Speaker 1: Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is Vincent Bill Purple. He is a US
Speaker 1: Army Air Corps veteran of World War II, where he
Speaker 1: flew B seventeen bombers for thirty five missions as part
Speaker 1: of the three hundred and seventy ninth Bomb Group inside
Speaker 1: the Mighty eighth Air Force. And mister Purple, thank you
Speaker 1: for being with us.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having a new oppensunity.
Speaker 1: Where were you born and raised, Sir?
Speaker 2: I was born in Nassaule, Nasachusetes.
Speaker 1: Did you have an interest in flying when you were
Speaker 1: a child.
Speaker 2: Not particularly until after the transition naturally with Japan December seventh.
Speaker 2: We heard that on the radio, and that's when I
Speaker 2: made a decision. I had graduated from high school where
Speaker 2: I made a decision that I would enlist in the
Speaker 2: Air Force if I could.
Speaker 1: And so you did. Where did you go for training
Speaker 1: and flight school?
Speaker 2: What happened with that is because I was underage to
Speaker 2: a degree, I ended up going to pre training in
Speaker 2: Atlantic City. After that, I went to a training phase
Speaker 2: for three months in Rochester, New York to be geared
Speaker 2: on how to go on the training missions. Then from
Speaker 2: there went to Nashville for classification. If I still was
Speaker 2: capable of doing what specs were, then they said, okay,
Speaker 2: you qualified to be trained as I'm a Air Corps pilot.
Speaker 2: Therefore primary Flight School went from Lafayette, Louisiana for primary
Speaker 2: flight school. Basic Flight school went with Little Rock, Arkansas,
Speaker 2: and I graduated as a needed more later in the
Speaker 2: complete conflict multi engine pilots, they sent me to Stuttgart
Speaker 2: Archer Star and started to teach me. And I graduated
Speaker 2: as a lieutenant at Stuttgart, second lieutenant. And that's where
Speaker 2: my future with the military was because after that I
Speaker 2: ended up in multi amensine training.
Speaker 1: Is that where you wanted to be?
Speaker 2: No, everybody wanted to be a fighter pilot. So the
Speaker 2: answer was no. I expressed to you briefly a moment
Speaker 2: ago that I ended up in Stuttgart and they converted
Speaker 2: what we were all qualified to some degree to be
Speaker 2: and then they take and said, okay, this unit will
Speaker 2: now train multi engine aircraft. And that's what it happened
Speaker 2: in March of nineteen forty three.
Speaker 1: And how quickly did you adapt to the bomber.
Speaker 2: First of all, he had to qualify as a pilot.
Speaker 2: So from training at Lafayette, Louisiana for two months, Stuttgart
Speaker 2: rather Little Rock for two months, and the Yether One
Speaker 2: for two months, I graduated from flight school in March
Speaker 2: March of nineteen forty four as a second lieutenant age
Speaker 2: at that point was nineteen.
Speaker 1: And then what happened, well, then we.
Speaker 2: Were then assigned specific duties. I ended up going to Gulfport,
Speaker 2: Mississippi after the phase training in Seabring, Florida, when they
Speaker 2: appointed a bomber crew for me as their captain and
Speaker 2: their pilot, and we were trained in Gulfport, Mississippi on
Speaker 2: multi engines, being a flying fortress to be arventine from
Speaker 2: their simplicity, we did what we had to do in
Speaker 2: multi engine training and that gets you into the more
Speaker 2: or less phase training, which was in Seabring, Florida. Suddenly,
Speaker 2: in September nineteen forty four, I was called one day
Speaker 2: at operations and said, okay, get your crew, go to Georgia,
Speaker 2: get a brand new B seventeen, and go to Europe
Speaker 2: and go to combat. That's a nice way to start today.
Speaker 2: But whatever successful tall expense in extremes got to Georgia,
Speaker 2: got the brand new airplane, flew up the New Hampshire
Speaker 2: and stayed there for the night, and then flew up
Speaker 2: to a further export change of departure point in Canada,
Speaker 2: and then we were there for three or four days,
Speaker 2: and then suspect right after that we were told, well,
Speaker 2: all right, tomorrow you will fly to Europe. So anyway,
Speaker 2: the next day we did that huge snowstorm in front,
Speaker 2: but we took off later on in twelve hours we
Speaker 2: landed in England. And now I'm with the Eighth Air Force.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about the men and your crew.
Speaker 2: The crew was put together, They were more specific, very good,
Speaker 2: all of them. I can speak nothing but the best
Speaker 2: for them.
Speaker 1: Did you do a lot more training once you got
Speaker 1: to England or did they put you in service pretty quickly?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to say that that answer is easy.
Speaker 2: Whenever I landed in England, as I stated, they said
Speaker 2: you were here in our lieutenant, you are going to
Speaker 2: be assigned to the three hundred and seventy nine bomb
Speaker 2: Group at kim Bolton, and so you and your co
Speaker 2: pilot will be transferred to that base in Kimbolton and
Speaker 2: different with your crew, and then we were signed within
Speaker 2: four days went there and that's where I began my
Speaker 2: combat tour.
Speaker 1: What was that first mission?
Speaker 2: Like nothing? Why because I flew the plane to be seventeen,
Speaker 2: a very talented in pilot. He was my bodyguard and
Speaker 2: he take it all. So nothing really happened. You get up,
Speaker 2: you flew to target number one, no target, no problem
Speaker 2: is no bullets doesn't However, that was in October, about
Speaker 2: the thirtieth of nineteen forty four. The next three days
Speaker 2: there were nothing. But on the next day I was
Speaker 2: then assigned to the squadron and flew and that was
Speaker 2: entirely different than being on the first mission.
Speaker 1: All right, so tell me about that one.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess the thing to do that way is
Speaker 2: we're sitting here as we are talking, and one not
Speaker 2: that particular thing. I was appointed a pilot, I took
Speaker 2: my crew. We ended up being in the fourth squadron.
Speaker 2: Taken off that day and I flew in one of
Speaker 2: the positions towards the tail end, and it was just well,
Speaker 2: we did what we were doing. You looked out somebody
Speaker 2: had some black flax stack in our chair or something.
Speaker 2: But as I recall the ride for the training, it
Speaker 2: was kind of like a nice weekend. This one here
Speaker 2: was a little bit different.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to get into some of those more
Speaker 1: difficult missions in a little bit. Tell me about the
Speaker 1: preparation you did for a mission, from getting up that
Speaker 1: morning to being briefed and getting in the air.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you have to go back. They are told,
Speaker 2: in other words, if we're going to go on a mission,
Speaker 2: and let's say tomorrow or the next day, you didn't
Speaker 2: know that the night before you went on a mission, generally,
Speaker 2: either at the officer's club or wherever, you were told
Speaker 2: that you were going to go to the target of
Speaker 2: by name, And therefore, prepare your crew because they're talking
Speaker 2: to me and my coppither. You get your troops ready
Speaker 2: and they will all be briefed and the next day
Speaker 2: in the right level of time so that when the
Speaker 2: next takeoff message time reach, you're prepared to go from there.
Speaker 2: Then the enlisted personnel, of which there were ten or no,
Speaker 2: there were eight on my crew, and there were four officers,
Speaker 2: and they went out and prepared what they had to do.
Speaker 2: Make sure your guns are good, make sure even there
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, make sure everything was good. We as
Speaker 2: a mamba deer as the navigator and a pilot and
Speaker 2: co pilot may be in the pilot went. Then in
Speaker 2: the following day we did what we needed to do.
Speaker 2: On the morning of the particular raid, it came out
Speaker 2: that you would be we were known the night before
Speaker 2: that report to briefing. You would go there generally about
Speaker 2: seven o'clock in the morning, be briefed by Colonel Lyle
Speaker 2: and Rust and what you're supposed to do, and therefore
Speaker 2: you were scheduled released and everybody would instantly go to
Speaker 2: their aircraft and do everything to what they were trained
Speaker 2: to do time and time again. And that's all we
Speaker 2: did at that point. They went everywhere, you know, you
Speaker 2: know on the amount, you know that you had twenty
Speaker 2: seven gallons of gash, you could know you had ten
Speaker 2: thousand pounds of five hundred pounds whatever. It was a
Speaker 2: briefing like you were asking to me. So if I
Speaker 2: said that to you, you will now know what that's
Speaker 2: all about. So that's what happened. We got briefed. Then
Speaker 2: we would of course go to takeoff time. We generally
Speaker 2: with the fly on Fortress be sevething took off every
Speaker 2: thirty seconds at Kimbolton. We would put three squadrons out,
Speaker 2: three squadrons of twelve each. That's thirty six aircraft, twelve,
Speaker 2: twelve and twelve, totally aware what the Eighth Air Force
Speaker 2: was doing that day. In particular, the lead squadron is here,
Speaker 2: the second was behind him thirty seconds and so forth.
Speaker 2: Didn't necessarily happen that everybody did that good be thirty
Speaker 2: seconds behind them, But that's beside the point. So we
Speaker 2: ended up and that's how that went. And therefore, now
Speaker 2: when takeoff time came, and it generally would be between
Speaker 2: some place between eight and nine or ten, depending on
Speaker 2: our cloud conditions, dollar fog conditions, or whatever happened, and
Speaker 2: that would be there, and that's how you got into
Speaker 2: the bomber column for that portion of time.
Speaker 1: That's Vincent Bill Purple, a US Army Air Corps veteran
Speaker 1: of World War Two. He served as a B seventeen
Speaker 1: bomber pilot for thirty five missions in the European theater.
Speaker 1: Still to come, we'll hear about several of mister Purple's
Speaker 1: most harrowing missions, but up next, he explains the stunning
Speaker 1: amount of fuel needed for bombing missions and what it
Speaker 1: was like flying through enemy anti aircraft fire. I'm Greg
Speaker 1: Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles sixty seconds of Service.
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Speaker 1: This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumba's. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is Vincent Bill Purple, who served as a
Speaker 1: B seventeen bomber pilot in the US Army Air Corps
Speaker 1: during World War II. We now pick up his story
Speaker 1: as mister Purple explains the immense amount of fuel required
Speaker 1: for bombing missions.
Speaker 2: The ones I'm specific of, because there was certainly individuals
Speaker 2: staluss the B seventeen, depending on you were going on
Speaker 2: a short bombing run or a long bombing run, long
Speaker 2: being from England to probably Berlin, a short one being
Speaker 2: someplace over in France. But the maximum that my trouble
Speaker 2: was was I had twenty four, twenty four or twenty
Speaker 2: seven hundred gallons on the aircraft point of departure from
Speaker 2: that type of thing. On February third, nineteen forty five,
Speaker 2: the Air Force put one thousand bombs over Berlin. Figured
Speaker 2: out arithmetically what was involved for supplies to fill that?
Speaker 2: What did the American public do? One thousand planes with
Speaker 2: twenty seven hundred gallons of gas? That's a few gallons.
Speaker 2: How did it get there? It got there because there
Speaker 2: were five thousand vessels in the ocean between Boston and
Speaker 2: Europe bringing them gas every day going into the direction
Speaker 2: and all that which to me and I'll say it
Speaker 2: now and I'll say it forever. The American public, the support.
Speaker 2: Nothing could could have been better or greater that. Maybe
Speaker 2: a little different times, but that's what that part was.
Speaker 2: I'm here. Somebody took good care of me somehow by
Speaker 2: giving me the right thing at the right time.
Speaker 1: All right, So as you approached the target on a
Speaker 1: bombing mission, explain what happened.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, take the three hundred and seventy nine bomb group.
Speaker 2: We put three squadrons up. That's thirty six Chapra twelve
Speaker 2: twelve twelve. When we got to the target area, this
Speaker 2: is a squadron one not by name, it's just on this
Speaker 2: conversation one two three, this one would assume it's necessary,
Speaker 2: started a bomb run and it could be X number
Speaker 2: of feet miles of whatever, generally it was miles, and
Speaker 2: this would be behind and this would be behind it
Speaker 2: when you got there. To be actual, the pilot and
Speaker 2: co pilot sit there and listen to Glenn Miller or something,
Speaker 2: because there's nothing more they can do that because you
Speaker 2: have now as a head lead pilot me specifically or
Speaker 2: one Nott and everyone turn the aircraft over to the
Speaker 2: bombardier because he is now flying on the plane. The
Speaker 2: northern bomb site tells it what to do. So I'm
Speaker 2: sitting here talking like I'm talking to you, and one
Speaker 2: of them, oh, yeah, that's climb blah blah blah. And therefore,
Speaker 2: and the bombardier was that was his job, and the
Speaker 2: navigator he was outside in the os of the Bee
Speaker 2: seventeen and told him where to go. That's what happened.
Speaker 2: But bombing ridge went from a minute to thirty minutes
Speaker 2: to forty minus depending what, depending how they took in
Speaker 2: the Travis the sky for competitive weaponry against him and
Speaker 2: all that. So that's how it went.
Speaker 1: You have said, sir, that your first ten missions and
Speaker 1: I'm quoting, weren't bad and that the worst you faced
Speaker 1: was anti aircraft fire from German eighty eight millimeter guns,
Speaker 1: which sounds pretty bad. What's it like flying through flak?
Speaker 2: Uh? Flying through flag the eighty eight millimeter of the
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty five milow and nothing you're on
Speaker 2: the target, you were petrified, terribly thought or not, it
Speaker 2: wasn't damn thing you could do. My job was to
Speaker 2: take and go point A to point B to point C,
Speaker 2: drop the bombs, get out of there, to get back
Speaker 2: as soon as you could, still maintaining the complete structure
Speaker 2: of the aircraft, equipment and what not to protect yourself
Speaker 2: against fighter attacks or stokers and whatnot. Mesierschmids from Germany.
Speaker 1: How much resistance did you face from German fighter planes
Speaker 1: early in the.
Speaker 2: War, back in late forty three early forty four, the
Speaker 2: preference of volume was totally German, Birtish and American coverage
Speaker 2: was not that totally. American and British capability of production
Speaker 2: was able to make a lot of more hirplanes at
Speaker 2: that point, at one point in time when they produced
Speaker 2: a P fifty one Mustang that allowed additional mileage for
Speaker 2: us to be protected against German fighters. So I don't
Speaker 2: know as I've answered the question, but that's what that's
Speaker 2: all about.
Speaker 1: Well, as time went on, we dominated the skies, that's
Speaker 1: more and more.
Speaker 2: Well, that's correct, we dominated the guy certainly a part
Speaker 2: of my career, except let's say in nineteen forty five
Speaker 2: because my initials missions existed from October late October until April,
Speaker 2: I think it was about the fifth or seventh, and
Speaker 2: then I had my thirty five plus an extra woman,
Speaker 2: and then they said you can go home, not home
Speaker 2: being home in this case, to a staging area to
Speaker 2: be cleared to take and of the paperwork done to
Speaker 2: get on a vessel to come back to the United States,
Speaker 2: to get back to the United States, and then go
Speaker 2: to training so you can train on B twenty nine's
Speaker 2: to go to the other half of the world, Japan.
Speaker 1: That's Vincent Bill Purple. He's a US Army Air Corps
Speaker 1: veteran of World War Two serving as a B seventeen
Speaker 1: bomber pilot. In a moment you'll hear all about his
Speaker 1: most harrowing missions. I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 1: This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is Bill Purple, a US Army Air Corps
Speaker 1: veteran of World War Two. Mister Purple served as a
Speaker 1: B seventeen bomber pilot for thirty five missions, but several
Speaker 1: of them provided plenty of tense moments. That certainly includes
Speaker 1: November fifth, nineteen forty four, when Purple says he was
Speaker 1: nearly blown out of the scout after an engine caught fire.
Speaker 2: Well, basically November fifth, that was at Frankfurt, Germany. In
Speaker 2: respect to that, we had our aircraft damage to a
Speaker 2: great degree, to such an extent that three of my
Speaker 2: ten people bailed out over Germany and myself the co
Speaker 2: pilot and my engineer. We struggled from it for a
Speaker 2: little bit of twenty five thousand feet leaving that. After
Speaker 2: all that, because we were going to we weren't getting anywhere.
Speaker 2: We're on fire, and right number four engine, amongst other things,
Speaker 2: we ended up. I made a decision and says, well,
Speaker 2: we'll make a huge spiral to the right going to
Speaker 2: the ground. And at that point in time, if you
Speaker 2: visualize it, unless I'm wrong, the air going over the
Speaker 2: wing from the back of the wing to the fourth
Speaker 2: front of the wing where the engine was on fire,
Speaker 2: the fire would be going out into space instead of
Speaker 2: being blown into the aircraft. Well, it fire went out
Speaker 2: at fifteen thousand feet down towards the ground when we
Speaker 2: were getting there. So that's where I am. Ten thousand
Speaker 2: feet we got away with it, So.
Speaker 1: You flew back with three engines, or the fire just
Speaker 1: went out and you had all four.
Speaker 2: It fire went out all by itself, but throughout the
Speaker 2: effort that I truly believe, with the huge spiral. The
Speaker 2: gas tank, of course is right behind the number four engine,
Speaker 2: and that's where it all happened. But it went out.
Speaker 2: So the aircraft to be seventeen micro nestle vessel. Rather
Speaker 2: it flies on three engines. It flies on two engines.
Speaker 2: But you don't want to keep too much when you
Speaker 2: junk on board. If you went two engines.
Speaker 1: Did you ever find out what happened to the three
Speaker 1: who bailed out?
Speaker 2: Several of them were more than several, but specifically they
Speaker 2: were captured by the Germans to what extent and I
Speaker 2: believe I've seen it written, but I can't remember this
Speaker 2: exact point of the statistic. But some of them survived,
Speaker 2: some died.
Speaker 1: Let's discuss now, Christmas Eve, December twenty fourth, nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: your order to take off in the fog, and you
Speaker 1: were very lucky to survive. Tell me what happened that.
Speaker 2: Day, December twenty fourth, nineteen forty four. We were targeted
Speaker 2: to go to a target and everything was there, and
Speaker 2: as it progressed when the morning came twenty four being
Speaker 2: one day before Christmas, when the target got there, what
Speaker 2: it was we were all all parked in our parking
Speaker 2: spaces on the perferal parts of the airport because of
Speaker 2: the intense fog that was there, heavy heavy, heavy fogs.
Speaker 2: And then eventually to day nothing was going on. We
Speaker 2: could constantly had red flares blorn in the sky and
Speaker 2: maybe you could see this says don't take off yet
Speaker 2: type of thing. And then eventually we did get a clearance.
Speaker 2: Well the clearance, can you believe you couldn't see much
Speaker 2: more than from me to you. That slight exaggeration, but
Speaker 2: it was extremely, extremely bad. But we were number eight
Speaker 2: I think of my squadron from my base at Kimball
Speaker 2: from the for this mission, and several of them ended
Speaker 2: up getting properly taken off into spots of fog and whatnot.
Speaker 2: Extreme beyond that while we were going down we were
Speaker 2: number eight. We were one in a proper location and whatnot.
Speaker 2: And today's day fit for this day. I'm your pilot,
Speaker 2: your bicope. Now I'll put you over your your my
Speaker 2: cop pilot. But you took and reached under on your
Speaker 2: holding stick and pulled this way, which made the aircraft shovel. Well,
Speaker 2: it were done. I was comfortable in our gratitude of flight.
Speaker 2: This one went this way, and suddenly the tail and
Speaker 2: the front end number two engine and propeller took a
Speaker 2: telephone pole off six feet off the ground. Telephone pole
Speaker 2: was about eight inches in diameter. Nobody in the world
Speaker 2: should still be here talking to you with As results
Speaker 2: of that, we got away with it. We flew back.
Speaker 2: The colonel was releasing the flight equipment, and one not says, well,
Speaker 2: put a hold on because the last one crashed. Well,
Speaker 2: I did crash, but we kept flying. So we kept flying.
Speaker 2: Now we're ordered with gasoline, we're holded with bombs. We
Speaker 2: got everything, and we can't get back on the ground
Speaker 2: because the fog is that bad. So we spent considerable
Speaker 2: hours in the sky burning up gasoline on three engines
Speaker 2: to finish. Beyond that, then we made a decision that
Speaker 2: we should take it, take the bombs and drop them
Speaker 2: in the North Sea, because if we can't, what are
Speaker 2: we going to do with them. We did that, and
Speaker 2: eventually as we came back about four or five in
Speaker 2: the afternoon, we spotted an airfield that was open. We
Speaker 2: landed there and that was on a Saturday morning, I
Speaker 2: believe you, and everything was good. We left the aircraft there.
Speaker 2: They were very nice to us. They set us up
Speaker 2: the sleeping the floor and the hangars. A lot of
Speaker 2: fun sleeping on the concrete floor and a hangar. After
Speaker 2: almost got shot down, but that's okay. So we ended up.
Speaker 2: They put two new northeas put the one new engine
Speaker 2: in and our Monday we flew back to my base.
Speaker 2: But there's another part of that story. As time went by,
Speaker 2: and I'll project it into probably let's just show it
Speaker 2: was three, four or five years ago. A German fighter
Speaker 2: pilot in Germany today's German fighter pilot wrote a book
Speaker 2: about the three something later. But he wrote a book
Speaker 2: about the raid on the day before Christmas. To this day,
Speaker 2: my only remaining crew member is in uh Minnesota, and
Speaker 2: I call him up at ten o'clock in the morning
Speaker 2: and he's there and I say, get the wine out.
Speaker 2: We will have a drink. And I do still do
Speaker 2: that every year. He and I are the only two
Speaker 2: of my crew is still there.
Speaker 1: I'm impressed that you were able to get back on
Speaker 1: the ground safely. After all, that.
Speaker 2: BE seventeen is a pretty fancy airplane.
Speaker 1: You're also a good pilot. Though, let's be honest, if
Speaker 1: they let you take off in that weather. Was there
Speaker 1: any time that they said the weather's too bad, don't
Speaker 1: go today.
Speaker 2: If it did, I don't really remember, but I'm sure
Speaker 2: that happened. They've canceled missions because of bad weather. In Kimball,
Speaker 2: we before we would fly in our mission even under
Speaker 2: those rules, we visited five hours of training west on
Speaker 2: the ocean to see what kind of storms are coming
Speaker 2: in to be hit at England in five seven hours,
Speaker 2: and there were many interpreted structures that says, don't go
Speaker 2: because when you get back there will be no airports.
Speaker 2: You can't find them in one. So again the huge judgment,
Speaker 2: intelligence and structure of that whole program. I'm a little prejudiced,
Speaker 2: but I think it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, there's still another story that we need
Speaker 1: to talk about, because there was another time where you
Speaker 1: were actually hit by shrapnel while you were flying. What
Speaker 1: happened that day.
Speaker 2: Wherever we were towards the very end of my life
Speaker 2: there with England, we were on a raid and on
Speaker 2: the raid was I only had several more missions to fly.
Speaker 2: Long story short, the situation was, we're on a target run.
Speaker 2: Everything fine, We could see considerable eighty eight milibate of
Speaker 2: flat explosions and whatnot. And once you're on a bomb
Speaker 2: run with the bombardier, you don't do anything. He does it.
Speaker 2: And we're flying ran up a tube call it that
Speaker 2: of explosive eighty eight millimeters. And as we're going, we're
Speaker 2: getting closer and closer and closer. And about the time
Speaker 2: wherever that person is over there, the one that exploded
Speaker 2: there was underneath the nose of the aircraft where the
Speaker 2: vombard deer and the vombed deer and the navigator work.
Speaker 2: The piece of shrapnel came right between them, came through
Speaker 2: the front part of the base where my right foot was,
Speaker 2: came through the flying pedal, took the top of my
Speaker 2: boodle off, didn't cut the toe and hit me right
Speaker 2: here and likewise. But I had a metal vest on.
Speaker 2: Therefore I didn't get any metal purple cross because I
Speaker 2: didn't fly it flee any blood.
Speaker 1: Another close call. Somebody's looking out for you. Shell is yes, sir, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: Now Interestingly, despite all of those close calls where you
Speaker 1: weren't injured. The only slight injury you suffered didn't even
Speaker 1: happen in the air. You cut yourself getting out of
Speaker 1: the plane one day, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, getting out of a plane one day, and
Speaker 2: whatever my Air Force ring and I tackle. I got
Speaker 2: out of the window that was near the navigator and
Speaker 2: one and on and when I hung up piece of
Speaker 2: metal cart right under that ring and cut it open
Speaker 2: a little bit. But that's not too serious.
Speaker 1: After thirty five missions, I think I would take that.
Speaker 1: The Eighth Air Force suffered immense losses throughout World War Two.
Speaker 1: How fortunate do you feel to have survived thirty five missions?
Speaker 2: Well, our first troops survived twenty five and they had
Speaker 2: mess in the world to speak of. Don't quote me
Speaker 2: that way, but minus school compared to what the total
Speaker 2: resources were for the Eighth Air Force or the particular
Speaker 2: the world in general. So it was.
Speaker 1: Okay, where were you when the war ended? And how
Speaker 1: did you hear the news? Well you just arrived in Boston, right.
Speaker 2: But yeah, okay, there was a reunion. I have now
Speaker 2: been promoted to certain other things, and I was in
Speaker 2: my base in in Michigan and we were having a
Speaker 2: real having a celebration on that day for the celebration
Speaker 2: of the Japanese calling it the Day. And there were
Speaker 2: thousands of people in Detroit at this operation, not Detroit,
Speaker 2: but nearby where it was. And the lady there was
Speaker 2: the host and she was whatever we'll call it, the
Speaker 2: leader of the present elevation there celebration, and they didn't
Speaker 2: have somebody to take amail. So somebody says, hey, there's
Speaker 2: Bill over there, give them to him. So I participate
Speaker 2: on Pearl Harbor Day with my friend whoever she was.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: I read that you trained bomber pilots who later went
Speaker 1: to Korea. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, correct, Sure, tell me
Speaker 1: about that a little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, how do you train somebody whatever? They're doing the
Speaker 2: same thing that you went through as a youngster. But
Speaker 2: the bomber pilots that I flew, what we train is
Speaker 2: quality of whatever, so that they could help with the
Speaker 2: transfer of all the scrap information and take it to
Speaker 2: Kingman Arizona and whatnot. And so we were training them
Speaker 2: to fly to B seventeen to be twenty four, to
Speaker 2: be twenty five and so forth. And we had a
Speaker 2: letder to fly on ourselves, but we taught them because
Speaker 2: of the photos and you've probably seen them as well.
Speaker 2: Arkansas of over one thousand B seventeen's and B twenty
Speaker 2: fours there that had been phoned back from Europe to
Speaker 2: there and then they were going to Kingdom Arizona for scrip.
Speaker 2: So that's what we did for that's what I personally
Speaker 2: did from nineteen forty five of May until June of
Speaker 2: nineteen forty six. Then I retired from the Air Force
Speaker 2: that way. But then, as I expressed earlier, I believe
Speaker 2: I spent time with the National Guard in Westfield, Massachusetts
Speaker 2: for three years. And it says enough is enough. This
Speaker 2: is the part of that story. But maybe you're going
Speaker 2: to ask it anyway.
Speaker 1: I don't know the rest of that story, so go.
Speaker 2: Ahead, okay. In nineteen fifty one I left the military,
Speaker 2: and as such, and until about nineteen seventy something, Colonel
Speaker 2: Isle called me and he was flying for one of
Speaker 2: the commercial airlines at that point. He says to me,
Speaker 2: he says, we should form a reunion group because we
Speaker 2: didn't have anything of that nature. So we got to
Speaker 2: thinking about it, make a closer to that. We then
Speaker 2: put it together so we formed a three seventy ninety
Speaker 2: Bomb Group Association and all that, and then for about
Speaker 2: eighteen or twenty years we always held the reunions at
Speaker 2: different locations in the United s States. Specifically, though pretty
Speaker 2: neat at first, one that we did put together was
Speaker 2: the one with Franz Stigler, the German fighter pilot. Uh.
Speaker 2: Charlie Brown was with the V nineteen forty three B
Speaker 2: seventeen Squadron combination in World War Two with B seventeen's
Speaker 2: in my base, his base, and it shows a beautiful
Speaker 2: photo over B seventeen flying of such all shot to
Speaker 2: help or proper word, and here's a fighter of h
Speaker 2: here's a German fighter plane flying up above, and this
Speaker 2: one's so damaged. They had actually built several people out,
Speaker 2: several good art, but this fighter plane said, well, he
Speaker 2: elected not to take and shoulder down, which he could
Speaker 2: easily have done. In fact, he scored it him part
Speaker 2: way back to England and then that was it. Well,
Speaker 2: Charlie Brown, in nineteen nine, eighty eighty five, close enough,
Speaker 2: he called up and said that we're going to form
Speaker 2: this organization, which we did. Then he said, and I
Speaker 2: want to bring a German fighter pilot to my reunion,
Speaker 2: and he says, what long story short, he had found
Speaker 2: Franz Stigler, Charlie Brown had that allowed him to live
Speaker 2: and looked out for for years to find me. Finally
Speaker 2: found him in outside of North north Well, Washington, gunsmoke
Speaker 2: or whatever, and so I said, well, it's okay, then
Speaker 2: read to gentleman, and so we adopted the German fighter
Speaker 2: pilot into the three seventy nine bomb group and from
Speaker 2: that point we had him on that reunion and then
Speaker 2: we quit. They both got lost from time ten years ago.
Speaker 2: They both died, but we had him with us and
Speaker 2: he had found Charlie Brown in part of the world.
Speaker 2: So that's there. Friends, Stick and Charlie Brown.
Speaker 1: You what are you most proud of from your service?
Speaker 2: My answer to that is I did my job, and
Speaker 2: everything that I did was not in a negative viewpoint.
Speaker 2: I look at it. I'm glad I did this, I'm
Speaker 2: glad I could help and I personally if you know
Speaker 2: some of my history beyond and you're doing good there,
Speaker 2: That's the way I look at it. I'm happy to
Speaker 2: be here just to be able to say this, because
Speaker 2: that's what our world was like at that point. In time.
Speaker 1: Well, sir, it's been a great honor for me to
Speaker 1: speak with you today. I thank you for your time,
Speaker 1: and I especially thank you for your service to our country.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1: Vincent Bill Purple is a US Army Air Corps veteran
Speaker 1: of World War Two, during which he flew B seventeen
Speaker 1: bombers on thirty five missions as part of the three
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy ninth Bomb Group inside the Mighty Eighth
Speaker 1: Air Force. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,
Speaker 1: a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information,
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