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Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
Interviewer:
Veteran:
what not, and there was this mother that looked at me and said, "You fly
airplane?" I said, "Yes." "You drop bomb on Nagasaki?" And I said, "No, not
me myself." And she said, "You no worry." I was apologizing, but she said,
"No, no-no apology." The women knew that this was a bad thing that they were
doing.
Did you receive any special awards or recognition while you were in the service?
Our squadron got three Presidential citations for extremely efficient work under
combat, and I got three battle stars personally-Bronze battle stars. Got these
combat ribbons for various liberations of New Guinea, the Philippines, the
liberation of the Pacific Rim islands, and the liberation of Japan.
Were you overseas when the war with Japan ended also?
Yeah. In fact, I had two airplanes sitting on the runway in Tokyo, and the
arrangement was that the Battleship Missouri would NOT come into Tokyo Bay
unless we were radioing constantly to them that there was no Jap aircraft taking
off from Tokyo. MacArthur made this as a strict rule, that there would be
treachery, so we were sitting there for a week prior to the Battleship Missouri
coming in to sign the declaration.
When they signed the declaration, how long after before you were allowed to go
home?
That was the disappointing thing. They signed the thing on November 5th, I think
it was. I didn't get to come home until April. That was the longest time in my
life, but they thought something could happen-something could backfire-and
they wanted to get enough people into Japan and get them set up, and get the
population more or less under control so there wouldn't be any backfire, and so
we had to stay there until that was done.
Did you leave a fiance or girlfriend or wife at home?
I'll tell you what. I married my high school sweetheart, and she went with me all
around to Yale, and so forth. We left on good terms, and she never wrote me to
say she wouldn't be there when I got back, but when I wrote and told her that I
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