So Bob, we saw you down at Callerlab, and we had a great time. I went through elementary school at Edmond. I also went through high school. I played football, basketball, and baseball, and lettered in all three sports. And then from there, I went to college at Central State University, which is right there in Edmond, and at that time, I had a couple, about 3 years of college in when the war came along, so I enlisted in the service.
And after I enlisted in the service, I still had some units to pick up before I could get my degree, so I was asked to come back and coach football and basketball at the high school where I graduated. I take it back, I was sent to basic flying the Steermans, the twin wing open air cockpits.
At Fort Summer, we flew UCs. They called them Bamboo Bombers. BV A: Yeah. I was hoping to get into fighters. At that time, they were needing bomber pilots, so I was sent from there to Nebraska to pick up my crew. And after I picked up my crew, we went into Salt Lake City which was a day staging area prior to our going overseas. And at that time, I was flying the Bs, and they sent our crew and myself across, and we landed 1 day after D Day.
BV A: Flew our own plane over. Never had flown over any kind of water before. And all we were prepared, each of our had a 45 hand gun. We were on our own to fly it. And after we got into Scotland, then we were sent from Scotland on to our base which was called Moles Worth Army Air Base, an air base really. The 8 th Air Force. BVA: Had 35 missions.
When I first arrived over there, it was 25 missions, and then they went up to 30, and it went to We got our 35 missions in, but on our 31st mission, we were shot down. And we had thrown everything out of our plane to be sure that we would stay aloft. We had some P escorts and got us into? Airport in Paris. We had lost two engines and also lost our brake fluid.
