(intro music flourish) (patriotic instrumental music) (plane engine rumbling) (patriotic instrumental music continues) - I think a time in the service is really good for everybody.

It's a good way to start your life.

Well, I spent a lot of my time In training, about two years.

And from there I wound up in a test flight unit out in Hawaii.

They'd work on planes, and we'd take 'em up, fire 'em up, make everything work.

That was our job.

I started school in Fargo at the college there.

A guy come in there one day and was out to find somebody to sign up, and came in the classroom, gave us a talk.

He had this uniform on, so I thought, "Gee that looked pretty nice, if nothing else."

(chuckles) But, so we spent some of the time in June.

We left there in September and went to Minot, and that's where we first started to fly.

We went to the college there.

They would always come up with cards we could get, you know, if there was anything going on we could come to that for nothing, and, so they really treated us good all the time.

But went to a dance, and that's where I met my wife.

She was, looked like a pretty good gal.

But, we didn't get married until after the war, for a while.

That's one good thing about stopping there.

In Pensacola, last, well, we went different places but it was kind of a crash program that they had during that time, and they were getting short on pilots they said, so we, we were in a lot of different colleges and airports through my training.

But wound up in Pensacola.

There we flew single-engine planes for a while, the SNB and SNJ.

And then they had a chance to go to multi-engines or continue with single, but I said I wanted multi-engines, so then they put me in the PBY.

So we flew that for a long time.

That's where I got my wings.

And after Pensacola I went to the east side of Florida in Banana River, Coco Solo, whatever different names and there I flew PBM.

They were, well, they were little, little a faster, a little, little better equipped I guess.

But then PBY, that was a kind of a chance to fly something different.

At the end of the war, we had a chance to buy those for, I could get one for $800, but I didn't know how I was going to get it back.

You have any idea how many gallons of gas they hold?

(chuckling) 3,400 gallons.

So to, you fill up at this price.

I wouldn't really want to go.

When we were in, in Minneapolis, in, before we went to Pensacola, they had those bi-wings that you, a lot of use, use a lot of 'em for spring fields and stuff now, but at that time, Yellow Birds we had called 'em and two S and they had two wings and open cockpit, one ahead of the other one.

And during that time they decided they had too many pilots.

So they'd, they'd, word come down they had to wash out 50%.

So if you blinked when you shouldn't have, you lost your job.

They were taking, trying, involve 'em in flying as a gunner for some of the planes and hit 'em and stuff like that.

But, but I was lucky enough to get through it.

Towards the end of the time, I, my instructor pulled one on me.

We were, we were gonna go up in a loop, he said well he got up and he got up on top, upside down and he put it in a spin, and, well I'd never been involved in anything like that, he could see.

He would, I was in the front seat, though he was whipping around harder than I was, and he, but he said, you got it.

I lost my glasses.

I don't know if he did or not, but that was the test.

(metal crashing in background) But I, it just came natural to turn, you know, and get it upside, right side up.

We did a lot of aerobatics there.

It was one thing that, that plane could do anything.

It'd be a slow roll, and snap rolls, all kinds of things like they do at these air shows, you know.

They didn't, you couldn't hang it on the prop like they do with, they got a lot of power in those planes.

You get to be part of the machine during that time, so, it's kind of fun.

The sea planes is something, I guess they're gonna bring in the PBY today the way it sounds.

And I, but I never flew one with wheels on.

With those, when we flew they'd, we'd taxi up the ramp and, and the guys they'd come out with wheels, you know, just the shaft and the wheel is stuck in there somewhere, I guess.

I never had to do it.

But anyway, then they'd pull it out of the water with the tractor and, but this is gonna be different.

I know they had 'em with wheels on, but I, we never got the plane.

But it was, when I was there, I, the second, or a day later, that I was up with, I flew over Honolulu and Diamond Head and here across it big line of ships and I couldn't figure out what that was.

Just at that time, you know, the war was over, but still to see that kind of thing was really something.

The hair up in the back of your neck or whatever.

But, but it was funny.

And then I found out later that it was, they, he was coming back from Japan signing the treaties.

They had all kinds of big equipment there.

It was pretty, a time to be really proud of, you know, to see that.

You know, for many years that, nobody even talked about.

But at my age, and of course it's, there aren't very many of us left.

We get good treatment, that's for sure.

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