Oral History Interview with Richard Bennett, November 15, 2001 transcript

Oral History Interview with Richard Bennett, November 15, 2001

Interview with Richard (Dick) Bennett, a pilot during World War II. He discusses his enlistment in the Army Air Corps, basic training and flight school. He then went to a base in South Carolina to learn to fly B-25s. At Fort Myers, Florida he flew B-26 bombers and trained to fly them off of aircraft carriers so they could drop torpedos on the Japanese fleet during naval battles. He traveled across the Pacific to Brisbane only to be told that they didn't have B-26s for the crews; the colonel there knew nothing about the plan to launch B-26s from aircraft carriers, so they were sent to New Guinea to fly B-17s and supplement the crews for those bombers. From there they made bombing runs or "Washing Machine Charlie"-type runs to keep people awake at night on various Japanese targets in the islands, particularly the base at Rabaul. In fall of 1943, the Army grounded the B-17s due to the damage they had incurred and replaced them with B-24s. The men received manuals and were given only a few days to familiarize themselves with the new planes. They were then sent on bombing runs. He finished his tour of duty at …
Date: November 15, 2001
Creator: Cox, Floyd & Bennett, Richard
Object Type: Sound
System: The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with W. W. Salmon, November 19, 1971 (open access)

Oral History Interview with W. W. Salmon, November 19, 1971

Interview with W. W. Salmon, an employee of the Home Owners' Loan Association from Denton, Texas, and Martin Edwards, also an HOLA employee, from South Carolina. Salmon and Edwards worked in the HOLA Dallas Regional Office during the Great Depression. They discuss the effect of the depression on Dallas, their opinions of Franklin Roosevelt, the beginnings of the HOLA, its operations and management, and their opinions on its impact.
Date: November 19, 1971
Creator: Marcello, Ronald E. & Salmon, W. W.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library