Oral history interview of William B. Paul

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of William B. Paul
Creator:: Gardner, Robert D.
Paul, William B., 1925-2015
Date of Original:: 2004-09-16
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Stearman airplanes
B-24 (Bomber)
Paul, Janice Lee Osborne
Wofford College (Spartanburg, S.C.)
Georgia. Air National Guard. Tactical Fighter Wing, 54th
United States. National Guard Bureau. Fighter Group. 116th
United States. Air Force. Office of Special Investigations
United States. Army. Criminal Investigation Division
Big Springs (Tex.)
Consolidated B-24 Liberator (Bomber)
Location:: United States, Alabama, Montgomery County, Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, 32.38266, -86.35502
United States, Florida, Hillsborough County, MacDill Air Force Base, 27.8472, -82.50338
United States, Florida, Miami-Dade County, Miami Beach, 25.79065, -80.13005
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Chattahoochee County, Fort Benning, 32.35237, -84.96882
United States, Louisiana, Rapides Parish, Alexandria, 31.31129, -92.44514
United States, Maryland, Prince George's County, Andrews AFB, 38.80531, -76.8746
United States, North Carolina, Richmond County, Mackall Army Airfield, 35.03097, -79.50276
United States, South Carolina, Sumter County, Shaw Air Force Base, 33.97473, -80.46786
United States, Texas, Howard County, Big Spring, 32.2504, -101.47874
United States, Texas, Tarrant County, Arlington, 32.73569, -97.10807
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, William Paul recalls his career in the U.S. Air Force during World War II and Korea. He describes his childhood and the effect of the war on his high school. He was sent to be part of a college training detachment until he was chosen for flight training. He became a bombardier and describes his training in detail. He discusses the Norden bombsight. He describes working with Chinese and Free French pilots, and being served by German POWs in the mess hall. He describes his post-war education and career until he was recalled as a reservist. He recounts his work for the OSI and his marriage to an Air Force nurse as well as his own career. He displays a book he has written entitled "The Road he Chose." He discusses patriotism and the importance of service.
William Paul was in the United States Army Air Forces in World War II and the United States Air Force in Korea.
Bill Paul Veterans History Project Atlanta History Center Interviewer: Bob Gardner September 16, 2004 [Tape 1, Side A] Interviewer: [Asks veteran to tell about his experiences in World War II.] Paul: Actually, I was in two wars. I was an aviation cadet in the Army Air Corps, that's what it was called in World War II. And then later on, about five years after I got out of World War II, the Korean War started and I was recalled to active duty with the Air Force during the Korean War. Interviewer: Were you drafted or did you enlist, sir? Paul: No, I enlisted. I enlisted in the Air Corps during World War II and, of course, I was an officer in the Reserves when I was recalled during the Korean War. Interviewer: Where were you living at the time, sir? Paul: Well, the time I, at the time I went into World War II, I was living over in the community called Lakewood, just one of those little neighborhoods outside of Atlanta here at that time. Interviewer: Why did you join, sir? Paul: Well, I joined . . . my high school class was the class of 1942, the first graduating class after Pearl Harbor was attacked. And most of my classmates, my buddies and so forth, went right into the service. They were eighteen, seventeen, eighteen years old. But I was only sixteen. And to use the expression of the time, it pissed me off no end that they could go and I couldn't. So, I wanted to go, too. Out of the seven kids that played on the line of our football team for Fulton High here in Atlanta, not Fulton County, five of us went into the Army Air Corps. So some of those birds were writing me, a lot of talking about flying, which kind of made me mad. But anyhow, I had to wait. But I got in as early as they would take me. Interviewer: Why did you pick the service branch you joined, sir? Paul: Well, I guess part of it was I had a brother six years older than I and he was in the Army Air Corps, too, at the same time. And then…that was what most of the kids in my group wanted to do. They wanted to fly. And so that's where most of us went. Interviewer: Do you recall your first days in service? Paul: Yeah, I do. As I say, I was all eager to go. I thought I was. And they finally activated me about a month after my eighteenth birthday. I'd been in the Reserve, the inactive Reserve until then. And we got on a train and the train was headed down to Miami Beach, Florida. And about halfway down there, I started getting to be the most homesick little kid you'd ever seen. So that's the main thing I remember about my first days. I got over it in about two or three weeks, but I'll never forget that. Never wanted to go back to Miami Beach. Interviewer: Can you tell me about any of your boot camp or training experiences, sir? Paul: Well, actually, most people laugh when I tell them Miami Beach because they think that was a luxury affair. But at that time, that was a basic training camp for Air Force people. And most of us were pre-aviation cadets in that program. And we did a little close-order drill and things of that sort, but nothing of any real magnitude. They just taught how us to wear a uniform and worked us out every day, calisthenics and that sort of thing. There wasn't any great deal to it, frankly. Interviewer: Do you remember any of your instructors? Paul: Not from that area, no. Interviewer: How did you get through it? Paul: How did I do what? Interviewer: How did you get through the basic training? Paul: Well, it wasn't . . . like I say, it was pretty easy for us. Now they had all the hotels stripped on Collins Avenue. They had multitudes of hotels that had been taken over by the Air Force, Army Air Force and we had bunks and such as that. But I didn't find it very difficult. I was in pretty good physical shape for a kid in those days. Interviewer: Which wars did you actually serve in, sir? Paul: Well, I served in World War II and then I served in the Korean War later on. Interviewer: Where exactly did you go? Paul: Well, during World War II I went to Miami, as I said, on basic and then we left there and we were assigned. Air Force had a program at that time that if you were a kid like many of us were, just out of high school, they would send you first to various college training detachments around the country. They were at universities and colleges and you went there to take some physics courses and mathematics and so forth. And in my case, I was sent to Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The . . . do you want me to go forward with the various places? I spent about four and a half months there. That would be . . . I would have gone there in early . . . about December of '43, cause I'd gone in in '43. I think it was January. But anyhow, I spent about four and a half months there. And that was just a . . . really a college life but run by the military. I'll tell you one interesting experience there I think would be interesting. I was selected at eighteen years old to be the cadet commandant, cadet commander, in the group. I tell people I had more responsibility when I eighteen years old that I've ever had since. And it's not far from the truth. But in any event, I was sort of in charge of the group. They had about four hundred cadets there at the time. And one night, it would have been about April, '44. The Air Force captain, who was the Air Force officer in charge, who lived on the base, he called me and told me to get everybody up to the chapel. So I did, in the middle of the night about two o'clock. And we got there and they said that, “We're gonna call off some names and the names we call I want you to fall out outside the chapel and get prepared to go get your belongings. We're gonna ship you out.” And after about twenty names were called, I recognized what it was. They were . . . it was the cadets in the cadet program who had been in the ground forces prior to that, infantry, artillery, and so forth. And they told them they were going to Camp McCall. I believe it was in South Carolina, which is where they trained hangar, not hangar but glider, glider troops. And you want to see a sad looking bunch of folks. They really were sad. So they shipped out and left. We didn't know it at the time, but of course, that was about two months before D-Day. And we learned later that they were getting ready for D-Day and they needed people to train to be glider troops. So anyhow, we spent about four and a half months at Wofford College and then we went out to Shaw Field, South Carolina, which was just a . . . sort of a holding pool for us cause they didn't have many at that time. At that time the Air Force had more cadets than they knew what to do with. So they sent us there and we spent maybe six weeks there. We were actually there when D-Day happened because I remember we woke up in the middle of the night and sirens were blowing and whistles were blowing, a big celebration and it was because the troops had landed on D-Day on Normandy. So then we went from there to pre-flight school. I went to pre-flight school in Maxwell Field, Alabama. That was the major flight, pre-flight school. That was primarily a school for ground training and also to determine who was gonna be classified as either pilots, bombardiers or navigators. Now the routine was pretty rigid. And they had a—one thing I like to mention is we had a very strict honor code in the aviation cadet program. And if you breach that honor code, you're gone. And not only gone, but you were gone in a very dramatic and embarrassing way. When someone had violated the honor code, they would wake us up in the middle of the night, start beating drums slowly, slowly, slowly and then up. That was a signal to get up and get dressed, including your socks and garters, and get in formation. And they would typically get everyone in formation, do an inspection, flashlight. Make sure you were dressed properly. It sounds corny, but it's part of the discipline. Then they would announce the name of the person who had violated the honor code and said they were gonna—it was pretty dramatic—they said they were gonna be eliminated from the aviation cadet program. His name would never again be mentioned in the Corps. And it sort of got to you, that you'd better obey the darned honor code if you wanted to continue the cadet program. So then we went, we spent about two months there. We left pre-flight. I was classified originally to be a pilot, which excited me no end, cause everybody wanted to be a pilot. I went to primary flight school. Here's a picture of us, of my group of aviation cadets at the primary flight school. It may be hard to see, but in the background there's a famous Steerman PT-17 trainer. It's a biplane, open-air cockpit plane. Now as I said, by that time the Army had more cadets than they knew what to do with, particularly for pilot training. Everybody wanted to be a pilot. And you had to be pretty much of a natural if you were gonna survive the training program. And I wasn't. I was just not a natural flyer. I learned that pretty soon. So they took me aside one day, said “Look. We're gonna reclassify you, if you're willing to do it.” Cause all of these were volunteer jobs, volunteer-only jobs. He said, “We can either send you to gunnery school to be a gunner or we'll reclassify you to be a bombardier.” So I said, “Well, I want to be a bombardier.” Cause bombardiers were officers and the gunners weren't. That was the main reason, I guess. So they needed bombardiers because they were really losing bombardiers real rapidly, more so than probably any other crew member of the airplane. I didn't know it at the time, but even if I did I was eighteen years old, so I didn't think it'd be me, you know. So anyhow, we went from there later on to bombardier school. We had a couple of pools. We'd just stay and wait till the openings came up in bomb school before we went because they had so many people in the program. And I think I could say I was a natural bombardier. I did great in bomb school. But before we went to bomb school, we were required to be qualified as an aerial gunner. Because in combat, a bombardier served two purposes. He was a gunner before and after he went on the bomb run and then on the bomb run he would settle down over the Norton bomb sight, do the bomb run, then he jumped back in the turret and became a gunner again. So we went to gunnery school in Harlingen, Texas. Right down on the Mexican border. What's called the Rio Grande Valley. The, it was a pretty interesting program. We started out with, I remember we started out with shotguns from the ground shooting skeet, just like you would, skeet shooters would. Then from there they mounted a shotgun on a pickup truck. You went around an oval and other cadets would flip the pigeons out and you'd try to hit it on the fly so you could get used to leading an aircraft, a fighter plane. And then after the shotgun phase, we went to, at one point we learned to fire Thompson submachine guns. I don't know why, but we did. I was pretty good with that. I couldn't hit anything with a .45 pistol, but I was pretty good with a Thompson sub. But we went, then we went on ground training with machine guns and then we finally got in the air. Now we trained in the air part of the program as gunners on the B-24. That's the reason I brought my little B-24 this morning because that's to, just my souvenir for that part of the, of my life. In the B-24, the bombardier was primarily trained in the Emerson nose turret. It was a great turret. It was a twin fifty caliber machine gun, electrically operated. You could swing it around in a flash, split second. Whereas some of the other turrets were much slower, particularly the tail turrets. We trained in all stations. In the waist gun, in the tail, in the top turret. But your primary duty was to learn to be very proficient in the Emerson nose turret. And I remember when we were in the air and I would be in that turret. Now here I was, I guess nineteen by that time, and I'd be up in the turret, and when you're in the turret of a B-24, you're so far ahead of the engines and the cockpit, that all you see is air. And every once in a while I'd swing the turret around, make damn sure I was up there [laughs] with somebody with me, because you were just by yourself. But it was kind of a thrill, you know, for a nineteen-year-old kid. And we did firing at sleeve targets. The aircraft would bring a, carry a sleeve target along and if you and I were there, I'd be, my shells would be tipped with red paint, yours blue, so you could tell who hit the sleeve and who didn't. Every once in a while we'd hit the lead plane. I never did that, thank God. But it did occur. We, then we did actual firing on fighter planes and made simulated passes on the B-24, but those were photo, of course. We didn't fire real bullets. They were photos. They could tell where you hit by the photo after you're on the ground. So that was some of the training we had and we probably, my group was probably the best trained gunners in the Air Force because they still didn't have room for us in bomb school or navigation school. Navigators had to go through this, too, by the way. And we took about four refresher courses just to give us something to do, I guess. But finally we finished that and we went on up to bomb school. One funny story; you indicated you might like some of these. It turned out, it could have been tragic, but it turned out to be funny, kind of funny. We were told when we landed and they parked the B-24 that you're supposed to elevate your weapons just in case there's a hot round in there that might go off. Most people did that. But one day we'd been up on a firing mission and we came back and we had our backpacks on and walked off the tarmac, and this kid, who was a real big-mouthed kid from up around Boston. He just talked all the damn time. Yak, yak, yak, yak. And we had our cloth caps on, cause you wore those so you could put your earphones on in the air. I don't remember his name now, but all of a sudden blam! Here comes this bullet and it hit his cap. It went right through his cap and knocked it off on the tarmac. Didn't touch him. And he was that far from being a dead duck. And I don't think he spoke another word during the entire training period. [laughs] But thank God it turned out to be funny instead of a fraction of a inch one side or the other cause it could've killed him. We went on to bomb school at Big Springs, Texas. That's out in northwest Texas. A lot of oil fields and mesquite bushes mostly. And one thing I'd like to mention is that in World War II if you were a bombardier, you had to take an oath. I brought it with me. I just printed this out from the Internet not long ago. You had to take a bombardier's oath because the Norton bomb sight was probably considered to be the most secret and probably the most, the best advantage that the Americans had in high level bombing. The bombardier's oath reads like this. It said [reading]: “Mindful of the secret trust about to be placed in me by my Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States, by whose direction I have been chosen for bombardier training, and mindful of the fact that I am to become guardian of one of my country's most precious military assets, the American bomb sight, I do here in the presence of almighty God swear by the bombardier's code of honor to keep inviolate the secret of any and all confidential information revealed to me and further to uphold the honor and integrity of the Army Air Force if need be with my life itself.” That was an oath that I think most of us took petty seriously. We had, they gave us a .45 pistol. In training school it wasn't loaded, of course, but we wore the .45 pistol and we took the bomb sight to and from the airplane when it was [going to be] in the air. And when it was on the ground, we took the bomb sight away from it, away from the airplane. And we were instructed that if in combat, if we ever went down, our first duty—or if the plane was shot up and was going down—was to stick the .45 in the lens and pull the trigger so that the Norton sight would not be captured by the enemy. I don't know how many times that ever happened or whether it was captured, but that was what we were instructed to do. By the way, here's a little picture, too, of me when I was in bombardier school wearing a flight jacket. I think, yeah, I was nineteen at the time. Interviewer: Oh, that's wonderful. Paul: Okay. In bomb school, we bombed from a little AT-11 aircraft. It was a two-engine aircraft designed for training bombardiers. We used 100-pound bombs. Usually had about ten bombs, five on each side of the catwalk that went over the bomb bay. And we, it had an explosive charge in it where you could photograph and tell when you hit the target or not. They had targets that were sort of circular on the ground and you would, I've forgotten the term now. But based on how far you were from the center of the target. Every once in a while we had some problems over that because there were—well, when we bombed at night. Because the oil derricks out there for some ungodly reason were lighted almost like the target areas were. And on the Norton bomb sight, I don't know if you're familiar with it or not, but when you're quite a distance from your target, you went into what we called extended vision. So you could pick up roughly the target as you approached it and then you would gradually wind it in, because you'd have left it, if you didn't wind it in, when you dropped the bombs you're gonna be twenty degrees off on your target. And that can be, depending on your altitude, that can be a long way. Apparently on one or two occasions, a cadet forgot to wind in the extended vision tube, and every once in a while they'd clobber one of those oil derricks, which of course, as you might realize, didn't make the oil derrick people too happy. But there wasn't much of that. But we went through that, and I don't remember the exact times now, but I do remember this. I was number two in my class in bomb school. I was a lousy pilot but I became a good bombardier. And then we'd just finished with all the bombing we were gonna do. We were just sort of fiddling around there with loading. Go out and load a ramp, load the bombs for the new crop of cadets. So the cadets come in following you, you know, there was some new ones there and some old ones leaving when the war ended. When we came out, I'll never forget that day. We came out and were gonna do something with the airplane. We had to put some practice bombs on it for some of the new cadets. And they told us, “Take them off. They just dropped a bomb on Japan and wiped out half the island.” A slight exaggeration, but the A-bomb had been dropped. So that ended the war. Now in bombardier school, we did something that might be interesting to people to see this later on. Like all aviation cadets did, we had already gotten our caps. You wore, they wore, officers had a cap that had a grommet in it. Well, in the Air Force, air crews only, we didn't let, tried not to let what we call “ground pounders” do this. But Air Force only people, air crews, would take the grommet out of their hat. That was our mark. And the pretense was so that your earphones could fit over. But it really was a point of honor to the air crewman. So we would get, it was a tradition that about a month before graduation, whether you were gonna be a pilot, navigator or bombardier, you took, you bought a hat, kept it under your mattress so you'd get the 50-mission crush. [laughs] So this is one of the things that I thought was kind of funny. Isn't that funny how you remember those things? But I remember that. Am I going too fast? In any event, I got something else I was gonna say. Oh, I might mention this, too. I remember when that happened, V-J Day. Of course, in the cadet corps we were really on strict provisions all the time about wearing the uniform properly and all that sort of thing. And, of course, during World War II, you had to wear your uniform off base as well as on base. Twenty-four hours a day, you wore it. But I remember that night, there was a celebration going on and some idiot had gone out and found him a civilian costume and a pair of roller skates. And he was roller skating all over the cadet mess hall. And one of the more interesting things I thought there too, this is what I was trying to remember, is in our cadet mess hall then, we had, well, in the training program in bomb school, we had not only American cadets, we had Brazilian cadets training there, we had three of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese there and we had three French cadets. Now this was after the war in Europe was over. But the French were still training to be bombardiers against Japan. And then we had German POWs serving the food in the mess hall. They were still, they were Africa Corps guys. We'd captured a bunch of them. They still were allowed to wear their white caps, white hats symbolic of their Africa Corps, and they were serving the food. And I can still remember going through behind one of the little French guys, and you could just read his mind almost. He wanted to jump over that counter and cut that German's throat. Of course, nothing happened. If it did, he'd have been gone. In fact, one of the French kids did get washed out right away in bomb school because he went up on a bomb run, on a bomb training run, and he came back down, and typically the instructor would take you up to the nose when you got on the ground and tell you what you'd done wrong and so forth. And he was, maybe he got a little overzealous and castigated this young Frenchman, and the Frenchman grabbed a wrench and just tore the bomb sight all to pieces. Now that wasn't typical of the French cadets. Most of them were very cool, calm, and dedicated soldiers. But nobody ever knew what happened to him, but I'm sure it wasn't too good. So anyhow, bombardier school ended and they called us together within a week of that and said, “Look. We'll give you a choice. You can go ahead and graduate, but if you do you're gonna have a reserve commitment for at least four years. Or you can get out as aviation cadets.” I chose the latter cause I wanted to go to school. So that was my World War II career in a nutshell. I didn't get any great ribbons. That's the reason I wear my souvenirs on today to remind me of my experience. I didn't get any of that because I never saw combat. So after that, I got out. I went to Emory Law School here in Atlanta and got a law degree. I went on the G.I. Bill. And that's why I've often said World War II is the best thing that ever happened to this man because it gave me an opportunity to know what I could do competing with other people and it gave me the G.I. Bill. So I went to Emory and got a law degree. Practiced law about two years. I was in the Air Force Reserve and I was recalled to the Korean War. Now, I was a Air National Guardsman, 116, 154, AC and W group based at Dobbins Air Base here in Atlanta. And I went on active duty with that group. We were recalled for twenty-one months. That was the, what we expected to be kept on, how long we expected to be kept, with the understanding it could be extended depending upon the war, progress of the war. My first work on active duty during that—I was a second lieutenant at the time—was to be, I was squadron adjutant to one of the squadrons. But then I heard about OSI. This time the Air Force was a separate group, separate military, arm of the military service. I went on active duty and I heard about OSI. And that's an interesting story in itself. I'll try to be brief but tell it. After World War II, some of the inevitable, in some of the inevitable Congressional investigations, they learned that there was a procurement general, I don't recall his name now, but it was in the Army, that had been stealing the Army blind. And they also learned that, in the Army during World War II they had a division called Criminal Investigation Division and Counter Intelligence Corps people. And the CID guys knew he was doing it, but they were under his command. So every time they would try to get a report through, zap! He would block it and I'm sure most of them wound up being transferred to another station. But, so the Congress basically told the Air Force, “We're gonna make you a separate service. We don't want this happening. And we want you to set up an independent, relatively independent organization that is not under the command of any of the field officers, that's simply under the command of an OSI director who'll be based at . . . .” I think it was Bolling Field or Andrews, one of those just outside of Washington. So that's what they did. Now they brought over to organize it and to run it, made a brigadier general out of one of J. Edgar Hoover's most trusted confidants or assistants, and he organized it. And they had the same similar divisions in it. They had the CID. They didn't call it CID, but some people did criminal investigations mostly. Some did counter intelligence work. And I got interested in that, so I requested a transfer into OSI and I was given a transfer as a special agent in the OSI. We did not wear uniforms. We never wore uniforms. I've got a couple pictures here to show, I guess. This is before I went into OSI, when we were out on a field maneuver before I was an OSI agent. And this is a picture after I went into OSI, the day before I was married, as a matter of fact, to an Air Force nurse. So you see I'm wearing civvies. Now this is a picture of my wife and I. Again, before OSI. After we were married. Taken at Lookout Mountain. She was a second lieutenant in the Army, I mean Air Force Nurse Corps. This is a picture of my wife the day before we were married. She's in the nurse's sort of fatigue clothes in Alexandria, Louisiana. Oh, excuse me. Okay? Interviewer: [inaudible] It's fine. Okay. Thank you. Paul: Let's see. Where was I? Oh. In OSI. I liked that. I really enjoyed being in OSI. In fact, I'm still in the Association of Former Special Agents OSI. That's this little button I have on my lapel today. And I guess one thing I liked about it is we didn't have to wear uniforms all the time. Our rank was classified and we had civilian agents. We had noncoms who were agents, sergeants. We had officers, commissioned officers who were agents. But we all carried the same credentials. It just showed, “Mr. Paul” and whoever you were. [Did not show] whether you were colonel or whether you were buck private. And it was a great group of people. I really enjoyed it. Again, I didn't do anything that's particularly exciting in that. A lot of time doing background investigations for top secret and for crypto clearances. But other than that, I really didn't do anything particularly exciting. But I really enjoyed the experience. It was a great experience. Every once in a while, you would get challenged on whether your rank was classified or not. I remember once I had the obligation, at the time I was a first lieutenant, to take a lieutenant colonel over to Fort Benning for a polygraph test. And he wasn't too happy about going, and kept demanding my rank, and, of course, I kept telling him, “Sorry, sir. It's classified. I can't let you have it.” [laughs] But you ran into things like that. But by and all, it was a very effective group. Now in OSI, if we did have some, what they refer to as—I've forgotten the term now, but anyhow, indicating some violation of the law or security—we sent reports to the field commander. We sent him a copy. But we sent the original report direct to Washington, so it couldn't be intercepted and anything and any hanky panky dealt with it. One of the things that was an OSI responsibility occasionally was to do a, to try to break the security clearance of an air base. And they did one while I was in OSI at MacDill Field where I was stationed at the time. The idea was to try to penetrate the security and get on base as would an espionage agent. The evening we chose to do it was Christmas Eve. Well you can imagine how much resistance there was because it wasn't like today, when you had the terrorist threat or anything like that. But it was just like taking candy from a baby. And these were the kind of projects that every once in a while you went on. Now some of the agents, the CIC agents in particularly, did some good work during the war. As a matter of fact, generally credit has been given to an OSI agent for having been the first to contact MacArthur's headquarters when the Koreans came into South Korea from the north, which started, of course, the Korean War. When that was just a baby organization. It'd only been, OSI had only been in existence maybe a year at that time. So anyhow, I met my wife. We were married. We were married on Alexandria Air Force Base where she was based at the time. And we were married in a portable chapel, and when my wife went back down to take a picture of our wedding church two weeks later, it'd already been dismantled and shipped overseas. Anyhow, she and I came home. She got out of the service, too. She got pregnant with my son and she was released from the Air Force. Now I came back home and went back into law practice. Actually, I didn't go right in at the beginning cause I was broke, my wife was pregnant, and I needed to make some money right away. And I was always sort of maverick at law practice. I didn't want to be in big firms. But I ran into Jimmy Grizzard, who had been my group commander in active duty, a lawyer in Atlanta, and he demanded to know what I was doing and of course, I told him. He said, “Come on up to my office. You're gonna practice law.” So he put me in an office. No charge, no nothing. He got me back into law practice. So, that's basically what I've done in my life. I practiced law for forty-six years. I think I was a good lawyer. The, I'll brag a little bit. I was one of only two lawyers in my specialty to be listed in the first two editions of a book called Best Lawyers in America, which has become the one every lawyer would like to be in. [laughs] And so I'm happy with the career. We've had three children. My son is a rheumatologist in Alabama, and my two daughters are—one lives in Roswell, one lives in New York. And we have six grandkids. Have I missed anything? [laughs] Interviewer: No, sir. Did you make any close friendships while you were in the service? Paul: Yeah, I did make some. Unfortunately, most of them I've been out of touch with. There's one Italian-American kid. He and I became close friends and we went through bomb school together and he and I stay in touch pretty much. But the people in this picture, I wish to God I'd kept in better touch. The picture, the people in this group picture, in my primary flying school, I don't recall a single name. I don't recall who they were and where they were. You might want to note here, I'm in the right of the center there, right in the middle of that picture. Third from the left on second row. Okay? Interviewer: It's out of focus again. Paul: My nerves. What's left of them. Interviewer: Did you join any kind of a veterans organization, sir? Paul: Yeah. After World War Two I joined a American Legion and I stayed active in it for a while. And then I'm currently in a veterans organization, the Association of Former Special Agents of the OSI, as I mentioned earlier. Interviewer: What kind of activities does your post or association have, sir? Paul: Well, they do a convention every year. They do a lot of, they have a web site they use. In fact, they try to keep in touch to some degree with each other. In fact, I'd like to mention here something that's in connection with that. I wrote a, about four years ago, I wrote a World War Two, I mean I wrote a historical novel. And here's a copy of the book. It's called The Road He Chose. I wrote it primarily in memory of five of my boyhood friends who were killed in World War Two. But the reason I mention the connection with OSI Association, they asked me to write a story about the experience of doing a novel and I did. And just last week, for example, I got an email from one of the OSI agents who had kept that story and was now preparing to do a novel and is using the information I gave him, which helped, I think. I think it was one of the things that made it worthwhile. I'd like to also just mention one thing before I get off the record here. I'm now engaged, almost at the end of it, in a project very similar to the one you're doing and it's done, we're doing oral history projects for the alumni of Emory Law School, my law school, who were also World War Two veterans. And I've been doing all the interviewing, except for my own interview, of course. I've done, we've only done about twenty-five, cause most of our people are gone really, in ill health, too. But I really enjoyed doing that. I think it was one of the most satisfying things I've done. But I haven't been to any of the conventions of OSI because, as I said, I was one of the babies of the OSI program, and those fellas had so much more experiences, so much greater experience than I did. I sort of feel like the unwanted child at the family reunion maybe. [laughs] Probably not, but that's the way I feel. Interviewer: Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or about the military in general, sir? Paul: Well, yeah. Of course, it, I was, we had ROTC and junior ROTC in high school here at that time. But I didn't know much about the military and I think I learned a great deal about it. I think it did wonders for me. As I say, I think it's the best thing to happen to me, going into the military service. Taught me a little discipline. It also taught me, I went in with what really I think that could honestly be called the cream of the crop of American youth in those days. And I learned that I could compete with any of them. I grew up in a family which, you know, blue collar family. We didn't have much money. All of a sudden, I realized I could probably do as well as they could. It gave me confidence. Plus, I think it was a duty that should be done. Interviewer: How did your service and experiences affect your life, sir? Paul: Well, the callback in 1951 interrupted my career. But again, probably did the best day of work I ever did in my life when I met my wife, so that made it worth it. I think it [changed me] for the better. I think it made me a better patriot. I think it made me a better person. And I wouldn't change a bit if I had the opportunity. Interviewer: Is there anything you'd like to add that we haven't covered in this interview, sir? Paul: You don't want me to get on my political bandwagon. [laughs] Well, no. I don't really think so. But I might. Have I got any time left? Interviewer: Yeah. Paul: Yeah. I really don't think there's much more to add. I'm concerned at today's world, about whether we still have the wherewithal to face serious threats like we're in today. I hope I'm wrong about that because in my case, I remember in World War Two, everybody was ready to rally to the flag. In fact, I saw a little difference in the Korean War because, as you may know, it's often called the forgotten war, because as compared to my experience of World War Two, very few people seemed interested in it except people who were in the service and those who had family in the service. And I see a little of that now and it bothers me. But hopefully I'm wrong about it. But I think the, I think personally this country would be much better off if we had some kind of requirement for young men, at least. I'm still in the old Victorian age, I don't include women in this, but the young men, it would be very helpful, not only for the country but for them, if they could spend at least a year or something in military service. It really would be good for them. But whether that'll ever happen or not, who knows. But I want to thank you for letting me do this interview today. I appreciate it. [end of tape]
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/280
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:: 45:58
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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