Burt Evans

95TH BOMB GROUP (H)

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

2005 REUNION         DAYTON, OHIO 

CHARLES WATERS AND BURT EVANS 

JM:  This is Janie McKnight with the 95th Bomb Group Legacy Committee.  Today we are with Burt Evans and Charles Waters.  For the record, will you state your name, today’s date, and where we are.

CW:  Thank you.  I’m Charles Waters.  Today is Friday, September the 30th in Dayton, Ohio.

JM:  And what were your dates of service with the Army Air Corps?

CW:  I graduated from bombardier school in 1944.  I came into the service in 1943, but graduated from bombardier school in ’44 in Big Spring, Texas.  And was crewed up in 1944 with Lieutenant Ralph Brown and co-pilot was Burt Evans.  We then went to training in Alexandria, Louisiana; picked up an airplane in Kearney, Nebraska; flew it to 

Nut Corner, Ireland, and then from there over to the 95th.  

JM:  What were your dates with the 95th?

CW:  They would have been probably August of ’44 'til of May of ’45. 

JM:  And what squadron were you in?

CW:  335th.  

JM:  And your principle job?

CW:  Bombardier.

BE:  Primarily with the 335th, but when we first joined the group, we flew our first couple of missions with the 334th.  So I just thought I’d mention that.  We were principally with the 335th.  

JM:  Okay, great. So tell me about your induction into the Army Air Corps, any memorable training experiences that you had.

CW:  My induction, I was called to active duty in 1943 prior to graduating from high school.  And went from there, from Altoona, Pennsylvania to Harrisburg.  My mom and dad rode the train with me over to Harrisburg.  And then I was put on a troop train in Harrisburg and sent to Miami, Florida for basic training.  And the experiences there were scary at times.  It was a war.  We were on the coast.  And they gave us an unloaded weapon to carry for guard duty (chuckle) which wasn’t very enjoyable.  And from there I went to Ellington Field for preflight training.  Went to Randolph for classification, and from classification to Big Spring, Texas for bombardier training.  And then also down to Laredo for gunnery school.  After that we were crewed up as individuals and we started our missions in September.

BE:  September 27th.

CW:  September 1944.

JM:  And where were you when you were put on a crew?

CW:  The crew was made up at Alexandria, Louisiana.  That’s where we all met for the first time. 

JM:  And how did you get from Louisiana to England?

CW:  We picked up our own airplane in Kearney, Nebraska.  And we flew it through many stops to England, well to Ireland.  And then from Ireland – I don’t remember how they took us over to England.

JM:  So, how was your first mission?  What was it like when you first got over there?

CW:  Scary. (chuckle)  The first mission was to Meintz, Germany. The second mission was to Merseburg, which was one of the worst missions anybody could ever fly.  And that’s the mission that Burt earned himself the Purple Heart.  

JM:  We’ll hear about that in a few minutes.

CW:  And we made lead crew for our last 12 missions, I believe.  And we led the squadron numerous times, and we also led the group.  I don’t remember leading the 13th wing.  But I do remember leading the group.  

JM:  And you flew 25 missions?

CW:  25 missions. No, 30, five of which was onto Berlin.  And the rest of them at various, sundry bad targets.  

JM:  Are any of those missions particularly memorable for you?  Are there any outstanding events that happened?

CW:  I can’t remember what mission it was, but we were, I believe we were lead crew at the time.  My navigator at that time was Gene Hadlock.  And he had noticed that I was slumped over the bomb site.  He was thinking I was asleep.  He kicked me.  And at that time, he noticed that my oxygen hose had come unplugged.  And he plugged me in, and I came to right away.  And I was able to make the bomb drop okay.  I was uncomfortable because I’d wet my pants while I was out (laughing).  Cold!  But that’s the most memorable one that I can remember.  Burt probably remembers our second mission more than I do, other than the fact that he came down into the nose and both Gene and I said, “Oh, that doesn’t look like much.”  Even though he had all this stuff in his shoulder, we thought he would survive, and he did. (Laughing)  After our 25th mission, we were presented with air medals and the Distinguished Flying Cross.  After our 30th mission, right.  And we came home by boat on a liberty ship.  It was the first day out of Liverpool, I guess it was.  We were under submarine alert.  But the war ended before we got too far into the Atlantic, and nobody bothered us, other than the rough sea.  It was rough.  

JM:  While you were in England, were there any characters, people that you particularly remember?

CW:  No, not really.  I remember basically our crew being real close.  You would think, as close as we were we would have been able to get together before 60 years went by.  But we just didn’t.  That’s probably because Burt said he tried to find me numerous times.  But I was recalled during Korean War.  And that was in 1951.  And then I stayed in until 1969 and retired.

JM:  So tell us how you came to be at this reunion and have reconnected with each other.

CW:  Okay, I knew nothing of the 95th Bomb Group Association – nothing at all, other than a former crew member of mine in a B-50 was a member of the 95th when it was stationed at Biggs Air Force base in Texas.  And I asked him – he lives in the same city that I live in, in Florida – I asked him if he goes to the reunions, and he said yes he does.  I asked him was there any World War II crew members there.  And his reply was no, he didn’t remember anybody flying in the 95th that were at the reunion.  So I never bothered checking up on anymore reunions.  And then all of a sudden here about three or four weeks ago, I get looking for something – I forget what it was – on the Internet, and I found the 95th Bomb Group Association, went to their link, and found out they were having a reunion up here.  I contacted Helynn.  Helynn, I told her who I was, what crew I was on, and she e-mailed me back that her roster showed that Gene Hadwock, Ralph Brown, and Burt Evans had attended previous reunions.  And she sent me their telephone numbers.  I was able to talk to the pilot, Ralph Brown, and the only words out of his mouth, and from what I understand from Burt, he is pretty well into Alzheimer’s, because all he kept saying was “Who’s this?  Who’s this?”  So that’s sad.  As much as we’d love to have been able to talk with him.  Then I called his number in Kansas – Burt’s number in Kansas, and got a recording.  I left a message – two or three messages on the recording at different times.  And then I got a hold of Gene Hadlock’s widow. And she had told me that Gene had passed away in 2003 and gave me a phone number where I could reach Burt at his sister in Virginia.  And that’s how I got in touch with him.  So it’s been a long time.

JM:  So had you planned to come to this reunion, Burt?

BE:  Yes and no.  Yes, I had planned to come here.  Well, we weren’t living in Kansas then.  My son is professor at KU, Kansas University.  But he had been assigned to the National Science Foundation in Washington.  So we had been living in Washington for the last two years.  That’s why he had trouble searching with the phone number.  Everything was kind of fictitious.  In fact, I imagine he got us on a cell phone, I’m not sure.  At any rate, we were living in Washington.  And then my son got a request from the University to come back to Kansas – got a promotion and things like that.  And their moving time was right at the end of September.  So I had planned to come here, but then I decided that I was not going to come here because of all the confusion.   And then I was talking to my daughter-in-law (it was my daughter-in-law, by the way, not my sister) and she said she had this phone number for me from a guy name of Chuck Waters.  And that’s when I called him and got in touch with him.  But I had written Chuck Waters off as dead.  I mean, I had been searching for him, I had written to the War Department, I had written to the VFW where they search for veterans and so forth, I had gone on the Internet and I had even been in touch with a kid in West Virginia named Waters.  He said, oh yeah, but his grandfather died.  And I sent him a picture which he never responded to.  So I just wrote Chuck off.  I figured, well, he must be the kid’s grandfather (laughing).  

(Break to adjust the microphone)

Continue?  So at any rate, I was really surprised when I got that message, and gave him a call. Well then, that changed all my plans.  I wound up, my son and his family went back to Kansas.  Because of the moving of the furniture, I wound up going to New Jersey, living with my sister.  It was only supposed to be for a couple of weeks.  And it turned out that the house wasn’t finished in Kansas, and I wound up with my sister much too long, I think.  She’d probably kill me if she could (laughing).  But anyhow, so I finally – I was at my sister’s house when I called Chuck.  That changed all the plans again, and I decided now to come out here (chuckling).  My son and his wife had been to Washington last year with me. But then I thought I would like them to come here, too, but couldn’t hack it this time.  So that’s how I finally made up my mind to come here this year.

CW:  I called him last Sunday before I left to ask if he was still going to the reunion.  

BE:  Oh yeah, because I had taken all the forms and thrown them away.  So I had to call, I called Marilyn and she sent me new forms (chuckling)

CW:  I called to him to see if he was going to make it.  Because if he wasn’t going to make it, I wasn’t going to make it.  We decided to do it.  

JM:  We’re glad you’re here.

BE:  As I say, it was quite a surprise for me.  He rose from the dead (laughing).  I had been to previous reunions with Gene Hadlock and with Ralph Brown and Dave Howard, our radio operator.  He was way, way back in Cincinnati.  So I had been to a number of them before

JM:  Well let’s back up a little bit and go through the formalities with you.  For the record, will you state your name, today’s date, and where we are.  

BE:  I am Burt Evans.  Today is Friday, September 30th 2005 in Dayton, Ohio.  

JM:  And what were your dates of service with the Army Air Corps?

BE:  1943-1945, roughly.  I can’t remember exactly when in ’43.  But ’45 was in May, oh I guess probably I was discharged maybe June or July of ’45.

JM:  And what were your dates of service with the 95th?

BE:  95th was roughly August – we got over, assigned to the group around August of ’44 to May of ’45.  And as Chuck mentioned, we flew our first mission September 27th to Meinz, Germany.  I disagree with him.  He said he was worried, maybe because his first mission.  I was fat, dumb, and happy.  I just sat up there – didn’t worry me a bit (laughing)

CW:  You sit in that nose and you see that flak coming up, you get worried.

BE:  I was looking out saying “Oh, pretty little puffs.” (laughing)  So we had different reactions there.

JM:  Your squadron number was…

BE:  Well, at that time we were in the 334th.  And the next day we flew to Merseburg, Germany.  And we were still in the 334th.  And after I was wounded, and as Chuck says, I don’t think it was a big wound either.  I agree with he and Gene, it wasn’t a bad wound.  But there was some metal in there and everything, so they sent me to the general hospital.  And I spent almost a full month in the general hospital.  So when I came out, they were already in the 335th.  I don’t know exactly at what point they switched.  But I know the first two missions were with the 334th.  And my next mission was in the 335th, and from then on.

JM:  Tell us about the mission where you were wounded.  

BE:  There again, see, it was our second mission.  I wasn’t really worried about anything.  I thought I had done everything right.  Somebody had said “Be sure if you’re shot and everything, if the parachute opens, lots of people lose their shoes.  So take your shoes and tie them to your parachute harness – wire them so that when you land you have a decent pair of shoes to walk around in. (chuckle).  So I had done all this and I thought I’m really prepared for this.  No problem at all.  And we got over there – Merseburg was an oil target.  I recall, I may be wrong on this, I recall it was near 1,000 guns were protecting it, which is more or less what you had over Berlin, you know.  And so I’m sitting there again, fat, dumb, and happy, looking at the little black puffs all around.  There were a lot more than the first day, but still I wasn’t worried.  And then all of a sudden, it was like I was hit on the back with a baseball bat.  And what had happened, a piece of flak had come in the window going through the back of my seat and blown up my headset.  Once you got to altitude you took your little headset off and you had a white helmet, flak, a leather helmet like you see pilots – earphones built in.  So therefore my low alt earphones were hanging on the back of the seat.  So the flak went through the seat, blew up those earphones, and hit the armor plate behind my seat and shattered.  And I  wound up with a lot of pieces of earphone, and aluminum, and flak in my back.  But it really, after all that being dissipated like that, it really wasn’t very deep or anything.  I had a lot of little penetrations, yeah, but it wasn’t that bad.  But what I remember was being hit by the baseball  bat.  And I didn’t know what to say.  My father laughed afterward because I kept thinking I got to let somebody know.  I was thinking “they got me.”  And I kept thinking that sounds too much like Dick Tracy.  And my father laughed at that all the time.  At any rate, I did finally say “I’ve been hit” or something.  And they had me come down to the nose. Ralph Brown, in his diary, which I’m going to fax a copy – going to send a copy to Helynn – he says he didn’t know anything had really happened until all of a sudden the cockpit filled with I don’t know what you would call it.  But what had happened, I was on a seat cushion, and the seat cushion had been penetrated and all of the kapok filling, whatever was in it, had spread all through the cabin.  He was wondering what was this stuff that was flying around the cabin (laughing).  So anyhow, that is all I remember.  I didn’t know where the burst was.  Later in the hospital, our flight engineer told me, “Oh yeah, don’t you remember?  It was right off the #3 engine.”  He knew.  After he told me that, I faintly remembered it.  But not clearly.  After that, they said come on down to the nose.  And I got down the walkway – catwalk – and crawled down to the nose.  And the catwalk was covered with this red fluid.  I thought, oh my God, somebody down here has been blown up (laughing).  And so when I crawled down there, I realized it was brake fluid – we had lost our brakes.  Well they cut into my jacket and everything and took a look, put sulfur powder I think on the wound, and a compress, and I went back up.  And I flew a little bit.  My arm was sore, but I could still hold the wheel and the throttle.  So I flew a little bit.  I could hold the wheel.  My left hand was perfectly normal.  I could handle the throttles.  I could hold the wheel with my elbow close in.  But as we got back toward the base, Ralph put the flight engineer in my seat because there’s what they call a wobble pump that you can pump what fluid you have into the brakes.  And that would use my bad arm.  So he put him, and sent me to back to ride the rest of it out.  And the reason I brought up the brake fluid and everything, we were landing now without brakes.  So he had given orders or told someone to get hold of a parachute and when we land, because we weren’t sure of the brakes, pop the parachute.  So that’s the reason I mentioned the brake fluid.  We didn’t have any, and had to use a parachute.  And the waist gunner took the parachute, and he was going to stand in the door and pop the parachute (chuckling).  Well, Chuck and somebody else got hold of him anyhow, and took it away from him and tied it to the gun mount.  Otherwise we’d have had a gunner flying across the room.  After we got down, we had been firing flares, so they knew there were wounded aboard.  There was an ambulance already waiting for us.  

JM:  Were you the only one wounded on that flight?

BE:  Yeah.  And it wasn’t really bad.  They wanted me to get on a stretcher.  And I wanted to get back and get changed and go have a drink.  And I wouldn’t get on the stretcher.  So I wound up sitting next to the driver, and we went to the base hospital.  In fact, we also made a trip to the barracks for me to get more clothes, or something.  My toiletries – oh that was it.  We went to the base hospital first and they took an X-ray or something.  And they decided I had to go to the general hospital.  And I wanted to go back to the barracks and get my toiletries if I was going to be in the hospital.  And when I went into the barracks – I don’t know the guy’s name or anything else – it was only one guy in the barracks.  He asked what had happened and I told him.  He said, “Boy that’s great!  That’s really good!”  He said, “You got five more points toward discharge.”  (Laughing)  So anyhow, then they took me to the general hospital and from there on, it was a medical people took hold.  They X-rayed it and arranged to clean it up and fix me up.  But I spent almost a month there, and I don’t think I should have spent that amount of time.  As I say, they got way ahead of me in missions and so forth.  One thing they did do.  They came to visit me and they brought me some booze.  And I had the booze hidden down in a little cabinet next to the bed.  And in this hospital, it was a general hospital so we had people from infantry divisions, tank divisions, who were a long way from their own buddies and friends and all.  So every night after lights out, we use to have a cocktail hour next to my bed (laughing).  As I say, I was there for maybe a month.  When I came back, my first mission I didn’t fly with my own crew.  I flew with another crew.  He tells me, he doesn’t remember, but that first mission they came in and woke me.  They weren’t flying that day.  I had to fly with another crew.  And he says, “All I know is when you were standing there getting dressed, you were white as a sheet.”  (Laughing)  I didn’t think so, but that’s what he told me at the time.  Not now, but (chuckling).  I remember that.  And after that I got to flying again with them, well for several reasons.  One of the things I was trying to catch up with them.  So I flew with other crews.  I flew with a number of other crews – about five or six other crews at various times.  One of the reasons too was, the crew was made a lead crew.  Well, lead crew, when they fly a lead mission they usually have a command pilot.  He sits where the co-pilot sits.  So I didn’t fly with them on some of those missions.  Some I did.  I flew one mission as a tail gunner.  They call it a formation controller.  You sit back there and tell people they’re not in formation and stuff like that.  And so I had that type of mission, plus the fact that I was trying to catch up, wounds.  So I was flying a lot of people.  And on one tail gun mission, I only flew one or two of them, but it was cold back there.  I didn’t have my flak vest in front of me, and I thought, boy it’s getting cold.  I think I’ll get that flak vest and prop it up and break the wind.  And when I did, I got it up there and everything was fine.  I thought, boy this is nice and warm, boy I’m really comfortable.  And I look and there’s my oxygen hose swinging in the wind.  I should have called for help then, but I didn’t.  I kept stabbing at it and stabbing at it and finally got hold of it and plugged it in.  But we both had an oxygen episode (laughing).  So again, as I say, I did finally wind up with them on the last mission.  But I flew with a number of people.  And as a matter of fact, I don’t know if you know George Brumbaugh, but I flew as an experienced co-pilot with him on his first mission.  And that’s the kind of work they had me doing, with new crews.  And some of them were interesting.  On one crew, I believe, and I’d have to look at my dates now, I believe it’s the same date that he got hit in the chest flak, that my bombardier got hit in the face with flak and shattered his cheekbone and so forth.  We had to bring him back.  But we had some close ones at various times.  But we all made it.  Anything else?

JM:  Before we finish up, is there anything else that you’d like to add for the record?

BE:  No, I don’t think so.  (pause)  I remember one mission; it was a troop support mission around Auchendoren (?)  And we, I say we, I don’t know if it was the 95th or the 13th wing, but we were leading the 8th Air Force.  And the mission was to go in and bomb ahead of the troops that were going to be crossing the Rhine.  It was straight in and straight out – in, drop the bombs, and down a thousand or two feet and came back out under the bomber stream.  And that was quite a view to see, when you were the first one, you’re going back and all these planes are going in overhead.  That’s quite a sight.  To me, it impresses me even now because it will probably never be seen again, because they don’t bomb in formation or bomb like that anymore.  They use guided bombs (chuckle).  Yeah, that’s one of the things I do remember.  It was impressive, to see all those airplanes.  And that’s about…

JM:  How many airplanes were, made up a formation?

BE:  Usually 36.

CW:  Well, you had a lead squadron, a high squadron, and a low squadron.  There were usually…

BE:  Six planes in each element.

CW:  Six to seven planes – usually had a tail-end Charlie.

BE:  Yeah, but it was quite a few.  Well, the normal formation was three in lead, three low, and three high.  I’m sorry – six.  Three in the lead, three below them, and six up here and six down here.  So that would be three sixes are 18.  

JM:  And they came from each of the groups, like there would be some from the 95th…

BE:  Well, no, no…

JM:  The 95th flew their own formation.

BE:  Yeah.  Well that was a danger.  Those airfields were so close together over there.  We used to assemble.  We would usually take off, and then we would circle around a beacon, a radio beacon.  Well one of the nature of the radio beacon is that it’s narrow at the base, but it goes out like an inverted cone at the top.  So if you’re circling it, every time you go around, you’re going around a bigger circle as you go up.  And if you have a couple of other airfields nearby you, you’ve got people coming head on to each other and everything.  So it could get pretty scary just assembling.  It was more scary assembling sometimes than any other time.

JM:  How long does it take from the time the first plane took off ‘til the whole formation was formed?  How long would you say that took?

BE:  An hour.

CW:  I wouldn’t say that long.

BE:  Usually we assembled at 20,000 feet, or something like that.

CW:  It would take us some time to get to 20,000 with a bomb load.  I can’t remember how long it would take.  I’d say 45 minutes maybe.

BE:  Yeah.  It was a pretty good time.  And it’s dangerous.  What we were doing was dangerous.  Everybody in the plane was yelling “collision course!” (laughing).

CW:  It was pretty well planned.

BE:  Yeah.  Do you remember, I think it was our last mission, where we were to assemble and it was such heavy contrails and such a heavy cloud cover that we never got fully assembled?  And they said travel over near to Paris and reassemble, or whatever it is.  And when we got over there, half the air force was scattered all over the sky, chasing, trying to find their formations.

CW:  We used to, after you got your lead group together, sometimes we’d form up on the way in before you crossed the channel.

BE:  Sometimes it was kind of confusing.

CW:  They only flew so long on the amount of gas you had.

JM:  Well thank you both so much for taking the time today, and especially for your contributions during World War II.  And we’re so glad you’re back here with us – glad you’re here for your first reunion.  That’s wonderful.  Come back again.

CW:  I’ll try.