of its mission and ordered back to the United States at Orlando Army Air Base, Florida. Its personnel and B-18s were reassigned to other units. At Orlando AAF, the squadron was re-manned and re-equipped with B-24 Liberators was assigned to the Army Air Force School of Applied Tactics, training aircrews in advanced combat tactics. For the next sixteen months, squadron pilots developed new tactics, tested equipment, perfected glide bombing techniques, and trained crews in high-altitude precision bombing. Eventually the squadron received B-17 Flying Fortresses, B-25 Mitchells and B-26 Invaders as part of the training program. B-29 Superfortress operations against Japan In February 1944, the 5th was again transferred, without personnel and equipment to Dalhart Army Airfield, Texas then to McCook Army Airfield, Nebraska. At McCook Field, the 5th and its sister squadrons received new Boeing B-29 Superfortresses. Squadron crews spent the next six months training in their new airplane. When training was completed, moved to North Field Tinian in the Mariana Islands of the Central Pacific Area in January 1945 and assigned to XXI Bomber Command, Twentieth Air Force. Its mission was the strategic bombardment of the Japanese Home Islands and the destruction of its war-making capability. It flew "shakedown" missions against Japanese targets on Moen Island, Truk, and other points in the Carolines and Marianas. The squadron began combat missions over Japan on 25 February 1945 with a firebombing mission over Northeast Tokyo. The squadron continued to participate in wide area firebombing attack, but the first ten-day blitz resulting in the Army Air Forces running out of incendiary bombs. Until then the squadron flew conventional strategic bombing missions using high explosive bombs. Re-equipped with incendiary bombs, the squadron returned to attack Tokyo's wooden