 For several days, the pilots and the crews rest while the planes are serviced. Lieutenant Power and his squadron then fly to Saipan and the Marianas, which had been taken from the Japanese six months earlier. A major airfield was constructed so B-29s could use it as a base for bombing missions to Japan. This was a round-trip flight of 2,900 miles, and many a crippled B-29 didn't make it back to Saipan.