The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with James Mooney. Mooney received his Navy wings at Pensacola, Florida in October of 1943. He went aboard the USS Ranger (CV-4) and was sent to the South Pacific as a replacement pilot. He was then sent to Guadalcanal where he performed escort missions for C-47 Air Force planes up through the Solomon Islands and Admiralties. He was sent back to Pearl Harbor to become indoctrinated in the Hellcat at the Naval Air Station at Berbers Point. In September of 1944 he was assigned to the USS Essex (CV-9). His first combat was in the Philippines, in the Rescue Combat Air Patrol. He provides details of his flying missions to attack Japanese aircraft on airfields and Japanese destroyers in Manila Harbor. He participated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October of 1944. He provides details of the planes that he flew during his missions. He was discharged around the summer of 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with William Maddux. Maddux joined the Navy in December 1942. He was sent to the USS Argonne (AS-10). Maddux describes his role as a deck seaman, coxswain, and boatswain’s mate. He also details the capabilities of the ship as well as the repair and supply work that it performed. Maddox describes the fatal explosion that occurred aboard the USS Mount Hood (AE-11) and how he was blown over the side of his own ship which was anchored 100 yards away. He mentions that 1,300 pounds of metal from the Mount Hood was recovered on the Argonne and finding a shell-shocked survivor clinging to a buoy two days later. Maddux describes how his ship converted PT boats from torpedo boats to gun boats and describes test driving one. He left the service in January 1946.

Transcript of an oral interview with J. Whitfield Moody. He discusses joining the Navy to become a pilot, going through flight school and training at various bases in the States before joining the USS Chenango (CVE-28) in February of 1945 as part of squadron VT-260 flying TBM's and TBF's. The Chenango went to Guadalcanal to join the invasion force for Okinawa, where Moody flew submarine patrols, dropped bombs on the island, other surrounding islands and on Formosa to prevent the Japanese from using airstrips there to resupply Okinawa troops or make counterattacks from there. Moody also discusses having to land on Okinawa after getting hit by shrapnel from a bomb he dropped when he was flying too close to the ground, using fuel tanks taken from the Japanese to fuel up to get back to the carrier, and getting hit by ground fire after a bombing run over one of the surrounding islands, but managing to limp the plane back to the carrier. After Okinawa, Moody returned to the states for leave before reporting for duty at the Landing Signal Officer's school in Jacksonville, Florida, and being home on leave when the Japanese surrendered.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Jerry Mason. Mason joined the Army Air Forces in December 1942 and received basic training in Lincoln, Nebraska. He played reveille during training, which helped distinguish him from the other recruits and secure him a spot in fighter pilot training. After learning to fly the P-38 and P-39, he was sent to New Guinea and the Philippines, where he flew as Cy Homer’s wingman in the 80th Fighter Squadron, the Headhunters. He was shot down over Formosa and narrowly escaped drowning by deploying his inflatable raft, which was tied to his belt and pulled him to the surface. The next morning, he was rescued by a PBM Mariner. When the war ended, Mason served as an engineering officer in Manila, where he was ordered to set fire to L-1s once they were replaced with L-5s. Mason returned home and attended veterinarian school on the GI Bill; he went on to become base veterinarian at Elmendorf.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Glenn Hope. Hope joined the Army Air Forces in 1941 and received flight training in Texas and Oklahoma in PT-19s and AT-6s. Upon completion, he was assigned to a P-40 squadron on Oahu. He was transferred to Port Moresby with the 80th Fighter Squadron, flying P-39s. The only advantage they had over Zeros was horsepower, so when Hope later became a flight instructor he taught pilots evasive maneuvers consisting of shallow dives and shallow climbs. His squadron received new P-38s, which Hope once pushed to 550 miles per hour while being pursued by a Zero. He shot down three Japanese planes in aerial combat, and is credited with one victory, which was confirmed by troops on the ground. He was sent back to the States to train pilots, producing triple-ace Robin Olds.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Jim Davenport. Davenport was born 3 March 1925 in San Antonio, Texas. Graduating from high school in 1942, he joined the US Army Air Forces in September 1943 and received his basic training at Amarillo, Texas. After basic training he was sent to Iowa State Teacher College for three months to improve his skills in mathematics and sciences in preparation for entry into the Cadet program. Upon completion of pre-flight training at Santa Anna, California he elected to enter navigator school at Ellington Field in Baytown, Texas. Upon graduation he was sent to Lincoln, Nebraska and assigned to a B-24 crew as navigator. Davenport went to Mountain Home, Idaho for crew training and described observing a devastating crash of a B-24. Soon thereafter, he volunteered for an experimental pilot’s class and was selected to be sent to Randolph Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas for fighter plane training and advanced P-51 training at Williams Field, Arizona. Upon completion of P-51 training he was assigned to the 307th Fighter Squadron stationed at Turner Field, Albany, Georgia. He describes in detail a near fatal incident which occurred while practicing aerobatics. …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with J N O’Keefe. O’Keefe joined the Army Air Forcess in early 1942 and received basic training at Keesler Field. He graduated as a pilot in November 1942 and was stationed at a replacement training detachment when the war ended. He was sent to Japan in 1948, flying P-51s out of Itazuke. While there, he flew over Hiroshima and Nagasaki to see the remnants of the atomic blast. In April 1950 he flew ground support missions in Korea. He returned to the States in December 1950 and received atomic bombardment training at Shaw Field and Langley Field. O’Keefe returned home and was discharged in 1954.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Hugh Shoults. Shoults joined the Army Air Forces in March 1944 and received basic training in Amarillo. Upon completion of radar maintenance school, he trained radar navigators and bombardiers for the invasion of Japan. After the war ended, he worked on the flight line, maintaining radios, until his discharge in June 1946. He was called to active duty during the Korean War as a maintenance officer at Fairchild. In 1951 he began pilot training, and from 1954 to 1957 he flew F-84s in Japan. He was then assigned to a parachute test facility in El Centro. Shoults served in Vietnam as an Air Force liaison officer to the 9th Infantry Division. He returned home in December 1967 and became a missile project supervisor at Vandenberg. He went on to earn a master’s degree in aerospace operations management and retired from the Air Force in June 1972.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Robert Swartz. Swartz joined the Army Air Forces in April 1945 and received basic training at Sheppard Field. He was discharged as an aviation cadet after the war ended and embarked on a civilian career in various technologies, including television, radio, and broadcast equipment. After working as a ground radio operator for American Airlines, he enlisted in the Air Force and graduated as a pilot in September 1949. He was on patrol in Korea on 25 June 1950, when he noticed the mass evacuation of Gimpo. The next day, he began flying close air support missions, with no prior combat training, ultimately flying a total of 141 missions. In 1953 he was stationed in Greenland as part of the first operational fighter squadron north of the Arctic Circle. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was in Germany on high alert, his F-100 equipped with a nuclear weapon and assigned a target. In Vietnam, he led the first successful missions locating and destroying surface-to-air missile (SAM) bases. Swartz returned to the States as an F-100 instructor and retired in 1968.

Transcript of an oral interview with Lloyd Dane Handschy. Handschy went to high school and college with John Glenn in New Concord, Ohio. They learned to fly together. Handschy joined the Marine Corps and went to pilot training at Pensacola. When he finished there, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and continued training in single engine aircraft. When he went overseas in 1943, he was assigned to VMF-213 and they went to the Solomon Islands. He describes aerial combat versus Japanese pilots. After the war, Handschy stayed i nthe Reserves and was called back for the Korean War, where he flew observation planes spotting for artillery units. On several occasions, Mrs. Handschy provides a lot of details. Handschy recalls flying Jack Benny, the entertainer, around so Benny could see the front lines.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Charles Covill Schneider. " " In February 1943, he began his ground education. By the time he earned his wings, he had witnessed several fatal crashes, prompting him to become a churchgoer. In August 1944 he narrowly qualified for carrier landings in an SBD. He then volunteered for night training in Corsairs. Flying at night over tremendous ocean swells during his training was terrifying. He made his first high-altitude flights in Hawaii off of the USS Saratoga (CV-3), making an emergency landing when a section of cowl broke off and punctured his canopy. When he deployed to Saipan in July 1945, he was met with the sobering sight of human remains in caves that had been burned out by flamethrowers. Schneider returned home and was discharged soon after.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Frank Nash. Nash joined the Army Air Forces in the fall of 1942. He received his wings in April of 1944, and was assigned to the 433rd Troop Carrier Group, 67th Troop Carrier Squadron. Operating primarily in the Southwest Pacific, they transported in supplies and evacuated wounded personnel during numerous campaigns. Nash recalls traveling to Luzon, Okinawa and assisting with the liberation of POWs from Manila and the Bataan survivors. After the war, he served with the occupation forces in Japan. He was discharged in the spring of 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Clarence Wolgemuth. Wolgemuth joined the Army Air Forces in September 1942 and received basic training at Fort Meade. He received flight training in California and Arizona. He was sent to Port Moresby in April 1944 and crash landed in a jungle while on a training mission there. Natives took him in until he was rescued by his unit four days later. While there, he contracted malaria, experiencing his first symptoms several months later. Upon completion of his training, he was assigned to the 80th Fighter Squadron. He participated in 108 combat missions throughout the Pacific, both escorting B-17s and dropping bombs out of his P-38. On the night of 26 December 1944, Wolgemuth was one of 70 pilots sent on an impromptu strafing mission after a Japanese naval force was sighted off Mindoro. During the Battle of Manila, he dropped napalm to drive the Japanese out of the mountains. By the end of the war he had a total of 650 flying hours. His longest flight was over 8 hours, which was made possible after Charles Lindbergh came and gave demonstrations on maximizing the range of the P-38. …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with James Mooney. Mooney received his Navy wings at Pensacola, Florida in October of 1943. He went aboard the USS Ranger (CV-4) and was sent to the South Pacific as a replacement pilot. He was then sent to Guadalcanal where he performed escort missions for C-47 Air Force planes up through the Solomon Islands and Admiralties. He was sent back to Pearl Harbor to become indoctrinated in the Hellcat at the Naval Air Station at Berbers Point. In September of 1944 he was assigned to the USS Essex (CV-9). His first combat was in the Philippines, in the Rescue Combat Air Patrol. He provides details of his flying missions to attack Japanese aircraft on airfields and Japanese destroyers in Manila Harbor. He participated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October of 1944. He provides details of the planes that he flew during his missions. He was discharged around the summer of 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with William Maddux. Maddux joined the Navy in December 1942. He was sent to the USS Argonne (AS-10). Maddux describes his role as a deck seaman, coxswain, and boatswain’s mate. He also details the capabilities of the ship as well as the repair and supply work that it performed. Maddox describes the fatal explosion that occurred aboard the USS Mount Hood (AE-11) and how he was blown over the side of his own ship which was anchored 100 yards away. He mentions that 1,300 pounds of metal from the Mount Hood was recovered on the Argonne and finding a shell-shocked survivor clinging to a buoy two days later. Maddux describes how his ship converted PT boats from torpedo boats to gun boats and describes test driving one. He left the service in January 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Clarence Wolgemuth. Wolgemuth joined the Army Air Forces in September 1942 and received basic training at Fort Meade. He received flight training in California and Arizona. He was sent to Port Moresby in April 1944 and crash landed in a jungle while on a training mission there. Natives took him in until he was rescued by his unit four days later. While there, he contracted malaria, experiencing his first symptoms several months later. Upon completion of his training, he was assigned to the 80th Fighter Squadron. He participated in 108 combat missions throughout the Pacific, both escorting B-17s and dropping bombs out of his P-38. On the night of 26 December 1944, Wolgemuth was one of 70 pilots sent on an impromptu strafing mission after a Japanese naval force was sighted off Mindoro. During the Battle of Manila, he dropped napalm to drive the Japanese out of the mountains. By the end of the war he had a total of 650 flying hours. His longest flight was over 8 hours, which was made possible after Charles Lindbergh came and gave demonstrations on maximizing the range of the P-38. …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Jerry Mason. Mason joined the Army Air Forces in December 1942 and received basic training in Lincoln, Nebraska. He played reveille during training, which helped distinguish him from the other recruits and secure him a spot in fighter pilot training. After learning to fly the P-38 and P-39, he was sent to New Guinea and the Philippines, where he flew as Cy Homer’s wingman in the 80th Fighter Squadron, the Headhunters. He was shot down over Formosa and narrowly escaped drowning by deploying his inflatable raft, which was tied to his belt and pulled him to the surface. The next morning, he was rescued by a PBM Mariner. When the war ended, Mason served as an engineering officer in Manila, where he was ordered to set fire to L-1s once they were replaced with L-5s. Mason returned home and attended veterinarian school on the GI Bill; he went on to become base veterinarian at Elmendorf.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Glenn Hope. Hope joined the Army Air Forces in 1941 and received flight training in Texas and Oklahoma in PT-19s and AT-6s. Upon completion, he was assigned to a P-40 squadron on Oahu. He was transferred to Port Moresby with the 80th Fighter Squadron, flying P-39s. The only advantage they had over Zeros was horsepower, so when Hope later became a flight instructor he taught pilots evasive maneuvers consisting of shallow dives and shallow climbs. His squadron received new P-38s, which Hope once pushed to 550 miles per hour while being pursued by a Zero. He shot down three Japanese planes in aerial combat, and is credited with one victory, which was confirmed by troops on the ground. He was sent back to the States to train pilots, producing triple-ace Robin Olds.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Jim Davenport. Davenport was born 3 March 1925 in San Antonio, Texas. Graduating from high school in 1942, he joined the US Army Air Forces in September 1943 and received his basic training at Amarillo, Texas. After basic training he was sent to Iowa State Teacher College for three months to improve his skills in mathematics and sciences in preparation for entry into the Cadet program. Upon completion of pre-flight training at Santa Anna, California he elected to enter navigator school at Ellington Field in Baytown, Texas. Upon graduation he was sent to Lincoln, Nebraska and assigned to a B-24 crew as navigator. Davenport went to Mountain Home, Idaho for crew training and described observing a devastating crash of a B-24. Soon thereafter, he volunteered for an experimental pilot’s class and was selected to be sent to Randolph Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas for fighter plane training and advanced P-51 training at Williams Field, Arizona. Upon completion of P-51 training he was assigned to the 307th Fighter Squadron stationed at Turner Field, Albany, Georgia. He describes in detail a near fatal incident which occurred while practicing aerobatics. …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with J N O’Keefe. O’Keefe joined the Army Air Forcess in early 1942 and received basic training at Keesler Field. He graduated as a pilot in November 1942 and was stationed at a replacement training detachment when the war ended. He was sent to Japan in 1948, flying P-51s out of Itazuke. While there, he flew over Hiroshima and Nagasaki to see the remnants of the atomic blast. In April 1950 he flew ground support missions in Korea. He returned to the States in December 1950 and received atomic bombardment training at Shaw Field and Langley Field. O’Keefe returned home and was discharged in 1954.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Hugh Shoults. Shoults joined the Army Air Forces in March 1944 and received basic training in Amarillo. Upon completion of radar maintenance school, he trained radar navigators and bombardiers for the invasion of Japan. After the war ended, he worked on the flight line, maintaining radios, until his discharge in June 1946. He was called to active duty during the Korean War as a maintenance officer at Fairchild. In 1951 he began pilot training, and from 1954 to 1957 he flew F-84s in Japan. He was then assigned to a parachute test facility in El Centro. Shoults served in Vietnam as an Air Force liaison officer to the 9th Infantry Division. He returned home in December 1967 and became a missile project supervisor at Vandenberg. He went on to earn a master’s degree in aerospace operations management and retired from the Air Force in June 1972.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Robert Swartz. Swartz joined the Army Air Forces in April 1945 and received basic training at Sheppard Field. He was discharged as an aviation cadet after the war ended and embarked on a civilian career in various technologies, including television, radio, and broadcast equipment. After working as a ground radio operator for American Airlines, he enlisted in the Air Force and graduated as a pilot in September 1949. He was on patrol in Korea on 25 June 1950, when he noticed the mass evacuation of Gimpo. The next day, he began flying close air support missions, with no prior combat training, ultimately flying a total of 141 missions. In 1953 he was stationed in Greenland as part of the first operational fighter squadron north of the Arctic Circle. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was in Germany on high alert, his F-100 equipped with a nuclear weapon and assigned a target. In Vietnam, he led the first successful missions locating and destroying surface-to-air missile (SAM) bases. Swartz returned to the States as an F-100 instructor and retired in 1968.

Transcript of an oral interview with Lloyd Dane Handschy. Handschy went to high school and college with John Glenn in New Concord, Ohio. They learned to fly together. Handschy joined the Marine Corps and went to pilot training at Pensacola. When he finished there, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and continued training in single engine aircraft. When he went overseas in 1943, he was assigned to VMF-213 and they went to the Solomon Islands. He describes aerial combat versus Japanese pilots. After the war, Handschy stayed i nthe Reserves and was called back for the Korean War, where he flew observation planes spotting for artillery units. On several occasions, Mrs. Handschy provides a lot of details. Handschy recalls flying Jack Benny, the entertainer, around so Benny could see the front lines.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Charles Covill Schneider. " " In February 1943, he began his ground education. By the time he earned his wings, he had witnessed several fatal crashes, prompting him to become a churchgoer. In August 1944 he narrowly qualified for carrier landings in an SBD. He then volunteered for night training in Corsairs. Flying at night over tremendous ocean swells during his training was terrifying. He made his first high-altitude flights in Hawaii off of the USS Saratoga (CV-3), making an emergency landing when a section of cowl broke off and punctured his canopy. When he deployed to Saipan in July 1945, he was met with the sobering sight of human remains in caves that had been burned out by flamethrowers. Schneider returned home and was discharged soon after.