James "Frank" Dement
95th BOMB GROUP (H) ASSOCIATION
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
2000 REUNION ORLANDO, FLORIDA
Interviewed by Russ McKnight
RM: Hello, this is Russ McKnight, and we’re here today and we’re going to interview James Dement, and we’re in Orlando, Florida and it’s the 16th of September. I’d like to start out, Jim, by asking you what were your dates of service in the Army/Air Corps?
FD: 1942 to 1945, early ’42 to late ’45
RM: And were those dates of the service all with the 95th, or what were your dates with the 95th?
FD: The dates with the 95th were ’44 and ’45.
RM: Could you tell us what your job was with the 95th?
FD: I was an airborne radar officer on a B-17. At that time, it was called “Mickey”, which I guess, since we’re at Walt Disney, is a rather appropriate name. But in the same breath, the radar was planned position radar where you actually could see sort of a view, whether it was cloudy or whatever.
RM: And James, was that for navigational purposes?
FD: Navigation and bombing. We could actually bomb through the clouds. As a matter of fact, when I was told I was going to be assigned to, was going to take Mickey training, I was at Langley Field in Virginia. They said you’d be able to see through the clouds. I was oh yeah; I’ll believe that when I see it – that sort of an attitude because, at the time, radar was a relatively new and very secret field.
RM: That’s really interesting, and I’m not sure we have that perspective. Could you tell us more about how that worked?
FD: Well, on the B-17, generally there was a ten-man crew. On the planes that I flew with the 95th, it was still a ten-man crew, but I was the 10th man. The ball turret contained the antennae for the radar, so we had no ball turret gunner. The radar itself was a small scope, perhaps six or seven inches in diameter, and on the screen you could see – heavy industrial areas would stand out like a real bright light and lighter areas would not stand out. It would depend on the reflection of the wave that was transmitted by the radar in the aircraft. You could measure distances. I think that I was instrumental in developing a method whereby you could read drift on the radar. My navigator and I, when we were rendezvousing, he would call me for information so that he could chart a better course. I could give him drift. It wouldn’t mean much to anybody, except perhaps the navigator. I could give him drift readings, actually while we were circling and on our way to a rendezvous. Knowing what the winds are (is) a very, very great aid to a navigator.
RM: I understand. That is a variant. So you think that later on, those contributions helped the drift calculations?
FD: Well, they helped the navigation calculations. Think of an airplane. It’s in a medium; it’s in air. Now if you’re in a boat, and you start a course, and there’s a stream flowing, you say you start across the river. If you head straight to the other bank, you’re not going to end up on the other side. You’re going to end up downstream. Well an aircraft is the same way. When it’s in the air, if the wind is blowing from your tail, your ground speed will be much faster than it is if you’re heading into the wind, because the air is a medium, like water.
RM: Did each of the B-17’s have one of these radar…
FD: No. In the whole 95th Bomb Group, I think they had six airplanes that were equipped that way. There was only perhaps eight to ten Mickey guys on the whole base.
RM: So the rest of the ships had the ball gun turret?
FD: Yes, the ball gun turret, and we always flew the leads.
RM: I was going to ask that. So you got to be in the lead.
FD: Yes, I got to be in the lead. As a matter of fact I think I stayed in the combat arena a little longer than a lot of the crew, simply because of the fact that the Colonel always, the Colonel, the Commander of the base, Jack Shook, always liked to fly with our crew. So when he flew, we flew. (Laughter) That’s an observation on my part. That seemed to be the way it was. He didn’t always fly when I flew, but when he flew, we flew.
RM: That might have kept you overseas a little longer.
FD: Jack Shook was a very fine gentleman, a very, very fine commander.
RM: James, did you have any special missions that you’d like to share with us?
FD: Well, there was – the one I guess that stands out in my mind more than any is the mission to Merseburg, which was an oil target. The 8th Air Force lead really fouled up on the way to the target, missed the initial point by, I’d say, 25 miles. As a result, we went over Zeitz, which was also an oil target, and we went on to Merseburg. For example, I was flying the high C squadron, and B squadron dropped on Zeitz, not Merseburg. Merseburg was our target. We went on to Merseburg, dropped our bombs and I estimated the drop missed by about 1,000 yards over to the right, and was later proven correct within maybe a few hundred feet, by photographs. I don’t know whether I should even mention this or not, but when I got back on the ground, of course I disagreed with most everybody else. I’m tooting my own horn, now. Really, I was threatened with court-martial, because I said the mission was fouled up. We lost a lot of planes that we shouldn’t have and that sort of thing. Anyway, it so happened that when made our turn at the initial point, there was an accidental bomb drop. The photographs showed that we turned where I said we turned not where we were supposed to have turned. As a result, instead of getting a court-martial, my papers don’t read this but, instead of getting a court-martial, I believe that was one of the major reasons for my Distinguished Flying Cross. Also, I was a First Lieutenant exactly 19 days. So I was promoted from First Lieutenant to Captain in 19 days. The records prove that.
RM: That’s very impressive, standing by your convictions.
FD: Right.
RM: Were there other incidences that were memorable?
FD: Well, I guess one of the greatest compliments that I ever can remember having in my life. I was behind my crew by a couple of missions because they had already flown a couple when I was assigned to the crew. I flew missions with other crews. One mission I flew, I remember specifically, outside of the tent, which was out at the hard stand where the aircraft was, the mechanics stayed in that tent. As I was walking up the crew that I was flying with was already there and their crew commander, the pilot of the ship, was talking to them. He said, “Now we’re going to have a Captain Dement flying with us today, and I don’t know what kind of a guy he is, or anything like that. But I understand that if he’s flying with us, at least we’ll know where we are. (Laughter) That is something that I will remember as long as I live. I guess another memorable mission was, I believe this was around December 10th, 1944 to Berlin, the 9th or 10th, somewhere in that area. It was a mission to Berlin. It was a tanks works over in Berlin that was our target. We approached Berlin from the northeast. And we had 150-mph tailwinds. This is related to what I just told you. So, instead of our ground speed being around 250, it was around 400 mph over the target. So by the time we turned on the IP, we hardly had time get set up and get on course for the bomb run. Bang, bang, bang and we were over the target and gone. That was a memorable mission. The next day the London newspapers had big headlines: Ten Thousand Germans Killed on Allied Raid. So that was quite a memorable mission. As a matter of fact, they had an air show here in Orlando several years ago and that headline was one of the little displays that they had. They had a B-17 here. I took my grandson out there because he has great interest in space, airplanes, the Air Force, etc.
RM: James, that’s very interesting. How did it come to pass, when your missions were done, did you rotate back to the United States at that point?
FD: Well, when my missions were done, it was the end of the war. Yes, I rotated back to the United States and I was reassigned down to Boca Raton, Florida for transition to B-29’s to go to Japan. But then the atomic bomb was dropped. There’s another little interesting point, and I’d like to mention this. I wish I knew the name of the Lieutenant that ran the radar maintenance shack at the 95th Bomb Group. The Mickey’s had a bad habit of failing as you went up in altitude. We’d get up there to 19 to 22 thousand feet, the signal would start fading. And we flew most of our missions at 28-29,000 feet. The first two missions I flew, I lost radar. And as soon as we’d get back down to a lower altitude, the radar would come back into play. So I always had been interested in radios and that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, when I was a kid I built my own radio. I built my first one when I was nine years old, a crystal set. Well, I became an electronics engineer, as you might guess. So I hung out a good bit in the radar shack right where they were doing the repair of radios and radars. And the Lieutenant that was in charge of the shack, he and I got our heads together, what’s wrong with these radars, you know, why do they crap out? So we came to the conclusion that it was the altitude that caused it. And it turned out it was a very good conclusion. What he did, he put pressure, put pumps on the wave guides of the radar, pressurized the wave guide. From then on, our Mickey sets worked great, all the way up to 30,000 feet, which was about the highest we ever had them. Another officer and I Billy P. DeChurnis, were called up to 8th Air Force Headquarters. They sent out a staff car for us. They wanted to know what we were doing down in the 95th that nobody else in the whole 8th Air Force was doing with radar. Like I said, I wish I knew the name of that Lieutenant so that I could have his name go into the record as being extra sharp at figuring out what the problems were with those radars.
RM: Frank, could you tell us a little about your separation from the service?
FD: Well, I just had a normal separation. I stayed in the inactive reserve for years. I was called back in 1951 Korean War, because I had a critical MOS. being in radar, but I had elevated, high blood pressure. Not extremely high, but too high for a flight officer. So I was not called back in. I was ready to come back, but I wasn’t called back in. I have a degree in electrical engineering, and I worked for 40 years as an electronic engineer. Twenty-six of those years at what is now Lockheed- Martin, Martin-Marietta. It was sort of funny in a way because a lot of the work that I’ve done is still been related to Air Force. For instance I worked for approximately eight years at engineering research corporation in Riverdale, Maryland and then at Melpaw in Alexandria, Virginia, designing and building flight simulators. And some of the flight simulators for example were the F-86D, the F-100, the F-101. As a matter of fact, I believe at one time, I could have flown any one of those jet planes. I’m not sure about landing it. I know I could have flown it because of all the time I spent in the cockpit of those trainers. And those were simulators, not trainers. They actually simulated the aircraft.
RM: Frank, on behalf of the Legacy Committee, I would really like to thank you for coming in and sharing these stories and perspectives with us today. And I’d also like to thank you, on behalf of Americans everywhere, for not only the effort, but also for the science and the technology.