[Richard Misenhimer] Let's decide to take one but BK Miller.
[Boyd K. Miller] You're going into transition flying,
which is where you fly actual tactical aircraft.
That's aircraft used in combat and they had P-40s there.
I took my transition in the P-40
[Richard Misenhimer] Let's go back to your graduation
where you get your wings. Tell me about that.
[Boyd K. Miller] I had quite a bit of ceremony to that, dear family,
my mother and an aunt and a girlfriend from Houston
came and stood all the other cadets families
and they witnessed this.
There was some parade and they call out
your name and you get your wings and that sort of thing.
[Richard Misenhimer] Now you're commission, and second lieutenant?
[Boyd K. Miller] Commission and second lieutenant.
Get that commission and the wings all in one fell swoop.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. I see over here
on this plaque you have your wings here.
Is this the (crosstalk)
[Boyd K. Miller] Yeah, that's the actual wing.
[Richard Misenhimer] That's the actual wing.
[Boyd K. Miller] You start wearing officer uniforms
and you get to buy those.
(laughing) Out of that big paycheck.
[Richard Misenhimer] What was your paycheck as a second lieutenant?
[Boyd K. Miller] I don't remember.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Boyd K. Miller] Sure I don't.
[Richard Misenhimer] Did they give you a clothing allowance?
[Boyd K. Miller] I don't think so, they might have,
but it didn't cover it all. I'm sure of that.
I buddied around with some fellows and
there was one guy whose brother was a pilot.
One of the things that's not
required was a suntan dress uniform.
This buddies' brother gave him Hickey Freeman
suntan uniform for graduation present.
But in the meantime,
these guys that I buddied around with went into town to
this tailor shop and I got measured
for the suntan uniforms.
I was flying when they went to
town and that was my assignment.
When I found out what they had done,
I got on and said hey that was great
you guys to do that while I was working.
(laughing) I went to the tailor shop and the guy said,
"I'm sorry, I just don't have
enough material to make another uniform."
Since Harrison's brother gave
him that Hickey freemen uniform,
we started measuring each other and
see they came pretty darn close.
When it was time for the fitting,
I went in and John Harrison to
this tailor shop and
the other guys have about three others.
Their split pretty good mine didn't fit not a darn.
(laughing) We were the same dimensions
but I guess different proportion.
That was in the fire and I had to say,
hey, I just don't understand.
The guy, scrambled and
cut and paste and he finally made it work.
But that was a dirty trick for me to pull on that guy.
(laughing) If I had known
how it was going to turn out I wouldn't have done it.
[Richard Misenhimer] Then you got your suntan then?
[Boyd K. Miller] Yeah. Got it
[Richard Misenhimer] Otherwise you wore what? The greens and the pinks?
[Boyd K. Miller] Yeah, I guess the basic dress uniform was the green.
[Richard Misenhimer] Green jacket.
[Boyd K. Miller] I also call it and green pants.
But you could also wear pink pants
and we had no pink jacket or blouse.
I don't know why they call them blouses instead of coat.
(laughing) But anyway,
that was the dress thing, the green.
Then that hat. The reason the pilots had those hats that
are crushed looking around the edges was
that the other branches had the same hat,
that it had a mental grommet in it that would
hold it out in a circle at the top.
We wore these in warm of heats that's in it,
it wouldn't work with that grommet in there
and everybody thought it looked real hot anyway.
We had permission to do that,
but I don't think any other branches did.
[Richard Misenhimer] That was called a 50 mission crush I heard?
[Boyd K. Miller] Was that it? (laughing)
[Richard Misenhimer] I've heard you called it that.
[Boyd K. Miller] Oh, I see.
[Richard Misenhimer] The 50 mission crush.
[Boyd K. Miller] I'm not familiar with that term.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. I've you heard referred to that.
In your transition, you were in P-40s?
[Boyd K. Miller] Right. Then I went to gunnery school,
in this case it was Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
There was no town,
it was just an Air Force base out in
that Western panhandle, real remote country.
But we flew the AT-6, that's how we did.
Aerial gunnery, which was shooting in a sleeve
and ground gunnery which was shooting at
a target on the ground and then apply a pattern.
It's like a normal traffic pattern,
but on that approach you dive and
then you shoot at this target.
One of the instructors took us around at first.
You see that target down there is the target.
(laughing) That spec?
(laughing) But I had
a real sharp instructor and they had these lines on
this field area where
the targets were supposed to start to descent at
one end and you'd
go straight and level to the stripe on across the field.
Then you dive and
do your shooting and you get to the other stripe.
You pull out and you (inaudible) out,
because you're going down
or you don't want to go too far.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah.
[Boyd K. Miller] He taught me that
the thing that made the aircraft hop around,
is what makes you miss the target a lot.
If you're going faster,
then you have a better chance to hit the target.
Also if you're going faster or you're going steeper,
then that means there's
less ground currents that can
hit the surface in that way.
It's more vertical and for
a shorter distance and you weren't
limited to how many rounds you could go.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Boyd K. Miller] We shot burst and we'd go in further,
and dive steeper and shoot and then pull out.
As a result of that guy telling me that,
I think he said I got the highest or
the second highest score that has ever
been made in this field.
[Richard Misenhimer] Was he a combat?
[Boyd K. Miller] (inaudible) mine and then it was his too.
[Richard Misenhimer] Was he a combat veteran?
[Boyd K. Miller] I don't really know.
[Richard Misenhimer] All right. Now you're
back in the AT-6 now, you want to go to the P-40.
[Boyd K. Miller] Yeah, that gunnery is AT-6.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Boyd K. Miller] Then after that,
that's what I mentioned earlier that after graduation,
most guys got to go home and
show off their wings and all.
But they held some of us back
to go through this transition
in gunnery because we were going to go overseas.
When we got back from gunnery, they said,
something's happened so you're not going
right away and so you can go home.
But that's when you leave your phone number and all.
[Richard Misenhimer] Oh, yeah. Okay.
[Boyd K. Miller] When the time that leave was up and we reported
back still not ready to go overseas,
we had these little odd jobs around and then they said,
you can go pick some place you'd like
to go among this list and stuff.
I hadn't been stationed in
Texas because I got in an Air Core,
when I was in the East,
so I was in, let's call it the Eastern training command.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Boyd K. Miller] One of these options to kill time was to go
to instructors school which was in Waco.
I went to that and in
the process of learning to be
an instructor, the war ended.
You could see guys flying to and loops
and all kinds of shenanigans.
(laughing) They gave us the opportunity to go back to
their home field and get out of the service.
I did that, and I didn't complete
the instructor's course because it was very interesting.
I went back to whatever my home field was.
I think that was at Napier Fill in Alabama.
Where we did the P-40 transition,
and then we got it out.
I had become buddies with
a guy that had some Lend-Lease pilots from
Mexico that would teach
and apply the way our Air Core teaches guys to fly.
Somewhere along the way they changed it to
the Army Air Force instead of the Army Air Core,
and I don't remember exactly when that was.
But one of these Lend-Lease pilots
from Mexico and I became
pretty good buddies and
this opportunity to get out, came out.
I was talking to one about getting out and he said,
you mean you're an officer,
you have a choice of staying
in or getting out and you're going to get out?
(laughing) In Mexican military,
being an officer was a pretty big deal.
It wasn't ours too,
but he said that if you're an officer,
you just stick with it as your career.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah.
[Boyd K. Miller] He might have been right, I don't know.
(laughing) But I got out and I went back to school
and went to architecture school
at the University of Texas.
[Richard Misenhimer] I've seen you've got
Captain badge over years.
[Boyd K Miler] No.
[Richard Misenhimer] That's just two Lieutenant bars?
[Boyd K Miler] That just two Lieutenant.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. I see now.
(crosstalk) (noise) What was
the highest rank you got to?
[Boyd K Miler] That was it.
[Richard Misenhimer] Second Lieutenant? Again, when did you get out?
[Boyd K Miler] In November '45.
The end of November.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay, so your' re (crosstalk).
[Boyd K Miler] Almost three years.
[Richard Misenhimer] Almost three years, right.
[Boyd K Miler] Just a month short of three years.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. How was that P-40 to fly?
[Boyd K Miler] Well, it was really something.
They got an in-line engine,
they got the long snout,
and sitting back there,
you can't really see over it.
It had a lot of power
compared to what I was accustomed to.
Because I had hoped one day to
fly V-51, which I never did,
but it was the Forerunner of that category P-38 and P-51.
They were like Model T and Model 8 Ford.
[It had a lot of things like] it
controlled the coolant manually
by adjusting some counts lamps.
The other later aircraft
done mechanically,
I mean, automatically.
[Richard Misenhimer] Automatically, right.
[Boyd K Miler] So you learn a lot.
It really was fun to get into something that powerful.
[Richard Misenhimer] It was water cooler.
Fluid-cooled as compared to air-cooled on the others?
[Boyd K Miler] No, it was not air-cool.
[Richard Misenhimer] Was it?
[Boyd K Miler] You had to open its' flaps to get the air in.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay, I know some of the model,
P-51 had the coolant?
[Boyd K Miler] Yeah, they were different.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. But P-40 it was not that way?
[Boyd K Miler] Right.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. Did you ever have any experience with the USO?
Ever gone to USO shows anywhere?
[Boyd K Miler] No. I tried to get in the reserve.
Wanted to continue flying because I really
enjoyed it but I was going to
the University of Texas and they said that I had to go
to San Antonio to
fly and I didn't really have
any way to get there conveniently.
Then we are going to start waiting in Bergstrom
and I don't recall
the details but I didn't get anywhere on that either.
[Richard Misenhimer] When you were discharged,
were you still in the reserves
of that point or did you get completely out?
[Boyd K Miler] No, completely out.
[Richard Misenhimer] Complete discharged?
[Boyd K Miler] It's called separated.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. That is alright you separated,
I think rather than discharge.
I think you were still subject
to recall. Is that correct?
[Boyd K Miler] I don't know.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. Am not sure either.
How about the USO? I mean with the Red Cross.
Have any experience with the Red cross?
[Boyd K Miler] Well, in what way?
[Richard Misenhimer] Well, anyway. Did they give you
any donuts or they help you get your leave or what?
[Boyd K Miler] Well, they helped me get that leave.
I was talking about going to see my mother.
My Dad was a big Red Cross worker in
Houston and he is the one that got that set up.
Evan, 1945.
[Richard Misenhimer] I got your connection March 11th, '45.
Have you ever had any kind of reunions or anything?
[Boyd K Miler] No. Shared eating yes.
There were few of us that buddied around together.
One guy was from Gross Point, Michigan.
He had a LaSalle car.
It's a pretty big car.
He had gas stamps at the time,
so we would all save up gas stamps,
and when this group of about five
of us got enough stamps,
we would go on a trip some place
and in that LaSalle and that was a lot of fun.
[Richard Misenhimer] You mentioned the big celebration when you
were taking instructor training.
was just when Japan surrendered?
[Boyd K Miler] Which one was first? Yeah.
[Richard Misenhimer] At the end of the war, when Japan surrendered.
How about when Germany surrendered,
was there any kind of celebration at all then?
[Boyd K Miler] Well, I can't remember which one was first.
[Richard Misenhimer] Germany surrendered first.
[Boyd K Miler] That is when this happened.
[Richard Misenhimer] That was in May.
[Boyd K Miler] Because, I was set up to go to Europe.
Not set up, but that is where we thought we were going,
and the Pacific didn't even enter into the picture.
At the end of the war with Germany was when,
at the time that they let us get out.
[Richard Misenhimer] Let me ask, when you were in the cadets,
what kind of uniform did you wear then?
[Boyd K Miler] It was basically a cadet uniform.
Somewhat like an officer uniform as I remember.
It had some cadet wings,
those little wings underneath (crosstalk) propeller.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Boyd K Miler] They had those on each side and the US.
[Richard Misenhimer] What is this for the wings
and a propeller in the center, what is that?
[Boyd K Miler] It's just in Air Corps,
Air Force or flying personnel or something like that.
[Richard Misenhimer] You wore it right on the pocket or where?
[Boyd K Miler] No on the lapel.
[Richard Misenhimer] On the lapel, okay.
The US on one side of medal?
[Boyd K Miler] Yeah.
[Richard Misenhimer] Alright. Just like United caught cross rifles.
[Boyd K Miler] Let's see in that picture, does it show?
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah, it does there.
[Boyd K Miler] Yeah, that's training year.
[Richard Misenhimer] Let me ask you. Was there
any time you have felt really frightened?
[Boyd K Miler] Well. You always had his feelings of
uncertainty because you didn't
know what was going to happen?
I think that I consider looking back on it.
The whole experience, this was really
outstanding and learning how to fly,
and fly in what I wanted, single engine.
I guess the uncertainty like everybody like you.
You did not know how long you're going to be there.
One more week or ten more years or what?
[Richard Misenhimer] When you got back into civilian life,
did you fly anymore in civilian life?
[Boyd K Miler] No. I couldn't afford to
fly according to the standard
I was accustomed to (laughing).
Might rent a cub or something and with
that you wouldn't do it.
I would like that now.
Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia.
One time a hurricane,
threatened to come in,
or maybe it did come in,
and they had us bury
the planes up further away from the coast.
Summer time they made us drill.
Says "you are not coming out here on a picnic."
(laughing) I don't know where we were,
but we flew them pretty far away out of
the storm path and they said," Okay,
everybody get in formation were going to do
close order drill." High.
[Richard Misenhimer] You're a Lieutenant now? (crosstalk)
[Boyd K Miler] No.
[Richard Misenhimer] This is the training, okay. (laughing).
[Boyd K Miler] The nerve or feel at the pre-flight?
Cadet, Colonel.
This is a lot of Cadet.
He was a Cessna.
To call it first name,
but even from that family, are we doing that.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah.
[Boyd K Miler] He had been flying
since he was four years old or something.
Indeed he's a real physical specimen,
he's big and built like Tarzan.
This's the ideal type of a guy.
I heard later that after he got out
and primary basic advance,
one of the phases,
probably one of the early ones,
that he had done so much flying before that.
They couldn't break his habits of flying in a
civilian and get him to fly the military way.
They watched him out (laughing).
I thought that was kind of unusual.
[Richard Misenhimer] That is right. That is the end of this tape (background).