Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Ernest Gallego 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.
August 1st, 2005. And this is the beginning of an interview with Ernest Gallego, located at the office of Congressman David Dreier in Glendora, California. Mr. Gallego is 79 years old and born [birth date redacted]. My name is John Winkle, and I'll be the interviewer. Mr. Gallego, can you start off by giving us a little bit of background, where you were born and where you grew up?
Yes, very briefly. I was born in East Los Angeles of immigrant parents, legal immigrants. I came from a family of six boys, no girls. I was number four in the pecking order. I went to grammar school in East Los Angeles. The school still stands. Riggin Avenue, R-I-G-G-I-N. From there we went to James A. Garfield High School, East Los Angeles. At that time, Garfield went from B7 through A12. They went A and B. It was a six-year, what they call middle school now, junior high and high school. I graduated in the summer of '43. They used to have summer and winter classes. I participated in sports in school, track and cross country. I was not fluent, and I couldn't speak English when I started kindergarten. Nothing but Spanish. Okay? My father died on the 24th of January 1942, just about six weeks after Pearl Harbor. It left my mother a widow with six young boys. None of them were in service. The oldest one, Frank, who is still living, incidentally, became the sole support of the family. He went to work for a rendering company to keep the family in food. Oscar and Hector, number two and number three, were in the same class, summer of '42, same Garfield High School. They were going to graduate the week after my father died. My father had bought a new suit to go to the graduation; he was buried in that suit. The two boys, number two and number three, had to come straight home, obviously, one week after their father died. No celebration, no nothing. Within the year, all three of my older brothers went into the service. Hector was sent home from replacement depot with a bad knee. He had a trick knee, so he had to come home. It's a good thing because he supported my mother all through the war. Frank went into the Seabees voluntarily, the older one. Oscar was drafted. He ended up as - I guess you might call him -- he was a special services enlisted man. Ended up in France during the war. I was in the 11th grade when this broke out. When I graduated from high school at the age of 17 and a half, a neighbor and I, same age, went to the recruiting -- we both wanted to fly. We went to the recruiting station to enlist. We were afraid the war might end before we could get a piece of the action. They couldn't take -- the Army couldn't take -- it was Army Air Force in those days. There was no U.S. Air Force. They couldn't take you at 17, but they could enlist you and wait until 18 to be called. Lastra, my friend, who was also 17, was told that there was a Navy recruiter down the road, down the hall, and the Navy and Marines would take you at 17. He says, "I'm going to go in the Navy, Ernie. I can't wait." He ended up as a gunner on a torpedo airplane in the Navy. Okay? I turned 18 on the 14th of November, as you indicated. And by the end of the year, I had my orders to report for induction. I was mustered into the Army at Fort MacArthur, San Pedro, California. Do you want me to go into the basic training of it?
Please tell us a little bit --
I was sent to Buckley Field, Colorado, just outside of Denver, for basic training. It was eight weeks of basic training for Air Force people. We went through that. And we went through what they called psychological test for pilot training, navigator training, or bombardier training. And we went through what is called a psychomotor series of tests to see if you were physically competent to learn how to fly airplanes. We went through the depth perception deal, which means you pull strings and you tell the examiner when those two airplanes are level. And I said, "Okay. They're level now." There was a colonel, older colonel that was examining me. He says, "Come over here, Sonny." I was 18. He was an older guy. He came around. Those airplanes were that far apart. He says, "Could I see the glasses you're wearing?" I says, "I don't wear glasses, sir." He says, "Well, you should." That was the end of my aspirations to be a flyer. Okay? I was given an option of going to radio school and then to gunnery school or straight to aerial gunnery school. And I said, "How long is radio school?" "Radio school is going to take 12 weeks. Gunnery school is eight weeks." I says, "Send me to gunnery school direct." I was afraid the war would end before we got summoned in. And we went to Kingman, Arizona, for aerial gunnery school. The first time I had ever set foot on an airplane. I got insanely sick the first couple of times, but we got used to it. After gunnery school, we were sent to what they called Plant Park in Tampa, Florida, for assignment to a permanent crew. We were there about ten days. We were given a furlough, a 14-day furlough. So I spent five days in the train coming home from Florida to LA, another five days going back on a train. Sitting up, incidentally. So I spent four days at home on leave. That was in June of '44. That was the day of the landings in Normandy, June 6th. I'll never forget that. Anyhow, from Tampa, Florida, they assigned us to a permanent crew. You have pictures of my crew. And that was -- we were going to be a source of - brothers of ten, a band of brothers for the rest of the war. We went as a crew to Gulfport Field in Gulfport, Mississippi, for about ten weeks, at what they call RTU, replacement training unit. It's a combat crew training to work as a crew. From there we went to a port of embarkation in Hampton Roads, Virginia. I told you I had a -- quite a coincidence because there I met a first cousin who was in the paratroopers. We were there a few -- about ten days. We sailed together on a vessel called the Athos II. It was an old transport, I guess, in peacetime and served as passenger ship. It was German built. And it was being operated by the Free French Navy under the French vessel. It took 16 days to -- we didn't know where we were going until we were halfway over. All the navigators on these 50 air crews that were on board would shoot the stars trying to determine where we were going, but they couldn't tell until about halfway across the ocean. Finally they said, "We're not going to England. We're too far south." And pretty soon we saw the Azores, went through the Strait of Gibraltar. Now we knew we were going to Italy. We landed in Naples. And I guess it was late October of '44. And we went to a replacement depot in - outside of Caserta, C-A-S-E-R-T-A, Italy. We were there about ten days, rolling in the mud. It was raining every day. From there we were assigned to a permanent bomber unit. We took a cattle car train to go across the boot to the Adriatic side. We were in the Mediterranean side. We went over to the Adriatic side of Italy, a little town called Foggia, F-O-G-G-I-A, in Italy. And that's where we landed. And we got there about midnight. We were told go into any tent that you want and just sleep until morning. It was raining. So we got into there. The people that we disturbed their sleep at midnight were going to fly the next day, so they grumbled and cussed at us for disturbing their sleep. But anyhow, the morning, still raining, we had to go out as a group and pick a plot of mud in which to pitch a tent. And the truck came over and threw some stakes and some canvas at us. They said, "Okay. This is your house for the next year." So together in the rain, all six of us had to put up a tent. And that's where we lived. You have pictures of the tent. So that's about it. I don't know what else I can tell you about my background. We had -- being a family, we had six siblings. When we left for the war, the two younger boys were still in -- they didn't call it middle school. They called it junior high in those days. They were still in junior high. Six years later, they were of age now for military duty. And number five and number six, Sergei, as we call him, Sergei, Sergei was drafted into the Army. He served in the -- with the first cavalry division. Saw combat in Korea. And Eugene, the youngest one, did four years in the Navy, most of the time on the USS Valley Forge, which was a medium-sized aircraft carrier. And he too saw combat off Incheon and stuff. And my mother, who was not bilingual, actually went through -- five out of the six boys saw action either in during World War II or the Korean War. Unfortunately, my younger brother by four years, Sergei, number five in the order, suffered a severe -- you might call it shell shock in those days, a psychiatric problem. Spent many, many years at a veterans hospital in Brentwood. And it's ironic that what didn't happen to him on the battlefield, happened crossing Wilshire Boulevard coming home on leave for the weekend. He was hit by a car and got killed. And that's the way things happened. That's why I say it's ironic. After World War II, I was barely 19 years old at the time. I had no college education. Just high school -
So going back a little bit, can you share with us a couple of your most memorable experiences during the war or during your military experience?
Yes. One of them is in the -- it's all memorialized in the copy of the diary that you just took. But one of them was when I passed out from lack of oxygen in the ball turret. And you're supposed to die within three minutes if you don't have oxygen up at that altitude, 30,000 feet. You die of anoxia. And every few minutes -- the bombardier would have an oxygen tank -- Bombardier to crew, bombardier to crew, oxygen check. Tail gunner, Roger up. Everybody is fine? No response from the guy in the ball turret. Okay? Again, ball turret, answer. No response. So get him, Carl. Carl Jones was the radio man. They come out there. They crank me. See, you're like that, and your trap door is outside of the airplane. It's electronic -- it's electrically -- not electronic. Electrically operated. So you had to do this. But there is a way of cranking you up. So I, again, was fine. I was asleep. So Carl and the waist gunner cranked me up and they got the trap door and they opened it. They crowbarred the thing open because I was nonresponsive. They dragged me out and they were taking me into the radio room. The oxygen that the guy in the waist gunner who was trying to help Carl who had an oxygen bottle with him, the waist gunner didn't have one. He passed out.
So now two of you --
So now two guys. Okay? And we slept together in the radio room. They put emergency oxygen to us. And it was one of the rough missions, incidentally. But we never saw a burst of flack. We slept through it. And that was quite a -- thank God for Carl that he was able to get us some oxygen. But that was a memorable experience. There were a lot of them, of course, but that was one of them. I don't know -- well, you asked me one. Okay. That's sufficient.
Now, for the record, that's what your job was, was a turret gunner?
I was ball turret gunner. Smaller people were put into that ball turret because it was very confined quarters. And I showed you pictures in the other room of the turret. People are under the impression that you operate the turret from up in the airplane, but you climb in it. The guns go down and the trap door goes into the airplane. You open it up, you get in, you strap yourself in, and you clamp shut. And then as you operate electrically on the panels, the guns go up and you're outside of the airplane completely. Completely. So when you go over the target, of course, you push yourself up and then you open the trap door in case you have to bail out. There was an electric sign in front of you right here. So the chest chute did not fit. You had to grab the chute with a hand in case you had to go out. And then clamp it on. It was not a back chute. So it was a very, very confining situation. Okay? That and the tail gunner position were pretty confined. Okay. Any more questions?
A lot of people say that that was the most dangerous position was the ball turret. How did you feel about --
Well, you know, you had the best view of the entire crew. The pilot, copilot, navigator, and the other guy, they never saw a bomb drop because they were flying. And the bombs drop and they go with them, but they can't see them. No one can see -- no one can see the bombs except you see them. The bomb bays were right in front of the turret. You see them and count them. 1, 2, 3, 4. There's 12, 500 pounders, clear view as they start going down, and you actually see them burst. You lose them and then you see all over the place. Not only yours, but there's 28 airplanes in a group, four squadrons. Each squadron has seven airplanes, each one has 12 bombs. You multiply 28 times 12, you can see how many bombs are hitting the same time. The tail gunner has a pretty good view, but he has it after the fact because the airplane is already out there when he sees it. But the ball turret, you see them from the beginning. They travel with the airplane for a while. So much for that.
Now, how many missions did you fly?
I flew 31 sorties, which means 31 times to the target. Some were double credit. 50 missions altogether. Sometimes you got a double credit because there was over eight hours in length from the time you take off to the time you come back.
Now, did you guys in the 15th work the same way as the 8th up in England? When you get 25 missions were you --
No. We had -- they had increased it to 35 sorties or 50 missions. I had 31 sorties when the war ended and a credit for 50. You had a choice of staying behind, doing your 35 trips. And most of us wanted to do the 35 legitimate tour before you came home. So it's a good thing the war ended, because we didn't complain. A lot of guys got it on their first one. Any other questions?
Can you share a little bit about your living accommodations and also your mascot.
Practically everybody had a dog. And we had two guys that were inseparable, Arnold Frank from East Moline, Illinois, and a fellow by the name of Edward Engwell from a little town, New Glarus, Wisconsin. They would go into town and they would drink a few beers. They came home with two dogs, two puppies. One was named Steamboat and the other was named Prop Wash. Steamboat died. He got a disease, and we had to bury him. But -- early on. But Prop Wash stayed with us until the end. We had to abandon him when we came home. I don't know what happened to that poor pup. He wasn't a pup any more. But I've always wondered what happened to Prop Wash. We had a rabbit also in the tent. There was a fellow that -- master sergeant. He had been all through Africa and Italy and everything, Sicily. He had been three years. He was the operations non-comm. He was the guy that came in in the morning, opened your door to your tent, called out the names when you're going on a mission. And he had a huge animal, big, big dog, a mongrel, who was named Wilco. Wilco is an air term. When you get an order, you'll say "Wilco," will comply. And this dog knew that there was a rabbit in that tent. And we used to have a stove going at night to keep warm. And that animal, that dog Wilco, would always rush into the tent and start chasing that rabbit around the thing. So the living quarters were six-man pyramidal tents. We had one of the fellows, even though he was only 20 years old, had been driving a truck interstate for over a year when he got drafted. And he was quite handy with things. Every time he flew a mission, he would go to the end of the wings of one of the airplanes and he would steal these little balls. He would -- they didn't use them in daytime anyhow. He would steal these things. And he wired up the tent. And then every new airplane that came in brought what they called a putsy-putsy. If you know what -- I don't know the correct name. But it's a little motor that they use when they start up the engines. One of the ground crewmen has that motor in case there's fire. It was used to put out fires. Well, he finagled a putsy-putsy. Then he also finagled a big, huge airplane battery. And he dug a hole in the back. And in the morning, all day long -- because lights out at 10:00 o'clock no matter what. You couldn't read, couldn't write a letter after 10:00. Pitch black. In the morning, he would run that gasoline motor all day long, charging the battery, and then he would turn it off when nighttime came. And he had all -- every station of six men lit up. So we had --
Lights?
We had light to read or to write letters with, see, aside from the major generator. They went out at 10:00 o'clock that lit everybody. And then he went to town one time and he got a -- he bought a sink and a couple of faucets. We had a stove that would -- one drop of 100-octane dripping every few seconds. One drop. And that would keep the light going. It's a wonder it didn't blow up. He put hot and cold running water in that sink. But the trouble is when you put the hot water in, you better not put your hand in it because it would scald you. You asked me conditions in the tent. That was it. Those were conditions in the tent. And when we did guard duty or some other detail, we couldn't fly the next day. Sometimes your crew would fly without you and had a replacement from another crew fly for you. In other words, if you had duty, guard duty, you couldn't fly the next day. So whenever I had to stay behind, my crew flew, all the beds were unmade. And being in a family of six boys where my mother made us sweep the house, make the beds, I couldn't stand to see unmade beds. I made everybody's bunk. You could bounce a dime off of it. Everybody's bunk. We had put in a brick floor. And I had that broom. I got the broom and I -- they would come home to a cozy, warm tent. All the beds were made. The guys used to say, "I wish Ernie would never fly." Okay? Because they'd leave their clothes all messed up. I'd fold them and put them -- anyway, that was life in the tent.
Now, what were your emotions when you found out the war ended in Europe?
It was delightful when the war in Europe ended. I don't know what happened to my newspaper. But we used to get the Stars and Stripes. And we went over big letters like that. "It's all over over here," it said in letters that big. And it was just great. We thought we were coming home right away. I think that was in May of '45. We didn't come home until four months later. But then the rumors started that we're going to get leave when we get home, and then we're going to get assigned to a unit in the Pacific. So that was mixed emotions. Are we out of the frying pan and into the fire? So the war wasn't really over. And we were sent to Naples to come home in August of '45. And in going through the Straits of Gibraltar -- if you know the Mediterranean, you go from Italy like that, and then there's Spain, and then there's a 30-mile span of water in the African coast. Going through the Strait of Gibraltar, word came through that the Japanese had surrendered. Because we were in Naples when they dropped -- we heard the atomic bombs that were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We didn't know what an atomic bomb was, but we read about it. And that was elation all over. I don't know where the liquor came from. Maybe from the crew or something. But we were coming home on a tiny little rusty bucket called Lake Charles Victory. It was a victory ship. But it was -- everybody started throwing stuff overboard, elated. It was just a happy trip. But we took 16 days to get from Hampton Roads, Virginia, to Naples during the war because zigzagging and we were in a convoy. Coming home we were alone and made a straight beeline, made it home in 10 days. So you can see the difference during war time, when you're afraid of submarines, and peacetime. So it was very, very nice. We came home through the same port in Hampton Roads, Virginia. We got leave to come home. And my brother -- you got a picture of him, Oscar, who is deceased now -- had been home about two, three weeks before me. And I'll never forget that when I came into my mother's modest little living room there was a huge sign, "Welcome home, Ernie. Oscar." He had just gone back to South Carolina. In those days, they discharged you with points. You had to have 85 points -- you probably heard this -- to get discharged. And for every mission we flew, we got five points. So I had a million points. Even though I wasn't even in the service when they left for overseas, I was the first one to get discharged because of the points I had. Oscar was noncombat. He was behind. So he had to go back and serve three months before his time was up, see, in South Carolina. It's amazing how, as far as my oldest brother is concerned, in the Seabees, he was in the service a year before I even finished high school. He didn't -- still doesn't believe that I was in the Army because I was in high school when he left and I was there to greet him when he got off the ship when he came home with his girlfriend. Anyhow, so much for that. Your 45 minutes are up.
Were you glad to be out of the service?
I was elated. I was elated. Everybody was. I didn't know what to do. When we went to high school, we didn't have much counseling. And coming from poor families, college was -- it was not for us. Okay? I was an art major in high school. Incidentally, I was student body president, so I couldn't have been too dumb. So I didn't know what to do. And I took a job -- immediately took a job two weeks after I was home. I needed money. So I took a job in a hot water heater plant over in the city of -- what is it? City of Commerce. And I was making hot water heaters. And my job was to roll that thing that goes around the heater. And my thumb rolled in with it. You can see the scar. I quit on the spot. I went to an emergency hospital to get the thing stitched up. And when I came home, I quit because I didn't want to lose my hand. And I went to a -- this was all East Los Angeles. I went to an employment office because I was too proud to ask for a stipend. Okay? But the Army did. And you probably heard this from people. After the Army, the government had what they called a 52-20 program. You could get $20 a week for 52 weeks after the service until you got your feet -- what you were going to do. And I stood in line to apply for my 52-20. And there was a girl from high school there that I knew. And she says, "Hi, Ernie. Welcome home. This is" so-and-so. I can't remember her name. She says, "What are you going to do now?" I says, "I don't know. I have to look for another job." I still have my hand bandaged. And she says, "Have you thought of going to school?" And I says, "Not really." She handed me a brochure and says, "I just graduated from there." She says, "Here, look into that." I think -- I says, "I don't have" -- I don't have the credits to get into college. Algebra, trigonometry, all that stuff. I had to take it all over. She says, "No, no, no. They'll take you. They'll give you these courses of prep before they start." So anyhow, I ended up going to Woodbury College in Los Angeles. I went there and I wanted to study higher accountancy. There was a counselor there. And even in those days -- I don't make an issue of this, but in those days, there was a lot of -- if you were Latino, so to speak, you couldn't do certain things. So higher accountancy was outside the realm of my capacity. And he said, "Do you speak Spanish?" And I said, "Yes, I do, fluently." "Write it?" "Yes." "You're a natural. We have a beautiful course in foreign trade that you can do it in two and a half years. You don't have to do the four years because you've got so and so. So you don't have to take the math and all of that." So I says, "Okay. Foreign trade sounds good." The bottom line is, I graduated from Woodbury with honors with a degree in business administration, with a major in foreign trade. And believe it or not, most people don't work within their major. For four years after that, I got out of school, I worked for a foreign freight forwarder. My job, I was export documentation manager, shipping cargo to all parts of the world as a freight forwarder. And that was a good job. I don't know if it was a smart thing or a dumb thing to do or a patriotic thing to do, but I had a chance of getting a commission in the reserve in the transportation corps related to what I studied. I applied to go into -- I got a commission as second lieutenant, and I had a chance to get into the -- I think it was the 9255th transportation group in Fort MacArthur where a lot of my friends had been in their reserve unit for years. And I applied to get into that unit. Ten days later, I get greetings from Harry Truman to report for active duty at Fort Mason, San Francisco, within a month. My boss sent a letter on my behalf. I was not mad at anyone. I didn't want to go into the service again. And my boss at the time from the freight forwarder sent a letter trying to get me a deferment, that I was very critical to the war effort because I was shipping war material to Korea. And he got a response, "Proceed as ordered." So that was it. For two more years I served during the Korean War. Shortly before I got out of the service this time, then I married my young lady, Esther. She's a very nice lady. We've been married going on 53 years, three kids. Anyhow, that was about it. I didn't do anything remarkable during the Korean War. I was adjutant for a battalion-size unit, stateside. Their function was to maintain and keep places like March Air Force Base. It was a signal aviation, heavy construction outfit. But not too much of that. The people you met during the Korean phase of the war, being that it was noncombat, with time they just became acquaintances, not like the World War II. To this day, you know -- it was just a bond that you never let go, you never forget. Anyhow, what was the question? What did I do after? Oh, okay. Many, many years later I went to work - right after the Korean War, I went to work as a -- as an export manager for a medium-sized manufacturing petrochemical equipment manufacturer. I think most of the stuff that Aaddam Hussein burned up after the first Gulf War probably were items that I shipped overseas for Arabian American Oil and some of those other -- because that was my function. That's what -- we exported stuff. I got bored with the job years and years later. At the age of 34, I decided to go to law school at night with three kids. My daughter, who is 40 now, was six months old when I started going to law school. I would go to school three nights a week, study until midnight, change her diaper, and then go to bed. But it took me five years to do what it takes kids three years to go through law school, but doing it at night, working eight hours, and trying to keep a family. I took the bar, typed it. You can type like crazy. Blew it. Took another bar review. Took the bar, typed it again. Blew it. I says, this is it. I'm not going to take a bar review and I'm not going to type it. I type too fast, said too much. I just went and sat cold and I scribbled. It was a 24-hour exam. And I just scribbled. You can imagine after 24 hours, by the third day your penmanship -- nobody can read it. My answers were much shorter. Lo and behold, I passed the damn thing. I'm still convinced that in California they don't even -- they don't even read the ones that are scribbled because penmanship can be pretty sloppy after 24 hours. That's what happened. I've been a lawyer now for mid 60s. I went to work -- because of the transportation orientation that I have, I was transportation oriented. I went to work for a transportation conglomerate which was called the Beacons Company. Among other things, they have these moving and storage outfits. And I was with them for 15 years. And finally I went back and practiced law on my own for about ten, twelve years. And that's essentially it. All on the GI bill.
Now, do you stay in touch with your buddies from World War II?
Yes, very much so. We started -- about maybe ten years ago, we started having reunions. I went to my first one in San Diego, California. We had about 50 guys there and their spouses. One in Dayton, Ohio, where the museum is. We stayed on base there. And that was a good one. We went to Tucson, Arizona. Las Vegas. And coincidentally, you should ask, I just got home late Friday from meeting with a half a dozen or so, their spouses. One of the fellows had two of his grown daughters and their husbands. We had a delightful time. We visited -- the main thing we went for was to visit the new World War II memorial. It's very - I don't know if you've been there or not. If you ever get the chance, it is -- puts a lump in your throat. It's not on the memorial, but famous sayings from presidents and generals that are cranked into the company walls. It's just amazing. It was very, very inspiring. And yes, we do keep in touch.
Now, would you trade your war experiences in? If you could go back and get rid of them, would you?
Absolutely not. They stay with you until the end. It's something that -- I don't know. I don't know what it is now for kids in the service. I'm sure it's the same for them. But World War II was something that needed to be done. Everybody -- everybody did it. And your high school kids were scattered to the four winds. You didn't -- here it is. This is - the reason I brought this is, these kids were scattered all over the world during war. Okay? Saw combat, got hurt, so-and-so and so-and-so. And this is a softball deal. My oldest brother Frank was scorekeeper. May 19, 1946, one year after the war ended, you see the line-up here on both -- they're church teams. These kids had been all over for three years, fighting two wars on both sides. And here one year after the war, it's all forgotten and they're playing softball against each other. You see the names? And to me, that was -- I don't know how to explain it. But you'd think they would still be hurting with memories and stuff. And here they were playing softball like nothing happened. So I don't know if that means anything in response to your question. Would you trade it? No. You came back and slipped right back into civilian life.
Is there anything we haven't covered that you'd like to talk about?
No, except I've talked too much.
No, sir. In closing, a hundred years ago when a great grandchild watches this interview or a historian, what words of wisdom would you like to give that generation?
Think of your great, great, great grandfather and just say he was a good guy. And if you ever get a chance, in case of an emergency, boy, get in line and serve your country. Love your country regardless of your heritage, where your parents came from. Just this is your country. And right or wrong, I would say just stand behind it. That would be my legacy. Be American. Okay? Greatest country in the world.
Thank you, Mr. Gallego, for your interview and for your service.
Okay.