Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Joseph Beswick was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
My name is Sara Jones.
My name is Jackie Wilson with the interviewers.
Joseph Beswick.
And we are recording this at Fairport High School in New York.
Do you want to state your birth date and address?
January 21st, '20.
And which war were you involved in?
World War II.
And what branch of service?
Air Corp.
What was your rank, and where were you stationed?
Staff sergeant.
And where were you stationed?
I was stationed all up in Europe.
Okay.
But I was stationed in a lot of places in the States here.
Uh-huh.
First place I went to is -- oh, _____. We went to the school over at _____ college, and flew in Dansville. We were transfer liaison pilots. But that kind of washed out, and then I was sent to Atlantic City, New Jersey for basic, and I only spent two weeks there. I was lucky. It's a six week thing in the Army. So I only spent two weeks there, and from there I went to Amarillo, Texas to airplane mechanics school when I was 17.
Wow. All over the place.
And Maryland to Las Vegas for gunnery school.
Okay.
And from there I went to Florida for overseas training in Tampa.
Lots. That's a lot of places.
And heck, we finished our training and camp. We was assigned to a B-17. We went up to Georgia and picked up the B-17, and we flew that up to Goose Bay Lab Resort, and we stayed there for about a week. From there we went Iceland. _____ Jet I think they call it? And we just spent the night there, and from there we were supposed to go to England, but the field that we were supposed to land at in England was -- it was snowed in. So they sent us to a field in Scotland. And then we went by bus or train, I forgot which, to England. And then we were supposed to have been stationed in England, but the leg crews down in Italy was -- the 15th Air Force was building up down there, and in Italy at the time. So they needed crews down there. And we went down -- well, we flew down a transport from England, and we landed in Casablanca. Spent the night in Casablanca, and from there we flew over to Perry, Italy, and from there up to _____, Italy, which was our base, and we spent the rest of the war there.
Wow. When you stopped before you made it to your final end.
Oh, yeah.
So were you drafted or did you enlist?
No, I enlisted.
You enlisted. And where were you living at the time?
In Leroy.
And so did you grow up in Leroy?
Yeah, I lived there all my life.
Okay. Do you recall what your first days in service or like what were they like?
Well, the first day really was over when I was a seal flying over there, but when I got in the regular Army, I guess it's called, yeah, I remember that. They sent me down to -- it was way out on the tip of Long Island and it was cold. It was snowing. And they told us not to bring any clothes with us which I didn't. I thought I was going to freeze to death, but we finally got our Army clothes issued to us so it was okay.
What was your experience with boot camp and training? Was that hard to get through or...
Well, we went to Atlantic City for boot training, and, no, it was just routine stuff. I think what they were doing is more or less teaching to obey orders and stuff like this. And the daytime we would be all drilling, and calisthenics, and getting our shots and...
Yeah. So you said that you served in World War II, right?
Uh-huh.
What exactly was your job or assignment?
I was an engineer gunner on a B-17 bomber.
Can you tell us what some of your -- couple of your memorable experiences that you remember the most?
Yeah. I think probably one of the first ones was when -- was when we first started bombing I was flying as a left waist gunner, because we had two engineer gunners on our plane, and one of us had to take the left waist. And I flew left waist about three missions, and then next mission they checked me out to take the bombadeer's place. Well, I always remember that because we went to Vienna, Austria, and there was about 400 flight guns up there, and I'm sitting right up in the nose of that plane, and I see this big clump of ... ahead of me. I didn't even know when I was first seeing it. I always see it off to the side, you know. I have always seen it off to the side, you know, but I had never seen it like that. They was putting up a barrage right over the target, and we had to fly through it to hit the target. So that was one that I remember.
Wow.
And another one was Christmas day. We went to _____ Czechoslovakia, and I was flying as a waist gunner that day and I -- the right waist gunner was actually our balls turret gunner, but they had taken a ball out of the plane that we were flying to put a radar in place of the ball that day, and the ball turret gunner was taking the place of the waist gunner, and he got hit by a flack. I took care of him until we got him back to Fullerton in the hospital. I thought he was going to lost his arm first because when the flack hit him I was handing him a box of what they call mineral. It threw it out, and I threw the flack down, and a piece comes through, it must have missed his face because it went up through this way and took his right shoulder --
Oh, wow.
-- to about there, and knocked out his heating suit. See, we wore heated suits. And if you broke a hole anyplace in it, it doesn't make any difference where, the whole suit would swell. So I knew his jacket was shot out. So I took my jacket off, and plugged up in place of his to keep him warm because it was probably 40, 50 below up there.
Oh, gosh.
See we were at about 25, 26,000 feet. And we finally got him back, and then they sent him right back to the States, and they saved his arm for him.
That's good.
And then on another mission we went to _____, which was 75 miles from Berlin, and we were bombing, I think it was an oil refinery there, and we got attacked by German enemy 262 jets, and they knocked down six planes, and they knocked down four out of our squadron or seven. I was one of the lucky three.
Wow.
And then about two days later we went to Berlin. I thought this is going to be worse, you know. But it wasn't. It wasn't as bad as the _____ mission. And I guess that's about it --
Okay.
-- as far as I can remember.
Okay. All right. Now we are going to do something about -- actually, were you awarded any medals or citations?
Yeah. Oh, I got the air medal. It was (Inaudible.) clusters, and, of course, I got the good conduct medal for being a good boy, and I got a citation from a country of Greece. I got a medal for -- was in six different campaigns, and -- oh, I got one from New York State. You know, here a few years ago they give them out to guys that have done things like. So I got that one. I got a couple more, but I can't even remember what they were. They didn't amount to much.
So like about your life during your service, how did you stay in touch with your family?
By mail mostly.
Did you write them letters and stuff?
Yeah.
Okay.
We had that e-mail at the time.
Was that easy to transfer letters, and how long would it take?
It didn't take long. When you send a letter in like that they put them into a machine, I guess, and put it into a roll, and when it got to the States it was developed, and sent out to the people. But it didn't take long.
Oh, that's very interesting. Okay. What was the food like?
Pardon?
What was the food like?
Well, in the States it was all right, but over in Italy it was lousy. All they had was, in Italy, was spam, dehydrated potatoes, powdered eggs, orange marmalade, and I guess that was about it. The only time we got a decent meal, and we missed one at Christmas, because that was when that airman got hit, and so we missed that meal, and the only other good meal that we had, I think, was on Thanksgiving. But the rest of the time -- I can't look at spam today or orange marmalade.
So how long was your service?
Three years.
Three years?
Uh-huh.
Okay. How did people like entertain themselves? Like how did you keep busy when you were...
Well, overseas there really wasn't much to do. They made up baseball teams, and playing cards, and there wasn't much over there where we were. We were down around the -- I don't know if you know the boot of Italy? You know, it comes up, and then this corkscrew sticks out there?
Uh-huh.
That's where we were.
Wow.
Near Fallujah And, of course, all that country was farming country. Very few people around. Very small towns. Nothing building.
So what did you do when you were on leave?
Well, I did some good leaves. I went to -- well, we went to Naples, and from Naples we took a boat, and went up to Capri, and my radio operator was a type of a guy that he liked to be going and doing something all the time. So him and I decided that we didn't want to stay in Capri for a week, you know, it was too quiet. So we took the boat back to Naples, and from there we went out to Pompeii. We stayed in Pompeii. And then about in the middle of my mission, I don't know how they done it, but they made up a crew. The rest of the crew I didn't even know, but they picked myself and our radio operator, and made up a crew, and we flew over to -- well, we landed in _____, and then from there it was a refuel, and from there we went to Cairo, Egypt, and we seen -- oh, we went to Tel Aviv, Palestine where all the trouble is today. And -- oh, the Holy Land. We went through the Holy Land. Seen that.
Wow.
And that was about it, I guess.
Do you remember any of the really humorous or unusual events that went on while you were there?
Well, the only one funny thing that I can remember is when we were down in -- this was in, I think it was in Florida. We had one guy that slept in our barracks that -- boy, nothing woke him up. You know, so one night, heck, he went to sleep, and about four of us picked him up, cot and all, and set it outside on the _____ log, and in the morning I get to hear somebody hollering, and I got up and looked out the window, and the officer had him standing at attention out there in his shorts. But there wasn't too much humor in the Army.
Uh-huh; yeah. What did you think of officers or your fellow soldiers?
Well, in the Air Corp it was more like a family. There was ten men on a crew.
Okay.
And there was four officers, and six enlisted men. And we didn't yes, sir, no, sir, and all this stuff. And we called each other by their first names, and things really changed when you got overseas, and got out of the United States. Here he had us salute everybody and that, you know, officers and -- but overseas they forgot that kind of stuff.
The next questions are going to ask about after the service. And do you recall the date your service ended when you found out?
Yeah, I was down in Columbus, Ohio. They sent me down to Columbus. There was a small air field down there where they were training pilots, and they sent me down there to fly as engineer, and while I was there the war ended with Italy -- or it was Japan, and it was shortly after that I got discharged. But when it ended in Europe I finished my missions, and there was about three of us that all finished our missions that day, and we had put in 35. Well, we went down and asked the first sergeant if we could have a referral because we knew it was going to take them awhile to get our papers straightened out, you know, and get back to the States. And he made us out a bunch of passes, and he said I can't give you a referral because each unit was allowed so many referrals. And he says we're full, but he says I will fix you up with passes, which he does. So we went to Naples, and spent the night in Naples, and while we were there we see all these trucks coming out with machine guns out and everything, and, you know, I considered what was happening. Well, what had happened was they had captured Mussolini, and then took them in the streets, and shot them, and had them hanging up by the heels from the town there. But they were afraid that the town people were going to riot, you know, which they didn't. There wasn't much for Mussolini anyway. And then we went up to Rome, and I didn't -- oh, I didn't see the Pope, but I seen where he come out, and makes his speeches, and then the Coliseum, and so I got around quite a bit. I seen quite a bunch of stuff, which I wouldn't have seen if I weren't in the Army.
Yeah. So what did you do in the days and the weeks after you got...
Well, I come home. I didn't hang around much. I went right to work. And I had one job that I probably would have stayed on only I caught my hand in the machine, and that was a result of it. So I decided I would get out of there, and I went to work at my uncle's who had a sheet metal business in Rochester. Near what they call the bull's head. Do you know where the bull's head is? Do you know where Saint Mary's hospital is?
Yeah.
Well, they call that the bull's head. I don't know why. But he had a hardware store there, and so I went down there to work with him for a year or so, and then I went to work for a hardware store in Leroy. I worked for them for a couple years, and then I went into business for myself, and I stayed in business for myself. Plumbing business.
Did you make any close friendships while you were in the service?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Lots of them.
So do you still keep in touch with them or...
Yeah, mostly my pilot. He lives in a little town out in Pennsylvania. Right now he's in Florida. He goes to Florida every winter. He called me just a few days ago from Florida. He hadn't heard from me in quite awhile, and he was wondering if I was dead or alive.
So did you join any veterans organizations?
I joined the American Legion when I first got out. And then -- oh, when -- I think I was about 62 or 63, I started having a lot of back trouble. I went up to the vets, and tried to get in the vets. They wouldn't take me in. You know, all they said is we advise you seeing your own doctor. And here at the vets at that time I found out afterwards it was all full of alcoholics. They were taking them guys in, and they wouldn't take us guys that had, you know, something really wrong with them. And so I went and I asked the American Legion if they could help me and they couldn't. So I went to the Disabled American Vets and they helped me. So I dropped out of the Legion, and I took out a life membership with the American Vets. So I still belong to that.
When you went to work you were what age when you got started?
Well, I went in when I was 22, and three years I was 25.
Okay. So did your military experience influence your thinking about war, about the military, in general, or...
No. No. In fact, this business that's going on right now, I agree with the President a hundred percent. They have to get rid of them guys. He is like Hitler.
Yeah.
If you kids ever seen any of these things that went on over there and out in these...
Yeah. Yeah.
I got a film at home, the horrors of war that showed all of his, you know, the death camps, and stuff that they had over there in Germany, and they had a lot of them. I didn't get to see that stuff, see, because anytime I was over in Germany I was five miles up in the air, and dropping bombs, and the infantry, and all those guys got to see that stuff.
So did you witness any kind of hand to hand combat or...
No. No. The only combat we had was fighter planes trying to knock the bombers down, you know. And the flack. The flack was the worse. I didn't mind the fire so much as I did the flack.
Have you attended any reunions at all or seen anyone?
Yeah, I attended about four of them. They had one in Buffalo. See, they try to have it in a different place every year. They have one every year. They started in '84, I think it was, and I think -- I forget where it is this year. In fact, I just got a newsletter from them telling me where it's going to be this year but I can't remember now. But they put the 43rd Bomb Group, which I was in. The (Inaudible.) met down at a field in Georgia. They did have a reunion down there too, down in Georgia. They had one in Buffalo. And I think last year they had one up in California. This year it would be on this end. Because everybody has a chance to get to them, you see. Because we were from all over. Like our pilot was from Pennsylvania. Co-pilot was from New Jersey. Navigator, he was from -- the only two from the state was the pilot and the navigator. They were from Pennsylvania. And the commandeer was from Virginia, and then the rest of us, like radio operator was from Texas, and one guy was from Montana. I was from New York, and one was from Chicago. And this is why they try to do this. They didn't want to have a disaster happen all in one state, you know. So they put the guys all up, and if the plane went down they can -- you know, it wouldn't make such an impact on the people.
So do you have anything that -- did you bring anything to show us or...
Yeah, I got a book there. It's sort of a -- something that's put together that starts from the time I got into the service --
Oh, wow.
-- until I got out. Oh, here it is. Oh, it's not over here. What are you doing sitting there all by yourself?
Oh, I'm okay.
I'm doing a talent show.
I'm enjoying listening to your stories.
Oh, here's what I looked like before I went on my missions, and this is what I looked like after my missions.
Oh, my goodness. Wow.
That was in Somalia.
So you're 22?
Probably when that was taken -- I think that was taken in Italy. Oh, I was probably 24. 24 or 25. Those two.
And you're 25 right there?
Uh-huh.
Wow. You look much younger.
This I picked up in Egypt.
Oh, wow.
It's something the way it's staged, you know, because a lot of what we had heard was in pieces and I'm surprised how --
Yeah, it stays very well.
Yeah, it stayed so nice.
Okay.
This is a group I belonged to. (Inaudible.) group.
Okay.
This is something I put up and I wrote it myself. I had it made and put up. See, in the little town of Leroy we lost 31 men.
Wow. 31.
This is all of them. This is a bomb group insignia and this was our scriber. All our planes were named after -- remember Yule Abner?
Yeah, the great (Inaudible.)
Well, Annie Yokum.
Are these excerpts on the -- like the newspaper articles?
Oh, this one here, I don't know what that was about. I saved a lot of stuff that -- like this here. Now, this tells all of the people -- see, there was 50 million killed during World War II, and this tells you the number that was killed in each country. Like Belgium there was 200,000, and the Netherlands 206,000, but the biggest one was Poland.
Oh, Poland.
6.6 million, and China was 2.2 million.
Soviet Union.
Italy didn't lose many. 220. 220,000.
So did any of your friends or people that you know, like, did you -- did they die?
Oh, yeah. We lost a lot of guys in the war. Well, we lost one plane. One day we were on a mission, and I just happened to be looking at the plane as it took a hit from an anti-aircraft shell, and it just immediately burst into a ball of flame, and it probably had a thousand gallons of gasoline on him at the time. Of course they had twelve, 500 pound bombs on it. And he just started to roll over a little bit and exploded, and when it actually exploded there was just two pieces floating down. So there went ten guys that I knew, you know.
Wow. Oh, my gosh. Is that an article?
Well, this was Christmas. (Inaudible.) Long Island.
Oh, wow.
And this is my flying time and everything as a seal.
Oh.
And this is my brother, younger brother, and he is still alive. Him and I enlisted together. I went and enlisted, and when I got home and told my mother she got kind of mad about it, and she said why didn't you wait and ask like the rest of them? And, well, when he come home she told him what I was going to do. So the next day he stopped by seeing me where I was working, and say you care if I go down and enlist with you? So the two of us enlisted together. And this was my older brother. He went in about the same time. He was drafted. My father had passed away before that.
Oh, so you and your brothers went in, and your mom, was she by herself when you weren't there?
Yeah, we left her all alone. Kind of rough on her. And she lost him oh, two years before the war.
She must have been proud of you boys though?
Yeah. So she lost -- well, four of us left her, you know, and -- in just two years. It was rough on her.
Yeah.
This I got to tell you about. I come home after -- I got a broken arm, you can't see it there, they took it out of the sling. But that little dog, when I come home, my bedroom window is warm in the summertime, and that dog showed up out in my backyard. My mother was telling me this. And she says that dog used to sit up, and if you coughed he'd look up at the window, and always waited for me to come down, and he come there all the time I was home on my furlough, and when I went back the dog disappeared and never showed up again. It was odd, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah, her and I were both admiring.
Whose lock of hair is that?
That's the little girl's hair.
Oh. Who was she?
Of course she's a grandmother today, and these are -- that's my brother Francis and Bill.
Oh, wow.
This is a class that I went through in Amarillo, Texas, going through that airplane mechanic school.
Uh-huh. So did all those people stay with you when you went overseas?
No. No. We all split up.
Oh.
Yeah, I have never heard from this guy since Japan. Lots of fellas. This one here, Barnes, we were all well acquainted with him, and I never heard from him. Little gal I met down in Texas.
Did you ever see her again?
Huh?
Did you ever see her again?
After I got out of gunner school I went to Las Vegas. She had moved from a little town in Texas where she was -- lived near Amarillo, and moved up to, you know, I can't think of it now. Name of the place. But on the way home from my furlough I stopped and seen her, and that was the last that I ever did see her. And this --
Oh, that's Las Vegas?
Yeah, I -- I didn't get to take any pictures so I bought them.
Those are post cards?
And this here was -- oh, Washington. I think it was Easter Day. Nobody around.
Wow.
This was during the war.
Oh, wow.
And this guy's in here. This is our orders for overseas. So I kind of kept track of everything. When we landed in Iceland and this is England.
Wow.
And the reason I put this in here you can see we were lined up here.
Oh, my goodness.
That's the way the crews lined up. They had their lineups the same way here. Pilot, and co-pilot, and so on, and so forth.
Wow.
And this lady here was a wife of the guy that I was telling you about that got hit, and he had died from cancer. So she used to come to the reunion. She's gone now.
Oh, wow. That's really cool.
This is the other guy. He took my place and got hit. I had a -- we just had gasoline stoves. Homemade gasoline stoves, and you had to be careful lighting those because those things will blow up in your face. Well, one blew up in my face one night, and so I went over to the doctor's to get some salve or something to put on it. And he says, are you scheduled to fly tomorrow? And I said, yeah. And he says well, I have to take you off. He says, your face will be blistered. So I went back and the guys says what happened? And I told them. And he says, well, wake Woody up. Maybe he'll fly in your place because we were anxious to get our missions done because after 35 missions, see, you get to go home. And he took my place, and wound up in the hospital. He got hit.
Oh, wow.
This is -- and this is (Inaudible.) where he got hit.
Was he okay or...
Yeah, he made out all right. He died here a few years ago. He had an -- oh, he had a bad heart attack.
So because you had that fate -- because you had blisters on your face, you didn't go up and he --
Yeah, we had to wear oxygen masks.
Okay. Oh, wow.
That's why I'm deaf, you know. Those high altitude flyings. But we had a flight surgeon. In fact, I think it was the one that took me off of flying that day. He went to a reunion, and he says everybody I see in here has hearing aids on. We got to looking into it, and found out this high altitude flying, see, we weren't -- we didn't have pressurized cabins at that time.
Oh, see, because like my ears hurt after I fly like just a regular plane.
Yeah, that was terrible. You know, the pressure in there.
Yeah.
Well, does it ever bother you -- you ever notice going up and down a hill?
Yeah, they pop.
How your ears will pop?
Yeah.
Well, that's just that little distance. Well, when we were on our way overseas. We flew at night, and there was nothing to do, and so I went up to the radio room, and I sit down and went to sleep. I had an oxygen mask on because we flew at high altitude because there was German subs sitting out in the ocean and taking shots at planes that flew over. Well, when we started down from the high altitude, boy, I woke up, and felt like somebody had an ice pick in each ear. I thought I was going to have to go back up again because it hurt so.
Oh, my gosh.
But I got real close and...
Yeah.
This is our colonel. He was the head of our group.
Uh-huh.
This is our crew. We just come back from a mission. There's our junk laying out there.
So were your brothers, where were they put?
Francis, the younger one, he wound up in France in the Ninth Air Force. He didn't fly. He was a clerk, I think. My older brother, he stayed here in the States until the war was overwith. He was in the medics, and after the war with Europe was overwith and Japan they sent him to Japan. So he spent some time over in Japan.
Wow.
This here's what happens when an 88 hits a plane.
Oh, my goodness.
There's a bullseye. Killed them both. See them? There was two waist gunners. One on each side, and then there's a radio operator up in here. A ball turret down in here, and killed these three men.
Oh, god.
And it stuck them all in the turret, and they couldn't get them out.
Did he die?
No. That pilot flew that plane five hundred miles back to base, and landed it, and got them out.
Oh, my gosh.
A guy by the name of Captain Glass.
Oh, wow.
This here is when he wound up here back in the States.
(Inaudible.)
This is what we looked like when we got to the plane. That was taken at high altitude. We had to have our oxygen masks on and everything.
And so on the side of the plane that was like an empty space like a doorway?
Well, in the back of the plane there was a door, yeah, but this is a window where the gun is.
Uh-huh.
See, here is the gun. Here is the cartridges.
Oh, yeah.
And that was a position that I was flying that day. I think that day I believe this turret gunner flew the ball turret. You know what a casa is?
No.
That's the term for house.
That was your house?
That was my house, yeah.
That doesn't look too bad. How many people would be in there?
In that one there was six of us.
Uh-huh. Was it --
At first they give you just a tent. A six, I think they call it a six man tent, but later on we hired an Italian, an old fella, to build our tent for us, and then we stretched the top tent out over the top and...
So was it comfortable or was it...
You know, we didn't mind it. (Inaudible.) Yeah, this is that plane that was...
There's another one with a gun.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah, the season shells come all chained together.
Yeah, machine guns. Wow. Look at that.
This one's a -- people over there -- this kid here used to come to our town all the time. I wonder what ever happened to him.
So were those planes, right there, were those the ones that you flew?
That's the one that we'd fly in, yeah.
Okay.
I took that picture in the States. Down in Florida when we were on a practice mission.
Uh-huh.
I guess this was taken in Naples.
Oh, my goodness. (Inaudible.)
And this fella here, I met him in Florida, and then he wound up in a camp near me, and he stopped and see me one day.
Oh, my gosh.
And there's that dog.
Did you find him when you were over there or...
Oh, she just come to us, and we kind of adopted her in the tent, and we just -- she stayed with us all the time.
Is that a school?
That's out on Capri. Near Pompeii. It's an orphanage.
Oh.
That was taken in Naples. I think that's taken in Naples.
Uh-huh.
That's Capri. (Inaudible.) a big a hill. I couldn't see land around there for a week. This guy is a real operator. Him and I took off and went sight-seeing.
Oh, there are fisherman?
Yeah, lot of fishermen out there in Capri.
So while you were in the service did you get paid at all?
Did I what?
Did you get paid while you were in the service?
Yeah. I think after I got overseas I was drawing overseas flight pay and my regular pay. I made about a hundred dollars a month.
Wow.
This is the gal in Bethlehem, and they just ringing in Christmas time. That's the tomb of Christ. And this is -- both of these are Jerusalem. There's old Jerusalem and a new Jerusalem, and there was a big wall in between.
Oh, you got to see the pyramids.
Uh-huh.
Wow. (Inaudible.) So while you were traveling all around Europe, and were there like hostilities toward you or did they (Inaudible.) thought?
There was in certain places but it wasn't bad.
Hey, that's the Nile River.
Yeah, that's the Nile.
Did you get to ride a camel?
I didn't ride one. I just got up on one. I had my picture taken. We did ride horses but...
What was your favorite place that you visited? Like that you got to see. What was the one? What one did you like the most that you got to see?
I think Tel Aviv. It's more my city. It was a modern city at that time.
Yeah.
And this fella here, his name is Moses. And we got acquainted with him. He was a very intelligent man, and he can speak seven different languages.
Wow.
And we got to talking with him, and so we hired him to stay with us while we were there. And it's a good thing because he showed us a lot of things, you know, that we wouldn't have seen. Kept us out of a lot of trouble, and there'd be places he told us don't go in there, you know.
That you might have gone into?
Yeah. And these girls here, we met down there. They were like -- did you ever hear about the Andrew sisters? Probably you heard them sing.
The Andrew sisters?
Yeah. Well, they were popular during World War II. They were like the -- well, these are the Givenson sisters. They sang, and they put on shows, and they met them down in the park, and got to talking with them.
So while you were in the service did you have a girlfriend or a wife or anything?
No, not really. I think I got into a little too much booze that day. And this here is the tomb of Christ.
Oh, my gosh.
And this is all -- these are pictures of --
Tel Aviv.
That's around Tel Aviv. It was nice there.
Yeah, it looks very (Inaudible.)
And this is just stuff that I picked up. Here's -- well, that's -- that's a tank factory that -- (END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE.) (BEGIN SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE.)
-- and test them. I thought it was a race track for a long time.
Yeah, it kind of looks like a race track.
Yeah.
Is that where you had to bomb?
Yeah, the factory is right in here.
Uh-huh.
That's the bombs.
Oh, my gosh.
And this is why you hit them with two of them, you know, missiles.
Oh, god.
That was a bartender. (Inaudible.) Henry. That was pretty well shut.
Where --
This is my -- like that was my fourth mission.
It's 27.
This is my -- that was my 27th mission.
Were you in Italy or...
Huh?
Where were these missions in? In Italy or...
No, this is Berlin here.
Uh-huh.
And it was the longest mission that was flown in Europe. We got citations for it. We went from (Inaudible.) to Berlin and back again, and it was really a long ways.
Oh, my gosh.
And this here was a bridge down here across this river.
Uh-huh.
So they got that pretty good. You can see all the bombs hitting there.
Oh, my god. And that was your last mission?
No, I believe it was -- you know, it was my last one. Uh-huh.
Wow. (Inaudible.)
And these were the jets that are attacking. This is a German jet.
Oh, my gosh.
This is our fire protection here is the B-51 Mustang.
How did you get a picture of that?
Oh, I got that out of a book.
Oh, okay. How many people did they fit in there when you went on missions?
When we went on missions it was about 27 planes, and there was ten men in each plane.
Wow.
So there was four squadrons, and seven planes to a squadron. One squadron would be flying, and the other would be the lead. The lower left, and the high right, and we called them tail end Charlies back here just below the lead squadron a little bit. But we were a tight group for protection against the fighters.
Oh, wow.
And that's the last of them, and that's a lot of stuff. My mother saves all the papers.
Wow.
And that's a B-51 Mustang.
So these are all the newspaper articles? Did you receive an award?
Huh?
Is that you receiving an award?
Yeah. Yeah. That's Colonel Burton.
Oh, wow. Well, there's another one about you and your three brothers in the Air Force.
Yeah, this is all of my brothers and myself.
Oh, wow.
This is where I got (Inaudible.) that air medal that he was putting on.
Oh, wow.
And this is -- well, this is one that I didn't tell you about. This is a citation for valor. They sent it to me about three years after I got out of the service. I couldn't figure out why. The reason I think they sent it to me is they were trying to get me back in to go to Vietnam or at that time --
Korea?
Korea, yeah. And that was the one -- that was from Greece there.
Uh-huh. Why did they give it to you?
Well, we helped get the Germans out of Greece. We bombed up there when the Germans, they had taken over Greece, and we went up with bombs, went up and threw bombs, and this is a citation for helping them out.
Oh.
And I don't know -- now our plane was the Galloping Ghost, and a guy took that picture down at Dayton, Ohio, down at the museum out there. That was part of our plane, I don't think so. See, they brought all of these B-17's back in chunks and this.
Yeah.
And the guy that towed this one back asked if he could have the art work off of it, and after he died his wife donated it to a museum down there.
Oh, that's neat.
And here's my discharge. And this was a memorial down in Dayton, Ohio. They put up the 43rd bomb group. This is what's on the plate.
Oh, wow.
And I guess that's about it. Pictures taken afterwards.
Yeah.
Oh, this is the -- you heard of the Tuskagee Airmen?
Yeah, I heard about that.
Well, they used to escort us. This is a color group, and they flew B-51's and they were our escort.
Oh, wow.
Well, I got to disagree with one thing as they say, they say they never lost a bomber to an enemy ace. And, well, we brought seven of them in one trip, and there were six of them, I think.
Oh, wow. (Inaudible.)
And some (Inaudible.) again.
(Inaudible.)
(Inaudible.)
Swinging in photos?
Some pieces (Inaudible.)
Yeah.
Yeah, this is just (Inaudible.) This is a fella that I -- I still keep in -- he's from Pennsylvania.
Uh-huh. Oh, my goodness.
This is my wife.
Oh, so did you meet her afterwards?
Huh?
Did you meet her afterwards?
Yeah. Uh-huh.
Okay.
We were married close near to 50 years before she died. He's gone. She's gone. She's gone. She's gone. There's only this three left.
Oh, my goodness. Is that a new bomber?
Yeah, that's the one we had over in Tennessee. I took that picture over there.
Oh.
This is our navigator. Must have been a Christmas thing going on there. And this is what it looked like when he -- I was sitting in that seat that I was telling you about. It was a bombadeer, and this is the navigator back here.
Wow. Cool. Was it kind of close quarters?
Huh?
Was it close?
Oh, yeah.
Kind of cramped?
Yeah. Yeah. He was a real good friend of mine over in Italy there. Him and I traveled around together all the time. He's gone now. And this is just a little bit of everything now. This is a map.
Oh, is that where you bombed?
A bombing map, yeah.
Oh, wow. Were all your missions to bomb?
I don't know if they were all the missions or not, but this is a map of a target area.
Oh, wow.
And the navigator had to pick up all the bombadeers and the navigator or what, but we were just bombing that day. Oh, that was rolling. Yeah, that was rolling.
Wow. So is that what you used is this kind of map to figure out what you were bombing that day?
Yeah. Uh-huh.
Okay.
And I don't see that race track down there but...
Well, maybe it's too far up here or something. Wow. (Inaudible.)
Well, here's -- we got an outline here, and that's the target area right there.
Uh-huh.
And two days later we went beyond that up to Berlin.
Oh, wow. Was that a long flight?
Oh, eight hours and something. And probably about six hours of -- on oxygen.
Oh, my gosh.
It's what -- it'll wear you down, you know.
Yeah. You can't sleep or...
No.
Wow.
That's about it, I guess.
Is there anything else that you would like to add or comment on or...
No, I guess not.
Well, thank you, very much. It was really an interesting interview.
Yeah.
Thank you, very much for taking your time to talk to us.
Sure.