- Collection:
- Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
- Title:
- Oral history interview of Dr. Lloyd L. Burns, M.D.
- Creator:
- Gardner, Robert D.
Burns, Lloyd L., 1925-2010 - Date of Original:
- 2003-07-02
- Subject:
- World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Pacific Ocean
World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Europe
B-29 (Bomber)
Enola Gay (Bomber)
BT-13 (Training plane)
Vultee airplanes
B-17 bomber
United States. Army Air Forces. Southeast Training Center (Nashville, Tenn.)
Cadet program
Crawford Long Hospital
World War, 1939-1945--European Theater
Superfortress B-29 Bomber
United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 - Location:
- Guam, 13.47861, 144.81834
Japan, 35.68536, 139.75309
United Kingdom, England, Cambridgeshire, Kimbolton, Kimbolton Castle, 52.29563175, -0.387423441712447
United States, Alabama, Montgomery County, Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, 32.38266, -86.35502
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Lowndes County, Moody A F B, 30.97849, -83.21646
United States, Iowa, Sioux City Army Air Base
United States, Ohio, Franklin County, Columbus, 39.96118, -82.99879
United States, Texas, Pyote Air Force Station - Medium:
- video recordings (physical artifacts)
hi-8 - Type:
- Moving Image
- Format:
- video/quicktime
- Description:
- In this interview, Lloyd Burns describes his experiences as an Army Air Corps pilot during World War II in Europe and the Pacific. He describes his entry into the Army Air Forces and his training. He describes several "very exciting adventures" from his combat missions over Europe. After he finished his missions in Europe, he was sent for further training in the United States and was then sent to the Pacific, where he flew bombing missions over Japan. He recalls a mission he was flying that was canceled; he later learned that the atomic bomb had been dropped. His last missions were spent flying soldiers home. He recalls his post-war education and career.
Lloyd Burns was an Army Air Force pilot during World War II in Europe and in the Pacific.
BOB GARDNER - INTERVIEWER: Today is July 2nd of 2003. Could you tell me what war you were in and branch of service that you were in, and what your rank was? LLOYD BURNS: Yes, I was in the Army Air Corps in World War II, and I received the rank of first lieutenant. INTERVIEWER: Were you drafted or did you enlist? LLOYD BURNS: I enlisted while in high school at seventeen years of age. INTERVIEWER: And how did it come about that you happened to enlist at seventeen years of age? LLOYD BURNS: Because I wanted to fly, wanting to be in the war. We had a dysfunctional family I wanted to get out of. So, my dad who was a physician in Valdosta got a phony birth certificate for me and I passed all the tests, and was accepted as a candidate for the Army Air Corps Cadet Program. First though I was still in high school and I was put on stand by as an enlisted man actually, until called up to the Cadet Program. Meanwhile I finished high school, and was called up in November of 1942. I was sent to Nashville, Tennessee indoctrination program and stayed in the Southeast Training Command the whole time of my training. And from there I was sent to Montgomery, Alabama for further pre-flight training at Maxwell Field, following that I was sent to Arcadia, Florida in a Primary Training, lining up PT17 Steerman Aircraft. After graduating there I was sent to Bainbridge, Georgia, flying the so called Vultee Vibrator Aircraft. After graduating there I was sent to my home town, Moody Air Force Base of the Army Air Corps. I graduated from Moody on the 30th of August 1943, which made me eighteen years and five months of age when I was sent to Sebring, Florida to fly the B-17's. I trained in B-17's and graduated from there, following which I was sent to Salt Lake City to pick up a crew, which I did. The crew and I were then sent to Sioux City Iowa and began our combat training. After leaving Sioux City we were assigned to fly B-17 overseas to Prestwick, Scotland going by way of Iceland etc. We went from Scotland to our base; permanent base in a town called, or outside of a town called, can't think of the name. Anyway we were assigned to the 379th Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force 525th Squadron. We flew to thirty missions over Europe, and during which we had some very exciting adventures such as a mid-air collision over the English Channel, having to land on a Spitfire base out of gas, crash landing on the runway at our home base due to our oil pressure system being shut out so that we had no brakes, and because the controls to the elevator were damaged and would not function properly. And no one was injured in any of these problems except the mid-air collision. That's an interesting story that I was on my next to last mission and my co-pilot wanted to become a first pilot. And asked could he drive, could he fly the airplane over the channel home and get a little stick time before taking the test to become a first pilot. He was going to do another tour of duty over Europe. Unfortunately, I was leading a squadron and I had first mission crew on my left wing who become disoriented descending through scattered clouds and plowed into my airplane, killing immediately my co-pilot who was in my seat that I would ordinarily have been in. I also lost my navigator and my tail gunner in that collision. I finished up and I was sent to a regional hospital with some symptoms, a gash on the head and headaches, and things like that nothing serious. And they wanted to keep me for more observation but I only had one more mission to complete before being sent home. So, I refused to, I assigned myself out of the hospital essentially and went back to the base which was called Kimbolton Castle, that's where the base was located, Kimbolton, K-I-M-B-O-L-T-O-N Castle England. Got back and because of my tragic circumstances in the crash, they kindly assigned me as a co-pilot to finish my last mission, so that I was not under that kind of stress. And I finished it and came on a boat back to the US was then sent to Columbus, Ohio to instruction school, pilot's instruction school, which I graduated from but did not like the prospects of, so I signed up for B-29 training. I was sent to the Gulf Coast awaiting transfer to Pyote P-Y-O-T-E Air Force Base near Pyote, Texas to begin B-29 training. While on the coast I flew some air patrols over the Gulf of Mexico through storms recording weather looking for submarines and such. Eventually I went to Pyope Air Force Base as Airplane Commander. I graduated and picked up a crew in California and was transported by aircraft to Tinian Island in the Marianas. The base island was Guam. There we flew missions over Japan. We did not get credit for missions over outlying posts or islands, and actually completed five missions over Japan. We were based unknowingly in the compound next to the Enola Gay. And one day we prepared for a mission and took off after being up from about 4:00 in the morning getting prepped, getting loaded with gas and bombs and so forth, which was probably the most dangerous part of the mission since the Japanese had almost been vanquished by that time against air combat. But it was a long haul and had its dangers. We got halfway to Japan on the sixth mission when they called us back and said the mission was scrubbed. When we got back to the base we went to the Beer garden and heard over the radio, President Truman announced that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. I was eighteen years old, a high school graduate, and didn't know what in the world they were talking about. I thought it was maybe propaganda or something like that. But a few days later Nagasaki was bombed, and we knew then that the war would be coming to an end. And it did. During all this movement which is very rapid I volunteered for every mission in Europe and actually completed my thirty missions within two to three months, and was promoted to First Lieutenant in Europe after about three months of combat. But after that I was moving around so much I never got to know my commanding officers, nor they me. I got to Tinian Island and kept my past experiences to myself for a while, and then they had a formal outing one time and so I put my ribbons on. And was quickly challenged as an eighteen year old, by then I think I was nineteen. You don't have a breast full of ribbons. So, they investigated and found in my files that they had that all was true, but there was just not that much action flying over Japan. We got ack-ack anti-aircraft fire. I don't think I ever saw but one or two Japanese fighter planes, attack planes, but the distance and the bomb load, and the gas load was hazardous to us. We had to land in Iwojima one time because we gave out of gas, which we had been prepared for that purpose. So the war came to an end with me being still a first lieutenant having flown in two theatres of operation, which embedded me at the time so that I, rather than stay with the group, I got out on points that they were taking inventory of everybody. And on that basis you could get out of the service. My commander asked me to stay with the group and he would promote me to captain, but by then I had decided to go back to civilian life and enter college, which I did. I went to Emory University College Medical School, in an intern residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology. And I guess that's about the most of my story. INTERVIEWER: Did you notice any questions on your leadership because of your age and you being a commander of an aircraft and a crew? LLOYD BURNS: No, never had any problems what so ever. My crew was devoted to me, and there was no problem with seniority or following my commands, or anything like that. We all loved each other, and I heard from my bomber pilot, I mean from my B-29 navigator a few months ago out of the blue. I had not heard from many of that crew since we weren't together that much, we didn't bond like we did over Europe. But he had called just to—he had gotten my address and he called up and he says, “Navigator to Pilot this is your pilot”, and gave his name. And so we had a nice conversation. And in the process he told me I was the best pilot he ever flew with. So there wasn't any problem with my command or my flying. It was just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time to fast. I moved too fast for a promotion to catch up with me. I know a commander doesn't want to promote somebody he doesn't know much about. And that was my case. INTERVIEWER: Were there a lot of casualties in your unit? LLOYD BURNS: Oh, yes. My class from the beginning of my service, of about 50% was lost. And in my 379th bomb group, we lost quite a few of people that were in '44. INTERVIEWER: Did you sustain any other injuries than what you've already discussed? LLOYD BURNS: No, just my minor scratches and headaches, and stress syndrome from the mid-air collision, that's all. I was not incapacitated. INTERVIEWER: Were you awarded any metals or citations? LLOYD BURNS: Well my unit of course was credited in Europe, 379 was credited with being the—flying the most missions, hitting the target most accurate in hitting the target. And so received many unit citations, which I didn't keep up with after getting out of the service, I would hear that they received another unit citation for stuff we had done while I was there. For instance, we were the first airplane to drop glider bombs. We were over Germany. They would strap these, they had these—I think they were two thousand pound bombs under the wing, they couldn't get them in the Bomb Bays, but they all they had were gyro's. And we flew in a formation towards Cologne, and upon we achieved a certain altitude then we into a certain glide at a certain speed, certain height, all had been calculated. And we were just dropping our bombs on the lead plane, who determined when to do that. And dropped the glider bombs, about, I don't know what percentage of them spun in. A lot of them didn't make the target but a lot of them did. And but I never heard another word about it during the war because it was experimental and it was probably the first action leading to our current guided bomb situation, a lot of experience from there. We were about twenty miles an hour when we dropped the bomb from Cologne, and they hit Cologne, and I heard they got a unit citation for that, but I never applied for it. I just didn't keep up anymore since I was very busy as a physician. INTERVIEWER: How did you stay in touch with your family when you were…? LLOYD BURNS: Overseas? Just by writing. INTERVIEWER: What was the food like? LLOYD BURNS: It was GI food. English people don't eat to well anyway as far as I'm concerned, but we got as good as they did. And it wasn't a problem. I don't think anybody lost any weight. INTERVIEWER: Did you have plenty of supplies that you needed? LLOYD BURNS: Yes I never knew of us being short of supply. INTERVIEWER: Did you feel any extra pressure or stress or anything partly due to your age of being in combat? LLOYD BURNS: I think that was an asset in that I didn't have enough sense to feel pressure. We were just ambitious, active. Instead of racing on the highways, drag racing and all of that we were actually in combat, and that's what I think every high school graduate ought to do is spend two or three years in the service. I think that would do a whole lot to mature our younger age group. INTERVIEWER: Was there anything special that you did for good luck, or any good luck charms, or anything that you can remember? LLOYD BURNS: No, actually no. We named our airplane “Heavenly Body” because I was a Christian and it was a dual meaning, you know. And I just relied on God to look over us and guide us, which he did. INTERVIEWER: Knowing that you mentioned the name of your airplane, “Heavenly Body”, I see you brought a couple of jackets? LLOYD BURNS: Yes this is a copy of a jacket exactly like the one I wore in Europe. It's a Type A2 or A1, and I gave that to the Valdosta Car Rally, the Lowndes County Historical Society to display. But I obtained the top of these jackets and had copies made by an artist, and this is the one for Europe. Now that was not the type of jacket we flew in the Pacific, but nevertheless I had an artist create a memory for my service out there showing the B-29 and the missions and the bomb drop, and so forth. I intend to leave these to my two sons who know very little about my service. INTERVIEWER: That's wonderful to share that with us to have that kind of an actual memory there. How did people entertain themselves in any either one of the theaters of service that you were in? LLOYD BURNS: My crew had very little time to entertain themselves. I would volunteer for every mission. So we were flying almost every other day over Europe. But for those who were going a little slower and enjoying life a little more, they would have leaves to go to London for instance that was probably the most popular thing to do, is go to London. And they had some night clubs in London that they would attend, see the sights, which I did on occasion. INTERVIEWER: Were there any entertainers that came there that you remember? LLOYD BURNS: We had the, I forgotten what they call it, the Entertaining Group. What did they call them? INTERVIEWER: USO, USO. LLOYD BURNS: USO troops come through, but I never saw a famous one. INTERVIEWER: What did you do when you were on leave? LLOYD BURNS: I would usually travel, go to some town such as London or one of the coastal towns and just sight see. That was all there was to do. I visited a few pubs; I didn't know what a pub was and found out. INTERVIEWER: Do you recall any particularly humorous or unusual events? LLOYD BURNS: Well, other than the pilot and co-pilot swapping seats and him dying as a result, no. I also had to keep an eye on my Ball Turret Gunner because he'd get out of that thing as quickly as he could, as often as he could. And that was a joke. INTERVIEWER: In what way was that a joke, just the idea of him dropping down out of there? LLOYD BURNS: The idea of him getting out of it, and me not knowing it. I would tell him when they could leave their post, but once we got away from danger he would usually get out of that thing because it was very dangerous part of the airplane, and it was cold. INTERVIEWER: Were there any pranks or anything that you or others would pull on each other? LLOYD BURNS: Not really. We were serious about what we were doing. We were anxious to get the job done and get back home. And I just don't recall any pranks. INTERVIEWER: What did you think of your fellow officers and your fellow soldiers and airmen? LLOYD BURNS: In England, in my base in England I was very impressed with their professionalism and their knowledge of what they were doing, and the way they presented it to us in briefings before missions and so forth. I admired them all. We had 525th squadron, had an officer I think it was a colonel who was about twenty-five years old. And very adept at his job, so I admired different people in England, but the Pacific men, I didn't have too much respect for them. They were on a gravy train out there flying the type missions that they did. So, I just didn't think as much of them as I did, they just didn't see as much combat. INTERVIEWER: Do you recall the day that your service ended? LLOYD BURNS: Well, you mean when I got discharged or the last mission? I recall the last mission being that aborted mission. The day the Enola Gay bombed the Hiroshima. INTERVIEWER: So you never had another mission after that? LLOYD BURNS: No never had another mission after that. I did fly a “War of weary” as we call them, B-29 home loaded with GI's who had enough points to get out. And we got just short of the point of no return and lost an engine and had to go back to Hawaii and suffered in Hawaii for another day or two. Then we flew home and landed in California, and I eventually went back to California to practice medicine in Sacramento for twenty years. INTERVIEWER: The last day that you were in the service where were you at, do you remember where you were at? LLOYD BURNS: I was on Tinian Island. INTERVIEWER: When you were discharged where were you at? LLOYD BURNS: Oh, down in Texas, San Antonio. INTERVIEWER: What did you do in the days and the weeks after you got discharged? LLOYD BURNS: Went home. I had gotten married while I was in training in the United States. And while waiting to go to school I applied for a job through the government program they had going at that [time], and they laughed at me. So, I just did “soda jerk” jobs until I went to college. INTERVIEWER: Was your education supported by the GI bill? LLOYD BURNS: Partially. I used up all that they would give and the rest of it my father helped me. INTERVIEWER: Did you make any close friendships while you were in the service? LLOYD BURNS: Oh yes, well, we were all very close, all of the crew. And we see each other still in the European Crew. And we have reunions regularly. And one or two of us will usually show up there. And the last one was a couple of years ago, and one of my gunners, well actually both of my gunners were there and we had a ball, had a real good time. I never heard anything from the 20th Air Force group; they were a rather arrogant bunch I thought. But I thought, well, I'll get involved in with them. That was about two years ago, and so I wrote and applied to be a member of that group, Veterans Association. And they were not very receptive and not very kind. And actually sounded like they challenged whether I was qualified to be a member of their elite group. So, I kind of dropped that ball, but I see they're having a reunion coming up, in, I forgot the name of the town, anyway I might go. [Unintelligible] Europe including the commanding officer. We'll see how it goes. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, that probably would be rather overwhelming to them to have someone of as old as you were, and you already had done one complete tour in another theatre where the hazards were a lot more difficult than what they had. LLOYD BURNS: Yeah, they didn't like it, they were, I think, envious. Our reunion with that bunch should be, they're calling it the 51st Bomb Wing now or some kind of politics going on, but I never was involved with them, but they're meeting in Tucson in this year I think. And I may go. INTERVIEWER: What type of career did you have after the war? LLOYD BURNS: Well, as I said I went to Emory University College and combined that with Medical School so that I ended up three years of college and four years in medical school. After which I went to Crawford Long Hospital, which was owned by Emory and did my residency of four years there, internship of three years I should say at Crawford Long. INTERVIEWER: Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or about the military in general? LLOYD BURNS: It made me love the military. At times I wished I had stayed in. And now that the Gulf War situation has occurred and we're involved again, I just praise those young men for what they're doing for our country. Sorry. INTERVIEWER: That's okay, that's okay. Do you regularly attend some of the veterans' reunions and things? LLOYD BURNS: Not regularly but I've been to a couple. INTERVIEWER: Is there anything that you'd like to add that we haven't covered in this interview? LLOYD BURNS: Well, an event occurred in my group that was quite impressive. One of our planes was attacked by about twenty fighters, German fighters, and badly, badly withstood many injuries and deaths, and started dropping out of formation. But their other fighters left them because it looked like he was going down. But he kept going slower and getting further behind and dropping lower until they did send one pilot, one fighter, to finish him off. That pilot flew up alongside of the B-17, saw the severe damage and injuries, saluted and let them go. They made it back to England, and the pilot spent the rest of the war and since looking for the pilot that did this. Found him in Canada a few years ago. He was a guest of honor, he and the pilot of our aircraft, at a reunion and got a standing ovation of course. And now one of the officers who unloaded the damaged B-17 back in England of wounded and dead, wife was an artist, and she was commissioned to depict that on a picture. And it's very impressive and I have a copy, a print, and I wish I had brought it I could show it. Maybe I'll send a copy. INTERVIEWER: Oh, we would love that. Frances would be more than happy to have that. LLOYD BURNS: Well, as I said I'm an ultralight pilot and we have a club, and they prevailed upon me to write a series of articles on my war experiences which my wife has been doing all this time, too. And since my relatives, my kids don't even know much about it,. I am currently doing that, and I plan to speed the process up. I was going to write an article a month, but I think I'll go ahead and just write the whole memoir and I can send that to Frances too. INTERVIEWER: Oh, that would be wonderful, we really appreciate that. Anything else that you wanted to include in the video as far as any of the information that you brought? LLOYD BURNS: No, just the two jackets was the only thing I brought this time. And they are copies, of course. I mean they're not the original. They're the same exact jacket that I wore in Europe and I used one to depict the Pacific as well, although we had different types of jackets in the Pacific. Just about every plane I flew received some kind of damage over Europe on a mission. We would bring back flak in our wings, and we brought one back under my seat and so forth. So, it was very interesting, exciting, and as I said this country would be better off if we had a mandatory conscription of two or three years of high school graduates. It would do the country and them a lot of good. And I'm surprised nobody has approached that in politics. Thank you for interviewing me. INTERVIEWER: My pleasure. LLOYD BURNS: Thank you. [END INTERVIEW] - Metadata URL:
- http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/360
- 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:
- 40:41
- 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:
-
