Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Charles Matthew Baffo 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.
We're at the home of Charles Baffo. 32 Moriarity Drive, Wilton, Connecticut. Thank you, Mr. Baffo, for making yourself available today. You have a wonderful home here. Why don't we just get started with your birth date?
My birth date is September 21, 1922.
Where were you born?
I was born in New York City and spent most of my childhood on Long Island. From high school -- from the war on, we were all over the country, West Coast, and finally back to Connecticut.
How old were you when you enlisted?
I was 19.
So were you in college at that point?
I had just graduated from high school in June. Six months later was the Pearl Harbor invasion. It was a turning point in my life. I had football scholarships but no money to follow-up with.
Where were your scholarships to?
I had a scholarship to Hofstra on Long Island, which I didn't particularly like. In those days it was a brand-new college. No one had ever heard of it. And incidentally, they just dropped the football program.
I saw that.
And I qualified for a scholarship to Cornel, which I was really interested in. I just couldn't swing it. I had no money. You needed transportation, clothing. It's amazing. And in those days there was no such thing as education loans. You either had it or you didn't.
So six months after Pearl Harbor -- is that about right?
Pearl Harbor occurred about six months after high school, and at that time Hitler had pretty well taken over Europe. The war was sort of a forgone conclusion. And not having any money -- not enough money to take up my scholarship, I decided the best thing to do was probably to go find some work if I could, save some money, and then start college the following year. But by the time I finally found a job it was well after Pearl Harbor and there was not enough time to earn any money. All my friends were going into the service, my brother had been drafted, and I just saw the writing on the wall. I'd better find myself -- position myself in the armed services. I think I'd always been interested in aircraft, but not to any serious extent, but somehow or other I thought, Air Force. I wanted to join the Air Force. And while I was working -- in the interim between high school and going into the service I worked for an engine manufacturer.
Where abouts?
This was Ranger Corporation. They did Ranger engines, and they were next door to Republic who did the P47s. And the Air Force would send recruitment people by every so often trying to pick up, and they were kind of selective. They invited you if you had two years of college. I said I was about to start but I couldn't qualify. So they said, "Well, let's talk to you anyway." So it was through them that I got interested. They did some evaluation testing before they accepted me into the Air Force, but it took a period of about a year or so before they finally inducted me because I signed up for the Air Force in February of '42. It was a whole year before they called me. During that year I worked as an aircraft engine inspector. I learned about aviation.
I'm sure that came in handy.
It came in very handy. Particularly during the training phases because the Air Force is more than just flying. You took about four months of ground schooling.
Where were you inducted?
I signed up in Upton, Long Island. I went into the service in Nashville, Tennessee, and that was sort of the equivalent of boot camp, but it was more for evaluation. It was strictly for Air Force personnel, and there they did some basic evaluation to see whether you're physically and educationally fit to be accepted. If not, they sent you down the Mississippi River to Biloxi, Mississippi, where all the flunkies went.
And you became an infantry.
Yes. Exactly.
Now, the Air Corp. was part of the Army; right?
That's correct.
Had you ever flown prior to --
No. We lived near a very large field on Long Island that had private aircraft -- a private hanger. I used to go over there and sit in the airplanes once in a while, get a little kick out of it when I was a kid. It all started with a tin toy airplane when I was about six or seven years old.
Imagine the seeds that are planted that lead to later on.
And then without really thinking about what I was doing, I just went, Air Force. It just happened.
Where did you begin your training?
We were inducted in Nashville, Tennessee, and that was in February. In June we were sent down to Montgomery, Alabama, where we spent a couple of months in ground school. This would be communications, navigation, aircraft maintenance, aerodynamics, that sort of thing. That was in Montgomery, Alabama. Two months later I was sent to Helena, Arkansas, where we began actual flight training. And it was interesting that it was a private air field that the Air Force had contracted to provide flight service. So actually, my first two months of flying was civilian in uniform. So we spent two months in primary flight training, and then two months at another base in Arkansas for basic training, and then in about September I went to Blytheville, Arkansas, for my advanced training. There were three phases of training, each about two months; primary, basic, and then advanced training.
And following that advanced training, is that when you --
Following advanced training is when I graduated. That's when you're commissioned. You get your wings. That occurred in December of '42. No, I'm sorry. '43.
December of '43. And you were commissioned a lieutenant?
Yes. I was commissioned a second lieutenant in December of '43. That's correct.
So you get your orders. Where did they send you?
Well, I got to go home for Christmas, and then I reported on New Year's Day. You had to report to Salt Lake City to get your further training assignment. We checked in there, and within a week I was down in Texas learning to fly a B24, and I spent a couple of months doing that. And in late February, early March of '44 we were sent up to Mountain Home, Idaho, where the 490th bomb group was being built, and we did four months of group training with the crew, combat training. It basically consisted of formation flying.
In the B24s?
In the B24s. Not a lot of fun. No heat in the airplane. Whoever designed the insulated suits had a bad assignment. It was so cold your feet would be numb from the knees down. You didn't know if you were pushing down on the rotor pedals or not. It was brutal.
Would you get build-up of frost in the windshield?
No, because there was no moisture. It was so cold the moisture was condensed out of the air.
Well, you were probably glad to be finished with that assignment.
Absolutely. It was not fun. And when we finally got to England the airplanes were still not heated. No one ever bothered. It was an unnecessary expense, if you will. But they did provide us with electrically heated suits, like electric blankets.
You plugged yourself in to the power source; right?
The power source. It made all the difference in the world.
When were those introduced?
I don't know. They were already on board when I arrived in England.
Just to back up a step, I recall that you had also mentioned that you flew the B17. Was that prior to the B24? You had trained on the B24?
All flight training and combat training including the crews was with the B24. When we finally got to combat-duty status in England we flew a couple of missions, and the whole entire 8th Air Force decided the dynamics were such that the B17 was a much better aircraft for that purpose. You could fly at lower altitudes, carry bigger loads. So we flew a week or two in the B24s, they closed the base, and said, "Here's the B17. Here's somebody to help you check out. Go learn to fly it."
Welcome to the Air Corp.
Well, it's not all that bad, really.
Now, when were you sent to England and where were you sent?
I finished the combat training in Mountain Home, Idaho, in April or early May. We left there for an assignment in England, and at that time of year there were two ways to get to Europe. The Northern Route to Nova Scotia was a shorter way, but it was just too cold with the equipment. It was too much for the men and the equipment. So the alternative was to take the southern route, which was the long way around. And we had to fly from Mountain Home, Idaho, to Florida; from Florida we went down to Trinidad; from Trinidad we got further down into Fortaleza, Brazil, and that is where the South American continent bulges out and is closest to Europe -- closest to Africa. And it's just across the pond from the African skull. You know, the shape of Africa. That's an overnight flight from Fortaleza in Brazil to Dakar in Africa. And then from Dakar, Africa, you fly north quite a distance to Marrakech, Casablanca. I think I mentioned this to you last time. This is one of my favorite stories. There were no restrictions on altitude, so I wanted to get down. I wanted to see the desert. I'd always been a geography freek, and I wanted to see what the camels looked like on the desert, so we flew across the Sahara Desert. One of the great accomplishments of my life.
How low did you get?
Oh, 15,000 feet.
Is that right? Wow. In the B24?
This was in the B24.
How big a crew does the B24 hold?
There were 11. There was a tail gunner, a nose gunner, there was a top gunner, a belly gunner, two waist gunners and the engineer, and then there were four officers; the pilot, the co-pilot, the bombardier and a navigator.
And you were the chief pilot?
Right.
Now, on that long roundabout way up to England, did they allow you any time off, or were they hustling you right up there?
You'd get a day of rest. It took almost two weeks to get there. Well, over a week.
Where did you go to in England? Where was your base?
We ended up in Marrakech, and interestingly enough, to get to England, if you fly straight north from Marrakech, you'll go over France and you get to the English Channel. But Hitler was in the way, so we flew up to the Mediterranean, and then we flew west up to Gibraltar around the Horn, and then you turn back and go back northeast up to England, and we landed at Land's End. I'll never forget it. Right on the very, very southwestern tip of England.
Now, were you stationed there, then?
No. That was our arrival point.
I see.
And another one of my favorite stories -- I like to complain. After all that flight, we finally landed -- got down in England, in Land's End, and there were no facilities to stay in. You had to sleep in your airplane overnight. But the red cross was there. We landed, got ourselves put together, went to see the red cross, and they gave us coffee and doughnuts. And they wanted a quid. What's a quid? I was shocked that I had to pay for my coffee and doughnuts after all that.
Well, they probably weren't too thrilled when you paid them with a quarter.
We then had to fly from the southeast of England to the Channel to a little town called Eye, E-Y-E. That's where the base was. The geography in England is very, very confusing from a navigational point of view. There are really no distinguishing features. There are just patches of green. So they sent a P47 to escort us to show us how to get to the base. The first two days of flights when we finally got to the base was just flying around getting familiar so you could recognize it. But it was very confusing. If you came out of a cloud you would never know where you were.
Just rural farm land?
It's amazing how green it was. Of course, it was May then.
Right. All the rain. So now you're on the base. Is that the name of the town, Eye?
The train station is Diss, D-I-S-S. The town nearest the train station is Eye, E-Y-E, and it must have had a least 500 people. It had a post office, a barber shop, and there was a pub, of course, and that was it. So there wasn't much to do when you weren't on duty.
Did you ever go back there after the war?
I did. I was in London on business one time and I took a day off and took a train back up to Diss. It's up north.
I was going to ask you that. Where abouts in England is that? Northern England?
It's sort of mid-way up. Sort of in the Midlands but it's on the English Channel side about 100 miles north of London.
So now, when is this? Let's set a period now. Your service begins in Eye about when?
About May 15th of 1944. That's not quite the right date, but within a few days. We flew a week, week and a half of flights with other crews, more experienced crews who had been brought in to help us adjust.
Were these training missions or were these bombing missions?
No. These were real bombing missions, but what we called milk runs. They were as safe as they could be for us because we were the new kids on the block. They didn't kick us around. And safe for the guys helping us because they had flown their share, and they didn't want to get anymore explosive than they had to.
So where would you go on these milk runs? What targets would you --
Just across the Channel. Anywhere from Can, C-A-N, down to the southern tip of France. Penetrations were very, very shallow. Brussels was a fairly short run. The defenses hadn't been fully developed yet, so if you stayed very close to the Channel, you were fairly safe. The anti-aircraft defenses weren't fully developed yet.
Plus you were flying at very high altitudes I imagine.
Yes, we were.
How high was it?
Well, the B24 was designed for an operational altitude of 24,000 feet, which is not high by today's standard, but at that point in time, that was the most sufficient flight. The problem was that bombing was not as accurate at that height. They found that if they reduced it to about 12,000 feet our accuracy was very good, but so was our exposure. And the B24 was much better at high altitudes, faster speed, but the B17 had a much larger wing load. You could carry a larger load. Unfortunately, it was a lower speed, but it was a much safer aircraft. You could lose an engine on that and not worry too much about it.
Was that a four-engine aircraft?
They were all four-engine aircraft.
When did they switch you from a B24 to a B17?
We flew about a week and a half of actual bombing missions from Eye and Diss when they decided to drop the B24. Within two weeks of my arrival in England we switched from the B24 to the B17.
And did you find the control of the plane was --
Flying is kind of automatic. The aerodynamics are such that all airplanes are relatively the same. Their characteristics in terms of stalling out, landing, and taking off are a little trickier, but once you're off the ground, you don't know what kind of an airplane you're in.
So this is May of '44. You're a month or so, maybe less, to the invasion of Normandy. Had you had any idea at all of what lay ahead at this point?
Not the faintest. I guess we weren't curious enough. More concerned about well being than what the army had in store for us.
How about any of the older, more experienced officers who had been -- you're mixing with them.
You don't hear very much, and I guess there was not a curiosity on our part. There was no reason to think about it. I guess we were subconsciously aware, but we had no idea what it was all about, and we learned very, very little about it until the night before. We were told we were going out. This is it. Obviously, for security purposes it was all kept --
So this was the night before? Because they had cancelled it, hadn't they, a couple of times because of the weather?
They had weather problems, but again, even that was not general public information. And you're on-call 24 hours a day when you're flying a bomber, so you just sort of take it day-by-day, and wherever they sent you that's what you did. And the procedure normally was -- for security purposes we got up well before daylight and assembled in the dark -- the Germans had radar -- so they didn't have the visible awareness of what we were doing. And it was kind of fun flying an airplane in the dark. It scared the hell out of me the first time, but it wasn't all that bad, really. Because the skies at night are quite bright. Much brighter than the ground, so you could see shadows, you could see above you, you could see airplanes.
Did you witness any collisions at all?
There was one, unfortunately. It was a guy that lived in my hut. That's a different story. I'm surprised there were not as many collisions as there might have been. Visibility wasn't all that bad, and although you did it without lights, each engine was equipped with a turbo charger, something to cool the engine off. And these would glow red hot, really red hot, and you could see these little pods of red up above you and you knew who it was.
Was that about the only light that you had?
That was it. No lights, no. We'd be sitting ducks for the Germans.
About how many missions had you been on before the Normandy mission?
Not more than half a dozen. I'd say five or six or so.
Was the crew as new as you were?
Same crew. You stayed with the crew.
The same crew that came over from the states?
Oh, yes. You trained together, and unless there was some unusual situation, the whole crew stayed together.
So you got about a half a dozen missions under your belt, so called milk runs, and one evening they tell you, Get ready guys, because tomorrow we go. So you kind of know what tomorrow's mission is?
They would get you up at 2:00 in the morning, feed you breakfast, and then you'd go to your briefing. And at the briefing you got a preview of the detail. They separated the officers from the enlisted men, and only the officers were given the information, and they had plotted your course. They would tell you where the guns were, where there was going to be light or heavy flak very well in advance. They prepared you for an alternate site if you could not make the primary target. There were all kinds of instructions and do all this and be up there, and it was very organized as you took off, and we gathered in the dark as a group which we had not done before. When we flew in the U.S., it was never at night. That was a new experience. So about dawn or just before dawn, we ended up across the Channel to Europe, and in another hour or two, depending on where the target was, you were back out of Europe by noon, back on your base by 2:00 in the afternoon. So it was like a 12 hour run from the time you got up to the time you got back to the base.
Typically, how long would it take you to assemble on a normal milk-run mission?
A couple of hours. Not that it took us that long, there were just so many aircraft involved. You had a sub-assembly pod in one group, and then there were additional groups that were assembling in their own area, and then you had to make a sweep of southern England while all the groups got into line. It was time consuming getting organized.
So when did you feel the enormity of suddenly what this mission was all about?
My reaction was -- it was not much reaction. I think what concerned me more -- and most people -- was some of the more heavily defended targets. We would take a pretty heavy beating from the anti-aircraft guys. This one was right on the Channel where there were no defenses, so there really was no concern. The Channel was clear, and there were no German boats. Submarines maybe, but there was no German defenses as such over the Channel. It was only once you got over of the coast that you encountered German defense, but for the airmen, for the bombers, there was no anti-aircraft because they had anticipated -- Eisenhower and his people did a pretty good job of deception. He had them thinking that we were going to invade further north, and as you know, they sent a whole expeditionary force just to mislead the Germans into thinking that was the invasion. Whereas we were headed down south. We did a flank on them.
And it worked.
It worked very well.
The day of that last briefing when they informed you of what the mission was going to be, what were you feeling, and what was going through your mind at that point?
Not very much. The concern had always been a much deeper penetration where you might lose an engine; you might get shot down. Over the coast you weren't going to get shot down, so it wasn't a concern at all. We anticipated some defense. We were told where the defenses were, but it was all last minute preparation on the part of the Germans. Their defenses were terrible. I don't remember seeing any flak at all, no opposition. But the weather wasn't all that great. And the situations that developed -- and you still hear about it today. It had been arranged that the paratroopers would go in before us. They would light fires to indicate a line to separate the forward areas from the post. You would see the fires, and you were supposed to drop your bombs beyond the fires, beyond the line of the fires, but you didn't bomb individually or indiscriminately. You were in a formation, and when the leader dropped his bomb, everybody dropped their bomb at the same time. And I recall very vividly going over this line of fire before the bombs went, but we found that apparently somebody screwed up. Troops were killed. We hit American troops. The finger pointing was -- they blamed the Air Force and we said, "No, you guys lit the fire in the wrong place." The troops had no resistance and overran their lines. And to this day that argument has never been settled. As a matter of fact, I think I mentioned this to you, Kevin. I saw on television one day that they're still arguing that one. But incidentally, since we did such a lousy bombing job, we had to go back, get more bombs, and come back again the same day. That'll teach you.
I supposed sadly, that's an inevitable part of any war, the friendly casualties.
Oh, yeah.
I remember you had mentioned to me, as you flew across the Channel -- and I'd love to hear you explain it. What was your impression as you were turning that plane?
Turning?
As you were coming back. After you had dropped your load and you were turning the plane back around, can you explain to me what your impression was of the enormity of your mission at that point?
Not really. You had very little gauge. In most cases there was usually enough of a cloud cover over the target or enough haze that you couldn't see it. You would rarely ever see the bombs explode.
Had the skies cleared by the time you had come back?
Oh, on that particular day? I'm sorry. Yes, the skies did clear. After we dropped our bombs and turned and headed back across the Channel, what I saw for the first time in the daylight was all the aircraft coming in. Chains of bombers, one after the other, and the same thing down in the Channel. All these ships, hundreds of them, literally, hundreds of them. The skies were just full of airplanes, like mosquitoes, with aircraft coming in. So I concluded from that that we must have been one of the first ones because there were still so many hundreds of aircraft behind us and all at the same altitude. Well, enough separation.
Now, they had given you in that briefing the idea that this was going to be a land invasion, sea invasion, air invasion, all together. They gave you the full briefing on just what was occurring on this June 6th.
Yes. None of it came as a surprise. The only surprise I remember is being able to see the actual little bon fires that the paratroopers had built, because, like I said, the weather was not good. It was hazy; it was smokey. But on occasion you could actually see the fire, and you could see enough of the fires that you could position yourself at the front lines.
How many missions did you go on that day?
Because of the confusion of whether we dropped the bombs in the right spot or the wrong spot, we had to go back, load up again, and fly the same mission again. And by this time we were under the command of the navigators, the chief navigators, as to where you would drop your bomb. There were no marks at that time. I don't know how they decided what the targets were.
Did you know what the targets were? What towns you were over at that point?
Yes. I do remember a very famous story of the paratrooper that got hung up on the church steeple. I remember seeing that church. It was the countryside.
Saint Mere Eglise.
Yes. That's the one. And I do recall seeing that, but I had no idea what it was. It was another cathedral. From the air in those days, at about 12,000 feet these large cathedrals just loomed. It's amazing how they stuck up into the sky. I can recall the beautiful cathedral in Brussels with a black and white checkered roof. You could see the color of the tiles on the roof, checkered tiles on the roof. But the way they stood out, because the rest of it was kind of a smudgy, dirty color, particularly early in the morning. But these cathedrals were just outstanding. That's one of the things that got me interested in architecture by the way.
Is that right?
I had a sense about it before, but I could visualize the one in Cologne. Just a massive thing sticking up out of the ground several hundred feet high.
Isn't it interesting what sparks your interest? It's like a seed being planted.
Exactly. Seeing all the destruction in England and London and wondering how that's all going to be cleaned up. How are you going to rebuild all that? I got more curious about that than I did the war, I guess.
That explains why you went into architecture design. Now, those next few days must have been exceptionally busy for you. Those first few days past the initial invasion. Were you literally going around the clock on your shifts with a little rest in between?
No they used the Air Force for the invasion just for that day. There was no follow-up from the troops after that. At least we didn't go in. We understood that there were -- for the first time the 8th Air Force was using anti-personnel bombs, fragmentary bombs. They explode by pressure just above the ground, and we understood that they were used for the first time. I never had it in my aircraft.
So then you went back to the base. When did your missions resume? After, let's say, the initial invasion? When did you again begin resuming your missions?
After a mission you usually had a break of a couple of days. The next mission after that, I don't recall what it was, but it had nothing to do with the invasion. It was just going further back. Strategic bombing. Just the factories, the bridges, the railroads. Knocking out their ability to wage war, which was the way we beat them.
Now, were you following the progress of the war? You're bombing France and then you're moving further into Belgium?
You could tell by where your target was what was progress was on the ground, but there was no visual observation of who was where.
What was the furthest you went into on your bombing missions?
I guess Berlin was about as far east as you could go.
How many missions did you do over Berlin?
There were three missions. I lucked out on one. I didn't have to go. It's an interesting story. I was known as the chicken chef. The aircraft that hit the birds. Well, our base was on a farm, and there were these damn chickens on the runway, and we flew through the chickens. And the guy ahead of me must have riled them up, and one of them hit me in the engine, and the engine caught fire, so that was the end of my flight to Berlin that day. So I've disliked chicken ever since.
Tell me about life in England during the war. Did you live on the base; did you live in town; were you barracked in someone's home?
The facilities were very comfortable. We lived in Quonset huts, and there were two crews to a hut, a total of eight people in one hut. And in this little town I say jokingly of 500 people, there may have been fewer, I'm not sure, there was absolutely nothing to do unless you were on duty. There was no officer's club. You stayed in your bunk, you learned to sleep, you learned to read.
What did you do for recreation? What did you do for fun?
Bicycle, you'd ride a bicycle. And there was nothing there. There was nothing nearby. On occasion at night when we were allowed off the base we would go into Eye to a little pub, but there was nothing there.
No one even in the pub? None of the townspeople to speak of?
No.
Did you get to know any of the natives?
Well, I got to know the farmer that owned the wheat field that our base was built on. His home was across the road a couple hundred yards from our Quonset hut and we would see him, we'd go over for a walk and visit him or he would come over on the base. He was a very proper Englishman. He wanted to go on these missions. He'd say, "I'll pay you, I'll pay you."
Sneak him aboard.
The thing that impressed me with him was that despite his would-be wealth, they had nothing. Food was not available; gas was not available. So we would get him food the best we could. Not that he was starving by any means, but we would take him to the officer's club and get him a pork chop sandwich which was piled up with pork chops so he could take it home and feed his wife. You were just happy not to have to go out on a mission. After a while, you began to sweat it out. The flak would finally get to you.
Had your plane been hit at all during any of these runs?
Yes. I was forced down on one occasion.
Tell us about that. How did that happen?
Prior to that, on one occasion, I think it was Cologne, we went in at about 12,000 feet, which was too low, and we took a lot of flak, and I found out when we got back -- there was no problem. When we got back, before the next flight, they had patched the aircraft. There were over a hundred holes of flak that had pierced the -- fortunately, none of it was of any consequence.
And none of the men had been hit by it?
No. But on a subsequent mission, I think it was Lindricks Hoven (phonetic) I was hit by flak and I lost an engine and I was spilling gas. I could not get back to the base and with three engines, I could not stay with the group, so I was left behind. And fortunately, we had the fighter defenses, the P51s, one of the little aircraft. They would escort us to the target, would not come in, and then pick us up on the way back. Well, they saw that I was straggling, so I got two of them to escort me, and between them and my navigator, we got ourselves back to Brussels. I knew where Brussels was; I'd been there before in the air. And with one engine out I made a forced landing, and in the process of landing with the engine out, I missed -- when I landed, the wheel must have been damaged and it dragged and I went off the runway and wiped out the whole landing gear, but there was no damage to the airplane.
Nobody was hurt?
Nobody was hurt. My nose gunner was hit with shrapnel, but nothing serious.
So you're in Brussels at this point?
We're in Brussels for three or four days. A week as a matter of fact.
Was it enemy occupied territory?
No. Brussels had just been liberated. At the briefing we were told that in the event you can't stay with the group, Brussels is the place to go. We were there for four or five days before we had the aircraft repaired.
Do you remember when this was? What time are we talking about now?
I would say August.
'44, '45 do you think?
No. This is still 1944. I was in England from May of '44 until November of '44. That's the time it took to fly 35 missions.
I see. And so you were able to actually repair that plane?
They sent us spare parts, yes. On each mission you were given a small escape kit, and it contained a compass, a small fish hook if you had to catch your own food, a little morphine, fudge, and some money, escape money.
What were you supposed to do with the money?
That was my thought. That thought was a reoccurring thought. What in the hell did they think we were going to do? Go into town and say, Hey buddy I don't have my visa card with me but I'm American.
What kind of denomination would they give you? Would they give you German marks? Would they give you French francs?
Mostly French francs. As a matter of fact, I saved one of those bills and gave it to one of my daughters, but that's another story. But the up-side of this is that Brussels had been liberated, so while we were stranded at the base, the trains were still running. So I got up and took a train to Brussels. The airport was well outside of Brussels, and we stayed with -- the Army had personnel in there temporarily put up in hotels, so I shared a bed with a sergeant. That's all I had. And no food. So he said, "Let's go to the restaurant." There was a restaurant, but all they had was rabbit, and I didn't realize it was stewed rabbit, and it was like shoe leather. And my waitress came by and I said, "I can't eat this," and she just took it up and put it back in the pot. Money wasn't the problem there. There was nothing to buy but champagne, so we bought champagne with the escape money.
It came in handy.
It did.
Was that the most dramatic mission you were on?
Yes, I would say so.
And I understand you flew 35 missions all together?
Thirty-five, yes.
I think you said May through November?
Yes.
What happens in November of '44?
I was on my way back home. I'd completed my missions, and I was returning home. And they had arranged -- the U.S. had a flight service. It was called MATS, M-A-T-S, Military Air Transport Service. It was an airline, like an airline, but only for military personnel, and they flew a regular schedule from the U.S. to Scotland. So it was free for me to go to Scotland a week or so before my departure. Well, more than a week. But in the interim, in those days, you could travel anywhere you wanted without cost, so I just rode the trains, and I traveled all over England. And on one occasion I met a very lovely English girl -- I still think of her -- who invited me to stay at her house. Her father was a general and he would welcome an opportunity to talk with an American, but I said, "No, thank you. I'd better go home. Go see my mommy."
So you didn't take her up on her offer?
No.
So you got home to the States. Where did you end up?
I got home for Thanksgiving, spent Thanksgiving and Christmas at home, and again on New Year's Day I reported for duty on the first of the year in Columbus, Mississippi, where I spent a couple of months as an aircraft flight instructor. Twin engines.
Now you're training?
No. I was teaching. It was the same aircraft that I flew when I was first learning, but now I was back there as a pro. The difference was all the difference in the world.
How did that make you feel? What was going through your mind now? It had to be almost surreal to you. Now you're back training after 35 missions in combat. And now -- you'd left all that not much earlier as a young guy who had never had that experience.
I guess my concern at that point was to fill up time in a useful way before I was discharged because the war was pretty much over then. They were reducing the amount of flight training. It was difficult to get an assignment, and you had to fly three hours in order to get flying pay, so you volunteered for flight instruction. But by the same token they also had an instruments flying school, which I had not done before. We learned to fly totally on instruments. So I spent a good amount of time in these trainers -- so called wing trainer. It simulates a cockpit. And I took a good amount of instrument flight training there which later on allowed me the privilege of taking an aircraft and going anywhere I wanted to in the U.S., which I did. I flew home on one occasion; flew down to Texas on another occasion. That was quite memorable.
So the war is beginning to wind down at this point?
The war is pretty well done.
When did you first learn that the war was over?
I was on a training mission -- flight mission with a student, and we called in to the tower. We were ready to land. We called in to the tower for landing instructions and they said, "Guess what, it's all done." Or words to that effect. I got so excited, I took the controls and buzzed the tower. Which normally --
Strictly against regulations.
Exactly. So I learned it while I was in the air.
So you finally got that plane in, you just learned that the war in Europe was over, did you go out and celebrate?
No. I don't think so. I don't remember what we did afterwards.
Hadn't sunk in yet?
No. Having gotten back home, the war was over as far as I was concerned. I'd done my share. They had offered me up an advancement. I'd get a captaincy if I wanted to sign up for another tour of 35 missions.
Were you tempted?
I said, "No, Thanks." Well, I was tempted because it got to be easy near the end. There was very little resistance. There was no aircraft resistance at all. The Germans had no Air Force. The ground fire was bad, but it was lessening, and there were fewer and fewer targets, so there wasn't much opportunity there. I do remember on one of my very last missions. We had dropped our bomb. We were still in formation and we turned around. We were heading back and the engineer who had a position -- he would stand behind you. Behind the pilot seat was a dome where he would stick his head up and see what's above, and he tapped me on the shoulder and I looked over, and here was this little German jet. The first jet I'd ever seen sitting out there just as brave as he could be.
Right across from you?
Right across. I could see the pilot. But obviously he was bragging. I guess his instructions were to show the Americans they're not dead yet because he had no intention of shooting us. And we were so relaxed we didn't have the sense to shoot. And it occurred to me afterwards, what the hell was my waist gunner doing on that side? He should have seen it. It could have been a disaster, but as it turned out he was not armed at all. But I think about that once in a while. The Germans just didn't quit. They said, "We're still out here."
We're still here. Now we've got the first jet.
Yeah, right.
So now the war is ending and you're about how old now?
Twenty-four.
So you're thinking now, what do you do with the rest of your life?
Exactly.
You're a changed guy from the time you went in, so what do you do and how did you decide that?
That was automatic for me. One of the nice things about the war was that it was a pivotal time of my life. It gave me direction that I wouldn't have had otherwise. I knew that I still wanted to go to school, I knew that there was an education program that would cover tuition, so it was a foregone conclusion that I was going to go to school. I was finally going to get to go to college.
The GI Bill; is that right?
The GI Bill, exactly. The question now was whether -- football, that's a thing of the past, you know. You're a big boy now. No more games. The alternative was go to college or go to the airlines, so I went down and did some interviews with United. I was in Lubbock, Texas, with United Airlines, and we talked about me working for them, and we went through some preliminary screening. We did some flight testing. I'd flown the same airplanes that they used so I was qualified, so they said, "Fine, we're interested, but we can't do anything with you right now, you're in the service. When you're out of the service, come back and we'll hire you." I was hired for all the intents and purposes. And the more I thought about it, I thought, Are you going to do this all over again? No, I don't want to do this again.
Good thing, then, that you had a little time to consider that.
Right. And I was not doing very much flying. There was not much flying for obvious reasons. The war was over, saving gas and so on, and I was reassigned a ground position at the airport in Miami. It was a base for MATS, Military Air Transport Service. They used Miami as one of their terminals, and they would fly around the country picking up mostly medical cases for hospitals from Washington, D.C. to -- and they did this on kind of a regular schedule. Almost like running an airline but I was ground operations, so I did ground operations at Miami Airport. And I did that for a couple of months or so, somewhere along there. It was unbearable, a ground job.
So you applied to school?
Through that office however, the Air Force was pretty good about -- I think they recognized they had a sense of responsibility for us. They went out and started screening people. They had in effect an educational department who went out and would interview or communicate with guys that wanted to get an education. And they sent out a captain to interview me and I said, "Well, I want to go to school." Well, he's the guy that got me all set up to go to Yale. He said, "Where would you like to go?" And I thought, well, Yale was closest to New York, it's on the train, let's go to Yale. So they were very, very helpful. And we did a lot of screen testing through this education system that the Air Force had, so by the time -- he applied to Yale for me, he did all the communications, got me all lined up, so by the time I was ready, everything was arranged. All I had to do was get up to Yale and take the entrance exam. Do you remember that, Joanne? We drove up with Johnny Ketcham (phonetic), a high school friend of mine.
I have to ask you, because you've made reference a couple of times, when did you meet your wife, Joanne?
We were in high school. Let's see, about 1939, 1940. She liked me. I was a football hero in those days so she respected me. That's all gone now.
So she was attracted to a man in uniform whether it was a football or a military uniform.
But she had a cute kid sister who wore my football jersey all over town. And Joanne's father was a priest in the church right in the middle of town and they said, What's this a little girl doing with this guys's football jersey and he's dating her sister?
Now, how did you decide to study architecture?
I really did not have an interest in architecture as such. I was good at art, reasonably good at art. It was an inclination in that direction. I did some aptitude tests, again, with this captain from the education branch of the Air Force, and they said that this was a possibility. I thought if anything -- I was good at math, and they said engineering, certainly, if you want to do it, but there was this artistic element that came into play and they suggested that as a possibility. Joanne's father knew an architect in town. What was his name? I don't remember. So I was aware of it. After I was discharged her father took me over and introduced me to the architect and we talked to him, but by this time my decision had been made. It was basically an interest in architecture as such because of my exposure in Europe. Particularly, those cathedrals made such an awesome impression on me. The scale was just incredible. And then I saw the destruction from a practical point of view. How the hell are we going to fix this? It was that aspect that interested me. It was more the mechanical end which proved -- in the long run, my biggest contribution was not so much as an artist but more the engineering part of it. So it was the Air Force that basically -- the aptitude testing that narrowed that down. So to this day I think of how responsible they were to set up an effort to -- well, it wasn't just me. They do this to this day before you're discharged. The service looks out for you. They point you in the direction.
They give you a little career guidance.
Yes. So it was sort of foregone. If you said yes, it was done.
So you studied to get your degree through Yale. Engineering architecture? Or what degree did you graduate with?
A Master's of Architecture. I had no college before then, and a master's was a seven-year program and I said, "No way, buddy." But the flight training, as I look back on it, was quite intense. It was worth your freshman year in school. Believe me. The equivalent of that.
Now, talk to me a little bit about what you did for your career.
I was out of the service in '45, started at Yale in February of '46, and with a little bit of credit for the service experience they set up a program where at four and a half to five years I could have a master's, which I took and I finished. It was pretty simple. Wasn't all that bad. Within four and a half years, I met all the requirements for a master's in architecture, so in June of 1950 I got my master's degree and I went off to work.
Who did you spend the bulk of your career with?
Right after school, through one of my instructors, I was invited to go out to the west coast to work for him. He was up in Oregon. We drove out, did the whole routine, but I ran out of money before I got to Oregon, so we settled in Los Angeles. There was a buddy I knew there. We stayed there and I got a job in Los Angeles, and I worked there for three years or so, two and a half to 3 years.
Who was that with?
This was an office called Stiles Clements. It was a large, 60-man office, and I had a good position there, Assistant Design Director.
And then you went on to --
And then from there -- we had relatives who had a friend in Wilmington, Delaware, and I worked for him for a while but that was strictly schools, and I wanted to do something a little more than that. And I contacted my former roommate in Norwalk because they were on the lookout, so in 1956 we came up to Connecticut and I worked with Eliot Noyes who was pretty well established as an industrial designer. And I worked for him for 35 years.
And you traveled the world, I understand, for them.
I took on the Mobil account. Mobil Oil is all over the world, and I did a lot of travel for them. Basically, around the world, literally.
Designing and building their facilities?
Yes. We would develop standards, so when they needed a particular office building -- there's a standard office building or a standard gas station, and this is what you implemented. And I would go over there, introduce it, and make sure that it was exposed to management and that management said yes. And management never said yes. It's interesting, they could not stand the American corporations even in those days.
Now, somewhere between all this, traveling the world, designing and building facilities for Mobil Oil, you managed to come home periodically and have a couple of kids. Can you tell me when your children were born?
Oh, dear.
What their names are and when they were born.
My first daughter, Joan Elizabeth, she's about 52, 53. Somewhere along there. She was born when we were living in Los Angeles. Then we came east and we lived in Wilmington, Delaware, and my daughter Roseanne who is now approaching 50 was born in 19 -- I can't tell you what year.
Right around '50, I imagine.
And then we moved to Norwalk. Suzanne was born in Norwalk, wasn't she? Joanne: Yes.
That was my third daughter. And my fourth daughter, Nancy, lives here in Ducane, and she was born in Norwalk also. Nancy is about 43? Joanne: She's going to turn 49 next month.
Moms never forget.
No.
When did you retire?
Well, from 1956 to 1999.