Would you mind telling me about your friend? Well, really after we got through boot camp, I lost track of him. He went one way, and I went the other way. To this day, I don't know where he is. I know he didn't get killed, but I don't know where he is. Where did you train at? San Diego. And what kind of stuff did they teach you when you were training? Just marching, shooting rifles, shooting pistols, learning how to take orders, and how to give orders when you got out. Stuff like that. Just regular drills. How long did that last? Nine weeks. Did you have to do any training overseas? No, not overseas. You were already trained in what you had to do when you got over there. What was your title? I was a master technical sergeant when I got out. I was a PFC when I went over. What were your duties? I was a flight engineer on a B-24. What's a flight engineer? They have to see that the plane is ready to fly, and if anything goes wrong in the air and if it's possible to fix it, then it's up to you to do it. Of course, there's a lot of things that you can't do, but that's your main thing. We were in a photo reconnaissance squadron, and what we'd do is fly over the different islands and the photographers would take pictures, and then you would see where the
Interview with Raymond Tavary, a flight engineer in the Marine Corps during WWII. He answers questions about his job in the military and what life was like during the war.
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