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nc: this is an interview with mr. michael cocchiola and this is part of the italian american world war ii veterans project. it is february 2nd, 2005, and we are in baldwin borough, pennsylvania, outside of pittsburgh. mr. cocchiola, will you just tell me your full name and date of birth for the record? mc: my full name is michael angelo cocchiola. i was born on january 16th, 1919. nc: cocchiola is an italian name. could you tell me a little bit about your italian ancestry? for instance, who was it that first came over from italy in your family? mc: yes. well, my grandfather and my father and his brothers came over from the naples area of italy. and my mother also came over from the la campania area east of naples, in italy.

they didn’t know one another but they methere in the united states and they were married later. nc:what was your father's name and your mother's name? mc: my father’s name was carmine cocchiola.my mother’s name was angelina giaquinto. her name was actually angela marie, but it evolved into angelina somehow. that’s what she used, angelina. mc:they settled in new jersey. in nutley, new jersey. mc: that is a few miles east of north new jersey and i was born in nutley, new jersey. my mother had settled in raritan, new jersey, which is over by somerville and plainfield and bound brook, new jersey. how my mother and father met, i don't know. probably through mutual friends. nc: raritan, is that close to nutley? arethey close together?

mc: no, they’re about 70 miles apart, ithink, something like that. raritan, new jersey does have a large italian community. nc: john basilone was from raritan or livedin raritan. mc: i knew him, i knew john basilone. i didn’tknow him that well. manila john is what they called him. he won the medal of honor at guadalcanal. nc: tell me a little bit about nutley, new jersey. was there a big italian community in nutley? mc: well i don’t know how big it was, butit’s been very forceful. my cousins have held political office there. right now, themayor of nutley, new jersey is joanne cocchiola. she was elected last year. her father wasa member of the council, he’s retired now

but he was on the council for a few years.my cousin, carmen orechio, is on the council, he was mayor three times there. he was alsoa state senator in new jersey for about 20 years, then he retired. his brother frankorechio was active and his brother carl orechio was a new jersey assembly man. of course they're all gone now except carmen orechio. i saw carmen orechio last year when i visitednew jersey for a funeral. nc: when you were growing up in new jersey,was the home you grew up in a distinctly italian home? what kind of examples of the italianculture took place in your home? was the language present when you were growing up? mc: well yes, except my father always usedto say to my mother that “you’re an american

now, speak english.” but my mother alwaysused to start off a little bit in english but then she switched to italian but thenshe switched back to english again. when i would call her on the telephone, she wouldswitch back and forth. we always had a little bit of italian in us. my mother used to likethe backyard we had, she grew figs there and tomatoes, things like that. nc: did you have any brothers or sisters? mc: i had an older brother, an older sister,and a younger brother and they’re all gone. i’m the only one left now. nc: tell me about your early memories. does anything stand out from growing up in nutley?

mc: not of nutley because we moved from nutleyto north new jersey when i was about four years old, something like that. we lived ongarside street in north new jersey for a while. my dad worked at pittsburgh plate glass, sohe decided to build a three story house on grafton avenue in north newark, new jersey;then he could walk to work. it was three stories and he rented out the two and it was eliotstreet school right across the street so it was very convenient. when i was about fiveyears old or so that’s where i was and i stayed there in that house until world warii came along. nc: did you attend that school that was acrossthe street? mc: yes, i graduated from elliot street schoolin 1931.

nc: that was an elementary school and thendid you go on to another school? mc: i went to barringer high school. i graduatedfrom barringer high school in 1935. nc: when you were growing up and attendingthe school, obviously you probably went to school with people whose relatives came frommany different parts of the world. was there any incidence where you were looked down uponbecause of your italian heritage or were you accepted as a member of the community anda member of the school? mc: we were accepted in that area. there weren’tany problems because about ten blocks or so to the east there was verona avenue and thatwas where you had a lot of italians and you had a lot of italian food stores and all thiskind of stuff. then the immaculate conception

roman catholic church, they said their massin italian. we had an italian born priest there. so there was plenty of italian around. nc; did you want to when you were in school,did you want to be italian or did you want to be american? did you think at all aboutyour heritage at that point in your life? mc: no, no it wasn’t that way. elliot streetschool had everything. they had different nationalities, different races and there wasnever any problem. nc: tell me if you remember anything aboutyour parents view towards mussolini, mussolini’s coming to power in the late ’20s the 1930s.was there any talk about mussolini when you were younger, when you were growing up, orwere your parents kind of focusing on their

life here in the united states and not reallyitaly? mc: my dad primarily was focused on his lifehere in the united states. like he said to my mother, “you’re an american now, speakenglish.” fact of the matter is, my mother went back to italy on two trips but she wentalone. my dad didn’t want to go back particularly but she wanted to go back to see her motherthere and that was the only reason. when my grandmother passed away she never went backanymore. nc: tell me if you remember, and if so whathappened, when you found out that pearl harbor had been attacked. do you remember where youwere and what you were doing when that announcement came through?

mc: i was in the army at fort bragg, northcarolina. nc: oh, you were already in the army at thatpoint. mc: yes, i was inducted november 6, 1941 atfort dix, new jersey. nc: a month before pearl harbor. mc: yeah, it was. nc: how did it come about that you enteredthe military? mc: i was drafted. i had no choice, althoughi could have gotten a three month deferment from pittsburgh plate glass. the treasurysaid to me, “mike i can get you a 90 day deferment.” i said to him i might as wellgo and get it over with. why wait around for

90 days? all i would be doing is having going away parties. so i went november 6 to fort dix, new jersey. nc: what was your feeling when you found youhad been drafted? were you scared, were you proud, were you nervous? mc: no, i was more or less indifferent toit, you see. september 1940, my older brother frank volunteered for the one-year service.he and three buddies, they got a lot of publicity in the paper. they signed up for one-year,so he served one year with the 1st infantry division from september 1940 to september1941 and then they discharged them, but that didn’t do them any good because in 1942he had to go back in again. the one-year service didn’t get him anything. that one-year voluntaryservice was supposed to take care of your

draft obligation but it didn’t work outthat way. nc: when you were drafted and reported tofort dix, new jersey did you at that point have any idea about the scale of the conflictand america’s involvement in the conflict? did you know that this world war was goingto happen and that you were going to be in the middle? mc: oh yes, i felt that sooner or later. ihad been following franklin roosevelt’s lend-lease program and so forth and i knewthat it was just a matter of time. funny thing about that, i might relate this, on november6, i went in fort dix, on november 7 after they gave me my uniform and so forth, i wasbeing interviewed the next day. i’m sitting

there in the interview room, i remember itwas a friday; i was inducted on a thursday. friday, november 7, i am sitting there waitingmy turn to be interviewed and that was supposed to be to classify you in a particular branchof service or whatever. this was the army but whether it was going to be artillery,infantry, finance, or what. so i am sitting there and this fellow comes walking by, ilook up, i said, “pete!” it was pete cummings who lived a block away from me, i used togo to his house. my brother used to go over there and play poker. pete cummings was abeefy guy, big beefy guy. he was a corporal. he says, “sergeant, i’ll take this mannext.” so i figured, oh boy now i’m going to get myself a choice assignment, right.so he takes me in, i’m facing him like you

and i are facing. i said, “pete, what’sit look like here, what are my choices?” he puts down his pencil and he says, “mike,you’re probably gonna go down to fort bragg, north carolina, to field artillery replacementtraining center on monday.” i said, “pete, you haven’t asked me a question, nothing.”he said, “we gotta fill a quota, mike.” monday i went down to fort bragg, north carolina,to field artillery replacement center. that was that. [pause] nc: some friend he was, right? mc: he couldn’t do anything about it; theyhad to fill a quota. fort bragg had started up field artillery training center about,i would say, may of 1941, and they were starting

to increase their schedules and they neededmen in there. the whole group that i went in on that day, november 6, from that area,we all went to fort bragg for field artillery. nc: did you know anything about the artillery at that point in your life? did you have any experience with it? mc: no, nothing. nc: tell me about any perceptions that younoticed about italian americans once italy went to war against the united states. didanything happen here at that time, that people looked down upon italians because their ancestorsin italy were fighting against the united states? did you experience that or did yourparents experience that? mc: no, no actually not. i don’t think mussoliniwas a factor at all. they knew that hitler

was the brains behind the whole thing andthat mussolini just went along with it. italians were not in favor of mussolini going to war,so we never experienced any problems. this group that i was inducted with, there werequite a few italians because they come from north new jersey and they came from jerseycity, new jersey and they came from new york city. that whole group, there was a fairlygood number of italians in there. nc: did they tend to, in the military, fromyour observations, stick together, or did they kind of intermingle with all the other peopleof non-italians? mc: well, when they put us in the barracksyou did it alphabetically. so i was in the first barracks, my surname began with a c.one fellow marty burn, he and i became good

friends. he was from newark, new jersey. hewas downstairs and i was upstairs, just got to know one another. he was irish, i was italianbut we got along great for 50 years or so. it was just who you were with; nobody eventhought about that, what your nationality was. nc: do you remember your first day at fortbragg? do you remember what was going through your mind and what happened when you firstarrived at this training facility? mc: no, it was just routine. you’re gettingall your bedding and so forth, getting your spot in the barracks. nc: how did the officers treat you? mc: well, you see, in the barracks you hadon each floor you had a corporal and a sergeant.

they had their own room at the end of thefloor. i remember the sergeant’s name was moody, his last name, and the corporal’sname was offit and we used to call him the offit corporal. [laughs] so that’s how you were toldwhat to do. they’d been around. they were most of them in the regular army and theytold us what to do and we did it. nc: give me an example of some of your trainingafter you were recruited and went to fort bragg. what type of things did you do? mc: we were on the 155 mm “long tom” cannonthat was an old wwi french type artillery weapon. we were cannoniers. you work on thegun and clean it up, load it up, whatever you had to do. it was an obsolete weapon,this was only for training. that particular

weapon was not used in wwii, that was an oldone. wwii you used the 155 mm “long tom” and eventually it was on half-tracks and alsothe 155 mm howitzer which was a shorter gun and then the 105 mm howitzer, those were theup to date artillery shells that were being utilized. nc: at bragg were you training on those howitzersor only on those obsolete wwi? mc: no, only on the obsolete. this was only13 weeks of training and they weren’t concerned about proficiency on modern weapons becausethat was going to come later when you go to your regular outfit. a couple of things thathappened at bragg were kind of silly, i guess in a way. you asked about the first day, wellthe next week we were in right after reveille they said anybody who has a driver’s licensetake one step forward. so i took on step forward,

i figured hey, maybe i’m gonna get a jeepor something. so they marched us down to the battalion motor pool and help change the oilon the trucks, that’s what we did. i said to myself i gotta be careful what i volunteerfor around here. but it worked out though, i remember one time i had a jeep assignmentthat day from message center, you know, delivery stuff and what have you, and it was a drizzlingday. it was late november i guess. i come back at lunch time; i went and got my messkit. i started to walk up to the mess hall. i get up close to the mess hall and i seethese guys all standing outside. i said, “what’s going on?” you know, i just finished my workin the morning and i was coming back from my lunch. they said, “we’re not going toeat today.” i said, “why not?” “we’re

on strike.” i said, “you’re on strike?”i figured, what are they on strike for? i want my lunch. they had a session with themess sergeant, he was a regular army guy from tennessee, he was a staff sergeant. somebodysaid something in the starter and he said, “everybody outside, nobody lining up inthe mess hall.” so they retaliated and they said, “we’re not going to eat your food.”there was no lunch for anybody that day. so that afternoon, around 3:30 or so, we were alltold to go to the auditorium. so we all went to the auditorium and there was this fullcolonel up there, southern colonel, and he said to us, “i could have all you men court-marshaledfor disobeying orders and so forth.” i’m sitting there and i’ve had no lunch, nothingand he’s gonna threaten us with court-marshal.

we are making $21 a month and you take out$.25 for the battery fund and you take out $6 for laundry. what do we wind up with, lessthan $15, how worse can you get? he didn’t court-marshal anybody, but that proves theanswer to your question. these guys are street smart from new york city, jersey city, newark,new jersey and that area. they don’t take anything from anybody and they know how toretaliate and that’s what they did that day. they wouldn’t take any guff from anybody.that’s why they told that mess sergeant where to get off at. i understand that lateron he was transferred. nc: did you have any difficulty convertingyourself to military life, the daily regimens, the workouts, and the training?

mc: no, i was single and that helps. you don’thave to dwell on what’s happening at home and all that kind of stuff. it worked outpretty well. nc: you were at fort bragg when you heardabout pearl harbor? mc: yes, that was the sunday i guess it waswith the time difference there. i know moody and offit were running around. they ran tosupply and got rifles and so forth. they were ready for anything i guess. of course we weren’tallowed to have anything but everybody was on alert that day. nc: did you notice a mood change amongst themen from before pearl harbor and after pearl harbor? did they become more serious in thetraining that you were doing? was there more

of a concern? mc: no, there wasn’t that much of a change.actually, i think that most of these guys were single, most of them at that time. itdidn’t mean that much to them, everybody wanted to finish their training and go someplaceelse, that was the attitude. they were wondering where they’re gonna go because some of themprobably wouldn’t stay in the artillery. i know one guy; he was a bookish sort of individual. he wound up in indiana in the finance division. he was a stock broker. nc: what about your training specifically? you spent those 13 weeks at fort bragg, what happened after that? mc: well, about a couple of weeks were finishedthere we got word that we were going up to

sackets harbor on lake ontario and join anational guard outfit as replacements, but there was about 20 or 25 of us and i was oneof them, and they said, “no you’re not going. you’re going down to camp claiborne, louisiana,and join the 44th infantry division as replacements down there.” and that was the new jerseynational guard outfit. that kind of disappointed me because here i’d been with these guys13 weeks and now they’re gonna put me as a replacement with people i don’t even know;but luckily, two weeks later after these other guys pulled out and went up to sackets harbor,they changed their mind and we went up to sackets harbor, luckily. i was back with mygroup again, so that was fine, i didn’t have to make new friends. that’s where westayed for a while and that was up near watertown,

new york. it was the 258th field artilleryregiment. we did pretty good. we had marches and every time, of course we were youngerand stronger, that we beat the old national guard. those guys were older but they hadall the ratings. i was put in the headquarters as a fire direction control guy. the guy whohad that job he was a staff sergeant, he didn’t do that job. i was a private and i was doingthe job because they maintained their ratings. that was the only bad feature of it. nc: tell me what the fire direction controlperson would actually do. what was their role? mc: it would be in the fire direction controlcenter in the command post and he would give out the commands. left so much and right somuch and give the direction of the fire for

the equipment, whatever it might be whateverthe cannons would be. that’s what a fire direction control guy would do. he would measureon a map exactly where the target is and what you need to get the weapon to put a projectileonto the target. nc: how did you come to be the one selectedfor that? it sounds like that is a more technical job; it takes a little more intelligence perhaps.it takes a little more experience. did you have some pre-war experience in that area? mc: no, see i was an accountant and i’dgone to college for a couple of years during the evening while i was working at ppg. soi was good at figures and so forth and that’s what you have to do. so i was in the 258thfield artillery regiment and then they broke

it up and then made up the other battalionand the 258th became the 991st field artillery battalion and they started to bring the youngerguys into it. eventually i went to officer’s candidate school after they shifted me tothe 186th field artillery; they broke up the 258th as a regiment and made battalions outof it. i went to 186th field artillery battalion and fire direction control. i got along realwell there, in a matter of several months they told ‘em that i was okay for officercandidate school at fort sill, oklahoma, that’s where i went. nc: so after new york you went out to fortsill? mc: fort sill, oklahoma for officer trainingand i became a 2nd lieutenant january 21st,

1943. it was a kind of odd coincidence onthat i was good at fire direction and the fellow i had met as a master sergeant in the258th field artillery in headquarters, he was out there as a 2nd lieutenant on teachingtactics and of course i was in his class. it was a big class. so one evening there wasa knock on the door in our hut. there was six of us in the hut, that’s how they operatedout in fort sill. it was john rice, 2nd lt. john rice. everybody snapped to attention.we acted like privates, some had better ratings. he asked me to come outside and he asked meif i’d like to stay there in fort sill, oklahoma as a gunnery instructor. i says, “ohno, john, out here? thanks, but no thanks.” he meant well, but that wasn’t for me.

nc: did you, during all of your training atboth basic and ocs, did you receive training in small arms weapons? what kind of weaponswere you trained with? mc: oh yeah. we had the carbine. i was anexpert on the carbine and a sharpshooter on .45 caliber handgun. nc: did you have any pre-war experience withguns? mc: no. nc: tell me about after you graduated fromofficer’s candidate school. what happened next? mc: we had a choice. they gave you a choiceof three places you could go to. one was tank destroyer outfit in camp howze, texas. therewas fort bragg, north carolina.

nc: was that a tank destroyer outfit too? mc: no. i’m trying to think of the thirdone, but i can’t seem to think what the choice was. it escapes me, but anyways, ichose fort bragg because that was in the eastern part of the united states and i figured icould get home a little easier from there. so i went to fort bragg. then we made anotherchoice, there i went to the 11th airborne division. glider field artillery, that wasa brand new outfit, brand new division. the only thing wrong with it was i surprised atall the men that came in didn’t have any training. we had to give them basic training,and i wasn’t happy with that. usually, you get your basic training somewhere and thenyou go to a division, but here they didn’t

do that. so i had to give them basic training,of course, it put me in good shape. i was really running around and all that kind ofstuff. now this was the glider field artillery, and of course you had the paratroopers forthe infantry right along side of us. eventually, i had to get out of that outfit because theatmosphere wasn’t good with my group, my battery commander. he was from baltimore andhe got into a discussion with one of my friends there, he was reconnaissance officer bob barry.poor bob he lost his eye in an accident, they were working on some bombs in a rehearsalbid-whack area. any rate i sided with bob one night when we were out drinking with thegeneral’s daughter there. they had a dance and i’m dancing. i shifted over to the 795thfield artillery battalion at fort bragg, north

carolina. i was glad to get out of there.i always tried to get something that i like to do, wanted to do. over at the 795th i wasthere a while and i met my buddy, andy cortize, angelo cortize from new jersey. i’d methim out at fort sill at ocs and he was the executive officer of the battery and we threwa reunion more or less. we used to go home on weekends. i had my brother’s car andwe’d go home. we’d get some choice bottles of liquor from andy’s father at the tavernand bring them back. we’d give them out to those we liked and those who we didn’tcare much, we gave the lesser brands. nc: were you back in new jersey at the timeyou were with the 795th? mc: no, still fort bragg. so one day at lunchtime, i was sitting there and this lieutenant

opposite me was saying goodbye to some ofthe others. i didn’t know him at all, i had seen him around. i said. “where are yougoing?” he said, “i’m going to the air force.” “you are? how are you doing that?”he said, “they want officers as well as enlisted men for aircrew training.” “how do youget that?” now you have to understand that this happened within, i mean if i hadn’tbeen there that day at that time and watched them saying goodbye to this guy i would havenever known about this. so he says, “all you have to do, mike, is get an applicationand get a physical over at pope afb, (which was right at fort bragg) and send it directlyto captain brown in washington, dc.” “oh is that it?” he said, “yeah.” so andycortize and i decided to do that. so i went

first and i got my physical and andy didn’tpass, i guess he had been out drinking too much beer. he had to go the next day for anotherphysical. in the meantime, i took my application and my physical was okay and i went into tosee the colonel, who nobody ever did like. i can’t remember his name. he was from fortsill. he was an instructor out there. he’d never had any combat, but he knew his paperwork,that’s about all i can say for him. so i went into see the colonel and i told him whati wanted to do. he said, “lieutenant, do you realize that the army has spent over $5,000to train you as a field artillery officer?” i said, “yes, i understand that colonel,but all you have to do if you don’t approve of this is say, not approved.” there wasa spot on the paper that said approve or disapprove.

so he disapproved it and i said, “you cansend that directly to washington dc to capt. brown.” he said, “no, i’m not going todo that, i am going to send it up the chain-of-command up to brigade and then it will take care ofitself.” so i had to salute and leave. the first thing i did was go out and see the mastersergeant. i told him my problem. i said, “there’s a paper coming out going up the brigade. myname’s on it and that really should go to washington, dc.” now i was taking a chance here. i come out later that day; the master sergeant didn’t do it. the paper went up. so, immediately i went up to the message center and i saw this corporal... [pause] no, lemme go back. i went up to brigade and i saw this 2nd lieutenant there and i told him my problem about thispaperwork should be going to washington dc.

he reached down and the bottom drawer of hisdesk and he pulls out my paperwork, the blue paper. oh, i said to myself, this is goingto 3rd army in tennessee, that’s the headquarters and it’ll never get there. so i said tothe lieutenant, “there’s been an error here; that really should be going to washingtondc.” he said, “oh, i don’t really know about it.” he marks it co, commanding officer,795th field artillery battalion and he sends it back. that’s when i went over and i sawthe corporal at the message center. i said, “there’s a piece of paper with my nameco 795th it’s name on it, get it and put it in my pigeon hole, okay?” he said, “okay,if i see it i’ll do it.” so, that afternoon around 5 o’clock, i go over and there itis in my pigeon hole. i put it in the envelope

and i mail it to washington. in the meantime,andy cortize, he’s having conniptions because he’s saying, “oh, you’re going to getcourt-marshaled!” he goes in to see the colonel and he said “i’m not signing anytransfers, period,” because andy was the executive officer of the battery. he wouldn’teven disapprove it, he wouldn’t sign it. he stayed there. about three weeks later thecolonel calls me into his office. he said, “lieutenant, i can’t understand this.”“what’s that colonel?” “i’ve got orders for you to report to san antonio, texas,for aircrew training.” “is that so, colonel?” “yes, you got 10 day delay en route.” everybodywas astonished. i probably would have been court-marshaled if i had been caught, butit worked out. i got ten days, i went home

to newark, new jersey and for that weekendmy mother comes into my bedroom and said “there’s somebody outside to see you.” there wasthree guys from fort bragg; they drove up to see me off. nc: what was it about joining an aircrew thatinterested you so much that you would go through all of this trouble? did you have a desirejust to get out of the artillery or was there something about planes and the air corps thatwas interesting? mc: i thought about pilot training for a whilethere, but then it was just that i didn’t feel right in that outfit particularly. ithought i’d get some training and see where i could go, maybe a navigator. a navigatorseemed to be a good choice, too.

nc: had you been in a plane before? mc: yeah, i had been flying commercially beforethat in my job and so forth. the only problem here was that my orders, it said i’d goto san antonio, texas for aircrew training, in the event that i did not pass the physical,i report back to my old outfit. there was no way. i was going to take anything, whetherit was pilot, bombardier, navigator, anything that they accept me for so that i wouldn’thave to go back and face the colonel again, you know. because you know what that wouldbe. so it worked out that i took bombardier/navigator. nc: you thought you had the option of choosingwhichever one you wanted? mc: yes, whatever you could pass the physicalfor. on depth perception, i was a little bit

shaky on that, and that’s imperative fora pilot. nc: i assume some of the experience you gotreading map coordinates for the artillery helps you out being a bombardier/navigator. mc: oh sure. yeah, yeah. that’s helpfulknowledge of maps and things like that. then i went through the aircrew training. the otherreason i didn’t go for pilot was because pilot takes too long. it would have takenan awful long time and i was anxious to get overseas a little bit, you know. i knew i could go through bombardier training, no problem with that. nc: tell me a little bit about the trainingfor the… mc: i went to, well it was in texas, ellingtonfield for several weeks and childress afb

up near amarillo and that was sort of thebalance of that training. dropping bombs, practice bombs and things like that, and you’dget dead reckoning navigation training as well. you’d get both of them, and i passedthat. then they assign you to a crew at omaha, nebraska where you crewed up with people we didn’t know, just navigators, pilots, gunners, whatever. nc: do you remember the guys on your firstcrew? they were guys from all over the country? tell me about the officers on board your plane,would have been the pilot, the co-pilot, the bombardier/navigator, were there have beena fourth officer? mc: oh yeah. oh yeah. six. radio operator and five gunners, tail gunner, two waist gunners, nose gunner. nc: tell me a little bit about the planesthat you flew. what was the name of the plane

that you flew? type of plane that you flew? mc: eventually you mean, not the training.the training were the smaller ones just strictly for bombing. b-24 liberator, [pause] they made moreb-24 liberators than any other bomber in wwii. they used them both in the south pacific andout of england, out of italy, out of northern africa, but the b-17 flying fortress got alot of publicity. we always used to say the b-17 had a public relations guy on each plane. nc: yeah, a lot of people remember the memphisbelle. so the guys that you met and were crewed up with at omaha, those were the guys thatyou would fly with when you went overseas or some of them were?

mc: yes, the only problem with that was aftera while i was over there i flew about four or five missions with them; they took me offthe crew and put me on what i call “the flying misfits.” these were guys who, forone reason or another, they were sick, maybe they needed a couple of missions to finishtheir 35 or 30 if you were lead crew. john corby was a co-pilot; he became ill so hedidn’t finish up with his crew so he was pilot. i was the navigator, bombardier/navigator.others who needed a few missions to finish out their 35 were put on there. i had no choicereally. they promoted me to first lieutenant after i had a few missions; then one day,this is kind of ironic, i see this guy all the time, now i am going to see him againwhen we go down to savannah, andy andreessen

from california. he said he slept a coupleof beds away from me. he came in with his crew. he said, “mike, you're flying withthe colonel tomorrow.” i says, “what?” this is lt. col. heber thompson; he was oursquadron commander, 713th squadron. "yeah," he said. “he’s coming back. he finished uphis 30 missions as lead crew and he went home for leave. now he’s come back and he wantsto fly an element lead, just for practice to get the hands on. captain will be the co-pilot.”captain was down at the other end of my hut and he was a guy who didn’t get along withhis crew, of course i didn’t know this until later. they moved him into our hut. he wasthe co-pilot, i was the bombardier/navigator, heber thompson one of the best pilots everhe was squadron commander, he was only 27.

he was the pilot, and of course we got allthese guys. some i knew, some i didn’t know, i wouldn’t know who was gonna show up tobe the gunner or whatever, the nose gunner i wouldn’t know. we went that day. we wentto hamburg to bomb. i’ll never forget that. we were on the bomb run; we hit the ip, theinitial point, and all of the sudden... fog. nothing. i looked out the blister and i couldn’tsee anybody. we were in element lead; we were in front anyway on the high right. i lookout, nobody, there was just fog. i had the bomb bay doors open and i’m waiting. there’snothing to do. finally, the pilot, the colonel says, “close the bomb bay doors.” i guesshe told the others, because i couldn’t hear; i’m down in the nose, to put the pins backin the bombs. i didn’t know what he did

because i thought maybe he might want to dropthem anywhere, somewhere. we were over hamburg and you go up to the north sea, it wasn’tvery far and then you get into the english channel. he says, “give me a heading home.”so i give him a heading that was 3-10, i think it was. okay, we started out and still, wecouldn’t see anything. i don’t like fog, i didn’t see one other plane and we’reup at 30,000 feet or whatever it was. we go out and we’re going up and luckily, justgoing over the german coast there, a squadron or maybe it was a group of b-24s came by.you could tell by the tail markings that it was part of our combat wing. we had aboutfive groups in the wing. i hear him say, “pilot, navigator, i am going to tag onto this group.”i said, “okay,” i said, “roger.” i

was so happy because we could see. so he tagson and i thought, what about the bombs? isn’t he gonna drop them? you know, he’s a lieutenantcolonel, maybe he doesn’t want to drop bombs anywhere. i said we’re gonna take theseback with us? i wasn’t happy about that. so he tags on and he goes on a while, we’reover the english channel you can drop bombs there. not a word, then he says, “breakaway,give me a heading home.” so i give him a 270 heading or something like that we wenthome. i never discussed it with him; after all he’s a colonel. we took the bombs back.i’ll never get over, that’s the only time. i guess he felt oh you can’t drop bombs,wasted or hurt somebody, i don’t know. you’re the only one i ever told that story.

nc: i guess you never found out why he didn’t. mc: i never asked. what am i gonna ask himfor? he’ll say, “it’s none of your business.” nc: let’s go back to when you were firstdeployed overseas. what unit were you assigned to at that point? did you have a particularsquadron that you were associated with at the point? do you remember? mc: yeah. we flew over. nc: you didn’t fly your own planes overthough, did you? mc: we brought the new ones over, it’s whatyou do. you go to wichita, kansas and you get a brand new airplane, and that’s theway of bringing the new airplanes over. on

our whole crew got in there and we stoppedup in new hampshire to refuel and so forth. we flew to goose bay, labrador, then we flewto iceland overnight there, then we flew over to wales and we got rid of the plane. andthen we went up to the belfast area and then we were assigned to england, seething afb448th bomb group. i was in the 713th squadron. nc: were you and the men of your crew happythat you were going to europe as opposed to the pacific theater, or did you not have anyfeelings one way or another? mc: no, i think we were all were happy wewere going to someplace where they’re english speaking; that’s an advantage and betterliving i guess. nc: on your first crew was there one particularguy that you became very close to or did you

not have any really good, close, personalrelationships with anyone? mc: oh, old hyde. his name is l.r. hyde. i callhim “little raw hyde.” lewis, he called me last week. and ben johnson. ben johnsonwas a nose gunner but he’s got parkinson’s now. nc: what was hyde’s role on the plane? mc: he was a navigator on the first crew iwas with, and then he and i were in the same hut. we were fellow navigators, really. soi was checked out as a navigator and i got a certificate and all that kind of stuff.so, we stayed in the same hut, even though i wasn’t flying with them anymore. i wasalone with the misfits. nc: where did you fly your first mission?do you remember?

mc: yeah, i got them all listed. they allwent to germany. nc: when would it have been? do you know approximately? and i guess it probably would have been some time in ’43. mc: no, ’44. there you are. one day i sat down, see this book, john rowe, he was a pilot, this washis crew and he gave me this book. those are his missions and then i put mine down. thefirst one was back here, september the 12th to germany. they all were germany after that. nc: what were your feelings on your firstmission? were you scared, excited, nervous? mc: no, i’m not that type of guy really.my first mission we went to eastern germany,

it was a small target. and i noticed on ourright this plane was going along, all of the sudden, you could see the flak where the artillery88s hitting. it went bomb, bomb, bomb, bing! and the guy went down, hit his wing, but hepulled out of it way down. so i watched them and lost sight of them. that’s the way itwas. nc: this was another b-24? mc: oh yeah, they were all b-24s. nc: what did the flak look like? mc: it’s like a puff of smoke. it just billowsand then you go through this and you look back and say, did i go through that? it rattlesagainst the plane, just hope it doesn’t get

a direct hit. you’re always going to getsome peripheral damage, splatters. mc: hopefully, it just doesn’t hit an engine. nc: did you fly out with fighter escorts atthis point, or had the allies achieved air superiority that they didn’t need to atthis point? mc: yes, we had that. that was one of thebest things that had ever happened. we go over and fighter escorts coming from francewould meet us well before the target and that was a big advantage. we were lucky. dependson your place in the whole bombing run, i mean the german fighters would come out, ifthey catch you in the beginning the guys in the back are going to escape it because they’reall tied up with somebody and the p-47 thunderbolts

and the p-51. if you were unlucky and youhappen to be there when the german fighters happened to decided to come out and fight,well then, you were in the middle of it. nc: were you ever on board or on a missionwhen you were attacked by german fighters? mc: no. generally, they’d stay their distanceif they saw the p-47s and the p-51s. we were lucky. when i saw them in the latter partof the war when they had the jets but they weren’t that good at flying jets yet, sothey had those me-262s out there somewhere. they were experimenting with them. hitlermade a big mistake that he didn’t get those jets before he did get them. he would havebeen much better off but he didn’t have them. i read an article once that said hethought that he didn’t need them particularly,

but during it he fell flat on his face becausehe didn’t have the fighter support that he needed. the p-51s just took over. nc: the waist-gunners and the gunners on yourparticular planes didn’t fire their weapons too often. mc: not too often, no, we were lucky. nc: tell me a little bit about your responsibilitieson a particular mission. you would be the one in charge of charting the course of theplane? mc: well, what they did was they gave youa map of the particular part of europe, germany, and so forth, and they outline on it and theysketch exactly the route. also, on occasion would give you flak points where the german88s might be. the lead navigator would chart

it out and you would follow along. you’dfollow along and you always knew where you were based on the lead navigator. if he wason course, you’d be on course; usually they were because you would know it. if he’soff course, you would know that, but they did a good job of that. nc: were you ever the lead navigator? mc: no, of the misfits. the only time, onetime i was flying an element lead and the lead ship the northern bomb side went outof whack. it was on an operative and they asked me. i got down and i was gonna startbombing for the group, but it was overcast. you couldn’t see a thing so they droppedit by radar, dropped the bombs by radar.

nc: what was the northern bomb site was thatnew? was that a new technology at the time? mc: yeah, it’s about this big. in fact,a buddy of mine had one. he died a couple of years ago, but he got one. i was wonderingwhat his widow is going to do with it. it’s about two feet wide and about a foot and ahalf high. what you do is synchronize it and when the two guidelines meet, that’s whenyour bombs drop. so what you do is focus on it and try to get the hairs on the target. nc: and that was located in the nose of theb-24. mc: the nose, on the floor. nc: so when you were traveling, is that whereyou spent your time or only when you were

ready to bomb you would go there? mc: only when i was ready to bomb. when wehit the bomb run, what they call the initial point that’s when you get down and you’re rotating the knobs, trying to get the thing and synchronization. nc: did you have a name for the planes thatyou flew? did the men name the planes? mc: well, ours was old pop 75 nc: was this with the sphincter or was thisthe original one? mc: here it is, old 75. nc: oh, it had a picture of an old man. mc: yeah, one old guy, but that was my ideaor our idea, we inherited this plane.

nc: oh, ok. so that was on there already? mc: yeah, we came later, so we weren’t aroundto initially put all the good stuff on the nose, all the ladies and so forth. pin upgirls, betty grable and the rest of them. nc: did you have any idea what the 75 was? mc: 75 missions that plane had flown up tothat point, i think. nc: was that the plane that you flew withthe misfits? mc: yeah, most of the time with john corbit, he was from harrisburg, i didn’t know him before. nc: what kinds of equipment were you issuedwith the expectation or possibility of you being shot down? did you have an escape kit,or did you have sidearms or anything like that?

mc: i was just gonna tell you. we used tocarry a .45 gun, but then they decided that we turn those in, which i did, to the supplysection because when a guy went down in germany with a .45, likely he would be killed. he wouldprobably grab the .45 and the germans would see he had a .45 and they would shoot himdown right on the ground. they stopped that immediately when they had a few incidentslike that because the germans used to take farm implements. brooms, whatever they’dwhack you. i know my old roommate, mickey schliker, he was shot down in february 1945 and hisname schliker-german he got a few whacks, but at least they didn’t bother him. if youwere jewish you were in trouble so you tried not to emphasize that.

nc: how many missions did a traditional teamor group fly? mc: 35 for a crew. if you were a lead ship, there was 30. nc: were any of your missions particularlydangerous or difficult that stand out in your mind, where there was a lot of flak or a lotof enemy resistance? mc: when you went to hamburg or you went tothe ruhr valley, you got a lot of flak. i went to magdeburg three times, hamburg three times,and you get a lot of flak when you are above the oil refineries. hamburg had the oil refineries.magdeburg had a lot of rail yards, marshaling yards i used to call them, where all the freightcame together. of course, the idea was to bomb them and they stop the supplies, oil, andeverything else from going through and that’s

what hurt the germans near the end of thewar because they didn’t get the supplies they needed. the americans controlled theair and that hurt them very very badly. nc: were there any type of rivalries in thearmy air corps related to what type of plane you would fly for instance, the b-25 guys,the b-24 guys, the b-17 guys. mc: there was an intense rivalry between theb-17 flying fortress and the b-24 liberators and there is to this day. nc: and you think the b-24 is more important? mc: well naturally, i am a b-24 liberator guy.the b-17s like the memphis belle, they got all the publicity, but they made more b-24sthan they did b-17s. that we know. because

they carried a heavier bomb load, they couldhigher, and they could fly farther. they were a better airplane, but they used to call them ‘flying boxcars’, ‘flying coffins’, but the b-17 looked a little more majestic. they had more fleet, more of a shine to them. i don’t know, i suppose. nc: what kind of uniform did you wear when you were flying? did you have like a bomber jacket? mc: no, we had this electric flying suit that’selectric, you plug it in, and i carried it, then this jacket over it. nc: what was the point of the flying suit?i would keep the temperature? mc: well you plug it in. electric heat, it’sheated. trying to see if you can see it on here. had the boots on too.

nc: who had the highest rank in your plane?you were a first lieutenant at the time. mc: first lieutenant was about a captain fora pilot and first lieutenant for the co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, generally. and thenyou had a staff sergeant for the radio operator and flight engineer and sergeants for thegunners or staff sergeants sometimes. nc: what was the feeling like when you firstreturned from a mission and safely landed in the airfield? was it a feeling of reliefand satisfaction and pride, or did it just become routine for you? mc: it became routine, sort of, and of coursewhen you came down you get debriefing. they go and interrogate you and ask you about whatyou saw. of course, i as the navigator would

record. for example, one day i see a planemaybe at 7 o’clock high. i count 4 parachutes and i say to the guys if i can’t see, countthe parachutes because i have the location and what time. and then what they do is myreport plus other planes coming in verify exactly what happened. nc: how many missions did you wind up flyingin wwii? mc: 35. nc: and then what happens, do you rememberthe final missions? does that stand out in your mind because it was such an importantone, that 35th mission? mc: no, not really it was kind of hectic.this was right after the battle of the bulge

and we were flying. i flew christmas day,december 25, 1944 and then the next day. the battle of the bulge started december 16, 1944and i didn’t fly; went down everyday at about 3 o’clock in the morning, somethinglike that, waited. no mission, and then we’d go back. finally december 24th i flew, i rememberi was just anxious to get them over with because those guys needed some help. i got a letterfrom belgium from my friend ed shay. ed had gone to ocs but he didn’t make it. he wentback and he became a medic and he was in belgium. he sent me a letter that made feel good thatday when i got that letter. he said we came out we saw all those planes, oh they werecheering. nc: they needed any morale building thingthat they could find.

mc: they were stuck for a couple of weeksin there, i guess it was. now i remember the third choice, i should have remembered it,the 106th infantry division! the 106th infantry division, if you know anything about the battleof the bulge, they took the brunt of it. they were a brand new division, they brought themin there. now i knew quite a few of those officers. they were on the right flank andthe 106th just brought in to relieve and the germans with the battle of the bulge wentthrough the 106th. they had a lot of casualties and a lot of the guys from my ocs class wentto the 106th. i didn’t make that choice, i went to fort bragg. nc: it sounds like you would follow dailywhat was going on the western front and what

the infantry was doing. was there a feelingwith your colleagues and comrades about what some of the generals were doing? what eisenhowerwas doing? what patton was doing, etc? you focused more on your role and your responsibilities? mc: no. we didn’t talk much about that. probably didn’t know that much about what was going on. nc: after you flew your 35th mission, whatwas the protocol? you don’t have to fly any more missions? do you leave the army?what happens? mc: no. you go back for rotation. what theydo automatically, they put on my rotation slip suggestion or qualifies as instructor. theyput that down automatically. something happened that was real bad. i had finished up and icame into my hut one day and i walked in,

it was in the afternoon. i was waiting formy orders to go back to the states. i walked in and right across from where i was sleeping,my bed, there was two guys from the supply section in there and they were getting thefootlockers and the clothes for the smerntsky’s crew. there were 4 on that crew and they wentdown. two planes when down that day, it was a shame. smerntsky was killed; most of hiscrew and his co-pilot had just been married several weeks before he came overseas. itwas a shame because, what happened was that lt. gines, it was all marked in this bookbecause i knew about it. he got hit with a 20 mm cannon shell and they caught him somewherein the arm. he went down and he took smerntsky’s crew with him underneath. the two planes wentdown, that’s 20 men approximately. they

went down; i think there was two that surviveddown there. it was bad. i came in and i was shocked. it was one guy down on the end onhis bunk sitting there and i knew what had happened when i see they’re taking. immediatelywhen a crew goes down, you go in and take their stuff. because these guys, you know, some, ifthey know someone isn’t coming back, they are unscrupulous, they’re going in to taketheir stuff. i was in shock. smerntsky was a good friend of mine. he and i used to kidone anther. he wanted to go to sweden. i said, “smerntsky, you’re a lot of bull.” inever knew his first name until later, his first name was irving. he was a first lieutenantpilot. we went to peenemã¼nde where von braun was assembling his rockets. v-1s and v-2sand we bombed that. i said, “hey there’s

a chance,” because we were close to swedennow. two weeks later we go to kiel, germany for the summer in pence. i said, “you’rea lot of bull; you had your chance then.” kiel’s a lot closer to sweden then. he didn’tgo. it was just too bad though. [pause] never had the chance. he was on his 19th mission, ithink it was. [pause] it’s a shame. nc: so there always was that possibility thatyou could be hit by a cannon or even an adad, even though the allied forces had air superiority. mc: oh yeah. it happened to him a week afteri finished up. let me tell you about this picture, this was funny. this happened november8th. there i am with the fatigue uniform and hat on kp that day. here’s my cousin, pat,we came in the same time, we were inducted.

he gave the mess sergeant three bucks so hecould get off and see his girlfriend when she came. these are all our relatives; mostof them are gone now. these two are still living. nc: and that was taken right before you left. mc: fort dix, new jersey on saturday. my mother, my dad, my sister, and my aunts, [pause] my uncle mike. nc: well, i want to thank you for sharing your world war ii memories with me. mc:well, i hope it's been helpful. nc:it's been very interesting. thanks so much, and thanks for your service.