This is Mike Zambrano. Today is the 28th of
October, 2011. I'm interviewing Mr. John Bennett
Lee at the Holiday Inn Riverwalk in San
Antonio, Texas. This interview is in support of
the Center
for Pacific War Studies, Archives for the
National Museum of the Pacific War, Texas Historical
Commission for the Preservation of Historical
Information related to this
site. Good morning sir and how are you? Good
morning Mike. Okay let's start off
with where and when you were born. I was born
in Detroit Michigan in 1924 and the
reason I was born in there was that my family
had farms had had a had a had a
farm in in Virginia and and my father was was
going to go and work on that
farm with with with this father that the man
and I'm named after that John Bennett
and it turned out that the one of his children
of one of his brothers
tried to light a fire with thought it was
kerosene and it was
gasoline and it blew up and killed the child
and so forth and then so
then daddy and took mother and my sister Beth
to Detroit, Michigan and
because that was where his brother, my uncle
Harry lived and he was
the the chief of the Saratoga Hospital in
Detroit, Michigan and we and we and so
So later when the grandfathers got another
place built on the farm, mother and daddy
moved back to Virginia on the farms and so my
twin, I have a twin brother and his name
is Keith Lee, K-E-I-T-H, and so the, where am I
going to go with this now, but
but but but anyway we finally returned to
Virginia and
and then and worked at Farm and at Farm was was
one of the
show places in Virginia and it the filing
grandfather and daddy sold that
farm and then we and we moved down to down to
Harlingen, Texas and it
recently did that was because they had started
the irrigation and in
Texas and and and daddy could could could see
that that was that was a big
boom and then so they moved down and bought and
bought two places and then
and where they started raising oranges and
grapefruit and and and when when the
and it took four years for the trees to develop
and and and so so while they
were doing that and watering the trees they
would they would plant gardens in
between and water those and that that was what
we would raise and sell and
and and and then keep have have money come
coming in while we're waiting for
the fruit to come in. Well at the end of and
daddy would borrow money every
year to plant the gardens and a fourth year he
went to the bank to borrow
money for the next year and a bank said we
can't loan you any money says why not
says that well time times are hard now he said
well you loan money to the man
down the street and down the road from me and
he said well he owes us money so
therefore we have to keep backing him and
hopefully someday we'll
get our money back. And so daddy and granddaddy
at that time didn't
realize that there was hard times all over the
United States so we
packed up and went back to Virginia. And of
course that was
where we were born and grew up and we had
cousins, cousins by the
dozens. My mother was in a family of 11, which
was two
children that didn't survive. And she was the
only girl and it was with
rest boys and so so anyway like I said I had
had cousins by the dozens but but
but then granddaddy and and my father became
tenant farmers and then and so
and so we so we were moving just about every
year going to a new a new tenant
farm. Now I don't know if you want to go
through the history of the things that
we had to go through and growing up on tenant
farms but anyway how the
when so the thing is that we that we grew up
doing the
depression. Okay and then when it came time for
me to go to college my
father came in and I didn't know how I was
going to get to go to college and my
father came in a room one night and said John
we made enough money this year on
our wheat crop that I can send you to your
first year of college and
Believe it or not, two weeks later I was at
VPI, Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and can you imagine
somebody getting in
college today and in two weeks time? Probably
not. What was your father's
name? His name was John Claude. C-L-A-U-D-E.
And your mother's?
my mother's name was Taylor mm-hmm okay and so anyway
I got to go to Virginia Tech and which is now
Virginia Tech so I'll keep going from one to
the other when I'm
trying to tell the story but anyway the let's
see where was I now before you
asked me a question. You were saying that you'd
gone to college but you
started college but you didn't say what year.
Yeah I was in the
cadet corps and I was there when I was 17 years
old and then that
And that fall, it was when the Japanese hit us
in the South Pacific.
And so anyway, as soon as-and I have a twin
brother, Keith, and then we were both at Virginia
Tech, and we both knew that we wanted to be pilots.
And when I, excuse me, if I, I'm going to go
back a little bit that when we were working
our farms, which were different ones, and I
had, I would drive horses and mules and
tractors and I learned to drive a combine when
I was 16 years old.
and I was doing all those kind of things on the farm
before I could ever get a driver's permit.
But we were, at this particular time,
we were down in King George County
and south of Fredericksburg, Virginia.
And the Naval Air Station, Dahlgren, was close
to us.
Algren was was close to us and and and and I
would see the and they were had
had advanced trainers and and and us in the Air
Corps it was it was the AT-6s
and in the Navy it was it was SNJs and so so
they were rat racing over top and
all that kind of stuff and I looked up there
and said I want to do that one
these days and I had no idea how I was ever to
be able to do that and but
anyway I learned I decided early in my career
that I didn't want to look at the
south end of the mule going north for the rest
of my life. It had to be
something better. So why did you choose the
Army Air Corps over say the Navy or
Marine flight school? That's an interesting
story. So when the war broke out,
My brother and I took off from VPPI and we went
to AEWL, that's
Absent Without Leave, in order to join up
because a president, who was
the president when the war broke out? Roosevelt?
Yeah, Roosevelt. And
Roosevelt said that said it we that people had
had I think six months to
join up in the services that they wanted to or
else we're gonna draft you and put
you where we want you to and so we knew we
wanted to be polished so so so we
took off and and went and and it turned out we
both had deviated septums and
noses and so and so and so when when we we so
so so so so on the same day Keith
Keith went to Roanoke, Virginia and joined up
in the in the
Naval Air Corps and I went to another place and
then signed up in
the Army Air Corps and so I didn't want any
part of landing on
carriers. So anyway, I was sent to the Gulf Coast
train command here in Texas. Okay. And that
was, and I had joined,
and that was when I was 18 years old, and so
what I did
was that I went through my training here in
Texas and it
ended up that I got my wings and commission
when I was 19 years old at
Foster Field as a fighter pilot. At which field?
Foster Field at
I'm sorry. It's in the southern part of Texas.
Okay. And Victoria, Texas. Okay. And but in
order to get in
In the service, we both found out we had
deviated septums and they
wouldn't accept us because we couldn't breathe
out of both sides of our nose
and we're gonna have to use an oxygen mask,
okay. And so my daddy, my
mother had a cousin that was the head of the
hospital in
Richmond, Virginia, and so Daddy took us down
to see him and he
supposedly got us the best nose specialists in
the country. And so
when we got, when we had the operation, we only
had had about a week
in order to be inducted and and so we both got
out of the hospitals with
a nose is still that the doctors hadn't had a
chance to look at the
results and and and and so and so we got them
to give us a certificate saying
we've operated on the nose and then it'll be
all right. So,
so they, so they accepted us and then I went
back to see the doctor and he took
and he looked at my nose and said, John I
didn't get it all. You're gonna have to do
it again and when he did it the first time I
said I'd never go through
that again. Okay, because it sounded, it felt
like he was doing, using the
chisel going up my nose like that felt like it
knocking off the back of my head
and I was sitting up and and so so when I went
back to see him says Doc says
this time can can I lay down and he said yes
and then so I did and then and then
I woke up in bed after the operation and and
and mother was sitting there by the
the bed. God's blood was sold. She was an angel
on this earth. And when I
did, I got sick and I choked all over her dress.
I felt so
embarrassed and I found out that the reason
they wanted me to set up was
because the blood would flow to my nose and
here I was laying down, sedated
and I was swallowing the blood. So you know,
but that proves
that if you want something bad enough you will
do it and that and that's what
that's the thing that I've always gone through
in fostering in my life if you
want to do it bad enough you'll find a way to
do it. So anyway
that's finally how I got into the Air Corps but
I had to have two
trips in order to have that done. That sounds
like a couple of hard trips to get into the
Air Corps. I wanted to ask you, do you
remember, I know you said you were a
Virginia Tech when you heard the Japanese bomb
Pearl Harbor, but do you
remember what you were doing? Oh absolutely,
that's an interesting story
because see, as a freshman you couldn't have
radios and
in the Cadet Corps you had a lot of things that
the freshmen had to go
through and we were known as rats, okay. Now
today you can't give those kind of
symbols on children in school and all like
that, that's a no-no.
But we were known as rats and like I said we
didn't have a
radio and an upperclassman came busting into my
room at about four
o'clock in the afternoon and says the Japanese
has just bombed Pearl
Harbor. I had no idea of where Pearl Harbor was
or what it was and so
so then that was that when Keith and I decided that
we were going to get in the service and get in
the Air Corps and which we did
which we've already talked about.
Okay, so where do you go after Foster Field?
When I was at Foster Field, well we went
through a certain number of stages.
First we went to San Antonio, Texas for a
pre-flight school
And that is where they-we went through a number
of tests and all that kind of stuff
and decided whether or not you could even
become a pilot, and if so, what kind of a pilot.
Well, it ended up that I was-I got ranked as
a-that I could be a pilot, and so we
we went to Victoria, Texas for pre-flight school.
And at the time, that just changed from a Sturman,
which was a double wing with struts on and everything,
to this real nice airplane now,
which was an open cockpit with a lamina flow
wing on it.
and it only had was a needle ball and air speed
and no radio, we had to talk between each other
with tubes going to our helmets.
And I had no idea what that laminar flow wing meant,
but I loved flying that airplane.
You can imagine us there with open cockpits
with our scarves on, out the window like,
like but anyway it was it was a real joy but
but when I got there they say at
that excuse me that's okay when I got there
they they at Victoria, Texas
the Foster Field Texas did not have military
instructors, but it
was run by the military, okay, and so the guy
who was
ahead of it came out and says, now you guys, I
want each of you to look to
the right of you and to the left of you, so
only one out of three of you will get
through pilot training. I felt sorry for those
two guys. So anyway,
so then we went to basic training and here we
had a
had a closed cockpit airplane and but it still
had to fix
landing gears but it had the instrumentation
and we could we learned
to fly under the hood and fly on the, what you
call it, we would fly at night and we
would zone in on our field by the Marsh Code,
the sound coming in your ears, dot it, did
it, I dotted it, and so, and you would find out
if you were going in the right direction
whether it got loud or you were going in the
wrong direction, and it'd get lower,
and then also that whether you were on the
right side or the
left side of the sound coming from the, what do
you call that,
you were getting, I forget what the name of the
things were
now but but anyway. So then they they ask us in
there in basic training
whether or not you wanted to what yeah okay
I'll go back
to the beginning of whether they ask us if we
wanted to be
pilots are etc. and so forth and so on and then
our bombardiers etc. and I'll
always put pilot and then when we're getting
ready to go from basic
training to advanced training, they said ask
again since I said you
would say you want to fly a single engine, twin
engines, or I forget what the
other ones was, and you had to list them in
order of priority. By this
time I got cocky and I said I wanted to be a
fighter pilot, Fighter pilot, fighter
pilot, and I got to be fighter pilot.
Did you keep asking?
Yeah, so anyway I guess I guess that's what
they wanted, they wanted a bunch of
young kids with a lot of piss and vinegar and
didn't have good sense.
Okay. What was the closed cockpit plane that
you trained in that you mentioned?
That was that was a BT-13. BT-13. That had the fixed
line landing gear and what I graduated in was
the AT-6 and the AT-6 we
learned to do formation flying and we did we
did some strafing and we were good.
we were sent over to Matagorda Island and and
and and that was kind of a
hard place from the standpoint that that it
would be a beautiful day and and and
and but but the wind would blow and the sand
was all over the place and in the
barracks and everything and and and it and then
it would rain and so forth and
it was, it wasn't, it was kind of like being
out in the desert. So anyway
then when I finished that I got my wings in
commission as I said in Victoria, Texas when I
was 19 years old. Okay and then
this is a picture of it here. That's me when I
had my wings in
Commission. Nineteen years old, wow. Like I
say, we had to grow up fast in
those days. So where did you go after Victoria?
Okay, then we were
sent to Perry, Florida and got some orientation
there and then we
sent to another field south of Perry, Florida
and it's way out in the
country and that's all was there was really the
airfield and
there we got to fly P-40s and that was a plane that
that General Chennault was using with the
Flying Tigers. So there we
learned more about formation flying and how to
do loops and then and we
we strafed ground targets and we and then we
would fire at a
skirt coming behind an AT-6 and do and make
passes on it and so forth and it
turned out that we that I ended up having and
my best buddy we ended up
having one of the best instructors at that time
he had won the
top gun and and it's nothing like the
top gun is today but anyway he showed us
how to how to how to make how to how to
come in behind and then make you break
and everything so so so so you zero in
on the target and we had the and we had
the best scores there in the on on hit
hitting their targets and so then after we
graduated from that and we
were in a in a group getting ready to go
overseas my buddy and I we were to go
and go to the same, we were going to keep
together. Well while we're getting
ready to be shipped out. He came running into
my barracks one day and says,
hey John, John, says that they are giving, that
too many people are
going to go, to be shipped out and so they're
going to give us a
chance to go on leave. Come on, go on, leave
with me. I looked at him and
and he said and I signed up for it and and that
he had and and there had
been ten openings and but it was now full and I
and I and I says well I
thought we were going to go overseas together
and he said but we
got a chance to go home so so so so then later
he came
running back and back and a few days later and
says John has still got some
openers come sign up. I said no I trained with
this group and I'm gonna go over
with this group and so it so it turned out that
I found out later that
he got on a train and went home and went to
Ohio and this was down in Perry
Florida and when he got there there was a
telegram for him get back to the base
so he got back to the base and on those days we
were on those on trains and
and the cold cold stuff was seeping through the
windows and all and you'd be
you'd be a mess and I'm sorry. And so then I
found out later that when he got
back to the base they put him on a train and
sent him to California, put him on a
the ship, sent him to the South Pacific and the
P-40s he was going to fly in
combat was, they had to help put them together
and be mechanics and
getting in the grease and all that kind of
stuff and it ended up he was got
assigned to the Mahurian Raiders and the
Mahurian Raiders was a group
that really set a record for
island hopping and strafing and he had and set
the records but
but when he so so I got a letter from him after
I got home and which was
said that he was just shaking all over and the
doctor said he'd
never fly again and I think today man if he had
talked me into going to South
Pacific I think I would have shot him down. But
anyway so we were shipped out
and sent to England and we were on a French
ship going over
and I think it took us took us about about
seven days and of course we had
the convoys protecting the ships and all like
that because they were sinking
ships at that time and that kind of stuff but
anyway we got there okay and
and then we were sent to a base above
Peterborough on the coast, a city right
across from the Wash and I can't remember the
city but there
we got to check out in the P-51s and the first
one was
The P-51A was with the caged canopy, and then
the later one was with the bubble top canopy.
And then when I was sent to my group, that was
when I got to fly the P-51D, which was
a teardrop canopy.
turned out that the British helped us develop
that airplane. The British came
to the United States to buy the P-40 and the
North American had had a design
of the P-51 on the drawing board and they tried
to sell it to our Air Corps
and the Air Corps turned them down but they got
hold of the British and told
them and ask them why you want to buy that
antiquated airplane, the P-40. It's
got the Allison engine, which wasn't any good,
which was true because that was in
the P-38 and in the P-38, the Allison engine
wasn't good at high
altitude and the oil would separate and the
pistons would freeze up and it throws the
piston rods through
through the wall of the engine but but they
could still get back on one
engine. Anyhow but the British also they took
and they
developed the hundred and eight gallon paper
wing tanks believe it or not and
put one on each wing and that was they gave us
a capability where we
could escort the bombers anywhere in Europe and
that was the one
that was the plane that helped win the war
because of that because at
that time we were getting a lot of bombers were
being shot down. 25%,
45%, there was one case where one group I think
lost 65% of the bombers on
one mission and you know that was a horror for
those people and then so
when we got over there with the P-51 we were
able to escort them
anywhere in Europe and so that was a plane that
really helped to
help to win the war in Europe and I had the
chance and I had the privilege of
flying it, and I had 52 missions over Germany.
I had 275 hours, and I had been
at the end of the war, I had been put, I was a
flight commander, and
I finished the tour of duty, and I had put in
for a captain before
21 years old so let's say we had to grow up
fast in those days. But if you don't
have any questions I'll go on here. Oh I have
actually some questions. Yeah go ahead.
Your friend that went to the Pacific do you
recall what his name was? I'll
probably think of it before I finish this if I
get it I'll pull it up to you.
Okay. What year was it when you actually went
to, when you got to England?
It was in October of 1944. My first mission was
the first week in November.
And by this time you had already, you mentioned
you earlier that you'd
already trained some in the P-40s. What did you
think of the P-40?
The P-40 was, it had a very long nose and when
you went down
the runway you couldn't see the runway
until you got the tail up and it felt like you
had a tiger by the tail
believe me or not and so they really gave it
the right name when
when he put the tiger on it you know in the
South Pacific and I mean in
the Flying Tigers was where they really did it
and yes it was
different and I enjoyed flying it. One of the
things it did was
after we had had a little training and they
told us don't try to do a
loop until we show you how. Well the P-39 had
characteristic that if if it got into an
inverted spin you couldn't get it
get out of it. Okay so so so so I've been up on
several flights of training by
myself and I got tired of doing all that and so
I got up pretty high altitude and
I put her in a dive and I pulled her up and and
I and and and and I didn't let
that fly through, I just kind of pulled on it,
man, boom, I went into an inverted
spin. And I got thinking about that P-39, how
am I gonna be able to get out of this
thing? So it ended up that I, of course, I had
full throttle when I did that. I
finally cut back on the throttle, that old
heavy nose just came right on through,
and then it went into a spin, and I was able to
pull out of it. And when I did, man, I
was hitting up a pretty high rate of speed. And
I looked back over my
shoulder and there came another airplane and I just
firewalled it. I was going so fast finally the
other guy went around so I
don't know whether that was an instructor or
not but if it was an instructor and he
caught me he'd probably kick me out of the
airplane. It would have been over right there.
Like I say you know they weren't a bunch of
kids that didn't have good sense but
But anyway, it was tricky, but I had two
occasions on that thing that I could have
really got hurt.
One was that I came in for a landing and one of
the tires blew out, and I was able to control
it and pull off the side of the road, side of
the runway and the
commander at a review said he saw somebody come
in today and
and we were able to control an airplane when it
landed with a busted
tire. But the other one was funny and not funny
and that was that I hit
and on takeoff I pushed the throttle forward
and all of a sudden here
comes this oil all over my windshield and all
over my face and everything and I
immediately cut it back and and able to stop it
and then I tax it into the into
the revetment and when the I took took I had to
take my glasses off and
then here was my this was all white and all the
rest of it and when the crew
chiefs and the ground crewmen saw me they
laughed they thought it was funny
but wasn't very very damn funny to me but it
turned out that what they they
when they had put oil in my head they the guy
hadn't hadn't hadn't put the cap
back on so so I'm sure I don't want to ever
happen but but I'm sure somebody
got hell for that one. When do you actually get
assigned to a unit? Well
that was after we had a month's training at
this airfield which was
north of the Wash and for some reason when we were
signed to the 20 fighter group they had
several pilots that went in into the
55th and and the not 79th the 77th
okay and but the only two of us were
signed to the 79th and his
name was a Finster Rudnick. His
father's name was Rudninski
and they had shortened it when he came when his
father came to the
United States to Rudnick. So it was Polish was
what it was.
Venture Rudnick? Vince, Vince, Vince Rudnick.
It might have been Vincent but
it's V-I-N Vince Rudnick. R-U-D-C-K-I-N. And he
and I was always competing
against each other who was the best pilot so so
it was a good good
relationship you know of trying to do the other
one and but that's that's an
innocent story of him he was he was always
ready to take a challenge but it
turned out that this is an innocent story. I
don't know how much you want me to get
into these into these kind of things but if you
want the I can just keep on
talking for hours so you can. I'll just let you
know when I have a question but
no no continue please. So so like I say he was
very competitive and and and he
and he was in a flight of four was flying over
the North Sea going north
and and and when you fly in formation you you
stack down you you you've got
got the leader and and his wingman and you've
got the element leader with his
and the idea is the wingman is supposed to stay
with the with the with the with
his leader and then protect him. But anyway so
so so so they got right down
down on the water and and instead of stacking
down he got down below the
leader and all of a sudden his prop hit the
water and the prop bent back and he
pulled it up and he and he said he was up to
about 500 feet. He had one foot in
the cockpit and one on the wing and when the
plane stalled out
he just bailed out and he had one swing on the
parachute when he
hit the water. But it was in the wintertime and
you could only
survive about 20 minutes in that war and but
but a submarine saw him and
came over and picked him up. So so so when when
when the group when the squadron
the the leader of the flight got got back to
the base and and and the and he
He was called in by the CO and asked him what happened.
He said, I don't know.
Says Vincent said, we were flying about 100 feet.
And Vince called in and said his engine quit.
And so the word got out to the guards at the gate.
says when Vince comes in you bring him, don't
let him talk to anybody, you bring
him into this office. So they brought Vince in
and when he got back
three days later and he asked him, Vince what
happened? I don't know, I was
flying about a hundred feet and all of a sudden
my engine quit. Just stories coming together.
Talking about some crazy things.
Let's see, so you're with the 20th Fighter
Wing, but you're in...
I was with the 20th Fighter Group.
In World War II, it was a group.
And then when it became the Jet Boys, which is
now the 20th Fighter Wing,
we had three squadrons, and the Wing, they had
four squadrons.
and so that's the difference in the
nomenclature there.
So are you in, which squadron in the group are
you in?
I was in the 79th Fighter Squadron.
And so when you get to England,
that's when you start flying the P-51s you said.
Yes, right.
And tell me some more about the P-51.
What did you think of it as a plane?
It was the best plane ever built, bar none.
It was built around the pilot
was a thrill to fly it and this is a picture
here of my airplane coming back
back from a mission and my wingman took that
picture right there and
and see this this is a nomenclature for the
group and we had the
black and white stripes like a lot like a zebra.
The MC designates the
the squadron you were in and L is the
individual airplane and when I
got over there soon after I got over there they
got in a brand new
airplane and it had the letter L on it and and
so they named
mind the L-bar and I was the only one that I
know of that ever had a bar on the name.
Does it say something here? Was there a name on
your plane?
Okay, now there's a picture of my name and I
named this
after my twin brother, E.K. was my brother's initials,
Edmund Keith, and then mine was John Bennett,
and so I always used a J-A-Y-B-E-E.
And I considered he was always flying with me,
being my twin brother, and he was in the Navy.
And so I named it after him.
And also there's another name down here called Suzanne,
And I was a girl that I ran into in one of my stations
where we were training and we conversed
the whole time I was in the service.
And by the way Art, I went to a meeting one night
of pilots that I belong to called QBs, acquired birdmen.
And they showed this airplane on the screen
And this airplane was rated as having the best signatures
and everything on of any plane in the Air Force.
Would you believe that?
That's quite a distinction.
And so here's my picture there, and I'll
talk about these things in a minute.
Okay. Let's see. Let me just go back a little
bit. The ship that took you from the United
States to England, can you describe what the
time on the ship was like and what were the
sleeping conditions?
Yeah, the ship that we went over on was a
French ship.
And we got very good food and everything, and I
enjoyed it.
And it was a clean ship.
and I think it took us seven days to get across.
What were the sleeping conditions like?
Because I hear on some of these ships, it was just-
There were double bunks and maybe all more
and a room stacked and so forth.
It wasn't too bad.
The food was good.
Well, that's what I was gonna ask you next.
How was the food?
food food it had some of the French of course
the French has some of the
best chefs in the world other Frenchmen and it
was it was good food mm-hmm okay
now we can talk about the food over we got that
they got to Europe that was
kind of skimpy green eggs okay I hope we could
bring that a little bit later okay
Okay, so when you're in England, you're flying
the P-51s, can you just elaborate a little bit
more on that?
Now there's a picture of me when I was 20 years
old and that includes the May West and
my parachuting.
And by the way, at that time, up to that time,
all our parachutes, you sat on the parachute.
When I got over there, we had what they call
the backpacks.
And it was longer, and it was much more and quicker
opening characteristics.
And it was much safer.
So that was brand new.
What's this up here, the bundle right by your shoulder?
I can't remember what, well, it's a tube coming out
and it might have been water.
I don't remember what that was.
But it had, this is our, what we call our Mae West
and that is in case you had baleing water, you
could float.
And I always carried a 45 underneath all of this
and I didn't know how much good it would do me
if I ever got in enemy territory,
but I never had to use it, thank God. Now,
a person that,
called David Ailes,
had gotten with
Leo Kearns,
And then he didn't superimpose his airplane
on a mission that he had flown,
which he had ran into ME-109.
And at the last reunion,
Leo told him that I was gonna be there,
and we were up at the
Dulles-Washington Airport.
and and so he got in touch with me and and so I
told him some of my
experiences in World War II and and and so and
so he put together four of
these of these photos for me which shows me
escorting this particular bomb group
and and and it has the actual bomb group that I
was escorting at that particular
day because he got all the information out of
our history book that he was
telling us about. Okay. And I escorted the
B-17s and the B-24s over Europe, and I also
escorted the British Mosquito on a photo recon
missions over Prague and Brux in Czechoslovakia.
and the British Mosquito was made out of plywood,
believe it or not, okay?
How was it like working with the British like that?
Well, we never saw them.
We just picked them up in flight
and took them over and brought them back.
Okay. Yeah.
But the British, they treat us like heroes.
I don't consider myself a hero,
but they considered us like heroes over there.
And I went back two years ago,
and I got put in a newspaper,
and they had me listed as a hero.
They still consider us heroes today.
I can see why.
Okay, and then I had three encounters with the,
I wanted him to hear this.
Okay, let's go and buy that one and I want to
hear because I want to hear this
particular one because he had a lot to do with
some of this stuff. Okay, now I
had three missions over Berlin and then when the
bombers came to hit the targets, they had to
fly through the flack
and then we, the fighters, could keep on the
other side of it.
But on one mission, as I was escorting some of
the British Mesquiteurs, the ME-109s
who was waiting for the bombers on the other
side spotted us, but
We had followed the bomber stream all the way
into Berlin as kind of as a decoy, and
when we caught up with the bombers on the West
coast of Germany, it was completely overcast.
And we kept going and going and going and then
when we got to Berlin, I was monitoring
the radio for the man who was going to tell us
what the weather was over Berlin.
And he came over and said, come get a boy,
she's wide open.
when we got there it looked like somebody had
taken a knife and cut in a
hole in it and and lifted the clouds and there
was Berlin wide open down below.
Well as we went by there the Germans saw us and started
after us and we were told not to engage because
we were supposed to go on
through Czechoslovakia and they can't turn
around and went back to the
bomber so what this thing is showing here is
one of the
ME-109s starting to hit the waters. Okay. What
did you think of the ME-109?
There wasn't. A German airplane couldn't touch
the P-51. No contest.
Because the, to give you an example, when I was
assigned, I got over
that one month after our group had changed from
the P-38s to the P-51s,
a ratio of kill to to the Americans to the
German was was was 1.8-1 so so
there's only just about two two to one victory
ratio. When I got over there we
did not after I got over there we did not lose
a man to enemy combat and and
And with that ratio of 8-1, it ended up that
the ratio of kills was 20-1. Wow.
So that's how good that airplane was.
Do you remember what, well, I assume that they
would tell you what the bombers were actually targeting.
targeting. Oh yes, we knew what that was, when
we would go in the
mornings and give you a little resume of what
it was, how we got
started in the mornings. And that was that we
would lay in bed and hear the
bombers overhead circling and then forming up.
And we'd get an idea of how
big a mission is going to be that day by how
many bummers we saw it. So then we
would get up and go to breakfast. Then we would
go and get the
groups telling us what mission we're going to
fly on and so forth and why
etc. And then we would go to our squadron and
then we'd be
assigned who's going to fly what missions on
that particular day. And then
Then we would get in our airplanes and then we
would take off and then we would catch
up with the bombers about time they got to the
German coast.
Well actually it was at that time there was
Holland and all those kind of things that
we had to go over.
And that was one of the real tragedies I saw in
the war was that we would fly over in the
spring of 1945 that here was a beautiful
Holland down below, just gorgeous.
One morning we flew over and it was completely
covered with water.
And what had happened was the Germans had cut
the dikes and flooded Holland to slow
down the Americans' advance, okay?
And back in 1985, I went back to England on a
trip and I ran into a guy that was from
Holland. And I told him that story and he
didn't say a
word and tears came to his eyes. So it was
still in 1985, they were still
living that. But that was a real disaster.
Now on the... He was saving the story for you.
Yeah, I was saving the
jet story when you come back because you've
been involved in so much of it.
But he helped, can you explain real quickly
what you did to help to
reconstruct this thing to put in the history.
Oh the one we were, you want to
get closer to the mic? We were talking about
when we ran into those jets
and one of the pilots got the eight planes that
one day, Cliff Jurgens? Right.
Okay, that particular mission.
Well, what I can tell you is what happened was
after this mission,
the equivalent of the Armed Forces Network of
the time came back to King's Cliff,
which was the home station, and did a
recreation of the mission.
Then it was a wire recording.
Actually, they didn't have tape, of course.
And the pilots recreated what happened during
that mission.
A little hokey, but it recreated.
Well, what we were able to do was,
we actually got the gun film from some of the pilots
from that mission and had to link up that gun footage
with the narration that they conducted.
You know, they were actually going through the verbiage,
not just saying, this is what we did.
You know, it was, you know, send those guys
down there
and take a look at them.
But there was one part I think maybe he's
alluding to
is when he initially saw the jet jobs,
they called them blow jobs.
Different connotation.
Colonel Montgomery, who was the group
commander, said to stay with the big friends,
the bombers.
Jergens, who was with the 79th, and Currens,
who was with the 77th, were talking back and
forth, and Currens stated, well, it looks like
it's going to be a milk run today, not
much action.
And Jergens said, no, there's a couple of low
jobs down there, you know, I'm going to
go after them.
And Curran said, well, Monty said to stay with
the big friends, and Juergen said, well,
I didn't hear him.
I can't let this pass it up.
So he dove down and tore after them.
And then they had their engagement.
We shot down several of the 109s.
It was mostly in the landing pad, and that's
primarily where we got them.
And then Leo Curran's continued on with the
mission, and they did a significant amount
of strafing.
And there was one part in that mission where
they were attacking the airfield, and one
of the pilots flipped over, and Monty, who
observed it,
said, who's that hot pilot doing slow rolls
over the airfield?
Which would be a stupid thing to do.
Juergens responded, well, that was me,
and that was no hot pilot.
That was the man in the aircraft that flipped
me over.
But then they continued to attack the airfield
several times, and then destroyed,
and I can give you the exact number of aircraft destroyed
on that mission.
Would you pronounce your last name for me,
for the camera and the recording?
Sure, it's Savigny.
I'm the historian for the 20th Fighter Wing at
Shaw Air Force
Base, South Carolina.
Okay thank you. Now was the, I was on that
particular mission the, as he said
Montgomery was leading our squadron as head of
the group and I was
and I was leading his second flight on his
left-hand side and and then we were
fly an area patrol around about
25,000 feet. I mean, excuse me, about
20,000 feet and we never
had done that before but our
the other two squadrons were up
escorting the bombers. Well
when the flight commander,
when the group commander flies
heads up the group
as head of your squadron you give them the best
best wingman you've got and so
so one of my wingmen who was who was Cliff
Juergens was assigned to the
general I mean yeah to the colonel and and I
had excellent eyesight and
then and I don't know if I was good as Chuck
Yeager was but because I read his
book but I had excellent eyesight and I had
great peripheral vision and I could
pick up airplanes before other people could and
then showed up. I spotted about
15-20 jets climbing up from the left. I called
them out and
dropped my wing tanks and went into them
head-on and we were going close to
400 miles an hour and they do about 600, you
know, so the closure rate about a
thousand miles an hour and so and I was as fast
as I'd never seen anything that
fast and so I didn't get a shot at them and
they didn't get a shot at me
and they broke and we didn't and so I made a
hard left
turn and expecting them to engage but their job
was to go on up to the
bombers. But anyway, I had his name early this
morning, but the
captain leading the Montgomery's right, the
third flight on his
right, and he pulled over into almost a split S.
He pulled such
high G's on his airplane, he broke the bolts in
his seat and his seat dropped
down, he got his head up just high enough to
see the German jet in
front of him in the gun sight and he pulled the
trigger and knocked him down.
Okay, and in those days if you got a German jet
you automatically
got the DSC for it. Well then these jets went
on up to the
bomber stream. Well the bombers were flying at
the 25,000 feet. We'd escort
between 35,000-35,000 feet and
then the 30,000 feet and the Germans would come
gliding in about
35,000 feet in German jets and you couldn't see
them, but when they turned
on their engines to start the dive you could
pick them up. Now the P-51
could keep up with the ME-262 any dive and he could
turn inside him, so we got most of our kills
when they pulled out on the deck.
Well it turned out that that day we ended up
getting four more up there and
destroying and damaging three. But that was not
the end of the
story. After that we went on targets of
opportunity and one of
the guys who had damaged one of the jets called the
colonel in and told him where he was, and that
was an airfield about 100 miles northwest
of Berlin.
And so we went over there, and I was leading,
as I say, the second flight, and when I went
- I was probably a little too close, but when I
went across the airfield, it was already burning.
And that was when Cliff Juergens got so many of
the airplanes and ate and set the record
for the most by one man on one mission.
And so it turned out that, and then we, so when
this guy called us over the field at
west of Berlin, he said he'd been shot and hit
and then he'd already
gotten five airplanes and so we went over there
and by the time we
got over there he had to bail out and he was
captured by the Germans, okay, and
so then we proceeded to strafe that Airfield
and then
Then another squadron went to Berlin, another
squadron went about 100 miles, went northeast
of Berlin and that day we ended up setting the
record for the most airplanes destroyed
by the group on one mission and Cliff set the
record for the most airplanes destroyed
And that was a hell of a mission.
What month was that?
That was in April or May.
Yeah, the war ended in May.
And it was the second or third week in May.
I just want to throw a few names out at you and
tell me if you recognize them.
James Morris, Charles Cole, Dick Cole, well I
found his name was Charles H. Cole.
What did he do?
Well it just listed, I found a list of aces in
the 20th Fighter Group.
No, no, no. I didn't know those because because
I know I know a Cole who was the
who was a co-pilot to Jimmy Doolittle on Tokyo
Raid and he sets in the
veterans tent that was with me every year at
the wings over Houston, Houston,
Texas. Oh okay um what about Fiebelkorn?
Fiebelkorn. Fiebelkorn. Fiebelkorn yes I
yes I knew him and he was he was a big German
and I don't know how he became a
fighter pilot because his head would hit the
ceiling of the canopy but but but but
he was he was one of our top aces and then my
and my squadron commander was
first one was was Jack Ilfrey and then and he
was the first ace in North
Africa in the P38s and then he was my command
and then he got he got
three more three and a half more kills and with
our group and I asked him
one day I said Jack did you get credit for all
the kills that you got he said
No, said some of them they didn't give me
credit for.
So anyway.
His last name was Elfrey?
Elfrey, I-L-F-R-E-Y.
He was a resident of Sandtown.
Oh, OK.
And he's written a couple of history books.
And I've got an art craft copy of him.
But he was a hellraiser.
I mean, he was a real rebel.
But he produced, he produced.
You mentioned Colonel Montgomery earlier.
What was he like?
He was a great guy.
He was a jewel.
He was just as smooth and everything.
And when he was a man, that you really respected.
So what else can you tell me?
I mean, I see you got some more pages in your book.
Let's see, where am I?
Okay, did I tell you about my three missions
over Berlin?
Yeah, I told you about that while he was out.
You were never wounded at any point, right?
No, on my last pass on that strafing mission,
I was telling you about, my plane took a hit.
But something interesting about that mission
that I didn't tell you about,
was that I escorted my wingman
back to the east coast of England,
and saw that he got landed okay,
landed okay but his plane never flew again. He
was so shot up and and and so
and so what I got ready to take off to go back
to the base I called the base
and I said I said I'd be in after dark. He said
okay we'll hold it open for you
and I wasn't concerned but I never had a night
landing on a P-51 but I wasn't
worried and and so and so I took off and got
back to the base and I came in
right on the deck like we generally do and made
my left hand turn and so forth
and came in and landed. The next day I was
told, John, that you realize that that
if you looked out over the right side of it
into that exhaust red red exhaust on
your on your engine you it would have blinded
you. That's that's where training
comes in you know and you didn't have that
training. I didn't add training and
doing that loop either. But anyways as it
turned out as well as I can remember it
the Colonel Montgomery and I were the only two
that got back to the base that
night. Now Cliff Juergens was able to get, I
don't know if you know this story or
not, but when Cliff went across the field on
his last pass, a
plaque hit the tail of his airplane it flipped
him completely over on his back
on the deck and and and and I know this is true
because I saw the film and he
brought it back but but what what your cameras
keep running about this several
three to four seconds to know where you can see
what damage you you've done on
the plane and it showed him on when he was
almost three quarters away and back
out and when when Cliff showed showed us that
that thing on the film I asked
Cliff I said Cliff how the hell did you do that
and he said well I just picked
hard left love to be running through that stick
back up in the left-hand
corner and it rolled out and and I keep
thinking to this day if I'd had a
reflexes to have done that and since I'm still
thinking about it I probably
would not have right so anyway I mean you can
laugh at those loose kind of
things today but those are the kind of things
things that happen. What would
you and the other pilots do in your free time?
We would the first thing
everybody did when I got over there was they
would go to London okay and I went
down on the first trip and then I went down to
Piccadilly and that's
where all the soldiers were and that was the
street walkers and all that kind of
stuff you know. And on the second one I had, I
went to London.
I went to London and I said what the hell am I
doing here? So I get on the
train and go north, go right on by my field and
I started going around
and into the different cities and and at that
at that time they just opened the
gracious this greeters with open arms and they
were invited us into their
homes you could spend the night there you know
and so forth and they'd feed
you know so so so what what what we would do I
wasn't a smoker and so and so
I would get my rations and cigarettes and I'd
take those and I and we were
able to get in some cases silver stock and silk
stockings you know and things
like that and then it would maybe be able to
get get certain some some kind
of food to take to them and of course they the
food was rationed and so forth
and and so so that was kind of a payback to
help them and of course they
just love to get that kind of stuff because
things things were rationed and
And speaking of rationing, when you go to town
and you try to get a lot of meat,
it would always come out, it was chopped,
and it had bread in it to make it go around,
because they shouldn't have those kind of
things in the war.
What else would you do in your free time?
Well, the that while I was there, I was I was I
went on up
the Scotland. And I got on on the boat and went
up to whatever
that that river was and went on up to the
northern part of
Scotland. And then I got on the train coming
back the next
night. And, and I and I stood out on the back
porch of the
train until about 3:00 in the morning watching
watching it get get
dark and then seeing the thing that what would
he call it the pretty lights and
that kind of stuff and that and that was a real
thrill. Did you have
much time to write home? Did you did you write
home a lot? All the time. The but we
One, in the Battle of the Bulge, I got over
there after D-Day, but I was in the Battle of
the Bulge and we in the 8th Air Force, which
was in England, we tried for seven straight
days to get down through that weather and we
could not.
And at one time, there was the 8th Air Force
and then I think it was the 13th Air Force.
And after the D-Day, they moved over to the continent.
And then they were in tents and moving very often.
And I have a good friend, Colonel Gene Smith,
that's still living today, that's in the Clear
Lake area, real close to where I live.
And it turned out that during that foggy time,
the group commander picked him, he tells me
the story, because he was such a good
navigator, and they took off right on the deck,
and stayed
right on the deck and that fog and so forth and
they found the
German tanks. The German tanks were moving
through that fog and they opened it.
Okay, and so Gene said they got a couple passes
at them but when
they came back they told General Patton where
the tanks were and so General Patton
gave credit to one of the reasons he was able
to win the battle of
because when the fog raised a couple days
later, he knew where the tanks were and we were
able to take out those tanks.
Was there a lot of frustration among pilots
because of that fog?
Yeah, very much. It turned out that on, for one
example, on Christmas Eve,
see if I get this right now,
Let's see if I get this right now, but on
Christmas Eve, we took off and supported the
mission and we came back and we couldn't get
back to our base.
So we had to land on bases on the east coast of
England and then there were bases like
bombing bases and places like that and there
were so many of us that that that
they didn't have beds for us and so we would
have to sleep on its concrete
floors or cuddled around together around this
this wood wood stove and I don't
think they had coal or not I can't remember but
and and cuddled together
and trying to keep warm and then we get up and
fly the next day and I was
always glad to get up to fly because then I
could get warm
when I got back in the cockpit of the airplane.
But but but we
did that for three, three nights and four days
before we were
able to get back to our base and we had to fly
eat and sleep in
our same clothes for those four straight,
straight days. But
believe me, it was not near as bad as those
poor devils down
in the Battle of Bulls, you know, frozen
foxholes being fired at by the Germans.
I mean we had a good combat, we
can't complain. But anyway, so
then one of our biggest missions was
on Christmas Day, not one of our
biggest missions, but one of the
biggest missions was the was on New Year's Day
because the the Germans
thought that the Americans would celebrate New
Year's and then they would
be drunk and everything and be hard but it
turned out that our group didn't
didn't didn't didn't run into any but but there
were a lot of other groups
that got a lot of Germans that day and and then
it turned out that while I
I was over there that for some reason I never
got into aero combat with
any Germans other than these German jets and
what they would do is they wouldn't fly in
formations of four like
we did. They would come up and gaggle a hundred
to two hundred airplanes at a
time and and I and while I was there my group
got as many as 22, 24, 26
airplanes they wouldn't and didn't lose a man
but I missed all of those
and then the one I missed was in January I went
to the flight
surgeon and said I'm tired and because I've
been through all those
missions that I just talked about, Christmas
Eve and on up and so
he sent me on leave and when I got to the hotel
and I went to, the name of the
city north of Washtenaw began with an E, I
forget what it was now but
But anyway, when I got turned on the radio,
I found out we had one of our biggest battles
up to that time.
And I had missed it.
And I was mad, because that's why we were over there.
We were over there to take on the Germans.
And the pilot who took my place that day as
element lead
I got two airplanes shot down and then later he
ended up becoming an ace and he got five airplanes.
So that in some cases is kind of the luck of
the draw, you know.
But anyway, I was really, really upset because
I missed that mission.
So you didn't shoot down any German planes
while you were over there?
No, I got some on the ground, but I didn't get
a shot at any of them,
including the jets in the air, even though I
ran into those.
So they give you credit for ones on the ground,
don't they?
Like, is it half?
I think they ended up doing that.
But really, an ace was supposed to be aerial
combat, but uh-huh.
but do you know about the Aces or whether
there's a background on that?
Basically after the big week which was February 1944,
the Germans became more and more reluctant to
climb up and engage our aircraft,
except for extremely critical targets.
So the Eighth Air Force really wanted to
destroy the back of the Luftwaffe.
So they offered to their crew members equal
credit for ground kills to encourage,
because strafing actually in many ways is much
more dangerous than air to air combat.
Your skill had nothing to do with it, it was
the mercy of the gunners.
After the war, the Air Force revisited and
evaluated and awarded final credit for kills,
and they didn't honor the Air Force's agreement
to credit those as kills.
So the final results after the war were just
air-to-air victories.
Because the other number of Air Force, like in
the Pacific and so forth, didn't do that,
so you couldn't really then evaluate one
pilot's skills for another one, so they were
not credits.
But many books would list those brownfields as
them being razes because at the time, that's
what they believed was happening. Thanks.
What living conditions for the pilots in England?
What did you live in tents?
We had pretty good living conditions.
We had what we called niesen huts.
And what it was, it was a concrete slab with a
metal type, what do we call it, like it
took a tin can and you cut it in half.
Oh, like a Quonset hut?
Yeah, Quonset hut.
And there were a bunch of pilots in there and
of course, but then they also had some
wood barracks as you raised up in the ranks you
you got over that and you you
went into it went into the wood wood place
which was much but you only had
two of you in the room and that and that was
very nice and when when I got my
promotion and moved up into that my good friend
Vince Rudnick I was
telling you about early came came in my room
and said well why did you get this
and I didn't. But I'd become flight
commander and he didn't become flight
commander but that's an interesting
story with Vince is that we were
the only two that went
into the 79th and we were very
competitive but I had to to escort him
him home one day his engine was was given out
on it and and so and so we got
as far as Belgium and his engine finally quit
and and and he and he landed in an
open field and and then so I circled around in
case he wanted to try to to
evade the Germans if the Germans were coming
and and these people start
come out of the woods and he called me and says
John am I in enemy
territory and and I said I don't know Vince but
as a last night you are okay
and he said well they look friendly and then so
and so finally I went on home
and it turned out he came I came home about
three days later and I said it
said that the Germans had moved out of there
the night before. That's how close
it was. So he was very lucky.
What other friends do you recall that that were
in your group? What? What other
friends do you recall that you had in squadron?
Well of course the Jack
Ilfrey that I talked to you about who was my
squadron commander and Bob Myers
was his deputy who I dearly loved and he was
the guy that really taught me how to
fly the BP-51 because when I got over there he
took and just me and Vince
Rudnick he took us up for a training flight and
and here he was flying here
and of course one on each wing and we were out
here you know he come on come
in we moved in a little bit come in come in he
finally said get the hell up here
on my wing so so we ended up and we got our
wingtips inside of his wingtip and
tails okay and that really taught me something
because when you coast to an
airplane like that you just fly with him I mean
you just just roll it make it he
could take and he took us in in loops and took
us in rolls and so forth like
that and then when we got to looking pretty
good he took us
over there over the airfield and we did a roll
over the airfield and came
back and did a little loop over the airfield
and but I just I just rolled
right with him and it was it was so beautiful
and it turned out that a few
years later after I got home I told my daddy
that story. He was picked up a hitchhiker and
he got
talking to the hitchhiker and he found out that
he was in the 20 fighter group with me as a ground
crewman and he asked him if he's that story and
he said yeah we saw that and we had never seen
anything like it. Well, did you ever see any
POWs during your time?
Well, one of the POWs, he was a POW, he was a
commander of the
20th Party Group and he got shot down and he
was in the concentration camp
And he tells the story about, I think it was
Johnny Westmiller, the boxer, great big guy.
Came into his camp, came into his room one
night and told him who he was.
And he said, I don't give a damn who you are,
you get the hell out of here.
He was talking to a German.
That was Max Schelling. Huh?
Max Schelling.
Oh, Max Schelling. Right.
Yeah, German.
Yeah, Max Schelling.
okay uh-huh and and then so but anyway when
when he came home after the war he
stood up in front of us with pistols on and on
his hip and said we've got some
spies in this in this outfit and if I find out
who they are I would shoot them
dead right here today. Who is this again that
said that? What's his name?
Si Wilson? Yes, Si Wilson. He was shot down
over the North Sea. He was picked up by, I
think, Danish fishing boats and turned him over
to the Germans.
That was another pilot that did the same thing
and he's passed away now and he went through
that way too.
What was the weather like most of the time?
The winter of 1944 and 1945 was one of the
worst winters in the history of Europe.
And we had a lot of problems with the weather.
Like I said, in the Battle of the Bulge, we
couldn't get down for seven straight days.
And those poor soldiers were down in those trenches.
and it just went on and on and we couldn't get
back to our fields and had to sleep on
cement floors and all that kind of stuff.
And it was raining a lot in the falls and the
summer, a lot of weather.
Did you get a chance to see any USO shows while
you were there?
No I didn't but I'll tell you an innocent story
that that that Glenn Miller played
one of his Glenn Miller was played one of his
last performance at an Air Force
base at our Air Force Base. Well a few years
ago and he and he had picked
up a teenage singer, a beautiful girl and a
very good singer, and that became his
lead singer. A few years ago I went to the
Opera House in Galveston, Texas,
and it was the sound of the big band sort of a
thing, and
she was the lead singer for the Glenn Miller
one, and then the lead
singers for the, what was it, the brothers,
wasn't it the Everly Brothers, it was the
two famous orchestra leaders that they were
together and then they broke up and then...
The Dorseys? Yeah.
Tommy Dorsey?
No, it wasn't Tommy Dorsey.
No, it wasn't.
Artie Shaw? Huh?
Artie Shaw? No.
Anyway, it was one that, but it was another band.
And then she was the lead singer for both of them.
And I was so impressed that I went behind the,
I went behind and got hold of the stage conductor
and asked him if he could ask her to come out
and tell her that I was over there in England.
And she came out and she was the most gracious lady.
And I told her about that story.
And she said, yes, I was there.
Says, but the last performance that Glenn
Miller performed
was at the pavilion in London, England.
And that's where we would go to the dances
when we would go down to London.
And the last song that I sang that night
was I'll Be Seeing You.
That still sends chills up and down my spine
when I hear that.
Negri, I think you meant it. Wow.
Was there a particularly, well, the question here
says, most emotional experience you had during
the war?
Where'd I start?
Well, the Jets was certainly one of them.
I guess learning to fly the 51 with Colonel
McGonagall was certainly emotional in the
very late, I mean you could become very elated
after something like that.
I don't know what else to say.
When did you hear, where were you
and what did you think when you heard that the
war was over,
at least the war in Europe?
That was another interesting story.
I had gone to London and I was on the train
coming back to the airfield
and found out that the war had ended.
And I thought to myself, man, I would
like to be in London, England with this celebration.
But then I decided, no, I'd rather
be back at the base with the boys that I flew with.
And then I got back, and we celebrated.
Because at that time, as I said, we had
finished a tour of duty.
And I could have come home, but I was not
about to let my buddies go to South Pacific
with us.
and we were training to go to the South
Pacific, and so I was very elated that we
didn't have
to go to the South Pacific.
What did you think when you heard that the
Japanese had surrendered?
Well, I guess you were elated because you
didn't have to go.
Oh yeah, well that was part of it, that's what
they just got through telling me.
What about, do you remember when you heard
about the atomic bomb?
I wouldn't have heard about them surrendering.
I have no idea what the atomic bomb was at that
time, something entirely new to us.
Are there any other stories that you'd like to
relate about your time during the war?
Do you want a history lesson? Sure.
And that is that in World War II, the Germans
were ahead of us in a number of areas of technology.
And one was the V1 buzz bomb, and I never saw
one, but I heard it many times flying
over at night.
the reason he flew at night was because if he
flew in the daytime the the
British could cut it was nothing in the world
but but a gasoline engine with
with a gyro on it and and so the British come
up with their planes and tip the
wings and when it wouldn't fall on on on some
city or where a lot of people were
and and then so and so they they started flying
at night and and I I was I left
the King's train station in London England one
hour before one hit that
station. Really? Mm-hmm and and then too I saw
the the the V2 bomber rockets
being fired out of England, I mean out of
Germany, on the way to England twice. Really?
You actually saw them being fired?
I actually saw them, yeah, and of course they
were just right on up like that.
On the second mission that I saw one, that one
went up and a new pilot called in to his
commander says, says, hey there goes a rocket
and the guy said well go go go
chase. But but but and and and of course that
was the beginning beginning of the
jet age but then after World War two I went
back and got and got and got my
degree at VPI in mechanical engineering and
aeronautical engineering and I got assigned
to the-and out of the work that we did there
with the NACA, I was hired by a man by the
name of Robert Gilruth and he put me into a
branch with a man named Max
Faget and Max Faget was on submarines in the
South Pacific and he went into
Pearl Harbor and he got out of that without
being killed and it
It turned out that Gilruth was hiring people
that were World War II veterans and as I say
we didn't talk, I didn't and a lot of us
didn't, talk about our World War II experiences until
years later.
Well, it turned out that he had Doug Folan who
was at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed.
He was walking out of the mess hall when they
hit, and there was a guy that was in the Canadian
Air Force that was in England, and my roommate
was a bomber pilot, and we bumped together
the same place for a year, and neither one of
us knew-and I didn't know any of these
other guys were in the-and then there was
another guy by the name of Woody Blanchard
who was a bomber pilot.
And none of us knew that the other had been in
the service.
That's how-we just didn't talk about it.
let's see where I was going with that now. Okay
yeah and then at the end of
the war Wernher Von Braun and his people hid in
the mountains because the
Russians were coming from the east and we were
coming from the west and
And the SS were looking for them to kill them
so that they wouldn't fall in either hands, okay.
But Wernher Von Braun was hiding because he
wanted to surrender to the Americans, which he did.
And so 20 years later, I found myself sitting
on the manned space flight program, and by
the way, I was one of the first 35 people that
was assigned to the space task group
that started the manned space flight program,
and that included Chris Kraft and Gilruth
and then Max Faget.
And I worked with Gilruth and Max Faget for my
whole career, and I was involved in the
design, development, and testing of all the
manned spaces we've ever flown, and I developed
the concepts.
I did studies that developed the concepts for
the Apollo program and so forth, and also
the docking with the Russians.
a so I thought from that standpoint I had a had
a very innocent career but 20
years later I found myself in staff meetings
with Warner Von Braun and his
staff and standing on the Saturn booster test
stand and in Huntsville
Alabama with him and these people and I still
had mixed emotions and I had to
tell myself John you got to get with the
program. So you can see how adversaries
BBB became my friends. It turns out that that
one thing that one of our Ron had
done was he had joined the SS troop which he
didn't have to do and he and he
used and he used a Jewish labor okay and and
and and and they were and and and so
So when we landed the man on the moon and
Wernher Von Braun got all the accolades for
putting the man on the moon, but his job was
the boosters.
And he wanted to also control the spacecraft,
but that wasn't his job.
His job was to do the rockets.
So when the Jewish population found out about that,
they came out of the woodworks and ostracized him
because he'd used them as slave labor.
And so I understand that one of them,
Braun, went to his grave thinking,
well, he probably made a big mistake there. Wow.
So you worked then for NASA?
Yeah, 30 years.
Wow, when did you retire?
In 1980.
What rank were you when you left the Air Force
or Army Air Corps?
I was a captain.
I understand that after
leaving Kings Cliff
that the unit goes
back to New Jersey?
I don't know.
I'll let you answer it.
The war is over and where do you go, what do
you do?
I went to work for the NAACA that became NASA
and the technology that came out of World
War II we used in the space program.
So I'm writing a history book on it, it's going
to be the one book of World War II and
and then the space program is going to be a combination.
But the two tied together, and I was there firsthand
in both of them.
So I can tell the story as hardly anybody left living
as they can tell.
Well, I guess I should have been more specific.
Where did you um, ah, the word escapes me.
Yeah, how did you return to the states and when
did you leave, actually leave the service?
Well I got back in the United States in October
and then so I was got out of the service in
December of 1944-45, and then immediately in
January I was back in college. Alright.
Well, you know, that covers a lot of the
questions that I had.
Is there anything that you'd like to add?
at all that I might have not asked you?
I don't know, I think I might have run out of
it, but right now I've got a couple hundred
pages of history right now, so I hope I'll have
a book or books out sometime next year
on it.
I'm working very hard on it now.
Well, I think that pretty much wraps it up then.
On behalf of the museum and myself, I'd like to
thank you for your service, Sir.
Thank you so much, Mike.
I appreciate it.
You do a good job.
I appreciate it.
Well, thank you, and I appreciate you.
Because I got interviewed by NASA, and that
interview is in the archives, and you can
get it by going to the nasa.gov thing and pick
up my name.
But the lady that did that, I gave her a CD on
my presentations on both World War II and
the space program.
And when she interviewed me, she was going this
way and that way.
And I had to keep bringing her back on the subject.
And then you did an excellent job.
the difference in the world and the way you
handled it and what she did, and then she's
a head historian at NASA.
Well, thank you.
So congratulations.
Thank you.
Well, let me...
I enjoyed it.