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Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
sent us home in order to get us... and they gave us 30-days leave to do that. The
B-17 was supposed to be obsolete at that time, because the B-29 had come along,
and we thought that we'd be going to the South Pacific... and so we finished out
the war in the South Pacific.
What moment left the biggest impression on your mind? Could you narrow it
down to a single thing?
No, not really. I've put it this way several times, and I think it's the way most of
us felt: I wouldn't take a million dollars for the experience, but I wouldn't give
two cents for any more of it, so I guess that's the impression it made. I certainly
did enjoy the time I spent in the Air Force. When I came out of the service, I
decided that I was going home to fly. I had had a-hold of the airplane a time or
two momentarily, so I went out to take a course to learn how to fly an airplane on
the G.I. Bill. I passed all my paperwork, and the second time I went out, the
instructor showed up, and he'd been drinking, so I walked home, and I've never
been back in an airplane except some little show plane. I haven't flown since that
time.
Was there ever a time that you thought you may have lost hope and thought you
might not return home?
No, that never really entered my mind. I knew it could happen. We were flying
along the side of one plane, and I was looking at it and watching it, and our
commanding officer was in that plane, and I knew that, because we flew Number
One and Number Two in the group every time. We were lead plane and Number
Two plane. We turned left, and I looked away and looked back, and there was
just a cloud of smoke there. There was nothing else. Not a man came out of it or
nothing-it just completely disintegrated. That was in my mind, but it didn't
bother me, because I just brushed it off with, "Well, it was their time."
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Under what circumstances were you finally relieved of all duty?
I came out on the point system in 1945. The point system was to get the men out
that had more points... overseas duty, and such as that. I had 81 points, and I was
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