Oral History Interview with Garvin Kowalke, January 23, 2001 transcript

Oral History Interview with Garvin Kowalke, January 23, 2001

Interview with Garvin Kowalke, a pilot during World War II. He discusses joining the Army Air Corps, going to Air Cadet training to become a pilot, and training on various aircraft (AT-17, UC-78, P-36, P-33, T-6, BT-13, B-17, B-29) before becoming a B-29 pilot; he shipped out to Guam and flew standard and fire bombing runs over Japan. He discusses having to ditch the plane on the way back to Guam once when the engines failed, seeing another B-29 crew have to bail out over Toyko Bay and get picked up by a U.S. submarine that was in the Bay, getting pulled down to the fires when they were trying to hide in the smoke to avoid Japanese fighter planes, and getting caught in a storm by Mount Fujiyama, as well as collecting data such wind direction, speed, and temperature over Hiroshima for future bombing runs, which turned out to be for the bombers who dropped the atomic bomb. He also talks about flying over Hiroshima two days after the bombing and gauging how high the radiation levels were at different altitudes. He also talks about being in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, becoming a B-57 pilot, and adopting a …
Date: January 23, 2001
Creator: Cox, Floyd & Kowalke, Garvin
Object Type: Sound
System: The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with T. G. Crews, January 22, 1972 (open access)

Oral History Interview with T. G. Crews, January 22, 1972

Interview with T. G. Crews, a Marine WWII veteran and POW from Stephenville, Texas. Crews, among the first Americans taken prisoner by the Japanese during the war, discusses his time with the North China Marines in Peking, his unit's duties there, his capture, and his experiences during internment at Tianjin, Shanghai, Peking, Busan, and Hakodate.
Date: January 22, 1972
Creator: Marcello, Ronald E. & Crews, T. G.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Oral History Interview with Eldridge Rayburn, January 16, 1980 (open access)

Oral History Interview with Eldridge Rayburn, January 16, 1980

Audio interview with Eldridge Rayburn, a veteran of the Texas National Guard from Lubbock, Texas, about his experiences as a member of the "Lost Battalion" captured at Java in 1942 by the Japanese army during World War II. Rayburn discusses his memories of being in a Field Artillery unit, a prisoner of war, and surviving.
Date: January 16, 1980
Creator: Marcello, Ronald E. & Rayburd, Eldridge
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library