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Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
get everybody up. They'd yell, "Get up!" "Rouse out! "Hit the deck!" That
kind of stuff, and the guys would get up, and you always had breakfast ready.
We'd march on in and eat, and then you'd go do your job.
What time was lights out?
Overseas, we had no organized bedtime. We worked hard. The pilots would
come in dog-tired, the mechanics would end up the day dog-tired. Everybody
just put in twelve-hour days.
What were your daily duties?
This was what the airport looked like at the time I was running the airport.
{Showing photo to Interviewer} We had mail pouches. This is the way we kept
track of flights, and so our whole effort was designed to bring in freight, and that
would come in off of ships or other aircraft, break those down into individual
plane loads, get them all going to one destination, and get those loaded and ready
for takeoff. These guys worked like dogs. Didn't have a lot of fancy loading
equipment. A lot of the stuff had to be loaded by hand, and they would come in
tired. As officers running this thing, we had to do all kinds of scheduling,
communications with other airports and squadrons, how many ships do you have,
how many can we plan on, and so there's a whole gang {END OF SIDE A}
{SIDE B BEGINS}
Here's the airport facilities that I built by hand in Manila. We were told to
operate there until the end of the war, so I would go around Manila and collect
abandoned sheet metal and two by fours (lumber) and load it all up in a truck.
This is a parachute drying tower, and tire maintenance was in here, everything it
took to operate a squadron. This was my office right here. This was my
houseboy, and here I am again. This is one of our planes-a C-46. We brought
those ships in, changed the engines, rebuilt the stripe structure and so on if they
go hit.
What was your rank?
Captain. I was a squadron engineering officer.
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