1 00:00:07,291 --> 00:00:08,875 Whenever this war is over, 2 00:00:09,083 --> 00:00:12,041 the victory will have been won by you, 3 00:00:12,542 --> 00:00:16,166 with the uniform you wear, the chevrons on your sleeves, 4 00:00:16,250 --> 00:00:19,333 and the instincts in your gut, and the blood on your boots. 5 00:00:20,417 --> 00:00:22,709 We will sail across God's vast ocean, 6 00:00:23,750 --> 00:00:27,041 where we will meet our enemy and make the difference 7 00:00:27,125 --> 00:00:30,208 between freedom of the world and its enslavement. 8 00:00:35,458 --> 00:00:37,792 You fought bravely for your country. 9 00:00:38,667 --> 00:00:40,333 You found in one another a bond 10 00:00:40,417 --> 00:00:41,750 that exists only in combat. 11 00:00:44,792 --> 00:00:47,500 Every man that's wounded, every man I lose, 12 00:00:47,750 --> 00:00:50,250 I have to believe that it's all worthwhile 13 00:00:50,333 --> 00:00:51,834 because our cause is just. 14 00:04:53,583 --> 00:04:58,792 Well, I don't know. The odds were all against you. 15 00:04:58,875 --> 00:05:03,834 It was more or less like being in death row in a penitentiary, 16 00:05:03,917 --> 00:05:07,709 waiting on your turn, and you knew it was coming. 17 00:05:10,417 --> 00:05:13,333 You fly a real tough mission, 18 00:05:13,417 --> 00:05:16,625 and you're so glad to get back, and everybody says, 19 00:05:16,709 --> 00:05:19,792 "Boy, we made it through that one, didn't we?" 20 00:05:19,875 --> 00:05:22,709 And the next morning they'd come in, 21 00:05:22,792 --> 00:05:24,667 put the flashlight in your face... 22 00:05:24,750 --> 00:05:27,500 "All right, boys, get up. You're gonna be leavin'. 23 00:05:27,583 --> 00:05:30,625 We're gonna be flyin' in two hours." 24 00:05:30,709 --> 00:05:33,500 Now, that's... that's tough. 25 00:05:40,667 --> 00:05:42,917 I was 21 years old, yeah, 26 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:46,750 and we felt like we could live forever. 27 00:05:48,583 --> 00:05:50,834 Don't get me wrong. 28 00:05:50,917 --> 00:05:54,750 We'd still get that tight feeling... 29 00:05:57,750 --> 00:06:01,625 when we would would see bursting flak nearby, 30 00:06:01,709 --> 00:06:03,333 when we'd see fighters... 31 00:06:03,417 --> 00:06:05,959 We still got that feeling, but... 32 00:06:08,250 --> 00:06:10,375 you can't make a living that way. 33 00:06:11,625 --> 00:06:13,750 All you could do is make a dying. 34 00:06:21,959 --> 00:06:24,709 Anybody said they weren't afraid, 35 00:06:24,792 --> 00:06:27,750 they were full of crap. 36 00:06:27,834 --> 00:06:31,125 'Cause you were always afraid what was gonna happen next, 37 00:06:31,208 --> 00:06:34,583 particularly in flak, you're just waiting 38 00:06:34,667 --> 00:06:37,166 for something to go off around you. 39 00:06:41,208 --> 00:06:44,500 And that's when the fighters would come up. 40 00:07:34,500 --> 00:07:36,291 One of the men in our crew kept saying, 41 00:07:36,375 --> 00:07:39,083 "I know I'm not gonna make it," et cetera, et cetera. 42 00:07:39,166 --> 00:07:40,667 And you don't like to hear that. 43 00:07:40,750 --> 00:07:44,583 And he was very concerned because his wife 44 00:07:44,667 --> 00:07:47,709 was expecting within a day or two. 45 00:07:47,792 --> 00:07:50,583 And, uh, the next day, they had him flying, 46 00:07:50,667 --> 00:07:53,750 which they shouldn't have had, and... 47 00:07:53,834 --> 00:07:57,083 they took so many men from our crew to fly with him, 48 00:07:57,166 --> 00:08:00,542 and they never made it back. 49 00:08:00,625 --> 00:08:02,375 They crashed into the Channel. 50 00:08:02,458 --> 00:08:05,458 And, incidentally... And this isn't storytelling... 51 00:08:05,542 --> 00:08:07,834 But he, he, uh... 52 00:08:14,750 --> 00:08:17,917 he was killed the day his son was born. 53 00:09:40,500 --> 00:09:42,041 The war came, 54 00:09:42,125 --> 00:09:44,375 and we went and did what they told us to do. 55 00:09:44,458 --> 00:09:47,875 That's the only thing I know. 56 00:09:47,959 --> 00:09:50,959 The Japanese ruined my youth, 57 00:09:51,041 --> 00:09:55,583 because I was 20 years old or 19 years old 58 00:09:55,667 --> 00:09:57,333 and everything was wonderful, 59 00:09:57,417 --> 00:10:00,750 and the Japanese, in one fell swoop, 60 00:10:00,834 --> 00:10:02,834 ended all that. 61 00:10:02,917 --> 00:10:05,125 And it lasted four years. 62 00:10:08,625 --> 00:10:13,375 Well, I can see why they get young fellas to fly to war, 63 00:10:13,458 --> 00:10:16,583 or ground or submarines and so forth. 64 00:10:16,667 --> 00:10:20,083 When you're younger, you feel you can do anything. 65 00:10:20,166 --> 00:10:24,208 I think when you get older, you get smarter. 66 00:10:29,709 --> 00:10:32,166 There was a 19-year-old navigator, 67 00:10:32,250 --> 00:10:35,041 Jewish kid, sharp as a tack. 68 00:10:35,125 --> 00:10:37,709 And I had some older boys, 69 00:10:37,792 --> 00:10:40,333 my bombardier was 26 years old. 70 00:10:42,250 --> 00:10:44,250 I was 22, 23. 71 00:10:49,166 --> 00:10:50,810 Oldest man we had in our crew 72 00:10:50,834 --> 00:10:53,208 was a Pennsylvania Dutchman, 32 years old. 73 00:10:53,291 --> 00:10:55,417 We called him "Pappy." 74 00:10:55,500 --> 00:10:57,792 Thirty-two years old! 75 00:10:57,875 --> 00:11:00,250 Our navigator was 26, 76 00:11:00,333 --> 00:11:04,875 and everybody else was anywhere from 22, 23. 77 00:11:06,583 --> 00:11:09,792 I can look back now and see why... 78 00:11:09,875 --> 00:11:14,000 young people are in a war... Not older people. 79 00:11:14,083 --> 00:11:16,250 Old people got better sense. 80 00:11:24,917 --> 00:11:27,458 Sometimes they say that the older you get, 81 00:11:27,542 --> 00:11:29,000 the more wiser you get. 82 00:11:29,083 --> 00:11:31,458 There weren't too many, I don't think, 83 00:11:31,542 --> 00:11:34,250 too much younger than me. 84 00:11:34,333 --> 00:11:37,333 I flew every one of my missions at 19. 85 00:11:37,417 --> 00:11:40,917 The old man on our crew was our waist gunner. 86 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:42,375 He was 25. 87 00:11:50,291 --> 00:11:55,250 I'll tell ya, when we got into this thing, you wanted to fly. 88 00:11:55,333 --> 00:11:58,291 You know, you had a great time training and all that. 89 00:11:58,375 --> 00:12:02,000 But when you get over there, and you got shot at the first time, 90 00:12:02,083 --> 00:12:04,542 you knew you were in deep doo-doo. 91 00:12:04,625 --> 00:12:08,625 And you really took life seriously after that. 92 00:12:15,667 --> 00:12:19,417 They said we was gonna fly 30 missions. 93 00:12:19,500 --> 00:12:24,542 They started out at 25, and then they changed it to 30 when we got there. 94 00:12:24,625 --> 00:12:29,041 Then we got 26 missions in, and they give us a week off, 95 00:12:29,125 --> 00:12:30,875 then we come back and they says, 96 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:33,208 "You're gonna fly 35." 97 00:12:33,291 --> 00:12:36,834 And that was kind of a shock. 98 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:44,917 It seemed like I was flying all the time. 99 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:48,792 There were 40 bomb groups, and our bomb group had a lot of people. 100 00:12:48,875 --> 00:12:52,083 I don't know the logistics of keepin' the fuel 101 00:12:52,166 --> 00:12:55,250 and the ammunition, loading the bombs at night, 102 00:12:55,333 --> 00:12:58,583 getting 'em ready for the next day. 103 00:12:58,667 --> 00:13:00,709 I don't know how they did it. 104 00:13:06,667 --> 00:13:08,917 When you're in a position like that, 105 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:11,333 there's no tomorrow. 106 00:13:11,417 --> 00:13:16,250 You do everything that you want to do, that you can do, 107 00:13:16,333 --> 00:13:20,291 when you feel like doing it, and do it then, 108 00:13:20,375 --> 00:13:23,875 because you may not get the chance to do it again. 109 00:14:31,417 --> 00:14:34,417 Wouldn't be unusual, they'd wake you up, 110 00:14:34,500 --> 00:14:36,375 the first thing you'd do would be 111 00:14:36,458 --> 00:14:39,625 go to the mess hall to eat. 112 00:14:41,542 --> 00:14:42,959 The mess hall was all lit up 113 00:14:43,041 --> 00:14:44,709 and everybody was laughing and talking, 114 00:14:44,792 --> 00:14:48,083 and usually, they had Berlin Lynn, 115 00:14:48,166 --> 00:14:51,709 or whatever her name was, on the radio, broadcasting. 116 00:14:51,792 --> 00:14:53,250 We hadn't been briefed yet, 117 00:14:53,333 --> 00:14:55,000 we didn't know where we was gonna go, 118 00:14:55,083 --> 00:14:58,083 but this lady in Berlin knew where we were gonna go. 119 00:14:58,166 --> 00:15:02,000 And she says, "Boys, you've got a tough one today." 120 00:15:02,083 --> 00:15:04,166 You're going to so-and-so and so-and-so, 121 00:15:04,250 --> 00:15:07,125 and we'll be waitin' on ya." And so... 122 00:15:07,208 --> 00:15:09,417 that they knew more than we did. 123 00:15:17,834 --> 00:15:19,333 Now, in the Air Force, 124 00:15:19,417 --> 00:15:22,125 when we went to the kitchen for breakfast, 125 00:15:22,208 --> 00:15:26,750 and we were getting, say, eggs, we'd get powdered eggs. 126 00:15:26,834 --> 00:15:28,458 That's what they had. 127 00:15:28,542 --> 00:15:32,417 Once in a while, we would get fresh eggs. 128 00:15:32,500 --> 00:15:35,333 You could get two over easy, 129 00:15:35,417 --> 00:15:37,500 and this was a treat. 130 00:15:37,583 --> 00:15:41,542 But we knew after a while that when you got fresh eggs, 131 00:15:41,625 --> 00:15:44,750 it meant you were gonna have a real tough mission, 132 00:15:44,834 --> 00:15:47,458 so they gave you fresh eggs. 133 00:15:47,542 --> 00:15:50,250 That's the story. 134 00:15:50,333 --> 00:15:53,625 We don't want fresh eggs, but we want fresh eggs. 135 00:16:02,792 --> 00:16:05,417 When you go in to get ready for a flight, 136 00:16:05,500 --> 00:16:09,375 you'd go into the locker room, and you wore long johns, 137 00:16:09,458 --> 00:16:14,083 and then you'd wear the heated suit, put that on. 138 00:16:14,166 --> 00:16:16,709 And we had gloves that were attached to those. 139 00:16:16,792 --> 00:16:19,083 You had to get your gloves into those. 140 00:16:19,166 --> 00:16:21,583 They came clear around your ankles, too. 141 00:16:21,667 --> 00:16:25,375 And then you had your flight suits. 142 00:16:25,458 --> 00:16:27,750 Those were the things that you just wore. 143 00:16:34,291 --> 00:16:36,166 Then you'd load back on a truck 144 00:16:36,250 --> 00:16:38,291 and they'd take you to the area 145 00:16:38,375 --> 00:16:41,625 where the debriefing rooms were, 146 00:16:41,709 --> 00:16:43,458 so all the crews and everything 147 00:16:43,542 --> 00:16:46,000 would be sitting there, waiting, 148 00:16:46,083 --> 00:16:48,500 and they had a sheet over the wall. 149 00:16:48,583 --> 00:16:50,792 They'd pull the sheet back and say, 150 00:16:50,875 --> 00:16:53,542 "Our target today is Germany. 151 00:16:53,625 --> 00:16:58,041 The weather looks pretty good as near as we can tell." 152 00:17:04,917 --> 00:17:08,250 One thing always got me about these briefings. 153 00:17:10,166 --> 00:17:12,667 The Catholic chaplain, 154 00:17:12,750 --> 00:17:16,792 he was back in the corner hearing confessions... 155 00:17:19,291 --> 00:17:21,625 and giving out communions. 156 00:17:21,709 --> 00:17:25,000 So you knew that you was goin' some place 157 00:17:25,083 --> 00:17:27,000 that you might not come back from. 158 00:18:38,417 --> 00:18:41,375 That was one of the most amazing things of the war, 159 00:18:41,458 --> 00:18:47,500 the choreographing of putting 1100 airplanes together in formation at war. 160 00:18:53,458 --> 00:18:56,750 We'd all line up on the perimeter strip 161 00:18:56,834 --> 00:18:59,792 that come around to the end of the runway. 162 00:18:59,875 --> 00:19:04,291 And the lead ship would taxi around and line up, 163 00:19:04,375 --> 00:19:07,291 and when they fired the flare to take off, 164 00:19:07,375 --> 00:19:10,166 that lead ship went down the runway. 165 00:19:14,208 --> 00:19:17,041 Next man pulled right up behind him. 166 00:19:17,125 --> 00:19:19,709 Thirty seconds, he moved. 167 00:19:23,417 --> 00:19:25,875 Thirty seconds, the third man moved. 168 00:19:25,959 --> 00:19:29,417 Every 30 seconds a plane was goin' down that runway. 169 00:19:29,500 --> 00:19:32,667 That lead plane never got off the ground 170 00:19:32,750 --> 00:19:35,625 before that second plane was already running. 171 00:19:53,667 --> 00:19:56,417 Well, we'd just spin out there on the end of the runway 172 00:19:56,500 --> 00:19:57,959 and give it full throttle, 173 00:19:58,041 --> 00:20:00,333 and you had to have enough speed for it 174 00:20:00,417 --> 00:20:03,208 to lift all that load up. 175 00:20:03,291 --> 00:20:05,667 You had a full gas load, 176 00:20:05,750 --> 00:20:09,417 you had all your ammunition for the guns, 177 00:20:09,500 --> 00:20:11,917 and you had the bombload. 178 00:21:23,583 --> 00:21:25,959 'Course, while you're up there, 179 00:21:26,041 --> 00:21:28,750 I could see the sun comin' up around the Earth, 180 00:21:28,834 --> 00:21:31,250 and I thought that was the most weird thing, 181 00:21:31,333 --> 00:21:36,125 to see the sun comin' up and it's dark on Earth, you're knowing. 182 00:21:36,208 --> 00:21:38,667 But you realized what was happening to you, 183 00:21:38,750 --> 00:21:41,125 and the next thing you know, why, the sun come up, 184 00:21:41,208 --> 00:21:44,333 and you see all these airplanes circling, 185 00:21:44,417 --> 00:21:47,291 straining, so to speak, to get up to the altitude 186 00:21:47,375 --> 00:21:49,500 with a heavy load of bombs. 187 00:22:05,041 --> 00:22:07,917 You had to form up, and you had a circle 188 00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:12,041 you were supposed to fly till you got formed up with your group. 189 00:22:12,125 --> 00:22:15,875 And then there'd be another bomb group over here. 190 00:22:15,959 --> 00:22:20,709 And one day we come within three or four inches... 191 00:22:20,792 --> 00:22:25,125 of flakin' up another bomb group. 192 00:22:33,583 --> 00:22:35,667 Well, on some of 'em, 193 00:22:35,750 --> 00:22:38,166 when the young pilots'd come in as replacements, 194 00:22:38,250 --> 00:22:41,500 if I was first man to take off, we'd be up in the air, 195 00:22:41,583 --> 00:22:44,917 say, two or three hundred feet, climbing, 196 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:47,250 all of a sudden, boom! 197 00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:51,875 You'd see a bright flash, 198 00:22:51,959 --> 00:22:54,875 a red flash, and stuff coming down, 199 00:22:54,959 --> 00:22:57,917 you knew darn well it was a midair collision. 200 00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:03,291 And those were scary times, as far as getting up. 201 00:23:05,959 --> 00:23:11,875 Two B-17s, one came down right on top of the other. 202 00:23:11,959 --> 00:23:13,750 They all went to their death. 203 00:23:16,041 --> 00:23:19,333 That's when I started smokin', by the way. 204 00:24:05,417 --> 00:24:08,125 Well, actually, I believe that our officers 205 00:24:08,208 --> 00:24:10,250 were closer to the crew 206 00:24:10,333 --> 00:24:12,375 than they were with other officers. 207 00:24:16,458 --> 00:24:19,834 As a crew, most crews stuck pretty well together. 208 00:24:19,917 --> 00:24:21,375 We did a lot together. 209 00:24:25,834 --> 00:24:29,083 I don't think we would have appreciated 210 00:24:29,166 --> 00:24:31,458 one new man joining us. 211 00:24:31,542 --> 00:24:34,709 We knew what each man was capable of doing. 212 00:24:34,792 --> 00:24:38,875 Each man did his job good, and no one complained. 213 00:24:42,792 --> 00:24:47,583 We were family in the air... you absolutely had to be. 214 00:24:47,667 --> 00:24:49,417 We all had our duties. 215 00:24:51,625 --> 00:24:54,041 We just wanted to stay together. 216 00:24:54,125 --> 00:24:59,000 And we flew 25 missions as a crew, all of us together. 217 00:25:05,875 --> 00:25:07,667 You're a family... 218 00:25:07,750 --> 00:25:09,709 exactly... you have to be. 219 00:25:09,792 --> 00:25:12,166 However, I can remember one mission 220 00:25:12,250 --> 00:25:15,417 when our flight engineer came out smashed. 221 00:25:15,500 --> 00:25:17,792 And I climbed all over him. 222 00:25:17,875 --> 00:25:20,083 I said, "What is wrong with you?" 223 00:25:20,166 --> 00:25:22,208 We depended on one another. 224 00:25:25,917 --> 00:25:28,000 There was a lot of spit and polish 225 00:25:28,083 --> 00:25:31,834 with the officers, and that didn't happen. 226 00:25:31,917 --> 00:25:35,125 Like you say, we're a family of brothers... 227 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:40,208 and we didn't have time for all that stuff. 228 00:25:42,250 --> 00:25:45,417 But there was no saluting and... 229 00:25:45,500 --> 00:25:48,458 and "Yes sir, no sir" and all that. 230 00:25:49,750 --> 00:25:52,625 Each guy was his own guy. 231 00:25:54,834 --> 00:25:59,375 Well, of course, each man would do his job 232 00:25:59,458 --> 00:26:03,375 and we all knew exactly who was gonna do what, 233 00:26:03,458 --> 00:26:04,667 so to speak. 234 00:26:07,208 --> 00:26:10,125 So I knew I had a good crew. 235 00:26:11,792 --> 00:26:14,834 And we just got along beautifully. 236 00:26:55,667 --> 00:26:57,810 We had a crew chief that took care of that plane 237 00:26:57,834 --> 00:27:00,333 after we got it back off a mission. 238 00:27:00,417 --> 00:27:03,792 So the three of us walked that plane, 239 00:27:03,875 --> 00:27:06,166 looked at everything on the ground, 240 00:27:06,250 --> 00:27:08,667 ask him all the questions we could think of. 241 00:27:08,750 --> 00:27:10,917 If there was any little thing 242 00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,625 that we thought we should pay particular attention to, 243 00:27:14,709 --> 00:27:16,667 for him to tell us. 244 00:27:31,333 --> 00:27:34,083 You never flew the same plane all the time. 245 00:27:34,166 --> 00:27:37,291 It's just like your car havin' an ouchie 246 00:27:37,375 --> 00:27:40,875 and you take it in to Firestone or somewhere to get fixed. 247 00:27:40,959 --> 00:27:43,792 They'd work overnight, all night long, 248 00:27:43,875 --> 00:27:45,834 trying to patch planes. 249 00:27:53,959 --> 00:27:55,625 As soon as you got in, 250 00:27:55,709 --> 00:27:58,208 they would take care of any damage, 251 00:27:58,291 --> 00:28:01,417 they would get in the plane and check the engines out, 252 00:28:01,500 --> 00:28:03,375 start 'em up and check 'em out. 253 00:28:03,458 --> 00:28:05,583 And they would clean up everything. 254 00:28:12,500 --> 00:28:13,917 Tremendous workers. 255 00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:15,625 They were so good. 256 00:28:15,709 --> 00:28:18,709 We came back in B-17s with two engines, 257 00:28:18,792 --> 00:28:22,750 with the tail fin shot up and busted away... 258 00:28:24,250 --> 00:28:26,917 with all kinds of holes in the plane, 259 00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:31,667 and in two days, that plane was flying missions again. 260 00:28:47,125 --> 00:28:49,083 We had armor on our crew. 261 00:28:49,166 --> 00:28:52,709 And he'd be there when they... Most cases, not all cases... 262 00:28:52,792 --> 00:28:56,834 Sometimes a plane'd be loaded before we ever got there. 263 00:29:03,291 --> 00:29:06,000 The armor gunners took care of all that. 264 00:29:06,083 --> 00:29:10,917 They'd bring 'em out on big carriers, and... 265 00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:13,458 it was a dangerous job. 266 00:29:26,583 --> 00:29:30,542 We did not load the bombs, no, but we did come out and check. 267 00:29:53,709 --> 00:29:55,542 They were all fused, 268 00:29:55,625 --> 00:29:59,750 and they had fusing wires stuck to the propeller. 269 00:30:04,709 --> 00:30:08,458 These fusing wires were hooked on the shackles 270 00:30:08,542 --> 00:30:10,792 that the bombs are hung on, 271 00:30:10,875 --> 00:30:14,041 and when they left the plane, they would pull the wire out. 272 00:30:17,709 --> 00:30:20,375 Now the bomb is alive. 273 00:30:22,041 --> 00:30:24,500 If you've seen movies and you hear bombs... 274 00:30:24,583 --> 00:30:29,375 goin' down, that's this fuse spinning out. 275 00:30:33,709 --> 00:30:36,125 Now the bomb is live, and once it hit, 276 00:30:36,208 --> 00:30:37,750 of course, it detonates. 277 00:30:41,083 --> 00:30:45,083 We had two missions where I had to go back in the bomb bay 278 00:30:45,166 --> 00:30:47,250 and put the cotter pins back in. 279 00:30:47,333 --> 00:30:50,000 And that is a little hairy. 280 00:30:50,083 --> 00:30:52,083 Why? 'Cause when you landed, 281 00:30:52,166 --> 00:30:54,750 if you didn't, the bombs were armed, 282 00:30:54,834 --> 00:30:57,750 and if you had trouble, of course, you'd detonate. 283 00:32:27,750 --> 00:32:31,041 Well, we talked about just about everything. 284 00:32:31,125 --> 00:32:35,709 Our families, et cetera. It didn't matter what it was. 285 00:32:35,792 --> 00:32:39,542 We kept pretty much of a running conversation between everybody. 286 00:32:39,625 --> 00:32:41,834 It made the mission go a little easier. 287 00:32:50,041 --> 00:32:51,500 First thing you did, 288 00:32:51,583 --> 00:32:53,834 soon as we cleared the coast of England, 289 00:32:53,917 --> 00:32:56,291 everybody would test their guns. 290 00:33:15,834 --> 00:33:19,542 Well, of course, I can only speak for myself, 291 00:33:19,625 --> 00:33:23,250 but when you're in hostile territory, 292 00:33:23,333 --> 00:33:25,625 and I was in a top turret, 293 00:33:25,709 --> 00:33:29,500 so all of my vision was 360... 294 00:33:29,583 --> 00:33:31,709 90 degrees this way, ya know. 295 00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,542 Contrails would form at the tail of the ship. 296 00:33:47,875 --> 00:33:51,375 The moisture in the air and the ship flying through it 297 00:33:51,458 --> 00:33:53,750 made the contrails. 298 00:33:55,333 --> 00:33:58,333 And a lot times we wouldn't have 'em, 299 00:33:58,417 --> 00:34:02,291 because it depended on the amount of moisture in the air. 300 00:34:42,208 --> 00:34:44,792 Couldn't see a prettier sight than that. 301 00:34:46,542 --> 00:34:49,500 Kind of spell-bound, ya know, spell-bound. 302 00:34:51,291 --> 00:34:53,041 A beautiful sight. 303 00:34:58,083 --> 00:35:01,041 If you're watching on the ground over in Germany, 304 00:35:01,125 --> 00:35:04,959 they tell me, it took about 30 minutes for 'em all to come over. 305 00:35:07,792 --> 00:35:10,041 They said on a clear day 306 00:35:10,125 --> 00:35:13,917 that the Germans could see us coming 50 miles out 307 00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,291 from the contrails. 308 00:35:19,333 --> 00:35:21,333 And unfortunately, when that happened, 309 00:35:21,417 --> 00:35:24,875 that wasn't too good, because they were ready for us. 310 00:36:12,917 --> 00:36:17,041 In 1938, I was down in Chile, 311 00:36:17,125 --> 00:36:19,542 and they threw a good will tour down there. 312 00:36:19,625 --> 00:36:21,959 I remember going out with my father 313 00:36:22,041 --> 00:36:23,417 and seeing these big planes. 314 00:36:27,583 --> 00:36:31,458 And I said to my father, "Someday I'm gonna fly in one of those." 315 00:36:31,542 --> 00:36:34,875 Little did I know. 316 00:36:44,083 --> 00:36:48,500 The B-17 was not only a beautiful ship, 317 00:36:48,583 --> 00:36:49,834 but it flew like a dream, 318 00:36:49,917 --> 00:36:53,917 it flew like an overgrown Piper Cub. 319 00:36:56,875 --> 00:36:59,417 It flew nice and smooth. Beautiful. 320 00:36:59,500 --> 00:37:01,917 Took a lot of punishment. 321 00:37:04,333 --> 00:37:06,667 The greatest airplane ever built, 322 00:37:06,750 --> 00:37:08,709 as far as I'm concerned. 323 00:37:08,792 --> 00:37:11,166 It brought us back 35 times. 324 00:37:11,250 --> 00:37:15,709 Sometimes in condition that you would never even think 325 00:37:15,792 --> 00:37:17,750 of trying to fly an airplane, 326 00:37:17,834 --> 00:37:20,166 any other airplane, 327 00:37:20,250 --> 00:37:24,458 that plane came back, and that plane brought us back. 328 00:37:26,500 --> 00:37:28,792 It was a marriage, I'll tell ya. 329 00:37:40,834 --> 00:37:44,709 A lot of guys, they'd name their own planes. 330 00:37:44,792 --> 00:37:47,000 And they had all kinds of kooky names. 331 00:37:52,875 --> 00:37:55,000 The original crews 332 00:37:55,083 --> 00:37:56,583 had a lot of good painters 333 00:37:56,667 --> 00:38:00,250 and they had a of planes that were decorated 334 00:38:00,333 --> 00:38:03,375 and had logos on 'em and so on. 335 00:38:12,667 --> 00:38:16,959 Vargas girls, like Petty girl... Petty girls, Vargas girls, 336 00:38:17,041 --> 00:38:18,333 sexy girls... 337 00:38:18,417 --> 00:38:20,709 There weren't too many serious things. 338 00:38:20,792 --> 00:38:23,166 I think to keep guys loose. 339 00:39:08,917 --> 00:39:10,625 Well... 340 00:39:10,709 --> 00:39:14,291 on a warm day it would be 20 below. 341 00:39:14,375 --> 00:39:17,083 But sometimes it got 60 below. 342 00:39:17,166 --> 00:39:20,458 And often times I had to take my oxygen mask 343 00:39:20,542 --> 00:39:22,542 and crack the ice out of it 344 00:39:22,625 --> 00:39:26,375 and check if it would freeze into the tube. 345 00:39:26,458 --> 00:39:28,500 That was one of the worst parts of the mission, 346 00:39:28,583 --> 00:39:30,792 was the cold air. 347 00:39:30,875 --> 00:39:32,417 The only time you didn't feel it 348 00:39:32,500 --> 00:39:34,500 is when you were fightin' fighters 349 00:39:34,583 --> 00:39:37,709 or goin' over the target. 350 00:39:42,208 --> 00:39:45,542 Oh, at 30,000 feet the... 351 00:39:45,625 --> 00:39:50,166 I think the temperature drops two degrees every thousand. 352 00:39:52,208 --> 00:39:56,458 It'd be about 40 below at that altitude. 353 00:39:56,542 --> 00:40:02,375 In the cockpit, a little bit of heat came off the number three engine, 354 00:40:02,458 --> 00:40:08,208 it came into the cockpit where the pilot and I sat. 355 00:40:08,291 --> 00:40:11,875 And there's enough to kind of keep your feet warm 356 00:40:11,959 --> 00:40:13,959 and your hands. 357 00:40:21,500 --> 00:40:24,709 Our ball turret gunner had a gun problem, 358 00:40:24,792 --> 00:40:28,792 his gun jammed, and he took his gloves off to work on it, 359 00:40:28,875 --> 00:40:31,250 and both his hands got frostbitten 360 00:40:31,333 --> 00:40:34,709 and he didn't fly with us for a month until his hands healed up. 361 00:40:41,875 --> 00:40:45,583 Well, it was so cold on one mission 362 00:40:45,667 --> 00:40:50,792 our copilot suffered an anoxia situation where he passed out, 363 00:40:50,875 --> 00:40:55,083 and his hand froze to the plexiglass window, 364 00:40:55,166 --> 00:40:58,125 and then they had to amputate the fingers of his hand 365 00:40:58,208 --> 00:41:02,125 because it was so cold that his hand, when he tried to help himself, 366 00:41:02,208 --> 00:41:05,500 froze to the plexiglass window. 367 00:42:04,500 --> 00:42:08,125 Well, the British treated us very nice, 368 00:42:08,208 --> 00:42:11,417 in some cases royally. 369 00:42:14,125 --> 00:42:15,875 They called it "The Friendly Invasion" 370 00:42:15,959 --> 00:42:18,250 'cause we flat invaded that country. 371 00:42:27,083 --> 00:42:29,208 England's a small country, and we had it 372 00:42:29,291 --> 00:42:32,625 absolutely covered up with American soldiers. 373 00:42:35,625 --> 00:42:38,542 And they tolerated us. 374 00:42:55,792 --> 00:42:57,291 I was single then, 375 00:42:57,375 --> 00:42:59,875 I could run around, do whatever I wanted. 376 00:42:59,959 --> 00:43:01,750 But I didn't feel uncomfortable 377 00:43:01,834 --> 00:43:04,709 with the British people at all... 378 00:43:04,792 --> 00:43:07,709 once I got to be able to understand the language, 379 00:43:07,792 --> 00:43:10,500 because... that English language 380 00:43:10,583 --> 00:43:12,792 is a little different then ours. 381 00:43:14,667 --> 00:43:16,250 Very good people. 382 00:43:16,333 --> 00:43:19,542 As you know, at the beginning of the war 383 00:43:19,625 --> 00:43:23,625 they weren't too enamored by the Yanks comin' over. 384 00:43:23,709 --> 00:43:29,041 They said we were "overpaid, oversexed, and over here." 385 00:43:29,125 --> 00:43:31,333 I remember that. 386 00:44:10,333 --> 00:44:15,417 Flak is German 88-millimeter cannon shells. 387 00:44:15,500 --> 00:44:19,625 Flak was responsible for more planes being shot down 388 00:44:19,709 --> 00:44:21,875 than enemy fighters. 389 00:44:21,959 --> 00:44:25,041 And when you see a flak, black puffs of smoke, 390 00:44:25,125 --> 00:44:28,542 that's after the shell, of course, has exploded. 391 00:44:28,625 --> 00:44:31,500 And it explodes, hypothetically, 392 00:44:31,583 --> 00:44:34,291 into 200 pieces... 393 00:44:34,375 --> 00:44:36,417 and it's powerful. 394 00:44:41,417 --> 00:44:43,750 You don't know where the flak is coming from. 395 00:44:43,834 --> 00:44:47,083 You don't know if the next burst is gonna hit you or not. 396 00:44:47,166 --> 00:44:50,333 You never know where the next one is gonna be 397 00:44:50,417 --> 00:44:53,250 in a case like that, and that's what scares ya. 398 00:44:55,417 --> 00:44:57,583 It just looked like a big thunderstorm, 399 00:44:57,667 --> 00:44:59,875 so to speak, that's what it amounted to. 400 00:44:59,959 --> 00:45:02,250 But you had to keep on flyin'. 401 00:45:07,959 --> 00:45:11,625 God was on your side when you didn't get hit. 402 00:45:11,709 --> 00:45:13,875 The flak would vary so much. 403 00:45:13,959 --> 00:45:16,041 The Germans had pretty good radar... 404 00:45:16,125 --> 00:45:19,750 They could judge your altitude, your speed, 405 00:45:19,834 --> 00:45:22,125 and your direction. 406 00:45:28,709 --> 00:45:31,166 I think the worst that I ever had... 407 00:45:31,250 --> 00:45:34,542 Over Kassel, Germany, I will never forget that one... 408 00:45:34,625 --> 00:45:36,750 It blew my windshield out 409 00:45:36,834 --> 00:45:40,792 and come into my face at 160 miles an hour. 410 00:45:48,667 --> 00:45:51,291 You'd look at that flak out there, and you'd swear 411 00:45:51,375 --> 00:45:54,250 you're not gonna get through it... 412 00:45:54,333 --> 00:45:56,417 where the sky's almost black with these things 413 00:45:56,500 --> 00:45:59,583 bustin' all over the place. 414 00:45:59,667 --> 00:46:03,333 It's amazing we did make it through as much as we did. 415 00:46:17,750 --> 00:46:19,375 Well, we had a dog, 416 00:46:19,458 --> 00:46:22,208 and it looked more like a pig than a dog. 417 00:46:22,291 --> 00:46:25,041 But it was our mascot. 418 00:46:32,458 --> 00:46:36,000 We had a stove in the middle of the barracks, 419 00:46:36,083 --> 00:46:38,959 and we used to make sandwiches on it and so forth. 420 00:46:39,041 --> 00:46:42,875 If the dog was around, we'd feed him whatever we had left over. 421 00:46:44,542 --> 00:46:47,000 He hung around the barracks until we got back. 422 00:46:47,083 --> 00:46:49,625 Don't know if he had a name or not. 423 00:46:49,709 --> 00:46:51,959 He was a faithful little dog. 424 00:46:52,041 --> 00:46:55,250 But it had a real wide nose. 425 00:47:02,709 --> 00:47:05,250 Oh, you get superstitious. 426 00:47:05,333 --> 00:47:09,041 I remember I had to put on a clean pair of socks 427 00:47:09,125 --> 00:47:11,333 the day I was shot down. 428 00:47:11,417 --> 00:47:15,875 I'd been wearing the same pair of socks. 429 00:47:15,959 --> 00:47:20,125 Evidently, I think that the pup got one of my socks 430 00:47:20,208 --> 00:47:22,834 and was chewing on it and hid it, 431 00:47:22,917 --> 00:47:24,458 and I couldn't find it that morning, 432 00:47:24,542 --> 00:47:27,417 I had to put on a clean pair of socks. 433 00:47:27,500 --> 00:47:30,625 That might have been the reason I was shot down. 434 00:47:32,417 --> 00:47:34,333 You are to believe this or not, 435 00:47:34,417 --> 00:47:37,083 but somewheres around the 10th or 12th mission, 436 00:47:37,166 --> 00:47:42,333 I got to a point, and I know some of the other fellas reached the same thing, 437 00:47:42,417 --> 00:47:44,750 that they were feeling blasé. 438 00:47:44,834 --> 00:47:46,792 "They didn't get us up to here, 439 00:47:46,875 --> 00:47:49,542 they ain't gonna get us hereon." 440 00:47:51,333 --> 00:47:54,291 I was somewhat superstitious. 441 00:47:54,375 --> 00:47:57,125 I always felt God would bring me home... 442 00:47:57,208 --> 00:47:59,041 And I mean that sincerely... 443 00:47:59,125 --> 00:48:03,250 However, I wasn't sure if it would be in one piece. 444 00:48:08,166 --> 00:48:10,917 I flew five days in a row. 445 00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:12,542 Five missions. 446 00:48:12,625 --> 00:48:14,959 And I remember by the fourth or fifth one, 447 00:48:15,041 --> 00:48:18,041 you really didn't care... You were worn out. 448 00:48:18,125 --> 00:48:21,000 You wanted to get away from it. 449 00:48:21,083 --> 00:48:23,583 I saw a lot of 'em break under pressure. 450 00:48:23,667 --> 00:48:28,208 Come back and told the flight sergeant, "I can't fly anymore." 451 00:48:28,291 --> 00:48:29,583 And they didn't. 452 00:48:29,667 --> 00:48:30,987 Nobody pointed their finger at 'em 453 00:48:31,041 --> 00:48:32,625 and ridiculed 'em. 454 00:48:33,792 --> 00:48:35,458 Nobody. 455 00:49:15,208 --> 00:49:17,125 Yes, the bomb run. 456 00:49:17,208 --> 00:49:18,750 That was the worst, 457 00:49:18,834 --> 00:49:21,792 'cause you had to keep everything steady. 458 00:49:23,208 --> 00:49:24,625 If you weren't on a bomb run, 459 00:49:24,709 --> 00:49:27,333 you could slide over once in a while, 460 00:49:27,417 --> 00:49:29,792 that made 'em think they'd miss ya. 461 00:49:29,875 --> 00:49:33,875 But on a bomb run, you just had to set there and take it. 462 00:49:37,458 --> 00:49:40,917 Try to shrivel up, I guess. 463 00:49:43,041 --> 00:49:46,083 The lead ship does it all. 464 00:49:46,166 --> 00:49:48,625 You just follow what he does. 465 00:49:48,709 --> 00:49:51,667 The lead ship, and then the two on each side, 466 00:49:51,750 --> 00:49:55,041 one down there and one up here and around there. 467 00:49:59,709 --> 00:50:03,458 I was flyin' right above the leader, 468 00:50:03,542 --> 00:50:05,625 and when you're watching him 469 00:50:05,709 --> 00:50:10,041 and you see that the bomb door is open, then you open too. 470 00:50:10,125 --> 00:50:12,000 And then you wait for him to drop bombs, 471 00:50:12,083 --> 00:50:14,291 and when he drops bombs, then you drop 'em. 472 00:50:25,125 --> 00:50:27,333 We can't change our altitude, 473 00:50:27,417 --> 00:50:29,500 and we can't change our direction, 474 00:50:29,583 --> 00:50:32,750 and we're what you call sitting ducks at that moment. 475 00:50:36,500 --> 00:50:39,500 It was rough, because any minute, 476 00:50:39,583 --> 00:50:41,583 you were gonna get hit. 477 00:52:02,834 --> 00:52:05,667 The bombs are dropped, bombs away, 478 00:52:05,750 --> 00:52:08,667 and the first thing you hear is, 479 00:52:08,750 --> 00:52:11,792 "Let's get the hell outta here." 480 00:52:11,875 --> 00:52:16,875 We make a sharp turn, and the group follows the lead. 481 00:52:19,959 --> 00:52:21,417 After a while, 482 00:52:21,500 --> 00:52:23,500 fighter attacks started coming in, 483 00:52:23,583 --> 00:52:26,208 and they didn't miss very often. 484 00:52:48,583 --> 00:52:50,792 They'd be out 20, 30 miles, 485 00:52:50,875 --> 00:52:54,208 and they'd come rush straight at your level. 486 00:53:01,291 --> 00:53:05,333 You couldn't hit anything with those guns like that. 487 00:53:05,417 --> 00:53:08,792 By the time you saw a guy, he was gone. 488 00:53:08,875 --> 00:53:11,875 You'd see one comin', he's gone. 489 00:53:35,208 --> 00:53:39,166 You don't have much time to shoot at 'em. 490 00:53:39,250 --> 00:53:42,500 If you get off a burst or two, well, you're lucky, 491 00:53:42,583 --> 00:53:44,750 then they'd go zoop! 492 00:54:03,041 --> 00:54:06,333 He'll drop off, he'll fly down, 493 00:54:06,417 --> 00:54:08,291 and then he'll line up on ya. 494 00:54:08,375 --> 00:54:11,125 Then he'll peel off. 495 00:54:48,959 --> 00:54:52,250 The copilot was hit pretty hard when we were shot down. 496 00:54:52,333 --> 00:54:57,583 A 20-millimeter shell popped right above his head 497 00:54:57,667 --> 00:54:59,750 and it knocked an eye out. 498 00:55:01,750 --> 00:55:07,458 So it was high noon, an ME-109 was back there blasting at us, 499 00:55:07,542 --> 00:55:12,208 and I heard the copilot, he said, "Jesus Christ", 500 00:55:12,291 --> 00:55:15,500 number four's on fire. Get out." 501 00:55:19,542 --> 00:55:22,583 When that thing is spinnin' and headin' down, 502 00:55:22,667 --> 00:55:24,291 you were glued to your seat, 503 00:55:24,375 --> 00:55:26,750 you couldn't move if you wanted to. 504 00:55:30,709 --> 00:55:34,417 And you're lucky if you see two or three guys bail out. 505 00:55:37,709 --> 00:55:39,166 We would count the chutes, 506 00:55:39,250 --> 00:55:41,667 and usually if we started to look too long 507 00:55:41,750 --> 00:55:43,583 after a ship that was going down, 508 00:55:43,667 --> 00:55:46,333 the pilot would say, "OK, guys, off... ". 509 00:55:46,417 --> 00:55:47,851 We didn't want to spend too much time 510 00:55:47,875 --> 00:55:49,667 looking at a plane going down 511 00:55:49,750 --> 00:55:52,917 when we had fighters in the area and so forth. 512 00:56:01,083 --> 00:56:04,917 The gunners and the others that were watching all the time 513 00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:09,083 would tell ya, "Boy, I don't think anybody got out of that one, nobody got out," 514 00:56:09,166 --> 00:56:13,542 and then sometimes you'd see chutes comin' out of 'em 515 00:56:13,625 --> 00:56:15,917 before they blew up or anything. 516 00:56:18,625 --> 00:56:20,625 If you didn't have your chute on 517 00:56:20,709 --> 00:56:24,000 and get out of there in less than 30 seconds, 518 00:56:24,083 --> 00:56:25,458 you're gone. 519 00:56:27,083 --> 00:56:28,959 You're gone. 520 00:56:30,750 --> 00:56:36,125 And seven out of eleven out of my crew got out alive... 521 00:56:36,208 --> 00:56:39,667 and one of 'em, when he got on the ground, 522 00:56:39,750 --> 00:56:42,250 they pitchforked him to death. 523 00:56:43,917 --> 00:56:47,000 How could you kill a human like that? 524 00:57:23,333 --> 00:57:27,250 As we approached the field, we set off flares. 525 00:57:27,333 --> 00:57:30,625 Red flares means you have wounded aboard. 526 00:57:30,709 --> 00:57:32,917 Everybody else gets out of the way 527 00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:35,125 and the wounded comes in first. 528 00:58:24,458 --> 00:58:26,750 To this day, I still see it. 529 00:58:26,834 --> 00:58:29,125 When I think of it, I choke up. 530 00:58:29,208 --> 00:58:31,500 I can't help it, they were friends of mine, 531 00:58:31,583 --> 00:58:34,959 they were good friends, and it hurt so bad. 532 00:58:35,041 --> 00:58:38,875 "What a waste." 533 00:58:42,500 --> 00:58:47,333 With the job we had, the chance of dying was at least 50%. 534 00:58:47,417 --> 00:58:51,625 50% chance of living, 50% chance of dying. 535 00:58:55,375 --> 00:58:57,335 You know, a guy said, "Your name's on it." 536 00:58:57,375 --> 00:58:59,333 Well, maybe it was. 537 00:58:59,417 --> 00:59:01,667 But it was scary. 538 00:59:01,750 --> 00:59:07,959 And I get very irritated when I hear some of these guys say, "I wasn't scared one bit." 539 00:59:08,041 --> 00:59:10,291 They're full of prunes. 540 00:59:14,250 --> 00:59:16,834 I was scared every time. 541 00:59:23,625 --> 00:59:26,208 I went out to a ship one time 542 00:59:26,291 --> 00:59:28,750 when they were taking a young fella off, 543 00:59:28,834 --> 00:59:32,125 and I thought I could help them. 544 00:59:34,208 --> 00:59:36,417 The guy they were pulling out of the ship... 545 00:59:39,625 --> 00:59:43,166 he was calling for his mother. 546 01:00:33,250 --> 01:00:37,291 In about late 1944, 547 01:00:37,375 --> 01:00:40,458 the Allies decided 548 01:00:40,542 --> 01:00:44,041 to do away with precision bombing. 549 01:00:45,875 --> 01:00:48,333 We went to pattern bombing. 550 01:00:50,041 --> 01:00:52,375 Unfortunately, it killed a lot of people, 551 01:00:52,458 --> 01:00:57,208 but brought the war to a close about a year sooner. 552 01:01:06,583 --> 01:01:09,500 The United States military 553 01:01:09,583 --> 01:01:13,500 did not go out to carpet-bomb civilians or anything. 554 01:01:13,583 --> 01:01:16,041 They went out to bomb factories, 555 01:01:16,125 --> 01:01:18,333 rail yards, refineries, 556 01:01:18,417 --> 01:01:20,750 and places that had something to do with the war. 557 01:01:20,834 --> 01:01:23,542 I don't think that I felt bad about that at all. 558 01:01:23,625 --> 01:01:25,750 That's what we were supposed to do. 559 01:01:25,834 --> 01:01:29,959 But toward the end of the war, the Germans would not give up. 560 01:01:50,375 --> 01:01:52,000 Never thought a thing about it. 561 01:01:52,083 --> 01:01:55,166 We didn't think about people being down there. 562 01:01:56,417 --> 01:01:57,875 That never crossed my mind, 563 01:01:57,959 --> 01:02:00,458 about a human being bein' down there. 564 01:02:11,834 --> 01:02:14,709 Never gave it a thought, they just Germans, 565 01:02:14,792 --> 01:02:17,625 you know, and I never gave it a thought. 566 01:02:28,250 --> 01:02:30,917 For some reason, I didn't hate 'em. 567 01:02:31,000 --> 01:02:32,750 If I had a fighter plane 568 01:02:32,834 --> 01:02:35,333 come within shooting-me distance, 569 01:02:35,417 --> 01:02:39,875 my thought was, "This kid probably wanted to live as bad as you did." 570 01:02:42,166 --> 01:02:44,625 I really didn't have any hate for 'em. 571 01:02:44,709 --> 01:02:46,458 I was just scared of 'em. 572 01:02:50,291 --> 01:02:52,166 Never gave it a thought. 573 01:02:52,250 --> 01:02:54,583 I honestly never gave it a thought. 574 01:02:54,667 --> 01:02:57,333 I JUST FELT THIS WAY: 575 01:02:57,417 --> 01:02:59,083 "They're gonna do it to us, 576 01:02:59,166 --> 01:03:01,625 we better do it to them before they do it to us." 577 01:03:01,709 --> 01:03:04,500 And that's the way I felt, and I couldn't help it. 578 01:03:44,333 --> 01:03:48,458 Bring any thoughts, seeing that? 579 01:03:48,542 --> 01:03:52,542 Well, I drifted off into several thoughts. 580 01:03:52,625 --> 01:03:56,000 Most of 'em, you know, uh... 581 01:03:56,083 --> 01:03:58,500 were bad thoughts when you're lookin' at a mission. 582 01:03:58,583 --> 01:04:03,500 I see what took place on that mission, 583 01:04:03,583 --> 01:04:07,208 and your mind drifts back to those times, you know. 584 01:04:22,875 --> 01:04:25,625 We had a lot of midair collisions. 585 01:04:25,709 --> 01:04:28,500 Some guys would get mixed up, pilots, 586 01:04:28,583 --> 01:04:33,000 and they'd start flying... the wrong direction and so on. 587 01:04:33,083 --> 01:04:37,000 But the scary part of most of our missions 588 01:04:37,083 --> 01:04:39,125 was just getting through all of that. 589 01:04:41,542 --> 01:04:46,041 Did it get easier or harder as you flew more missions? 590 01:04:46,125 --> 01:04:49,417 I just... Like I say, I was scared to death. 591 01:04:49,500 --> 01:04:53,667 But, uh... those were not good days. 592 01:05:04,458 --> 01:05:07,709 There was no radio communication at all. 593 01:05:07,792 --> 01:05:11,125 We had the intercom goin' all the time, though. 594 01:05:11,208 --> 01:05:14,834 I'd check in with the man with the oxygen mask on, 595 01:05:14,917 --> 01:05:18,792 make sure their oxygen was flowing right. 596 01:05:18,875 --> 01:05:20,500 Especially the tail gunner, 597 01:05:20,583 --> 01:05:23,959 he was layin' back there by himself so much. 598 01:05:31,792 --> 01:05:35,500 You got very close with the men and everything. 599 01:05:35,583 --> 01:05:38,041 And they're all young kids. 600 01:05:42,208 --> 01:05:45,166 They're all dead now, I'm sure. 601 01:05:56,709 --> 01:05:58,125 When you're that high up, 602 01:05:58,208 --> 01:06:01,834 everything on the ground looks like a little toy. 603 01:06:01,917 --> 01:06:04,667 If you see a truck or something, 604 01:06:04,750 --> 01:06:06,709 it really looks small. 605 01:06:08,333 --> 01:06:12,000 It was hard, but you had to do it. 606 01:06:12,083 --> 01:06:15,875 We had to get rid of Hitler, and so we did it. 607 01:06:28,208 --> 01:06:32,542 You guys know that some bombs went through the wings of B-17s? 608 01:06:33,875 --> 01:06:35,875 I always wondered how in the world... 609 01:06:35,959 --> 01:06:38,041 They were out of position... 610 01:06:38,125 --> 01:06:40,041 in the formation. 611 01:06:41,375 --> 01:06:44,208 God's been good to me. 612 01:06:44,291 --> 01:06:47,291 First of all, he's given me 70 years 613 01:06:47,375 --> 01:06:49,333 with that lady over there, 614 01:06:49,417 --> 01:06:52,083 and we have a wonderful family. 615 01:06:56,291 --> 01:06:57,917 We have six kids 616 01:06:58,000 --> 01:07:01,667 and we have 20 grandkids, 22 great-grandkids. 617 01:07:01,750 --> 01:07:05,750 So we've been a very blessed family. 618 01:07:05,834 --> 01:07:09,083 I didn't say I want 'em all at the house at once. 619 01:07:16,208 --> 01:07:18,667 What do you think about "The Good War" 620 01:07:18,750 --> 01:07:20,709 and "You're the Greatest Generation"? 621 01:07:23,125 --> 01:07:27,375 Well... I'm beginning to believe it. 622 01:07:30,375 --> 01:07:32,667 Does that make sense to ya? 623 01:07:34,917 --> 01:07:39,458 You kind of grew up 10 years when you went into that thing. 624 01:07:41,083 --> 01:07:44,208 And when I came back home, 625 01:07:44,291 --> 01:07:47,125 I didn't feel like the same man anymore. 626 01:07:54,625 --> 01:07:58,333 What do you say to people who say, "John, you're a hero." 627 01:07:58,417 --> 01:07:59,917 You're a hero"? 628 01:08:00,000 --> 01:08:01,680 I say, "OK, you're probably right." 629 01:08:01,709 --> 01:08:04,542 I don't know what else to say. 630 01:08:04,625 --> 01:08:07,041 I wasn't one of the hero-heroes, 631 01:08:07,125 --> 01:08:10,625 the guys that finish their tour and sign up for another one, 632 01:08:10,709 --> 01:08:13,667 I wasn't them kind of heroes. 633 01:08:15,792 --> 01:08:17,917 But I want it clearly known: 634 01:08:18,000 --> 01:08:20,792 I do not profess myself to be a hero. 635 01:08:20,875 --> 01:08:23,417 I was the pilot; 636 01:08:23,500 --> 01:08:27,750 The heroes are buried in England, Germany, and France. 637 01:08:27,834 --> 01:08:31,041 The boys didn't make it, they're the heroes. 638 01:08:31,125 --> 01:08:33,333 I was just a normal pilot. 639 01:08:52,917 --> 01:08:55,542 This is called pattern bombing. 640 01:09:02,041 --> 01:09:04,561 No offense, but you guys aren't getting any younger. 641 01:09:04,625 --> 01:09:06,250 Why do you think it's important 642 01:09:06,333 --> 01:09:09,083 that people know what you guys did? 643 01:09:11,375 --> 01:09:12,959 Well, for one thing, 644 01:09:13,041 --> 01:09:14,917 we don't want it to to happen again, 645 01:09:15,000 --> 01:09:18,458 in fact or in fancy. 646 01:09:18,542 --> 01:09:20,500 We just don't want it to happen again, 647 01:09:20,583 --> 01:09:25,709 for my grandson, my granddaughters and their husbands. 648 01:09:28,583 --> 01:09:32,750 I don't want to see them have to face what we did. 649 01:10:19,625 --> 01:10:22,792 I cannot say it much more eloquently... 650 01:10:22,875 --> 01:10:25,792 It was a hazardous profession. 651 01:10:27,834 --> 01:10:31,208 OK, up at altitude and, of course, bombs away and all, 652 01:10:31,291 --> 01:10:32,792 and you got this on, 653 01:10:32,875 --> 01:10:35,166 I think fear more than anything, 654 01:10:35,250 --> 01:10:38,208 you'd perspire and sweat. 655 01:10:38,291 --> 01:10:40,333 You got this on. 656 01:10:40,417 --> 01:10:43,500 Ice would form, and you'd take a deep breath 657 01:10:43,583 --> 01:10:46,500 and break the ice out of the oxygen mask. 658 01:10:46,583 --> 01:10:49,083 And then put it back on. 659 01:10:51,667 --> 01:10:55,333 This is Bud trying to get down on the floor. 660 01:10:55,417 --> 01:10:57,417 This is the Mae West. 661 01:10:57,500 --> 01:10:59,917 Remember I told ya about the oxygen? 662 01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:02,125 I mean, the CO2 cylinder? 663 01:11:02,208 --> 01:11:05,083 This is it. There it is. 664 01:11:05,166 --> 01:11:07,083 CO2 cylinder. 665 01:11:07,166 --> 01:11:10,583 This was before underarm deodorant, hair spray... 666 01:11:10,667 --> 01:11:14,834 I think this was the birth of aerosol containers. 667 01:11:14,917 --> 01:11:18,917 And if guys bailed out, they didn't want it totally inflated 668 01:11:19,000 --> 01:11:20,750 couple hundred feet up, 669 01:11:20,834 --> 01:11:24,583 because if they hit the water, they could break their backs. 670 01:11:24,667 --> 01:11:27,083 So it wasn't that easy. I never did it. 671 01:11:27,166 --> 01:11:28,917 This is a throat mic. 672 01:11:29,000 --> 01:11:31,333 This is how I talked to Eric. 673 01:11:31,417 --> 01:11:32,917 And this plugged in. 674 01:11:33,000 --> 01:11:35,709 And as I showed ya on the helmet, 675 01:11:35,792 --> 01:11:37,291 this is how I heard. 676 01:11:37,375 --> 01:11:39,458 So we had our communication system. 677 01:11:39,542 --> 01:11:41,291 But, Bud, to be clear, 678 01:11:41,375 --> 01:11:44,208 this should have been returned to the government in 1945. 679 01:11:46,542 --> 01:11:48,417 Come and get 'em, baby. 680 01:11:48,500 --> 01:11:50,542 What we just did with you 681 01:11:50,625 --> 01:11:52,333 might be the credit roll to our movie, 682 01:11:52,417 --> 01:11:53,959 so you have any messages for people 683 01:11:54,041 --> 01:11:55,709 that just watched this movie? 684 01:11:55,792 --> 01:11:59,792 Well, I'm just so glad that people in America, 685 01:11:59,875 --> 01:12:04,625 or anywhere, can get an idea what 19 and 20 686 01:12:04,709 --> 01:12:07,417 and 21-year-old kids went through, 687 01:12:07,500 --> 01:12:10,875 and as I tell kids when I get done with my talk, 688 01:12:10,959 --> 01:12:13,667 "I'm gonna ask you guys a favor now." 689 01:12:13,750 --> 01:12:15,166 "What's that, Bud?" 690 01:12:15,250 --> 01:12:16,542 "When you go home tonight," 691 01:12:16,625 --> 01:12:19,125 you say a prayer of thanks to God 692 01:12:19,208 --> 01:12:22,709 for those 28,000 guys that gave their lives 693 01:12:22,792 --> 01:12:25,542 "so that you got the life you got today." 694 01:12:27,917 --> 01:12:29,393 Well, thank you for your service, Bud. 695 01:12:29,417 --> 01:12:31,250 Not at all. Not at all.