Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 14:37:23 -0600
To: nicap archive
From: fran ridge <nicap@insightbb.com>
Subject: Aug. 28, 1945, Iwo Jima; Leonard Stringfield sighting
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General Douglas MacArthur sent in a task force of
150 men to prepare the way for his main body of
troops. On August 28, they landed at Atsugi
airfield, near the city of Yokohama, under the
command of Colonel Charles Tench, who was the first
American officer to set foot on Japanese soil.474
For the first wave of men flying into Atsugi, it was
a historical moment, shared in spirit by all the
American forces. But as the task force approached,
something occurred that was not on the agenda.
In broad daylight, Colonel Tench's men were
flying towards Japan. As a member of the first
troops into Japan, Sergeant Leonard Stringfield was
packed in a C-46, number 304. On board was "special
equipment" that he and nine others with the Fifth
Air Force intelligence team were bringing with them.
Their flight plan was depart le Shima, make a short
stop at Iwo Jima, and then fly on to the Atsugi Air
Field on the island of Honshu, Japan.
They were flying at 10,000 feet, between the Japanese islands of le Shima and Iwo Jima, when their "C-46 suddenly developed trouble in the left engine." Suddenly, "the plane dipped," and the engine struggled to keep working. It "sputtered oil" and the C-46 began to lose altitude, dropping approximately 25-50 feet. It was at this moment that Stringfield saw something that completely caught him by surprise. Looking out his "starboard-side" window, he was "shocked to see three teardrop-shaped objects." Looking carefully, he determined that the "three unidentifiable blobs" were "about the size of a dime held at arm's length." They were "brilliant white, like burning magnesium." Flying in a "tight formation," the objects "were
traveling in a straight line through drifts of
clouds, seemingly parallel to the C-46 and equal to
its speed." Stringfield became alarmed; they "seemed
to be intelligently controlled." He was convinced
they were not U.S. aircraft reflecting the sun. In
fact, they were like no aircraft he had ever seen.
They were extremely advanced; Stringfield saw no
wings or fuselage, and there was no outline of a
solid object behind the mass of luminescence. Being
familiar with the latest intelligence reports and
summaries describing the shape and characteristics
of Germany s jets and the Japanese Bakas, he was
quite sure they were not enemy jets.
Suddenly, Sergeant Stringfield's attention was
roused by a commotion coming from the cockpit.
Seconds later, the alarmed co-pilot made his way
back to where Stringfield and the rest of the men
were sitting. Looking at everyone, he said, "We're
in trouble," and then handed Harry Berning a pair
of binoculars to help him find a place to land.
Berning was "plenty scared."The plane was going
off course and they were flying through heavy
clouds. Stringfield was on the plane's left side
and Berning was on its right, so Berning was
unaware of the objects.
Sergeant Stringfield continued to watch.
Whatever they were, he was sure they were
"responsible" for the plane's behavior. The entire
event lasted about thirty seconds before the three
objects "disappeared into a cloud bank." When they
pulled away, the C-46's engine "revved up" and
returned to normal again. The plane immediately
began to gain altitude. Whether coincidentally or
not, the C-46 fully recovered from its engine
problem and was able to safely arrive at Iwo Jima
without further incident.
During the trip's final leg, Sergeant
Stringfield watched the clouds closely, waiting to
catch another glimpse of the objects, should they
return. They did not. Getting off the plane,
Stringfield wanted to report the sighting, but Iwo
Jima was a bustling staging area and "there was no
real place to report anything" of that nature.
The flight crew was off somewhere getting
briefed, so Stringfield was unable to question the
pilots. With no time to waste, he and the rest of
his team immediately conducted a major check-up of
their C-46. This was when he noticed that "oil had
splashed all over the side of the craft from the
left engine." Other than that mess, there were no
other apparent problems with their plane, and they
were soon on their way.
A couple hours later, Stringfield and the
rest of the first echelon Air Intelligence
members arrived at the Atsugi Air Drome. Again,
there was no time to waste. Preparation for the
arrival of the second and third echelons of the
intelligence mission was a priority.
Unfortunately, by the time Stringfield had a few
minutes rest, it was too late. The pilots were
long gone, whisked away to debriefing, so he was
unable to corroborate anything he had witnessed.
Stringfield learned he was the only person in
the rear of the plane who saw the strange
objects, but he believed the pilot saw them as
well. They were both on the same side of the
aircraft. lie felt the pilot must have seen
something, especially when the engine started
experiencing trouble.
Sergeant Stringfield thought that after the
pilots were debriefed, the S-2s would
interrogate him and the other team members about
the objects, but that never happened. So, he
never filed an official report. Though he was
unable to catch up with the pilots, he was sure
they had reported the objects. Much later,
another source told him that the
"magnetic-navigation instrument needles" in the
cockpit "went wild."
StringfiekTs foo fighter sighting is
remarkable in many ways. First of all, the Fifth
Air Force had established complete air
superiority in the area. There was no way that
the Far East Air Forces were going to allow a
formation of advanced Japanese aircraft to
operate near this intelligence mission. If the
three objects were Japanese aircraft, were
somehow lucky enough to get off the ground, and
then managed to fly over the lone stretch of
open water between le Shima and Iwo Jima, their
mission had proven futile. If it was a last
ditch effort to strike a U.S. warplane, the
Japanese pilots had passed on a golden
opportunity to attack Stringfield's defenseless
C-46.475
Keith Chester, STRANGE COMPANY, 191-193 |