Oral history interview of William C. Day

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of William C. Day
Creator:: Chandler, F. C.
Day, William C., 1921-
Date of Original:: 2003-09-24
Subject:: Mustang (Fighter plane)
P-40 (Fighter plane)
B-29 (Bomber)
Douglas DC-3 (Transport plane)
Lightning (Fighter plane)
Thunderbolt (fighter plane)
PT-13 (Training plane)
Mitsubishi G4M (Bomber)
AT-6 (Training plane)
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Day, Betty Dean, 1925-
Harrell, John N.
Kruger, Bill
Sinkwich, Frank, 1920-1990
Davis, Lamar, 1921-
Keuper, Kenneth E., 1918-1997
Dudish, Andrew Charles, 1918-2001
Poschner, George, 1919-2004
DeFoor, Charles
Pyle, Ernie, 1900-1945
Ie Shima Airfield (Japan)
Athens-Ben Epps Airport (Athens Ga.)
United States. Army. Air Corps. Air Force, 5th
United States. Army. Air Corps. Fighter Group, 348th
United States. Army. Air Corps. Squadron, 342nd
University of Georgia
Republic Aviation Corporation
Lockheed Aircraft Corporation
Chandler, Hap
North American P-51 Mustang (fighter bomber)
Boeing B-29 Superfortress (bomber)
Douglas C-47 Skytrain (transport)
Lockheed P-38 Lightning (fighter)
Republic P-47 Thunderbolt (fighter bomber)
Boeing-Stearman Model 73 NS1 (Aircraft)
Mitsubishi G4M Betty (bomber)
North American AT-6 Texan (trainer)
Curtiss P-40 Warhawk (fighter)
Harrell, John N. (Houston, TX)
Kruger, Bill (New Jersey)
DeFoor, Charles (killed in France)
People:: Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945
Location:: Japan, Itami Air Base
Philippines, Clark Field
United States, Alabama, Dallas County, Craig Air Force Base (historical), 32.34607, -86.98481
United States, Alabama, Dallas County, Selma, 32.40736, -87.0211
United States, Florida, Leon County, Tallahassee, 30.43826, -84.28073
United States, Florida, Sarasota County, Sarasota, 27.33643, -82.53065
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Fort McPherson, 33.70733, -84.43354
United States, Georgia, Paulding County, Dallas, 33.92371, -84.84077
United States, Louisiana, Lafayette Parish, Lafayette, 30.22409, -92.01984
United States, Mississippi, Leflore County, Greenwood, 33.51623, -90.17953
United States, Mississippi, Washington County, Greenville, 33.40898, -91.05978
United States, Tennessee, Davidson County, Nashville, 36.16589, -86.78444
United States, Texas, Bexar County, Randolph Air Force Base, 29.52931, -98.278
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, William Day describes his experiences as an Army Air Corps pilot during WWII. While he was a student at the University of Georgia, he earned his pilot's license. He reminisces about many of the star football players with whom he went to school. He was sent for classification to see if he could qualify as a pilot, navigator or bombardier. In the Pacific, he flew escort missions for the bombers going to Japan. He relates many stories of close calls and fatalities, and describes life in the service in the Pacific. He was part of the occupational troops in Japan after the war, and his plane was named "Tin Man." While on Ie Shima, the Japanese landed on their way to surrender at Manila. He recalls flying in formation for President Roosevelt. He describes storms he lived through and relates his homecoming.
William C. Day was an Army Air Corps pilot during World War II in the Pacific.
WILLIAM C. DAY VETERANS HISTORY INTERVIEW Atlanta History Center September 24, 2003 Interviewer: F. C. (Hap) Chandler Transcriber: Stephanie McKinnell Hap Chandler: My name is Hap Chandler. The date today is 24th of September 2003, and we're at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia. William Day: My name is William C. Day, and I'm, was born on July 22, 1921, in Dallas, Georgia, and I now live in Marietta, Georgia. HC: Well, we're here to reminisce with you about World War II days and tell us a little bit about what happened to you after the war. Where were you born? WD: In Dallas, Georgia. HC: In Dallas, Georgia. And at the time of world war II, Pearl Harbor? WD: I lived in Canton, Georgia at that time. HC: When did you go to University of Georgia? WD: In 1940, and '41, and part of '42. HC: Some pilot training? WD: That's right. I took the CAA training, flight training course at the University of Georgia at Ben Epps Field and obtained my private pilot's license before I went in the service. HC: So you were set to go in the air force in aviation cadet school? WD: That's right. HC: Well, tell us a little bit about that _. WD: Well, when I went on active duty first, they sent me to Nashville, Tennessee, to a classification center whereas I was tested to be either a pilot, navigator, or bombardier. And it so happened that I qualified to be a pilot. And after that I was sent to Greenwood, Mississippi, no, excuse me, back off. I was sent to Lafayette, Louisiana for primary flight training. From there I went to Greenwood, Mississippi, for basic flight training. And from there I went to Craig Field in Selma, Alabama, for advanced flight training where I got my wings and was commissioned officer in the United States Army Air Force, Air Corps. And after that, I went overseas, no, after I got my wings, I got to North Field, Texas, for one month for student instructors school. From there I went back to Green_, Mississippi, and there I was a basic flight instructor for cadets for approximately two years. And I had approximately 30 cadets went through my training at basic. HC: So you completed your training as an instructor, was it 1944? WD: Uh, yes. HC: And from there, you went to… WD: From there, I went back to advanced, not advanced flying, but I went to Tallahassee, Florida where I was _ for about a month that I learned to fly P-40's fighter aircraft. HC: _ flying P-_. WD: Yes, and from there, I went to Sarasota, Florida for 19 weeks flying P-51's. And that's where I learned combat maneuvers, navigation, instrument red flying, bombing, everything. HC: Then it was time to go overseas. WD: And then from there, I went overseas. That's right. And I went as a replacement officer to an island named Ie Shema, which is about three miles south of Okinawa. There I was joined up by the 342nd Fighter Squadron of the 348th Fighter Group of the 5th air force. From there, we went into, after the peace treaty was signed, we were assigned to Itami air base in Osaka, Japan as occupational forces. HC: While you were on Ie Shema, what did you do? WD: I flew, well, we flew escort missions for B-29's going into Japan at first. After that, the peace treaty was signed we flew surveillance missions. I flew, there were four-hour flight missions. We had external fuel tanks and bombs and ammunition and everything. We were fully loaded for combat. We flew surveillance missions over the Sea of China, which is between Japan and China. We flew orders to shoot up anything or bomb anything that was outside the three-mile limit from shore. And the only thing that I did was I strafed a fishing boat at one time on one of my flights in the Sea of Japan, Sea of China. HC: _ escorting P-49's, you were also on search and destroy missions. WD: That's right. HC: How many B-29 missions did you escort? WD: Four or five, cause they were long flights. Longer flights for the 29's that it was for us. But we still had capabilities with fuel tanks, external fuel tanks, and a full fuel load and all bombs and ammo and six 50 caliber machine guns. HC: How effective were the Japanese defenses against the air attack? WD: We never, I never experienced any air attacks on the bombers we were flying. See, we fly them in to a certain area. We didn't fly over Tokyo. We'd stop and they'd go on in and we'd circle around and wait until they came out in case they were attacked. When they came out, we'd get above them and fly escort level to them on the way back to their base. And we would get off, turn off and go back to Ie Shema and land. On Ie Shama there was three landing strips, one for P-51's, one for the P-47's, and one for the P-38's. And the airstrips went from one edge of the water on the island to the other end of the island which is the water. In other words, your airstrip went from shore to shore, that's how wide the island was. So at one time we had a representative from Republic Aviation, which is the company that made the P-47's. HC: The Thunderbolts? WD: The Thunderbolts. And he said that he was going to take off in a P-47 Thunderbolt, fully loaded with ammo, gas, and ammunition, and bombs and never use the supercharger to take off the ground. So everybody on the whole island went down to watch him the next day. And we lined up along the runway just like anything else. He got in that airplane, opened up the throttle wide open and did not turn on his supercharger and he drove that airplane off the end of that runway just like you'd drive a car off of it. And when he hit the ground, he went up, it blew him to a million pieces, they couldn't find anything of him. He killed himself by saying that he was company rep that knew what the P-47 would do, but that's what happened to him. HC: On a P-51, would it take off under those circumstances? WD: Well, we always had, when we took off, we had a full load. And it got off the ground, yes, sir, you didn't have to worry about it going off the end of the runway. But we always… HC: When you say full load, what do you mean? WD: Full load of fuel, internal fuel tanks which is the one behind you, two wing tanks, two external wing tanks, a full load of 500 pound bombs, and a full load of ammunition for your six 50 caliber machine guns. You had three in each wing. HC: So the airplane was pretty heavy? WD: It was heavy. And we had orders that if we had to engage the enemy at any way, the first thing we did was drop our external fuel tanks, because that's the gas we used first. And when we used those two fuel tanks of fuel, we jettisoned those tanks and switched to internal tanks. HC: Where were you when they dropped the atomic bomb? WD: Was in, I think I was in Manila at that time at Clark Field on the way up to Ie Shema. I'm not sure. Well, let me tell you what. I have flown over Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped, and that city looked like a checkerboard. The streets looked just like perfect squares, but there was nothing there but the streets. There was one building left in the middle of Hiroshima and it was a concrete building. It had a steel tower on the top, and it looked like somebody just took their hand down and twisted it like that, and it was still standing. But the rest of the town, rest of the city was gone. Wasn't nothing there except the streets, and it looked like a checkerboard. I never will forget the sight of that. And that was the first bomb they dropped. I never did fly over the other one, where they dropped the second one. HC: That was Nagasaki. WD: Nagasaki, yeah. So that's one experience that I've had that I'll never forget, flying over Hiroshima and seeing what it looked like, nothing but just squares on the ground with paved streets like a square. HC: You mentioned Clark Field, how long were you there? WD: I was there overnight, and that was it, but they got us out of there pretty quick. HC: Wanted to send you up to Ie Shema and get you in combat. WD: That's right, get us on up there and see we were replacement, me and two other guys that went into this squadron that I was assigned to. And when we walked into the squadron commander's tent, we lived in eight man tents, and when we walked into the squadron commander's tent, there he stood with nothing on but his underwear shorts, and he's a major. And he asked us who we were, we told him. Well, the first thing you're going to do is take your rank off, we do not have rank on this island. So we had to take our bars off and our wings, said we don't have any rank or anything like that on this island. Says how much flying time have you three people got in a P-51, and we all told him at least 100 maybe 125 hours of flying time in a P-51. He says ok, as of right now, you three are my new flight leaders because I've got 20 hours in the P-51 and I've got more than anybody else in the squadron. So he says, you three are going to teach us how to fly them. So we were made flight leaders at that time. So on all those surveillance missions that I flew, I was the flight leader. I had to do the navigation, everything. The others were just wingmen, they were just sitting there watching me and flying with me. There was always three of us, me and the lead pilot and the two wing men. But I had been low enough on the Sea of China in a P-51 that my prop sucked water up off of the ocean, that's pretty close. And the only reason I know that is because my wingman said you're low enough, you're sucking water up off of the water. HC: In Europe, fighter pilots had the greatest fun going strafing _ big relief from their duties as escort, I think. WD: Right, now another thing we did when we wasn't assigned to a surveillance mission, we would go up and fly and meet with a P-47 pilot or a P-38 pilot and we'd dog fight. You know what a dog fight is. You'd maneuver like this like if you were shooting down an enemy aircraft. And we had this other guy behind me in a P-47, had a short in his control column, and when he pulled back on the stick _ in a tight turn, his six 50 caliber guns went off. And I felt him go under me, just like a vacuum. You could feel him, he never did hit me, but when he went off, he did like this and peeled off. And I said, what's the matter, he says I've got a short in my column, and he emptied his six 50 caliber guns before it quit firing. He didn't have his hand on the trigger or nothing. The trigger's on your control column. HC: Wasn't your time? WD: Wasn't my time. Well, that's one of my instances that happened to me. I've had another one where I was basically in basic flying school training cadets. I got landed on at night by another PT-13. We were up night flying, the whole squadron was. We were assigned to _ you know, different levels, three levels to a quadrant, and you'd get up and you'd just circle and circle and circle and they'd call you in for landings. We were teaching night landings and night flying. So my radio went out, I had no lights on the aircraft or nothing. He said if that happens, you just come down and buzz the tower and I'll see the exhaust from you, flames from the exhaust on your aircraft, and I'll give you the green light or either the red light to land or not land. So he gave me the green light so I went around and come in and was rolling down the runway, this airplane hit me and _ off to the right. Well, of course we stopped right then, both of us. But the squadron commander was in the tower and he came down out of that tower and ran all across that field to the airstrip and asked me if we were all right. And I says, yeah. He says, all right get out, you're going to get another airplane and go right back up. You're not going to quit, so they made us take off again. And when I got to Ie Shema, one of the first pilots I met in the P-47 group was one of the students of my first class at basic training. I'll never forget that. So I met one of my own students in combat in another outfit. HC: Did you speak to him? WD: Yeah, he knew who I was. HC: Some of them didn't care for their instructors. WD: That's right. So it was something. HC: How many cadets were killed while you were instructing? WD: Let's see, in all of my flight training, from P-51's on back to primary, there's none in primary, none in basic, then in advanced flying we had two. And there's another one killed in P-51, we never did find him, so they think he went down in the Gulf, _ on the Gulf, they never did find him. The thing that, when they lost him, he and I were up flying in two different aircraft, and I was on instrument flying under the hood. I couldn't even see outside because the hood comes over the whole cockpit and covers you up. You can _ you can just see the whole cockpit, just cover you up. And I never did hear him talk to me or anything because I was flying. HC: He went into the Gulf? WD: I had no radio contact with him at all. I really don't know. So when he would tell me where I could make a left hand turn or a right hand turn or go up or come down on my instruments, when I didn't hear any contact with him, I came out from under the hood, and I couldn't find him. I looked around, well, I flew around there looking for him. So I called the control tower at the base in Sarasota and said my wingman's gone, I can't find him. So they couldn't get any contact with him, so they called me on back to come back and tell me what had happened. So I told them what had happened. That was one instance, his name was John N. Harrold, I'll never forget him, he was from Texas. Another one that got killed in Tallahassee on a P-40 flight mission was another guy from Houston, Texas, and he got killed too. I don't know how he got killed, but he was just a friend of mine that got killed landing at an airstrip, practicing landings in a P-40. HC: It's not easy to forget those fellows. WD: No, it's not. I remember it as if it just happened yesterday. HC: What about cadets, when you were training cadets in basic training, did you lose many of them? WD: No, sir. Not a one. In fact, they never lost one at the base there at all. HC: When you got to Ie Shama or in combat? WD: We didn't lose any. At that time, the war was just about over really. Because most of my flying was surveillance really, after the Japanese came through on the way to Manila to meet MacArthur and sign the peace treaty. They landed on our strip in their aircraft, and we had to fly them down, well, the Air Force had to fly them down in one of our aircraft from Ie Shema to Manila. We didn't let them fly their own aircraft because we were afraid somebody'd shoot them down. HC: Do you remember how the Japanese aircraft was painted? WD: Yep, had a big red cross on it. HC: _. WD: Yep, big white, red cross. Well, there's a big cross in white. Sure do. HC: So you were in Japan for several months after the war? WD: Yes, yes. About a year I guess, I can't remember. Now another thing that happened to us in Japan, we had one of these guys, his name was Captain Bill Krueger, I'll never forget him. He was a piano player for some jazz band out of New Jersey, and he said one day, he says I'm going to fly a landing pattern and do it in less than 30 seconds. I said, you can't do it, it can't be done. He says, well, come down tomorrow and I'll show you. Said all right. So we all go down to the airbase the next morning and he got to flying around, and he comes in to land. He comes over a runway, peels off, _ come around, throw his flaps down, and come in like that to land. He's only made one mistake, he landed about thirty feet off the ground, and when he landed that airplane, just like that and it didn't slide two feet, the landing gear came up through the wings. And his head hit the gun sight as you can see right there, and it peeled his head back just like this. The gun sight right there. See this big piece of metal right there behind you is a solid piece of steel, in fact it's your seat. And behind that is a 55 gallon gas tank. Well, he hit, that whole seat collapses and he just went forward like that, seat and all, and he hit the gun sight with his head. I don't know if it killed him or what, but they got him out of the airplane and put him in the hospital. We never did see him again, so we don't know if he survived or if he was discharged after that, I don't know. But his name was Bill Krueger. HC: You know they used to say that all pilots are _ pilots. WD: That's right. HC: So you spent almost a year in Japan? WD: Yep, just about. HC: And what was the base in Japan? WD: Itami airbase. It was, just like an airport really, and the air force just took it over. HC: Japanese air force base? WD: Yeah, so we moved, we flew in from Ie Shema, and that's where we went, landed there. HC: What was the attitude of the Japanese towards the Americans? WD: Well, it's a funny thing when you saw Japanese and they saw you, they ran. They wouldn't have anything to do with us. In fact, we couldn't have anything to do with them. But they sure would scatter. If you got into a JEEP and was riding down the road and saw a bunch of them and they saw you, they hit the woods and the fields and got away from you, scattered out. I don't know, they just wasn't friendly, they wasn't unfriendly. But they just didn't have anything to do with us, which is fine. HC: They didn't attempt to shoot at you? WD: Oh, no, no. Nothing like that. HC: After you completed your year in Japan, you came back to the United States? WD: That's right. At the time when I was up for reassignment, the squadron commander, which is major Popek in this picture here, called me into his tent, says you've got enough points to either go home, or do you want to go to Korea. I says I'll go home. So they put me on a, flew me to Manila and I got on a ship and came back to the west coast and got out. HC: _ sent you home? WD: That's right. Major Popek. HC: How long did it take you to get from Manila to the west coast? Different interviewer: Where are you in this picture? WD: I'm not in this picture at all. This is Major _. I had a picture of me and another guy on the same, but I couldn't find it, Japanese they shot down. That's a history of the squadron right there. And they came all the way up, that squadron went all the way up from Manila, from Clark Field on up to Ie Shema and then into Japan. HC: There was a very famous war correspondent that _ on Ie Shema that was killed. WD: That's right, Ernie Pyle. I know where his grave is, I've seen it. HC: Buried him on the island? WD: That's right. HC: He was a doughboy's friend. WD: He sure was. HC: Didn't last long on Ie Shema though. WD: Oh, uh huh. HC: As we used to say, his luck ran out. WD: That's right. And his grave is right by the road, there's not but one road on Ie Shema, and it circles the whole island. And his grave is right on the edge of the road on the east side of the island where he went in with the forces, invasion forces where they first went in, but he got killed right there, and he's buried right there. And on his marker, they had his name and a helmet, I'll never forget that either. HC: Killed in action. WD: Right. HC: When you went down to Manila and got on a boat and came home, how long did it take that boat to get from Manila? WD: I don't know, but I'll tell you, one morning, I woke up and that ship was rolling just like a roller coaster and I went on deck and just as far as you could see was nothing, just plain water, there wasn't a ripple on the ocean nowhere. And you talk about eerie, now that's eerie, just as far as you can see, not a ripple on the water and you're out there. And the only thing you could see was out the back of the ship where we were making waves with the props of the ship. HC: Rolling? WD: Well, it was rolling that night, but the next morning when we got up. Stayed in our bunks like this holding on. HC: The storm had passed. WD: Yeah, the storm had passed and it was a perfect calm, I've never seen anything like that. On Ie Shema, I went through a what they call a typhoon, over here we call it a hurricane, but over there it's a typhoon. That's the first place I've ever see a sheet of tin going through the air like a knife, just as flat as it can be, and the wind was 110 miles an hour. Of course, it blew all of our tents and everything else that we had there. I have some pictures of those at home. HC: Where you with 110 mile an hour winds? WD: On Ie Shema. HC: Were you in a foxhole? WD: No, was in our 8-man tent. HC: And the tent blew away? WD: It sure did, all you had was just a frame. HC: How did you keep from getting blown away? WD: We just didn't, it's just gone. It ripped them off. And wet, soaking wet, wasn't nothing dry. HC: I've experienced those typhoons, they're something. WD: They are, it's something. HC: Combination of a tornado and a rainstorm. WD: That's right, rain going through the air like this, and not coming down, it's going this way. HC: Well, when you got back to the United States, what did the army do for you? WD: I went to Fort Mac[Pherson] and that's where I was discharged. And that's when I signed up and went into the reserve. Of course, they never did call me back for duty or anything, but that's the reason I got my honorable discharge from the reserve in 1957. HC: They did not call you back for the Korean War. WD: No, sir. HC: Well, what did you do after you got out of the service? WD: The next, right after that I went to work at the Veteran's Administration in Marietta, Georgia, as a clerk on GI insurance. HC: At the big old Lockheed… WD: Which at that time was Lockheed administration building, that's where the VA was at that time. That's where I worked. And from there, when I went to, what did I do after I quit working for them, I can't remember. HC: Well, you chose not to go back to the University of Georgia? WD: No, I didn't go back. I went there two and a half years. No, before I went to the… HC: Two and a half years before you went in the army? WD: I went to school with Frank Sinkwich and that bunch of football players. HC: That was a great football team. WD: Yep, Lamar Davis, Andy D_, Ken Cocker. Now Ken Cocker was a lineman, and he was a red-headed guy and he was big and strong, but he got killed in the pacific. HC: There was an end on that team who was left for dead in the Battle of the Bulge, _. WD: Yeah, I went to school with him. HC: And after the war, he went to _ in a wheelchair _. _ sad things that happened. So when you worked for the VA, did you find out you getting married about this time? WD: Well, I was married while I was in service, at that time, yes. And that's where my oldest son Marshall was born in Greenville, Mississippi, when I was an instructor, pilot instructor, he was born in Greenville, Mississippi. And then my other son was born in Marietta after the war was over. HC: Two sons? WD: Yes, two sons, three grandchildren. HC: Your wife still alive? WD: Yes, her birthday was last week. Her name is Betty, Betty Dean Day. And she turned 78 last week, yeah. HC: Your friends from older days get together for reunions on occasion? WD: No, sir, we don't because we're all scattered out, especially when we're flying P-51's and all that, we never have gotten back together. I have a lot of pictures of friends that I had in Sarasota, and I don't know what happened to them after. I was sent one way, I don't know where they went. But we were in Sarasota to be trained as P-51 fighter pilots. If the war hadn't ended, I guess we'd have been doing a lot more fighting, shooting and fighting. HC: Yes, you would. The atomic bomb ended the war. WD: It sure did. HC: And the plan was in November to invade Japan, bloodiest engagement in the war. WD: You talk about losing troops, man, we would have lost no telling how many thousands. Because those people over there, their pilots and their airforce, they had no regard for life whatsoever. They had a mission, kill or be killed, that was it. And as you know, that's how they sunk a lot of navy ships, dive bombing the aircraft into the ship, blowing it up. They had no regard for life whatsoever. HC: What sort of career did you pursue after the war? WD: I'm just trying to think what I did do after I got out of service. That's a funny thing, I hadn't even thought about that, but I know what I'm doing now, but… eventually I ended up working with a company that sells storage buildings in Powder Springs, Georgia, and that's what I do, I sell storage buildings to people. HC: Steel buildings? WD: They're all aluminum. HC: You flew aluminum airplanes now aluminum buildings. WD: That's right. HC: Well, are you still _? WD: I am today, right now. I only work part time, it's just something to do. I've been doing this about the last three years for that company. HC: Well, from your military experience, what would you say about what's going on in Iraq today? WD: Well, I can't understand how we can lose soldiers on patrol from gunfire or from hand launched grenades. I just can't visualize that without us taking some kind of action against it. Now we made, I've got a feeling that we in this country are not being told everything that's going on over there, because I just can't see how we could suffer a loss of a soldier and do nothing about it. Now we may be doing something about it, but it's not in our papers here, it's not told to us here in this country. I cannot understand how we've got so many, 130,000 GI's over there, and we can't stop this massacre that's going on, one or two a day, every day. It just don't seem right. I cannot understand with that many people why we haven't been able to restore their water and their power supply. Unless it is so destroyed that you've got to build it from ground up all the way, it must be, I don't know. Here again, we aren't being told the situation over there except things are getting better, they're making improvements, they're progressing. But that's not enough, we're still losing people every day. Makes me mad sometimes, I say we ought to go over there, if these people over there still want to shoot us, we ought to go back and shoot some of them. We don't know if they're civilians or what. But they're killing us. HC: It's a real problem. WD: That's right, it's a problem. HC: Have you joined any veterans' organizations, American Legion or VFW? WD: I was a member of the VFW, yeah. HC: What do you think of the activities, programs? WD: Well, I haven't been too much involved with it lately because more than likely, the VFW, I don't know, that and the American legion both, I think they get too political I think. So I haven't been involved with any activities to speak of. HC: Let me ask you this, if you had it do over again, would you do the same thing you did? WD: I sure would, no question. ‘Course I'd have to be a lot younger than I am now to do it. HC: We can't turn the clock back. WD: No, sure can't, but if I could turn the clock back, I'd sure go back. I loved flying a P-51. That's the best airplane this country's ever made, until we got into the jets. HC: I can't disagree with you, they saved my life. _ B-24 more than once and watched the P-51's come by, all the way to Berlin and Poland and Dresden, places like that. WD: One of our good friends that joined the air force with me in Marietta, we both got on the train the same night to go to Nashville, Tennessee, for classification. His name was Charles Defoor, and he ended up in a P-47 in France, and he was killed in France in a P-47, shot down. HC: In my small town, there must have been about eight or ten guys who wound up in marines, air corps, army air corps, I'm the only one left. My best friend was flying out of Gulfport and he said _ disappeared _. WD: Just gone… HC: They think he was struck by lightening. _ seen in Frankfort, Germany train station, and they hung him, he'd been captured. The price we paid, they paid, was… It had to be done of course. WD: Right, but I'll tell you, it's… HC: Well, it's been a long time since World War II. WD: Yeah, it sure has. HC: Do you ever reflect on those days? WD: Once in a while when I get to looking stuff like this, it brings back my memories of what I went through and what I've seen in this world. HC: Well, perhaps your grandchildren are not _. WD: I gave my son Marshall a 5x7 enlargement of these two, and he's got them hung on his wall in his house, and that's the only pictures that I have ever made, and these were made on Ie Shema, the island itself, as you can see. HC: The name of your airplane's the Tin Man. WD: The Tin Man, that's right. HC: You didn't chose that name? WD: No, sir. The flight chiefs, crew chiefs are the ones that named all the aircraft, the pilots didn't have a thing to do with that, the crew chief, because that was his airplane, he maintained it. He fixed anything that was wrong with it and kept it in flying condition. It was his responsibility not the pilot. Only thing the pilot had to do was tell him what he had to fix, he even put the ammo in the wings for the machine gun and all that, he did the works. He fueled them, everything. He did everything done to that airplane, and therefore he could name the airplane what he wanted. HC: Pilots came and pilots went. WD: That's right. HC: We've got five minutes. WD: OK. HC: Well, we're almost at the end. WD: I want to tell you one other thing that happened to me while I was in advanced flying school in Selma, Alabama. One afternoon, twenty four, well, forty eight of us, there was two people to the airplane. We got into the AT-6's, 24 of them, and flew them to Montgomery, Alabama, and landed at the airbase and parked them, got on trucks and went back to Selma, Alabama, for the night. But on the way back, we noticed a bunch of guards on the highway bridges, on the railroad tracks, and all of that, and I said what in the world's going on. So when we went back to Selma that night, spent the night, got in the trucks the next morning at daylight, rode back to Montgomery, got in our aircraft and sat there with the radios on. And we were sitting parked in formation and all. And I looked out after a while and here comes this big black limousine with no top on it, and guess who was in the car, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and we flew a demonstration for the President of the United States that day, and we flew back to Selma, Alabama. That's what we were doing that day in Selma, we flew an exhibition for the president. I don't remember, I just know one thing. I wrote my mother a letter, who was still living in Kent at that time, and told her what had happened. She took my letter and carried it to the North Georgia Tribune, which was the local newspaper, and they published it word for word. And I had a copy of that, and I cannot find it now to save my life. That's one other experience I had, was flying a review for the President of the United States in an AT-6. HC: He was the only president we knew. WD: That's right. HC: _ leader. WD: I know, after I got out of the service, I went to work at Lockheed after getting out of the VA. When the VA left Lockheed now, I went and hired in at Lockheed in June of 1951, and I worked there for 35 years, and retired from Lockheed. Well, at one time, I started out working in payroll accounting, and then from there, I went over to cost accounting and I had the responsibility of dealing with vendors from all over the country and materials that we bought from them, and I paid their invoices. I had to keep and write letters about making payments. I had paid a million dollars for a machine in that plant. Course when we got a machine like that that cost that much money, they said we'll give you a discount if you'll pay us without waiting 30 days, pay when you get the invoice. I'd sit down and write up a check request and carry it up to the financial officer's office and he'd approve, and I'd send them a check with the discount, up to a million dollars. Of course he had to get the money from California and a Georgia bank to release the check. HC: Very responsible job. WD: So that's what I did, I worked for Lockheed 35 years. Went to work in '51, and I retired when I was 65. HC: Well, thank you very much Bill, that's very interesting. You had a unique career. WD: I've had a ride.
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/151
Additional Rights Information:: This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required.
Extent:: 45:11
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
Holding Institution:: Atlanta History Center
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