Concert Band performance at the UNT College of Music Winspear Performance Hall.

Concert presented at the UNT College of Music Winspear Performance Hall.

Concert presented at the UNT College of Music Winspear Performance Hall.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Robert H. Gayle. Gayle joined the Army in 1943 and had basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Not wishing to be a tanker, Gayle applied for the Army Air Force and was accepted. He trained as gunner and was assigned to a B-17 crew. He was assigned to the 2nd Bomb Group in the 15th Air Force at Foggia, Italy in September, 1944. He describes some of his early missions where the crew had to ditch in the Adriatic and were rescued; a mid-air collision in which he was involved; being shot up by antiaircraft fire and having to bail out over Austria. After parachuting into a snowfield, Gayle was captured by Hungarian troops and made a prisoner of war in February, 1945. The Hungarians turned him over to the Germans in Vienna. The Germans eventually moved him to Moosberg. He was liberated by elements of Patton's Third Army in late April. Upon being transported back to France, General Eisenhower visited the former POWs. He returned home and was reunited with family.