Robert Willis
[b.7/4/ 1921]
Interviewed by RJ Penny and Linda Penny
Recorded on 9/27/07 by RJ Penny
Transcribed on 11/17/07-1/26/08 by RJ Penny
[001 counter start #]
RP: [Today is September 27,] 2007. I am RJ Penny and I am interviewing Robert Willis at 5810 North Pennsylvania St. in Indianapolis, IN. Mr. Willis is an acquaintance and is 86 years old and was born on July 4, 1921. Mr. Willis served in World War II and the Korean War, and was in the 27th Fighter, Bomber Group and held the following rank: Captain.
RW: When you say I served as a pilot, single engine pilot in World War II, in multi engine in the Korean War.
RP: Where were you when you heard about the bombing in Pearl Harbor.
RW: My folks had a place west of Martinsville—a farm, we went down there in the weekend. I can still remember I was in the backyard working, my aunt came out said, “They just bombed Pearl Harbor!” “Huh, where’s Pearl Harbor?” That was it.
RP: Did that inspire you to enlist?
RW: Well, yea the whole war—we had the war, sure. Yea everybody, every guy wanted to enlist. (Well, not every guy.) I wanted to be a pilot so that was my chance to be one.
RP: So you were enlisted in the war, and then where did you go from there?
RW: Well, first went to Aviation Cadets, six months of training to get your wings to be a pilot. Another place in Birmingham, Mississippi for a while, then overseas to Sicily in Italy, and then back to the States after that.
[021]
RP: Do you remember, do you have any stories about times when you were in training?
RW: Well, no it wasn’t too exciting in training. We flew sixty hours, in a two month period. In primary we flew an open cockpit plane [we] called BT-19, and in basic training we flew a BT-13, that was a fix gear airplane but it had a canopy. It was all steel, and a radio, and it was equipped for night flying, we did night flying and formation flying. After then, two months advance training where we flew an AT-6, another metal clad airplane. It was higher horsepower, and it had a 30-caliber gun. Part of our training we shot ground targets going air to air. When you shoot air to air, the targets moving, so you don’t moving and you don’t aim at the target, you aim out here, lead. Well, if you ever hunted quail you would know what I meant. [Laughs]
[040]
RP: What was it like when you first arrived at training?
RW: Went to Spartan School Aeronautics, of course we had a uniform. When I first went to preflight, that’s it—we had a uniform. It was sort of like basic training, that was where they got us up at 5:30 in the morning and we went out and drilled, and so forth, you know, they took us around school. Then we went to Primary Flight Training, and not so much military, more flying, and the same thing with basic.
[049]
RP: Where did they send you from training?
RW: Well, I went over to Sicily and Italy.
RP: What did you do in Sicily?
RW: Well, that was combat. It’s where I engaged the enemy! I shot the bad guys.
RP: Can you tell us about some of the missions you had?
RW: Ok well, one of the first real fun I had we were based in—you know where Sicily and Italy is in your map? Okay. We were based in Sicily and we went up north to cover the Salerno landing, the ground troop landing, the area surrounding the town of Salerno. We flew about 200 miles out; we flew top cover to keep the enemy airplanes from coming in at our troops who were making a landing. And after we got through patrolling, they gave us some target I can remember up here, and here is a hillside a road coming down like this and it was loaded with German tanks, trucks, every cars, and we just come down here and drop our 500 pound bomb and strafe the living bejabers out of them and get home. It was the maximum range. Many a time I would come back and landed at the base and I had about one minute’s gas worth left, and it got a little hairy. When we were patrolling over the beachhead, we got the north end, where the town of Salerno was, and the Germans had that and they fired at us—their 88 mm guns positions, and the navy was out in the water landing troops and our air plane looked a lot the ME-109, an enemy plane, so we got the navy shooting at us, so we got over to the southern end the Americans started shooting at us. It got a little hairy.
[076]
RP: What was it like having, or being up there in the air and having all this?
RW: Exhilarating, best word I can use. We loved it. We loved it when you could get up there and fight the enemy.
RP: What was the other operation you were in?
RW: During the Korean War, that’s when I flew the cargo ship.
RP: Oh sorry, I meant in World War II.
RW: Oh well, in World War II, that was the only combat one I was in. I just came back to the States and we flew missions for training and general flying, nothing exciting.
[084]
RP: Did you see any casualties during the war?
RW: Well, problem is with a single engine plane is, when it gets hit, if the pilot isn’t injured, he bails out. It isn’t like the bombers where they got hit and came back and brought the wounded back with them. When you got hit with one of those things they hit your engine, you had to leave it, or you’re going to crash, you bail out and crash. I was fortunate and never got hit. You either came back or you didn’t.
RP: What was the food like? What did they feed you?
RW: Food! [Laughs] Well, if you ever get in the military you’re gonna find out that everybody bitches about the food. But, all in all it wasn’t that bad—far cry from home cooking. The worst was the first week we were on Salerno beachhead. They gave us British rations, and oh God they were, oh, I can still taste that damn bully beef, ugh terrible. No, our food generally was pretty good and every once in the while we would get lucky; we’d go off base and go and see some farmers and buy some real eggs. Now that was a treat. ‘Cause see normally they would mostly give you a powdered eggs and you’ve never had anything like that. These eggs where muchly desired. We would go out and pay a quarter a piece for these eggs, and that was really a great. And you didn’t get steaks or anything like that; you got ham, or something like that. You didn’t get a lot of meat. As military food it was all right.
[108]
RP: Did you have any close friends in the war?
RW: Oh yea. We usually team up and get to have a buddy.
RP: Any stories between you two?
RW: Well, he got shot down on one of them flights up in the—patrolling the Salerno area, but he was able to bail out, and some Italian people helped him evade capture; the Germans where all over the place. They gave him some civilian clothes and he walked out. Then we moved up on the plane after we kicked the Germans out, and he came walking in one night. He and I were together from that time. After we came back from over seas we split up, because he lived in Baltimore and I lived in Indianapolis. So they sent us to different bases, but I kept in touch with him after the war. I have lost touch with him now so, I mean I sent a couple letters a long time ago and no response so I assumed he was either ill or died. Yeah.
[124]
RP: What was one of you best experiences during World War II. Was that Salerno?
RW: What do you mean by best? [Laughs] Or do you mean worst?
RP: Either one.
RW: Well, usually you want best, when I got my wings, that was the high point of my life. See when I was a young kid your age flying was just coming in to be, Lindbergh, Roskelter, Wyenpost. I know you don’t know those names but they were aviation civilists. Lindbergh was the first one who flew the Atlantic alone in just a little light plane. Well, I mean combat was exhilarating. Then after a while you start thinking, “My God, I might get killed up here.” That’s about the time they sent you home.
[137]
RP: Did you receive any medals or awards?
RW: Just the Air Medal.
RP: How long where you there?
RW: Well, I would say World War II, I was in from 23 June’ 42 to 7 September’ 45, and then I stayed in the reserve and flew a cargo plane down in Columbus, Indiana and then we went on active duty down in Georgia. Let’s see, I went in on active duty on May 1st 1951 and got off active duty [pauses] I think was in April of’ 53. I remember then. You go way back.
RP: You were stationed in Sicily and in Italy right?
RW: That’s during combat.
RP: What did you do in Italy?
[152]
RW: Well, same thing I did in Sicily—flew a single engine and fought the bad guys. We bombed and strafed, raised hell, bombed like road junctions. We did close support for the ground troops, in other words like bombed right near to help them fight off the Germans that were trying to get them. We assisted the ground troops and got some of the Germans back on their own side of the line—downright evil.
RP: Did you have any situations where you considered yourself really lucky?
RW: Hell yes the fact that I didn’t get killed. Nothing singular, having flew 100 missions, got shot at ninety percent of the time. Just living was lucky.
[168]
RP: What did you do for entertainment when you were overseas?
RW: Part of it your mother doesn’t want you to know. Well, like in Sicily there weren’t any big towns and we would just stay in the base and one of the main entertainments was gambling, and we did not have much booze, we had a little wine, and later on we would get a shipment of old, old, old rye whiskey and the C.O. declared that next day group day off and we got drunker than a skunk the night before. Later on when we got up around Naples we went into town there were civilian activities, like a movie or something like that. We were always looking for something, that’s one of the reasons, you are always looking for something. We got up in Naples and there were some civilian restaurants and there’s something different than GI food. They gave us rest leave after so many missions, didn’t send us home they just gave us rest leave and I went up to the Isle of Capri. Here is the Salerno plain and there is this peninsula that comes out and here is the little island, the Isle of Capri. Stayed there for a week—boy that was nice. We had beds with sheets on, and hot and cold running water, and table clothes on the table. Well, it was just a hotel, Capri is sort of a resort, one of the various hotels. That’s where I saw what they call the Blue Grotto. It’s a cave on the north side of the island. The only way to get into it is a, go out in a boat and come in through this opening, duck down in the boat and go inside. It’s kind of a bluish light inside and the fish in there are blind, but was an active stairway that went up through the top of the hill. Back in Roman history the Emperor Tiberius had a castle out there. He came up to the isle of Capri, came down that stairway, didn’t have to go through the water, he would have a lot of slaves to build stuff like that.
[209]
RP: What would give it the blue light?
RW: The light coming through the opening. There was sort of a, the bottom looked kind of like a light colored rock. I don’t know what it was.
RP: Do you have any particular humorous or unusual events that happened during training, or World War II or Sicily?
RW: Well, one of them that went along nicely that happened that I remember, when I was still an Aviation Cadet, in primary training in Eagle Pass, Texas, there are six American families that lived down in Mexico and they were supervising personnel for a tin mine, so they invited twenty of us Cadets to spend Christmas down there. Christmas of ‘42, and we went down there and boy we had a bottle of beer in each hand the whole time we were there, and their daughters came home from school, they had been going to Bryn Mawr or some school like that. Boy having an American girl to dance with and so forth, that was real nice. [Laughs] That was fun, that was a highlight there. Over seas, it as long periods of boredom and short periods of pure terror. That’s about what that was.
RP: For most holidays, what did you do for most holidays there?
RW: There went any holidays in combat. [Laughs] You got a day off now and then, I mean when we were up around Naples we could come into town like when the weather was bad and you couldn’t fly, they let us off post, we would come into town, find something to eat, find something to drink, see if you could find some girl, stuff like that.
[244]
RP: Where there any pranks that you pulled?
RW: No sir, that was too bloody serious. You wouldn’t do stuff like that.
RP: Do you have any photographs or.
RW: Oh, they are downstairs, I don’t want to, there not to many, my aunt kept a scrapbook of letters I sent home, I don’t feel like going downstairs.
[251]
RP: Did you keep in contact with your family?
RW: Oh yea, sure. I’ll tell ya one of the high points is getting mail. Boy, when you went more than two or three days without getting a letter from home you, start feeling bad. That was the big thing, getting the mail. And then you’re writing letters, to, you had to write letters to get letters, so that was one of the activities while you weren’t flying, was writing letters home or other relatives or girl, or something like that.
RP: Did you have any fellow soldiers or officers that you thought of particularly?
RW: Well, I told you about this buddy of mine, Gerald, that we would, pal around with.
RP: Did you keep a personal diary?
RW: No I didn’t, I often wish I had, but my aunt kept a scrapbook, which had the letters I sent home, some pictures.
[266]
RP: When where you sent back from World War II?
RW: Well, let us see, I left combat in either March or April of ‘44. It was one week before Vesuvius blew its top. I remember that. Do you remember your history? Mount Vesuvius erupting? This other outfit, this B-25 outfit their base was pretty close to the mountain and they lost a lot of planes. Ash would be coming down. We were far enough away from it.
RP: So you were sent back and then.
RW: The states and then I flew in the states or the to the end of the war on training missions and things like that, cross country flights, night flights, ground gunnery, air to ground gunnery, we flew to the Matagorda Island off the coast of Texas, flew gunnery down there.
[284]
RP: And you were shipped to Korea?
RW: Well, I got off active duty in September of ‘45, then I stayed in reserve, and we met once a month down in Columbus, Indiana, and that’s where I flew the cargo plain with the twin engines. Then on May 1, 1951 we were called back to active duty, and we stayed a few weeks at Columbus Indiana, and we moved to Columbus, Georgia. And we would just… it was the 434th Troop Carrier were we’d call, 434th Troop Carrier when you call we hall. Yes we did we just hauled cargo and troops all over the bloody United States. State of Washington, California, all over the states. Then when we were home at our home base we were attached to Fort Beatty where they trained paratroopers, we took them up in our plane and let them jump out. I never understood that jumping out of a good safe airplane. [Pauses for thoughts] That March and April of 1953…when I came back and… ‘51 to ‘53 was Korean thing, and ‘42 to ‘45 was World War II.
[317]
RP: What was it like coming back to civilian life?
RW: Good. I love the flying but I wanted to make a career out of flying actually in the airlines, but I went up to Atlanta to be interviewed by American Airlines, no I am sorry I went to Chicago to be interviewed by United Airlines, and they measured my height that was 5’7 1/2” and said sorry, and I’m like what? You’re to short. There I flew this big cargo plane from Georgia up through Chicago and they tell me I’m to bloody short. But that was their regulations you had to be 5’8” and I was 5’7 1/2”. That killed my career in the airline. I tried other airlines, same thing. The airlines wanted taller people because they looked more impressive you know the pilot walking.
[336]
RP: Did you join any veteran organizations?
RW: O yea well, the American Legion Corps, and then we have the Retired Officer Association, meet once a month. We met when we have to meet, and the American legions, you know KFC we meet World War II, then the American Legion, [World War II] Round Table, CROA.
[349]
RP: Did you have any reunions?
RW: Yea my old combat outfit the 27th has reunions every now and then, but I went to one, my wife and I went to one down in Georgia someplace but that’s the only one I have been it to. There’s very few of us, fellas, out of World War II because the unit kept going through all young fellas. And we don’t know anybody. If you run into one guy that was on active duty when you where on active duty in World War II you are lucky. We are going. We are getting older.
[362]
RP: How did your service affect your life afterwards?
RW: O I don’t think it had any affect on me. I enjoyed flying and I enjoyed my time in the service, and when it got to civilian life I enjoyed that too.
RP: Is there anything else you would like to add?
RW: No, you know it was just routine going out there.
LP: What did you end up doing after the war?
RW: Civilian life? I ended up going with the insurance company in the claim department. Claim adjustment for a while, traveling around the state, and then came in the office and became supervisor. That was my career, claim supervisor. Thirty-three years of …
[384]
RP: Why did you join up with the army? the Army Air Corps.
RW: Well, first of all it was World War II so you know sooner or later you’re going to get drafted, so I wanted to apply, in other words I wanted to pick what I was going to do, not let them tell me what I’m going to do. I mean I wanted to fly ever since I was a kid, and that’s why I went in and served and all young men went into service if they were physically able. You see they had the draft, and if you didn’t volunteer you were drafted.
RP: So you were in training in, what, 3 camps?
RW: More than that actually, but I wasn’t counting. Well, you’re in flight training and then after that you wings and then went to two or three different places and then overseas and then came back and went to two or three different places. And then the Korean thing we just went down to Columbus Georgia and stayed there the whole time.
[406]
LP: [Asks unidentifiable question about maneuvers]
[415]
RP: Where there any other maneuvers that you did?
RW: Well, there was slow roll for fun things like that, the chandelle, most of the time flying straight and level.
RP: What is the Chandelle?
RW: Chandelle is the 180-degree change in direction with maximum elevation, technically. You get down like this, pull the stick back, and pull it up like this and change just before you stall out. In other words 180-degree change in direction, maximum elevation. That was a World War I fighting maneuver really.
[428]
LP: When would you use that?
RW: I’ve never used it in combat or training. I never tangled with any enemy airplanes.
RP: So mostly bombing?
RW: Yea, doing dive bombing or going in at treetop level and just, as we crossed a certain place, got on the enemy side of the line, we carried two 500 pound bombs and bombed and strafed.
LP: How far did those bombs spread?
RW: Five hundred pound bomb will make a pretty good sized hole.
LP: Did you shoot both of them at the same time?
RW: Yea, you drop both them both.
[442]
LP: How high were you, what was your altitude?
RW: Well, if we did dive bombing we would start at 10,000 feet, go and split S and drop them at 5,000 and pull out of there, or if we were just coming in sort of glide bombing like on Salerno when there’s hillside, you come in like this, your guns, you get six guns and they were synchronized to meet at 300 yards. In other words they gave a nice cone of fire when they all pretty much hit the same length, 300 yards. Well, you’re going 300 miles per hour at a hillside, your timing has to be pretty good, and we dropped the bombs and threw them into the target.
[457]
RP: What were some of your targets?
RW: Mainly tanks, automobiles, trucks, personnel carriers, things like that, and then sometimes you would just, like we were doing close support for the ground troops, we would get on the enemy side of the line, and we would just pick an area and just open up and just blast, and you couldn’t see them because of course hidden under camouflage and so forth and you would just spray a certain area where intelligence told us where they were.
RP: Did you have any secret or special missions?
[473]
RP: What kind of ammo did the…
RW: 50 Caliber, remember that’s about a half inch. The full cartridge is about that long and the bullet itself is about that long.
RP: What was it like when you were flying up above everything and you were being shot at and the bullets flying everywhere?
RW: Scared the hell out of you!
LP: Did their guns reach you?
RW: O absolutely, what they did they had range finders so they could tell how high you were, I mean its an instrument they aren’t just guessing, so they set the fuse on the shell, the 80 mm shell, 80 mm in diameter, about this big, they would go up and when it is set to go off at say 10,000 feet it would explode in a big black puff that’s called it flak, and then little pieces of metal would fly out from that. If they hit you they hurt you.
RP: You have never had shrapnel hit your.
RW: I got lucky I never got hit. That’s the man upstairs.
[508]
RP: So when they explode they made a big black cloud, did that affect your visual?
RW: O more than that for me.
LP: Did you have to stay out of the range?
RW: No, you couldn’t get out of the range. Those they easily could go up to 20 ,000 feet or more.
RP: So you kept flying and hoped you didn’t get hit?
RW: Yea, you kind of are jinking around. More than one time I know going along there be a big black puff over here, and another one over here, and I just kind of instinctively kicked rudder because a lot of times they had three guns, batteries, that third one was right in the middle, o yea. Somebody [was] watching over me.
RP: Any other specific strategies you used.
RW: No just something we did we wanted to do it, we were drawing to fight and that’s what we did.
RP: What was it like when you were way up high above everything and you had a view.
RW: Oh, that’s beautiful.
[540]
LP: How did they get the planes over there? Did they fly them over, across?
RW: Yea they brought them over on boats. They were little single engines, they didn’t have enough gas. They had to bring them over in boats, they were already there when we got there.
[Switch Sides]
RP: Is there any other special battle situations you were in?
RW: No, in Sicily, and in Italy. Well, let us see, in Sicily we did close support and when we got in Italy we did more dive-bombing. The furthest North I got, as far as being on the base was Naples, because it was enemy territory, and lets see when I came home, I came home March 44, the enemy, still a lot of enemy north of us toward Rome, Rome was still in enemy territory then, the ground troops ready to push them north. I remember flying by Rome and seeing the Vatican, and of course that was off limits, couldn’t bomb that. Then up near the Volturno River there was a big hillside with this Monte Cassino. It was a monastery at peace time, so we of course left it alone, well, when we first started, and the monks were up there, so we of course left it alone. Then the Germans pushed the monks out and started using it as an observation, so ok boys if you’re going to play it that way you’re fair game. We bombed the living bejabers out of them. It was interesting down from the historical standpoint on the Salerno plain, south of the town of Salerno, it was settle originally by the Greeks, way back then, the turning Trojan War was on that Paestum. There was two temples, the ruins of two temples the Greeks had, and the reason I know about the Trojan war, I didn’t know about it when I was over there but as I came home and I was sitting in the doctors office one day and was thumbing through the National Geographic, and they had been digging in there and Mark Alan ran across ruins way underground, and that when they found out the Trojan Wars had been fought on that plain many, many years ago.
[578]
RP: How many missions do you think you flew?
RW: I don’t think I flew seventy-one! (Laughs)
RP: Any specifically memorable missions?
RW: No, you usually hope you didn’t get hit, and about 90% of them were recipients of hostel fire.
LP: What percent of people actually did get hit?
RW: Not too many in the single engine outfit. We could kind of jink around a little bit, make it hard for them to hit us. The biggest problem was engine trouble, the guys only got one engine and I know boy going from Sicily up to Salerno plain about 200 miles over water, oh sweating that engine out.
RP: Where you worried about your friend? The one that got downed.
RW: Oh yea we didn’t, we saw him bail out so we figured he had probably been captured, probably won’t be seeing him any more, he fortunately evaded, the civilians helped him evade capture. He came walking in one night.
[593]
RP: Did you ever meet any enemy a….
RW: Soldiers?
RP: Yes
[Phone Rings]
RW: Excuse me.
[Tape Paused]
[607]
RP: So the question was did you meet any enemy soldiers?
RW: Oh no, the only time I would meet them would be in the air. Well, I [had] only gotten close proximity to an enemy airplane one time. We were up near Rome, Rome was an enemy territory, and the four of us, saw this other flight of five airplanes coming down like they were going to land, so we just came around and got on their tail and they weren’t coming in for a landing, and when they went up, we started shooting and the element leader got one, I mean the flight leader got one. So I was chasing this one guy around, see when you’re trying to gain on a guy as fast as you cut him off, make a small circle, so I was going along, the ME-109s were faster than we were and so I was still out of range so I thought o I’ll let go a burst to see how far away I am, so I let go a short burst, I got all six of my guns jammed. What happened was the ejection shoots where spent shells come out, they jammed, so I was number four here so I noticed my element leader. I called him, he didn’t answer, and pretty soon he turned around to head home so you all stay with your leader, so found out here I was, my guns jammed, my engine was back firing once in a while, found out he was out of ammunition, were 200 miles in enemy territory, but outside of that one, we weren’t in trouble.
RP: So the guy you were chasing got away?
RW: Yea, my guns jammed and there weren’t any point in, trying to tangle with anybody, you can’t shoot.
[622]
RP: So who was in your squad, there’s four people there.
RW: On that particular flight there was just four. Sometimes we had as many as twelve. Four flights, no wait, three flights of four. This side, leader, the wingman, the element leader, and his wingman. And this side, leader, wingman, I mean leader, his wingman, element leader, and his wingman. I mean sort of the second.
LP: The wingman is the guy that stays behind the wing?
RW: Yea he flies behind the wing.
LP: So you guys could talk to each other on the radio?
RW: Oh yea sure.
LP: Could the enemy hear you on the radio?
RW: Oh they probably could.
LP: I mean you’re going I don’t have any ammunition.
RW: Well, I didn’t tell them that. [Laughs] He just thought that I quit firing. No I’m not going to let him no I don’t have any.
LP: That’s what I was wondering because everyone you know was listening if they could.
RW: Yea we, the communications, we got a hold of their frequencies and they got a hold of ours. Interesting life.
RP: Ever go on any recon missions?
RW: Reconnaissance?
RP: Yea.
RW: Well, we call them rhubarbs, and that’s when you go into enemy territory with out any specific targets. You just went up there to see what you can see and shoot up what you can shoot up, no specific places planed or anything.
RP: Did you have any nicknames for enemy troops?
RW: You SOB. [Laughs]
[645]
LP: What kind of planes did you use, fly?
RW: Well, they had ME-109s, which looked a lot like the [P-] 51. One interesting time, I just remembered it, when we first started over there the Italians where fighting with the Germans, they were fighting against us to as well as the Germans. On September 9th of ‘43 the Italians capitulated, they gave up. So they weren’t shooting at us anymore and we weren’t shooting at them. So after we moved up the Salerno Plain, my buddy had gotten back, so it wasn’t to far just a little town, these people had helped him, the little town of Walett. So we drove up there we took some clothes and some canned goods and so forth and took up to see these people and help them. Well, this lady they had, lived in the house there, she spoke some English. She invited us to stay for dinner, and then there were three local boys who had been the Italian military, well, she invited over. When we went off base Laragora, sidearm 43, 45 automatic, in combat you never went off base without a sidearm, so they were amazed at the size of our guns, so they wanted to see them, so I unloaded it and everything and showed it to them, and I remembered this one commenting, “No wonder you won the war with such a cannon like this”. They had these little Berettas and they were just these little automatic pistol. Well, that’s 32-calibers where ours are 45 calibers, great big thing. Then I said, “Well, this is interesting”. Four or five months before I would have shot the hell out of this guy and here I am breaking bread with him. That’s war, nothing personal. You don’t hate the guy, you just try to kill him and he tries to kill you. Very interesting, we all wanted to go to combat, boy I mean when I got my wings I could hardly, I kept saying, got any orders for me to go overseas? Finally some orders came through. We were gun-ho. We knew the sooner we got in a fighter the sooner it would be over with, we get to go home.
[681]
LP: Was the whole country supporting you?
RW: Oh yes the whole country. We were all together, the whole country was together, you know there where shortages, and the women had a hard time getting fat, couldn’t get meat fat, couldn’t get much feat and hardly any fat, they didn’t have bacon or anything like that they saved drippings, and couldn’t get any booze, that was very short and treat to get some once in a while, but that was a very short supply. The civilians, there were something the civilians couldn’t get, they had it hard too, gasoline, gas was rationed, you get like five gallons a week, something like that. You had to be very careful how you used that up. Now the military we had all the gas we wanted.
RP: Do you have any particularly memorable friends besides the one that got shot down, like in your squadron maybe?
RW: Oh you made buddies, but you know nothing, you made friends.
RP: When you flew to Salerno, was it a long flight for you?
RW: Yea it was about 200 miles from our base, and that’s when we are at the maximum of our [range]. We had to carry 180 gallons in wing tanks, and we had one drop tank, fifty-five gallons and a 500 pound bomb on the other side. When we came back from Salerno, we got back over Sicily there at base, I had about one minute of gas left, and that was over water, that’s when things got a little hairy.
[709]
RP: So you had a long flight and about 30 minutes of strafing time?
RW: Oh, I don’t know how long we had, on target—it depended. I don’t know. Now when we were patrolling, we patrolled for an hour, then we peeled off and went down to the target, that was probably five to ten minutes at most.
RP: How many people were in your squad on the Salerno run?
RW: There, in a fighter outfit there are twenty-five aircraft in a squadron, single engine.
LP: Did you ever to jump out of an airplane with a parachute?
RW: No, I didn’t and I’m lucky.
LP: You had a parachute?
RW: Oh, yes we had a parachute. we never went up in anything without a parachute. I was lucky I didn’t have to bail out.
RP: Did you have any particular thoughts before or after Salerno run?
RW: You’re just glad to get home and you’re still in on piece. Very simple, very basic element, you wanted to stay alive.
RP: Is there anything else that you have thought of now that you didn’t before?
RW: No, I can’t really think of anything, other than back then, the war started and every kid wanted to get in the service, wanted to go fight.
[728]
RP: Did you have any friends from where you were that wanted to go?
RW: Well, there were three of us guys on the street where I lived, I lived down in 36 and Central, and one of the fellas said he got drafted and was going in the infantry, which was perfectly stupid. Turned out all right for him though because he got hit in the butt, crawling along. So he came back, and was in the hospital when he had been a disk jockey here. So when they found that out they made him a disc jockey, [he] spent rest of the war in England playing records. That turned out, and another fella, he became a pilot, and he flew twin engine cargo over in the Pacific, he never got shot down, he got shot at a little bit, and of course I was the one in Sicily and Italy, and we all made it. One of the guys is still alive, one of them died a few years ago with a heart problem. Yea, that was just it you know. You had a job to do and you did it.
[749]
RP: Is there anything else you would like to add that hasn’t been covered?
RW: Oh no not really.
RP: Thanks for your time.
RW: Sure you’re welcome.
RW: I am glad someone is taking the…[Recording Ended]
