¡Colores!; 1008; Mayhem was Our Business: Memorias de un Veterano; Interview; Part 2

All right, let's pick up where were you stationed in the States and then where were you stationed in England? In the States, I was, oh my gosh, I must have been in 15 bases in the United States. During training and after I came back from OC, but in England I was stationed in Welling Barrow. It is close to Northampton and Welling Barrow had a detachment of black troops before we arrived and the detachment of black troops had moved on. After we arrived, by the time we arrived. But the Americans were boycotting Welling Barrow. They called it Nigger

Barrow. And the reason for that is because the reason is outright racist. And I had sort of a shock treatment myself. I have never considered myself a racist. And I spent my life fighting racism. But in Welling Barrow, there was a moment when I had to examine my own conscience. Because it was a shock to be going down the street and finding or meeting an English woman with a black baby in her arms. The English women have the most beautiful complexion that

you can imagine. It must be the moisture in the air. It must be the lack of excessive sunshine. I don't know that a climate, whatever it is, they've got the pitchest, smoothest complexion that you can imagine. In the contrast of the very, very white woman with a very, very black baby. And you see quite a number. Because they said that the niggers were saying that they were American Indians. I don't know whether that's true or not. So I was shocked at what I saw. And I wondered if I was also biased and racist. Why the shock, kind of a

rejection? Then I think I analyzed it. If I had seen a black man and a black woman with a black baby, the old triangle, it would have been normal and natural. But one element of the triangle was missing, just a black baby and a white mother. Because I had no objection before or since I had intermarried on this side, why would I have it there? And that's I think the shock. And like I said, the Americans would boycott a Wellingborough and go to I told you Northampton. Northampton. 18 miles away. No, it's long ways to go by bicycle or by bus.

I went to Wellingborough. I got the best treatment of all because there were so few Americans here. And the British were trying so hard to be gracious to us. So I enjoyed my visit in Wellingborough very much. Tell me about getting into your barracks at landing at the Wellingborough at the at the airfield and getting into the barracks and getting ready. Well, we we started in Carnegie Nebraska. We were given a brand new B17 bomber. And we each colonized our own little corner all the way. I went in there, went into that ball turret and pampered it, fitted it up. I had my Christopher Singh, Christopher Meadow, the whole thing. And we

flew to do. That's okay. Did you fly to another station in the States or did you go straight to Newfoundland? We flew to Newfoundland. In school, I had learned to say Newfoundland. And I found that there in Newfoundland. And from there, we flew to Belfast, Ireland. And when we landed in Belfast, Ireland, we were the moment that the plane stopped rolling an officer jumped in the plane and told us to get our personal belongings out immediately

that the plane was taken off in ten minutes without us. They took up a brand new plane away from us. And we had been told that we'd go to a combat school before we went into combat so that we could learn the latest strategies that the Germans were using and latest weapons and all of that. Well, in Belfast, Ireland, we were told that we were being shipped to a combat base immediately that a combat squadron had been eliminated by the Germans and we were supposed to replace it. We arrived there late at night and the clothes were still hanging on their purchase. The pictures of their girlfriends, their wives

and their children, their parents were still there. And we had to remove their personal belongings and take them to a warehouse. And then we went to bed in the same beds that had been occupied a night or two nights before by another American who was no longer with us. That gives you a creepy feeling if anything does. Well, that first night there was a custom in the Air Force and that they divide the crew of the newcomers and spread them out among experienced veteran crews to get their first days to combat. Well, four or five of my crew were chosen, but I wasn't. In a two o'clock in the morning, they came to wake them up and

they took them to breakfast at hour and from there to orientation where they went to a big hall that had a big map of Europe. There was an officer with a pointer and he pointed out the target of the day and the route because it changed the routes all the time. Sometimes we'd go up into the north and soup down into Germany from the side or say. And where we would meet combat fighters, where we would run into flag. Well, they came back to their planes because the planes would take off about six in the morning. And this morning was

a foggy morning the way only England knows foggy mornings to be. They couldn't see the runway from the control tower. And these bombers would take off at 30 second intervals. Well, the first one took off. And I don't know whether it was the first one, one of them took off and had a blowout. And it carrained and it was crossways on the runway. Well, the one behind it crashed into it and the third was crashed into those two. And there was an explosion that rocked the area. I was still in bed. And I sat up in bed. And a big chunk of iron came in through the Neeson Hot. And the barracks weren't regular barracks. They were like

barrels, metal barrels cutting half. And they called them Neeson Hot. It came in on one end and out the other, leaving a gaping hole like that. Bigger than that. And I thought we were being bombed by the Germans. But I was so stupified that I just sat there. Finally, I had collected my faculties around me and I went out and found out that these three planes had crashed. And the military police had already fenced off the area. And there was a crater there, 75 feet wide. And I don't know how many feet deep. But I did see a human foot in a GI shoe. I was so affected that I sat down and threw up and I cried. There

were 10 crewmen in each one of those planes. 30 Americans went poof. Next morning, it was my turn. And it was foggy like the day before. And we took off like that at 30 second intervals. And that puts a knot in your intestines when you're at a dig at all. Let's stop for a second. Go ahead and throw your nose. Yeah. I have that in you. I'm going to back up and I want you to help me set up one of your stories a little bit. You landed

in Belfast. Yeah. And tell me about, because I remember this from our previous conversations, I want you to be just a little bit more descriptive about the fact you had to go into the barracks and you found these articles left by the former crew. When you just told me now you didn't really get a sense of you getting into the barracks and making this discovery. And I was kind of hoping if we could do that a little bit. You're up for that? Right. You did mention it. You did mention it. But just for television, it helps me to have a little bit better of a setup. So we can always edit that in. Yeah. That's in Wellingboro. Yeah. Not Belfast. So what I was hoping you could do for me is just kind of say, well, when it just arrived, we were replacing this combat team when we walked in, you know, and that would help me a lot. Okay. Whenever you're ready. When we arrived in Wellingboro, it was late at night. And we were tired. We had been on the train all the way from Belfast, Ireland.

And we walked into the barracks. And it had an eerie spooky feeling. It was the barracks of the squadron that had been shot down by the Germans. The clothes were still hanging on the racks. They're clothes. The pictures of their parents. The wives, their children, their girlfriends were still up. The personal belongings, their shaving equipment. You saw all of that. And you thought about just a day or two before they were living, robbing,

exciting young people. And today they were gone. When we had to remove all of those personal belongings and drop them off at a depot. It was like a burial. It was very difficult to swallow. And then when the lights went out and we went to bed, when the very same beds, not those young people that occupied, it was eerie. And it was a long time before

we went to sleep. All right. Help me a little bit here to understand what it was like to be on your first combat mission. Because you're just to take it off in the fog, right? My first combat mission was weird, eerie. The fog was so intense and so thick. Thick

enough that you could feel it on your skin as you walked. And there were lights out there. Lights that didn't give off very much light because the fog swallowed the light. And we were walking out there to our plane in our bulky flight suits. They were electrically heated suits, very bulky. And we looked like zombies walking in the fog. And the outline

of our plane, a beautiful rhythmic design, siloated in the electric lights, looked out of this world. It was great to begin with, surrounded by shadow and outlined by light. It looked like a ship for how to space. Do you remember what you were thinking? At a time

like that, you would think that you would think very important thoughts. Actually, you think about everything and nothing. Your mind doesn't seem to be able to focus on any one thing. It looks like your mind is plidy, flipping from one thing to another without resting on anyone.

Okay, let's hold on a sec. Yep, change table. Are you holding up? Okay. Let's bring the box over, Manny.