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Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Oh, we were all real excited, and I think we were too dumb to be scared...We
were very young, and didn't realize what kind of dangers we were getting into.
In fact, we probably went through the whole war without realizing it.
Were ya'll all pretty young?
I think the oldest man was about 28 years old, and the rest of us were quite a bit
younger. I'd had my twentieth birthday in Washington(?).
Can you describe the aircraft you were on?
I was on a B-17, and it had the type of wings... There was thirteen guns on it.
The waist gun... The tail gunner had two guns...and the ball turret had two guns,
and he was the oldest man on the crew, I guess, at that time... They tried to send
him home, but he wouldn't go. He said he and his wife fought all the time, and
he didn't want to do that. So the thing was designed to be a fortress in the air.
Actually, it would cause major damage... We came through a lot of balloons...
All planes flew back and forth, like a pattern...
Were you or the aircraft ever injured seriously?
The aircraft was shot up quite a bit, but there was not a man in my 10-man crew
that even got a scratch until about the last mission. We had loaned our...to
another crew, and...he had to go to the hospital, but the rest of us...
Did you lose anyone close to you during the war, and if so, how did that affect
you?
I did have one good friend that was on another crew, and I can't even remember
his name now, but I remember that I had brought a piece of parachute silk home
that he had made into a scarf, and they had lined us up to go out that night...and
they said, "No, the second crew is going to go in your place." My friend was on
that plane, and it was shot down... I think I probably have that piece of parachute
silk tucked in a box upstairs somewhere. It's amazing that we didn't remember
the names of people. I didn't remember the names of a lot of our crew until I
started... I went to the group reunion year before last at Tulsa, Oklahoma... and
I met one man that I hadn't seen in fifty-something years, so we sat down and had
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