Phil Laskey
95th BOMB GROUP (H) ASSOCIATION
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
2002 REUNION ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
GG: May I have you state your name and the date of today’s interview?
PL: Edward P. Laskey, but I go by Phil mostly. Today’s date is ?????
GG: Could you give us your dates of service with the Army Air Corps?
PL: Well, I went in January – I was inducted January 27th 1942.
GG: That’s when you were inducted. Tell me when you came out of the service.
PL: Well, the first time I came out in – I got home from Germany, you know I was a POW and got home from Germany, and then we went to rehabilitation in Atlantic City, New Jersey which was really nice because the beauty pageant was going on, but the sad thing was there were so many guys getting … no arms, no legs, and they were being pushed by 20 year old girls on the boardwalk. I couldn’t help but feel bad.
GG: I believe you also told me you were in the Korean conflict.
PL: Oh, I got out in June of 1945 – that’s when I got back and got married in July. We were in business back east running a diaper service and we took more steps than any other two guys in the city, and that lasted until about 1949 and then I was so sick and tired of snow up to my hind end, I said to my wife, “I’m going to sell out and we’re going to go to California, and I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’ll find something.” So, we got to California, and we got in an accident along the way – we had two cars and that disrupted the situation. My wife was eight months pregnant, and I had a three year old boy, and we had two cows in Arkansas, and that was the biggest mess you ever saw in your life -- stuff from one end of the car to the other, the radiator was shoved into the fan. I got out and looked at it, my wife was crying, David was crying, I got out and looked at the mess and I cried. So anyway, we got through that alright, and we got to California without any more trouble, except that we did lose the pocketbook, and we didn’t have any money to go across the toll bridge. But, we had a steel box with money in it, so we broke into that and got the money out and we got to California, and then her father died. He’d been sick for a while; he died of cancer. So, we bought a house and got situated, and I did a few odd jobs, and then we bought the house and at Christmas time, I got a notice to report to northern California to go back in the service to end the Korean deal, so back I went. I went through that and ended up in Okinawa. Well, we had a good time, really, cause we flew an airplane, we flew a B29, to Japan and then MATS took us to Okinawa. We got our crew and then we started making missions. But they were doing all day missions, but when we got there, they started doing night missions. They had lost a couple of airplanes during day missions. So we did all the night missions, and I did 19 and got credit for 20, and I never had to jump out. Oh, one thing I had to do that was hair-raising was the bombs hung up in one of the bomb bays, and I had to go back and trip them. You know, in a 29, the passageway is really narrow; you can’t wear a parachute in there, so I did it, but I don’t know how I did it.
GG: You served in the Korean conflict and came out of the service right after that?
PL: Yeah, came out after that; that was in about ’53 or ’54, something in there. Just recently, the Korean people sent me a medal which I thought was nice, but it was a long time coming.
GG: I guess so. Well, Phil, why don’t we take a few minutes – we’ll go back to your dates of service in the 95th Bomb Group. Let’s go back to some basic things, like do you recall what date you came to the 95th Bomb Group?
PL: Oh, I joined the 95th Bomb Group in Rapid City, South Dakota, and from there we went to a couple of different training places. I know one was in Kansas, and we went there, and we had to make a heavy weight takeoff out over the ocean, and so, we did that, and then we went to Beloxi, Mississippi, and we thought we could get a bus to go to the Mardi gras. We paid for the tickets, and there weren’t any seats, except in the back, and they wouldn’t let us sit in the back, and they wouldn’t give me my money back, so I got mad and wrote to the Greyhound people, and I told them I wanted twice the fare, and I wanted it sent to my mother at home. Any they did it. So that was a bad experience there. So then we got everything set, and we got an airplane to fly over to England, and we went the southern route. I think we were probably the last crew that went the southern route. From then on, they sent them on the northern route, and that wasn’t such a hot route, I didn’t think. But we went down through Berlin, down into Brazil, and we got stuck in Brazil a few days. They had engine trouble fixed. But we had a good time; went down to the ocean every day. We’d buy big watermelons and put them in the ocean and eat them. The water was colder than hell, but we had a good time. Anyway, we went over to Ascension, and then we went into Dakar in Africa. Dakar was horrible. The runway was up like that and down, and you’d be blinding -- you’d see a plane in front of you go out of sight and, you know, you couldn’t see the rise in the ground. Anyway, that was ok, and then we went to Marrakech in northern Africa, French Morocco, and we stayed there about a week, and we got really rested. We met an English newspaper guy that wanted to go to England, wanted to go to London, but he was having difficulty finding somebody to take him, so the pilot agreed to take him, but only if he’d not worry about – we couldn’t get a parachute for him, so I think he twitched all the way to England. But we made it ok, and for that, he fixed us up with a room in a hotel after we’d done some of our missions. We hadn’t done very many because I got shot down on the fifth one.
GG: Well, let’s talk a minute about your crew. What bomb squadron were you with?
PL: The 335th I think. Dave McKnight’s squadron.
GG: And what position did you fly?
PL: Bombardier – kind of a key man.
GG: There you are!
PL: …badly washed out…went over the target…they came back (Very hard to understand this!)
GG: Could you tell me who the crew members are that you recall?
PL: Yeah, Kenny Mason was the pilot, and Wagner was the co-pilot. Fedderson, Glenn Fedderson, we called him “Pinky” because he was a redhead – and he got in trouble in Rapid City, but I won’t tell you about that one. Anyway, Pinky and myself – he was a navigator and I was a bombardier, and then the radio man was Runyon (sp?) and then the top turret guy was Weinstein, I think his name was. He was a Jewish fellow, a nice guy. And then we had the other four crew members, the tail gunner – the tail gunner was cut in half when we got hit so couldn’t do anything for him. But, the other guys got out – the other guys didn’t get out, just myself, and Fedderson, and two enlisted men got out. Just four out of ten.
GG: Let’s talk for a couple minutes about the short time you were with the 95th. You were stationed where with the 95th?
PL: Rapid City, South Dakota.
GG: That’s where you began, and when you got overseas, to England, which base did you fly out of?
PL: Alconbury. That was where they blew up four airplanes, and there was a hole about 30 feet wide and 20 feet deep, and four airplanes had to be scrapped.
GG: This was the arming accident that occurred at Alconbury early.
PL: Yeah, when they were loading bombs. And they lost four B-17s, and they had 17 guys were killed and 19 were hospitalized. It might have been reversed – 19 and 17, I can’t remember exactly. But, it was a terrible mess.
GG: And, do you recall, what was your first mission with the 95th?
PL: Yeah, the first mission was – I think it was over Rheims in France.
GG: And up to Kiel (?), do you recall any of the other missions?
PL: Not really, not really.
GG: Ok, that’s fine. If we could then, for at least a few moments, let’s talk about, as best you’d like, the Kiel Mission which was June 13th of 19?? (Can’t hear the year.)
PL: Oh, yeah, well we were part way into Germany, and two Me 109s and two Focke Wulf 190s came under the right wing, shot both engines out, and eventually the…oh, and cut the tail gunner in half, and eventually the plane broke in half by the ball turret went down in three pieces. And, when that happened, nobody could get out because it was impossible, but we think that the enlisted men in the back – they were so frightened that they froze, I think. That’s the only thing I can think of, because they did have a little time to go.
GG: You mentioned that there were four of the ten of you got out – could you – that was yourself and…
PL: Myself and the navigator and the radio man and one other – I forget who the other one was.
GG: Would you like to share with us some of your thoughts about what occurred either up to the mission or during that mission other than being shot down and then share with us your prisoner of war experience?
PL: Well, we had a hell of a time getting the escape hatch off. Fedderson did; he got burned a little cause the flames were coming through the fuselage, but when he got it opened, the air blew the flames back, and I didn’t get burned but I went out with the oxygen bottle; I had the oxygen bottle, but it fell off, so I just went. I don’t remember anything until the chute opened, and I said to myself “I’ll pull it after ten.” But, I didn’t know anything after that, and it opened, and it jolted me something terrible. The leg straps were not tight enough and the cross piece came up and hit me in the can. I bit my mouth inside, and the thing on the oxygen mask hit me on the head, and I had a cut, and I guess I was a mess looking because later on I was free. I was on the ground at about 9:15, and I figured I fell 22,000 feet, and I only got a couple of scratches when I went down into the trees, and never broke a bone in my body and never have broken a bone ever. So, they didn’t catch me right away; I got down – I was caught on the top of the pine tree, and I pulled myself into the crotch of the tree, got rid of my harness, and then took off my Mae West, and I folded the thing up and set it in the crotch of the tree, and I thought well, they want me to take it down on the ground, but I forgot the damn thing. I never went back after it. So, I heard them running through the woods, and there was a dog that came about as close as that window to me. I laid under some ferns, and I threw up everything I had in my stomach, and I know it must have smelled, but he didn’t smell me. The dog must have had a bad nose. So, after a while, I just laid there, and I might have slept a little – I don’t know, I can’t remember. But, anyway, when I woke up – when I became conscious I got up and looked around and started walking. All I had was a lousy little compass, so I thought probably I’d better try to go north to Denmark. Anyway, they never saw me, they never caught me until that night about 11 o’clock or a little after 11 when, you know, they were on double daylight savings time, and they – I walked into a farm yard and the farm lady saw me, and I guess I was a mess, so she felt sorry for me and went into the house and got a cup of milk and a coffee cake and brought it out to me, and I thought that was really nice. She knew I’d come down because…then after that, the farmer came around from the barn, and he had a shotgun and his son had a shotgun, and they held them on me. So, the only thing I had – I had no gun; I didn’t carry a 45. I laid the 45 on the instrument panel in the plane, and I left it there, and I wasn’t about to take it, so I didn’t have a gun. And that surprised the hell out of them. They couldn’t believe it, so all I had was a pocket knife about that long with two blades in it, and they took that away from me. But, I had two packs of cigarettes, Phillip Morris cigarettes, and they let me keep them. It was quite a while before anybody came to get me because the town of Kellangusem (sp?) was about nine miles away, and so they came in a jeep – not a jeep, a Volkswagen. There was a sergeant with them, and I don’t know what the driver was, but anyway, they picked me up, and I had a water bottle, but I hid it under the seat in the car – I didn’t want to give it to them. So we went to this airfield, and the guys had a ready room, and they took me into the ready room, and the pilots were there. I’m sure that two of the pilots that shot us down were there, and they had coffee and coffee cake, and they tried to be as nice as they could. Oh, and the other thing, when I was going down in the parachute, they circled me and I thought, “Gees, they are going to shoot me; they’re going to kill me.” So, I just hung there like I was already dead, and I got down on the ground, and they never shot me.
GG: So they circled but they didn’t do anything.
PL: No, they circled but they didn’t do anything. I guess they just circled to point out where I was going to be, so that people on the ground…so we got to the airfield, and I was in a cell, a single cell, and pretty soon – oh, the first place I stayed was at a town jug, you know, where they kept drunks. The woman was very nice there too, but she offered me tea and something else but I didn’t want to take it because I didn’t know what it was, you know, but I felt badly afterwards. You know, she was trying to be nice, and so, he’d get on the phone every day and he’d yell – the voices are so loud, you know, and he was trying to find out who was going to get me and where I was going to go and when. Well, he had two daughters that were in school, and they were taking English. So, he’d bring them downstairs to the cell I was in, and he wanted them to talk with me, but I used colloquialisms and, you know, slang, and they didn’t understand that, and that made him mad. Oh, he was mad as hell at his two girls. I thought that was kind of funny, too. So, anyway, we got to the airfield, and as I was saying, they tried to be nice to me too I think. But there was a Danish guy that was an interpreter; he spoke German and he spoke English, and he understood my speech, but that was only for a day or so, and then they put me on a train that came down from Funsburg (sp?) that had a lot of injured guys on it, and I know that they put me in a cell on the train with two guys that had been badly hurt. One’s legs were all banged up, and they were in casts, and the other guy had a cast on his head. All he had were two slits for his eyes and a place for his nose, and it was all crusted and yellow, and I felt so sorry for those guys. And so, they dropped them off at another camp, and then they dropped me off at a Gulag which they tried to get information, and I think they thought I was a Jew, and so they kept me in solitary for ten days on just lousy bread and water.
GG: And that was at the Gulag.
PL: Yeah, at the Gulag, but I got the window open; it was supposed to be not open, you know, it was supposed to be nailed shut, but they forgot to nail it shut, and I got the damn thing open. And, they had Russians working up right next to the building I was in, and so they saw me, and I held my cigarette, and I said, “Match,” so they got a stick, and they put a pack of matches on the end of the stick and passed it up to me, so I had a couple smokes. Anyway, the next thing I knew I was on the way to Stalag Luft III (sp?), and that’s where I was until February of ‘45. They moved us because the Russians were moving up on the east front, and they didn’t want the Russians to get us, so they moved us by foot. And I remember, they called us out in the middle of the night, and it was cold and snowy, and this one guy, the navigator on another crew that I knew, he got so excited he wet his pants, and it froze quick. But anyway, we knew that something like that was going to happen, but we didn’t know when or how. Anyway, we marched, and marched, and marched, and there was an old guy that was marching along beside us – he was going to shoot us if we got out of line, but he was so old and he was so tired, first he threw his gun off into the field, and then he threw his pack off, and he just walked, and then I lost all track of him, but I felt so sorry for that guy, I really did. The thing that kept me going on that march was I had saved sugar lumps from the Red Cross parcels, and I would eat a sugar lump every once in a while.
GG: To give you energy?
PL: Yeah, and it got me through, it got me through.
GG: Didn’t I see that you had a German prisoner of war dog tag?
PL: Yeah, yeah.
GG: Could you bring that out since we’re video taping this? If you’d get it out, I’d at least like David to get a video clip of that. And I think you had an interesting story about your license plate that’s linked to that, don’t you?
PL: Yeah. Well, there were six guys in a room at first, and we got a package - a parcel for two guys, one parcel for two guys. And then, you know, they shot down more planes and more guys came and so we eventually ended up with ten guys, twelve guys in the room, and not too many Red Cross parcels. But, there was one funny thing that happened. There were a bunch of guys going to be put in with us and spread out through the different barracks. Well, this one guy – he came in when the guys were eating their really only meal, and so they asked him to sit down and they divided the food for them, but there was one guy that would get up from the table, go over to the bunk, the top bunk, that had a blanket over it and there was a guy in it, and he’d lift the blanket up, and he’d sprinkle water on him. And he did that two or three times, and finally the guy said, “Well, why is he doing that?” Well, he said, “He’s just been dead for about five weeks,” and he said “We’re trying to keep him fresh.” The guy took off; he wouldn’t stay with those folks. He got some other place to live!
GG: So there could be humor even in those circumstances?
PL: Oh, yeah, and the other thing was someone stole the Commandant’s Dachshund dog, and they killed him, and they ate him – skinned him alive. Can you believe that? I thought that was the funniest thing too! But then we had tunnels going, and there were four or five compounds. I was in the south compound, in the central compound at first, then they build these other ones, and I was in the south. In the north camp, they had three tunnels going at one time, and eventually they’d let the Germans find one, and then they’d go for a while, keep working on the third one, and then they’d finally find the second one, and they got the third one out, and they got fifty guys out one night. And the Germans got so mad, they took and shot them – lined them up and shot them, killed them. That was the end of mass escapes – didn’t have any more mass escapes, just one guy – they could get a guy out, you know. They got one guy out that spoke fluent German, and he went out in a garbage wagon, and he got down to the Austrian border, and he told…he met up with another guy, and he told him that he was a slave laborer and that he was going over to Austria to see his family, and then he was coming back. So, the guy agreed to help him, and so when they met that night, the German rolled up his sleeve, and he had the SS – he was an SS man, and they sent him back to camp. He was in solitary for ten days on bread and water…and he spoke fluent German, but he couldn’t make it. So, anyway, that was that. Finally, we…February of 45 came around, and that’s when they moved us out. They moved us due west to a town called Moosegow (this is how it sounds), and they had a railroad station there. We slept in barns and haystacks, and we finally got to this Moosegow place, and there was a pottery place that they put us up in. I remember my legs and my ankles were so sore I couldn’t go very much further. Anyway, we got rest that night, and then they put us on a 40 and 8 car and shipped us to down to southern…or down near Munich to Stalag VIIA (or 7A?), Stalag VIIA.
GG: You said a “40 and 8 car?”
PL: Yeah.
GG: Describe what that is, please.
PL: The French cars that had carried 40 men and eight horses.
GG: That’s the name. So, you went to Stalag Luft VIIA?
PL: Yeah, and they locked us in, but the funniest thing was, they’d let us out. They’d stop on a trestle, and they’d open the doors and let the guys out, and you never saw such a sight in your life. Oh, it was hell.
GG: Tell me about it.
PL: I can’t tell you on this thing.
GG: Ok, I think I can imagine…men locked up in a car.
PL: Well, it was so crowded in the cars. I had to stand up all one night; I never laid – never got to lay down or sit down all night long. Then we went through rail yards, you know, and the rail yards were good targets, but we didn’t get hit, so that was ok, and we got there, but when we got there, they had had a death. I don’t know whether it was a GI or what it was, but the guy had died from diphtheria. And they had the funeral, and that’s what we saw when the train pulled in. It didn’t hit me very well.
GG: No, I can imagine how that would disturb you from the standpoint of when you first got there.
PL: So, anyway, the camp was so crowded – it was awfully crowded, and I slept in a tent – a big tent. It was quite long. I can’t tell you how long it was; maybe not quite as long as this room or as wide, but I slept on the ground. And, God, it was cold then; it was awfully cold, and everybody got dysentery. The dysentery was terrible because the latrine was nothing but a hole in the ground, and they really smelled bad too. So, at the end, on a Sunday morning we woke up, and the troops were moving towards us, and all the guards had taken off and gone south. There were no guards. So they finally, I think, it was a few shots that went over the camp, but they came in. The Third Army, let’s see, it was the Third Army that ??? Patton was the head of, and they liberated us, and most of us – we weren’t supposed to go out of the camp, but it was hell to pay to keep us in. We went out and we got…a GI got us three chickens and a table cloth and brought them to us, and we had a lovely time plucking them, getting them ready to cook. I’ll never forget that, so we got through that and then pretty soon Patton came in, and he came into the tent I was in. He came right down the middle of the tent, and he stopped and talked to me, just like I’m talking to you.
GG: What did he have to say?
PL: Well, he asked me my name and rank and so forth, because we didn’t have any name or rank on us. And so, he asked me a lot of questions, but he never asked me where I was from. At the end, he put his hand on my shoulder, and he said, “Well, we’ll have you out of here in a few days. We’ve got to fix the airfield potholes in the airfield to get the planes to work, then we’ll take you to France.” So, it was about three days, and they got the place fixed so that the planes could, and they came in big trucks and picked us up and took us to the airport and put us on a plane, and we went to Camp La Havre in France. It was a huge place; there were tents all over the place, and they all looked the same, you know. So, we took our stuff; they said to take your stuff and what you wanted to keep and put it in the tent, and then you had to go over to a delousing place. You took off all your clothes, and they threw the old clothes, and they burned them. And then, they sprayed you, and then they put you in the shower, and then they came out, and they gave you all clean clothes. So, we had fleas and lice and bed bugs, and some guys had crabs even, but I never had the crabs. I had fleas and lice, and I got one tick in my leg, but it was ok. So then we got to France, and when I got through being deloused and got new clothes, I couldn’t find the damned tent. I looked, and I looked, and I looked, and I don’t know to this day how I found it.
GG: But you did?
PL: But I did, and we stayed there. We’d go to the mess hall, you know, and they’d feed us, but we weren’t supposed to eat much salt or sugar, stuff like that. Some guys ate horrifically, and a few of them died, so then they wouldn’t let us eat certain things. But they did make milk shakes in the afternoon for guys if they wanted to go get a milk shake. And then we got loaded on a troop ship which was a German ship that was a tender to the Graf Spee, and they scuttled the Graf Spee in South America. They filled the turbines with cement, but they didn’t get the tender ship, and that’s the ship they used for a troop ship to take us back. So we got back in a few days, and I’d forgotten how many days it was that we were on the water. But anyway, we pulled into New York City. I saw the Statue of Liberty. I really went to pieces.
GG: I can imagine that, Phil.
PL: So, they had girls that were giving coffee and stuff and on the dock, and they sent us to Camp Dix in New Jersey, and from there they sent us to the nearest base to where we lived. And it was Devens, Fort Devens in Massachusetts; it was in the mid-western part of the state, not too far from where I lived. They wanted to know if I wanted to have a physical and all that stuff. I said, “No, I want to go home.” But, I had some teeth, so they fixed my teeth, and then they sent me home; then they took me home. And I think I got home on about the 4th of June of 45, and then my wife came on the 5th, and we picked her up in Boston, and then drove to Haverhill. My father wasn’t living at the time; he died in ’38, so he never knew about the war. It’s a good thing he didn’t.
GG: I’m sure it would have been hard on him.
PL: It was hard on him anyway because he died of a bad heart, and he was an MD, and he knew exactly what was happening, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. So, I only saw him cry twice, once when his mother died and then the other time when I went to college. That’s the only time.
GG: I’ll bet when you got home though, it was after the original shock of being home, but I’ll bet it was certainly good to be back. Your Mom was there I assume?
PL: Yeah.
GG: And then your wife rejoined you?
PL: No, I wasn’t married at the time. We didn’t get married until July of ’45. We got married on the 13th. I think it was a Friday; I’m not sure. So, then I had quite a bit of leave. I had more leave than anybody else on the orders. I think I had 66 days of leave. And then we went to Atlantic City and put up in a hotel there, and the beauty pageant was nice too. They asked me if I wanted to get out or stay in. I said, “Well, I think I’d like to get out.” So, I got out, but I stayed in the Reserves. When we got to California, I went in the diaper business back there, and just until 1949, and then I got so sick of it, I couldn’t stand Massachusetts any more, and I went to California, and we got a house in California, and then it was just a month or two later the Government said come back. So, I had to go back in the Korean War, and I got 20 missions. I got 19 missions, but I got credit for 20 because we didn’t go on the 20th one. They didn’t go over the line.
GG: And that was the Korean Conflict?
PL: Yeah, so then they said just you can put the airplane to bed and take your stuff and go back to the barracks.
GG: Phil, one of the interesting parts of your interview has been that you were not only with the original cadre that came across to England with the 95th, but also you were one of the survivors of the Kiel Mission, although you were a POW. There are very few that we’ve been able to interview that were on that mission, so it’s been very important to hear your story. Would there be any other things about your crew mates that you recall – the officers or anyone?
PL: Well, the co-pilot was only 19 when we went overseas, when we got to England. But he was the nicest kid; he really was a nice kid. And I guess he was a good co-pilot too. The others I really didn’t get to know too well. I did get to know Nathan B. Forrest (sp?).
GG: Ah, General Forrest. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
PL: Yeah, he would come down to the plane, and he’d help us clean the guns and talk with us. He was a nice guy. But then he was lost on a mission that went out over the sea. They had to bail out, but the only one that was saved in that crew was the navigator because he knew which way the winds were blowing, and he didn’t open his chute until he got down low so he wouldn’t be blown out to sea, but the rest of them were blown out to sea. It was so doggone cold, and I felt bad about that. Well, let’s see, I’ve told you just…I can’t think of anything more funny.
GG: Let me ask you one other question while it comes to mind. As we think through, and as we listen and learn from you on the Legacy Committee, you know a lot of times you guys are the most modest men in the world and don’t seem to be thinking you’ve done anything more than what you were told to do, but we look at it a lot differently. Would there be anything that you saw or heard of that you would have thought of as quite a heroic or courageous act while you were there, either with the 95th or as a prisoner of war?
PL. Well, no, not really. I didn’t have much time in England.
GG: Right, just a few days at Alconbury.
PL: Yeah, we went to London that one time for one day. But we didn’t do much, you know. And then, while I was a prisoner, I told you the funny things that happened.
GG: Yes, you sure did, and those in themselves may have been as courageous and heroic as anything - just getting through the day to day.
PL: There was one fellow that was – I probably shouldn’t put this one on the record, so turn it off for a minute.
[PAUSE]
GG: Now, your dog tag - so, tell me your story, and I do want to make sure we see your German prisoner of war dog tag. I’ll hold it up and will you tell us about your license plate on your car?
PL: Yeah, my POW number was 1558, and it was in two parts. The top part had two holes in it, and when you died over there, they broke the thing in half and nailed it to your coffin; the bottom half they tied on a chain around your neck. And the POW number I use on my California driver’s plate, and the State of California gives it to me. They gave Bill Higgins’ wife – he died
[AND SO DID THE FIRST SIDE OF THE TAPE]
GG: Tell me, you started to mention something about digging the tunnels.
PL: Oh yeah, they dug a hole from the latrine out to the fence, in back of the building. They got it almost all done, and the Germans drove a tank truck, drawn by two oxen or an ox and a cow, and the damn thing fell in the hole. Oh, that was a mess. I’ll never forget that. And you know, we used bed slats to hold the sand up, and so the Germans would find the bed slats, you know, and they’d get mad, and they wouldn’t let you have bed slats. They took them away. What they didn’t take away, we’d split and make two out of them, and it wasn’t very comfortable because the thing would fall down in between. Some guys had rope, and they tied ropes like for to hold the…
GG: To hold the mattress in?
PL: Yeah, it wasn’t a mattress; it was called a pallyass (sp?) – a pallyass – and I don’t know where that name ever came from. It wasn’t a very nice thing, and it didn’t have a very nice name. It was filled with straw, wood shavings, very uncomfortable. And they gave us two blankets, two thin, thin blankets, so we tried to sew them together and fill them with stuff to keep warm. But, I survived that and…I feel so bad about the guys like Mason and Wagner. Gees, they were the nicest guys. They wouldn’t do anything wrong. They never used any bad language. I can’t say that was true of me or Fedderson, the navigator. We met them one time in – Fedderson and I went to Deadwood, near Rapid City, and they had each gotten a date with a nurse, so they had two nurses – they each had a nurse, and we met them. We’re going down the street, and they were coming up the street, and we met them, and we took some pictures, and 25 or 30 years later, the girl that the pilot was with ended up in Studio City, California, and my wife and I went to Studio City to see this guy be made mayor, or he had some position, and at the breakfast table the next morning, she asked my wife, she said, “Was your husband always named Phil or Edward?” So we told her, and you know, she was the girl that I had met.
GG: With Mason?
PL: Yeah, in Deadwood with Mason. All those years. And I couldn’t believe it.
GG: Are there any other particular things you want to share with us on the Legacy Committee that you want to be certain we get on tape about your experience back in Alconbury and…
PL: And in Korea too.
GG: And Korea.
PL: Did I tell you how many missions I had?
GG: Yes, sir, you said you were on 19 and got credit for 20.
PL: Yeah, yeah.
GG: Flying B-29s there.
PL: Yeah, yeah.
GG: We sure thank you for the time you’ve taken with us this afternoon. This is Gerald Grove. I’ve had the opportunity and the honor of interviewing Edward Phil Laskey. It was absolutely my pleasure, and thank you so much for taking the time to share this with us, Phil.
PL: Well, I was happy to have done it. It was a little hard.
GG: I understand, but you did great, Phil. We thank you much and hope you enjoy the rest of the reunion right here in St. Louis.
PL: There’s not much left now.
GG: Thanks, Phil.