| Notes |
- The address of the person submitting this information:
415 Woodcrest
San Antonio, TX 78209
Phone: 512-826-5228
1937 November 6 - Football Program Hermleigh played Dunn
1940 April 5 Certificate of Merit - Texas Association of Future Farmers of America
1941 March 17 Reccommendation letter from coach AC Bishop, his football coach whom he regarded as having more influence on his life than anyone except his parents
1942 December 15 promoted from an under clerk typist to assistant clerk at Brooke General Hospital, Ft Sam Houston , Texas salary went from 1260/yr to 1620/yr
1943-1944 Liberal, Kansas Thanksgiving day 1943, crashes he remembered
2 b24s, both in the pattern colided mid air all killed 10, if I remember correctly.
director of flying feathered three engines, could not unfeather them and bellyed into a wheat field, they hit a terrace, the engine was the only survivor and he lost one leg.
b24 was on take off in the winter hung the number 4 engine in a snow bank on the side of the runway all crew walked away, b24 was salvaged.
Gage, OK was an auxillary field instrutor pilot was flying aircraft # 55 and I was the engineer. There had been construction at the end of the runway and crews had left a pile of dirt and as we came in too low and the nose wheel hit the pile of dirt, breaking it off.
We picked up a new plane with 129 hours on it making a take off from Denver in a snow storm, we flew blind most of the way from Denver, a piece of ice that was clung from one of the props, broke the side window on the plane, that was all that was writen up when we got to Liberal
Another crew got in the plane, I was too tired to take another flight, so that crew found another engineer, witnesses say that the plane began gaining altitude right after take off and then seemed to slowy fly back into the ground, the speculation was that in the snow the crew had lost the horizon and not watching their instruments, the entire crew died.
The number 2 engine caught on fire in final, was able to get on ground, where fire was extinguished
Other flights at Liberal that I remember:
Student pilot on solo flight had a run away number 2 prop, student pilot who was the co-pilot, didn't know the emergency procedure so I used the in and out of the feathering button to control the prop up to about 500 feet, then shut the engine down. Solo student made a 3 engine landing after 3 go arounds good job otherwise.
Flight to Selma, AL on the way back hit the worst storm I was ever in, about 20 engineers had gone to Selma to go through the ozygen chamber, Pop Hazard was the engineer, I didn't know the pilot, we were in the storm for over two hours as we were flying lenghtways instead of across the front.
Were on a training flight and were fogged out of Liberal and having radio trouble, flight was almost 7 hours, so we decided to head south from Kansas, I had counted all the parachutes to make sure we had one for everyone and had told the pilot when the first engine coughed was our indication to put on our parachutes and bale. All gages were showing empty as I looked out over the pilots shoulder toward the ground, I picked up the lights of the air port, which we immediatley descended to where we landed. The air port turned out to be Amarillo. Right after landing the fog moved in, closing the airport. I checked all the tanks all of which indicated empty.
Mountian Home we were on a search mission looking for another missing b24. Walt Tate and Al White were flying just below the overcast with our entire crew looking out for the missing aircraft. We must have been running up a valley because Jack Paskie screamed pull up, pull up as our props began hitting the tree tops. Al and Walt gave it all the power they could, we broke out of the fog with mountain tops all around us.
Last b24 flight for me was Tachikawa, Japan to Clark field, Philipines right after the war was over.
After the war transfer to a troop carrier unit and flew numerous missions over 100 hours flying time, oneof the last flights was to Hiroshima to pick up a group of navy doctors
Things I really didn't like to do or should not have done
Buzzing was fun, but I was always glad when we did other things with altitude, it is kinda like riding in a car with a really drunk driver over which you hve no conrol, but at our age I probalby would have done the same thing even if I hadn't been flying. Good judgement seems to come with age.
Flying in the fog always caused me great stress. I could still do my job, but when I had to go out of the cock pit, especially to the nose, I had to fight panic, as long as I could see the instrumentes, I had no problems
-- MERGED NOTE ------------
The address of the person submitting this information:
415 Woodcrest
San Antonio, TX 78209
Phone: 512-826-5228
1937 November 6 - Football Program Hermleigh played Dunn
1940 April 5 Certificate of Merit - Texas Association of Future Farmers of America
1941 March 17 Reccommendation letter from coach AC Bishop, his football coach whom he regarded as having more influence on his life than anyone except his parents
1942 December 15 promoted from an under clerk typist to assistant clerk at Brooke General Hospital, Ft Sam Houston , Texas salary went from 1260/yr to 1620/yr
1943-1944 Liberal, Kansas Thanksgiving day 1943, crashes he remembered
2 b24s, both in the pattern colided mid air all killed 10, if I remember correctly.
director of flying feathered three engines, could not unfeather them and bellyed into a wheat field, they hit a terrace, the engine was the only survivor and he lost one leg.
b24 was on take off in the winter hung the number 4 engine in a snow bank on the side of the runway all crew walked away, b24 was salvaged.
Gage, OK was an auxillary field instrutor pilot was flying aircraft # 55 and I was the engineer. There had been construction at the end of the runway and crews had left a pile of dirt and as we came in too low and the nose wheel hit the pile of dirt, breaking it off.
We picked up a new plane with 129 hours on it making a take off from Denver in a snow storm, we flew blind most of the way from Denver, a piece of ice that was clung from one of the props, broke the side window on the plane, that was all that was writen up when we got to Liberal
Another crew got in the plane, I was too tired to take another flight, so that crew found another engineer, witnesses say that the plane began gaining altitude right after take off and then seemed to slowy fly back into the ground, the speculation was that in the snow the crew had lost the horizon and not watching their instruments, the entire crew died.
The number 2 engine caught on fire in final, was able to get on ground, where fire was extinguished
Other flights at Liberal that I remember:
Student pilot on solo flight had a run away number 2 prop, student pilot who was the co-pilot, didn't know the emergency procedure so I used the in and out of the feathering button to control the prop up to about 500 feet, then shut the engine down. Solo student made a 3 engine landing after 3 go arounds good job otherwise.
Flight to Selma, AL on the way back hit the worst storm I was ever in, about 20 engineers had gone to Selma to go through the ozygen chamber, Pop Hazard was the engineer, I didn't know the pilot, we were in the storm for over two hours as we were flying lenghtways instead of across the front.
Were on a training flight and were fogged out of Liberal and having radio trouble, flight was almost 7 hours, so we decided to head south from Kansas, I had counted all the parachutes to make sure we had one for everyone and had told the pilot when the first engine coughed was our indication to put on our parachutes and bale. All gages were showing empty as I looked out over the pilots shoulder toward the ground, I picked up the lights of the air port, which we immediatley descended to where we landed. The air port turned out to be Amarillo. Right after landing the fog moved in, closing the airport. I checked all the tanks all of which indicated empty.
Mountian Home we were on a search mission looking for another missing b24. Walt Tate and Al White were flying just below the overcast with our entire crew looking out for the missing aircraft. We must have been running up a valley because Jack Paskie screamed pull up, pull up as our props began hitting the tree tops. Al and Walt gave it all the power they could, we broke out of the fog with mountain tops all around us.
Last b24 flight for me was Tachikawa, Japan to Clark field, Philipines right after the war was over.
After the war transfer to a troop carrier unit and flew numerous missions over 100 hours flying time, oneof the last flights was to Hiroshima to pick up a group of navy doctors
Things I really didn't like to do or should not have done
Buzzing was fun, but I was always glad when we did other things with altitude, it is kinda like riding in a car with a really drunk driver over which you hve no conrol, but at our age I probalby would have done the same thing even if I hadn't been flying. Good judgement seems to come with age.
Flying in the fog always caused me great stress. I could still do my job, but when I had to go out of the cock pit, especially to the nose, I had to fight panic, as long as I could see the instrumentes, I had no problems
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1922 - 2017 (94 years)
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