George Roper

95th BOMB GROUP (H)

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

2001 REUNION LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

This is Sam Tarkington from the Legacy Committee of the 95th Bomb Group interviewing George Roper.  Welcome.  Could you state your name, where we are and the date, please?

My name is George Roper.  We’re in Las Vegas – I’m not gambling – I’m over to see all the lads from the 95th.

ST:  Can you tell me exactly where you’re from, George.

GR:  I’m from East Anglia, England.  The village is called Stradbroke.  It’s a small village in Suffolk

ST:  Can you tell me your connection with the 95th Bomb Group?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

GR:  I was there when it was being built.  I was there when our own Royal Air Force came along with the I20 Havocs; a group of Americans with B26s; and then the 95th came along with which I spent a lot of time – all my time – apart from my father who was a farmer, school and flying.

???? the crew chief with the /// teams.  Al Brown – he goes back…

ST:  How did you first establish contact?

GR:  It was easy.  It was easy.  Because originally- it’s a bit of history really - in Eye, I don’t know how you go for the colored people but the 95th where I was – they call it Horham – but it’s really Devon – but we’ll leave it at Horham - then there’s the air base at Eye in Suffolk.  There was colored people in there with that came over with the                        on Liberators.  Our lads with the 95th were a little bit anti color.  Only it doesn’t say any resemblance these days.  So they wanted to leave the base.  I used to work in the base so I was with them all the time apart from school.  They said to me one day, “We want to get to ????           .  I said that’s quite easy.  All around the camp were MP Posts.  To keep them in I suppose except for the buses to London and around.  Living in the area, I knew all these short cuts.  I could get them out without any problem at all.  You used to say, Look, I’ll take you out but I’m not going to bring you back because

You’ll go to the pubs and you’ll get, you know.  You’ll get back about 1 in the morning and I have to be ready for school, work and all the rest of it.  That’s how it all started.  This was the early days of the 95th.

ST:  How old were you then?

GR:  I was nine and a half.  I went down to Arly?  I suppose some of them were fighting and getting drunk.  They came back and would be locked up. Laugh.  ???   It went from there.

It’s kind of  - a bit of - it doesn’t look possible nowadays, does it?  But that’s what really happened.    I mean in my time - we were on the farm my father would  – we had all animals and everything   They’d say to me, George, we want a fried chicken tonight.  Can you find a chicken?

I’d say, Yeah, I guess.  We’ll look after you.  I’d watch where my father was.  I could bring you - a 10 year old couldn’t do it.  I’d get killed. ????? Some of the lads had chickens.  They had eggs. My father would have gone mad, I guess, if he’d known how they all disappeared.  He used to

??? money come from.  You got some money?  Oh, yes. 

ST:  Were you paid in anything besides money?

GR: Oh, yeah, we had any amount of cigarettes and candy.

ST:  At nine years old you shouldn’t be smoking cigarettes.

GR: We used to sell them again.  The old crew chief  - I’d be around - we sat in the airplane one day and he said, you want to smoke a big cigar, George, that’s the thing for you.  It was.  It made me as green as the grass.  I never smoked from that day on.  It killed me off.

ST:  Maybe he did you a favor.

GR: Yes, he did.  Yes.

ST:  Did you eat with -----

GR:  Oh, yes. In the Officer’s mess.  Yeah, it was easy.  We saw the father of it.  They cleared the scraps from the mess halls and having known all the lads as we did  - some of them were killed. Yeah, I used to go up and eat.  The worst thing about it all was when we used to go up to the PX and Officer’s Club there was this old cat “Lady”.  The fellows were great; they’d all say Come on in, George and the rest of it.  She’d turn me out if she had half a chance.

ST:  ???

GR:  Yeah, crew chief, which name……………I can picture him but ……..

ST:  Was he the crew chief on “I’ll Be Around”?

GR:  Yeah, he looked after that one.  He looked after another airship as well.  I think it was something ……………. I can’t remember.

ST:  Even as a ten or eleven year old you surely noticed that some of the men you saw didn’t come back?

GR:  All the time.

ST:  Did that affect you?

GR:  No. It’s strange really.  ????You didn’t.  Having been brought up with uncles and relations who were killed in the first WW and that were …….  Every time they took a shirt off they had bits blown off them everywhere and you didn’t -- as a boy you accepted that as part of something that carried on.  I mean, no it didn’t really worry us at all.  Looking back, I suppose, people would say it’s a bit weird or strange, but you didn’t.  It was there, people were killed and that was part of life I suppose.  You carried on for the next one.  Some you got to know very well and they would have died off.   It was part of the set up.  It was like some of the lads from the 336th one night when some Sterlins(?) landed on the airbase in the dark and they all said??????Oh those God damned limeys. They’ve crashed all over the runways.  Anyway, we got up in a jeep and there the Starlins stood – big, black things – and landed perfectly well.  Of course they used radar.  There they stood.  One, I think his name was Chris, said, let’s go in and have a look.  The old rear gunner sat there, he’d been shot and I think he was either Polish or whatever and no one took notice.  The RAF had dropped in there because they were short of fuel or whatever it was and the next morning they took off with him still in the airplane.   Dead, you know.  It was part of war.

ST:  Besides cigars and probably swearing, are there any good things you remember the Americans giving you?

GR:  Good things?  Yeah, we got to know a lot of the lads very well.  They were a good education whatever we say about things.  I think they sort of changed life quite a bit. 

ST:  When you say they changed life quite a bit – in what way?

GR:  In attitudes.  You’ve got to remember England in the early 40s I suppose - the old man - how should we put it really, they were very hard men.  They didn’t you know ????? The Americans didn’t do this.  They were a lot more – we did notice things like that. My father used to say, “They’re bloody soft:” Apart from that – you know some English Put their ??  I think it did change life in a lot of ways in England; all the Americans and all the crews around everywhere.  It made people think a bit more.

ST:  Did you tend to think of the 95th as kind of “our” guys?  Did you count planes coming back from missions?

GR:  Oh, Yeah.You did all that.  You were also – friends at school had different Squadrons that they looked after.  I always thought the 336th was MY Squadron basically.  I think as youngsters we learned a lot from the Americans.  Not only that, we had one hell of a change.  The only time we were rationed was when the American went home. 

ST:  That was something I was going to ask about.  I heard that happened rather quickly.  What was that like…?

GR:  Oh, yeah, we as boys had older mates everywhere and we thought they‘d still be there and suddenly they off and went.  They all disappeared and everything went absolutely…. dead, really.  The Royal Air Force came in and dismantled it.  That’s it.  Yeah, I think it was a big loss.It’s something I suppose it’s progress.  As young people then we thought it was going to last forever.

ST:  You live in Stradbroke today, so you’re very close to what’s left of the base?  Do you see any great hope in preserving what’s left?

GR:  I think it – yes – I think it’s got to be really.  I don’t know, we all helped in the old days and I hope everyone gets together to do something.  A few years ago the young people didn’t worry about it.  But they seem to be doing now, which is a good thing.  It’s a big change in the way everyone thinks.   The old 95th which was left to rot and use and pull apart - now the younger people are trying to preserve it.  It’s history.  Which is a good thin, it is.  The younger they are the better.  It’s no use waiting for us old ones.  We can only help them and try and find them a little bit of cash perhaps now and again.  The young men and women – there’re a lot of them - seem to be keen and I hope they carry on.

ST:  A strange question, when did you first taste ice cream?

GR:  Well, there was an ice cream parlor at the 95th   Laugh.  1942-43, I guess.  But I suppose I had ice cream before then. It’s sort of a mix.

ST:  You had ice cream when the 95th was there.

GR:  That’s right.  It was during – that’s right.  Next to the barbershop. 

ST:  Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

GR:  No, it’s a great shame that it hasn’t been started.  It’s a great shame it hasn’t been built up before.  The Red Feather Club was let go.  I suppose we’re all at fault for not doing it.  I suppose I should have – but when you’re around trying to earn a bit of money, things get left, don’t they. The interviews stop and look at things back that should have been done.  It becomes a ????. I hope the young people carry on and do it.  It will mean a lot.

ST:  This concludes our interview with George Roper.  This is Sam Tarkington for the Legacy Committee.  Thank you George.