Louis J. Lindeman
[b. 9/1/1924]
[00:08]
I am Kathryn Lerch and I am doing an interview today which is Sept. 16th, [2007] with Louis J. Lindeman from Oakley, Kansas. We’re at the reunion of the 780th Bomb Squadron at the Embassy Suites North in Indianapolis. Mr. Lindeman was born Sept. 1, 1924. He is 83 years old. He is going to tell us some stories of his experiences in WWII. [tape sound level very low]
[00:26]
KW Lerch: Could you tell me please where you were Dec. 7, 1941?
LJ Lindeman: I heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I going to high school and washing dishes in a café and I heard it come over the radio.
KWL: What was your impression at the time?
LJL: I knew something big was going to happened but I had no idea how big it was going to be.
KWL: Did you complete high school?
LJL: No, I didn’t. I had an older brother and he was helping my dad on the farm and he had to go into the service, so I had to quite high school to help my dad. So I didn’t get through high school. I had two and a half years in.
KWL: What was your dad doing? Farming in Oakley, Kansas?
LJL: Farming. It was tough years –we had been through a big drought, the Depression—just coming out of it.
KWL: So your brother went off and enlisted?
LJL: I think he was drafted.
KWL: Where did he serve?
LJL: He was in the Eighth Air Force.
KWL: Did that start your thinking about which branch of the service you would go to?
LJL: Possibly it did. Yeah. Of course I was just a farm kid and seeing planes over—oh, that would be nice. Somehow I will do that.
[02:13]
KWL: How did you get involved with the Air Corps? Tell me about your early training.
LJL: My dad had an agricultural deferment for me. I was just about the only one left in the neighborhood. All the other friends of mine were all gone. I went up to the draft fair and I volunteered for the draft. I owed my country too much. And that’s how I got in. I went to the induction center at Denver and shipped down through Laredo, Texas for basic training. I had hopes of being a cadet, but they needed gunners worse than they needed cadets, so they washed the whole class out and sent us to gunnery school in Laredo, Texas. Went to gunnery school there and then we went up to Lincoln, Nebraska and they grouped us together there as a crew and then went to Tucson, Arizona and when we got that done we came up to Kansas and picked up a new B-24 airplane and started for overseas.
[03:42]
KWL: When did you head for Europe?
LJL: I was in Topeka in September the Fall of ’44, it was probably October when we got over there; we went to ______[?], then New Hampshire, then Newfoundland and then down to the Azores and into North Africa, then up into Italy.
[04:10]
KWL: That was a long trip. What were your first impressions of North Africa? Where was your base in North Africa initially after you landed?
LJL: Natal. I didn’t like it too well; it was kind of primitive.
KWL: What was the weather like there?
LJL: It was warm. It was not uncomfortably hot.
KWL: Did you do some more training here once you got to this destination?
LJL: We did a little staging, a few training missions until we get to it was going to go. The bases were already established and we were coming over as replacements, too. We flew over Tunisia which was very heavily fought--foxholes, foxholes. Airplanes were going all over and we could see heavy fighting there.
KWL: How many months roughly, how long a time were you still in North Africa.
LJL: Approximately a few weeks—I’m not sure, it wasn’t very long.
KWL: Now did you stay with your same crew that you came over with?
LJL: Yes, yes.
KWL: Tell me something about your crew.
LJL: Great _____[?] We got along real good. We had a very hut [Difficult to understand (emotional) – lost some?]
KWL: They say you are a “band of brothers.
LJL: Yes.
KWL: Now, in your job—you were a gunner on a B-24. What position were you?
[06:15]
LJL: I was top turret gunner and assistant engineer.
KWL: Tell me more about—what were the duties involved of the top turret gunner. What types of things did you have to do on a regular basis, training, and operations . . .?
LJL: [unintelligible]—watch for fighters, and shoot at them as they came at us—to try to protect the airplanes.
KWL: Can you relate to the very first time that you were flying and finally were into combat and not training anymore.
[06:57]
LJL: Yeah. You are kind of anxious. You are ready to go. The first mission we went up, of course there was worry about what’s going to happen. You get up there and there is some FlaK out here, well that is a piece of cake, end of this and we finished that mission. Think it was two or three more then we had a bad mission and I found out what it was like.
KWL: It must have been pretty scary.
LJL: [emotional] It was. If they were coming in, you had something you had something to do. But just sitting there for FlaK—just sitting there waiting—
KWL: You had to just stay there in your formation.
LJL: Oh yes. –Straight an level.
KWL: What was your typical elevation?
[07:57]
LJL: I’d say around 20,000 feet. Those planes would not go much higher than that.
KWL: Can you remember any particular mission you were on or share some of the destinations?
LJL: We did have some—Blechhammer –an oil storage place. It always had awfully heavy FlaK and we had lost some airplanes over there.
KWL: Did you go against Blechhammer more than once?
LJL: I think two or three times. And Ploesti oil fields—we hit it and it was the same thing. We hit Vienna, Austria and it was heavily defended. Mostly bombed marshalling yards and stuff there. It was to cripple their transportation.
KWL: You tried to cripple their transportation—that was certainly the objective.
LJL: We did a lot.
KWL: Now Blechhammer you mentioned that one—what was the target there.
LJL: It was the oil fields.
KWL: How did you know you were successful or not—were there pictures ever taken?
LJL: I being up top couldn’t see the ground, so could not tell. If it was a clear day then some of the people could see the ground and tell. The boys had pictures about the next day . . .
[10:04]
KWL: When your particular squad flew, how many planes were involved in missions.
LJL: As a rule, nine planes.
KWL: And that’s ten-man crews?
LJL: Yes.
KWL: So [as a] top turret gunner, you’re way up there in the bubble . . . You could get a bird’s eye view.
LJL: Yes.
KWL: Can you remember one particular mission or two particular missions that stick with you?
LJL: Well, yeah. I had one mission that I [almost] died—I think it was at Vienna, I’m not sure now, but a big view over the target and I looked down I noticed my eyes couldn’t see too good. I looked down on my oxygen—one in my turret we had two tanks underneath—and I had my own oxygen and the engineer asked “what’s wrong?” I tried to call him and I knew something was happening because my eyes were getting blurrier. So I called over the inter-phone and told the crew I was out of oxygen. I pulled my seat belt and it drops your seat out, and I reached down and pulled that thing and that’s the last thing I remember. I come to and our navigator from up front and put an oxygen bottle on me and I come to and –[parts unintelligible]—what an easy death that was –I didn’t even feel—I remember pulling that cord but don’t remember hitting the floor, and I had to fall down.
KWL: it was a good thing you had a navigator there.
[12:00]
LJL: Yes. The crew knew about it.
KWL: So once they gave you some oxygen, did you get right back in the turret?
LJL: Well, they had to fill the oxygen tanks first.
KWL: Well, that is probably one of those checklist items on a mission.
LJL: Yes, it is. [unintelligible]
KWL: When you were up there in the turret, what were the types of things you usually you saw coming towards you?
LJL: Any 109s mostly . . .I didn’t like any of them.
KWL: Any particular one worse than another.
LJL: The Messerschmidts [?]. The toughest ones.
KWL: What made them particularly tough?
LJL: They were smaller and they could maneuver fast. They could turn sharply and they always had some armor under them and they could shoot at you turn their belly at you. [unintelligible]
[13:01]
KWL: So you had Vienna, Ploesti and Blechhamer. . .
LJL: And Linz—I think that there was a ball bearing factory there—I’m not sure about that, but our standard _________ [?], we thought we were just doing our job. [rest unintelligible]
KWL: What became your eventual landing field—were you flying out of Bari?
LJL: Pantanella.
KWL: Where was that near?
LJL: It was between Naples and Bari. I think it was a small town---I can’t recall the name right now. Penosha. [?]
[14:18]
KWL: What was a typical day like, what time did you get up, could you go through the order of events?
LJL: An early hour--they posted the missions the next day—and you’d get up at four in the morning or 3:30 and go down to the briefing and go to breakfast—I don’t remember now—it was a long time ago. We’d be in the flight line and have your planes and warm them up and of course we always went in big groups—we had nine groups. And then the squadron there was four squadrons to a group and then there was some groups to a wing, and there would be hundreds of us, so we would circle and circle, and circle too and all got in formation and then we’d take off to our target. Then we had a Initial Point [IP] we go to and from there on use the bomb sites, and then --- to the target. Then turn and head back for home.
KWL: On a wing and a prayer as they say. Navigators often would indicate on their navigation charts the intended targets and it had usually an acronym—initials that began . . . .Can you remember some of the names?
LJL: The navigators did that and we didn’t have nothing to do with that.
KWL: You just did your job.
LJL: Yeah. They’d always tell us where the heaviest FlaK would be—they usually knew. . .
KWL: You couldn’t really dodge FlaK because you had to fly in formation. . . .
LJL: We would if we could. If you get to your IP or Initial Point from there on head straight to the target.
KWL: When you went to your targets, I knew you were doing protection for your plane what were the usual types of bomb loads carried for your destinations?
LJL: Most of the time, it was 500 pounders or sometimes 200 pounders.
KWL: If your target were ball bearing factories or the oil refineries, then obviously your job is to get them out of commission.
LJL: Yes, yes. You set them on fire.
KWL: Once you set them on fire, did you have problems with navigation with all the smoke?
LJL: No, we were up at 20,000 feet. They did try earlier low level bombing and it did not work.
KWL: On any of these particular missions, was there any one or another that was more difficult that you can remember?
LJL: There was a lot of difference in them—yes. The heavier ones were like the Blechhammer ones where the ____________[unintelligible]
[17:53]
LJL: I think we went to Blechhammer two or three times.
KWL: How many missions did you participate in?
LJL: Twenty-five.
KWL: It depended on whether you were in the Pacific or Europe where you could have thirty-five missions and go home.
[18:18]
LJL: We had thirty. The war ended before we got the thirtieth.
KWL: You were fortunate.
LJL: I might mention, too, in January the weather got bad and we couldn’t a mission and we went two or three weeks solid without missions. So they asked for volunteers to fly these airplanes up and we put on 100 pound bombs and the fuses would be set to go off every thirty minutes or hour –to putting these [?] factories so that they couldn’t rebuild. We get some interesting_____[?] here, and we volunteered for that. [extra unintelligible chatter]
KWL: How many of those missions did you fly?
LJL: We flew two of them. We flew the first one and we wanted to get out, but couldn’t. We weren’t too distraught about it—when you get up there with 200 or 300 more planes and the FlaK comes up, they’re shooting at somebody else. When you go up there and the FlaK is coming and [you realize], “gosh, they’re shooting at us!” We were the only ones here. It just really made me scared. I was scared anyhow most of the time; it really bothered me a lot worse because I knew they were after us. It just made the fear a lot worse. So when I got back from that mission—“enough of this!” We volunteered to fly one more, but we got through.
KWL: On those missions were you also on a B-24?
LJL: Yes, yes. On those newer planes that had the new radar in, and we bombed with radar because we had cloud cover all the way up and back.
KWL: So you probably felt safer?
LJL: Well, the anti-aircraft went through it I guess. It didn’t hit us, but we could see the puffs out there.
[20:27]
KWL: While you were in Italy did you keep in touch with your family members at home?
LJL: By mail.
KWL: Tell me a little more about that—what type of mail did you use and how often?
LJL: One a week at least—it’s whenever we had time to sit down and scribble a little.
KWL: Did you do V-Mail?
LJL: I don’t know what it was at that time--Airmail—three cents I think it was for Airmail.
KWL: So you wrote home to your dad—did you have other family members you wrote to?
LJL: Just my folks—of course _______[?] and I wrote my brother, Marcella [?], who was in the service.
KWL: He was up in England? Did you compare stories later?
LJL: Oh, somewhat. He was an aerial gunner, too, up there.
KWL: What was it about Lindeman boys liking being aerial gunners?
LJL: I don’t know; it just happened that way.
[21:44]
KWL: While you were in camp as well, tell me about some of your everyday types of things: food, entertainment, any USO groups that might have come through, etc.
LJL: Oh, the entertainment back in the States was good, the food was usually like most food, not bad. Being in the Air Force, we had regular mess halls and had the entertainment—we had the dances at the canteen, but I was a country boy and [?] I didn’t do that too well. Then we had movies to go to and the PX and drink beer most the while.
KWL: Now when you were overseas, do you have any chances (not for R & R), but for any USO Groups to come through to help entertain the troops?
LJL: Yup, there was a USO coming through once in a while, but I don’t think we had any famous ones. Usually someone would come and bring coffee and doughnuts.
KWL: Break the monotony.
LJL: Oh, kind of—one nice thing we got a shot of whiskey every time we came back from a mission. That was Government Issue—it kind of calmed your nerves. [laughing].
KWL: How many days on did you fly missions—did you take a break in a day or two?
LJL: It depended on your schedules. Some time you’d fly two or three days in a row and you waited. And the weather too, A lot but usually about every third day would be a good average. We had like nine to ten planes and probably had thirty crews. You took your turn every third day.
[23:54]
KWL: When you get towards the end of the war, and the war in Europe was done, what did you expect?
LJL: I was afraid I would have to go to the Pacific, and do it over again. But it turned out I didn’t have to.
KWL: So where did they send you after Italy?
LJL: We took one of the old airplanes we had to fly back into Tampa, Florida and through the town—I forget the name.
KWL: Where did you go after Tampa?
LJL: I went home on a two-week’s furlough and then I came back and they wanted to know if I wanted to get on a B-29 group. I looked that over and I said, “no.” So they didn’t make me. So then we went up to Atlanta, Georgia and by that time, some of the older had a lot of points were getting out. So I was to help process the soldiers that was getting out.______________ [unintelligible?]
KWL: How many points did you have?
LJL: Eighty-five.
KWL: How many did you need?
LJL: You had to have eighty-five to get out, but the first –there were guy with four and five years in there. But I got out October 15th, 1945.
KWL: What did you do after you got back home?
LJL: Well, I went back home and I thought, don’t have my high school finished and I probably should finish high school and college--I was twenty-one years old and I didn’t want to go back to school and wanted to farm. So my dad, said, “come help me and we’ll get you started.” And so that’s what I did.
KWL: So did you do that for the rest of your career?
LJL: No, not all the way through, I farmed a little while and then I thought, there are things better than this, so I started at a service station at the Greenfields, and then there was a shortage of gas and couldn’t get gas for awhile and that didn’t work out and I’m back at farming.
KWL: What type of farming did you do?
LJL: Mostly wheat and cattle.
KWL: This is one of the bread baskets . . .
LJL: Yup.
[27:14]
KWL: Did you have a family?
LJL: I had three girls and a boy. Three of them live in Wichita, Kansas and which is about four hours away from us and one lives in Kansas City, Missouri five or six hours away. And we have eight grandchildren, which we enjoy very much –two grandsons playing football now. . . .watched the games.
KWL: While you had your family and they were all growing up, did you stay active or become active in any veterans organizations.
LJL: I joined the VFW, went to a few of their meetings, we had good meetings, no gambling and all that good stuff.
[27:57]
KWL: Now, since this is the 780th Bomb Squadron reunion, have you been to other reunion with this group?
LJL: It started out in ’63, I think was the first one and I was busy farming then, and I couldn’t get away. The first one was 1983 in St. Louis; then I missed two more, then in ’85. I hit every one of them since then.
KWL: So this is really like a reunion for you. Do yo see a lot of the same fellows?
LJL: Yeh, not this reunion. Don’t have any of my crew members here with me, but last year I had three with me. I guess two of them—I guess they physically they can’t go when they get that age or had other plans.
[29:00]
KWL: Now from all the missions that you did in Europe, did you stay pretty much with the same crew from start to finish?
LJL: Mostly, the only time we’d give somebody—was very sick, we’d go on a flight with somebody else, and then we had an engineer flew with someone else and that plane went down; we lost him, so we had to replace our engineer, but the rest of us flew most of the time all together. It is nice that way.
KWL: Certainly, there are some veterans that say they would not want to be on land. How would you think about considering this? Would you have done something different?
LJL: You know, I fly over them guys and I see these trenches that they were in down in—well, when we got back we had a dry place to sleep and good food and stuff, and so on. Although probably our fatalities was a higher percent than natural, our living conditions was a lot better. I once met a guy whose plane went down and went over there opened the cockpit and get that guy out and he smelled of perfume and everything and shaving lotion and we hadn’t seen that for years—weeks. [chuckling].
KWL: Can you remember particularly anecdotes or experiences.
[30:55]
LJL: No I don’t recall any right now. It was the first time we were heading for Vienna and they came up and the Germans shot just right in front of us and we had to go through it and our co-pilot, he was a southerner and he says, “look at that ahead of us – great big gobs of greasy green goose shit!” It probably was slang for it.
KWL: That must have been a pretty serious moment. Can you remember any other particular missions . . .
LJL: Well, we did have one mission we were shot up bad when we were coming back; we had an engine failure on another one and it was kind of heading towards Russia, or something and it was holding altitude so we throwing all the FlaK suits and ammunition and everything out [and then the ball turret gunner got FlaK in there and got his gears jammed and he couldn’t get the turret—you had to turn the turret a certain position to get to come up into the plane—so we was trying to get that done and finally get him out—finally got the door open long enough so get some blankets down there and flak suits down there to keep him a little warmer. It landed, _____[?]but we just kept it going and when we were across the Adriatic again and thought we can make it, with two little jump outs and he just called the base and said, “we’re coming in.” You know, perfect landing and everything. But he had an injured leg. . . was offloaded.
[33:24]
KWL: Now, you mentioned that you could have flown –you could have gotten back with a damaged plane to Russia. Did you ever have to fly into Russia?
LJL: If we were losing altitude, we’d had to go to Russia, because it was further [to] home, but since we was keeping altitude, and lightened the plane up, of course the pilot knew what he could do and thinking, “I think we could make it.” We did.
KWL: Anything else that you can think of in particular that we haven’t talked about?
LJL: Nothing actually comes to mind.
KWL: These are door-knob questions. As soon as I turn off the tape, you’ll think of something, which is okay. If we need to phone you, may we do that? It was my pleasure interviewing you today.
LJL: I think we had a wonderful experience, but I wouldn’t want to go through it again.
KWL: We are very grateful for all the sacrifices that your crew did and the greatest generation.
LJL: To keep the kind of life we have here now.
[end of interview 34:50]
