Stewart McConnell

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

2001 Reunion, Las Vegas, NV

This is Gerald Grove from the Legacy Committee of the 95 th Bomb Group interviewing Stewart McConnell.  Welcome.  Could you state your name, where we are and the date, please:

My name is Stewart McConnell.  We are in Las Vegas, NV.  This is the first of October 2001.

Somebody’s going to ask me some questions.

GG: All right.  Mac I’d  like to ask you what your dates of service were with the Army Air Force?-

MAC: I joined the military in March of 1941.  I went trough basic training at Brooke AFB;  was assigned to Nellis AFB that summer; and I came out in July 1941.  Then I stayed there until they shipped  me overseas in December of 1943.  

GG:  So as far as dates of service with the 95 th BG - when were you with the 95 th ?

MAC:  I was with the 95 th from June of 1944 through about May of 1945.  I think that’s about the time I was with them.

GG: What squadron were you with?

MAC:  I was assigned to the 335 th Bomb Squadron.  As a so-called - the nice way to say it - is an orphan gunner, but we said it was as a bastard gunner.

GG:  You were a gunner.

MAC:  I was a gunner.  I was a fill in. I flew with whoever needed a tail gunner, a ball gunner or a waist gunner,. Most of my missions were flown as toggleier.  That was because I went through Armament School in Colorado when I was a gunnery instructor.

GG:  And the toggleier’s responsibilities were?

MAC:  That’s a bombardier.  We replaced the bombardier.  Whenever the lead bombardier dropped the bombs then we would release ours - we would just toggle them loose.

GG: So then you did not come across with an assigned crew.

MAC:  No.  I was a gunnery instructor in Las Vegas.  Then in December of 43 they sent me over to the advanced gunnery school which was          ???                        .  I stayed there for about 6 months.  We were trying to train replacement gunners.  We had so many losses in 43.  It was hard to keep either planes or troops available.  Then those buzz bombs got rid of the gunnery school so they assigned the instructors to various places.

GG:  Let’s go back for a second.  I neglected to ask you, how old were you when you went into the service.

MAC:  18.

GG:  Where were you at the time,  where were you from - your home?

MAC:  My home was El Paso.  I had moved to Houston and I was living with my brother and I just decided to go into service.  I went into service from Houston.  Went down to San Antonio.

GG:  Would you take us through the training you received once you enlisted?

MAC:  Well I went through the basic training that any private would go through - male up your bed; we were trained in tents; we slept on cots.  We were paid $21 a month and found so we were in pretty good shape.  We went through basic infantry training is what we did.  We learned to march and do KP and peel potatoes and wash pots and pans;  all the other good things that the troops learned.  We also learned to duck walk there because we had a parade field for the base and the recruits had to duck walk up and down that thing picking up all the cigarette butts every morning so they could train us.  You know, get us in condition.

GG:  Where were the several places that you went through training?

MAC:  I went through basic training at Brooke AFB and I went from Brooke to Las Vegas.

GG:  That was it?

MAC: That was it, yes.  Then we started the gunnery school.  When we got there we had a lot of sand and a lot of territory but  we didn’t have any roads or much else, you know.  They built the base and they went through and found out which of us went to high school and could do a little bit of math;  especially see who took trig and geometry. Then they called us out and said, you, you and you are gunnery instructors and that was it.  Then they started training us and we went on.   The only thing I’ve tried to find out, and I haven’t been able to find anybody to tell me about it, we started training in B-10s, the old B-10 bombers, tricycle landing gear,  and we had to weld the landing gear shut because they kept collapsing when we tried to land.  I haven’t found anybody that recognizes a B-10.  Then we had the B17s and B18s but while I was there they sent me to Lowry AFB and I had training in armament there.  Then they sent me back to Fort Logan and I got training in all the turrets and all the bomb activities so, you know, I was well trained at least as far as armor and armament, ammunitions and gunnery.

GG: Did you have any particularly memorable experiences during training that you‘d share-  either humorous or not as humorous.

MAC:  Oh, no.  It was just routine.  We had to go all the way from the BB gun and like you used to see in the side shows.  We’d have to take the people running through the BB guns and then we’d take em through trap; then we’d take em through skeet and then we’d take them - they built target towers - little rail cars and triangular track.  We would teach them there.  We started with infantry teaching us how to shoot water cooled machine guns. Because that was the only thing we had there.  Then we moved up to air cooled guns.  The only thing that was fun up there was the people they’d send in for gunnery instructors.  They started the draft and by that time we started getting all kinds of people in.  We would get people from the larger environments that were tremendously  qualified academically but they had never even shot a squirrel in their early days.  They couldn’t hit - I won’t say the word - but they couldn’t hit.  Then we had the country boys who could shoot the daylights out of anything but they hadn’t gone through all the math and things - so we used to help them out squirrel wise.  We figured out if he knew how to lead and he knew how to shoot he was going to be a helluva lot better in that airplane than somebody who could do the math but couldn’t shoot.  But that was part of the training.  Most of them were qualified.

GG:  How did you get to England?  By air?

MAC:  No, we went on a slow boat. We went on that slow boat.  It took us almost a month to get there. I left before Christmas but it was late in January before I got to England - to the replacement pool.  

GG:  When did you start flying missions out of Horham?

MAC:  Well, the first one I flew was the 15 th of August in 1944.  It  was some kind of mission.

I don’t know what it was but that was the first one I flew. Then I flew my last one on the 17 th of February in 45.

GG:  Tell me about some of your more memorable missions.

MAC:  I guess the most memorable one I had was Meresberg in November of 44.  I was flying toggle with Stokesberry crew.  We got badly shot up and my navigator was badly badly wounded.  A lot of f times the flak would tear up your electric wiring and sometimes it would freeze and it would shoot it up.  We had to wear heated suits at that altitude.  When we got up at altitude we were getting 50 to 60 degrees below zero.  My navigator’s heated suit got shot out so I gave him my heated suit and I froze my buns.  But, anyway, we got him down. I gave him treatment and everything.  I was a pretty bloody mess when we landed.. I guess we had several hundred holes in the thing.  We had two or three engines shot out.  We barely made it back to the base. When I opened that door for the medics to get him out, they put me on the stretcher - I had so much blood on me   I said, no no, that was pretty funny.  That was one of my good trips

GG:  Who was the navigator.

MAC:  Metzer.  Have you seen this book.

GG:  Yes sir.

MAC:  In that they list all the wounded.  That was the most memorable mission.  Then there was the one where I got my first award - I think it was 12/29 out of Frankfurt.  We had a  pretty tough flight that mission.

GG:  Will you tell us about that one?

MAC:  It was just a rough mission.  There’s so much of this stuff I don’t remember.  When you’re in a position like I was in and you don’t belong to anybody and you’re an orphan, you’re flying with crews you don’t know and they don’t know you.  Now these crews have all trained together and they’re all good teams and they all know each other and they got to where they trusted each other.  Then you come along and you may get on a crew that’s only got one or two missions to go before they complete their thing.  Then you come along and they don’t know whether you know your business or not and you get on. The thing was the way they would call us - it would be 2:30/3:30 in the morning.  The guy would shake the bed and say, You’re on a mission, grab your stuff.  You’d grab your stuff and they’d put you in the back end of a truck and drive you somewhere and that thing was 4 motors running;  it was waiting; hey threw you in the door and it took off.  You didn’t know where you were going or why you were going or anything.

The guys would tell you what position you were going to fly and you got in there and you flew.

Maybe after you were up on a mission you’d fly out where you’d go - too late to be sick then. Laugh.  So you went,.

GG:  When you got your Purple Heart on that mission, where were you?

MAC:  A lot flak.  Toggleier.  That was an interesting place to sit because there was nothing between you and the world except a Plexiglas.  You were first.  You saw all the flak coming up and you saw all the other planes going down.  It was an interesting position.

GG:  Was there any one crew in the 95 th that you flew with any more than any other?

MAC:  I flew maybe 4 or 5 missions with J E Hamilton.  Those are the pictures I showed you in case you want to look at them.  Then I flew 4 or 5 missions with Stokesberry.  After that I don’t know the rest.  I flew with the 486 th BG but I have no idea who I flew with there.  Then I flew that mission to                            .  The only groups I know that went that day were the 100 th who were in our area.  I would have been within truck distance and I know that I flew with them on a couple of missions.  Most of them I flew about 2 or 3, I flew 1 think that one was completed.  The rest of them they aborted.  They were shot up awfully bad and their planes were in sad shape.

So, I flew with them.

GG:  On any of those missions do you remember any particularly courageous acts?

MAC:  Yeah, I remember one courageous act.  It all depends on what you define courageous.

I don’t even remember what mission we were on, but I know I was flying in the low group and we had one plane blow up.  There was, I don’t know what position the man was, but he came out. He had no parachute on.  He was just blown out of the airplane.  He made himself stand upright and salute as he went down.  That was tough.

GG:  Very tough.  Tell us about when you were living on the base.  Give us a little bit of an idea of a day in the life of - while you lived there.

MAC:  I’m going to ask your tolerance.  In the position I was in I’d made it a habit to forget everything.  Nobody wanted me and nobody loved me.  I didn’t know where I was going and when you come back from a mission and as crews they had their parties and everything.  You went back as an orphan and you sat on your bunk.  So, all I did mostly was ride the double deck bus around.  At the gunnery school we used to sit on the sand bags and watch  the ladies shoot at the buzz bombs as they were coming in.  That was our entertainment.  Cheer them on.  They thought we were crazy.  Then we went to London on occasion. With the black outs you didn’t do much but you enjoyed yourself.  The other place we went was to Nottingham. Because they had some good music there.  Vera   ??            British singer used to sing up there, so we could go hear good music.  The rest of the time it was just stay in the barrack or ride around and see the countryside and learn to see where everything was. All of us were situated near Diss which was a railroad town and you could go to Norwich or Ipswich or down to London and you could just ride around.  You just occupied yourself keeping busy. There wasn’t that much time, really.

From the time I started until the time I left, was a pretty fast 30 missions.

GG:  Again your first mission was when and your last mission?

MAC:  My first mission was 15 th of August 1944 and my last was 17 th of February 45.

GG:  That accounted for 30 missions.

MAC:  Yeah.

GG:  Would you recall anything on the base or any of the missions that at that time would have been a bit humorous?

MAC:  Not really.  You know as I say when you’re in the position I’m in and you’re in a Quonset Hut with about 3 orphans in it, there wasn’t much out there.  You just occupied yourself.  You didn’t really go with this people or that people  so you were pretty much on your own - even the 3 of us. One guy was a chess player so we played chess all the time.  We stayed there and did our business.

GG:  Your description has been very good of the difference between being part of the crew

or not.

MAC:  That was I think the most unusual thing.  Lots of people didn’t realize that replacement gunners were there and they’re fill ins.  In some cases most o them couldn’t qualify but replacement for one position.  But in our case, since we were all instructors and all had been from basic training instructors to advanced training instructors, we could fill in almost any position.  You couldn’t fill in for a radio operator because he had to be qualified. And then the engineer had to be well qualified.  After that, the rest of the slots were officers.  Except when we filled in for the bombardier as the nose gunner Toggleier.  We were more flexible.  I know my first mission I flew as tail gunner.  Hamilton’s tail gunner had been wounded  I flew tail that mission.  I know I flew ball and waist but I flew mostly Toggleier because I had the experience.

The bombardiers were hard to come by then.  They were behind in training and that was one position where a lot of flak hit - a lot of damage was done.

Karen?  I want to ask what it entailed to get the bombs ready?

Sam?  Tell us a bit since you flew the Toggleier position a number of times….

MAC:  In the Toggleier position - when they loaded the bombs depended on whether they were 2000 pounders, 500 pounders, 100 pounders; depending on your mission and what you were going to do and how you were going to drop them.  The bombs had to be armed and pinned.  So that they were not dangerous.  So, when you were approaching your IP and we were getting ready to hit the target then we would have to go pull all the pins and give them to the navigator.  Then they would be armed so that when it was time to drop and we dropped  they would start spinning and they would go.  If you had an abortion or a recall or something happened then you would have to go back and repin.  You’d be repinning with the bomb doors open.  The problem was that you were on an oxygen mask and generally- we didn’t have pressurized cabins or anything - when we moved from one place to another, you had to go on an oxygen mask  If you were on that mask - there’s a lot of stories - you’ve probably heard some of them where people died because their oxygen ran out on them before they could get from one position to the other.  We lost several people that way.  You had  to be very careful.  The other thing was that you had to disconnect your heater too because there was no way you could carry your heated suit  all the way there.  You were hanging over that door and it would be - chilly.

Karen:  On the catwalk.

MAC:  And the catwalk was very narrow. You’d have to climb out there and pin all the pins.

If you had 100 pound bombs for that mission, you had a lot of pinning time because you had lots of bombs to pin.  Now when you had the 2000 pounders and you only had 2 of them you could pin those pretty quick and get back  up to your heated suit.  It was fun.  You had to do all of that stuff.  You were required to do it.

Karen:  What did you do with the pins?

MAC:  We’d give them to the navigator then he’d give them back to you. We had to account for the pins and the bombs and everything.  They had a load that they had to document.  Everybody knew what you had and when you dropped them and you knew whether you were dropping a train or what have you.  I flew two or three times with Stokesbverry (?) where we had airplane trouble.  He never liked to carry  his bombs back so his hobby was to find rail yards and his

biggest ambition was to see one of those bombs go down the smokestack of the engine.  So I used to have to pin and we used to have to drop the bombs.  We  didn’t haven bombsites so we

used to put our feet together in a V and we’d say move here, move there and when we got there it was …..(?)  .We hit a lot of stuff.  I don’t remember if I was ever successful in putting one down a smokestack or not.  That was what he wanted more than anything was to put one down the smokestack. We did that, I would say, at least three times.  I’m not so sure he wouldn’t abort the mission for the fun of going after the trains.  Laugh.  I wouldn’t say that he did, but I always had that feeling.

GG:  Were there any emergency landings - or any…

MAC:  Oh, yeah. We had lots - it’s covered in your…   I don’t remember we came back I guess maybe I would say maybe half of the missions I flew we came back with one or two engines missing and a lot of problems.  We did come back with one engine running until we got over the Rock of Gibraltar was it.  No the White Cliffs. Over the Dover Cliffs and then we had to dead stick land.  We dead sticked it and we got out.  You know, we were lucky.  We heard of several crews where the tail gunner couldn’t get the ball rolled up and they’d have to drag in on all and cut him off.  We saw that on our crew too but we had several crashes but we landed lots of times with just one engine.  We used to quit counting when we had 300 holes from flak.  Laugh.  We figured that was enough and we’d quit counting.  The plane brought us back.  That B-17 was a good airplane.  We had good crews. But you still were an orphan.

GG:  When you came back to the states, tell me you wanted.

MAC:  I was sent back and discharged at the benefit of the government.  We had so many points that they didn’t need us.  I applied for B-29 school but they said, no, I had enough medals and enough flying time so they just booted me out.  I went back to Houston and I was working there.  I got a call saying if we wanted to go back to school. Going back to school was two parts - a part 8 and a part 7.  The part 8 was the general thing.  Part 7 was for wounded veterans.  So they sent me back on a part 7.  They asked me where I wanted to go to school.  I decided to go to Texas A&M and when I got there I didn’t know what to study for so I just signed up for Veterinary medicine.  5 years later I had my degree.  I became a veterinarian.  I worked for the USDA  for a year and then Korea broke out.  Then my last year in vet school I joined the Reserves.  I was in a malaria survey detachment.  Of course the Korean War there was a lot of malaria so they decided they needed people.  I applied for a commission.  I got a Second Lieutenant’s commission. That was the only year they gave Second Lieutenant commissions  to Veterinarians or doctors.  That was the year that 5 horse Charlie Wilson was in there.  He wanted to abolish everything.  So I went back in as a Second Lieutenant.   I decided to stay.  I retired as a Lt. Colonel. Regular Army.  Then I got a job as an Associate Professor at Texas A&M.  17 years later, I retired as a Professor Emeritus.  

GG:  So you had a very varied background when you got home…..

Karen:  You went to Ohio State to get your Masters?

MAC:  Yeah, I got my Masters from Ohio State - Veterinary Microbiology.  Then I was  assigned to Walter Reed - Army Institute of Research.  I stayed there for a year and then they sent me to Bolivia.  I was sent there to produce some BCG’s which is tuberculosis vaccine but 90% of the people had tuberculosis so they canceled that project.  Fortunately the aid(?) had sent a veterinarian over to be the veterinary advisor to the Agriculture Secretary and he got …….

high altitude disease and they had to carry him out in a plane.  The military didn’t have anything else for me, so they assigned me to be the veterinary advisor so I took over the biologics production and managing all of the disease and everything.  While I was there, I got to work with the Bolivian hemorrhagic fever group. Did the rodent control program for them. Then I came back and ended up at Fort  Dietrich(?) where I was when I retired.  Yeah, I was the Special Assistant to the Commanding Officer.  I was in charge of all the veterinarians.  

GG:  That was regular army?

MAC:  Regular army!  Yeah.

GG:  Army Air Corps to the Regular Army.

MAC:  Regular Army, yeah.

GG:  Why wouldn’t they let you back in the Air Force?

MAC:  Color blind. Laugh.

SAM:  Well, there’s a reason for you.

GG:  Have you been to several of these reunions before?

MAC:  I tried  to make the one in San Antonio and I got there too late.  This is the only one I’ve made so far.

GG:  Are there any other particular things about your service with the 95 th that you’d like to add to the records that we haven’t asked you about?

Karen:  Can you tell us about Bolivia - what the Indians did   It was during the revolution?

MAC:  When we were in Bolivia we went through 7 changes of government.  They were always having revolutions.  We had a lab out        ?        in high altitude.  I was in charge of the lab.

We were running electricity up to that lab on telegraph wires.  We didn’t have a lot of power but we would help the indigenous people that were there. We would help them.  We ran a plug out  to them so they’d have a faucet there and they could get water. They tied into our lines so they had water. Well, one time when one of their real - severe revolutions - they had to make us leave.  We went back down on our way home.  The Indians came up and they got on top of the laboratory and they stayed there 3 days.  They wouldn’t let anyone come on it to damage the property.  Which was very unusual.  Nobody had seen that.  That was one of those type of things. It paid off being nice to people.  That was an interesting situation.

SAM:  Did you get to go back after that?

Karen:  Back to the lab.

MAC:  I went back years later with the University because we were trying to set up - well, you know the macaws - like parrots - we had a lot of veterinarians that had to treat pet birds - and don’t really know how to help a big macaw.  You get him on your finger and he can bit that thing off.  We went down there and we were setting up a situation for training veterinarians  practice.

We set up an aviary in one of the guy’s houses at a ranch there.  We would bring back macaws and would put them out there and then we would send the veterinarians out there to learn.  I tried to set up a joint program with the veterinary school so that we could train them back and forth.  I went back for that and we did set that thing up.  It was interesting.

Karen:  The bombs - did you drop or was it the navigator.

MAC:  No, the Toggleier dropped.

Karen:  OK.  Did you have any problem that time you were wounded in the eye.  Did that happen before or after the drop?

MAC:  That happened after the drop.  Once you get on that bomb run you can’t move.  You’re there.  That’s when all the flak and damage is coming up but you’ve already toggled the switch.

Karen:  Now you joined in July of 1945.  Was there any particular reason why you joined.

MAC:  No, I joined in July of 41.  Was there a particular reason I joined?  I needed a job.  I was selling dill pickles out of a pickle barrel in ……… in Houston and I thought I could go in.  The reason I was looking for a job is that I was raised in an orphanage.  I was in St. Margaret’s Orphanage until I got through the 7 th grade and then I went to New Mexico in Deming and I was working in a TB sanitarium and the police came up and got me because I was only 13.  They put me back in the county poor farm. I stayed there while I went through high school and then after you turn 18 the county don’t care for you anymore.  I went to Houston..

Karen:  First, you started for college.

MAC:  Yeah, I went one semester at El Paso College of Mines and Metallurgy.  Chemical Engineering.  ?????

Karen:  Where were you when you heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor?

MAC:  In Las Vegas.

Karen:  What was your reaction when you heard the news?

MAC:  Here we go.  What else could you do?  You were already   ?     and you were in the military.  Now you’re in for it.  I wasn’t going to run, I couldn’t hide.

GG:  Stewart, I do want to thank you for taking your time and sharing your story with us on the Legacy Committee.  Thank you for all you’ve done for us.

MAC: I’m real happy that you gave me the opportunity.  I do think that not very many people knew that there were orphans.

Karen:  Once they found out that you had been an instructor,  did they when you went on these missions ….

MAC:  No, because you were changing crews.  They didn’t have time to.. In fact when you got a mission - they wake you up - they put you on a truck - they dump you in a plane.  They haven’t even had time to say hello to you.  When they got back they were so happy they didn’t even bother to say goodbye.  

SAM:  Did you get married before the war or after the war?

MAC:  I got married my senior year in college.

SAM:  At Texas A&M.

MAC:  Uh-huh.

Karen:  And 52 years later we’re sitting here.

GG::  Again, this is Gerald Grove with the Legacy Committee.  We certainly do appreciate that you did this.  It’s important to all of us.  Thank you.

MAC:  You bet.