David Johnson

David Johnson, Friend of the 95th

Pittsburgh Reunion September 11, 1999

Karen – This is Karen Sayko with the Legacy Committee and I’m here with David Johnson of Horham, England.  David, for the record, would you tell us your background and association with the 95th Bomb Group?

David Johnson – Well, I was born in Horham Post, Suffolk, which is a thousand-year-old property and some hundred yards from the air base.  When the Americans came in 1943, I was eight years old.  Immediately I enjoyed the friendship of____________________.  Well, the two crew chiefs, they kind of treated me as a young son, more than anything.  Clearly, I spent nearly all the time I could, my free time, on the aerodrome.

Karen – When did you first know that there was going to be an airfield built?

David – I took no interest whatsoever and I couldn’t even tell you that I knew that the airfield . . . we just saw the contractors start building the airfield.  At that age, there was no interest for me at all.  The RAF came initially, but it wasn’t until the Americans came that it all starting happening in my young life.

Karen – You are the oldest of three children? 

David – No, I’m the middle one.  Alan, he’s two years younger than me.  My sister Ruth is two years older than me.

Karen – Did you have any special instructions from your parents when the Yanks first came?

David – Absolutely.  It was a known thing, a known saying, “Have you got any gum, chum?”  But my mother, not my father, my mother said, “On no account, will you three children beg for anything.  You will not say, ‘Have you got any gum, chum?’ and you will not ask for anything.”  And we did that.

Karen – Even though you didn’t ask for anything, what kind of treats did you get and why were they such a treat?

David – Well, during the wartime, it was well known that we were on a strict ration.  There weren’t any sweets.  The Americans had plenty of sweets, goodies, whatever.  They were very, very generous with them.  We did not ask for them.  They gave them to us.

Karen – You said you spent all of your spare time there.  What would a typical day be like for you?

David – A typical day, if we were lucky . . . and by that, I mean . . . I would come home about 3:15 from school and immediately change, run up to the base and wait for my plane to come back.  It often happened that it would come back mid-to-late afternoon, early evening, and I would keep there until it came.  Then it would land and always, the last flier out would let me in, and I would go from the back of the plane to the front of the plane, taking all of the sweets that were left and putting them in my pockets.

Karen – You say you got to know the ground crews, too.  Were you closer to the ground crews or to the flight crews?

David – No, not closer to the fliers.  The crews were changing.  One of our planes, Destiny’s Tot, was shot down and I remember crying when they didn’t come back.  The ground crew, Kermit Howard and Earl Adams—we were very, very close to.  It was almost a father-son relationship.  I think they probably missed their children and we kind of, to an extent, took over. 

Karen – I’ve read about the Christmas parties that they had at the base.  Could you tell me about the Christmas parties?  Was that a very special . . . .

David – Very exciting!  We were on a very austere diet, but when we went there, it was unbelievable.  Turkey, everything, ice cream, which I never had.  The thing I remember very, very vividly was the mixture of food put on the plate and mixing dessert with the main course.  It didn’t mean a thing, really.  We had food and we ate it rapidly, but I do remember, fifty, sixty years on, whatever, the way they mixed it up.  And I think at the time I got muddled up.  I thought they had jelly as dessert.  But I think since, that it was probably cranberry sauce.  The photographs afterward—which I can’t remember happening—but when Contrails came out, there was me sitting on the shoulders, along with my brother. 

Karen – Did they have a Christmas tree?  Did you sing Christmas carols?  What else?

David – No.  But it was all trimmed up, with a Christmas tree and trimmings.  Out of this world.  For an eight-year-old, and bear in mind what we were going through with lack of food (although we were not hungry, we were filling up with potatoes and rabbits and stuff), it was an out-of-this-world treat.

Karen – Have you kept up with some of the men that befriended you as a youngster?

David – Absolutely.  It wasn’t until ’81 that a friend of mine from El Paso rang.  He knew I wanted to get in touch with Kermit Howard.  He rang me and said, “Ring this number, David.”  And I rang it, and this guy came on the phone.  He said, “Howard.”  I said, “Kermit Howard?”  “Kermit Howard.  Who are you?”  I said, “David Johnson.”  And we both cried.  I visited him the following year in St. Louis.  We approached one another and neither could speak.

Karen – How many young children were in the town of Horham at that time, and were some of them evacuees from the bigger cities?

David – There were no evacuees in the village of Horham.  Probably the village children didn’t extend more than seven or eight.  Some of them didn’t go near the aerodrome.  But the aerodrome was a magnet to children from all over—all over, yep.

Karen – Did you go to school right in Horham?  Did you walk to school?

David – By that time, the school in Horham was closed and we were bused to Stradbroke and bused back.

Karen – How many were in your school?

David – About 100.

Karen – I know that one of the things that I’ve heard about was the lack of fresh fruit and eggs in England during the war.

David – There might be a few eggs.  But the problem was, you could not get food to feed the chickens on.  There were no scraps in the house.  Everyone was sailing a tight ship.  The farmers had eggs, but because of the ability of the Americans to pay for them with good money, they went on the ’drome.

Karen – What did your father do at the time?

David – He was a bricklayer and, as we lived at the post office, he was a postmaster.

Karen – You mentioned that he was too old to go into the Army.  He was in the Home Guard.  What exactly was the Home Guard?

David – The Home Guard were a unit to defend the village against the invasion of Hitler.

 Karen – I think Americans do not realize how close England was to being invaded.  Can you give us some sense of that, that fear, before we got involved?

David – Well, as you know, the nearest point in the Channel to England is only twenty miles, which is not far, twenty miles of water.  We had no idea, as children, really, what was going on, other than what we saw with these planes going out and coming back in.  We did know, however, that the Church bells never rang during the war.  On the basis that, if there was an invasion, they would ring.  So we were all aware, that if we heard the Church  bells, there was an invasion.

Karen – Something that I’ve also heard—if you could confirm or deny this—the street signs and directional signs were taken down.

David – All taken down.  There was an effort made, that if they did invade, it would be harder to find the way around.

Karen – Did you have a radio at the time?  Did you listen to the BBC?

David – Yeah, but I was too young to take interest in it.

Karen – When the Yanks got there, and the planes, that was when you first showed interest?

David – Yeah, but that was more of a fun thing than a serious thing.  As I said earlier, when my plane didn’t come back, I did cry.

Karen – Was it only one time that your plane didn’t come back?

David – We had two that didn’t come back.  But with Destiny’s Tot, they nearly all returned to base.  Pilot was Richard Smith.  And we were told this by our crew chief, what was going on.

Karen – Gerald (Grove, also of the Legacy Committee), do you have some questions?

Gerald – I would just be interested, David, in any thoughts about specific incidents of kindness of the crew chiefs, or just specific things that they relayed to you that are treasured memories of special events.

David – Like I said, we got very, very friendly with them.  I have one or two instances that stand out, whereby, and I’m not certain of how they occurred.  One day, when I arrived out, the plane wasn’t back and Earl Adams, deputy crew chief, got his knife out and said, “David, I’ve got to tell you that little boys’ ears are on the menu tonight and I must have yours.”  And he chased me round and round about, to no avail.  And I think not long after—our plane was very late coming back and it was dark—and along the [hardstand?] was a built-in where Adams was sleeping, waiting for the plane.  It was winter and he had his stove going.  I crept under the tent, because he had it locked up, and I put some live caliber shells in the stove and they exploded.  The stove went to pieces.  And Earl dived down under the bed.  He thought it was the invasion or a bomb had dropped on him.  Later, when we discussed it, he said, “David, I knewed it was you.  Because I never see’d you for two weeks.”  But, no animosity.  Just a stupid prank, which luckily didn’t go too wrong.

Karen – Where in heaven’s name did you get those shells?

David – We had access to shells all the while.  They laid all over the field.  We could pick them up.  But you were relating to incidents, Gerald.  I think it could be of interest to people to know how the local people—the Yanks used to call them that—got used to those momentous times where planes were crashing all the while, the sky was never empty, the noise, and the number of people whereby a village of 150 escalated overnight to over four thousand.  Our pubs were full.  But there were no problems between the Yanks and the English people.  But to typify an instance whereby . . . a plane took off one day and turned vertical and crashed into the farmhouse, blowing it to pieces.  All the crew were killed.  My father was delivering letters about a quarter of a mile from the crash.  And he turned at this farm and he heard a hissssss—a bomb, twisted like a plowshare, had landed a few feet of his bicycle.  He delivered his letters and he came back and attempted to pick it up and take it back to where we lived, but it was too hot.  So, we returned later and we picked up this twisted bomb and we took it home and put it outside our door.  We used it, until I left home, as a piece to put one boot on and pull your rubber boots off.

Gerald – A bootjack.

David – A bootjack, yeah.  But in that very same incident, down at the bottom of the low (?), my wife’s uncle was loading a (?) onto Tumble, the horse, and the farmer and some other souls said to another employee, Ted Chambers, “Ted, get down in that low and get Albert Smith back up here immediately.”  He would have been about 150 yards from the exploding bombs.  When Teddy went down, he was still loading.  He said, “Albert, you’ve got to come back.  Now.” Albert said, “What’s the problem?”  “Well, you’re going to get killed here.”  He wouldn’t come back.  So Teddy said to Albert,” What happened when the plane hit the house?”  He said, “Well, the horse jumped forward. I said, ‘Whoa,’ and I carried on loading.”  To me, that typifies how the local people got used to it, this noise and explosions and planes crashing—as they did, unfortunately, all the while.

I remember one incident, too.  There were many, many, many . . . I was on the playground.  I saw a B-17 coming back from the coast.  A P-47, a Thunderbolt—I saw them go in together.  And it just took the tail of the B-17 right off.  The main fuselage came down and they were bailing out.  The P-47 crashed and the pilot got killed.  The tail was gyrating slowly down and I remember saying to the tailgunner, “Get out, get out!”  He got out and the parachute just dragged behind him . . . killed.  That day, there were five crashes over Horham.  It was a foggy day.  And that’s the type of incident which local people accepted very quickly.

Karen – The airmen who were killed in crashes at Horham, were they temporarily buried there in graves?  Were there services at the Church?

David – No, they were not buried locally and there were no services at the Church for them.  They had services, no doubt, according to their denomination or religion within the chapel at the aerodrome.  You must remember, as you probably know anyhow, that the aerodrome was a self-contained town in its own right.

Karen – Did your family ever have any of the servicemen in for dinner?

David – Absolutely.  Nearly every family entertained Americans.  The one who we had in our house most was a bloke called Milton Fix.  I was near the 336th plane area and on one occasion—again, this memory starts to leave me—we couldn’t afford or get Christmas pudding for dessert.  There weren’t any around.  Somehow this got back to Milton.  We were having a meal and we said, “What’s for dessert?”  Milton replied, “Wait and see.”  And when the dessert duly came, it was a magnificent Christmas pudding.  Ever after, we called Christmas puddings “wait-and-sees.”  Yeah, it’s all emotional to me.

Karen – How many of these reunions have you come to and what do you get out of them?

David – Well, this is my sixth one.  The older I get, the harder it gets to not be emotional about it all, meeting these people, you know.  There’s a lot of people who are not aware that without the Americans, we would not have won World War II.  It’s a statistic, a proven statistic.  And I . . . must recognize that fact, that we’re free.  I love reunions and talking to the people.  I can’t even describe it to you.

Karen – I know our generation—and I’m younger than you—appreciates it, but the generations coming on, the grandsons, are not as aware of what went on and what it means, in this country.  Is the same thing happening in England?  

David – Yeah.  It’s a great shame that I think that your country and our country are not teaching it to be.  To give you a vivid illustration, to a lot of people the Holocaust did not happen.  For heaven’s sake!  I had some people come over from the 95th.  His daughter and granddaughter, who was about 18.  I showed them all over the aerodrome.  This young girl did not know anything at all about World War II.  I don’t know if she even knew it existed, which I find surprising.  So I would feel that it would be nice to put it into the school curriculum.  It won’t happen.  It won’t happen.  You know these people died.  In Horham, we lost one person, an _____ from the village.  The 95th Bomb Group lost over 600.  So, to me, it puts it in perspective what happened in World War II, and it alarms me that in the not too distant future it will all be forgotten.

Karen – One thing I’ve noticed in visiting England in 1993, is that the English seem to have a much greater sense of history than Americans, because I noticed in the churches they have a registry of the people from the parish who died and fought in World War I.  Do they do that?

David – America has probably never participated in wars, like World War I and World War II, whereby it was part of their country.  We had Americans in World War I and, of course, we know we had Americans in World War II, but it was three-and-one-half thousand miles from home.  It was fought quite often—the Battle of Britain—it was fought over Great Britain, over England.  Therefore, it is much easier to want to put up plaques, I feel, about what happened.  It can be so easy in America not to get involved to that extent.  That’s not a putdown on America, it’s just an automatic follow-up.

Karen – Another thing that I was getting at—because England has such a longer history than America, they seem to know more about 1066 than they do 1943.  Do you notice that?

David – That’s right.  We’re now back where, in school, you cannot smack a child. In the school, they are not allowed to teach about guns and things and military matters.  So, we come back to what I’m saying.  It’s all a great pity.  It seems to be a failure in the history, with nobody knowing.  And, I worry about no one caring.  It’s devil take the hindmost.  “I’ve got my freedom!”  “Where did it come from?”  “It doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter.  I’ve got it.”

Karen – Is there anything else you would like to add?

David – If I can keep up; if I can say without getting too emotional.  I would just like to put on record what we feel about the American people, the fliers who gave their lives.  It ‘tis an emotional thing with me.  It must be said.  That we respect them and love them.  Yep.

Gerald – Can I ask one other thing, David?  You mentioned that your dad was a bricklayer.  I think I recall you mentioned a little story at least about something that kept him in business for a while down at the end of one of the runways.

David – Yeah.  It was a regular feature of his work.  When the planes took off due east, there was a little cottage right at the end of the main runway and the planes would always dip down—it was a feature of taking off, I think.  And the wheels were still down.  He must have gone there dozens of times where the wheels clipped the chimney off this cottage.  It was completely accepted by the old boy, name of Jack Kendrick, who didn’t worry about it.  It was just a thing, a happening, an event.  And it was my father’s job to fix it. I remember his employer coming across, Bordy.  “Ted, get Abbott Thorpe line, chimney job.”

Karen – Thank you, David.  For the record, this has been Karen Sayko for the Legacy Committee, talking with David Johnson, of Horham, England, and Gerald Grove has been sitting in.  Thank you very much, David.

David – Thank you.