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Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
I was trained with a 50-caliber machine gun, and that was my primary equipment.
That was the primary equipment I was trained on. I could do minor repair work
on engines on airplanes...and could put it back together...
I don't know if this affected ya'll any, but did you ever experience any chemical
warfare at all?
No. We had gas masks...I kept my gas mask in case...I carried it with me.
How were you treated by the civilians you encountered?
Most of them were very good. The British people treated us fine, but some of the
British soldiers didn't like us too well, because we had more money than they
had, and of course the girls like us better than they did because of that. We
always had chocolates and cigarettes to hand out, so we were treated very nice.
In fact, some of the boys did marry some of those English girls. I never even
gave that a thought...
The 8th Air Force of the Army Air Corps is somewhat famous. We studied about
them in school. Can you tell me a little bit about what made it more significant
than the others, or why it's still talked about it today?
The 8th Air Force was the group that always got something done. They went in
and did their job. It didn't make any difference what the obstacles were. Of
course, the men that were in charge of the 8th Air Force, like General Doolittle,
they were famous before they got with the 8th Air Force... These men were
airmen, and they were trained during the First World War, so that's one thing that
made the 8th Air Force famous. The 8th Air Force included B-17s, B-24s... , and
each one of them had a can-do spirit. We decided that if anybody could do it, we
could, so that was the mindset that made us famous.
You said that you flew 27 missions. Was there a cut-off point at the time?
At the time we went over there, they were supposed to fly 25 missions and then
get to come home. After we started flying, they set it at 35 missions, and so we
flew two more missions-27-and in the meantime, our first pilot was promoted
to company commander... I think he had a hand in sending us home... So they
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