Interview (Part One of Three) with Harold N. Tenenbom, WWII veteran. CCSU Veterans History Project

Jeff but we took we went through the YMCA worked out and stuff like that first time I've ever worked out my life we got our weight down I was like 200 I got it down to under 1988 maybe I don't know out and I passed the physical by scratching up my toes and walking on the side of my feet so that when the doctor lifted then by that time they did they were so busy you just lifted up your foot and if there was there wasn't dirt on part of your arch that means that you were okay to see people okay Hart was good everything was good when they had the debate didn't know I had horrible blood pressure high blood pressure and hay fever we took the written exam we passed the written exam and newer both sworn in as Primus and the United States Army Reserve and we went back to Davenport told look I told my folks what I'd done they almost died but right after that herbs brother eight who was at the Davenport store that was Abe the son of grab uncle of the bastard was a damn poor her booze and Rock Island dick waxen Berg was in Dubuque they had three stores now and of course I worked for her who has it that Janet in Florida is aids daughter aids daughter and herb has two lovely daughters and he's got a son in Portland no in Seattle and that buzz Tenenbaum or herb Tenenbaum jr. he got into a lot of difficulty with drugs and stuff straightened himself out of it there's oh he has one other but he has one fixation though he wants to kill dick waxing because what dictum you Kurt he's he maneuvered his his death out of the markets later on it life you know but that's long after I was in Phoenix so he cheated this Tenenbaum boy out of this works right so you Steven behind the camera and myself and this guy Herbert jr. Herbert Kenna Bob jr. or buzz are the only one B OMS I think in the entire world and I hadn't I have it is an on tape about Catholic than how the name got screwed up this old bastard opened up his grocery store and he hired a drunken Irishman he was young on that of course it was 1895 or something he hired him to paint the sign on the store the guide paints it and everybody in the family spelled it BA um so he gets up there and he says it's he has a look the guy goes out looks at a TEM en be Oh Anna he says you made a mistake he says it'll cost you ten bucks he says leave it so when my greenhorn father came up from Arkansas to work for this uncle very uh soon put him in his own store you know on Mount Ida I think he's still hell he spelled his name ba um but we were Tenenbaum bo ends in the phone book and that was our legal name I've got the I've kept it in my records here I've got their marriage certificate I wonder how he spells all right so back to the war back to the days oh right after we were driving home from Des Moines with the windows open I don't remember oh there was no cooling for God's sake in those days you wouldn't know is open and all that rag we did everything else August the 15th I got home I wheezed and sneem it and it was I was absolutely blocked up if they'd have seen me if I they did to examine me three days later they would throw me out of my camp and I wanted to be in the Air Corps so bad okay time okay now we had one other cross folks he's in Rock Island got to take three streetcars to get home to get there in the point come on but you know that ain't Tenenbaum him in retrospect after he was a sort of a quiet type fella but if he didn't like you look up you know he was not loud and boisterous like his brother hurt and he came to me one day said Harold he said the other and he had a good seat musta had a good soul because I mean come on this was his an idea he said Harold he says that ice cream store is open now how the hell I guess he drove Locust Street to go home you know he lived in that know God he did not he lived over in the new subdivision there and on a Brady Street somewhere you know what I'm talking about they there was new homes there law professor 4050 years ago he said Harold he said death that ice cream store is empty you were down the bank and get yourself a thousand dollars I'll sign for you that was awfully nice really it was you know he said it he says I'm so sick of having your father come in here and getting two cans of this and three Canada he says he says it's time we did something nice today I said I agreed so and he had a thousand bucks we hired a guy I think that Chester the manager of the of the produce department I think he built the shelves Chester not Chester Simms Chester Lathrop Chester sentence was a pit boss up in Vegas years later Chester Lathrop goddamn it he would come over after work we closed a store at 6:00 and God bless him or young-earth first time the unsafe a got said unsophisticated or not the not the big shot that he's become for a coral Steiner God blessing I've never forgotten this he would come over the to be location we built shelves we bought a meat used meat case and we bought they've been vegetable thin you know and it was my Marvin was it my name herb gave it the name victory market see dad could never use his name Meyer Tenenbaum because it would conflicted with the other never you know didn't want to irritate him you know but I went down at the bank in $1000 opened up the accounts we paid Chester herb pearl Stein didn't worked his ass off in his store in Rock Island up to six o'clock and then came over and probably had dinner upstairs with his sisters and mother and dad and came over and helped that store and we made narrow shelves so that a case would fill it up you know you didn't have have somewhat stopped and we stopped that store and real rationing hadn't started yet it yes it did to gas rationing see but with the it was an eighty four passenger car was very little and but a see I had to pick up truck so I had a seat and I think it was be a bit of business truck got a lot of gas and I probably helped out the folks with my C rations you gotta get the gas station guy a little little stamp for every time you every time you got well is interesting that was another one of mr. Roosevelt's department's but we got that store opened and this Annie Tenenbaum your grandmother that you've never knew she knew you you were just more Steven she's invited yet Marsha was scared shitless of it Marsha wouldn't go there and dad was always you know the old Orthodox for the boy you know the girl is nothing but Marcy had had her day believe me she was Gus for the green bombs granddaughter and best is green dodge best bestest bestest granddaughter and she would sit there and it's a little girl and watch her grandmother makeup you know and she just loved that Nana you know he could imagine what happened to her when she found out her father's you were a little baby her pearls then we finished that store that they started taking any money and she would wheedle that any Tenenbaum god what a character what I've heard so I when I five months went by I finally sent a telegram to General Henry Arnold one viajar meter for the end of the whole damn Air Corps I said sir we enlisted in July and I said we've been waiting ever since to be called up as aviation cadets and we listed our name's Harold Tannenbaum one oh seven six nine seven seven 400 was my when you enlisted you've got a one-in-four your serial number when you oh no I'm sorry that isn't right because my serial number as it offers there was on oh six nine four seven four seven or something like that I got my dog takes your summer hey anyway so I don't think Sheldon was that happy about it but anyway I got called up within a week that that binds to this pisode hold on August of 42 we enlisted we I didn't get called up to the 1943 and the war wasn't going that good yet you know the these seven teams had no fighter covered in 1943 the Memphis Belle was the first airplane to compete to complete 25 missions and go home to the United States do you hear me so that gives you an idea how many of those b-17s and b-24s were shot down over Germany and France Bach Wolf's Messerschmitts Soho anyway I know the joke if you want to give you about captain Colin after the war that kids all brought their parents there are famous fathers to talk before their whole group and this war a captain Coleman who had been a refugee and had listed in the in the Air Corps and become a pilot and was a became my pedia ace so he was the teacher says now that we're going to have Captain Cohen here he says that Sammy's father's going to tell us about his war exploit so the guy gets up and says without teacher and children he says Venus flying along he was flying along he says and all of a sudden from one cloud and a bunch of and he says from behind his son came another bunch of and he says to learn from another was surrounded by these and the teacher stopped the class and she said teacher but she said children for the sake of edification the father is an airplane that was made by Anthony Fokker a Dutchman and the Germans took over the design he says the captain says that's my teacher but I think these was message that's love that story and anyway got down to San Antonio didn't have any uniforms they give us a pair of coveralls and we got hit by one of those northers coming out of Canada and if you are out somewhere you just froze right where you were and I got pneumonitis what time year was this February in San Antonio Texas and that song was true Texas is a hell of a state the of the 48 San Antone is even worse the of the universe inky dinky Farley who that same year March themselves I barely got classified and I reported into sick and I think I had a temperature of 105 and they took me to the hospital and they put me you know in a tent or something I had pneumonitis I've never heard of it since pneumonia but I was some kind of that I know what it was and in about three to four days I was okay and then the measles we had a visa or chickenpox care and the whole goddamn Hospital in San Antonio at the classification Center was was in turn was a corn quarantine I was in that damn hospital for five weeks sitting on my toughest doing KP cleaning up you know we all took turns there were about 30 of us an award can't remember a single name couldn't get out we were quarantine perfectly well and I had I went back I was released I went back to my barracks and the sergeant whoever was in charge of the parents said where the hell you been I said I've been in hospital for six weeks being quarantined he says you've got two hours to get you all your uniforms he says your outfit is leaving for pre-flight training in ellington Field Texas ellington Field Texas I shoes socks barracks bag uniforms I don't know what went through the whole lot you know I and he wrote something on there to expedite it said you be dominant such in such a place where the the train was going to move up from the front of the base what did you miss in those six weeks sick guard duty kitchen police some physical training nothing I had already been classified as a navigator that's before I I hit the I hit the rope you know a navigator and it's very interesting about that Ward that I was in because it'll come up later for the pneumonitis and I had to get all these things put him and get dressed I was still in the goddamn coveralls that I got in with six we by weeks ago I'd missed all I've never done a one who accept KP in the in the kitchen police in hospital were there where they served our meals we watched our dishes or whatever it was I don't cleaned up cleaned up the room a little bit I guess sheer boredom I never did any in guard duty you know to walk my take charge of this post and all government property and viewed walk my post the military men are always keeping on the alert observing everything and within sight and hearing - sometimes I used to I remember the guard duty from from ROTC the other memorize that the ten guard whatever they called it the guard duty but to retrogress I said to myself Harold I didn't my name wasn't any yeah that was pig that came in the army and your mother I said aerosol they're gonna find you got hay fever and they're gonna kick your ass somewhere and you don't want March so during the interval when I wasn't called up I went to Moline high school you probably played there but the Moline high school and to the night course on radio code and that would come up later that there Ellington no come up later it'll come up somewhere like no it'll come up at at San Marcos later and I took that course and I could send and receive 20 words a minute of five letter groups they that's the way they test you see you can't think ahead with five other groups that and believe me you and I went to a trade show one time and that's my operator but that's much later in the in the end up in the in the narrative so now I go into okay before I go to the hospital I go through all those tests as a pilot you know with the with that you would the chair around to see how easy you get you know all the crazy tests they give me for a pilot Alistair they put down I want to be a pilot and there was a machine a simple electrical thing to see how steady you were there were there was a plate a vertical plate that had a hole in it that was electrical it was contact whatever it was a head over let you know a ground or whatever it is and you had a stick of some kind of like aluminum or steel or something a little long thing pinned or whatever you want to call it and you had hold that between the these the within that circle without touching the sides too much well your dad you know I could I'm nervous it sounded like I was sending code you know so I thought that pretty good then they looked up at my nose I had taken that we used to use Ben's Benzedrine inhalers little aluminum jobs like I will use now except they don't use Benzedrine that you but it was a terrible thing but these two don't manage used to take these inhalers and soak the kind of the container they wouldn't the paper craft it's got Benzedrine in it and they would drink it or something and they get high you know it was a drug it opened up your nostrils so every time I carried this from that board I cared about half a dozen Benzedrine inhalers and so every time I went for a physical of some kind my nostrils were both open because I used the Benzedrine inhaler and so anyway I had to go back three times for eyes they were going to kick me out because of eyes and it had to do with a line and a dot and what happened is my muscles were weak somehow and immediately that they did whatever they did that the line and the dots separated immediately so a guy tells me you know jerk you know wait for three or four seconds and then tell him now so I finally got past that now I come to the classification Master Sergeant Duty stripes from here all the way to his shoulder you know been in the Army Air Corps for thirty years probably knew that general Arnold or something he says sit down scared to death for father he says we decided we're going to send you to navigation school I said what I said I came in for a pilot he's gonna be no pilot pieces first of all Jews don't make good pilots he said you've got the worst case of the jitters of anybody I've ever seen he said you'd land about ten feet above the runway and crashed the airplane and inferred - your first attempt to fly he said secondly Jews are good at numbers got to make you a navigator so I want to be a pilot you should listen to me you go for pilot you washed-out Sheppard field infantry immediately says you washed out navigation I'll send you to Papa dears okay who knew you know all right I said I'm peein applicators I hate mathematics I only took plane geometry I never took any trigonometry so navigation pre-flight Ellen Roscoe hates a stuttering comedian you ever seen Michelle Cimarron with Richard Nixon I read done if he had rented there's Rosco eats and he was a captain in the Air Corps Reserve and he wasn't stuttering when he chewed us as not and so I went to Ellington the field there I met mole towel little scrawny bastard and I said what are you you a Turk or she says no he says I'm a German Jew I'm Jewish he says but he says I'm a Syrian my people come from Aleppo Syria and they hadn't a chance to do any intermarry these Syrian Jews you know and if they were raped or anything like that they were raped by errors who was that were no different from them you know and you know all these redheaded and blonde Jews out of Russia some pretty little broad got raped by a Cossack or something you know and she belly starting to swell they founded a nice Jewish man for me so she gets a kid and blonde kid you know where there's no such thing as blonde and Jews you know they they were there were some any kind of thought of the era where you know the desert errors Druze so that sister they were black and ugly awful and over obstacle course I had and I want the mile and seven minutes didn't have asked me yet and of course I went from 200 pounds to a hundred and sixty bold and and muscle I had never before or after been in such physical shape in my life and he this this goddamn little mold you know you met him and he had a son Eddie we met him at the motel there at that at the airport there they came out and your mother made fun because of his wife violet she picked her teeth or something they they made fun of her anyway in voluntee time they were in touch with me last month a couple weeks ago they were in the children's holding business and they sent a lot of stuff made in the USA over the philippines manila imports they called itself and that Filipinos would embroider these baby dresses and stuff so that's his old fat animal they have in Avenue came Brooklyn they have a whole or used to have a whole colony of these Syrian Jews and they were they would keep themselves just like that receding they would keep themselves in an enclave they wouldn't mix with the other the Ashkenazi they were shipped as far as they were concerned and to the Ashkenazi these people worship you know there was no inner in her marriage at all to speak up they are the guys who bought into these states then they come back to the colony to pick out a wife so they were they were pretty its intermingled you know there was no new blood going in there and they all looked ugly and everything so anyway he would run circles he didn't have probably these guys play basketball you know we have those New York Jews there there they're a group under themselves they have basketball games they congregate they know that's all they know they're they're not dumb they're not humiliated all the time somebody humiliates them like her bleep with this game's your color they gang up and be fella you know you had Italian gangs Jewish gangs whole lot gangs terrible but that's another story so some however I got true I got through now was at night it was either nine weeks I think was nine weeks at ellington now we pass our pre-flight course we go to navigations mr. baggage you know okay there were there were three time there was dead reckoning navigation there was dead reckoning was taking the wind drift see if you didn't have tides and you didn't have when you wouldn't need a navigator would you because you take your compass from point A and you'd point that you the direction to come feet here point B you head head there and you've arrived there right but the wind or the waves can move you to the right or to the left would be citizen a headwind is okay and they tailwind is okay as far as changing courses concern but unbelievable so I kept thinking where that you know we're getting a dog we're going to be into office I think how many months is 18 weeks 18 weeks 4 and 18 goes four months and two weeks right but maybe it's only four months because no how are they you use up a half a week here at it's four months so I have October I graduated in October so that would be September August July sometime in June I think we arrived at 14 I did what the hell are my class numbers now there's somewhere that's right yeah my class number anyway we arrived at San Marcos and we were given all kinds of all kinds of equipment you know we're given an octave an octave instead of acceptance and not as an artificial horizon which is a bubble a sextant uses the horizon because the horizon is flat and anyway I don't want to go into course in the navigation but there was a Jewish boy from Milwaukee island that would forget name was Leonard Cole I one day of trigonometry they're gonna make an alligator because trigonometry is the whole is the right triangles that's and that's the the star you know the angle of that star forms at to where you are and then the it's going to start with if you're always measuring the angle of the hypotenuse of this from this the angle forms that's the angle of my pocket somehow or other that's that's the deal although you'd get tables we give you tables because otherwise to do all the time took an author he's beat you'd be at the destination before you do where the hell you were so Leonard Cole who gave me a simple book on trigonometry and he also told gave me the cold words which you could mnemonics which has been right on your test papers chief we didn't you he was an Indian chief his name was so hot Toula and that gave you the formula for all of the tangents cotangent sis on and so forth SS soh-cah-toa so path Toa and anyway what happened is that I went down we were recut we were required to receive not send 15 words a minute I went into the cold room all these guys sitting around with cans on earphones and here comes these code symbols v Leonard Crowe groups I don't think that any numbers no numbers AC J the and or something like that you know they were series of different they were on a tape you know and so I had just passed in Moline 20 words a minute you know and so what happened well I listen to me you know I do like to read I couldn't read but something I can't do today I need a pen then and I need a pencil and a paper to write down the message on on code of course it's been years since I used code so as a result I don't it's very very rusty like my code is sending forget about it I used to get guys seasick you know sent they called me my Lake Erie swing because Lake Erie happened he's very stormy and they get seasick together he didn't uh you know I would have a rhythm to it you know instead of sending simple code now they have compute Big Al's got a computer that said he types in the number letter in the head and the thing sends out the code alright so the first day after I took the test was excused from an hour of code and I used that hour to study that trigonometry booked and right out - and of course chief sohcahtoa Soh sign equals opposite over hypotenuse these are all the animals CAH cosine equals adjacent over hypotenuse Toa tangent equals told t equals equals opposite over adjacent therefore you don't use cotangent which would be adjacent over Chiefs sohcahtoa co-heir or less coelho you know that you knew that okay fine that got me through the rhythm tests trigonometry so I passed the riveted the man and I always tell my favorite story is about the first flight I ever made and it was dead reckoning dead reckoning means you've got a no that wasn't the first that by the way yeah but you know we also had a calibrate the compass and you had a you had a north-south road and an east-west road and you did this this drift leader was very important you know the way you had to line up the drift meter with the way so that would looked like everything was going and that gave you the you wait embark on your v6 be plotted and you wait and then then you made another mark point that going when you're going north-south you made a mark then made it run and then you you don't ask so sick everybody was everbody was a thousand feet and the airplane was going like this it was just a test I mean that's all they didn't give a they didn't use your fingers you know well I had a nice guy by the name of lieutenant Grady I was always insecure even after I married your mother I was very inserted into what the hell's going on always striving above my so-called limit you know I think I'm flunking out washing out he's over you're a great navigator I thought to myself what did she want this guy is I haven't so so what can I do and so on my first flight okay to get back to that said she the pilot calls me pilot to navigator number one he says to me he says if you've got an ETA estimated time of arrival our destination I said just a minute sir so he said yeah Benny that's exactly and you're stupid goddamn father says I didn't me that's what I meant I'll have it for you in divinity I was about ten minutes not Utah pilot said to be you've got to be the most stupid bastard or why didn't you keep your mouth shut what about my work he says well then they never look at that anyway since my report is what counts oh god I'll tell you something one guy is doing dead reckoning which means you know plotting the course use it using your giving the direction is to go in the next one was doing pilotage the other one the three of us in a trainer plane and the navigator instructor was sitting in the copilot seat and the pilots we got were probably the rejects from combat why would they waste good pilots on these spots you know so I think they're more guys killed and drained that were mr. Val Strauss the Maven he was a bombardier think of the pilots of he had their dry heat up in New Mexico Oh God but now yeah you know he of course I was gung ho I said I want to go kill Germans he said you want to be an instructor it want me to be oh we're getting into August we're getting into August and I ain't getting any outta my nose ain't give any allergy shots I wrote to bet no I called Bannon pooper Irv Cooper's brother had a pharmacy in Phoenix Phoenix down at port and it was a dip wax and Birds brother-in-law Barry Weinberg was a doctor adaptable so I called hairiness what the hell am I going to do he was giving the allergy shots about the year before he says Ben's got some oral allergy vaccine you know and you're one week you take one tablet only would you take two tablets there's a lot so but there were different kinds of tablets a whole lobster so Vancouver sends me the tablets the capsules mail up the cash my folks given the money whatever did I forget down and seemed to help a little bit psychosomatic but the goddamn thing came through the mail orderly open it opened the goddamn thing and I kept waiting for a summons why are you taking these goddamn pills you know I just opened up saw allergy tablets or something close it back up again you know but some kind of tape on you had to be a regular cellophane tape at that time must of the Apple sugar and I had missed a couple of flights because I was all plugged up I know as you know you can't fly them you know if you move your ears but I made up somehow or other whatever it is and was God then lieutenant Bradey that stupid he gave me of passing remarks I had his picture of some time ago wonderful navigator actually leave this place no I'm scared and I weigh a hundred and sixty-four pounds eyewear a size 40 jacket and I was a beautiful thing to look at and I came back to Davenport for a leave with my folks before being assigned active duty and I went into the Tenenbaums store I parked the car in their parking lot 18th that right across from the rocket went over see my friend art Williams who was to was to compel me later on if I gone into that dance yet routine for room at I guess I haven't had what's to you last night and I walked up to 7th Avenue or whatever yet whatever it was and there's the Jewish Community Center and Shirley Pearlstein to this day will tell you Shirley Jacobs she sees this tall slim military bearing officer come walking up and she don't know who in the hell it is and why when I get up face-to-face Jesus it's Carol lieutenant nobody knew me it's a big fat slob when I left there you know a steward of course I got back to the snoop children eventually you need Christ sure there was no discipline in the airport and second lieutenant with a pair of silver wings and a gold bar come on baby King in the road that I think was up to the time I having you children or whatever it is that was it that you have no concept Stephen at a grocery clerk for Christ's sake and Here I am an officer in the United States Army Air Corps unbelief and everywhere also let me go to Peterson field Colorado Springs and we would we we got mixed up with a bunch of fliers coming back from Alaska we were in a photo mapping group and those bastards lost us for from October almost to the middle of December so that was October November December we ended up in Florida so only then last year we were sitting with this photo mapping group collab trying to get some plumbing no flight babe we were there assigned I'm on the roster go to the quotas are on the roster what do you want throws these guys were on coming back from Alaska from the Aleutians they didn't have any airplanes he didn't have anything they were stationed at Peterson field with with coal stoves in our barracks so what we do is we went to the antlers Hotel in downtown Colorado Springs right by the railroad there if you have been in Colorado Springs I don't that they tore it down beautiful hotel and we rented a couple of rooms by the week and we would go to them and in the Colorado Springs sleep in the hotel rooms I think four of us twin beds to you know punch it we've got friendly a bunch of guys I knew from navigations from the wine bird George Wallace not the not the bigot they were before us bilbo hominy ghulam he came level where we found him than anyone else but there were four of us and we two rooms or guys you know two guys through then we get up early you know take a cab out to the inner who sign in for roll call no assignments go you're relieved for duty lieutenant Joe to go back out to Colorado Springs nothing that lasted for about two weeks I think now come to wear a sign this photo mapping off the design to Will Rogers field Oklahoma which is now the official Oklahoma City Airport and there I meet one of the greatest guys in the world this is through this guy herb humpty-dumpty supermarkets Sylvan Goldman and Sylvan himself did not invent the shopping cart but he he's money back the guy that he what he called me back to guys and we used his shopping carts now there is not the only it was called market vast market bastard company of US market basket ourselves what they did is they took steel strips on a mate of an inch steel about a half-inch wide with rounded edges you know and they made a frame and then he put they band at the bottom of the frame in the main they made two frames and they attach them to an another piece of steel it was like a baby buggy camp baby buggy handled that curved over and went down and fastened to this flat piece of steel about Henson open about I don't know decide two feet wide and 3 feet long I don't know four feet I'm trying to remember and they put hinges or they're not Han but they put washers on all the connections so that this thing would the whole thing would lie down flat and you could stack these frames then you had hundreds of wire baskets and when he opened the frame you would have a water basket on one level and a wire basket on the next one to wire instead of they have the one today and then you have that crap on the bottom but it's tubular steel and we had with the supermarket and they sold all over the United States to any self-service store so that you didn't have the stack of standing back up standing carriers you had a stack of frames you had a stack of baskets and as you needed them you you unfold of them you know unfold the frames and that night you would stack them up again so that you didn't have a store full of goddamn baskets well still then I called him up I said I'm herb Tenenbaums cousin oh my god they wind me and dying me and they were billionaires supermarkets a matter of fact their two sons Sylvane and babe he was in the oil you know by that time he'd had so much money he went into oil he wouldn't who knows anyway he was afraid he was the guy I wrote to about verges about virtuous birth certificate he went to the governor Oklahoma and the governor was going to issue a birth certificate for Virgil Hawthorne but he would accept it wonderful man wonderful man Oh God they treated me like a king then I was there in Oklahoma City and oh when I was in Houston at ellington Field I met a Weingarten family they were also in the supermarket's getting dark out well what do we do when it gets night have to wait all right so I just turn it off of installed where hi everybody he's fixing the lights the plots my son all right fine can't you open the lens anymore no okay another particular so that's another study the wine gardens they had wine dark supermarkets I okay yep all right so maybe that that's Oklahoma City and I was there for god knows how long minute we got off the train at midnight there were girls after us the the the swing shift at the at the airplane factory oh yeah that's so much fun nothing to do I finally got four hours of flying time taking a b25 from from Oklahoma City to st. Paul got lost in a snowstorm a dance or a heading that only intensified my a my insecurities you know then we went down to them we finally got orders okay they finally found us go Mac dill Air Base in Florida where they're going to close upworthy we're stormy Norman has is has his headquarters anywhere at that there at MacDill Air Base was when I finally realized I could never play tennis one of the guys was taking movies of us at that you know they owe us a magnificent it was a permanent base you know that deal and and it brick homes for the officers you know the old brick holds of sidewalks and lawns you know very steep and it was on the on Tampa Bay and a little tiny Peninsula issues as you came in for a landing but they had a b-26 Martin hurrah Martin Marauder shaped like a cigar and the old expression was a b-26 a day in Tampa Bay horribly control but we didn't go to so we get the MacDill they got no airplanes they give us ten days leave Oh Don Street yeah that was another one of Street yes Street God rest his soul he was an air of his pilot was a big-shot they glided over the airbase in Italy that's another story so anyway we got ten days leave and we went to New York City first time we stayed at the was at the Commodore hotel us that such a thing no we stayed at the Hillary who stayed the downtown Hilton and every day we would the Commodores where they had the tickets the show tapes every day at 4:00 I think for for ten days there wasn't a day or a night that we didn't see a Broadway show Ethel Merman in in Panama Hattie I don't with a Ziegfeld Follies with Milton Berle dinner at Oh sergeant Irv pearl Stein was stationed out at Fort Totten in Long Island and we called up his base and he got leave and he came in to see us he was buried to Annette and she was pregnant with Lynn and she was back in Rock Island so the sergeant came in in his army overcoat and here we are two lieutenants in our fine gaberdine trench coats you know lieutenants three be lieutenant Tenenbaum God got her what was the gaulden Arab with a flat feet and with a hunched back you know well the tenants you expect me to salute you I am going to do attend a bird got question we took him to dinner at Lindy's Leo Lindy was still alive and you know made famous by Damon Runyon and he goes out he sees three uniforms they're back in line he says come guys got us in to see it yeah I said mr. Lindy we gotta go see the Milton Berle you know was riding across the street the winter guy so we went we went to the winter garden and of course herb gets up in the middle of the show the show he's got a report back by midnight in Oslo he left the Milton world with his crazy gangs you know blacked-out teeth and stuff that was dirty good I'll get was it was it was Berle show you know worker Lester he felt there were no seat belt and then after viewing up to upstairs the club Zanzibar on Broadway there right above the Winter Garden we were looking for a couple we tried to summer to talk to a couple of girls probably on another table we got kicked out you've got to have you got up you don't to pick up people here sir you bring in your dates they take threw us up well back the hotel but we saw radio shows where you saw went to matinees I don't know oh I saw the Connecticut Yankee with Vivian Siegel and I've got Richard some money from the movies we've got a voice Connecticut Yankees it's too big Crosby started later on oh we saw a lot of shows and then we got to go back we came up on the Silver Meteor out of two out of Tampa 30 bucks round-trip New York - and we I was I was standing in the lobby of the Statler it was a stack one event it wasn't a hill it was a staff of New York staff and I said to the guy I said what'd he do he says I'm booking reservations for the new Washington DC Statler brand-new it's opening I said what Tenenbaum I'm streaming down for two days so we left the staffer in two days earlier and we go down to Washington DC temperature in Washington is below zero in six below never so and of course foggy bottom you know it's wet it's a wet quarter we got to the new to the Washington step or a beautiful white building on the side somewhere so this was 1943 yet December and we got into our room we never left our room for two days we bumped into some lady Marines we brought them up to our room and as I recall they were not the slightest bit interested any kind of talking around so but we sat there and we talked and BS for a lot of work for them for a while they had they had a loop I think they sucked on the floor I don't think they have a room anymore Lee and they slept on the floor certainly what they won't come to sleep with us so it's all right and we went back to Tampa and I I had bought in New York I didn't have you know we had on GI when I had some GI winter underwear my duffle bag you know so I put it on it was Washington was awful but I but I had it on when I got on them that's when I got on the train and the train was drafty it was a sit up deal you know it was a coach Silver Meteor it was diesel and we got back we got back we got assigned to our combat bill Brister the shortest coming back in the history of the airport that's something else anyway there was so much discipline that the all my crew got back except two guys the pilot and the navigate and the pilot and the thoughts would excluding me the pilot was in christen camp and Romania and he got shot down on the second mission they split us up Italy had the theory of not having an same crew fly England had the same floor all that same crew all the time they had different men so we were on rosters and of course to begin with we were we were getting oriented anyway who then it we had a fly with a seasoned crew just like I flew and then the two pilots and myself on the final job and maybe the top turret gunner were the opah that everybody else in the back was all brand new their first flight this mock tail gunner yells out a p-47 Thunderbolt such as you stupid bastard those are focke-wulf with a bit of feather I think for these talkers were focke-wulf said that was the end of them all right so that we get our training and we go down to Savannah Georgia I get 10 days leave at home or something like that you're going to I'm going to war you know and I'm get a little queasy you know I'm done I'm gonna get till then so we end up in Savannah we pick up a brand-new shiny b-17 Flying Fortress shiny aluminum no paint and we take that to Trinidad flying over the Caribbean and you see all those Islands lined up all those Caribbean islands fly over Cuba which was Cuba was a democracy then you know them and we flew all of all of it all those Lesser Antilles Islands you know beautiful just green and then the green sea and then the the other the islands with with with green vegetation either blue sea we land in Trinidad and we were there for a little while Trinidad mm Brazil on top of the on top of the South America top the top part of northern parts a little bit then we cross country over to Fortaleza Brazil we cross the Amazon the mouth of the Amazon I swear it must've taken us a half hour across that we're going at 200 miles an hour or something so that's about 100 miles that's the width of the barrier at the beginning with all the fortune magnificently we land at Fortaleza Brazil we were there for about 24 hours and were given a reason and we we are there there are all kinds of Tanks but in our Bombay you know where we went through there you know no bombs were the Bob they took off the bomb racks they took everything else and they put in auxiliary tanks thirteen and a half hour flight from Fortaleza Brazil to Dakar which is now Guinea I think but it was that Senegal maybe it was French West Africa so we take off and your father and the pilot are the only two guys away with me and the nose is that navigator William Bain da mãe he had gone through 79th weeks of navigation he washed himself out so he could stay in the States another 18 weeks and go to navigation school he was a student officer gone to 90-day wonders for so he's sleeping for thirteen and a half hours and I doing navigation celestial navigation this plus from Davenport Otto I am so excited who knows I was frightened all the time I don't think I had a clear day from the time I took off from Brazil except when I slept anyway so we took off and we landed I'm not going to go to a lot of details 13 FRS a gay man a gay man correction he had it because it wasn't the worst of the south and if we really if I was wrong and we should have gone to the north we would run out of gas because that was the we'd get into the the Bulge with an urgency so he took I get in 15 degrees he after for 50 years I found out that he only cut it down to about 8 and needless and we didn't have you ordinarily there's a special radio compass that you tuned on to the beam at that car and it holds you in you know god damn thing broke antenna would kept going round and round I didn't have a decent ball movement for four weeks I got the gi's on the plate that I filled up as I filled up each mat I used the extra maps to let whatever you did in it and I laid him right by this guy's notes he was drunk and sleeping the whole type of the flight we landed right over to our french way we don't not over we crossed over nobody was more surprised believe and these guys are lieutenant you're the greatest one in the world they thought need help one of the guys by they Mikael used to call me drunk every Christmas to tell me what wonderful okay we were there and then we then we went to Marrakech Morocco we were grounded for a week there something wrong with b-17s at affixing I saw my first b-29 Superfortress the ones they used in Japan and it was going to India somewhere I went across the tunis and we finally ended up that full Italy the southern part that we never got that far you know with our trip because I didn't want to go back down there I was like its flattened out with the Apennines I think they finding and a huge Plains area but some are other to get to Naples yet across the mountains again so that's another long story you ready all right the last time I had the pleasure of appearing in front of this camera we had just landed our plane b-17g may God bless it in all their pieces of aluminum they're still around and various Joe Tenenbaum junkyards was that a b-17g in that picture the one we thought that was a jeep I don't think they made any HS maybe they did because I thought I remember you saying that that was the last of me that's what you flew yeah brand-new brand-new anyway we got across what - yes we landed a whole ship and we made the mistake of leading our airplane unblocked and when we got back to the airplane there were four there were four people there were four what the hell were they weapons 45 colt colt 45 okay there were four of those four officers I don't think anybody ever worn and my several pairs of binoculars all my navigating equipment was beside the entire style and about six cans of Whitman's tropical coated chocolate candies that they're catching if nothing else they're country meaning to that hurt anyway so we went into filed our our forms and we were we were criticized for it you know and we didn't realize that the Mafia had a branch and poacher anyway so we got then we got to our little satellite Airport and I went and reported to lieutenant Silverman it had a navigator and I said we're ready for our orientation he says yeah I look around the field he says you go on your first mission day after tomorrow or we landed on the second and we went on our first mission I think before what what did fourth of April 1944 that sound right and then we went on that mission and we our first mission I'll never forget it was was Bucharest Romania marshalling yards in other words to soften up all the flak guns in need on the trains and then the next day of course we didn't know what we were going to these two the second ever bombing of the Bucharest Romania not Bucharest molesty oil fields and this time we were up at 20,000 instead of 5,000 so we weren't going to blow each other up with our delayed action box but anyway we went on that the first I think mission was was 10 hours or 11 and the second one was 12 by the time we got back there in good shape and I decided right Brennan there that I was going to make a map of all of the flak stations between Foggia Italy and the various targets in Romania and in Bulgaria and where does Katie come from Warren's wife you know gabor worth it amore Hungary so after a while I became doing this bring them back alive 10 the reason I would say that is because if you have a kitchen if you had it abort the mission which is close it up before you came back in a group you were at the mercy of the flat towers because she couldn't see in him but you couldn't all I can tell you is that after a period at a time as you got closer to the flak tower all of a sudden start seeing black smoke above the clouds 90% of the time it was clock you never saw anything because you came back at 30,000 or whatever it was so we got through various missions to Budapest and Lake Balaton various ball bearings plans this was our job to reduce the number of auxiliary factories we didn't get to hit the Schweinfurt why we called bring them back alive because as we would get to the target as we would get to these black towers I would tell the pilot and especially the pilot who had never flown with me before I says ok pilot I says take a 45-degree turn to the left or right whichever I felt was more convenient and he would got a question he would turn 45 degrees then I would say after flying about five or six minutes I would say now I said take a 90-degree turn to the left or right depending on what the opposite had been and then after a while I'd say okay back on course use whatever they like that it was like 200 or say okay and all of a sudden where we would have flown there is the black puffs so I got to have the reputation as bring him back alive Timmy you know because otherwise we'd have been dead dead ducks because they just completely splattered the earth I don't think their radar was cool enough to realize that we had made those terms we had made those I forget what you call them with those offset terms doctors who were ah not vectors whatever but there it wasn't good enough for them to determine the exact and they knew what the headings should have been so by their mathematics I mean they had some pretty good math people there they would determine at a certain time they would be overhead and they would just splatter the area with flat at the approximately footage you know and so anyway that's what happened and I got to around April May I got to about the end of May and it seems that we were stationed our our squadron the four 19th a heavy bomb squadron in the 300 first heavy bomb group we were in an olive grove and these was were olive groves that grew olives they were not ornamental olive groves in it years ago there used to be a tremendous amount of olive trees and Phoenix and the old areas especially because they were cheap to grow and didn't use once whatever it is and the allergies were just horrible I don't know whether yeah it's um in our front yard we had one big one enough money sure as hell did and I think you paid for it pretty good and so anyway I came down with acid and I came down with my nose and my chest and everything else and the I said I've got a bad the squadron the squadron flight surgeon said well I won't even bother but you go on down and get a treatment at the head of hospital now you understand that the organization at that time was the United States Army we were the United States Army Air Corps where I went to was the it was the United States Army Medical Corps and the the was the disc or in the ground for solo this doctor takes a look at me oh by the way you'd be interested to know that the head Red Cross lady at this hospital in Foggia was a lady by the name of Madeleine Carroll now I don't know how old the movie fan you are but Madeline Carroll she was a English movie actress and come to Hollywood and she made voice of London with Tyrone Power or he'd gone down the to England and made Lloyd's of London and she also made a prisoner of Zenda and full cover with Ronald Colman if you get anything usual you'll see one of the most beautiful women in the area and anyway of course she was great you know and she showed her years and you don't get four puts to go into bulge Italy and she was married to sterling hate another old movie actor and he was running stuff from Foggia not from Bari Italy to Tito on the island of this vis and anyway so she was over there joined the Red Cross so she could be near her husband and I said to her I said you know you've been one of my most favorite movie actresses and I said Plus that I've always been in love with you etc so she can't get get big hug naturally your father you know so anyway the doctor sits me down the I year nose and throat and he says to me who lets you in the airport I said everybody why he said for God's sake he says says you are a menace to the United States Air Corps every crew that you fly with is on double jeopardy jeopardy from you and jeopardy from the from the the adjournment the enmity she's your enemy number two so anyway he gave me a prescription and he rolled out we didn't give me a prescription he gave me some medicine there there was no drugstores there what the hell's the matter with me so usually getting through script so he wrote a note he says give me a piece of paper and I went I gave him a note on it and and he wrote a note to my flight surgeon and on the note it says naturally I wouldn't think of keeping his secret channel this man is never to enter a United States Army Air Corps plane even as a passenger and I thought to myself Isis all I started to believe in a personal Lord and I said my God he's looking after me she's looking after me I don't think we were that sexy in sexist there was a heat and I went back to the I said I'm going back to Davenport I'm going back to heroes so it would be a second lieutenant big deal you know and I said I'm going back even to the supermarket it's worthwhile you know because I was people what could be a little bit would look at him you know I'll be a returning hero you know like in the picture they're returning trio W ordinarily I need such a big year means I might go back to the flight surgeon he takes one look at that note and in tears I said I was right the first time there is the baby and he says them you know looked he says if you want to ground yourself that's up to you I says what do you mean for this guy or this guy says I'm a menace he says he says that's a ground officer it's a ground balls would you believe when I went to Dayton Ohio for the reunion 1 or 2 years ago I said one year ago I don't remember phileas company there's ago I met the 10th mate of this guy the search mom and I said to him what went on there I said why did this guy tear up the note what happened he said Carol you don't understand these guys were put in your squadron anybody can go on sick call you don't need a flight surgeon he said we have those guys were put there to keep you up in the air he said if they didn't have a flight surgeon talking to guys and scaring the out of guys like you he said they had to put more fear India than the Germans I think I brought that matter of before but anyway that's so anyway he sent me to the Isle of Capri for a couple of weeks and they had about five or six whorehouses and it must have been 20,000 guys lined up in front of each nor house the officers the general officers and friends had the Red Cross ladies except for bathroom material so I was there for two weeks I came back all the pollen had blown away all the water from the spring rains and May rains made flowers we now have flowers on the trees and dried up inside our temps four floors we have the matting from the you know we had dirt runways and he put that metal crap on top of it and I came back he says you're off you're fit for flying duty go ahead and report him I thought the Vice he says of course if you want to ground yourself he said okay I'll put it down on your record you know there's a movie came out three with the white feather or something like that you know guys would be coward they show cowardice and then guys in squadron English with seven white feathers India or Africa anyway so there we went and nothing of really incident I made a few close friends when I was over there I had a very close friend Tom Thomas I don't know did you ever meet him father priest his money no no that was that was he's right up there I don't think you could it's a little photo can you make a picture of that this year behind the the book holder there right there behind the marble is they yeah the I there is a is a letter ship during that awful over talking over here okay yes it so happens there he is tom nears Minh oh yeah got him wait a second I meant to focus in on can you culture me yeah you can come a little closer like put it right about here yep well I don't know I mean you and Marsha will fight for that I mean what the hell that's that's a you know I mean in the pit in the movie oh okay look closer you coming why didn't mean that well that's right well it's okay you've been you could put him in there oh yeah all right okay all right anyway Tom nears them that was later on in the camp because he was he was stationed in England but I met Tommy Thomas from I didn't meet him I met him again he wasn't a cadets with it mo cha will listen to this you remember my friend moat I will from Brooklyn Brooklyn right picked his teeth his wife picked her teeth yeah I donate in a careful now because he might somebody might see that any would he he never did go to war its I can I can I can sincerely doubt that a descendant of that family well it could be but this could be like on arts and entertainment sometime they got enough what do you call it what kids and grandkids oh okay anyway what was I gonna say so you made some friends oh yeah and then my high school math teacher bill rosie was over there as a military police and then the greatest of all was William pearl Stein who bill Strauss is the absolute image of this man I think we mentioned him in the other tape bills drop well you talked about the days and Dev important yeah well of course Irv and I were closer together you know we were more uh bill and I were but what would happen is bill Strauss I was sent to vote you to go out and bomb Germans and Austrians and various other people in Kay bill strived an internal state is sent there as an for um discipline well that's right he was in the he was like he was in the air around for yeah he washed out and of course he was sent there for disciplining by discipline I was for disciplining he had he had a beautiful apartment above the PX so he was the first one to know if any real chocolate came in instead of those damn charms square sugar candies and he could get into some of the top officers clothes in downtown pocha whereas as a second lieutenant I wasn't I wasn't dirt would you have to be like Colonel urban I would say I know he was only a major when he came home so must have been a captain uh-huh so anyway he was being disciplined or whatever it was he may have been broke down several times who knows because I at any rate we used to have between bill rosing and bill Pearlstein and I I used to have dinner bill bill Rosen's on a regular shift with a military police of course MPs and he was a captain I think and Oh Amos not like and then I would come home from a mission home thank God and I would take a shower and clean up but I take it now for a couple hours because you've got woken he got awakened at 3 o'clock in the morning 3:30 all combat crews on the battle order breakfast visit such-and-such briefing isn't such-and-such that is all then they would do that about five times you know and you got to learn when you weren't on that battle order you switched off your hearing exactly after the first all combat crews right back to what about fire we're good living another day so anyway the the day that I came back that I didn't come back bill Prost I was the first to know and the Pearl Stein's were the first ones in the United States to note that I was but I was not in good shape so anyway as I remembered nothing exceptionally happened May the 30th May the 30th we were coming back from a from pool st and it was it was a was a it was a morte as you excuse the expression judge whatever your name is cooked Clark that's a stainless judge no but we were just in Wichita so okay so in the meantime we're flying over the Adriatic Sea and the pilot says to me navigator from pilot give me a course to the island of this and I said don't bother using the what'd he call us I said what happened he says we're out of gas great game today I'll endure this it seems that they had shut off our auxiliary gas tanks are in sepia the bullet had gone into the wings big enough holes in it that they are the shell whatever it was that they self-sealing crap which the cheese had didn't oh this wasn't a G this was a this was a ABCD it was an E yeah you I don't think he said that Jesus didn't come out until after you had finished no no the b-29s didn't now that wasn't true either I'm sorry the G we--the we came over on G on a G yeah could have been that very one over there could have been anyway gave him the course we got close I could see the island beneath us because we know we dropped down to 5,000 feet we didn't need oxygen and he's talking to these can't talk too much because the island of this was right below the German territory and it was guarded by the Royal Navy so the British they were big buddies with Tito and so anyway they we cocked up he says now give me of course to the to the airstrip well it's a little short by maybe a thousand feet but we were going to take a chance no I beg your pardon I know it was ten thousand feet because this guy all four inches quick and this pilot didn't think just like that Lonzo Martin was his name he put it in a straight diet must have been I don't know 90 40 45 years ago died about 60 maybe whatever it was just horrible straight down why didn't do that he wanted to get up enough gas not enough gas he wanted to get up enough airspeed so bilig level at all level out and once hit the deal so everybody in the radio room he got oh he's got air speed we're gonna ditch so anyway well otherwise cuz you stall and then you then you're going then you'd spin and that's the end to you come on 10,000 feet takes a while to get down as soon as you saw in that Memphis Belle movie if you did it you didn't see it no but so you wanted to go straight down and give them a fair speed so that you actually become a glider for a little bit control okay so that's what happened I got him a Distinguished Flying Cross Distinguished Flying Cross and he was at the Reunion it wasn't Martin it was well it's not important except I got him a DFC Distinguished Flying Cross I got nothing anyway so we got in and we ditched the plane that plane stood up for 30 minutes and he and then he the British I think had I wait until dark because you know the we were awfully close to jour well there the German say of it when they could have hit us in ten minutes you know from their airstrip why did why did it stay up for 30 minutes nowhere in the tent it was all air in the tanks all hair of the tanks and I want either that book done we didn't even get the turret the rear the bottom turret released a ball turret we couldn't get Athena everything was just rusted out on it you know in a shitty fact they gave us an award the the crews did when we got back from our you know from from Bari so anyway we did steer craft and we jumped from the aircraft you know what a great swimmer your father is and there's like 30-foot waves there's some horrible waves you know you take a b-17 that airplane we were on and you dump that in the adriatic ocean and you make a ploughing motion at the same time Wow big with the waves beat anyway died of shock and drowned I must have defecated sea water for a week or two so anyway we were picked up on it how long were you in the water I don't it was afternoon because obviously three four o'clock in the afternoon I don't know how long until it got dark you know so maybe I was probably like eight or nine o'clock no no I don't think so I don't think so because because although it was summertime on my time yeah oh longest day of the year is June 21st yeah so summertime and we we summertime and but it got dust they didn't wait till absolute darkness to you know it got dust you know that's but when it gets dust it gets misty you pour it out so anyway they came and they picked us up didn't bother we you know I just sat there I just sat in the water and Shatford several hours and anyway I could get everything new except my arts accepted my heart supports I had Davenport Iowa arch supports you know with GI shoots because they didn't make any shoes in less than a day and I wore a Triple A so when they sent us down the berry VAR I they sent us down there to get checked out one kid had a busted nose got to stay there for a week or so and we came back after three days and just started flying missions again because you know the old adage of you thrown off a horse get right back on and June the 30th and then that was the beginning 1 and then 2 was the July 15th we came back in formation and discovered that our hydraulic system was shot up so we all took turns taking a leak in the hydraulic system usually we could you know we leave Denis and the relief too but we all took turns you know in the hydraulic system didn't help any we had to fly around the field for about an hour getting rid of our gas as we thought we get you know our our instruments must just been great because and I weighed 185 pound son in those days I eat pretty good with bill pearls diamonds the restaurant repeatedly and anyway we had a land off the runway you know on the dirt well everything he did stopped us you know they he didn't have any brakes put to this we landed about 130 miles an hour and we would have been fine except one of the wing tips caught a bulldozer periodically you'd have to bulldoze a new section of freeway and then put the metal down and deputy well don't ask so the at the speed and that we need just the whole side of the airplane tore off the weight about half the weight and I'm looking up there in the front looking back at the wing and there must be thousands of gallons of gasoline pouring out of that wing and started to speak in that department you know we were down there and I pulled with that hatch you know where I wouldn't go down there and I didn't go in that way I made everybody go in the did you go on the hatch that thing there all right anyway so I've dropped out and I was within seconds I was covered with a gas mist Wow and Stephen you never saw your father run so fast in his life I will never run that fast again the guy in Tokyo or whatever's I would have left it behind and I finally found a foxhole or whatever it was I jumped in the goddamn thing blade they're expecting to hear the boom and it never did we just stood there and drained and drained and they finally I think we had foam in those days and they just covered it with foam just stood there for days unbeliev now if you like that was July 252 July 26 we are great Weather Service a how many missions you've flown at that point now it's confusing because we flew it off a lot of missions we didn't get credit for it when we flew a lot of missions a weed that we got double credit for us you got Ploesti we got extra credits so I would say it worked out 40 47 and then July 20 26 with the night it's July 26 was number 48 and how many were you do to fly 50 and we're up in Austria on our way to be in it what happens after 50 missions go home you go and I've got an awful lot of written history in that in the in the closet there you'll be adversity - after the war after when you go through there you'll see you know USAF and we went into Austria and we were flying way apart and couldn't fly in formation because you the clouds it was broken clouds horrible almost a I mean someone should have aborted the mission that's what you meant by when you went great weather services Yeah right they talked up terrible and so anyway we lost I think was it seven planes or something like that but your dad wasn't ailing Charlie and thank goodness I was a navigator instead of eight by instead of a rear rear gunner tail gunner tail gunner Chillicothe the guys well of course that is I don't think it would have made it difference these three ships came in these three planes and they were focke-wulf 190s they were a rotary and air-cooled engine rotary or radial I forget already and it was an air-cooled engine whereas the Messerschmitt was a water-cooled you know in an attitude that the nose came to a point well the focke-wulf one the focke-wulf one night 190 and also the it was an American plane just like her now was a thunderbolt it was a republic Thunderbolt and I'm not sure what the P section was what it was D 35 b-29 P and they will regardless that before he said p-47 thunderbolt okay guy calls up p-47s coming in high six o'clock and I started telling you son of a I don't care who they are open fire he was gone the whole back of the plane was gone whole back of the plane with Cindy Aries and explosives the more specific like the expects incendiary incendiary 20 millimeter shells that big around and explosives well the explosives you didn't see it but anyway it was the back of the plane shot I don't know it they pierced ears not and it was on fire and the engines were on fire the is on the way to the mission Iran that on the way to and so I we were in trouble and why would you set to open fire on these guys because the Germans have American planes I mean I met any this was our directive any aircraft that points your nose their nose at you points you're gunning him immediately don't ask questions if he's a putz enough to point the wrong direction he deserves to die so did this guy that the rest of us didn't and as a result the the plane was a shambles everything was on fire that aluminum like cellophane and crackled like selfie as it burned and I had to get the hell out of here what was the clothes aluminum the whole the by the end up there that painted stuff all that stuff yeah all those were on fire the aluminum was on fire that cast was on fire everything was on fire and I'm down there looking up and Jesus Christ and so anyway the four of us that could still got out and as you know with my cervical spine don't ask me how I got out because the bomb a deer in front of me was okay all right I want to emphasize the fact again I'm sure I did earlier that Italy had a philosophy no crew flew together that came over from the states if you did it was by coincidence I flew with my original crew once their philosophy of course being that you get a little care of some time however my crew would never have allowed this to happen of course that they would see this with a brand new crew and I was the old-timer and the pilots and and and the navigator the three of us and I think a not a top crew or somebody out there was the only there were four of us out of the six out of the ten that we're old-timers arrests were all green first mission and was this guy's first mission and his last and in England of course they all flew together unless of course somebody got killed and an awful lot did you kill them England's a lot more than because in England they had the the defence you know and that is the short hop across the channel to all those English and French areas you know and actually it got easier after d-day but even so it was rough because Germany isn't that far from you know Albuquerque you know what the hell is that

Channel: ccsuvhp

Views: 3,460

Rating: 4.2222223 out of 5

Keywords: Veteran (Profession), World War II (Event), Interview, Central Connecticut State University (Organization), Veterans History Project Of The Library Of Congress American Folklife Center, World War II (Military Conflict)

Id: MiIske5w52g

Length: 106min 24sec (6384 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 15 2013