- Collection:
- Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
- Title:
- Oral history interview of Robert Harding Harris
- Creator:
- Wallace, Fredrick C.
Harris, Robert Harding, 1920- - Date of Original:
- 2004-10-31
- Subject:
- P-40 (Fighter plane)
B-24 (Bomber)
Nakajima Army Ki-27 (Fighter plane)
Curtiss CW-20 (Transport plane)
Airacomet (Jet fighter plane)
Thunderbolt (Fighter plane)
Lightning (Fighter plane)
Mustang (Fighter plane)
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Hardy, Hugh P., 1916-1944
Chiang, May-ling Soong, 1897-2003
La Guardia Airport
Auburn University
American Red Cross
United States. Army Air Forces. Ferry Command
Warhawk (attack/fighter Curtiss P-40)
Liberator (heavy bomber Consolidated B-24)
Commando (transport Curtiss C-46) - Location:
- Burma and India, Stilwell Road
Burma, Burma Road, 30.640187, -88.148114
Burma, Kachin State, Putao District, Fort Hertz
China, Burma Road, 24.7340678, 98.9670967
China, Kunming Shi, 25.0437977, 102.714338
Himalaya Mountains, 28.598316, 83.931062
India, Chabua, 27.5595691, 95.1467934415661
India, Impha¯l
India, Jammu and Kashmir, 33.5574473, 75.06152
India, Jorhat, 26.7577925, 94.2079645
India, West Bengal, Darjeeling, 27.03333, 88.26667
Japan, Kojima-gun, 34.63237615, 133.89942080256
Pakistan, Karachi, 24.8667795, 67.0311286
United States, Alabama, Dale County, Napier Field, 31.31545, -85.4541
United States, Alabama, Jefferson County, Birmingham, 33.52066, -86.80249
United States, Alabama, Montgomery County, Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, 32.38266, -86.35502
United States, Florida, Dorr Field, 33.8475082, -90.7241993
United States, Florida, Okaloosa County, Eglin Air Force Base, 30.45907, -86.55026
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Decatur County, Bainbridge Army Airfield
United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Fort McPherson, 33.70733, -84.43354
United States, Tennessee, Shelby County, Memphis, 35.14953, -90.04898 - Medium:
- video recordings (physical artifacts)
hi-8 - Type:
- Moving Image
- Format:
- video/quicktime
- Description:
- In this interview, Robert Harris describes his career with the U.S. Army Air Forces in the Far East during World War II. His desire was to attend a service academy. He passed the test for the the U.S. Naval Academy, but an astigmatism kept him out. Before he could apply to West Point, World War II broke out. He became an aviation cadet, trained as a fighter pilot, and was sent to the Far East. His primary mission was as a cargo pilot, flying supplies into China, but he also flew fighter planes in escort and reconnaissance flights. He recalls the weather in the Himalayas being the worst enemy they faced and the difficulties of flying an overloaded aircraft filled with bombs and gasoline in those conditions. He remembers receiving letters from home and how they affected his morale. He describes their living conditions, including weekend passes, local help and living in a tea patch. He describes his two brothers' careers in the military and tells about his homecoming, including how he felt when he saw the Statue of Liberty. Eventually, he qualified to fly twenty-eight different types of aircraft and was asked to test fly the first American jet aircraft.
Robert Harris was a pilot in the USAAF during World War II.
ROBERT HARDING HARRIS VETERANS HISTORY INTERVIEW ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER March 25, 2004 Interviewer: Fred Wallace Transcriber: Stephanie McKinnell [We have two Robert Harris veterans. This is Robert Harding Harris., 44 Paces West Drive, NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30327. The other is Robert L. Harris, 4019 Shady Circle, Lilburn, Georgia.] TAPE 1 SIDE A Frederick Wallace: This is the beginning of an interview with Mr. Robert Harris. Mr. Harris is a veteran of World War II, during which he served in the United States Army Air Corps from January 1942 to October 1945. This interview is being conducted at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia. My name is Frederick Wallace, and I am the interviewer. Mr. Harris, as we said earlier, this is going to be your story, and we want you to tell us, and when I say us, I'm talking about the American people, about your military service. And we want you to tell it in your own words. Take us from the beginning, tell us where you were born, why you entered the service, and take us step by step from that point on throughout your duties and throughout your various duty stations to _ discharge. So Mr. Harris, this is your story, will you begin please. Robert Harris: I understand and thank you. I was born in Montgomery, Alabama on Halloween, 1920. And as a matter of fact, my mother used to kiddingly say that someone knocked at the door, and she answered and the person said trick or treat, and I was born. Because she said trick instead of treat. I went to Auburn University so that I could take certain math courses and take a competitive exam for the naval academy. As it turned out, at the end of my sophomore year, I got an appointment to the naval academy. I was just thrilled to death. I went to Annapolis, and lo and behold, my _ disappeared when I found out that I had astigmatism. When I went before the final board, I'll call it that, I was practically in tears. I had two questions. One is, could I get in West Point. And number two, why would astigmatism preclude my having a naval career. Well, each, and each question was answered very positively. One is the astigmatism was distortion of the eyeball and the navy felt that I would get, anyone with astigmatism would get extreme headaches as a result of this distortion. The second question was answered this way, you'll have no trouble getting into West Point because your eyes will not be dilated. They gave me a choice of staying and taking another physical or going home and eating lots of carrots and things of that sort and having another physical. I elected to go home, and I did go to several doctors who verified the fact that I indeed had astigmatism. A little while after that, Pearl Harbor came into being. Well, I had always wanted, I loved military, I loved flying. I took aeronautical engineering at Auburn. And all I could think about were airplanes. So when Pearl Harbor came into being, I said, I've got to. I had heard about aviation cadets and the aviation cadet program. So I immediately volunteered with the cadet program. I took a physical on the latter part of January, the latter part of December, and my call date was around January the 5th. I passed the physical because they never dilated my eyes. In fact, throughout my entire service period about four years, I never had my eyes dilated. The upshot of this, I got into the cadet program. I stayed about six weeks at Maxwell, which was the cadet reception center. Then I went to primary flight training. The primary flying was at Doyle Field, Arcadia, Florida. I stayed there two months and graduated. Went to basic flying school, back to Montgomery, Alabama. Had two more months of what is called basic flying. Finally… FW: You say you went back to Montgomery, Alabama. Where? RH: Oh, Gunter Field. And I finished there and was sent to Napier Field at Dothan, Alabama, a single engine school, primarily for those interested in being fighter pilots. Graduated there January the 5th I believe, I beg your pardon, September 5th, 1942. I got my orders at Napier and was told I would become a basic instructor. I was then transferred to Maxwell Field again in Montgomery, which was the home in those days of central instructor school. I took about six weeks of learning how to be an instructor and graduated and was sent to Bainbridge, Georgia. Bainbridge Army Air Field, I'll call it, I'm not 100% sure of that nomenclature. And I instructed there for about, oh nine or ten months in basic flying. FW: What kind of airplanes? RH: We flew BT-13's and BT-15's. The BT, basic trainer. And I had about three cadet classes. One day we were interviewed. I skipped something. I checked out an airplane known as the P-40 Warhawk, a front line fighter. It really just whetted my appetite for overseas. I had heard that there was an opportunity to go to China as a fighter pilot, and one would receive training in China, primarily in Khun Meng, for fighter tactics and so on. And I thought this was a marvelous opportunity. I can't remember the exact date that I left the states for the Far East, but it was around, oh, I'm going to say around June 1943. We, I flew to Florida, I'm trying to recall the name of the jumping off point. It was extremely in south Florida. Well, anyway, I'll probably think of it later. We took off from there, and it took us about three weeks to get to India. FW: How did you travel? RH: We were flying in a military transport. It was a four engine, a B-24 as a matter of fact. And I thought to myself at the time, thank goodness I don't have to fly one of these darn things. It was in a sense prophetic and admittable. Anyway, I went through places like Puerto Rico. I went through South America, India, I beg your pardon, Africa, then across India. And we got to a town know as Cherbourg, which was a large military base, and decisions were made there where various people would go. In my case, someone looked at my _, five I believe and said, look at all this time. And I was told that Chang Kai-shek had talked to Congress about lack of support for China. The Burma Road had fallen, the Leto Road had gotten really not very far, and the only way to keep China supplied with war materials was over the hump, the Himalayas. So I was told at the time, congratulations, you are going to a four-engine airplane at a base called Jorhat. I said gosh, I've never even flown a twin engine airplane, much less a four engine airplane. The upshot of this, the officer doing the interviewing said, you'll love it. I'm not sure that was a valid statement. But anyway, I did go to Jorhat. I did participate in answering Madam Chang Kai-shek's plea for more goods to China, bombs, ammunitions, gasoline, etc… and I actually flew the, well over 300 hours. It would have been the equivalent of about 100 flights over the hump. FW: What happened to the training you received in the P-40? Did you ever fly the P-40? RH: Yes. It so happened that immediately, not immediately, but I was there only a while, and they needed someone to fly a P-40 across India to Karachi. And the fighter units were low on personnel at the time, and they asked me because of P-40's being in my record I assume. Would I fly the P-40 to a station in Karachi, which I did. That in a sense opened Pandora's Box. It was recognized that I had fighter experience, I had flown the P-40. At various times during my stay in India, China, and Burma, I was asked by the 10th Air Force in India, 14th Air Force in China to perform certain duties. As it turned out, I ended up flying P-40's on about 24 missions. Most of these missions were escort and reconnaissance. A very peculiar one was the Japanese invaded India. It was at two cities, two towns known as Kohema and Imfor_. I was asked to fly in that area and to see if I could draw enemy fire. I thought, well, gee, gosh, I'm not worth very much if that's the kind of mission I flew. But I did go. And there was no anti-aircraft, there was no… I got no firing on my airplane whatsoever. So we found out that the Japs did not have a lot of anti-aircraft material at this _. It turned out to be an incredible battle of [Imfall] and [Kohema] where hundreds and even thousands of Australia troops died fighting or precluding this Japanese invasion of India. So that gives you a little background of the 24 missions I flew. FW: Can I ask for clarification? I seem to have interrupted the flow of your narrative. Do I get the impression that you were flying both types of aircraft at the same time? Get from one to the other? RH: Yes, you're 100 percent right. The transport command refused to release me because of the pilot demand, and, but they would allow me to undertake fighter missions when I was not required to fly the hump. The hump flights, if I can relate them to flying fighters, I think the fear, the being afraid was more pronounced on the hump than in my fighter missions. I did not have aerial combat. That may have been different had I been flying against a Japanese fighter. But the hump was God made, and my problems were God given. Nature took over. The hump has in it the highest mountain in the world, Mt. Everest, at 29,000 feet. It has a number of peaks. I don't remember what an average would be, but 24,000 feet was not uncommon. We used as a checkpoint an area known as the three sisters, and they were about 23-24,000 feet. We were continually confronted with winds, updrafts and downdrafts. Icing was incredible, and most of the time de-icing equipment would not work. Quite often, nearly on every flight, the pilot and copilot had to have his feet, both, all four feet on the rudder pedals, all four hands on the yokes, the wheels that controlled the airplane because of this violent weather. Then in addition to that, we had the northern _ base which is not far from where we were flying _ Burma, and because of the close proximity of _, we had to fly further and further north to evade the [Nokachima] fighters that were stationed at [Mitch_]. The missions were predicated totally on need of the pilot. There was a continuous flow of airplanes. We flew both B-24's and transport offshoots of the B-24's known as the C-87. They obviously were four-engine airplanes with a service ceiling of probably a little less than 28,000 feet, which meant that we were flying at really max altitude, and I failed to mention one thing that played a part in being concerned. That was the max load. The B-24 had a design weight of about a little less than 60,000 pounds. It was not uncommon for us to fly up to 72,000 pounds, which meant that take off was quite critical. If an engine coughed, you may have joined your maker. We, I got in the habit then, and I did it through the rest of my flying career and even back into civilian life, _ good takeoff. And it stayed with me because of the critical situation regarding an overloaded airplane and takeoff at these places. In China for instance, I can't remember, India, the elevation, but in New Cunang where I flew both fighters and B-24's, it was over 5,000 feet elevation. So we had a tenuous deal in a loaded airplane on takeoff. I wondered if I could stop for a minute, can I do that, and… FW: Before we took a break, I was going to ask you to clarify the mission that you flying in support of Madam Chang. You said that she had asked for additional support, and you were talking about flying over the hump. Will you clarify for us please the nature of the mission that you were flying? RH: Great question. I guess I just plain overshot it. There were a number of bases in Upper [Rosam], India, that supplied the hump, supplied China by flying the Himalayas. The principle airplanes were the C-46 Curtiss Commander, and the C-87/B-24 Liberator. We were flying nearly everything that one could think of needed in a military sense. In my missions primarily were going to China, we flew bombs, gasoline in drums. We flew… FW: So you were transporting? RH: We were transporting these to Cunang from the Burma frontier, which was known as _. These were, once in a while we flew B-24's in addition to the transport version of the B-24 known as the C-87. and what we did there was to, they would load the bomb racks and add as much gasoline as they could. When we got to Cunang, they would drain the tanks except leaving enough fuel to get back to India and take the bombs out of the bomb racks. So in a sense, we were supplying China from B-24's as well as from transports. A strange thing, not a strange thing, but one of the things that helped my morale so much, in Jorhat. My mother and I, when I was a little boy, used to on Sunday afternoons go out and look for 4-leaf clovers. And there was a poem, I can't quote the entire thing, but “If you will have hope, and you will have faith, then you will have love. And if you watch, if you wait, you will find the place where 4-leaf clovers grow.” And it was something that we dearly loved to do, and nearly every letter that I got from my mother while I was overseas contained a 4-leaf clover, and it helped morale, and it helped me believe that, by gosh, I would get home in spite of some of the things that took place both in P-40 days and in my _ flying days. FW: Can you give us something of the sense of what life was like at the base where you were flying from? Was this an American base, and was it populated by American personnel or a mixture of different nationalities? RH: It was an American base, in fact all of the bases, I can't name them all, we happened to be Jorhat. There was one known as Tezpol, one is, I can't recall. Mornberry was one, Superting was another. But there were a number of American bases from which these transports flew to get over the hump to supply China, because as I mentioned earlier, the Burma Road was controlled by the Japanese, and the Lito Road never quite materialized. Let's see, let me collect my thoughts for a second. Where was I? FW: The crew that you were flying with? RH: We had various crews. We didn't generally stay with one. One, I'm glad you mentioned that crew because all of us got there maybe as novices, especially on four engines. And we had to fly a number of flights over the hump as copilot before they checked us out as pilot. That was true in my case as well as others. I did fly a few missions as a copilot, and I flew missions as pilot. In fact when I left Jorhat, I was a fully qualified commander on a B-24. We had, the crews varied. Sometimes, on occasions we had a navigator. We always had a flight engineer. We always had a cargo handler. We always had a pilot and a copilot. Generally we had a crew of about five persons. That deviates from a crew flying, say, a B-24 in England in combat where the crew complement would be about ten people, the additional people would be the gunners. We carried aboard our shoulder holsters which were .45's. in addition, each of us had a carbine. But other than that, the airplane was without armament. We did carry occasionally, strapped around our waists, silver coins that in case we were shot down or couldn't make the, couldn't complete the flight, we were to give these silver coins to whomsoever gave us a hand and enabled us to get out. We carried a little kit of cards and silk maps. On our backs we had what is known as a blood shed. These generally had messages in the various languages associated with that part of the world. We had [chins] and [cut chins]. We had [naugas] and various tribes with peculiar dialects, and on these maps and these so called things that we wore on our backs, one of Burma, one American flag, messages to people to give us a hand, they would be rewarded if we were safely led out of wherever we may be. We used to wonder about how long we were going to be there, how many missions. We saw friends die on takeoff, we very seldom ever saw a, in fact I cannot recall ever seeing an airplane go down over the hump, because we were separated for safety. We weren't always separated from airplanes flying out of other bases, but I never saw an airplane go down on the… FW: From hostile fire? RH: From icing, from mechanical failure, from maybe even a fighter came out of the cloud cover and shot him down, I never saw that. We lost hundreds of airplanes, I thought I would remember, and I almost do, the number of airplanes lost, it was well over 600 due to those two actions, the weather. Or maybe three actions, the weather, mechanical, or fighter action. And we wondered you know, how long are we going to have to fly this thing. In my opinion, there was a finite end to, finite time to which all of us could survive. I'm not sure that we could have made it. We just continued to fly. A very peculiar instance happened to me on this hump flying. One day we were having coffee in the mess hall and I was called to the telephone and told that a new airplane had arrived with electronic turbo-superchargers. I said, hey I've never flown an airplane with electronic superchargers, it was electronic supercharger control. These were General Electric superchargers, and Honeywell controls, the new one. The guy said, look, you're assigned to the flight, and you're going to have to fly. I went back to my coffee and the table and was complaining about it. They had told me to come down early. A friend of mine at the table said, hey, I have experience with them. His name was Hugh Hardy, a graduate of William and Mary. He said, I'll take your flight, I'll take your airplane, you take mine. I said, Hugh, that's not, that's bad luck. He said, I don't believe in bad luck. Well, he took my airplane and I took his, and I got off the ground first and was circling for altitude, and I looked down and Hugh Hardy was taking off. He crashed on takeoff into the runway. Bombs and gasoline and ammunition blew, it probably was one of the most horrible sights I think that I've ever seen. The fact that in the case of Christianity, Jesus took our place, and my thought was Hugh Hardy took my place, and it was probably the most miserable few hours I've ever spent in an airplane flying that day. FW: What type of airplane was that? RH: That was a C-87/B-24. C-87 and B-24 were almost synonymous. FW: So when Hugh went down, he went down with his full crew? RH: Full crew. And of course they were all killed. The bombs and what have you blew sky high, and I can't think of anything, even today, I can recognize the crash of an airplane. It just has crash written all over it. At night of course you see the flames; in the day time you see primarily the black smoke. But it's a disconcerting thing. Well, I completed my mission and I completed my 24 P-40 flights both out of Kunang, and I even went into Burma in the P-40 and to [Mitchinow]. That is the only real battlefield that I've ever been on in World War II. We went into [Mitchinow] to support if need be. And as it turned out, Mitchinow had surrendered. We stayed around a few days and one of the personnel officers took us on a tour of the battlefield. Mitchinow was always a quest of the military of Stillwell and the _ marauders and the [chindits] and all the people, the Chinese X-force, the effort on the ground was to get Mitchinow and get the Japanese out of north Burma. That would enable safer flights over the hump. It would conceivably open the Burma Road. It would, the Lito Road was built to replace the Burma Road, but it would at least open transportation to supply China. The, I'm trying to think of words to describe Mitchinow and the battlefield. FW: Mitchinow was the airbase? RH: Mitchinow was the name of the town and the Japanese airbase. The Japanese infantry was there, too. Japanese infantry, Japanese pilots, large supply dump for holding north Burma in the hands of the Japanese. We went on the battlefield with this captain as I recall. We were told, we were admonished, we couldn't touch anything because of booby trapping. It was incredible. I thought at the time, gee, the Lord gave me a degree of sense to have joined the army air corps rather than the infantry. The odors, the stench, was unbelievable. We saw caves where the Japanese had been caught by flamethrowers. They were still in the caves, dead of course, bodies all over the field. I saw swords and guns, pistols, primarily that I would dearly love to have had, but of course we couldn't touch anything. They said you couldn't touch anything, they meant it. And we got within a foot or two of many of these artifacts that would have been quite appealing to me. I was not alone with this, in the tour, there were, there must have been five or six of the pilots who had gone in in support of the battle and we never were used. We had an airplane but we didn't use them. FW: So you toured this battlefield in vehicles? RH: Beg pardon? FW: I say, so you toured this battlefield in army vehicles? RH: No, walking. We walked, yes. We walked, and I saw sights that as I say I never imagined would be in my lifetime. But anyway, it was an eye opener, and I'm, in hindsight, glad that I had the opportunity because it made me really realize what these infantry people and artillery people went through. FW: So during the time you were flying over the hump, you did not encounter any hostile fire? You didn't have any armament on your plane? How did you protect yourself? RH: We did not. We only had the carbines and the sidearms. Yes, I did see on a couple of occasions, different occasions airplanes in the distance, dots if you please, but we had nothing but cloud cover. So it was easy. We most of the time couldn't see above or below, we were completely inundated. And that added to the trials and tribulations of flying. We had a radio beacon at a place in Burma called Fort [Hurtz], and we would fly to, we would use that beacon when it was operating. It was off and on; it was unpredictable. We had, we used dead reckoning in our navigation. We did not have a navigator aboard. The dead reckoning necessitates an appreciation of the winds and the directions and velocity, most of the time we couldn't see the ground. And at night, we flew initially only day missions. The army air corps headquarters said that it was inconceivable that we should have to fly the hump at night. But only after a few months at Jorhat, those orders were changed, and we flew both night and day. We couldn't see the ground. We had to use our, what navigation abilities we had, with the instruments on the airplanes [which] were generally pretty good. We had gyrocompasses; we had magnetic compasses. We had no flight controls, I beg your pardon; the automatic pilots didn't really work, so we had to manually fly the airplane most of the time. The pilot or the copilot. We generally took turns. But navigation was somewhat difficult because of the winds that were unpredictable. We had, and I may have mentioned this earlier, but in the event that I didn't, we had updrafts and downdrafts where it was not uncommon to be uplifted 1,000 feet and dropped 1,000 feet in just a fraction of a second because of the mountainous terrain. And, of course, that bothered us, we never knew exactly where we were so we were not 100% sure where the large peaks were. And that was a bothersome situation. FW: But when you made it safely over the hump and you landed, who greeted you? RH: We were greeted by a jeep and lead to a rebuttment. We got out of the airplane, and we had to go to operations, of course, to sign in and to sign out. We were given, if it were early in the morning, we had breakfast. If it were midday, we had lunch. They treated us royally. As we landed in the transports, we got a thumbs up from the Chinese workmen working on the runway. We had a tremendous runway in _, it was gravel, but it was about 10,000 feet long as I recall. Flying the P-40 was even more of a thrill with regard to the Chinese and their display of appreciation. You had taxied by them, and you would see them do this, and it was very heartening to know that the natives did appreciate being there, helping as we were trying to do. FW: And did you spend the night there on the base? RH: On occasions we did. FW: And then how did you get there? RH: We stayed in hostels. We, I'm hesitant to guess, I'd say of the missions over, I'm guessing 50 or 55, at least 10 to 20 percent of the time we got a nap, which was tremendously refreshing. Every once in a while we had to go to other bases; we couldn't get into Jorhat because of the inclement weather. We would sleep under the wing of the airplane as best we could. We generally used a parachute as a pillow. So we did get rest when rest was urgently needed. FW: What type of relaxation, what forms of relaxation did you have available to you? RH: We had, I completely skipped that and never really reflected on that. We had bash up boys, that wasn't exactly nomenclature, and it skips me at this point, but we, they would go in the jungle. We lived in a tea patch. The area in which we lived where the air base was located was a tea plantation that had been taken over by the military. There were tea bushes all around. We had these young Indian boys who we paid, _ paid by the government, we paid them out of our allowance. They would go into the jungle and get us bananas and things of that sort. We did exercising as we could, calisthenics. We were not required by the military to do that. We did it of our own volition. Fellow pilots used to tease me because, and I just happened to think of this, I'm a pajama guy. We slept under mosquito netting, and I always religiously wore my pajamas. Ninety percent of the guys slept with nothing on, and the other 10 percent had a wrap around. I was the pajama guy. But to go back to your question of recreation, we did get rest leaves. We would go to various places like Darjeeling. We would go to Kashmir. There's a place in, once again, memory is not serving me well today, it has the highest rainfall of any spot in the world. We would go there for four days or a week at a time. FW: What would you do there? RH: Beg pardon? FW: What would you do there? RH: We would wear clean uniforms, we would look for girls with whom to date. Quite a few Anglo-Indian girls, most attractive. There were English girls, in fact I dated an English girl, she told me her father was a brigadier in north Africa at the time. We would shop and buy things to send home. We would have lots of cocktails. We had, we were drinking _ gin and Tiger brand whiskey which was kind of a mixture of rum and bourbon. But to name a specific thing that we did at Jorhat for exercise, I just can't recall. It's a little bit embarrassing. FW: No, it's okay. RH: I just can't… FW: How did you maintain contact with your family? I take it you were not married. RH: No, I was not married, and I promised myself I would never marry until the war was over. I was just afraid of something happened, happening. I never made, had any communication other than the mail that we received and sent. As a matter of fact, my mother told me that one of my brothers, I had one brother who was a sergeant; I had another brother who either a captain or a major at the time, had been in north Africa and I was in north Africa. So when I had a choice to come home, I selected north Africa to see if I could find my brother. It turns out he was in Casablanca at the time supposedly, but he was not there. He had already come home and had gone to Italy. So I missed him completely. The alternative was to fly back through Australia, and I often regretted not flying back through Australia since I missed my brother in Casablanca. FW: You say you were selected to come home. How was the selection made? RH: They finally established a time. FW: How many missions? RH: So many missions. And my hump mission time was in excess of 300 hours, and I can't tell you exactly. A flight over the hump to Kunang, assuming that one did not have to take too many maneuvers to avoid icing or fighter action or what have you, would take a wee bit over three hours. So three hours there, three hours back. And I figured at six hours that I had well over 100 missions. So we were told one day congratulations, you're through. I said, does this mean I'm through flying the hump, am I through with P-40's? They said you made the grade. That's when I left and made the decision to go through north Africa to find my brother. FW: And you were traveling, you traveled to north Africa by what means? RH: We went over by airplane, and we returned by airplane. Now we flew over in a B-24. We flew back in a C-46, a Curtiss Commando. We flew into New York. And incidentally, I just happened to remember my port from which I departed in America, Boca Raton, Florida. Took quite a while to remember that. FW: You flew into New York? RH: We flew into New York, we were met by some very lovely Red Cross girls. FW: Where in New York? RH: Let's see, that must have been, good gracious, that's a heck of a question. FW: I mean was it New York City or was it….? RH: Oh, no, I guess the civilian places like, of course, they only one port at that time, and that was, it was New Jersey serving New York and the New York serving New York. Kennedy was not in being of course. FW: So it was an airbase that you flew into? RH: Yes, well no, I think it was a civilian airport because as we circled around, we saw the Statue of Liberty, and I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life. We landed there, and I'm trying to be sure, it was LaGuardia I'm almost sure. And we were met by these Red Cross girls. They wanted to know what we would like to have. I said, if I told you, I'm most sure you wouldn't know what I was talking about. And the girl said, try me, and I said I'd like some collard greens. She said you're right, I don't know what collard greens are. But I always loved collard greens. But we stayed in New York a few days. We got a shave and a haircut and went to beautiful bars and were hailed by lovely New Yorkers, and little did I think at the time that some few years would pass and I would become a New Yorker. But, do I have time to mention my after days? FW: Yes, that was, I was going to…. RH: If I'm running out of time. FW: No, well, I'll let you know. Because I'd like for you to go into your time after the service. Where did you, where were you discharged from? RH: Ultimately I was discharged from, believe it or not, Fort MacPherson. After I got out of the service. FW: So you left New York. RH: In New York, we had to go to a staging area which happened to be Nashville, Tennessee. So we had a leave. I'm going to guess that leave was about 30 days. I went home, of course. After that I reported to Nashville, and they asked me what I'd like to do. I said I'd like to fly high performance fighters, all that I could fly, whatever type might be available and fly them around the country or the world. They said, you know, we think that we can put you in an area where you can do that. So I was transferred then to Memphis, Tennessee. They had a ferry command operation there. And sure enough, I flew various fighters. As a matter of fact, when I got out of the service, I got a list of the airplanes in which I was qualified to fly—four-engine, twin-engine, single-engine. And there were 28 different airplanes in which I ultimately checked out and flew. I flew, I was penalized one day, I was flying out of Memphis, and I was called into operations. They said, I knew the operations officer, and he said, Bob, there are quite a few primary fields being closed. These are single-engine pilots, single-engine instructors. And we would like to have you become one of the instructors on twin-engine aircraft. I said, look, I've been an instructor, I don't want to instruct anymore. I've been in combat, here are my ribbons. I'm just not going to do that, if I have to plead with the highest ranking person I know, I just don't want to instruct anymore. He said, thank you, and he was very cool, and he said, that may have cost you your captaincy. A few days later, I got orders to go to B-29 school. And I think this was punishment. I didn't want to fly multi-engine airplanes, so they selected the largest one of all. I went through B-29 school flying both in Birmingham, Alabama, and at Oklahoma City. Checked out daytime and nighttime and came up with the decision it's one of the best airplanes I ever flew; I loved it. And in fact, I flew a couple of airplanes out of Marietta delivering B-29's to various bases. For some reason, right after that, I got a telephone call in which the voice at the other end said, I'm colonel so and so, would you like to fly and test America's first jet? I said, good Lord. Well, first he asked, did I know what a jet is. I said, of course I did, I took aeronautical engineering for two years. He said we are going to ask… FW: About five minutes. RH: We are going to try to generate orders to have you test America's first jet. I was transferred to Eglin Air Force Base, which is the proving ground command, and we tested the P-59, the air comet, for operation of suitability to see if it was qualified for combat. Because of very slow acceleration, we turned it down. But it did give me an opportunity to fly as a test pilot, America's first jet. I flew fighters. I had access, when I wasn't flying, testing, I had access to any airplane on the base. We had, they even had me running missions in a P-51 as a bomber where we were told when to drop the bomb and where to drop the bomb. I was seated all the way down in the airplane and I couldn't look outside. They even had one mission testing the demand oxygen regulators on the P-47. I had missions, quite a few on the P-38, which also became one of my favorite airplanes. If I had to rank the airplanes in first love, it would be the P-51, number 1, the B-29 at number 2, and the P-38 number 3, although I had more little problems with the P-38 than any other airplane. FW: This has been very interesting. Can you tell me then why you chose to be separated from the service rather than make a career of it? RH: That's an easy one. I wanted to be a career military guy, but I wanted to graduate from one of the service academies. And when I was turned down by the naval academy, I thought that was indeed the kiss of death. And I said, I've only had two years of college. I went back to get my degree in aeronautical engineering. I was offered two jobs, I only took two interviews, one General Electric, and one in NASA. I took General Electric, and that's why I ended up in New York. FW: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Harris. I really enjoyed this, and I think that you have a tremendous story to tell, and I think that there's a lot more that you can talk about. RH: In hindsight, I wish I had more time because I'm beginning to recollect little things, but I did cover the major part. And you are a great interviewer. FW: Well, thank you very much. There may be an opportunity for you to talk some more. If you have the opportunity, I hope that you will take advantage of it because you do have an interesting story. Thank you very much, we really appreciate this. RH: Thank you. - Metadata URL:
- http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/194
- 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:
- 57:04
- 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
- Rights:
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