William Elder
95TH BOMB GROUP (H) ASSOCIATION
Oral History Project
2000 Reunion Orlando, Florida
RM: This is Russ McKnight and we’re in Orlando, Florida on the 16th of September, the year 2000. And we have the honor of interviewing Bill Elder today. Bill, could you tell us what years you were in the Army/Air Corps?
BE: I went in 1942 and stayed in until 1969.
RM: And what were your years with the 95th?
BE: I went over with them in May of ’43. We landed there the 11th. And I was a PFC in a chemical warfare section. After being, and watching the airplanes come back and everything, I thought I wanted to be a gunner. So I went to talk to Colonel McKnight; I think he was a Lieutenant Colonel then. And he said, “Well, it’s a pretty good turnover. They’re going down like something else.” He said, “I’ll help you out.” So I went to two weeks gunnery school. Some of the other guys probably went through months and months. (Laughing) And the next thing you know I’m on a crew. But after our second mission, I figured I’d bit off a whole lot. Because it was a, quite a few airplanes went down, we was bombing Rostock, which was, you know, the Germans, kind of like our Cape Canaveral. But, kept it up, and then I was assigned to one of the crews as a gunner. And after several missions, our bombardier was killed, and I was transferred to another crew as a toggleier, so I sat in the nose and dropped the bombs off the lead ship. And that was from April through September. Then after I finished my missions, I didn’t finish them, because I started when they were flying 25. Then they upped it to 30. Then they upped it to 35. And I remember Colonel McKnight was telling me one day, he said, “I don’t know if you’ll ever get finished, the way we’re going here.” So he said, “How about letting us cut you off at 28.” Well, they usually got a DFC at 30 or 35, but he said don’t worry about it. And sure enough, he called me in the office one day and that’s what he did. Just a little old ceremony, him and I. He pinned the DFC on me.
RM: Bill, that’s really remarkable. You moved from being a gunner to being part of the bombing team.
BE: Yeah. There wasn’t much to it because after they taught me how to do the toggle switch, you know, and whenever the lead dropped bombs, all I had to do was do that and our bombs dropped. But sometimes it would be pretty hairy if the lead airplane got knocked out. Then I couldn’t possibly operate and lead a whole formation through the IP and everything, you know. Usually the second, first, second, and that would be somebody that could take over the lead, and then we were usually three, four, five, six, seven – something like that.
RM: After those initial missions that you mentioned that were so hairy, were there other incidences that happened while you were there that were memorable, that you could share with us?
BE: Oh yes. I was hit. I’ve got a piece of flak in my bag over there. I was hit over Paris. One of the first bursts got us. Kinda blew me out to the bombardier’s seat, back into the navigator’s section. And the pilot said, “Everybody check in.” I was laying down there. I heard the navigator say, “The bombardier’s dead.” And the only thing I could think of, I said, “Well, it’s not so bad. I don’t feel that bad, but I guess I’m dead.” And everything worked okay. We got back all right. We had some holes, and the crew chief gave me a piece of flak that hit right across here, and took my mask and everything off. But it wasn’t too bad. So when we got back, what was comical was, I was taken to the hospital. And you have to spend 24 hours in the hospital to get a Purple Heart. And my crew got tanked up with the after mission whiskey, and they came and crawled through a window in the hospital and got me out, took me back, and we had a big party that night. (Laughing) Bandages and blood and everything. So it must have not been a life-threatening situation. But it scared the living daylights out of me.
RM: Were you off oxygen for a while?
BE: I had a __________ pack on too, because it seemed like it went right straight through here. When I fell back into the navigator’s section, you know that’s not a great big section anyway, but __________ I must have had oxygen. I wouldn’t be alive laying back there, you know. But the pilot wanted everybody to check in. Other than that, when the navigator said I was dead, I must have just relaxed and thought I was. But he started taking care of things, you know, and usually one of the gunners would help out on the crew too, especially if something happened to the ball turret or the tail. The waist gunner would usually go and check on them. And sometimes the ball turret would be in a dire situation you know and you’d have to grind him up and bring him out. Of course many a ball turret probably didn’t have access to their ‘chute because that was left in the airplane while they were down in the ball.
RM: Was your crew a crew that had stayed together after, in communication?
BE: Well, to a certain extent. But then it all faded away, you know, like it does a lot of times. And since I hadn’t been on a crew that trained in the states, and I was a spare over there, because there were three or four of us: Thompson, McGidney and I. And we were used by Colonel McKnight and Mumford, you know, as spares. So I flew with different crews for quite a while, oh I guess about ten or twelve missions – something like that. And then Lieutenant Melvin came over there and I was assigned to his crew, so I guess I got about ten or fifteen missions out of him.
RM: It’s very remarkable. You bring yet another perspective to the team building and the way the job was getting done over there. The fact that you became a crew when you didn’t go over to be a crew.
BE: That’s right. They had to use, well just like if the army was trying to get a hill or something like that, you know. The first one got killed, the second one got killed, the third one got killed. Then they say, well __________, you’re a Second Lieutenant now, so you lead the bunch through, you know.
JM: Can you tell us something about keeping your diaries?
BE: I just started; I don’t know why. This was my dad’s favorite thing. He was uneducated, but when I sent these to him, it was one thing that he could keep for himself, you know. And I kept the names of the different pilots, the aircraft numbers on them, and sometimes what happened to, like we had some people in the barracks that would go down. Even though you might not know anybody for a week or two weeks, you would get close to them. And I’ve got a little British army soldier; you know a little toy thing about so big. And one of these new guys came in, and we got to having a couple of beers together, or whatever, you know. And they got ready to go on a mission and he gave me that and says, “If I don’t come back, you can keep this.” And I’ve still got it. He didn’t come back.
RM: Are there any particular things you’d like to share with us from the readings from your diary?
BE: I did want to share one thing that has to do with Colonel McKnight. And I was 19 years brought up in the Methodist Church. (Laughing) And then when I got in the service, I got to do what all the big guys did, you know. I was smoking and beering up and all that stuff. But there’s one here especially, if I can find it through all the water (tears). Oh that’s a picture we took. He and I were both clerks then, and we became gunners. Went to England and had this picture made.
RM: Okay, and this is a picture that’s called the Rainbow Corner Club, American Red Cross, and it’s Bud Thompson and Bill Elder – two handsome young men.
BE: (Laughing) Young all right. (Reading from the diary) Monday, March 14th. This is my last day of work for Wednesday. I am going to start to school to be a gunner. This is the one hope that has materialized since I have been in the Army. The family does not know as yet, but I will write and tell them so they will know what to expect. People all tell me I’m crazy. But after seeing as much as I’ve seen around here, and still I want to become a combat man, that’s enough proof that it’s really deep. Deep down inside of me. I would never be satisfied when this war is over, to have spent my whole life being a clerk, and that’s no dispersion against clerks in an office. After all, to quote Colonel McKnight, “Pencil pushing won’t win the war. What I want is a goddamn fighting army.” And then the next day was the mission to __________. But that was the main thing; I wanted to get my thoughts down.
RM: That’s really powerful. Thank you for sharing that with us. Could you tell us, maybe, in the last few moments, you know, what it was like to come home after everything that had happened to you in the 95th?
BE: Oh, that was the most glorious thing in the world. Of course, I came home on the train. And big shot took a cab to the house. (Laughing) And I couldn’t believe, the tears, my daddy wasn’t known to cry, but he did. Mother, and my sister, of course I was only 21 I believe. My sister was a baby, about three or four, and two brothers – one of them was two years younger than I am. Gee, that was a good time. (Chuckle)
RM: In your years since the war, what happened after that?
BE: Well, I still wanted to fly. So I did an unusual thing. You don’t usually write to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. But they were downsizing the whole thing, you know. And so I wrote General Arnold and asked him would it be possible I could stay in service and fly? And his office, someone in his office, you know naturally, said yes, she said you could, so I stayed in. And then I went over to Germany for two and a half years and saw all them; we had to live in all them buildings that we bombed. (Laughing) Sometimes we’d be living in the basement. Then I flew, we had some old B-17’s and they were blowing them up. But there’s a secret – I don’t know whether I should tell this or not – it’s been a long time ago. They were doing some, a project called Casey Jones Project where they were trying to map Russia so they wouldn’t know about it. So we would take off from __________, which is, and do that every day. Not us every day, but some other crew, some of the other crews, you know. And just map certain strips of Russia. And of course, that was before, that was done at a time when everything was in turmoil all over the globe, especially over there. And I don’t know if they ever found out about it. That was pretty good duty. And then, when that was over, I went back and went over to Fort Worth and enlisted and spent ten years flying B-36’s. And when that was over with, we transitioned to B-52’s out in California and it opened up Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi to bombers. So I flew eleven years in them. And every six months after the, we were running the first airplanes in Viet Nam – B-52’s. We flew out of Guam. It would be a twelve-hour mission. And in July of ’65 we flew one of the first missions over Viet Nam. And I got 108 missions over Viet Nam. But that was nothing compared to what Germany was. The only thing that really scared the living daylights out of you was when they started bombing north, and the telephone poles would go out beside of you, you know. And we had ECM operators then, and they would know from the sounds what Russian missile was heading your way. And then they would give the pilot one way or another. And more than one time you’d see a great big telephone pole going up beside you like that.
RM: What crew position did you fly on B-52’s?
BE: I was the tail gunner. We had a tail compartment. We used the old B models, and they painted them dark, you know – camaflouged. And I had to go to school to become radar. And so we had a tail turret with 420 millimeters in the tail. Now your later model B-52’s had them up in front, you know.
RM: You’ve had such a remarkable career, Bill. I’m just stunned. And I know there is so much more we could gather, but thank you so much for sharing.
BE: Well that’s quite all right. I know I had the idea if I didn’t get out, one of the wars was going to get me, so (laughing) I retired in ’69. I said that’s enough.