{"id":355002,"date":"2021-11-02T06:01:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T20:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=355002"},"modified":"2021-11-02T06:01:53","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T20:01:53","slug":"tinian-the-opportunity-of-a-lifetime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/tinian-the-opportunity-of-a-lifetime\/","title":{"rendered":"Tinian: The opportunity of a lifetime"},"content":{"rendered":"

If someone walked up to you on the street and offered you $10 million to point out where Tinian is on a map and what its historical significance is, would you be able to do it?<\/p>\n

If you can, congratulations, you\u2019re now a millionaire in this hypothetical situation. If not, here\u2019s your chance to learn about why this island is not only historically important, but also a special place for one airman.<\/p>\n

Meet U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Parker Dawson, a 6-foot Electrical and Environmental Systems Craftsman stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. His responsibility is to inspect, troubleshoot and maintain a variety of systems on the F-15E Strike Eagle.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandpa Charley and his crew were flying back from Japan after a bombing run and their bomb bay doors got stuck open, which created drag, making the airplane use significantly more fuel. This meant if they didn\u2019t find a way to close the doors, they would\u2019ve run out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific Ocean, Dawson said. \u201cSo the crew rigged some cables together, grabbed my grandfather by his ankles as he held another guy by his ankles to make a human chain to manually close the bomb bay doors. \u2026This is something you\u2019d expect from a Tom Cruise movie, but this was just one of my grandfather\u2019s realities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
U.S. Army Air Forces Sgt. Charles \u201cCharley\u201d Wilson, B-29 Superfortress tail gunner and flight engineer, left, pose for a photo on Tinian, August, 1945. U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Parker Dawson, electrical and environmental systems craftsman, 389th Fighter Squadron, right, recreates the photo of his grandfather as part of Operation Pacific Iron on Tinian last July, 2021. (U.S. AIR FORCE\/STAFF SGT. AUSTIN SIEGEL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His desire to join the Air Force came specifically from his grandfather, Charles \u201cCharley\u201d Wilson, who served as a Boeing B-29 Superfortress flight engineer and tail gunner during World War II, eventually commissioning as an officer and retiring in 1984.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandfather was a big part in my decision to join the military,\u201d Dawson said. \u201cOriginally I was going to join the Navy like my brothers did, but I moved halfway through the recruiting process and couldn\u2019t get a hold of the Navy recruiter, so I decided to follow in my grandfather\u2019s footsteps and become an airman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dawson\u2019s brother, Andrew, served in the U.S. Navy as an Aviation Electronics Technician and his other brother, Jamison, is currently serving in the Navy as an Engineering Duty Officer.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, whenever my brothers and I spent time with our grandpa, he would always share stories of his trips all over the world, show B-29 videos and talk about this little place in the Pacific called Tinian,\u201d said Dawson.<\/p>\n

He never thought he would get a chance to visit Tinian because of its remote location, but destiny had a special opportunity for Dawson.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy section chief came to me in June and told me there\u2019s a TDY opportunity to this tiny island near Guam, but he couldn\u2019t quite pronounce it right, Tiny-ind? Tyne-iend? So I corrected him \u2018Tin-Knee-An\u2019 and my section chief was like how do you know that? I explained to him about my grandfather and told him I\u2019ll be mad if I don\u2019t go!\u201d<\/p>\n

An island in the western Pacific Ocean, Tinian is one of 14 islands that make up a U.S. territory called the Northern Mariana Islands. Located northeast of Guam and southwest of Saipan, Tinian is only 39 square miles, but proved to be one of the most valuable locations in the entire Pacific WWII campaign. After it was seized by the allies on Aug. 1, 1945, it became the largest allied and busiest air base of World War II with six active runways. The B-29 Superfortress, the same aircraft Dawson\u2019s grandfather worked on, was continuously launched from Tinian to strike mainland Japan. Two distinct atomic bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, were loaded on Tinian, and after a 1,400-mile flight dropped on Japan, resulting in an almost immediate surrender.<\/p>\n

Dawson\u2019s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the island that his grandfather once walked came because of an annual U.S. Air Force exercise, called Operation Pacific Iron, which is a large-scale exercise over several different areas in the Pacific, including Tinian.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so excited to visit the places my grandpa talked about in his Tinian stories! I recreated versions of the photos we have of him on the island, and I even visited some of the places like this old power plant he used to talk about,\u201d Dawson said. \u201cUnfortunately, my grandfather passed away in 2017 so I couldn\u2019t share this moment with him in person, but I feel like this was my way of honoring a man who made a big difference in my life, and always taught my brothers and I to be curious about the world.\u201d<\/p>\n