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And while we were there, we would go out on alerts. We get up before daybreak and go out and run Civil Air Patrol, or Combat Air Patrol. We would meet planes that would come in from the states. Maybe a Pan American plane coming in and some bombers coming in. So we did all sorts of things like that. We took depth charges down and dropped them on a bay about 75 miles away. The military used this island for target practice. It was fun. Mr. Cox: Yes, I can imagine. Mr. Brown: They were dedicated guys. Back at Bellows Field on Oahu, we had our little scramble strip and we could get off the ground and get up and get the altitude quite speedily. One day we went out about 30 miles over a carrier. The Commander of the carrier joined us and flew back with us. Those guys were interesting people. Mr. Cox: What was your rank at this time, Bill? Mr. Brown: I was a 2nd Lieutenant. I was a 2nd Lieutenant all of the time. We started our night flying. A P-47 is just like all airplanes. When the flame comes out from the engine port, that thing looks like a big blow-torch. You don't really recognize that until you get up at night and your looking at that thing and you know you've got a lot of heat going out. Our base was right at the edge of a sugarcane field. If you know where the Sea Island Park is on Oahu. Mr. Cox: Yes. Mr. Brown: Just 5 miles up the ridge from there is Bellows Field. It is a helicopter base or a training base of some kind now. Then it was our scramble strip. You would ease into the end of the air field, shut everything back and pull it up and go around and land. We learned how to land quite speedily. We stayed there about six weeks and they brought P-51's in for us. We started training in the P-51's
and doing all the things we needed to do to prepare. We got ready to go down to Iwo Jima. They put our planes on a flat-top and took them down to Saipan. Saipan was open at the time. They had already taken it. We stayed on the ship at Saipan. We landed at Iwo on the west side of the island. It was probably D+8 or something like that when we went in. So we lived in fox holes for a while. The old guys brought the air planes in. Of course, they were the first to go to Japan and do the combat and that sort
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Bill Brown. Brown was studying at the University of Texas at El Paso whe nhe joined the Army Air Force in 1942. Brown discusses his flight training, which occurred throughout Texas. With training cmplete, Brown was sent to Hawaii where he continued training with the 45th Fighter Squadron, 7th Air Force. Soon his unit was shipped to Iwo Jima where they flew bomber escort for bombing missions over the home islands of Japan. Brown was shot down over Yokahama and bailed out over the Tokyo Bay, where he was resuced by the USS Pipefish (SS-388). Brown was taken to Hawaii to recover and was eventually shipped back to the US, where he was discharged in September, 1945.
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Brown, Bill.Oral History Interview with Bill Brown, June 26, 2000,
text,
June 26, 2000;
Fredericksburg, Texas.
(https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1603374/m1/5/:
accessed July 16, 2024),
University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu;
crediting National Museum of the Pacific War/Admiral Nimitz Foundation.