Mark Enos Kishego
[b. 3/ 11/ 23]
[:05]
[“Today is October 6, 2007. I am Lindsey Blum and ]I am interviewing Mark Kishego at 6435 Kingswood Drive. Mr. Kishego is my neighbor. Mr. Kishego is 84 years old and was born on March 11, 1923. Mr. Kishego served in World War II. Mr. Kishego was in the Fourth Emergency Rescue Squadron connected with the Twentieth Air Force and held the following rank: First Lieutenant.”]
LB: Were you drafted or did you enlist?
MEK: I enlisted.
LB: Where were you living at the time?
MEK: I was at Earlham College. [In] Richmond Indiana.
LB: Why did you join?
MEK: To keep out of the war.
LB: Why did you pick the service branch that you joined?
MEK: ‘Cause I always wanted to be an air pilot and fly airplanes.
LB: Do you recall you first days in service?
MEK: I certainly do.
LB: What did it feel like?
MEK: Terrible.
LB: Tell me about your boot camp or training experience.
MEK: Boot camp took place in Miami Beach, Florida. The Air Force had taken over all those hotels down on the strip of Miami Beach. All the air force recruits for aircrews were trained there in basic training.
LB: How did you get through it?
MEK: I got through with flying colors.
LB: Which war did you serve in?
[1:39]
MEK: World War II
LB: Where exactly did you go?
MEK: My overseas assignment was first in the Hawaiian Islands. Then I went down to Saipan. As soon as Iwo Jima was secured, our squadron flew out of Iwo Jima.
LB: Do you remember arriving and what was it like?
MEK: I remember very vividly arriving on Iwo Jima. It was a desolate island and had been bombarded and all the foliage was gone. It was volcanic ash. It was very a miserable, isolated island in the pacific. Misery is the only thing I can describe it as to Iwo Jima.
LB: What was your job assignment?
MEK: I flew co-pilot on the PBY.
[2:40]
LB: Did you see any combat?
MEK: Yes, I did. I don’t know what you mean by combat. Contact with the enemy? We flew- we did all the air sea rescue for Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet. At that time the Third Fleet was sitting off the coast of Japan. Anytime that they sent their air force capabilities to strafe or otherwise do harm to Japan, we stood off of the coast. If anyone could get back in the water we would land and pick them up. That was the idea.
LB: Was there much causality in your unit?
MEK: Well, there were a few causalities. I would say, offhand, that probably an eighth of the fourth emergency squadron was lost at sea or shot down or for some reason they lost their lives.
LB: Tell me a couple of your most memorable experiences.
[3:54]
MEK: Well, the most memorable experience was when we were assigned to pick up a first lieutenant-a lieutenant-a fighter pilot that was shoot down over Chichi Jima about a hundred miles north of Iwo. He ended up in a lifeboat about fifty yards off the shore. The lifeboat had been dropped. We had B-17’s with a lifeboat underneath. One of those lifeboats was dropped and Lieutenant Schroeppel got into the lifeboat and tried to go out to the open sea but he couldn’t make it. He got stymied on the-about fifty yards from the shore on the rocks. So a PBY was sent to land and to try to pick him up and get him up out of that lifeboat.
[5:06]
We received fire from the island-intense fire. We were just very fortunate that we weren’t all killed. We had mortar fire that they lobbed at us and machine gun fire, rifle fire. Just about anything you want to talk about. But we got out of there. We were only on the water for maybe about ten minutes, but it was a hectic ten minutes. We had fifteen fighter pilots striking the side of the hill with rockets and so forth. Everything was timing and we were very fortunate to get out. But we didn’t get the guy. He was dead when we got there. So we had to leave without him. It’s unfortunate.
LB: Were you ever a prisoner of war?
MEK: No.
LB: How did you stay in touch with your family?
MEK: By letter.
LB: What was the food like?
MEK: The food was adequate.
LB: Did you have plenty of supplies?
MEK: Yes.
LB: Did you feel any pressure or stress?
MEK: Not particularly. No.
LB: Was there something special that you did for good luck?
MEK: No.
LB: How did people entertain themselves?
[6:33]
MEK: Played poker.
LB: Were there any entertainers?
MEK: No.
LB: What did you do when you were on leave?
MEK: I was never on leave. I was on an island and there was no leave to it.
LB: Where did you travel while in the service?
MEK: Well, I traveled from the United States to the Hawaiian Islands and to Saipan and then to Iwo Jima.
[7:00]
LB: Do you recall any particular humorous or unusual events?
MEK: Well, the second night we were on Iwo Jima, the Japanese staged a raid on the Fifty-one squadron that was tented down next to ours. It was a pretty bloody fight. The Japanese came in with their swords and reeked havoc. I can’t remember the exact number of pilots that they killed, but it was at least thirty or forty. But a black work battalion on the station next to the fifty-one squadron came in and cleaned the Japanese out. This is a matter of record in history. The fight lasted most of the night, but I didn’t participate in the fight. All I did was get the hell out of there and get into a bunker.
[8:19]
It was a pretty significant thrill as far as being scared is concerned at night. You don’t know who’s who and what’s what, all that kind of business. But anyway, we weren’t attacked. It was the squadron next to us. The next morning I went down and there were about fifty bodies stacked up like cordwood. That’s the first time I realized that the war is just one hell of a thing to get into. The realization of your own safety and the realization of other people being killed. It just all hit me when that raid took place by the Japanese. I’ve never been the same since as far as taking a different attitude towards the war or towards the Japanese.
LB: [Would you like to share any pictures that you have from your experience?]
[9:27]
MEK: Here’s a picture of the PBY. Most of the guys on their aircraft named their plane some girl or something. We called our plane “Ye Old Lard Ass” because a PBY, if your ever seen a pelican land, you know how a PBY lands. It takes off rather awkward. Here is a picture of the crew. This picture was taken on Iwo Jima. We carried a crew of ten, sometimes eight, sometimes nine, and sometimes ten, but there was a navigator, pilot, co-pilot, engineer, two blister gunners. The two gunners-there was a blister on the back-they operated machine guns off the back blisters.
[10:38]
Navigator sat up right back of the pilot. The engineer sat above the pilot. We also had a doctor on board in case we need to help somebody that we picked up needed attention. This is the Rescue at Chichi Jima. There was an article written about this attempted rescue in Air Force Magazine. The title of the article is “Death at Chichi” and it tells, quite in detail, how Shapperals lost his life and how we were unable to get him out alive. It was a pretty significant horror to realize we came so close and were ender so much danger to get him out and then failed. Captain Anderson, who was the flight surgeon aboard, declared Shapperal dead. After he declared him dead we left. Fortunately, the reconnaissance tapes showed that as we left a shell dropped right behind out tail and if we had been one second slower we would have been blown to kingdom come, I’ll tell you that right now.
LB: What did you think of officers or fellow soldiers?
[12:37]
MEK: I really didn’t think too much about it. I think command in the army is very necessary as far as I’m concerned. I had no feeling about-whether you’re a captain, general, or somewhere in between or an enlisted man. I just didn’t think about those things. I just did what I was supposed to do or tried to do what I was supposed to do. I didn’t pay much attention to who was what rank and all that.
LB: Did you keep a personal diary?
MEK: No, I did not.
[13:22]
LB: Do you recall the day your service ended?
MEK: I certainly do. My service didn’t end until I was mustered out. I was flying over Japan that last day of the war. Admiral Halsey came over the airways and said, and I’ll never forget, he said, “To all aviators: the war is over. Return to base. Do not fire unless fired upon.” We were on a very dangerous mission off the coast of Japan-close to Tokyo in Sagami Bay. I was certainly glad to get home or head home to Iwo. It was a six hundred miles trip back to Iwo and unfortunately for me, my father had taken me to see All Quiet on the Western Front were the gentleman gets plugged on the last day of the war. On that trip, six hundred miles back to Iwo, I was so nervous and concerned, thinking that maybe I’ll lose my life on the last day of the war, the day the war was over. I thought the engines would fall off. I thought we’d get lost. There were horrible storms in the Pacific at that time, but we made it back. But that movie was very vivid in my mind as we headed back to Iwo.
[14:52]
LB: What did you do in the days or weeks afterward?
MEK: After the war? I went back to college.
LB: Was your education supported by the G.I. Bill?
MEK: Yes, it was.
LB: Did you make any close friendships while in the service?
MEK: I certainly did.
LB: For how long?
MEK: Forever. Our whole crew had a squadron reunion every year. Most of them are dead now. In fact, our whole crew is dead except for the pilot and the co-pilot. Captain Richard was the pilot and I was the co-pilot. We’re the only surviving members of the crew of ten.
LB: Did you join a veteran’s organization?
MEK: I only belong to the American Legion.
LB: What did you go on to do as a career after the war?
MEK: A salesman in the paper industry.
[15:52]
LB: Did your military experience influence your thinking about the war or about the military in general?
MEK: Well, I’m just a guy that served like everybody else. I have no particular thoughts one way or another about the war or about my participation in the war. I don’t get all choked up about it, if that’s what you trying to get at.
LB: What kind of activities does your post or association have?
MEK: The American Legion, my only participation in the American Legion, if that’s what the question is, is that I go down there for dinner or lunch. I stopped that ‘cause the food is so horrible.
LB: So you do attend reunions?
MEK: Squadron reunions, yes. Except I’ve stopped because my wife is incapable of going and because I’ve lost interest in the whole thing. I probably will not go to another reunion.
LB: How did your service and experience affect your life, in general?
MEK: It had a good deal of effect on my life. Number one, before I went into the service in the air corps, I thought I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. After I came out, I didn’t want to see another airplane as long as I lived, as far as flying is concerned. And I didn’t. I stopped flying and that was it. I thought my chances and all of my good luck that, had run out. But I’m not afraid to fly or anything like that, I just find it rather boring.
LB: Is there anything that you would like to add that I haven’t covered in this interview? Any stories?
[17:38]
MEK: No, not really. There are all kinds of different stories. One vision that I have in my mind is the first time I came flying out of Iwo and saw the Third Fleet, my jaw dropped down. I never saw so many ships in my life as far as the eye could see-battleships, cruisers, tenders, destroyers. I never saw such an armada. I mean, they talk about the Spanish Armada and all of that but man, when you saw that Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet from the air, it just took your breath away. You couldn’t believe it. It’s sitting right off the coast of Japan, so they were probably getting ready for the invasion of Japan. It was a sight to behold to see all that. In fact I saw the battleship, (which one I have no idea), but what was interesting to me, they had shoot their sixteen-inch guns and the ship would jump back in the water, backwards. That always, kind of, all the forces connected with the forward thrust and then the whole ship jumps back in the water. It’s something to think about and meditate on about physics and all that. Go ahead. Then of course, I was actually up there when General LeMay ordered all the B-17’s to come down to 5,000 feet and to throw incendiaries down the streets of Tokyo. They talk about the Atom Bomb, but I’ll tell you something, that was horror in itself. I, of course, wasn’t there when the descenders were armed, but I flew over after they had bombed and there was still fire down on the ground. Oh, it was horrible. [It was] a horrible sight to be seen. I don’t care whether you, but to burn up-to burn up civilians and so forth, it does something to you that you just kinda don’t think about. Go ahead, that’s all I got to say.
[20:02]
LB: What was a typical day in training like?
MEK: Well, in the air force training is actually routine. It was interesting, to me at least. Flying and I don’t think there was anything really unusual about it. In fact, you went by the book and you did what you were told. Other than that it was really uneventful except for the fact that, especially in primary training, the first time you were in the air and all that. In fact, I had a little pre-experience in what they call CTD, the college training detachment. Young fellows were sent to a college campus, including me. I was sent to Western State Teachers College in Bowling Green, Kentucky where we had ten hours of flying in a piper cub.
[21:15]
The only event there, which was an unusual event, [was when] I was waiting on the flight line for the gentleman in front of me whose name was Eddie Karrasic. He was a Polish guy from Chicago. When his plane came in I noticed there was something unusual. I couldn’t figure out what it was and no one else could either. Someway he got his seatbelt off and his head went through the fuselage. No one could ever determine what it was. I thought he was going to get washed out, but they didn’t wash him out. It was some mix up with his instructor. His head was actually sticking out the plane when they landed. That was an unusual happening, of course, in the scheme of things that happened in the first part of training. Then, of course, we went on to primary training where we trained in a PT-13, I think. It was a single-engine plane. There was hardly anything unusual about primary training. In fact, that was the first stage of getting your wings.
[22:45]
LB: How many years did you spend in training?
MEK: Well, it wasn’t a matter of years. It was probably less than a year. There were three stages: primary, basic, and advanced training.
LB: So what did you do during each stage of your training?
MEK: You were assigned an instructor in each stage. You and the instructor stayed together throughout that particular phase. So if there was any conflict between you and the instructor, you could ask for a change in instructor. No one ever did because in the air force or the army or any place else in the service if you get out of the scheme of things, well, sometimes things happen that you just don’t want to happen. So, you go along with the program.
LB: What types of planes did you fly while you were in training?
MEK: I probably should start in primary training-PT-13’s and then in primary training, basic training we took the AT-6s. I think it was the AT-6. Then in advanced training we flew the tens, twin engines.
LB: How did your time in training differ from your life at home?
MEK: About 100% different. The discipline that was necessary to survive. I grew up an only child and being thrown in with everyone else-the discipline was a pretty significant change. I’m glad it happened. The one thing I got out of the service was that discipline that has stuck to me to this day.
LB: What kind of food did you eat when you were training and in the service?
MEK: I never even thought about the food. It was alright. We had our cake and ice cream. It wasn’t anything much different than at home.
LB: What is a PBY?
[25:26]
MEK: A PBY is a patrol bomber. It was a workhorse in the army services. Now the unusual part about my experience with a PBY was the fact that the PBY is normally associated with the navy. I was in the Army Air Corps and the reason that we flew PBYs is because the Army Air Force was running their own rescue units. So they established training down at Pensacola and would train you with the Navy, but they were entirely separate from the Navy. When we got out at the Pacific why I could see why that was necessary because in quarantine between Twentieth Air Force, all that, well it was right for the Army to have their own air sea rescue units and be directly controlled by the Army Air Corps rather than the Navy. There always was a little bit contention there because the fact that we were both Army and Navy made the Navy pilots a little uncomfortable. While I had no experience in training with the Navy, I do think that they were trained better than we were, particularly in navigation.
LB: How far could a PBY fly?
[26:59]
MEK: Well, it had a range-it could stay in the air for at least twenty-five hours. With the wingtanks and so forth, there was quite a range. The trouble is that the speed is rather limited. Ninety knots. We always laughed about it. It took off at ninety, landed at ninety, and flew at about ninety knots. So the speed was rather modest. In fact, we called our plane “Ye Old Lard Ass,” because it was like a landing pelican in the water and taking off. It was a little cumbersome.
LB: How many crewmembers could it hold?
MEK: We carried in our crews anywhere from nine to twelve, depending on the circumstances. We had a pilot and co-pilot, of course. We had an engineer. We had a navigator. We had two tail-gunners. We had a flight surgeon. Sometimes, depending on the mission, there were one or two others on the crew were on the crew for special missions.
LB: What type of missions would you have when you needed a large crew?
[28:25]
MEK: When we were flying out of Iwo Jima and doing most of the air sea rescue. Our squadron, the twentieth air force, was flying their bombers out of Saipan and Tinian. One of the reasons they took Iwo all was because there was a landing place for these bombers and a place for rescue work to take place. It was about six hundred miles from Tinian and Saipan up to Iwo and then about another six hundred miles on to Japan. So the all the PBY missions that I flew were all flown out of Iwo Jima. We flew six hundred miles there and six hundred miles back. We would stay maybe an hour or two, not more than an hour to bomb and all that. That was the halfway point, Iwo. That’s where I was stationed at. Our squadron operated under the command of the Twentieth Air Force. Under certain circumstances when we went up and did air sea rescue for Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet, then, of course, the Navy took over command from the Third Fleet.
LB: What was the Third Fleet?
[30:06]
MEK: The Third Fleet was Admiral Halsey’s armada that stood off of the shore of Japan towards the last of the war. Not only did they throw in their sixteen-inch guns, but they had a notable aircraft carrier and it would attack from this huge armada that was stationed just off of the coast around Tokyo. It was one of the most fantastic sights I’ve ever seen in my life. As far as the eye could see [there were] battleships, carriers, cruisers, tenders. You just couldn’t believe it once you saw that from the air for the first time. It was overwhelming.
LB: Where did the Third Fleet mostly go to?
MEK: As far as I know, I have no knowledge of where the Third Fleet went or didn’t go, but the only experience I had was when they were stationed off of the coast of Japan and Tokyo Sagami Bay area and the armada was striking the Japanese homeland. This was towards the end of the war, of course.
LB: Can you describe some of your rescue missions?
[31:36]
MEK: I did not fly pilot so I want that understood. I flew co-pilot. I had very little experience in a PBY because I was training in a twin engine, for the invasion of Japan, but I volunteered into the Fourth Emergency Rescue Squadron. I was never trained in a PBY. In fact, some people say it’s the most daring attempt at rescue ever made in WWII. I flew co-pilot because it through a freak set of circumstances that I was chosen to go on this mission. One of the P-51 pilots was shot down over Chichi Jima. Our crew, headed by Captain Richardson, probably the best pilot that God ever created and He chose me to go on this mission even though I had a definite lack of experience in the PBY. Lieutenant Schroeppel was shot down and then, by his own decision, tried to paddle out to the open sea from the bay there at Chichi. He got out there in the open. He got tired and the currents carried him back on shore. We ended up about fifty yards off the shore of Chichi Jima.
[33:20]
Right above his position was a Japanese blockhouse and I’ll never forget that. The first thing that happened is that he got in the rocks off the shore. The first thing that happened is they dropped him a lifeboat with a motor from a B-17, which is in our squadron. He got into this lifeboat but he had trouble starting the engine and doing anything more. The reports were that he was stuck in the bottom, but he waved his hand. Waving for help, so to speak, to the aircraft that flew over. We continued to not do anything. We knew he was still alive and decided to send a PBY in to land on the water to pick him up. So that’s what we did. Richardson did one of the most fantastic flying jobs. I had no experience. This was the third or fourth time I’d ever been in a PBY. But anyway, Captain Richardson set it down and got up to the lifeboat. We had top cover of about twenty P-51s surrounding throwing rockets and armed into the blockhouse and into the side of the hill. It looked like everything was on fire. We got down on the water and got though the rocks and got up to the side of the lifeboat. After what seemed to be an eternity, they declared the man in the lifeboat dead. He didn’t have a close examination and that’s stuck with me for the rest of my life.
[35:28]
We took off and I thought I was underwater. We had the damndest takeoff that you could ever imagine. It was a miracle that we even made it. We got it off the ground. I helped get the aircraft off the ground or out of the water, as I should say. I didn’t really quite realize what danger we were in until the reconnaissance gun cameras showed that as we took off and left the place and left the location, there was an explosion behind our tail. So, I think if we’d been one second slower I wouldn’t be here telling this story. There must be, somewhere in the archives of the film of WWII, a picture of this event because I definitely remember the reconnaissance film showed the takeoff and the fact that these shells landed right behind our tail. Of course, the plane was full of holes and we got back to Iwo.
[36:38]
The surprising part of the whole thing is that if one shot had been put in our gas tanks, we would have been blown sky high because we didn’t even have self-sealing gas tanks. It was really a miracle that we got out of there alive-all of us. We didn’t complete the mission. It breaks my heart that, after all the effort, we didn’t save the lieutenant. There is still that possibility in the back of my mind that the lieutenant was still alive. The doctor said he was dead, but he didn’t get out of the boat and check him either. I don’t like to think about it. Go ahead.
LB: How did it feel to be chosen for planes that you hadn’t been trained for?
MEK: What?
LB: How did it feel to be chosen as a co-pilot for the PBYs that you didn’t train in?
[37:36]
MEK: That was quite a story. I wasn’t chosen. See what happened was that I was trained here in the states among fifty elite crews for the invasion of Japan. They needed paratroopers and rescuers during the invasion. That’s what I was trained for. I still say that one of the most exciting events that could possibly happen to anybody in flying is to come down in a C-47 and hook a glider off of the ground. There was about two seconds in there when the hook hits the rope and you don’t know and you’re only twenty feet off the ground and you don’t know whether you’re going forward, down, or what the hell’s going to happen. I only did this twice. I was training right here in Indianapolis-out in Stout Field is where that training took place, to snatch gliders off the ground. Well anyways, I said, “Well aren’t we going around? I’d like to try it again.” He says, “No. You heard about the third time? Twice is all you get, as far as experience is concerned.” In that two times, he hooked a glider once and I hooked it once. That’s all the training that you had on glider snatching, is what they call it. When I stopped to think about it, that’s about all I wanted about that. That two seconds there when that hook hits that glider rope and whether you’re going to go forward and you’re only about twenty feet off the ground. It gets really exciting.
[39:15]
I was chosen as the elite fifty crews for the invasion of Japan. We ended up out in the Hawaiian Islands. We were bogged down out there, waiting for the invasion of Japan and to do our duty. It was boring as hell, but was a beautiful place. One day I, to do something, was flying mail around the Hawaiian Islands and I got disoriented for just a few seconds. It dawned on me that the Pacific Ocean was one big place and a person could get really lost. It’s so large. The thought just dawned on me. It was only a few seconds, but I got disoriented. You could see from one island to the next almost in the chain.
[40:13]
With that in mind, the next morning there was a note on the bulletin board. They wanted a volunteer co-pilot for the Fourth Emergency Rescue out of Saipan. I thought, well, a PBY can land on the water, that’s one thing. Then my background is that my parents were Quakers and Pacifists, of course, and I thought that maybe it would be better to save people than it would be to kill people. Saving people might be more to my mother’s liking, so I volunteered. I’ll never forget it. I volunteered at ten o’clock in the morning and at ten o’clock that night I was on my way to Japan-I mean Saipan. I was on my way to Saipan. I got to Saipan and they told me I had my choice of three crews. I’d forgotten all about the fact that I had no experience and that I would have to fly co-pilot. I went up with the first guy and I didn’t like him at all. I went up with the second crew under Captain Richardson. I knew right away that I wanted to fly with this guy, because he was a natural born pilot and he seemed to handle that PBY pretty well. He was a great guy and so was the crew. I made my choice to fly with Captain Richardson. That was one flight.
[42:07]
Now I had one flight in a PBY. The next thing that happened-we flew to Iwo Jima about two days later. That was the second time I was in a PBY. The third time I was in a PBY was when Richardson told me, “This is gonna be a dangerous mission. I want you to go. If you don’t want to because of your lack of experience in a PBY, I’ll understand.” I said, “I’ll go.” To show you some of my inexperience during the landing, the PBY pops rivets every time it hits the water and water comes up through these rivet holes. On board they carried penny pencils to stuff down the rivet holes to swell up and stops the water from coming up. Well, we landed at Chichi, one of the crewmembers came up and asked me where the pencils were. I thought he wanted to write his last will and testament. I said, “I don’t have a pencil but here’s my pen.” He looked at me kind of funny and laughed. I didn’t know, until I got back off the mission, that he thought I was trying to make some kind of a joke. It wasn’t a joke at all as far as I was concerned-no joke under fire. I didn’t know anything about this pencil sticking up the rivet holes in a PBY. It was kinda of funny. It all worked out.
LB: What types of supplies were given to your crew?
MEK: What kind of what?
LB: Supplies.
MEK: There was nothing that I could see that I wanted in terms of supplies. What we we’re given was adequate.
LB: Did other members in your crew have a lot of stress or pressure during the war?
[44:20]
MEK: Yes. I mention this only because it could happen to anybody. We had a problem on our crew with the navigator who broke down and cried quite a bit of the time, particularly when we were flying off Japan and the coast of Chichi. He cried and freaked out. Well, Captain Richardson thought that we should just do something about this. I liked Groover and he and I became friends. I knew that something bad might happen if he was put on report for crying. I kind of understood it. I felt like crying myself a couple of times. For the rest of the crew, it was unsettling and I went to bat for Lieutenant Groover and tried to handle it myself with him. When I saw he was in trouble, I had to go back and try to get him to not do anything because he was emotional. He had complete control over this, I didn’t.
[45:37]
I’ve always been proud of myself because Groover ending the war with the rest of the crew and we all went home. If he had been taken out for this particular reason, I don’t know what might have happened to him. I just love the guy. He was a super navigator, that was in my report. The navigation from Iwo up to Japan and then flew up through Japan and then getting us back to Iwo, he was a fantastic navigator. He knew his facts and figures and stars and all that. That was one of the reasons I wanted to keep him on the crew, but it wasn’t my say-so, it was Captain Richardson’s say-so. I talked Captain Richardson into it. That was the only emotional issue ever, at least to me.
[46:31]
LB: What was your family’s reaction to the war?
MEK: My father was dead and my mother, of course being an only son, she handled it rather well. She said, “Son, whatever you decide to do is fine with me. I was raised a pacifist and a Quaker, but it is up to you to decide what you want to do.” I was at Earlham College at the time and I decided I wanted to be a pilot. So that was the end of that.
LB: Was she ever worried about you?
MEK: She was constantly worried. She’s a very religious person. I found out later that after the war, she had a young gal next door come over and read the Bible to her all the time and pray for my best interests, which I suppose any mother would do. I appreciate one of the interesting stories.
[47:40]
[End Side A, Begin Side B]
[:06]
My mother knew a man from Japan by the name of Yuri Watanabe. My mother not only verbally but my letter, told me that if I was ever shot down over Japan, that I should tell them that I knew Yuri Watanabe. She thought that maybe that would help. I was never shot down over Japan. I found out later that Watanabe in Japan is like Smith here in the United States. I don’t know what would have happened if I had mentioned Yuri Watanabe’s name. Watanabe is like Smith here in the United States. There are a lot of Watanabes here in Japan.
LB: Did you have any friends that were enlisted or drafted?
[:48]
MEK: Quite a few friends, they were all young [in] college, high school, and my town. Most of the guys in college that I knew joined these programs where you could stay in college and finish out college and then go into the service. I gonna tell you something, when you volunteered that was what you thought you were getting into. I made no bones about it. I volunteered for the air corps because I wanted to fly, but mostly because I wanted to keep out of the war. Anybody that was in college at that time, or whatever, that’s the reason. All of us joined these programs. The part we didn’t understand was we got our names signed up and three months later they called you in for service. It was all a kinda of a ruse to get you signed up and getcha in.
LB: How did they respond to going to war?
MEK: Who?
LB: Your friends.
[1:56]
MEK: It was all inevitable. They all knew that they were going to serve. It was just a matter of time and how they wanted to serve. At Earlham we had some conscientious objectors. They wanted to do something where you didn’t have to kill people. They would rather be conscientious objectors and stay out of the war all together. They volunteered for the Red Cross Organization and mercy work. I don’t believe in any of that.
LB: After the war ended, how long did it take for you to get back home?
MEK: As far as the Pacific was concerned, I returned to Saipan and stayed a couple of months in Saipan. I had enough points so I was the first group to get off of Saipan. I came home on the aircraft carrier Independence. You got awarded for medals and flying time. I think it was eighty-five points that sent you home. I was in the first batch. I had more points to get out right away.
[3:31]
LB: How was your college experience different after the war?
MEK: I didn’t see a big significant change except the fact that I was more mature and more focused in what I wanted to do. Thank God for the G.I. Bill of Rights. Most everybody, even at Earlham, was under the G.I. Bill. ‘Cause I had no money and when I came back my education was paid for.
LB: What was the G.I. Bill?
MEK: The G.I. Bill was offered to all veterans if they wanted to go to college. The government paid for it. As far as the social stuff goes, even though I’m not a cock-eyed liberal, I sure appreciated it. I think everyone that came back who went to college appreciated it.
LB: Did you win any awards when you were [in the war]?
MEK: I just won air medals. I had about seven or eight air medals.
LB: What are air medals?
[5:12]
MEK: They’re the smallest form of recognition that you could get for flying. Captain Richardson got the Silver Star for what he did at Chichi Jima. The rest of the crew was put into the formal Distinguished Flying Cross. I regret that to this day. I know how I felt about it. Major LeMay asked me what I thought of the medal and I said, “I think Captain Richardson should have the highest award that you can give him. With the crew, I have a guilty feeling that we didn’t save him, that we didn’t get his body. We left his body there because he was dead. There’s a certain amount of guilt that I have.” I was only talking about myself, not the crew. The end result of that was the crew didn’t get anything.
[6:25]
I really regret that statement. What he did for the rest of the crew, I’m only speaking for myself but it involved the rest of the crew. I didn’t think that was very fair to the crew. We were under the same danger. They did their job. We got there and we got off and got back. Why not give them the Distinguished Flying Cross at least? Leave me out. I didn’t care anything about it. The crew was who I felt sorry for because I felt guilty about the fact that I should’ve never made such a statement. I did it and I regret it.
LB: Do you have any other regrets or things you wish you had done during the war?
MEK: No I don’t really.
[7:22]
LB: What was your family background?
MEK: My family background was rather interesting. My father was a full blood Ottawa Indian, an American Indian that came from Northern Michigan. The marriage between my mother and my father was quite a love story. My mother was at Earlham College and her roommate was a Binford. You notice that the way to Indianapolis is on Binford Road, 37 changes to Binford. One of those Binfords was my mother’s roommate back in 1917. She talked my mother into going up to Northern Michigan and staying in a hotel, Charlevoix Beach Hotel. My dad was a cook’s helper at the Charlevoix Beach Hotel. It must’ve been one hell of a hot summer because she didn’t see him for two years. But that’s where they met that summer. She goes back and comes back to Indiana and gets engaged to another gentlemen. The marriage was about three weeks away and my father showed up, thank God, at the front door. She ran away with him to Travers City, Michigan. They married and left the other one. I know the guy. His name is Burt Wheeler. Right at the last minute there before the marriage. The Quaker community got all upset about this because marring outside of Quakerism and outside of race. They had a difficult time coping with it. The Quakers have a “reading the family out of the meeting”. They never read their family out of the meeting, but it was certainly a traumatic experience for everybody. Back then marrying out of your race is not what it is today. Back then it was quite a traumatic event.
LB: Do you think your family’s background affected your time in the war?
MEK: No. It had nothing to do with it.
LB: At the time of the war were you in a relationship or married?
MEK: No. I was single.
LB: Did you enlist as soon as the war began?
[10:22]
MEK: Very shortly afterwards. I didn’t enlist though. What I did was I went over and joined the Air Force on a program where you went to college and finished your college. Then you went into the service. It didn’t work out that way. As soon as I signed up they called me in three months later.
LB: Did you develop friendships during your training?
MEK: Lasting friendships. Captain Richardson, the guy that I say is the world’s greatest pilot, went on to flying with Piedmont Airlines. He and I are still close.
LB: Did you have friends or family in service or doing war work?
MEK: My dad’s brother, Fred Kishego, fought in the invasion of Africa. He received some very, very high medals. I forget, but I think he got two silver stars. He was so decorated. He was a full-blooded Ottawa, just like my dad. He fought in the African Campaign for the most part.
[12:09]
LB: How did you feel about the war in general?
MEK: Frankly, I never had a feeling of depth about the war, whether it was right or wrong or in between. It was just the fact that my father always told me that pacifism is fine and all that but when they start coming through the front door, son, you and I are going to fight. So I was always torn between my mother’s thoughts on pacifism and my dad’s [opinion]. In today’s world if they’re coming through the front door it’s too late. You might as well forget it. But back then it was his expression. He had the experience what I never experienced as far as American Indians are concerned. His kind was moved off his land up at Bert Lake. It’s really a story of man’s inhumanity to man. He was raised by the nuns up at Harbor Springs, Michigan. They grabbed him out of his family at about four or five years old and took him down. I don’t say it’s good or bad. I just say what happened.
[13:31]
LB: Does your time in the war affect your opinions about the war today?
MEK: Well, in a way it does. It still goes back to my mother’s feelings about war and the Quaker’s stand on war. My dad’s people are perfect examples that when you’re invaded you lose control of your own destiny. I think that’s something you better start thinking about thinking about. Try to stop it if you possible can. Some of the things that happened to my dad’s people, you’ve got to be kidding me. Let me put it this way, my dad always said, “The whole world might be different if we would have shot the shit out of Columbus.” If he didn’t land over here, none of this invasion stuff would have happened. That’s an expression, but you get the meaning of it. You better protect your homeland. You better protect your house and where you live. I don’t know if all the prayer in the world can stop someone from coming in and doing you harm. At a certain point you’ve got to protect your self. That includes the individual and relation in itself.
[15:22]
LB: Did people in your community treat you differently because of any factors like your gender, ethnicity, or race?
MEK: That’s an interesting question that you just asked. Kendallville, Indiana, where I was born and raised, did not allow blacks in the city over-night. I didn’t know anything about this. I had seen very few black people. I never had any thoughts about it, black or white. The unusual part about this was they accepted my father. We had at a bakery at Kendallville. They wouldn’t have blacks but for some reason they accepted my father and his business. I think that’s kinda interesting.
LB: What were some of the very first changes in your life after the war started?
MEK: The changes in my life were, of course, the war itself. That changed my life totally. Things started to happen. I had promise in myself. I could fly an airplane. I went back to college and got my college degree. It got my situation all together.
[16:50]
LB: Did take on any different responsibilities after the war started?
MEK: I can’t think of any. I got married. I got a job first. I got married in 1948 to a gal that lived off campus in Richmond. I knew her before the war. When I came back she went on a few dates with me. Before she wouldn’t even date me. I was there with my wings on and all that.
LB: What were weddings like during the wartime?
MEK: I wasn’t married during the war, so I have not knowledge. Some of my friends got married during the war. I can’t remember all of the different stories they told about being married down in Fortville or Texas or this or that. I guess some of the marriages were conducted in a military way. I have no knowledge of that. Some would rather have a justice of peace rather than a big wedding. I know that.
LB: Did you ever worry that the U.S. might not win?
MEK: I never even really thought about that before.
[18:25]
LB: Did you know anyone that was killed in the war?
MEK: I did. Quite a few of my friends from Kendallville, Indiana never came back. There was one gentleman whose name was Wible. He was president of his high school class, one of the best looking guys and personable. He got killed.
LB: Tell me about corresponding using letters with you friends or family?
MEK: I was a little lax on that cause I only had my mother. My aunt helped my mother because my father was dead. She was the most important person. I was lax in writing her. I always felt guilty about it. It was kind of interesting because when the war was over, it didn’t seem like more than a few days, I was still on Iwo and my mother was a scientist at this time. She left Quakerism and became a scientist. She went to the church and they sent a chap on Iwo to see what was the matter with me, to see if I was dead or alive. I wrote her everyday from then on.
[20:14]
LB: What effect did the war have on you physical or mental health or on others that you knew?
MEK: I don’t think about it that much. I quit flying and I have no contact with flying whatsoever. I thought I was going to fly for the rest of my life. At the end when I got home I lost interest in flying all together. I think it’s boring. You just sit there and watch all the instruments. The only time it gets unboring is when you have trouble and that doesn’t happen on these modern planes. To sit there and sit there and sit there, I wonder what the point is. You just sit there and watch the instrument panel. Back then you at least did a little manual control of the airplane. Today you just go in and punch a button and it’s all done electronically. I can tell you one thing about flying; in two or three seconds it can change and get very exciting. If something goes wrong, that is.
[21:54]
LB: Do you think that medical care changed because of the war?
MEK: I really don’t know about the change in medical care. We have a social program for the older, Medicare. I really don’t know. I suppose it had something to do with it. We had the G.I. Bill of Rights. I think it had something to do with our social progress as far as health care is concerned. If you ask me if we should go any further, I had no answer to that.
LB: How did your community respond to the war and civil defense initiatives?
MEK: I really don’t know ‘cause I wasn’t home during the war years. I heard some stories that they had block captains. It was a small town. The possibility of anything bad happening to Kendallville, Indiana during World War II was pretty remote.
LB: Tell me about shortages and rationing for food and gas.
[23:15]
MEK: I was always kinda tickled because I didn’t smoke. A girlfriend of mine smoked these damn Ramsey cigarettes. In the first place I didn’t smoke and in the second place you could buy all the cigarettes you wanted in the service. She would send me a pack of Ramsey cigarettes, it was an off-brand that they had during the war. It was kinda funny.
LB: How did your family cope with the wartime shortages?
MEK: It was only my mother and she had no problems with the war shortages. We didn’t even have a car, no gasoline. She didn’t have any problems.
LB: To what extent was there hoarding or black market activity in your area?
MEK: I have no recollection at all about any of that.
LB: How did you feel about war news from the radio?
MEK: I never listened to it. There were very limited amounts of war news. Before I went into the service everyone huddled around the radio and Franklin Delano Roosevelt came on. There was something in his voice that seemed to inspire. I was not particularly a Roosevelt fan, but I always thought that he could lead and inspire people. I think he was the right President for us during the time of war.
[25:09]
LB: Is there one thought about your wartime experience that you would like to share with future generations?
MEK: The only thought that I have is that anywhere you look at it whether its person to person or group against group or nation against nation. Someday all of mankind has to end this kind of activity someplace in history. Try your best to be very kind to your neighbors, start there. Be good to the people that you associate with. Love everybody. Express love individually and in groups and so forth. Try to get out of your heart the hatred that man seems to have. End all these atrocities and violence against one another. Somewhere along the line, I don’t know whether religion will do it. So far it hasn’t. Some of the worst atrocities, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, [were caused by religion]. I don’t know when, but mankind has to resolve this desire to kill somebody, like another man. Love will get you a lot further than hatred. Let’s put it that way.
LB: Is there anything else that I should ask you?
MEK: I can’t think of anything.
[27:01]
