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and talk to them, so there was sort of a movement toward the service and I guess that is what they were looking for at that time. I interested in aviation as I remembered one time a Navy plane got into trouble it landed in a strip at Homestead and we all went down and talked to the pilot. So, I wanted to get into the Army Air Corps. if I could. The problem was, I had not finished high school and so it was a little tougher to get in. I went to recruiting and they told me they were looking for gunners so we will get you in. I tested and qualified for air crew. My brother was already in the Marines. He was trained as an explosive handler and they sent him to China. There he was assigned to a War Lord to help blow Japanese bridges. I joined the Army Air Corps. John: Where did they send you for basic training? Edward: My basic training was on Miami's South Beach. I was quartered, at the St. Moritz Hotel, on the thirteen floor. It was luxury compared to the little house we had lived in. It had gadgets to take a shower that I could hardly figure it out. We were housed in luxury suites. What happened that the Army Air Corps. had taken over the entire South Beach. That was the basic training location for the Southeast for the Army Air Corps.. Which was interesting. They went from a regular military base type complex to a luxury hotel on the beach. We went swimming in the ocean and took our Physical training in the city parks. They strung barbed wire and we went through the firing range in the city parks. It worked out. I remember the Mess Hall where we marched a couple of miles because they had no place to feed these guys in the hotels and so they built a big Mess Hall on the end of Miami Beach. It was a big training center. They had OCS training there also. We had a swimming pool at the hotel and all the other modern things and I thought that being in the service was not a bad thing after all.
John: How long was the training? Edward: I can't recall for sure. It was probably less than two months. All the training was strictly for air crews. John: Did you have to go to gunnery school?
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Edward Campbell. Campbell joined the Army Air Forces in late 1943. He completed gunnery school. He served as a B-24 turret gunner with the 394th Bomb Squadron. He completed 50 combat missions, over Tarawa, Borneo, bombing oil fields, refineries and ports. He returned to the US and received his discharge in 1945.
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