Bob McMurtry

95TH BOMB GROUP (H) ASSOCIATION

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

1999 REUNION          PITTSBURGH, PA

Interviewed by Rob Cozens

RC: This is Rob Cozens.  It is September 11, 1999.  We are interviewing Bob McMertry.  At the present time, the two of us are the only two present, but we do expect Karen Sayco to return.  

RC:  Bob, would you tell us what your dates of service with the Army/Air Corps were?

BM:  February the first, 1943 until August, approximately the 15th, 1948.

RC:  And what were your dates of service with the 95th Bomb Group?

BM:  August ’44 until April of ’45.

RC:  And which Squadron were you assigned to?

BM:  Three hundred thirty fourth.

RC:  What was your principle position, job duty?

BM:  Pilot, well, co-pilot.  Acting command pilot, and pilot.  I flew on several crews.

RC:  Tell us how you were inducted into the service, or decided to join the Army/Air 

Corps.  Where were you at the time, and what motivated you.

BM:  Well, I wanted to get in the Air Corps.  I had for years.  And I was in college, and was working the summer of ’42, and enlisted in the cadet reserve program.

RC:  Had you had previous flying experience, or were you interested in flying or…

BM:  I was interested, but I hadn’t had any.

RC:  Where did you take your training, and tell us a little about what training was provided to you.

BM:  Well, I reported in on April the first, February the first, pardon, in Dallas at the (Federal) building.  That was about 150 miles from home.  That afternoon, I was back at Sheppard Field, eight miles from home.  And I stayed there for one month for just basic training.  And then, I went out to Texas Tech, Lubbock, Texas, for CTD, College Training Detachment.  And I stayed there seven weeks.  And then to Classification Center at San Antone.  And, I also had preflight at San Antone.  And from there to flight training at Coleman, Texas, the old PT-19.  I was there at Coleman for basic flight training.  Majors Field at Greenville, Texas, the BT-13.  And then, to Foster Field for advanced training in AT-6.  And, that was my training, and they put me down as going to be an instructor, and I didn’t care for that.  

RC:  That was going to be my next question.  From the time that you entered the Air Corps, did you know you were going to be a pilot?  At what point during the training did they say, “This is your job.”?

BM:  Well that’s what I wanted to be.  And when I took the test down there, they said I qualified for everything.  They wanted me to be the navigator/bombardier, but I wanted to be a pilot, and that’s what they gave me then.  My older brother had been a pilot also.  

RC:  Do you have any memorable experiences during training?

BM:  Too many

KS:  Did you buzz your hometown?

BM:  Yes.  _______ primarily got in a little trouble.  Not too bad.  Didn’t have to write on the blackboard 50 times, over a hundred times.  Oh, we might make a climbing turn, power off below 500 feet.  And in basic flight training, I had an instructor who was a hotshot pilot from Harrisburg, PA.  So, we did go on cross country one time, one day to from Greenville to Mineral Wells to Kickapoo Field at Wichita Falls and back to Greenville.  Just touch and go landing, took off from Kickapoo, it was only about 15 miles up over my home.  And, I thought, heck I’m that close, I’ll buzz it.  The BT-13 was the best plane for buzzing ________pitch.  So, I went over the high school, over my house, over the main intersection downtown.  I got back.  My instructor asked me if I buzzed my home.  I said yes.  He said, did anybody tell you not to?  And I found out from my mother later, they put a officer over there at (Burkburnett) to check on pilots buzzing the town.  And later, I got in a little more trouble there.  

RC:  You said you always wanted to be a pilot.  Were you envisioning as a bomber pilot?

BM:  No.  I went through single engine.  And I had a chance, after I got finished, to get back into single.  It was almost over then.  Had two sets of orders to transfer to a fighter group.  One day I was up _________in Basic and another kid and myself was going over to buzz his home in Dallas.  Couldn't find him, but I found a guy named McCord – L.C. McCord.  Anyway, he had swiped my seat cushion. _______with him.  Couldn’t find McCord to start playing around with him.  _______over the air base for about 5000 feet.  And, he tried to get away from me.  Had it all the way down to 500.  Then we started to dogfight and play around.  Instructor and his Cadet, who I later worked with, (but too low) so, I got turned in for that.  For breaking air regulations.  Solo dogfighting in the airways, acrobatics in the airways, and acrobatics below 500 feet.  And I got a little reprimand for that – grounded for – I thought I’d washed out anyway, then.  Lt. Colonel told me to go to every formation, just don’t fly.  A week later, I was back on flying status.  

RC:  How did you get to England?

BM:  Well in Advanced there, I got out of Advanced.  Got assigned an instructor, but we were doing training as instructors.  Up on a weather hop one day, taxiing out, the brakes were locking, taxiing out.  Kept calling the tower telling them they were locking.  They said take off anyway.  And around a couple of guys, a Major and Lieutenant over there, over at the auxiliary field landed, wheel landing, 110 (miles per hour).  Turned over.  And, so, we got back to the base, ________and since #0 was the Colonel’s plane, they asked me if I wanted to stay there as an instructor or go to combat.  And I told them I wanted to go to combat.  So that’s what I got in for.  And the next day I got my orders for B-17’s, co-pilot.  So, I went to Lincoln, Nebraska and got assigned a crew.  Ended down at Eidlesburg, Tennessee.  And, got through training, then over to England.

RC:  Which route did you take?  

BM:  Well, Kearney, Nebraska to Manchester, New Hampshire, to Goose Bay.  We got weathered in at Goose Bay about three days and Iceland – (Reykjavik, then) Northern Ireland.  We were supposed to go on to Preswick, but we was weathered in.  And then (a boat) over to Liverpool to Manchester.  And I got assigned to the 95th Bomb Group.  

RC:  How long was it, after you arrived in England, that you flew your first mission?

BM:  Oh, probably about three weeks.  September 13th, I think.  I think that’s what it was.  

RC:  And how many missions in total did you fly?

BM:  Thirty-five

RC:  Would you like to tell us about some of the more memorable events of those missions?

BM: Well, I served on different crews.  One with __________and Griffin.  Up over Iceland we was flying, and he said, “All the rest of the men would address all the officers as Lieutenant so and so.  All of us were either 18 or 19, the officers, 19 or 20.  And I told Griff, I said, Griff, I guess we called him, “If they want to call me in an emergency, they can call me anything.  I don’t care.”  So we got the Squadron.  Bill Lindley was the C.O.  He was a Major at the time.  He made Colonel, Lt. Colonel right after that, 24 years of age.  And he put me on another crew then.  So I flew three missions with him, and then with Lt. Gillen.  And, on lead crew.  And we didn’t get too many missions in, quite as often as we were afraid we would.  And actually, I had a little argument with him one day in front of Col. Gooding in his office.  We’d gone over Armstadt, and Colonel Truesdale,[1] we was leading the Task Force, so I was flying control - formation control officer out of the tail.  And we started getting shot at.  So, and I turned around and put on my flack suit.

RC:  Pardon me one moment

BM:  Sure

RC:  Thank you, Karen.  Where were we?  Oh, you were telling us about how you endeared yourself one more time to the…

BM:  Oh, I was always in…Let’s see, we started out going on the mission to Armstadt.  And I was flying the tail there as formation control officer.  And we started get shot – flack hitting the plane, so I put on my flack suit, turned around and put it on.  And I checked my oxygen connection, made sure it was, safely on there.  The next thing I knew, the tail gunner was back, original tail gunner was back.  Connected me up.  But on his way back, I found out later, he had, coming back there, he had on his oxygen bottle, emergency oxygen bottle, portable oxygen bottle, but no parachute.  As he was crossing the tail door, it came open.  And he fell out a little ways, grabbed hold of a spar, and pulled himself in.  That was Sergeant (Goulette.)  No, he wasn’t either, not the tail gunner.  And anyway, we got down there.  No more troubles after that, except when we got in the office.  We landed and made critique, and Colonel Gooding called me in, the Squadron C.O. and Gillen.  And we were talking, and (Gillen) and myself had a little argument.  And Colonel Gooding said well, I didn’t have to fly (with Gillen) anymore then.  Took that for granted.  The next mission I was supposed to have, I wasn’t on the base right then.  So they got a replacement officer to fly in my place.  But they cancelled the mission anyway.  So, anyway, we had another meeting there, and he even volunteered to let me go to the 100th Bomb Group.  Which, he came back and told me he wouldn’t let me.  So, I ended up flying more with Gillen.  I put in 12 lead missions with him.  And somebody else, I got on the ______ list for a while.  You had to have 15 lead missions then, to able to finish your 30 missions.  And Colonel Gooding came up the way, checking out new crews on the first mission.  So I flew with a bunch of them, and that would count as (acting) command pilot.  I had quite a few of them.  I got 30 anyway.  And after I got my missions in, he said, “Let’s celebrate.  You may have to put in five more.”  So, okay, I did.  And, finally finished.  But when he said to go down to London for a few days or a week or whatever, 10 days.  Come back whenever I wanted, and he’d have orders for me.  Came back and he had two sets of orders – one to come home, and one to stay over there and put another tour in flying fighters.  And it was almost over then, so I just, the heck with it.  I didn’t figure, so I came on home.  

RC:  How was it like when you came home?

BM:  Oh, fine.  Started to get out, well, coming back, I got Walt Nair, ________went to Manchester Distribution Center, and to Sauncy, Wales.  We got a liberty ship there back to Staten Island.  And we had about 100 enlisted men and 20 officers.  The only thing, enlisted men and two of the officers were paratroopers, Airborne.  And they left France.  Not all of them were.  They’d been in another Liberty ship, and they got rammed into.  And they had to change ships.  They got them _________ outfitted for general POW’s.  So that’s what we came back on.  And before we go over the north light _________72 ships, the _____________ commodore had iceberg warnings.  It was soup there.  And he tooled into one.  Half the ships stopped, half of them didn’t.  So, ________ship tooled into our side. Knocked a big hole in it.  It took three days to get the convoy back together.  Twenty-six ships were injured.  And one of the slowest ones could only make six knots.  So, it wound up taking us 23 days from Sauncy, Wales to Staten Island, which was a long boat ride that old….  

KS: What, now you’re the first person that I’ve heard talking about coming back by ship.  The others had flown back.  So could you , and especially since it was such a long voyage, could you tell us what those accommodations were like?  What, I imagine if you were running into icebergs, the seas were pretty rough.  Seasickness, what did you do to pass the time?

BM:  Well, by that time, on our way back, the war was over.  _____________ e had 18 subs, 18 German subs coming through our convoy, surfaced, waiting to get everything.  And, as I say, the ship had been outfitted for German POW’s.  So the food wasn’t the best.  And the Captain apologized after we got back to the states, not being able to mingle with the crowd or anything, but he had rough weather all the way back.  We got 45 degree, I forget what you call it.  And also the accommodations, the staterooms they had were, a whole lot of them were messed up, except about one or two.  About three or four officers stayed in them, and the rest of us stayed down in the hole with the enlisted men.  

KS:  Were these former liners, or were they military ships?

BM:  The Liberty ship, well that was the, I imagine all the Liberty ships were, I guess during the war, for transportation.  Freight ships is what they actually were.  But they had some outfitted for carrying passengers.  But not too good.

KS:  What was your homecoming like at the docks?

BM:  Well, we just landed and got on trucks, went to the base there at Kilmer, New Jersey.  

KS:  Were there any people to greet you at the docks?

BM:  Uh uh (no).  They’d done had VE Day then.  And we went to Camp Kilmer and then had lunch.  They still had German POW’s in the mess hall, the Officer’s Mess.  Behind each one was an MP with a tommy gun.  And we went down to some area for a while, and about 6 o’clock that afternoon we caught a train ___________ and went to Ft. Sam Houston, our bunch, for redistribution. 

KS:  Now I’m a little confused.  Were they bringing German POW’s to this country?  

BM:  That’s what the Liberty Ship had been outfitted for, and they still had German POW’s over here.  

KS:  I know they were brought here, and then apparently some weeks or months later they were taken back to Germany.

BM:  I had the Germans throwing rocks at me in the States. San Angelo, Texas at Foster Field, was on a cross-country from Foster to Sugarland, Texas and back.  Coming back, went over this one place, an enclosure that had barbed wire around it.  I didn’t know what it was. (We flew a) 360 and came back real low.  Rocks started coming at me.  Got back to the base and checked on it.  It was a German POW camp.  But, I guess at the time they probably stopped bring German POW’s, but they had been bringing them right up to that time, I guess.  And the day I got home, I got home in the morning and was talking that afternoon to the guy on the main drag.  Some winds came up, about 120 mile an hour, at least, blew a big elm tree on the side of the awnings they used to have.  Just took them everywhere off of Main Street there over ____________ building.  A wheat car over on the west, blew it off the track, loaded with wheat.  It was just a straight wind.  And over at Shepard Field, a C-47 took off and flew four miles by itself.  I was ready to go back overseas.

KS:  What family did you come home to?

BM:  Mother, Father, and brother, younger brother.  

KS:  And what were their feelings or thoughts?

BM:  My older brother had been shot down, a pilot in 1942 – with the 303rd.  Over at Molesworth there.  

KS:  Was he killed?

BM:  His plane, well, I went over to Molesworth, and talked to the group CO, Colonel Romig at the time, and he’d been flying off their wing.  And they’d gone in to Romilly Airfield there, and coming back, they had two engines on fire, and they tried to make it back across the English Channel.  And the last they saw him, they were dropping back and they found some bodies later on, washed ashore in France.  So, everybody assumed the plane just went down in the English Channel.[2]

RC:  Tell us a little about the men you served with that were on your crew.

BM:  I flew with more people in my squadron than anybody.  I checked out a bunch of new crews and there are some here today, well out in Tucson – Tucson was the first one I made.  Les Morris, y’all interviewed him the other day.  The four crews got to the 334th the same day.  And Lou Wells was the pilot and Les Morris was the co-pilot on his crew. And I got in there with Hiram Griffin and Shaw was the bombardier, and I forget the navigator’s name.  Jim Leidel was the bombardier, the lead bombardier, and he was out at Tucson last year, and he’ll be at Orlando this next year.  And he had talked to Bob Carter.  They live close together.  So he said he would make it.  And I guess, a pilot by the name of Scott from South Dakota was out at Tucson last year.  I flew with him on his first mission.  Also Hank Henrietta was a gunner on Lou Wells’ plane.  We met them last year out at Tucson, and this year they’re here.  But I flew with quite a few different people.  

KS:  Because your older brother had been killed, could you have gotten out of combat?

BM:  I don’t know.  I didn’t try.  I didn’t want to.  

RC:  What was it like living on the base between missions.  What did you do?

BM:  Well, the (train) down to London.  The lead crews had three-day leaves instead of two, was the normal thing.  And around the base there, actually there wasn’t too much to do there.  Read.  

RC:  Is there anything that we haven’t touched on yet that you would like to put in the record for all those that we hope will be listening to this later on?

BM:  Well, I don’t know.  It was rough over there, but I’ll say I wasn’t actually scared.  Anything they’d tell me to do, I’d do it.  Which, they woke me up to go on a mission with somebody else (when a) Major go on sick call, they woke me up to go in his place then.  I was sort of a, well Colonel Losee did that to me.  Yeah, they even got me out of the Officer’s Club. But that one time, Colonel Gooding, that’s when he said he’d let me transfer to the 100th, did I tell you that?  Then he wouldn’t do it.

KS:  Did you have any USO shows come?

BM:  Oh, we had mainly just the English.  They put on shows for us up there at the theatre.  

KS:  What were those like?

BM:  Mmmm, they weren’t a thrill.  I mean, they were okay, but, we’d got to have some kind of entertainment.  We did, I was there for the 200th mission party, and the 300th mission party.  For the 200th, we had Glen Miller’s orchestra.  He wasn’t along but, he was killed a couple of months after that, like a month or two after that.  

KS:  What was that 200th mission party like?  What kind of refreshments did they have and…

BM:  Well, just the usual.  I understand the enlisted men had a Hanger Party, actually in a hanger there.  And at the Officer’s Club, it was their usual Saturday night affairs.  

KS:  And where did Glen Miller play?

BM:  Down in one of the hangers.  And there are pictures of it in the Contrail.  As I recall, it was in September of ’44.  

KS:  Were any of the local people invited to that?  Were there some of the women

BM:  The women….Probably some of the people from Horham I imagine were around.  I know, one probably used to go up every now and then, not very often.  I’d ride a bicycle over to it.  I didn’t go there for a while.  This one elderly man rode over to see if I was still okay, checking on me.  

RC:  I know you mentioned a couple or three occasions where you had occasion to have, let’s say, deep philosophical discussions with some of those that you were working with.  Do you feel your experience was more or less the norm of what happened.  Would you care to comment on whether they lacked a sense of humor or what was the problem of getting your point across.

BM:  Well, I don’t know.  I guess I was a little young, and also wanting to get back in fighters and I complained enough about it.  And..

RC:  I guess you complained enough long enough that they finally gave you the opportunity, but it was too late.

BM:  Uh huh (yes).

KS:  What was the attraction of fighters over B-17’s for you?

BM:  Well, you had full control over it, and not responsible for everybody else on the plane.  But it was more fun flying single engine than it was four.

RC:  Was there less of a need in fighter coverage to fly the tight formation.  Were you more independent in terms of the actions you wanted to take, or was it still…

BM:  Well, formation flying wasn’t a problem for me.  I didn’t, I know some single engine pilots, heard that they had trouble flying formation.  It was simple flying a B-17.  For B-17, that was the best plane to fly for four engine.  I’ve flown B-29’s, and they’re, if you started to turn, it would take 30-40 seconds before it did anything.  

RC:  I was coming from the thought that perhaps, as a fighter pilot, you would have more independence, and be able to do more…

BM:  You would have more independence, but you also had to be a (hot shot) to fly it also.  But, I just liked single engine.  One time, I was down in Bermuda a year also, an air traffic controller.  And to get a ride down there, I had to get a ride in a C-47 out of Westover Field, Maryland.  I mean, pardon me, Massachusetts.  And going down, going over there, the pilot asked me if I wanted to try the controls on it.  “Sure.”  So I rack it up on its side.  He said “Oh no, you can’t do that.  You have to fly straight and level in an ATC plane.  You might have passengers in the back.”  Which in a B-17, we could.  I never cared for the C-47 after that either. 

KS:  Can you remember when you first saw an airplane in flight as a child.

BM:  I know about four years old, they had an airport out there on a road in between (Burkburnett) and Wichita Falls.  Shepard Field is on the east side, but at the time they had a little airport over on the west side, and they had a gyroplane, which is actually sort of a helicopter.  But it had rotors and a prop also.  You take off and then ____________I’ve seen airplanes all my life, I guess.

KS:  So you had a love affair from the first?

BM:  Uh huh.  I used to read all those old…

RC:  Do you still fly?

BM:  No.  After you got out of single engine, it wasn’t fun flying.  

RC:  Do you have anything else you would like to add at this point?  We’re about to run out of tape.

BM:  Okay, one other thing then.  Colonel Truesdale at one time was on that last shuttle mission over Warsaw.  We took off a couple of times, actually.  I don’t know how many times we were down there for briefing.  And finally we were on a three-day pass when they went.  Well, on a Saturday night down there all the Polish bigwigs were there.  And Pat Reusky the violinist, world famous – Colonel Truesdale came over and said “Mac, if you’ll get him to play Turkey in the Straw____________.  I couldn’t get him to play Turkey in the Straw.  So I do enjoy these reunions though.  

RC:  How long have you been coming?

BM:  This is just my second one, I just found out about it.  But we plan to come to the others as long as we can, as long as they have them.  

RC:  Were all 35 combat missions or did you get involved in some of the humanitarian missions?

BM:  I finished on April the 6th.  

RC:  Oh, okay.  Well, we thank you very much.

[1] Records show this as Col Jack Shuck, at that time

[2]  20 Dec 1942, 303rd BG sortie #7; 359th BS, B-17F s/n 124566, BN:W, “Zombie”, MACR 15708; 10 MIA/KIA, including Co-pilot Lt. Francis M. McMurtry, Jr.