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At the university Richard was in civilian pilot training and at the end of training was required to enlist in the Army or Navy. Richard chose the Army Air Force because he had friends going there. Primary flight training at Arcadia, Florida then to Atlanta, Georgia for basic training. Richard did not do very well with stalls and washed out of pilot training and was reclassified as radio operator / gunner. Went to radio school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota for six months. Then went to Las Vegas, Nevada for gunnery training in B-17 flying fortresses. Richard was however assigned to B-25 Mitchell’s in Greenville, South Carolina for several months. He was assigned to a crew and soon his crew and five other crews were put on a Pullman train to California. Did training at Kanahooka Point until the Army needed replacement crews. Then they were called to go to the Gilbert Islands but not for long as the battles in that area were winding down. The B-25 Mitchell’s were recalled to Hawaii to take the 75MM cannon out of the nose since it was not accurate, then the B-25 was fitted with six 50 caliber machines guns in the nose. Then went to Okinawa and bombed southern Japan at low level.
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As a gunner Richard never shot down any planes but once on a low level mission shot up a locomotive which exploded and the plane took some bullet holes.
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Closest call was on Richard’s second to last mission doing a low level run taking a lot of fire, the plane was so low to avoid fire it took out the top of a pine tree on the nose but kept on flying.
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Richard most memorable experience was flying out over the Pacific, it was so awesome and so vast that he would fly for hours and see nothing but water. He was more freighted of the Pacific Ocean than he was of the enemy.
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Flew 17 missions in the B-25.
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