The B25 bomber - Doolittle's Raid

I saw a short clip tonight about the Jimmy Doolittle raid on Tokyo on ABC news.
This brought back many memories about my years in the Army Airforce and later in the Airforce when it was made a separate branch of service.
My brother Bill and I enlisted in the Airforce in early January of 1942 at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas. It took us several days to get accepted since we were both under 21 our father had to give his permission, which he did via telegram.
We both wanted to be pilots but were not able to get into that (didn`t pass the eye test) so I went into aviation mechanics and Bill into gunnery school. We were both accepted on the same day and our service numbers were separated by one digit, his last two numbers being 17 and mine 19.
We stayed in San Antonio for several days getting shots and physicals, plus what little basic training we received, which amounted to about 9 days for me. We were both shipped out to our respective training schools and never saw each other again until after the war was over and we were discharged from the service. Our younger brother Gene enlisted in the marines a year later when he turned 18. He served in the Paciic theater in some of the big battles and made it through without injury.
I was sent to Wichita Falls, TX where they had just opened a new tech school for Mechanics and radio-electronics. As I remember the school was 30 weeks long with 1 week for each segment, I was in the 3rd class to go through there, but half way through I was in town on pass one night and the M.P.s came through town and told everyone to return to base leading us all to think that something tragic had happened. Al the members of the class I was in and the one after were pulled out and shipped to California (later found out it was a typo error, they really wanted to ship out the next class to graduate and the one just behind it). I ended up in Santa Monica, California where we were billeted in some old hotels right on the beach which had been closed due to the depression. We spent several days helping to put cots in the rooms and getting things such as plumbing etc. working so we could live there. The hotel I was in was right on the beach just south of muscle beach. This was in early spring but in several days the beaches were teaming with pretty girls and that year the summer season started early.
I was taken by military truck each day to the North American Aviation factory where they manufactured the B25 Billy Mitchell bomber to take classes on the maintenance of these bombers.
After 12 weeks of intensive training there I was shipped by troop train all the way across the US to Columbia, SC (about 5 days) where Jimmy Doolitle and his outfit trained for the mission to bomb Tokyo.
I was automatically made a crew chief due to the training I recieved and early on there were not enough flight engineers so I did that also. There are several interesting events that happened which I want to write about so will do these a little later and post then.
Regards,
Eddie

 

Mr Graham, may i be amongst the first to welcome you to the Forum. It is a pleasure and an Honour to have a true vet here. I am sure you will find many willing listerners to your accounts, and will no doubt be bombarded with questions. We are a friendly bunch with a great deal of respect for for those of your era.

Enjoy your time here, and thank you.

 

Hello Mr. Graham,

Also from this corner of the world welcome! I really enjoyed reading your post here and hope for many more. It is always a thrill to read about events of the war by those who were there. Thank you for taking the trouble, it is really appreciated!

 

I am very impressed to "meet" a real veteran, welcome aboard! I am sure all of us here will be hanging on your typing fingers if you tell us the odd story every now and then!

 

Mr. Graham: if you dont mind me saying so-- there are similiarities with your enlisting in the Air Corps as was with my father. He also enlisted at Kelly in San Antonio--I dont have date info or much of anything on him till late 44 or early 1945--when he was with the 8th Air Force in Europe. I do remember about him talking about being in the air over Russia and Germany, and having spent much time somewhere in England. After the war--he was transferred to the 5th Air Force and went to Japan--and spent a year or so in Korea with a weather detachment.

I am very glad for you to be a part of these forums and do hope to see you here often--welcome aboard.

By the way: Bish is in the British Army, and Andreas was in the German Army. There are others here too who served.

Take care sir, and hope to be able to talk to you soon--sincerely yours-Carl Evans. PS, im not too far away from you in Corpus Christi.

 

Eddie :

Thanks for the clip down memory lane......please keep us informed on what it was like back then for us "kids" ! We all need to know.

blue skies !

E

 

Erich--glad to see you made it to this topic.

 

Welcome Mr. Graham...We really need you on this fourm Sir. These are a fine bunch of fellows with a real lust for history. We could learn much from you. You know, stuff like the girls laying around on the beach...no...no...I ment the cotton pickin airplane....No kidding, I hope you will enjoy this fourm as much as I have. Ive only been a member for a couple of mo. but Iv'e enjoyed every min.Hope to here the rest of your exsperances soon.

 

It's an honor to meet a vet. I've never met one until now.