Orville Ritchey
95TH BOMB GROUP (H)
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
2002 REUNION ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
(Interviewed by Janie McKnight)
JM: This is Janie McKnight with the Legacy Committee of the 95th Bomb Group. We’re interviewing Orville Ritchey. Will you state your name, today’s date, and where we are, for the record.
OR: I am Orville Ritchey. I was with the 412th Bomb Squadron, 95th Bomb Group. This is September 11, 2002, and we’re in St. Louis, Missouri.
JM: What were your dates of service with the Army Air Corps?
OR: September of 1942 to June of 1945.
JM: And what were your dates of service with the 95th Bomb Group?
OR: Now you’re pressing my - I can’t remember what I had for breakfast, and you want to know this. ‘44 to ‘45.
JM: And what was your principle job with the 95th?
OR: I only had one job, and it was engineer/top turret gunner on a B-17.
JM: Where did you enlist in the service?
OR: Selfridge Air Force Base.
JM: And from there you were sent to where?
OR: St. Louis, Missouri - Jefferson Barracks. That’s where I took my basic training. And it was hot as hell here. Oh, God! You washed your dungarees when you perspired, and you washed them and they never dried the whole time you were here. It was horrible.
JM: Continue on with your training, the rest of your training.
OR: Let me give you a little something on this place. We went through the mess hall here one day. And somebody put GI soap in the gravy. Now you know what the GI soap will do to you - it will clean you out (chuckle). Now, we were on the top of a hill, our barracks was, but the latrine was at the top of the hill. Now people jumped out of their bunk, and they went there - they did it. And some lasted a little longer; they got two or three steps out of the barracks. But all the way up the hill there was what I’m talking about (chuckle). This was _____________. Now, I don’t like gravy. I hate gravy. So naturally, I didn’t have any of the gravy. So I was brought in because I didn’t have diarrhea. So they were going to crucify me, they were going to do everything because they knew I had put that soap in that gravy. But they couldn’t prove that I had did anything like that, and I didn’t. I wouldn’t do anything like that. That’s my Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. Now from there I went to Amarillo, Texas and I became a mechanic. I went through mechanic’s school for nine months. I learned, you start right out, I don’t care what you know, they start right out with this ___ wrench, this ___ cord wrench wrench, this ____this. And you go through the whole nomenclature. And then when you get all done, and you get all of that. While I was there, we had spinal meningitis in my barracks, so I was quaranteened for, what, six weeks, or something like that. Now, we had one guy that was out for, he was shacked up with a gal in town, so when they quarenteened our barracks, wouldn’t come to the door. We shooed him away, so he went back into Amarillo. Now, every day he’d come by, and we’d take up money, and we’d give him money, and he’d buy us rum. And he would bring back two or three bottles of rum. And then somebody - we couldn’t go out of the barracks, so somebody’d pass by outside - “Hey, come here! Come here! Get us some coke out of the orderly room over there.” So they’d bring us in coke, and we’d get schnockered with this rum and coke. Well now the next day - every day the doctors would come in and swab our throats. And then he’d...”Where in the hell are you getting that stuff? Where the hell are you getting that stuff?” (Chuckle) I never played so much cards in all my life. I learned to be a good poker player you’re going to lose your ass. Oh, and after I got done with mechanics school, we had to go on a bivouc. We had to go out into the field. You pitch a tent out there, and in this tent. And then you had to go out and work on airplanes out there, and come back and live in the tent at night. Well, from here to that wall was my barracks. Now this is stupid. I’m going to sleep in a tent, and my barracks is right there? So I picked up the, and I sneak out the bottom, and I go over and I spent the night there. I get up, come back, pick it up. “Yeah, I’m ready.” (Laughing) I wasn’t about to sleep in that goddamn tent. And then, just as they lift that up - by the way, my wife was working in the hospital there. Now, they just lift the quarantine. Now I can meet my wife in town. Just then they send her home - a snow storm - worst snow storm they had in 52 years. They shut the base down for another week (chuckle), so there I am for another week. My wife’s in town and I’m on base. Finally I do get in town. They don’t know how to shovel snow. They don’t know how to move it. Curbs are this high, water’s this high and snow on the top, and you step off and you’re up to here - ohhh. Amarillo, Texas - I have a thing. We had a hotel there we used to go to - the Old ___________________. And we used to go there evenings and dance. And her and I were dancing there. This jeweler was there with his wife, and they were dancing. And when I whisper, I whisper loud. And I said to my wife, “I wonder if that diamond isn’t real.” And she turned to me and she said, “You bet your sweet ass it is.” (Chuckle) It was a big rock. And she says to me “You bet your sweet ass it is.” Let’s see, Amarillo. That just about wound up Amarillo. And from there I went to gunnery school in Kingman, Arizona. And I told my wife, you wait here and I’ll go to Kingman, Arizona. When I get there, if it’s nice, you can come on out there for a while. I got there. I got off, got on a bus, went into town, didn’t even get off of the bus. Come right back, called her up, “Go home.” (Chuckle) I looked over there - I’d never seen a mountain. I was born and raised in Michigan. And I looked over there. There was this beautiful hill. I said to the Sergeant, boy the first time I get a day off I’m going to go over and climb that hill. He said, you better pack a lunch. It’s 75 miles to the base of that hill. And I swear I could reach out and touch it. I went to there, went to gunnery school. We had a lot of things going on in gunnery school (laughing). We had high towers where you would have a skeet range guy that shot skeet out of a high tower. And this thing would come out. And we would have shotguns - regular shotguns - in a turret. And you would swing a turret around, and shoot that shotgun with a turret. Well, we’d get up there - we’d be ______________ - we’d knock a hole out of the front of that skeet. It would go out, and then it would fall right there. Here’s the guy tracking you - where’d you go? (Laughing) Now also, we would be in the back of the truck, pick-up truck - they had you strapped in. And we would go around a big race track. And he would run over a string cable. And that would release a skeet. Now you’re traveling, now you shoot behind the skeet, because you’re traveling, see. Otherwise, you’re shooting ahead of the skeet. This way you shoot behind it. And we had the, well, you had to take your turn being in these houses. And you had a big thing here - you would cock that thing. Well we all had these hard hats on. And every time this one house would come out, it would be all broke, the skeet, you know. Finally they went in there to find out what’s the matter. This guy, he wasn’t too smart - he would leave the handle up. Well as soon as that would trip, that handle would come down and hit him on the head. And it was knocking him out almost. He kept doing it, and we’d run over it and it’d hit him in the head again (chuckle). But we got through that. Now from there, I went out to the Yacca Flats. Now the Yacca Flats - it’s 110 - 20 in the shade. We’re going air to air gunnery now. We go up in a B-17 and we shoot at a target being towed by a B-26 - some pilot that screwed up, he’s dragging a target, see. So we’re up there. Now this B-17 is a shell. Now you put that out in the hot sun. Oh God, now it’s hot! And we get out there - now I’m taking all my ammunition out there ‘cause I’ve got to put mine up in the turret. Now it’s all marked - they take all your ammunition and they put it down in paint. Now all the tips, mine, were red. Now I take them in there. Now my 50 Caliber - I’ve got to throw it up in there, and on the side there’s a little catch. You throw it up in there, and I catch them, so I had two of them, and I put all my ammunition in there. Now these half assed pilots come out there. They’re running up number three engine, and they say, we got to get another airplane. What?! So now, he calls and gets another airplane. I’ve got to take them two guns out, take all that ammunition, but it in the boxes. I got to go out now. Now I’m wringing wet. I sweat watching you work, so you can imagine what I was doing out there. And now they take this down. We get into another plane. I go through the same thing again. Throw it up in there and that thing wasn’t catching - it was coming back at me - damned 50 calibers flying back at me. He runs it up. Number 4 engine isn’t running. We need another airplane. Now I could have shot him. That’s why they didn’t give us the ammunition for those guns that we were carrying - the 45, because I would have shot him. And so now we get another airplane. Now, no way am I going to put those things up in there. The hell with it. I don’t care. So I don’t qualify. Put me in the Infantry, put me anywhere. Right now I don’t give a damn. So we get out there where we’re going. I open the door. I kick those two boxes out. The hell with it. The next day my report came in. I got an 85. (Chuckle) I got an 85. You know they’re going to wash me out. Oh, you’re supposed to laugh. I got an 85. So, let’s see, from there, where did I go? We went to Sioux City, Iowa. That’s where we picked up our crew - no, Lincoln, Nebraska. And we picked up our crews there. We got all our crews. They come from all over. And you can’t believe where all my crew came from - everywhere. And I’ll never forget Thaddeus Johnson - 19 years old - Amarillo, Texas. That’s another story. And so we got a crew there, and we got our overseas training there. No, from there we went, as a crew, to Sioux City, Iowa. And we got our overseas training there. And that’s where we went out and flew missions and one thing and another. And that’s where that plane came in and tore off a wing, and it went down - P-54. Now, my wife was there. My pilot’s wife was there. My co-pilot’s wife was there. And they all lived within a block. So we came back from a mission, we’d fly over the house and vrrooom, vrrooom, vrrooom. So we’d go out and land, come back. By the time we came back, supper was on the table. We had it all figured out. Now every time I went up, I got sick. I barfed. I’d barfed in the bomb bay. We’d land, I’d go get a bucket of water and a broom, and clean out the barf out of the bomb bay. Everybody, Ritchey, why don’t you go have the flight surgeon fly with you and he see’s you’re barfing, you can be grounded. Then where do I go, you know? Do I stay in the Air Corps, or do they put me in the Infantry? I sweat it out. I got overseas for one mission, got the shit shot out of me, and I never got sick again. I’ve never been sick in an airplane in my life. And people say, how can you fly? You know, I’m so nervous and one thing and another. And I say, hell, I sleep in an airplane. You can sleep? I say, _______________________________________. I don’t know – don’t bother me at all. From there we got our crews together. Oh boy, we’re going to get airplanes - everybody’s flying over. The numbers, they cut it off. So many flew. So many to the boat. Guess where my cut off was - boat! I get on the SS Brazil - promenade deck, come on, you’re going to be on the promenade deck. Sounds good - promenade deck. Well you get up there on the promenade - OK, drop your bunks and put your baggage on there. Now, big promenade, now drop your bunks, now you get a space this big (chuckle). And you’re bunked three or four high.
JM: Where did the boat leave from?
OR: We left out of New York somewhere, somewhere in New York. And - August, we left out in August - just before my wife’s birthday. And we’d been in Fort Dix, waiting, waiting, waiting. And I had decided, what the hell. My wife and I had never been to New York. So I called her on the phone - get your ditty bag together and come in to New York, and we’ll have the town. I no more hung up the phone, they shut the base down, cut off the phones - everything. We’re shipping out. When anybody was shipping out, they did that. Now, she’s on her way ____________ get ready. Gee. So I went up to a lady in the PX, and I cried. I did everything - that what I had just done and one thing and another. She’s getting ready to come and there’s going to be nobody here. I said, “You don’t have to tell her nothing. Just say don’t come. Just call her and say don’t come. Let it go at that. Just stop her, is all.” She said, “Well I could get in trouble.” “Just say don’t come and she don’t know if we’ll be shipping out. Just say don’t come. Don’t give any dates or nothing.” And she did it for me. So I got her stopped. Now, normally it takes 3 or 4 days - 4 days - on the Queen Mary to go over there. It took us 18 days. 18 days. By the time I got over there, you give me a row boat and I’ll row home. I’ll row home. I’d had enough of that goddamn boat. Geez cripes. So I flew one mission. Give me a rowboat - I’ll row home. I was going to take out citizenship papers over there. Then when I flew one mission, I said give me a rowboat, I’ll row home. So we got there from there. Let’s see. When I left over here, I bought two bottles of Canadian Club - one to fly on our first mission, one on our last mission. Now I nursed them all the way over, everywhere I went and one thing and another. And we went to the wash over there. It’s called the wash. That’s where all the - anybody that’s coming over to England goes. From there they put them to wherever they’re going, to what base and one thing and another. Well any pilot or something that goes _____________, then they come back and they buzz the wash. Because a lot of people are just showing off. Well, this A-26 come over there see, and he buzzed the field. And he pulled up, and when he pulled up, he flew down so low, his tail hit the telephone post. And he just went up like that and come right back. He had two five hundred pounders on there. Fortunately, they didn’t go off. Now, we’re standing in line changing our American money into pound notes and English currency. And this happens, and this big fireball - Jesus Christ, even there - we had a fire and planes crashing. I don’t want to play! (Laughing) So that was that. And from there, now, they throw all our stuff on a big truck. They get us to where we’re going and right in front of the orderly room, a guy starts throwing off luggage - cloink! Uh oh! Whiskey! One of my bottles of Canadian Club he busted when he threw it off. So I saved one of them. So I saved it for the 35th mission. And we got snockered drunk on our 35th mission. And when we used to fly, you’d come in from a mission and you would go in, get debriefed, then you’d go in and the medics would give you a shot of cognac. Well, I’d go in there and I’d say “Merther.” They’d check me off and I’d take a big shot. That was the pilot. He didn’t drink. He was a teetotaler. Then I’d go around and I’d come back and I’d say “Yates.” They’d check if off. He didn’t drink either. And I’d come back around and I’d say “Ritchey.” They take it off. I had three big shots - nee, nee, nee. I hadn’t eaten in 8-10 hours. I was nee, nee (laughing). Then we’d go up to the club and I’d finish it off. That’s the only way I could fly the next day - snockered.
JM: You were stationed in Horham.?
OR: 95th Bomb Group, 412th Bomb Squadron. And I flew 35 missions out of there. And I flew when birds were walking.
JM: That means...
OR: Well a bird goes out and they look around and, shit, I’m not flying today, and the bird will walk back to it’s nest. And our pilot said, we’re going. I said, I don’t want go. Look, the birds are walking. He says Colonel Shuck says we’re flying today. We lost more planes by mid air collisions than we did flying over the target. Because we’re here. About three or four miles is another one. Three or four miles is another one. 390th was here. The 100th was here. And we were taking off and we’re circling here. They’re taking off and circling here. They’re taking off circling here. Oops! And we were rendezvousing here. Now, we were going a long ways - maybe eight, nine, ten hours, we’d fly on course - rendezvous on course. But if we were going a short way, we’d rendezvous over the base. When you climb up through 14,000 foot of overcast, it’s a long ways. On my 11th, 12th mission - I don’t remember - but my pilot quit. He went into his _______________. I’m quitting. He says, I’m not a coward. Give me a fighter plane and I will fly anywhere you want me to. But I’m not going to take nine other men up in weather like that. And I represented the man. I went to his court martial. And this Colonel Shuck says, if I, back in the states, would fly you in weather like this, they would court martial me. But there’s people over there waiting for us. And he says, we will fly when they tell us to. So he - what they did, they busted him a rank, from Captain to First Lieutenant, and put him in another squadron - another like the 390th, or whatever it was. And then he flew as co-pilot. Gunther, his name was Gunther. And our co-pilot was Hunter. And they made Hunter the pilot. He’s 20 years old - snot nosed kid, and they made him the pilot. And he says, what do you think, Orville? And I said, what the hell, you’ve been flying it anyway. Take it. Let’s go. It might as well be you as a stranger. At least we can yell at you. And then we had another guy by the name of Cochran. He wore his gun on the side, instead of here he wore it on his side. Quick Draw Cochran. And we were on one mission. We come back - there were 200 holes in the airplane - four in the waist gunner’s legs - Luther, not Luther but Thaddeus. He was down on his haunches, you know, with a gun on the side - waist gun. A piece of flak come up and went right through here - one, two, three, four, it come up. So when he straightened out his leg, he had four holes in his leg. And our bombardier was an undertaker, so he come back, patched him all up, and he was fat, dumb, and happy when we got back. They wheeled him out. Now he, after he got out of the hospital, they put him in the orderly room. Well he could see us finishing our missions and that we were going to go home. So he wanted to finish, so he got back flying with us again so he could finish his missions and not be kept - he didn’t know how long. And then he was flak happy - he could see airplanes in the fog, and he’d be asking “How many are there?” “Damn it Johnson, shut up!” And then he’d cool down for a while. But he could see planes all over. He’d be calling them in, calling them in. Then we’re looking all over for them, especially when you’re climbing up. Well we’re a little flack happy too, and then to have him doing that to us. So, we’re open for questions now.
JM: Well, were there any more memorable missions - I mean, ones where you came back with 200 holes - where was that to?
OR: Oh, I went to Berlin five times. Now, they get real urinated off when you go there because they protect that like it’s a, like it’s the Capitol, will we say? And they get real... And one, I can remember, we were going in. They would shoot up, you know. And the only think I can think of - three shells must have met. And when they met, they all three, or two, went off. And it was the biggest ball of fire and black smoke I’ve ever seen in my life. And now, we’re tooling right into that. Well it’s already spent, but, what if they fire that damn think again? And we got through it. It never happened again, but that was one of those - that was a memorable occasion. And the two hundred holes in there - one of them, 88, went right through a wing. But it wasn’t set to go off. The detonation was set to go off with altitude, and it went off up above somewhere. And the big spar that goes down the wing, it just made a little crease on it. If it had been over just a little bit, it would have torn the whole wing off. And I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you. And you wouldn’t be here (to his son). So, that’s anything memorable. Oh, we were in a target - I can’t remember - 35 of them, you don’t remember. At the time you remember, but that’s 50 years ago. And we lost three engines. And three engines - that thing has the gliding angle of a rock. And it just kept falling back, falling back. And finally the pilot says, we’re going into Brussels, Belgium. And that’s where we went - Brussels. So we went into Brussels, and we stayed there. And they took over a house of ill repute, and they put us up in that. And now we’re in this room, and I go in there, and the first time I ever seen a - what is it? -
JM: Bidet.
OR: Bidet. How do you use that? And it’s got hot and cold running water. That don’t make sense. I’d never seen one in my life. So there it is. Then we go out and we get on a bus. We’re going downtown; they give us some money. I got a whole great big pile of this money. I get on the bus - take what you want, take what you want. I hold out my hand. So we stayed there for three days. And my pilot was real busy and he forgot. He told the lead pilot that we had lost engines; we were going into Brussels. And the lead pilot was so busy, he had forgot it. So then when he got back, he forgot to tell the base that we were in Brussels. So we were MIA. So now, I’m writing home: Having wonderful time, wish you were here, and all of that. Well then when what-you-call-it goes in the hospital, he writes something, or they send something to his sister. Well she in turn calls my wife: What is this that’s going on over there? Are they getting hurt over there? (Chuckle) And my wife writes me a long letter: What’s going on over there? You getting hurt over there? And I write: Having wonderful time. Wish you were here. And the Stars and Stripes would come out the next day, and they would give the complete detail of where we went and what we did. And I would cut that out, and I would mail that to my wife the next day. So she had all those clippings of my 35 missions of where we went. Now the bombardier, they had little tags that were on the bombs, with a cotter key. And you had to pull that out so that the wind machine would go when they were dropping. And he saved all of those. He had a whole pile of those. And he would write where they went. And my navigator, he was a cartoon artist. Now, I got a big map - it was a flak map telling you where all the flak was on the continent. And I got that. So every time we flew a mission, I carried the flak back up to his barracks, and he’d draw a little cartoon and where we went. And over in England, he drew a nice little English cottage - the home base. And then over here, he had Berlin, and he had a scoreboard - one, two, three, four, five. And then, once we hit the lines, railroad yards, marshalling yards, he had little tiger tanks - we had a tiger tank factory. Or synthetic oil, he had a little test tubes, and what. I’ve got all them 35 missions on this big map. It must be, what, three by four? Three by four. It’s in my shrine, which is my bedroom. I’ve got B-17's all in there.
RM: Orville, did you ever encounter enemy fighters that you had to engage in...
OR: Hmmm. I told him, we are going 150 mile an hour. They are coming 350 mile - swooh! And they always come out of the sun. Now as you’re driving east into the sun, you don’t see nothing. But he was saying today, With the sun at your back, I can see you real good. Well he could see me real good, but by the time I see him, he was gone. So it was just like throwing a handful of rocks up there. Now if they were back and forth sideways, you had a chance at shooting at them. But up where I was, they was coming right out of the sun. If they come out behind us, you had a chance, something like that.
JM: Did you stay with the same crew for the whole 35 mission, except for your pilot?
OR: Yeah. We finished March the 19th. We all finished. In fact, we used to have a reunion, just the crew - nine of us went. And the first reunion we had, we had it in Las Vegas. And the nine was there. We walk in this room and the pilot, he had it. When we walked into this room there was a bottle of Canadian Club sitting there. (Chuckle) Yeah, in fact, only three of us finished together - the pilot, the bombardier, and me - finished the 35 together. We kept going and finished all 35 together. The rest were out for different things - cold, clap, stuff like that. Beastly things overseas.
JM: Tell us a little bit about what you did with your time off when you were on base. Did you go into town? Or did you stay on base mostly?
OR: There was nothing in town. Diss. Diss and Horham. I took a month vacation with my wife and we went to England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and Paris. And when we were in London, we hopped on a train and went out to Diss. We spent a couple of hours in Diss, we got back on the train and went back to London. There’s nothing out there. In fact, I think they were growing mushrooms out on the base in Horham. It was all blacktop out there.
JM: Have you been back to England?
OR: Yeah. How long ago was it I was back there?
JR: 18 years?
OR: Yeah, about that.
JM: And when you finished your 35th mission, how did you get home after that?
OR: That damn boat again! I left out of Southampton. Fifteen days - it was much shorter coming back. Fifteen days.
JM: And when you got back to the states, where did you go?
OR: To Chicago. I met my wife there. I didn’t want to go home with all those brats at home. I wanted to be with my wife. Nobody was around.
JR: You played a lot of craps on the ship, didn’t you?
OR: Oh yeah. On the boat coming back, I did a lot of crap shooting, and Black Jack overseas. And I had loaned a lot of money out. And when they come back with me, they paid me all back. And I went into London and had a ball for about three days. Then I got on the boat - I think I had four dollars. And I heard those little dominoes running across this deck. It was a SS Owl. They were running out of names - SS Owl. It was a metal deck. The dice were running across there. I picked up the dice with those four dollars, and I ran it up to $800. Boy I just.... I went back and the guy that was under the bunk by me there, he had a brand new German Luger. He wanted $300 for it. I could, so I bought it. Now, in 15 days, naturally the dice turned on me. Would you believe that (laughing), because of all my money. Now this guy comes back. He wants his German Luger back. He got hot. I said, no I want to take that German Luger home. I want to take it home. No, he wants to buy. He finally got it up to $1000. You just bought yourself a German Luger. And he said, I took that off of an officer. I want that German Luger. I said OK. So I sold him the German Luger back. Naturally I dropped that too. Now I don’t have a German Luger. But the only think I lost was $400, the way I looked at it.
JM: Did you stay in the service for very long after you got back?
OR: I got back. I had a 30 day leave. Oh yeah. We got into Chicago, and it was VE Day. I got in there with my wife. Every damn thing was closed. Everything was boarded up. I said, what in the hell are we doing here? We might as well go home. So we went back to Michigan. Now we’re on the train coming home. And we’re sitting on a train there, and we’re reading. Now this lady in back of me sneezes. It isn’t a ahh, ahhh, ahhh. She just AHCH. I jumped three feet that way, because I was like this. So then I get a 30 day leave. Oh yeah. We’re at her mother’s house. And we’re having dinner there. And I’m sitting in the other room and I’m reading the paper. She comes by and hits the paper. My wife says I turned white, completely white. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to kill her right there. But it was her mother - I couldn’t. But boy, ooh, I was that close. But her mother was so apologetic. She was so sorry she did that. Then it’s too late. Now I got a 30 day leave. So her and I, we drive to Florida. We had a car. When I left, I had a ‘41 Ford. And I figured, if I came back, I wanted a car. If I didn’t come back, I didn’t need a car, right? So I left the car there. So we had this car. And I went down and I said, I’m a service man. I’m going to Florida. I give him all this - they give me a thing: Go get yourself four nice brand new tires. So I got four nice brand new tires. They gave me stamps for the gas. We leave, we drove down there. Now we’re down there. And they’re interviewing me and that - they’re going to send me in a B-29 to Japan. They’re going to finish out the war in Japan. Cripes, I just had the one war. I don’t want another one. But they convinced me I should go. I think it was a gun they were holding here. And then they interviewed me for more, and they says, by the way this point system has come out, they say, let’s see, with your medals, and your service and one thing and another, you’ve got 87 points. You only need 85 to get out. Me want out? I says, is the Pope Catholic? He says, yes. I says, well then I want out. So he says, well, let’s see, you’ve got to be to Fort Sheridan, Illinois in three days. Can you make it? Give me the papers. So her and I drove three days up to Fort Sheridan, Illinois in ‘45. And I got out in ‘45. And then, two years later in ‘47, a fella where I work says over at the Navy base __________________, Michigan they’re giving equivalent rates over there, giving good deals. Well I was a tech sergeant and they would give me First Class in the Navy. So I went over there and got First Class in the Navy, and three years later I made Chief. And the same year I made leading Chief, so I had eight Chiefs and 138 men under me. And I had that for the rest of the time I was there. I and went through, I don’t know how many airplanes I went through. But we worked out of ____________________________________________________ base, and then we moved to Selfridge. And I don’t know how many years I was up there. I retired from there in ‘72 with 35 years of service. Have you been back there lately? They’ve got, up on the point up there, over there where that little slip was, they have built the most beautiful condos with two car garage underneath, and a boat well in back, heated, with an electric garage door opener on that in the back where you put your boat in there. The garage door goes down. And a condo up above. Oh, gorgeous. Tony Laverty took me up there - took me all through it. And then there’s a restaurant up there - Bob and Ray’s or Ray and Bob’s or something. Oh, it’s beautiful. I went up the other day, so while I was there I took this gal up there to eat. By the way, my wife died six years ago. That’s why I took this gal up there. So then from there, I went in the side door where the golf course is, and we went all through the place. Brett’s up there now. He’s up there in the Coast Guard. We’ve got the Coast Guard there now, they’ve got the Marine Corps, they have the Air National Guard, they have the Marines up there, they’ve got the Navy up there. God, everybody’s up there.
JM: We’re getting toward the end of the tape, and I wondered if there’s anything else you’d like to add about your time with the 95th, or your time in England, or the reunions that you’ve been to.
OR: Oh, I’ve enjoyed the reunions immensely. And every time I got a 72 or something, I always went into London. And while I was there, my brother-in-law was with the Infantry, and I looked him up. And he was over out at some base, and I went out there, and I went to the base that he was at. And I was a Tech Sergeant with medals up the ass, you know, and I walked in there. And I always carried a swagger stick - oh gosh, I still got that. I walked down the street, and I’d salute with that, and a couple of generals, I looked back and they were back there laughing at me, but I had a ball (laughing). I went on this base, and I go in there to the First Sergeant, and I said I’m looking for Irwin Laverty. He says, well he’s on leave right now. He should be back any minute. And I told him who I was, I was married to his sister and I was over here on leave. I’d like to take him into London, and that. He said sure. He said he’s on leave now, but I’ll give him another 72 - I’ll give it to him. So he comes in - he always called me Ace. Why the hell he called me Ace, I’ll never know. But he seen me sitting - Ace! He comes running over. He gives hugs and kisses. I says, come on, we’re going into London. He said, I just got a pass. I can’t get a pass. I say, I’ll take care of that. I said, Sarg, can he go into London with me? Yeah, take him. Get him the hell out of here. His eyes get about this big. How the hell did you swing that? So we went into London, and I had a couple of places - black market - that had steaks, big beautiful steaks. And you had to know somebody - pitch black, but boy is the room like this. So we went in there - a couple of steaks - he said, how’d you know this? I says, (chuckle). And we went in there - had a steak. But I think I had him about a day and a half. That was enough - he’s yakkity yak. I says, I got to get back to the base. I gave him a couple of bucks and put him on a train, get the hell out of here. And I went by myself. But that was one time in London. My pilot and I went one time. We went and bought a bottle of gin. And we were going up to Nottingham - we wanted to see the Sherwood Forest. So we rode on these trains, and these trains - I don’t know - they pull into the station like this, and you step right straight out. Well, we kept asking the conductor, when are we going to get to Nottingham? The next time the train stops, we’re going to be in Nottingham. Okay. So we’re sitting there. The train stops, Bill opens the door and steps out. It stops once outside of the station, and he opened the door and steps out - kerplunk! He’s down in the mud. Now, I’m reaching down, trying to get him back into the car. (Laughing) We’re moving along slowly, trying to get into the station, and I’m trying to get him in the car. Oh God. That was our Nottingham trip.
JM: Well, I’d like to thank you for your time today, and your contributions during World War II. It means so much to our country and to the world. Thank you so much. Again, this is Janie McKnight with the Legacy Committee interviewing Orville Ritchey. Joining us is his son, John, and Russ McKnight from the Legacy Committee.