- Collection:
- Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
- Title:
- Oral history interview of John C. Launius
- Creator:
- Eberhard, Sarah
Launius, John C., 1922-2005 - Date of Original:
- 2003-09-03
- Subject:
- World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Atomic bomb
Grumman Avenger (Torpedo bomber)
Stearman airplanes
Belleau Wood (Aircraft carrier)
Missouri (Battleship : BB-63)
United States. Navy. Torpedo Squadron, 31 - Location:
- United States, Alabama, Lee County, Auburn, 32.60986, -85.48078
United States, California, Alameda County, Alameda, 37.77099, -122.26087
United States, Florida, Escambia County, Pensacola, 30.42131, -87.21691
United States, Florida, Miami-Dade County, Miami, 25.77427, -80.19366
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Clarke County, Athens, 33.96095, -83.37794
United States, Georgia, Walton County, Monroe, 33.79484, -83.71323
United States, Hawaii, Hawaii County, Hilo, 19.72991, -155.09073
United States, South Carolina, Richland County, Columbia, 34.00071, -81.03481
United States, Tennessee, Shelby County, Memphis, 35.14953, -90.04898 - Medium:
- video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv - Type:
- Moving Image
- Format:
- video/quicktime
- Description:
- In this interview, John Launius describes his career in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific during World War II. The local draft board warned his father that his number was coming up, so he volunteered for the Navy; he had heard that the Navy had a better flying program and that if you washed out of the Army's program, you became a buck private. He recalls his pilot training including ground school, soloing, gunnery, pre-flight to elimination and finally, pinning on his wings. He relates an incident during training when eleven planes were lost in the fog and describes seeing the planes brought back. He also describes being given personality tests by the Navy. He nearly washed out of training and had to go before a board of review. By the time he got to the Pacific, the war was nearly over. He describes the plane he flew, its crew and armament. His squadron bombed in and around Tokyo and Hiroshima; he was in the air on his way back to the carrier when the atomic bomb was dropped and he felt the concussion from the shockwave. He flew in the 1,500 plane formation over the signing of the peace agreement. He supplied POW camps; they had painted signs on buildings. During the occupation of Japan, they visited a town south of Tokyo where the residents hid from them. He recalls attending reunions and displays his cruise yearbook. The audio in this interview is lost at 34:44.
John Launius was in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific during WWII.
JOHN LAUNIUS VETERANS HISTORY PROJECT ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER Interview Date: September 3, 2003 Interviewer: Sarah Eberhard Transcribed by: Stephanie McKinnell SARAH EBERHARD: Today is September 3, 2003, and my name is Sarah Eberhard. This afternoon I'm speaking with John Launius in Atlanta, Georgia. He is here this afternoon with his wife, Billie, and will be discussing his experiences while based on the USS Belleau Wood in World War II. Just to get started, I'd like to ask you about how you came to be in the service. Were you drafted, were you a volunteer, and how did that come about? JOHN LAUNIUS: Well, I was in school and my daddy, in a small town, he knew everybody on the draft board. He ran into one of them one day, and he said, “You better tell John to do something because we know we can't pass him up many more times.” So anyway, he did, I volunteered for the Navy. SE: Where were you sent for training, after you volunteered, where did it go from there, your training and your first assignment? JL: I went to Columbia, South Carolina. We spent three months there doing nothing but ground school. Then from there, I went to Auburn, Alabama, where I soloed, flew and soloed Cubs. Then stayed there three months. From there I went to Athens for preflight, and that was mostly ground school and exercise. Then from there, I went to Memphis, Tennessee, for e-base, elimination base. And we flew Yellow Perils. I don't know who made them, but flew that for three months. From there I went to Pensacola and stayed in Pensacola until I got my wings and commission. SE: What was the date of your commission? JL: August of '44. SE: Then after commission, where? JL: I went to Miami, Florida. We trained, that's where we picked up the type planes I was going to fly in combat. We trained there for three months. Then we went to the west coast, I don't know now whether it was San Diego or somewhere on the west coast, Alameda. That's where we formed the squadron. From there we went down to Hilo for three months and trained there and did some night flying and so forth. Then we went aboard the carrier headed to the Pacific. SE: How was ____? JL: Oh, we didn't get there, the war was nearly over. We actually, I was actually aboard the carrier about 90 days. Then we came on back to the west coast. They disbanded the squadron. SE: I'm going to take you back again to the beginning when you first enlisted and when you first joined. You mentioned being from a small town. Was that here in Georgia? JL: Monroe, Georgia. SE: And how many of your friends joined? Were they drafted, what was the mood around home and around town for the number of you that were going into the service? JL: Well, I really don't know. I was in school away from Monroe. SE: Were you in college? JL: Business school. The reason I joined the Navy, one reason I joined the Navy was that when you, I heard that was a better flying program than the Army had and a tougher flying program. At that time, if you washed out, if you were in the Army and you washed out, you were a buck private. Navy, they send you back to your draft board. That's another reason I liked the Navy. SE: Did any of your friends go in with you? JL: No, by myself. SE: What about back at home, how did you stay in touch and communication with your family? Was there much difficulty with that, any problem with censors or getting the time to call or write? JL: Oh, no, no problem. We could, there were some places where we were not allowed to get in an automobile and ride, family came over to see me when I was in Athens at preflight. Then I didn't see them again until I got my commission, which was August of '44. SE: About a year later? JL: Yeah. SE: Now as you went through your different training, different locations where you went for training, did you have any idea of where your mission would end up? Were you always working towards that or did you have any idea of what was going on? It was just one situation at a time? JL: Well, no, we didn't know anything, just whatever phase of training they had at that particular field is what we did. That didn't bother us one bit, where we were going or what was going to happen to us. SE: What were some of the different locations, could you kind of touch on at each location some of the activities that you were involved in or the work that you did in those locations? JL: Main thing was at Memphis, when we were flying the Yellow Perils. We spent, we didn't have much time off to tell you the truth. We worked most of the time and work consisted of flying and ground school. SE: What were your training programs like, you mentioned the preflight in Athens. When you first went to Columbia, Columbia was the first location? JL: First location. SE: What was your training like there? JL: It was strictly ground school and exercise. We'd go to school, we'd go to ground school four hours or six hours a day and have a couple of hours of exercise. Then on Saturdays we'd go to ground school and have the afternoon off. That's about it. SE: From Columbia, you went to . . . JL: Auburn, Alabama, where we flew Cubs. I soloed in a Cub over in Auburn. There again, we worked most of the time. There wasn't a whole lot of free time except at night. SE: Then from Auburn to Athens, was it? JL: Right. Which was another three months of strictly ground school. One thing I remember about Athens was that periodically they'd put a test in front of us. We'd say, well, what does this got to do with flying. They'd say, we're trying to find out what type personality it takes to be a flyer. We took those tests. They said don't worry about what you make on them because it's not going to be held against you in any way. But they're trying to find out what type person it takes to be a pilot. So we, uh, did that, took those tests. I tell you what, Athens preflight was tough. They put you through the wringer there. SE: Tell us a little bit about that. JL: It was just tough. It was just hard. It had the reputation of being the toughest preflight in the United States. SE: A lot of written tests or was it physical or what type of testing were they running you through there? JL: Oh, gosh, I don't remember. It was just sort of anything that pertained to what we needed to learn to fly an airplane. SE: Then on to Memphis? JL: Memphis. That's where we really started in on serious flying. That Cub business didn't mean much, but we really got started there. I had a very, I guess you'd call it a frightening experience. The base was close to this river. We got up one morning and the, everything was clear and the weather was good. By the time we got down to the flight line and some of the planes had left, fog rolled in, and we lost seven instructors and students and eleven airplanes that morning. SE: All in one day? JL: All in just a few minutes. I remember seeing the truck bring those planes back to the field and then just shoveled them up, they was torn up so bad. SE: That was where you got your, when did your training end? JL: Oh, no, we went from Memphis to Pensacola. Then in Pensacola they had different fields. We'd take instrument training in one field. We'd take gunnery at one field and different phases of training was at a different field. They nearly washed me out about two weeks before I was supposed to get my commission. We were on a gunnery flight, and it was six students and one instructor. It was my time to lead the flight. We got ready to come back home. The instructor rocked his wings for us to join up and come on back. I didn't see him. When we got back, he chewed me out good because I didn't rendezvous when I was supposed to. They gave me a down, and I went before the reviewing board. I guess that morning there must have been fifteen or eighteen cadets waiting to go in talk to them, they had five or six pilots, instructors, sitting around. It came my time, and I went in there. They had a little chair sitting out in the middle of the room, and they were sitting over there in these nice lounge chairs. They kept asking me different questions. One instructor kept saying, “Do you like to night fly?” I said, “Well, I don't mind night flying, but I'm not in love with it.” Then finally he said, “Well, let me ask you this, would you rather night fly or go downtown and have a date?” I said I'd rather go downtown and have a date. I was one of about three that they didn't wash out that morning. There were about fifteen of us standing out in the hall waiting to go in. Then it didn't take but about a week or ten days after that we got our commission and wings. SE: Then on to Miami? JL: Went on to Miami where we picked up our TBM's which was what I flew. We trained down there for about three months. I believe we had two weeks leave, then we had to meet again on the west coast. That's where we picked up the rest of the people that were going to be in the squadron. That's where we formed the squadron on the west coast at Alameda. SE: Can you tell a little bit more about the aircraft that you flew? JL: The TBM? Well, at that time, it was considered the largest single engine in the world. You worked at it, and everything was in good shape, you might get 150 knots out of it. Straight and level, 150 knots is about as fast as it would go. Big airplane. I had a pilot, I sat up front, and I had two crewmen. I had a radioman and a gunner with me at all times. SE: There were always three of you? JL: Always three of us. Because the radioman didn't have much to do after they did away with where we could use voice, so he really didn't have a lot to do. But the gunner, he sat up, we had a long canopy. He was up there with a .50 caliber machine gun. The first TBM, the first TBFs, the difference in the two planes was one was made by one company, and one was made by another one. We, he had a little .30 caliber machine gun back there. It was so ineffective and all that they just finally quit putting those aboard. SE: Now once you got to San Diego, you formed up your squadron. How many of you were there in the squadron? JL: Pilots? SE: Yes. JL: I'd have to look in here to tell you the truth, I've forgotten. What did we have, of course we had a fighter group with us. I think they had about 24 pilots, and we had about 12. If I remember right, 11 or 12, something like that. We had, I think we had 9 aircraft, and they had 18 or something. I may be wrong about those exact numbers, I've forgotten. It's been so long ago. SE: As you flip through your book there, if you see anything else about your squadron you might want to mention in terms of those ___. Your book there starts when, San Diego, right? JL: Yeah, there's our buddy right there. He's going to be at the reunion. Calipetro, name was Calipetro. He was an electrician, enlisted man. But he comes to every reunion. He doesn't miss one. When we got to, we left the west coast, went under the Golden Gate Bridge and ended up in Hawaii. From there we went on down to Hilo, Hawaii. We trained there for about three or four months. Then we headed to Japan. SE: What was your specific, I know you mentioned that once towards the end of the war when you got out, what were some of the specific things that you were accomplishing, or that you were working on once you got out there? JL: Well, course, TBM, supposed to be we could carry a torpedo, or we could carry bombs. I flew in the morning. I went to bed most of the nights thinking we would have a torpedo. Sometimes during the night they'd change our payload to bombs. We mostly bombed in and around Tokyo and down towards Hiroshima, whichever way you pronounce it. In fact, we were supposed to fly, drop bombs on some shipping right out of Hiroshima. Went to bed that night, we'd always be briefed at night before we'd fly because we fly, get out there, be in the air by about daylight in the morning. We were supposed to drop bombs and retire right over the city real low because they couldn't unload the anti-aircraft guns that low. They said under no circumstances can you fly over the city. At the last minute they told us we could not fly over Hiroshima, and we lost a plane and a pilot that day because of that. We had to retire in a different route. I was lucky. I made it alright. SE: You were basically doing these plane flights over, you say about a 90 day period? JL: Oh, yeah. We would fly, I've forgotten now how many days we'd fly. We'd pull back for refueling and re-provisioning. Then we'd move back up and drop more bombs. SE: How, when did you finish up with that, so that you came back? JL: Well, we finished up when the war was over, after they dropped the atomic bombs. The second one—in fact I felt the concussion from the first one. I was in the air going back to the carrier after dropping bombs. We felt that shock wave from that first atomic bomb. Then when that squared away, they opened all the POW camps and painted big PW for prisoner of war, on the top of the buildings where they stayed. We dropped supplies to them. I don't know how many missions I made for that, but we dropped medical and food supplies to them because the gates opened, they could leave any time they wanted to, but there was no place for them to go. Then we pulled into Tokyo Bay, and I was in a 1,500 plane formation that flew over the big [ship, the Missouri] where they signed the peace. SE: Were you involved with transporting any of the POWs? JL: Oh, no. We had one boy named Herb Lawley who got shot down. He was a prisoner of war, but he didn't stay in a prison camp long because the war ended, and they turned them all loose. In fact, we didn't see him again until we got back to the States. SE: Did you spend any time in Japan itself or was it pretty much . . . ? JL: Well, we were anchored in Tokyo Bay, and yeah, they would allow so many of us to go ashore each day. Just so many. We had to take our own water and food, and we couldn't eat anything over there. We couldn't drink the water. That made it a little bit awkward. We walked around, we didn't go into Tokyo, but there was some place, some city I forget the name of it now, south of Tokyo, on Tokyo Bay. We were walking around. First thing we knew, we were in a residential section. We'd just go in the houses and they'd hide from us, the women and if there were any men, they'd hide from us. We didn't see any of them. I guess they were just afraid of us. SE: This was in a point after everything had— JL: Oh, yes. Then they brought us back and put us off on Guam I believe it was, in an R&R camp. SE: What was that like? JL: Nothing to do. Do nothing. SE: How long were you there? JL: That I don't remember. We were waiting on a ship to bring us back to the States. See they disbanded the squadron when the war was over. I guess the squadron was disbanded, but we were all on the same ship coming back to the States. We came back to the west coast and got to the west coast. Labor Day is in September, isn't it? We got back to the west coast a few days before Labor Day. SE: Was the group, your squadron, people that you had come all through the training with? JL: Oh, yes. We, I picked up most of the pilots, we got together in Miami and stayed together when we went to the west coast. We were all put in the same squadron and picked up some more people too. There wasn't enough of us to fill the quotas over here. We picked up our skipper and our executive officer and some of the other people that had been in longer than we had. SE: Were these mostly all southerners from this part of the country? JL: Oh, no, oh, no. In fact I've never been able to locate one of my crewmen, his name was Det ___, and he was, nobody's been able to find him since then. He was from up north somewhere. I don't remember where exactly. My other crewman was from South Carolina. He died of cancer some years ago. SE: You mentioned, when did your group start getting together for reunions? JL: It's been about fifteen years ago now. I've made every one of them except the first one. I was sitting there at home watching television, and the telephone rang. It was this boy from South Carolina calling, said, “You know who this is?” No. He said, “What were you doing a certain day in the past?” I said, “I have no idea.” He said, “Well, we were flying together.” He said, “Well, we're going to have a reunion in Jacksonville, Florida.” I said, “Well, I'm going.” Just like that. When I hung up the phone, Billie was in the back taking a shower. When I went back in and told her, she said, “Well, we're scheduled to go on a trip.” To New Orleans I believe it was, and I missed that first one, but I've been to every one since, thank goodness. SE: How are those reunions? How have they been? Have they been like good times, do you go over a lot of things with them or is it more about being in the present? JL: No, the stories get bigger and longer every reunion, and wilder. SE: Pretty much everybody has continued to come to all of them? JL: Same ones mostly. A lot of them never have shown up. But really it was a ship's reunion. It was anybody who was stationed aboard the Belleau Wood during the war. But because we were, I think we were about the fourth or fifth squadron that had been stationed aboard. Then another squadron took over when we left. We always just sort of gathered together in our little reunion within the reunion. We knew each other real well. It's been a lot of fun all these years. SE: How has it been, because I know some of the other World War II veterans I've talked to, felt an impact. I don't know if you or maybe some of those you served with, a lot of the attention that's started coming around when the book The Greatest Generation was published, and there was more attention. What about the time you served? JL: I don't believe we ever mentioned that in the reunions. We may have, may have talked about it. I don't remember that part of it. But I read the book. SE: What did you think about it? JL: Oh, I thought it was a great book, yeah. it was a good book. The only thing I didn't like about it was that everybody he talked about in the book went on to become sort of halfway famous. I thought he left out a lot of the common old soldier and sailor. SE: I know some people have mentioned that when it came about that they were able to tell their stories, and they're talking about it a little bit more now. After you were out of the service, tell me a little bit about your serving in the Reserves? JL: Yeah, I stayed in the Reserves about, oh, 12 or 13 years. In fact I've got 17 years and 9 months of satisfactory federal service. But we were getting some age on us, and we were, they let us stay in until the younger boys that had joined and had been in the fleet had come back. And they gave them our spot in the Reserves, and we had to get out. SE: What type of duties did you have in the Reserves? JL: Just flying. We'd go up one weekend a month, Saturday and Sunday and then two weeks of active duty in the summertime. SE: Were you at different bases around the south? JL: Oh yeah. We spent two weeks, I remember two weeks in Miami and two weeks in New Orleans. There was two weeks somewhere else I don't remember going to, somewhere up the coast. They flew to the west coast on the two weeks active duty, which I didn't go. Something came up that I couldn't go, and I didn't get my two weeks with them. It was very unorganized, the Reserves, when I first got in. We'd go up there and just sign out an airplane and go fly around, do what we pleased. Then it finally got organized and we got some good training. SE: You brought the two books, one of them is your squadron, and this other one is, the different squadrons that served on the Belleau Wood? I'm going to stop the tape for a minute because I want to check on, perhaps some images from the book here. If I could just get you to tell us, this particular book you're looking at, about your squadron. JL: That's right. We had that, we all pitched in and published that at the end of the war. SE: You're showing about the different crews that you were talking about. JL: Right. Each of us had two crewmen. They were permanently assigned to us. I mean we didn't swap crewmen around. We kept the same ones all the time. And some of these, I can't see it upside down, some of these people are the ones that show up at the reunion every year. SE: How many different crews did you have? JL: I don't, I have to, where we started, there was one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, I think we had about twelve pilots if I'm not mistaken. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Some of these people are the ones that show up. I flew with this man right here, Carr, he was my group leader. SE: These were, you say you lost one crew when you were over there, is that correct? JL: Well, we lost one on that combat mission, and then we lost one when we were dropping supplies in the POW camp, he got too low and spun in. SE: What's some of the other information there that you've got in your book? You've got the information about your different crews there. JL: Mostly just pictures of parties. Periodically the officers would foot the bill for the enlisted men to have a party. It was wild sometimes. All of us were young and no responsibilities, rough. SE: Having a good time. JL: Oh, yeah. SE: Now you have your insignia? JL: There's the best one I think. SE: Now who came up with that? JL: That I don't know. I guess we just sort of had a contest or something where somebody thought it up. There's a picture of each one of us, of course, a lot of fighter pilots on here too. SE: Now your second book you have here, this goes up ____ Belleau Wood? JL: Yeah. I never have really paid much attention to this book. But this shows, that shows it. - Metadata URL:
- http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/242
- 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:
- 42:21
- 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: