Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Columbus. Our guest in this edition is
Al Hanson. He's a US Navy veteran of World War Two. And mister
Hanson, thank you very much for being with us. Thank you. Where
were you born and raised there? Born in Hollywood, California, raised in
Chicago and Jacksonville Beach, Florida. And what do you remember about Pearl Harbor?
What do you remember hearing that day and your reaction to it. I
was probably thirteen or fourteen years old at the time, and it's the first
time I ever heard my father swear. When they said that Japanese had bombed
Pearl Harbor, my father led out some very foul language. That's the first
time in all those years that he was very angry. He went down and
tried to enlist, and they told him he was too old and that he
had responsibility of four children. And so obviously, being thirteen or fourteen,
you couldn't enlist yet. So at what point were you able to do that?
Well, a couple of years passed and Dad passed away too much smoking
in his time, and my mother was a waitress, and in those days
waitresses only worked for tips, so if she would work eight hours, she
might come home with thirty cents for the whole day of working. Two bedroom
coal water flat in Jacksonville Beach, Florida was twelve to eighteen dollars a month.
She didn't make that much money, so we were moving quite often,
and it was suggested that I go into the service. But I was at
the age of sixteen, and so they can to her to sign a piece
of paper that said that I was seventeen. Then she could get half of
my wages, which I can't remember, but I think was about thirty dollars
a month, the whole wages, so she ended up with at least fifteen
dollars which paid for the rent. She never knew I went overseas. I
convinced her that I was in California and spending most of my time on the
beaches and relaxing. And I assume you were the oldest of the four children.
I was the oldest, And so what were you really doing once you
joined the service? Well, I started off here at North Island after I
finished boot camp in Camp Perie, Virginia, and I came down here to
San Diego, and I was a back seater in the SPD. That lasted
about three months here in San Diego, and the next thing I know,
I was a starboard scunner on a Liberator, the B twenty four, and
we went out to Hawaii and then hit a couple of violence, lost about
half of the squadron, and I can't tell you even the number of the
squadron VPB something. We came back and then we shipped out again, and
then we shipped out in privateers, which was a B twenty four, but
the B twenty four hit only two single fifties. Port had starboard and the
private privateer had twin fifties with turrets on the side, so we could cross
fire underneath the aircraft, and that stopped the Japanese from coming up and shooting
out the engines from underneath. Let's follow up on both of those things.
First of all, before we get to the bombers. He said you were
a backseater on an SPD, So I explained what type of craft that is
and what your role as a backseater was. The plane was Douglas Dauntless dive
bomber, and as a matter of fact, there's a model right out here
and the backseater had twin thirty caliber machine guns, which were pretty much worthless
because thirty calibers only went so far and the Japanese knew it. Fortunately,
I didn't end up on an aircraft carrier flying in one of those, And
so what was that like. You're working at an aircraft carrier now, of
course seventy some years later, but what was it like actually operating on one.
The only time I spent was on the aircraft carrier Barocco, and that
was after the war, and I spent three months on it. The rest
of the time we were land based, being flying bombers, so we were
always land based. How did you get reassigned from the dive bombers to the
B twenty fours. Well, it was through the situation where when the machine
gun you fired the machine gun in the back there was a little break so
that the machine gun would stop and would go over the tail. Well,
after a little while, that little bump would wear down and if you shot,
you might hit the top of the tail. I hit the top of
the tail. So they put me in bombers. Probably turned out to be
better for you, though much better. I'm still here now. Bombers of
course had their own dangers, as we all know. Talk about your role
as a waist gunner. What are you looking for? How do you engage
the enemy if it happens? Well, primarily we were flying roughly around seven
thousand feet in the air, not too much high altitude, and if anything
came toward us, we were firing single fifties out of portholes. They were
just a little squirrel areas port harbored. And then you had a bow gunner,
tail gunner, upper gunner, and belly gunner. Where were you based
when we went overseas? The only island I do remember was Guam, and
after that we were in Laity and then Pullauen Hole in the Philippines. And
when the war ended, I was still in Pulauen. So as the island
campaign proceeded, so did your base about it? We were in the spargeant.
Then was VPB one of six? Did you have particular targets usual targets?
Anything that floated on the China Sea was either strafed or bombed because it
would have been the enemy. When were you actually deployed, Probably early forty
four, somewhere in there. I can't remember too well. So how much
Japanese resistance from the air and particular were you getting by the time you were
engaging in these bombing runs. Not too much anymore. It was we had
pretty well taken over the air from the Japanese. Every once in a while
there'd be something that would fly towards you and maybe shoot or something, and
they would get shot back at, and especially with the privateer because when you
think about it, there were twelve fifty caliber machine guns ready to shoot at
you. So they left here alone pretty much. Did you have fighter escorts
at all once in a great while, Not often, because we were primarily
patrolled and we take off in the morning, fly around looking for any think
that was floating on the China Sea, and then come back. Given the
limited Japanese air resistance, would you say a typical mission meant that you were
not firing pretty much. So I was in little combat, not that much,
not just for some of my buddies. We're in really some bad ones
and it all depended if the Japanese were out, it might be on Monday,
well we might be flying Wednesday or viceverse. It's just a matter of
whether you're schedules. That's right overlapped on the same bears. So for some
of those times where you did engage, talk to me about what that was
like for you. Well, at the age of about seventeen and eighteen years
of age, you were invincible, so you would never be killed. That
was our attitude. And so if they fired at us, we fired back
at them. Did we get any hits? We think we did. We
didn't see anything go down in flames, but we did see some go down,
and that was about it. It was nothing that I felt was dangerous.
It probably was, but when you're that young, it's not at seven
thousand feet could you see whether you hit what you were aiming at pretty much,
so your gun sights weren't that great. So for every four rounds the
ammunition, the fifth round was a tracer. So if you've looked where your
tracers were going, if they were going beneath the enemy aircraft, you've raised
your gun up, then you would give a hit. What kind of communication
was required between you and the other gunners in those situations, well port and
starboard, you've padded one another on the back because the radio worked sometimes and
sometimes most of the times it didn't, and the noise from where we were
we had four engines, Pratt and Whitney engines, so you couldn't hear anything.
You could barely hear your fifty calibers going. That's the reason why we're
hearing gays. What was that like? Day after day? It didn't pay
attention to it. Nobody talked about hearing problems, and I never worried about
it to the later run in life and died. Carol of my wife,
would say, did you hear me? No? Fortunately I went to the
BA and ended up getting you some here at the age. Well, mister
Hanson, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back with much more
of your story here on Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus and our guest is
Al Hanson, a US Navy veteran of World War Two. We'll be right
back. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus, honored to be joined
today by Al Hanson, a US Navy veteran of World War Two. Served
as a gunner aboard B twenty fours during World War Two, who is also
a backseater on a dive bomber prior to that, and Sir, one of
the things I've noticed in speaking with members of bomber crews is the cohesiveness of
the bomb crew itself, from the pilot all the way down to what are
usually I think ten members of the crew talk to me about the men on
your crew and how often you were able to work together and what kind of
bond you built. Well much when we were on land and not flying,
we were all together in one quanstant hut for the all enlisted officers had their
own, but we were pretty tight. We had water near us, so
we were in the ocean, swimming, relaxing, playing cards, checkers,
whatever. But when we did fly, it was pretty much port and starboard.
We didn't talk to the tail gunner because he had his responsibilities. Billy
Gunner had his up there, and Bow had theirs. Bobby Deer doing his
own thing, so it was to each his own type thing, and the
only two that really got to talk to one another it was port and starboard
waist gunners. Do you feel like you all kind of had an understanding of
each other and just knew what each other was going to do in a given
situation pretty much? So when you think about it, we came from the
East coast to the West coast to the Middle States, what have you.
And so we were from all over the United States and it was very interesting
because some had a New York accent. I had a little twink as I
had lived in Florida. We were a real tight group. As we were.
I have to think that was a good thing in general, just to
meet people from regardless of the work, the important work you were doing together,
just to meet and understand people from different parts of the country. True
it was. And when it was all over, like I said, we
were in Palawan and they did this horrible thing to us. Admiral van Hook
was stationed down in Australia and Admiral van Hook had the job of closing all
the bases in all the islands Philippine, Australia, in New Zealand. So
he needed a plane. So we were selected because we were the junior crew
of the squadron and those that had their forty missions came home those that didn't.
So they busted up the squadron and all the crews went to various other
squadrons and we were selected to fly down to Melbourne, Australia, remove all
the guns, turrets and what have you, and set it up for Admiral
van Hook to fly around. Well, once it had happened, they didn't
need five of us that included me, and so well we could go home.
No, they put me in charge. I want you to think about
this. I was probably seventeen and a half, maybe eighteen, and put
me in charge of the motor pool. I had hundreds of automobiles, all
the free guests that you could use. And I was in Sydney, Australia
for about ten months. That was terrible. We didn't have barracks, so
they set us up and spoil one bedroom apartments and we ate out every day.
We took our chits in. We got money for it, and in
those days it was pounds, shillings and pits. We did that for ten
months. Sounds rough. It was terrible. I bet you had a pretty
good time. We did. We made up for the war. Did you
want to leave when it was time to leave? No? Oh my goodness.
Well, mister Hanson, let's take another quick break. When we come
back, we'll have much more of your story here on Veterans Chronicles. This
is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition A is
Al Hanson. A US Navy veteran of World War Two. He served at
a gunner aboard the B twenty fours, and I was just telling us about
the very rough duty he had following the end of World War Two, as
he was forced to be in Australia with all sorts of vehicles that were fully
gassed at his disposal. And quite quite a lovely time actually in Australia.
But as we were talking in the breakout, you mentioned that you were on
the island of Palau when the war ended. But while that was nice,
and getting into the ocean at times was nice, there were some other things
that on Palau that were not as fun as I said before. As we
landed and got off the plane, we could smell this oder and I made
to comment, what the hill is this smell? And I think it was
a marine said, hey, Saylor, come here. Took me to this
great, big pit and it was just it was empty. And he said,
the Japanese put four hundred prisoners down there, and they were Americans,
Australians, England and some veterans from the actual Philippine group. And they poured
gasoline on him and burned them. And as they came out, they shot
him. Then they just filled it all up with dirt again because they were
all dead. Well, our people had come back and cleaned it all up
and buried them, but the odor was still in the dirt. And that
was the smell that we were smelling now. That made VPB one oh six
very angry. And when they were on patrol. As I said before,
anything that floated on the China Sea was either bombed or strafed. It was
not floating anymore. That was the hatred for this unbelievable situation. You had
plenty of motivation before, but that took it to a new did it and
did it so you could see, given your low altitude, if you bombed
something in the China Sea, you could tell if you got a hit.
Oh, yes, very much so. And so your accuracy was pretty good.
It sounds like it was very good. Our bombardier. Was that something
that got honed over time or by the time training was done. The bombardiers
could pretty much do that over time pretty much. How long would you say
you spent on those missions over the China Sea? Oh, sometimes five hours,
maybe six. It all depended did we have enough fuel to do what
we wanted to do. We took what they call pie sectors. Our plane
would take this section out, that section over back, somebody else would take
this out back, and we just cut the whole situation and cover the whole
China Sea at from our location. By the time you were doing these missions,
how active were the Japanese in the China Sea. It was pretty near
over form, pretty much so. And what they had done before we took
over Pullawen was pretty terrible. Once we took over Pullen, that was one
of their main areas of their squadrons, and we took it all over.
And I still have some photographs of old beat up beddies and what have you
and zeros that we're on the ground that we bombed and streaped. Talk a
little bit more about the targets that pretty much what you were seeing on the
ground, certainly, What about in the sea itself, what kind of targets
we're out there? Well, if it might be a tanker, there might
be a freighter, there might be what looked like fishing boats. Well,
we've probably had Japanese soldiers on under what have you? What? Like I
said, whatever float it was into me. So it was strafed and sunk.
How much ammunition did you have on a given run. Well, each
each gun carried about a thousand rounds, and then there was always under the
thousand or so belts that you could add to it if you wanted to.
About in the bombing bay we were running probably two hundred pounders, there was
some one hundred pounders, and if we had long runs, we'd only use
half of the bomb bay and the other half was a gas tank and we'd
add the fuel to that so that we could do a longer run. By
the time the Japanese surrendered wasn't much of a surprise. Let's put it this
way. First, had you heard about the atomic bombings? By the time
the surrender happened, we had no knowledge of it. I don't take the
officers did either, because they were obviously told us. But once it was
over and we got to sound the war has ended, and then we found
out that they dropped atomic boats only after the fact. Yes, what was
your reaction to hearing that we can go home? But the way it was
ended about the jew I mean, when you heard that there were atomic weapons
used? Did that shock you? Were you surprised? Well, most of
us were looking at each other and saying, what's an atomic bomb? Because
it was the biggest secret in the United States. So for us to be
in the island trying to protect ourselves, we're about an atomic boat, sounding
like a cartoon in Disneyland. It was a surprise given the estimates for US
casualties if there had been an amphibious invasion of Japan. How grateful are you
that that wasn't necessary? Extremely grateful. We'd have lost at least another four
or five hundred America for thousand Americans because it was I'll say one thing,
that Japanese would a foot to the last man in woman, just like they
did on every island. That's right. Yeah, I've got I've had a
few friends that were an Okinawan. It's just unbelievable what our marines went through
in the army. And when when I think of where I was in an
aircraft and they were on the ground, I wasn't even in the war when
you consider it, I mean they were almost face to face shooting at each
other hand to hand. Sometimes that's not to limit the danger you were in.
The bombers had plenty of risks. So don't don't don't feel like you
gave lesser service. You did the job that you were sent to do well.
We do think about the Battle of Midway. We sent out at fifty
seven planes and seven came back. That's two guys to each plane. That
is sad. What did you do after the war? There? Married Australian
girl, went over and lived in Australia for about three or four years,
and got a divorce and came back here and was going to go to work
for what to call the Utah Construction Company down in Brazil and found out that
they went belly up and they couldn't go down there. So my mother made
the comment which was very convincing, Sonny, a rolling stone grabs no moss.
You've got to get a job and stay here. So I went to
work for the phone company. I was going to move down to Brazil,
and six months later I found out that they had gone belly up. So
thirty one years later I retired from Pacific Telephone. Now I have to back
up the Australian girl. Did you meet her on that in Australia at the
end of the war. After the war, I thought that might be a
coda to that story. And so did you stay active and in touch with
your fellow veterans and veterans issues or was it only when he got involved with
the Midway that kind of It's the only time I've discussed this, is it
the seventeen years that I've been on a Midway. It's just most World War
Two veterans never talked about it. I never discussed it at home to nobody,
but I have since I've been here. I think I've said more today.
I said, in probably seventeen years, what made you want to be
part of the Midway Museum when it opened? Oh my god, that's another
story in itself. My Australian son that was born in Australia, Leon,
he and his wife and family came over and from Australia and we were in
the house and I said, Leon, what would you like to do?
And he said, I want to go down to the Midway aircraft carrier and
look at it. And I said, why would you want to do that?
You never been in the military. Well, I'd like to go down.
So we came down. When we left the ship, we walked around
and the thing went up to the bridge and so on and so forth.
And we were walking to the parking lot to get in the car and I
said to Carol, you know, I think I'd like to volunteer. You've
never volunteered for anything in your life. What's the matter with you? Anyway?
I was in class fourteen and on the midway and now I think they're
up to about sixty eight. What does it mean to you to visit with
people at veterans especially, but just the general public. When we had the
Chinese coming over here in bus loads, I'm going to stand up and turned
around to let you look at the back on my jacket. It's called a
blood shit and you carried it in your pocket. In the event that we
would have crashed in China, I would hopefully found a Chinese instead of a
Japanese and held it up and it just says, I'm a good guy.
Take me to your leader and you'll be rewarded. But it's called a blood
chit. And we were told to return him once we got this charge.
Well, nobody asked me for it, so I put it in a drawer
or someplace. Oh my oldest son found it and he saved it. And
on my ninetieth No. Eightieth birthday, eightieth birthday, he got this jacket
that Carol had bought years ago, and he put sewed all the patches on
and he had that bloodshed and he put it on the back. Well,
I can tell you that every Chinese group it came aboard saw that when the
women's would scream, come over and hug me, give me a kiss on
the cheek. All the Chinese guys had come and shake my hand and say
thank you because they knew that we had strafed and bombed their enemy, the
Japanese, So it was a real They took photographs. Women would, like
I say, would hug me and give me a kiss. And the other
part of all of this was that one day I was down in the engine
room to explaining the engine room and one of the fellows came to me.
There was about six sixteen in the room, and he said, you let
me try jacket on, and I said sure, I gave him jack.
Every guy there put that jacket on and took photographs of Now they took that
back to China, so were not the real bad guys, and I hope
it stays that way. That's the power of Oh. It was unbelievable,
the hugs and the kisses. It just went on and on. And on
and on. To see that appreciation in real time. What does that mean
to you? It was just awesome. I was so proud to show it.
And there were a couple of guys aboard the ship that said you shouldn't
have that on your back. Well, it's still there and everybody knows me
because of that. What what are you most proud of from your time in
service to our country? All the guys that I served with. It was
just unbelievable. And when you think about it, I was sixteen, I
was a kid. It's just unbelievable that it was just one of those things
at the age of sixteen. I grew up to be twenty probably in about
six months, because that's what they did to me. When you think back
now, and this will be the last question, when you think back now
to your reluctance to talk about your service until you came aboard that one day,
and where you are now, how glad are you that you now tell
your story? The story is pretty well cleaned up and very very quickly.
And if I'm down near the jet shop, I've always say to a couple,
somebody, come here, let me show you, and I take them
into the jet shop turn them around. They look up and they see that
photograph and they say, I'm the guy kneeling down, And I think I
was just about seventeen then, and now I'm standing here talking to you and
I'm ninety four years old, and they just look at me. Are you
thought you were seventy? Thank you a good compliment. It's a good compliment.
But it also shows for people who are too young to remember World War
Two, they think, oh, well, it's so far long ago.
It's not Bill, It's just part of a lifetime ago. It is a
lifetime. My oldest son, as I say to Carol, our oldest son,
now seventy three years old. I have two sons. I had a
third son was a Vietnam vett, adopted and he has now passed away.
He came home with about a two hundred dollars a day habit. And for
those three kids, they gave us seven grandkids, who gave us sixteen great
grandkids. And is it three great great grandkids, three great great grandkids.
So I'm a great great grandpa. Am I happy? You bet? I
am? Mister Hanson. We cannot thank you enough, first of all,
for your service to our country, your ongoing service to educate people who come
to the Midway about World War Two and beyond. And we also thank you,
of course very much for your time today. Thank you Al Hanson,
US Navy veteran of World War Two. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans
Chronicles. Hi. This is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans
Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information, please
visit American Veterans Center dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans Center
on Facebook and on Twitter. We're at AVC update. Subscribe to the American
Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral histories and special features, and of course
please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again
for listening, and please join us next time for Veterans Chronicles.