Paul Hintermeier

95TH BOMB GROUP (H)

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

2004 REUNION         WASHINGTON, D.C.

 (Interviewed by Janie McKnight)

JM:  This is Janie McKnight with the Legacy group of the 95th Bomb Group.  Today I’m interviewing Paul Hintermeier.  Paul, for the record, will you state your name, today’s date, and where we are.

PH:  Paul L. Hintermeier, 9/11/04, Washington, D.C.

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

PH:  August of ’42 until September ’45.

JM:  And how about with the 95th?

PH:  From February of ’44 until the end of August ’44.

JM:  And what squadron were you in?
PH:  334th Squadron.

JM:  And your principle job?

PH:  Navigator

JM:  Tell us where you were when you enlisted.

PH:  I was working for Bell Aircraft in Buffalo, New York.  I tried the cadet exam, and I didn’t quite make it.  So they had a program for glider pilots.  So I joined the Army Reserve in order to become a glider pilot.  And they sent me to Potsdam State Teacher’s College in Potsdam, New York.  And there I didn’t have coordination to be a pilot, but I took a liking to navigation.  But in the meantime, being in the Army Reserve, I was called in the Army, and I went to Daniel Field in Augusta, Georgia.  But before I left Buffalo, I had taken the aviator cadet exam again.  And so when I arrived in August, I went to see my commanding officer and told them the case, and we got back to Buffalo office.  I was appointed aviation cadet and went to Nashville, Tennessee classification center.  I kind of stunned them there because I told them I wanted to be a navigator (chuckling), because everyone wanted to be what they call a fly boy, or a pilot.  And I was sent to Monroe, Louisiana for about 27 weeks for navigation.  I graduated in October ’43, took my overseas training in Peyote, Texas, and in Dyersburg, Tennessee.  And from there, we went to Kearney, Nebraska, picked up a brand-new B-17 and flew it to England.  When we arrived in England, of course the plane was taken away from us.  We were sent to some school for a certain length of time.  And then I was assigned to the 95th Bomb Group, and flew 35 missions with the 95th Bomb Group.  And the one that sticks in my mind the most was a shuttle run to Russia.  We took off from – I think it was August 8th  and returned on August the 12th.  And the reason it stands out in my memory so much – August the 12th was the last mission I flew (chuckling).  And one thing about it, some major over there said to me “Do you want to sign up for another tour?  You can go back for 30 days and leave us.”  I said, “I’m going home for 30 days (chuckling)” And then after, my wife and I became married and we spent a GI honeymoon in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  And from there I was sent to the navigator instructor from the same school I graduated from.  And those from my class that survived, a lot of them were there – it was like a college reunion.  We had to go into Navigation Instructor School for three or four weeks. And part of the training, we were supposed to attend physical education.  But just coming back, we used to spend it at a bar at the Officer’s Club.  Finally they had to close the Officer’s Club from 3 to 5 every day so (chuckle) we’d attend PT.  And then from there, in May of ’45, there was a chance for me to go to MacDill Field in Tampa, Florida.  The reason I wanted to go there was my grandmother, two aunts and two uncles live – I had more family in Clearwater, Florida than I did in Buffalo, New York.  They gave me some job of training aids officer, and I did nothing until I was discharged until September ’45.  That’s about …

JM:  So tell me more about the mission that you flew…

PH:  Oh, alright.  We flew from our airbase at Horham to bomb a place called Rommel, Germany in northern Germany.  Flew to Poltava and _________ Ukraine.  From there we flew a mission and bombed the places in Russia, or in Poland – Tresbian (?), I think that’s the way you pronounce it.  Then we flew back again.  The we flew to Foggia, Italy and on the way to Foggia, we bombed a place in Romania.  Landed in Foggia, spent about two days there.  And on the way home we bombed a place called Talouse in southern France.  From there we returned to Horham.  But one thing about the – two things about the shuttle run:  when we arrived, we went to the mess. It was a big open field thing and these Russian women were cooking in big iron pots over a stove.  They were jibbering in Russian.  My pilot was of Polish decent, and he understood them and he said something in Polish, and they shut up (chuckling).  And one other thing they told us you had to know one word, stoy, which meant stop in Russian.  So that was probably the highlight of my tenure with the 95th.

JM:  Were there any memorable characters that you remember from that era, or any special people in your life, any special bonds that you formed?

PH:  Not particularly, no.  You see, the crew I went over with, I was taken off that crew and put with another crew to make a lead crew.  Not particularly.  Oh yes.  No, not particularly.

JM:  You said that you were taken off a lead crew?

PH:  Yes.  But I’ve only been able to locate about four or five members of the crew.  The pilot is still living.  In fact he’s mentioned at the thing last night.  His name was _______________________.  I was the unknown navigator on the crew.  Oh, one other fella – a fella from New York City.  He was the bombardier for a while.  I went through cadet training with the son of the mayor of Boston, and anything we wanted, we got.  All you had to do call up his father up in Boston.

JM:  Were there any other memorable training experiences that you had?

PH:  Not training, but as a trainer.  I was a navigation trainer at Selma Field where I’d graduated.  One night we were on a celestial mission.  And coming back, the cadets come in right over the target, what we call a target.  But their ETA, their estimated time of arrival, was off about two or three hours.  So we had to critique him after the flight.  And I asked him, you know, what was the reason that you come right in over the target, but your ETA was so far off.  We looked at each other.  I thought, I know what you did.  You homed in on the beacon on the Hotel Francis in ________________.  He said how did you know?  I said, I was a cadet here once myself and I used the same navigation aid (chuckle).  But my cadet was just run of the mill.  I don’t know anything else I can add, unless you..

JM:  Well, how about when you were over in England.  You had that one mission that was memorable.  Were there any other?  Your first mission, what was it like to fly your first mission?
PH:  Well the first mission I flew as a replacement navigator with another crew.  Maybe it was March 16th, ’44, and we went to, I think it was, Augsberg, Germany.  Of course I was too amazed.  Actually I can’t tell you a hell of a lot about flying because I never – nothing – I just don’t remember – I remember but…  Of course being a navigator and a lead navigator, you were busy most of the time anyway.

JM:  What did you do on your days off?
PH:  Well, being a lead crew, we were allowed to go to London every two weeks.  So I spent a lot of my leisure time in London.  In fact, my wife, Dee and I, we were in London in ’88 or ’89 and the only 3 things that impressed me were the lights, and Picadilly Circus they had the ____________________________________.  They change their monitors from – all these pennies they’d change into pence.  A pound is 100 pence.  They have all these half crowns and all that stuff.  

JM:  Have you been back to Horham?

PH:  No.  We went over and did a theatre tour with British Airways – flew out of Toronto, Ontario.  Of course, we’re not too far from Toronto.

JM:  And how long have you been coming to these reunions?

PH:  I started in 1986.  We missed two.  I missed – no we missed three.  We missed the one in ’95 – I had an operation in ’95.  But we’ve been to quite a few of them.  The one that stands out in my mind, the best, was the one in Ft. Lauderdale. I think that was the nicest accommodations for the Red Feather Club.  

JM:  So tell me about the Red Feather Club on base.

PH:  That was more the enlisted men’s, because we went to the Officer’s Club.

JM:  So you never went there.

PH:  No.

JM:  So 35 missions.  Any other memories from those flights that you took?

PH:  Yes, one.  They used to fly a flag every night – I forgot the color – if you were flying the next day.  If they didn’t fly a flag, they had a big party at the Officer’s Club.  Everybody got pretty well soused up.  Two o’clock in the morning, shaking me, “Lt. Hintermeier, get up.”  And we got up.  Of course you run out to the airplane and take pure oxygen, which (chuckling) cleared you up.  Of course these planes weren’t pressurized like the airplanes are today.  And soon as we, going up to altitude, pressure starts acting on your digestive system, and I had to go (chuckle).  And I used to sit on a 50 caliber ammunition box, turned upside down.  Well I had to go.  I did my job in the 50 caliber ammunition box.  I turned it the other way around.  Of course up there it all froze.  And I thought nothing of it, and I got out of the airplane. Of course, when I got down it melted, and boy, the next day the crew chief got a hold of me (laughing).  He gave me hell.  That’s the things I remember the most – something with humor, not actually the flying itself.  

JM:  How was life in the barracks?

PH:  Not too bad.  Pretty good.  ____________________in the barracks was sleep.  After these people finished their missions, or they didn’t return from missions, we got closer to the stove (chuckling).  In fact, and you do get these little hang ups over there.  After I had 20 missions in, I wouldn’t let them change my sheets (chuckling).  You’d see birds flying at you and you’d say FW 190’s at 12 o’clock.  

JM:  What was your most frightening time in the air?
PH:  Hmmm.  Trying to think.  Well, they all were, as far as that goes.  We were very fortunate.  We got a little damage, but nobody was ever, you know.

JM:  Before you went up on a flight, did you always think that it might be your last?
PH:  No, I don’t think so.  No.  

JM:  So tell me about your trip home.  When did you get out?

PH:  Well, I finished in August.  They put you on a list of fly home or take the boat home.  And I was put on the boat list, so we had to go up someplace in northern England, around Liverpool, to wait for the boat.  Well we had to wait three weeks.  On the boat coming back, there were more German POW’s on the boat than there were Americans.  And there were a couple of German officers.  They ate the same mess as we did.  If they were above us in rank, we had to show them all the military courtesy.  As I said, there were a lot of German prisoners on the boat.  But I guess water was at a premium.  We used to take a shower in salt water.  I don’t know if you ever took a shower in salt water (laughing).  Then we _________ a zig zag.  We were supposed to go to New York City.  We ended up in Boston because the U-boats scared us, and all that stuff.  And we arrived in Boston.  The dock workers didn’t want to work overtime to let us off the boat, and boy did we raise hell.  So they left us off at a camp, Camp Miles Standish in Boston.  We woke up the next day, and the first thing we had was a milkshake.  Of course in England, you couldn’t drink the milk because the cows weren’t inoculated for tuberculosis, tuberculin test I should say.  There’s a lot Italian people from Florida, and there’s a lot of Italian POW’s at this Camp Miles Standish.  Italian people kept having picnics with these Italian POW’s bringing baskets out and all that stuff.  From there we went to Ft. Dix, New Jersey.  From there I received orders to go home for 30 days.  As I said before, Jean and I were married.  She goes on to ____________ and all that stuff.  

JM:  Do any of your crew members come to the reunions?

PH:  One did once.  The pilot, he’s still living.  He lives up in, just out of Boston, up in New Hampshire – around Manchester, New Hampshire.  There’s one gunner left, and he’s out in California someplace.  We exchange Christmas cards – I seen the pilot in Boston, but I never seen the other one.  And one time, there’s a fella who’s the engineer in the plane, he worked Buffalo for a while, and I used to see him once in a while.  But most of them are deceased.  I could never locate the bombardier or the co-pilot. I guess that’s about all.

JM:  I was just going to ask if there any other thoughts that you have about that time?

PH:  No, but I think I – if I wasn’t married, I would have stayed in the service because I was offered a permanent commission.  I knew a West Point graduate.  He said, if you’re not West Point, forget it, as far as promotions and stuff go.  I guess at that time they went by class.

JM:  Well thank you so much for sharing your day.

PH:  I hope it’s been of some help.

JM:  And thank you so much for your service to our country.  It’s a legacy that we hope to continue.

PH:  Alright. Thank you very much.