Long story short, the draft board kept me out of high school- or out of the service, so I could finish my last senior year of high school. In the meantime, in comes one of the boys from two years prior to that, he joined the Army Air Force, came back as a second lieutenant and a pilot. And as he came home for a funeral, no, for a vacation, let's put it that way. Furlough.
Furlough, right.
And then he was asked to see if he could get boys in the senior class to sign up to be pilots in the Army Air Force.
Right.
Okay. So I and about four others, we signed up. And my mother wasn't too happy about that. She said to my father, he was called Joe. 'Joe, we got two boys in the damn army, now. Don't know where they are, if they're living or dead, and this fool wants to fly in one of those tin cans.' And she held her head and walked out of the dining room. Long story short, my dad and him talked to her and they signed a paper so I could take the test. We had to go down to Michigan Tech to take the test. Out of the five of us, I was the only one that passed to go on from there.
What was the test like?
I forget, now but it was- I wasn't that great of a student, but I passed it all and the other four didn't.
Was it a written test then?
Yeah, okay. Anyway. As things went on, then they had me take more tests at Truax Field in Madison, Wisconsin.
How did you, how did you get there?
By the Greyhound bus.
Okay.
They'd give me tickets, and some money for food on the way down to Madison. I'd leave here on, on the Friday night the bus would go around nine o'clock. And then I'd stay there and more tests at being a pilot, and I, it, it- concerned a whole thing. Let's put it that way. Anyway, then I take that bus from Madison, to Calumet. And I'd get into Calumet, Monday morning and I'd go to high school again. Now, that went on for quite a few months. But then after I graduated the head one of the draft board. Just seen me over here because the post office was here before it was there. And he said what are you doing? I said, 'Well, Elmer, picking up the mail.' 'No, no, no,' he said, 'You're enlisting in the Air Force.' I says, 'Yeah.' 'Oh, no, no,' he said, 'We won't get credit for that. Because we left you get out of the service, we deferred you. And now you're going to enlist into the Air Force and they won't get credit. So we're gonna see that you do not join the Air Force. You're when I have to go into drafting.' A week or so after a letter came in to my home. And I and quite a few others were going to leave by Greyhound bus from down the corner here. And we would go to Marquette at the old palaestra to be, a physical. You'd either come out of there 1A or 4F. 4F you were you weren't eligible for the service anymore. So I goes down to there and we were all coming back home that- when everybody's to at Marquette, we'd be coming home. I went down there, got 1A and as I was going down to the line, the next one said go down to see that sergeant at the next desk there and I went down to see him and he says '1A, good. You're going to-" I'm trying to think of the Air Force Base in- It's in Wichita Falls, Texas. I'll get back to that pretty quick. But I said, 'When is that going to happen?' And he says, 'This evening, you're going on the train to Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Illinois. They'll give you money in tickets to get into Sheppard Field, Texas.' I says, 'Wow. We were supposed to go home.' 'No,' I said, 'We're all going home.' He said, 'Sonny. Right now you take "no" out of your vocabulary. From now it's always, "Yes, sir."' I said 'Yes, sir.' Now, in those days, I haven't been around too much. Well, I hadn't been out of Michigan. Might have went to St. Paul, Minnesota because we had an aunt there. So I'm stuck in going to Wichita Falls, Texas Sheppard Field. And I- phones weren't that popular at that time. This is in 1944.
Okay.
So as I was going to the line, there was another contingent going from Calumet, and my uncle happened to be into that one. I said, 'Uncle Joe,' I said, 'When you get home, you go down to my mother and dad's and tell them that I won't be coming home. 'Oh,' he said, 'What are you going to do, skip?' I said, 'No,' I said, 'I got to go to Sheppard Field, Texas. 'No no no, when?' he said to me, they said, 'No, no, no, we're all going home.' I said, 'See that big sergeant over there? Go tell him I'm not going there, he'll tell you something.' Long story short, I went down to Sheppard Field, Texas. Started in a basic training. I was in the ROTC in Calumet for quite a while, well, as long as I was in high school. So I didn't have to take more of the basic training, where a lot of them had to. So they pushed me through that in no time at all. And I started to study ground study but to be a pilot. Long story short, my brother happened to be there also. He came out of Iceland, and he was going to be a radio operator on a B-29. Seen him a few times there. But then it came out that if any of you- he was in a different system on the base, but us that were studying to be pilots, it came out at a briefing that if any of you haven't completed two years of college, you might as well drop out right now. Cuz you'll never make it further down the line. Some of you that got two years of college won't make it, but we'll get you into good- a good position. They were going to- not only were, they did put me into a control tower operator for the Air Force, sent me to Scott Field, Illinois. That's across the river from St. Louis. And the first thing I had to do was learn SOS- not SOS, it's the system where it'd come over dot dot dash, dash-
Morse code.
Morse code. Yes. And got through that pretty good. Pretty soon I get a letter saying if you want to fly, you can still fly but as- we need tail gunners on B-24's. So I thought 'Well, I'll sign up for that, too.' Heh. So long story short, I did most of my traveling by myself. They'd give me money, tickets, or per diem stuff and 'cause you ate on the train if it was a few days, right? And I ended up in, in Tyndall Field, Florida, Panama City, Florida. And I got to be a tail gunner. Got to be a tail gunner on a B-24. Now they gave me a delay-in-route from Florida to California, a base in California. A delay-in-route is you've got so many days to make it from here to there. Do what you want, but you better, on that, that next base you better be there, which I did.
You did a lot of, a lot of traveling there. Covered a lot of ground.
For an 18 year old. Yeah. Anyway, so I got over there and got put onto a crew, which wasn't much- pilot wasn't much. And I hate to say it but, about our third mission as a crew, maybe the fourth, we agreed that our pilot wasn't too good. In the meantime, when we'd go to a briefing, there was an old pilot there. Well, he's only- he happened to be 10 years older than me, let's put it that way. So they know they- well even now he's ten years older. But in those days his, his jacket leather jacket was scarred up, ours were brand and they smelled for leather, new leather and as things are going on, we say 'Boy, wish we had him for pilot because he'd clue others in when they had the briefing on what to do with the B-24. He was an instructor for for four years. Prior to that getting into the service, he was a professor in Iowa. Well, on about the third- we'd have to go out on missions. And about the third one- on a mission we'd actually go by camera and instead of dropping bombs, we, he'd have to take a picture when you press the button and it would show him where he bombed. Then we had P-51 coming in pursuit planes flying like the Germans or Japanese would be flying at us. Instead of the guns operating, they'd put cameras there so that you would be firing at the plane coming at you but by camera. You'd be judged, scored by your camera, and pretty soon you say, 'Well they're all through. Oh, tail, the pursuit pilot would like to have more film of you shooting at him.' Because he was going to get scored on that also. And he said 'How much film do we have?' They came in little canisters. Anyway, I said 'Well, not too much.' 'Well, the engineer will bring you back some more.' So he brought me back some more film. Now my doors on my turret, they're curved like the turret is.
Okay.
So then, he had enough film on, I had enough film on him. And he said he's finished. The pilot told me, 'You can get out of your turret now.' And we couldn't ride the turret down. None of the turrets, you could not write them down.
For landing, you mean?
Anyway you didn't ask questions you did what they were- what you were told. But when it came time for me to get out, I couldn't open my doors. And I- 'Sir,' I said, 'I can't open my doors.' 'What's a matter?' 'They just won't open.' He told the crew more or less, I don't know if he remembered he was on the, the system or not, but, 'Well, what kind of a tail turret gunner do we have? He can't even get out of his turret.' I said 'Sir, I wish you were as good of a tail gunner as I am, and wish you were just as good as a pilot as I am.' That didn't fit too good with him, started to stutter. Long story short, I was in my turret, I couldn't get out of it. He said 'Well, you're going to have to land in the turret,' which didn't bother me. And we came down soon as we got close to the base, they informed him that he'd have to make touch and blow- touch and go landings. You know what they are? You come down, you touch and you go, and just- you land you take off. And we made- he said there's a crosswind, but everybody else is doing okay. So start doing it. Which he did. I think about the third or fourth landing, ah, all hell broke loose. It happened in seconds. We land- crashed on the ground. And by that time, everything goes. The telephone communications in the plane. And I'm sitting in that turret and I can smell smoke, acrid smoke. And it happened that we landed into the, where the runways cross. So they had to get us off of there as quick as they could. So I kept hollering that I was in that tail turret. And nothing was happening. Now for backups in that turrett, there's two cranks. If your power or your hydraulic go out, we had electric and hydraulic running that turret. And you had a yoke. And that would this, and the guns would come up. In if that went haywire. You had two cranks that you put on side of the turret. One would swing the turret around, the other one would lift the guns up and down. You had foot controls, one would fire the guns. Manually. One would actuate the microphone. We had throat mics. So I'm hollering in there, nothing's happening. That's when my SOS came in. Start, took one of the cranks and start to bang it on the side of the turret. SOS is. (bangs out SOS in Morse code on the table) That's SOS.
Right.
Somebody on the ground heard that, knew what it was. They hoisted a person up and he looked into my turret and I see this person, and ho boy. (indistinct) Know, I'm in there. Okay. But they had a drag the fuselage. It actually broke in two. The '24, back of the bomb bay would break off before anything else. And I was the only one in that back. Otherwise, there would have been the ball turret, and I would be the only ones in the back there. It broke off there, and I was the only one who came out of it.
Now in those days, two wars going on, they didn't monkey around too long. They took me to the infirmary. They used to call that the hospital, I guess. And I checked, okay. I was in heavy flying suit, the thick sheepskin. And there's not any room to move around in that turret. You slide yourself in, feet first, and then close your doors and you're in like a coccoon there. So I didn't bounce around too much. I didn't get hurt. They had a interview. I'm gonna call it an interview, but that isn't it. The word, some of the words I'm missing now. But there was a full colonel. He was like the judge. They had appointed me with a captain. And we had, like, to see what happened to the accident. And it came for me to answer the question from the colonel. 'What do you think happened that caused the accident?' I shouldn't have said it. But I said, 'We had a dumb ass pilot.' He hit down on the desk but a big ashtray. 'The Air Force does not produce dumb ass pilots. This meeting will be adjourn for 15 minutes. Captain take him into the backroom.' The captain took me in the backroom and he said, 'You see the colonel wasn't too happy.' (indistinct) He said, 'Can you change your story?' I said, 'You mean not to tell the truth?' Yeh, put it kind of blunty, but I said I could. Well just say there was something wrong with the plane. I said, 'Okay, I can say the left landing gear collapsed and put us in a spin and that's how we crashed. So that's how it went. He told the captain, 'Take the tail gunner into the BOQ, the Air BOQ, but put him in a special, in a separate room and he does not go out on the base unless he's with you. So I ended up in a BOQ's base officers quarters. We were in base officers quarters, do you know what I mean? We were enlisted men. And he, the captain said, 'Somebody is going to pick you up.' I said, 'What?' 'No, some some crews gonna grab you pretty quick.' Well, long story short, it did. Remember when I said the old pilot with the leather jacket? William P. Happ. He came in there and I was in the bunk going, reading, they gave me magazines to read I was reading. And he comes, I stood up to the, attention. 'Enrietti? Tail gunner?' Yeah he said. I said, 'Yes.' 'We're looking for a good one, how good are you?' I said, 'Just as good as the rest, maybe better.' He said, 'That's what I'm looking for. We'd like to have you on our crew.' And I said, 'I'd like to be on your crew also.' Immediately they put me into the barracks with the rest of the crew. And that's the way it went. We went down to Tonopah, Nevada as a crew and graduated. Everybody, uh, we were top of the class. One thing. Top of the class. Anybody, I forget how many. There was like a squadron, quite a few B-24 crews that were training more or less together because we'd more or less go over, once in a while, as as a squadron, like we do if you went to war bombing. So the top three crews are going to get three days off and we were the top crew. So we got three days off.
What did you do with the time?
Four of us got a person in town to drive us to Reno.
All right.
Now, that's close to California. So we hoop-dee-doo'd there. And when you'd hitchhike, though, you'd break off in twos, because most cars couldn't fit four people. So as twos, we were coming back, got into the area was late at night, signed-in and pretty soon I can see there's an emergency telegram for Enrietti. It's at the Red Cross officer- office. And I told a person that was taking in our registrations. He said, 'Yeah, they've been looking for you today.' Anyway, I said, 'Boy, I'd like to see that emergency telegram.' He said, 'Well, it's kinda late. I'll call the officer of the day.' Cuz he's in charge like in the nights, officer of the day. There's one of them appointed, not as regular job but he'd be the officer of the day, if something happened like this or anything else. He'd come there. So, he came to the barracks that I was signing in, or it was a squadron headquarters that I was signing in, and he says a little 2nd lieutenant came there and an MP. They came there and I told him the problem. 'Whoa,' he said, 'We'll go down to the Red Cross Office and get your telegram.' So went down there and my grandmother had died. They wanted me home for the funeral. Now on those days, you were lucky if you got home if your parents died, especially being that far away. But the little 2nd lieutenant, he said oh, the Red Cross officers, said, 'We'd have to wake up the, the, there's a squadron headquarters. Let's put it that way. But he says kind of late in the red or the little 2nd lieutenant said in emergency, the officer of the day can sign emergency furloughs. Oh, you can? He says, 'Yep.' 'You've got the papers?' He said, 'Yes.' He starts filling out things, the papers and I didn't realize that I was in Michigan, but another 600 miles north. So he was giving me so many days off. I said, 'Well, I'd never make it that far.' So they increased it so I'd have enough time. I go by train to Chicago. From Chicago, you go by train up to here. So all that's going good. I got my papers, $200 from the Air- from the Red Cross Officer, on a loan, I had to pay that back. And he, the officer told the MP to bring him back to the office and to bring me to my barracks and get my travel bags all packed up and ready and go and then you bring him into Tonopah to get the bus to the train, that was coming in there to Salt Lake City. So I come into the barracks, he turns on the lights and you're not supposed to have lights on after nine o'clock and everybody's hollering, 'Shut those damn lights off or we'll be written up!' And pretty soon they notice that the MP with me. 'Enrietti, what the hell did you do the MPs got you?' 'Got an emergency furlough.' 'Oh, mother or dad?' I said, 'my grandma.' 'Oh, you don't, you don't get an emergency furlough for mothers- or grandmas, lucky you get one for your parents.' I said, 'Shut up. I'm going.' So I went and got my bags packed, and with the MP, he's taken me into town to the bus station in Tonopah. And while we're traveling along, he says, 'Flyboy, he says I hate to bust your bubble, but I don't know if you know it or not, but not- there's no money that I- nobody that I know, that got an emergency furlough for a grandmother or grandfather dying. Very few got it for the parents dying.' But he said. 'I hate to burst your bubble,' he said, 'but when you get in Salt Lake City, there's going to be an MP there. Or the sheriff if we don't have MPs there, and they're going to get you and they're going to take your emergency furlough, and they're going to tear it up. And they're going to give you another one to get back to the base.' He said, 'I shouldn't tell you this,' but he says, 'My job is to get you to Tonopah to the bus station, and that's what I'm going to do.' But he said 'Don't tell anybody but take my advice and don't take that bus.' 'What am I going-' He says, 'Your finger, hitchhike. Take a cab out to the main highway, hitchhike.' Which I did. Now this is still in the nighttime. Getting close to morning. But the first ride I got was- I took a cab from there to the main highway outside of Tonopah. Start hitchhiking and a big 18-wheeler stopped and picked me up. 'Where you going?' I said, 'To Chicago.' He said, 'I'm not going to Chicago. But from when you get to the next intersection, that's where I got to turned off, but he said, 'You're going to get a lot more traffic there.' Long story short, I got a ride from- it happened to be a doctor with a- those days they made cars painted up pretty good. It was in a Packard, four-door Packard and he was a doctor and he stopped me. He asked me where I was going. He said, 'Emergency furlough?' Yes. And I said I got to get to Chicago to get the train up to Northern Michigan. 'Whoa,' he says, 'Oh, by the way, can you show me your emergency furlough papers?' In my pocket.
Sharp guy.
He said, 'We're on our way.' He said, 'I gotta go to- I'm going to Chicago for more schooling.' I'm putting it bluntly, "schooling" but he was a doctor, so it was- just more training. And he said as we're driving along, he said, 'You've been up for quite a while?' I says Yep. 'Can you drive?' I said yes sir. He said, 'Do you have a license?' I said yes sir. Years ago we could get a driver's license at 14. 'Well,' he said, 'You go back there and sleep, when I get tired then, you- we'll keep going, so we get to Chicago in a hurry. We'll only stop for food, the toilet, and gas. One of us will drive the other one was sleep.' Which we did I got to Chicago- before I left barracks, the nose gunner was from Waukegan, Illinois. And he gave me his father's phone number because he had a Kroger's grocery store. So he gave me the home phone and the Kroger store number. And as I was going into- there's two stations in, in Chicago, Union Depot and LaSalle Street Station. I had to get the Union Station. So he drops me off, and I start walking into the Union Station and guess what I see? Two MPs that were standing quite away from me, but I thought, 'Oh, maybe they got the news, because they know I'm gonna have to get this train up to-'. I thought, 'oh, boy.' I got, I was by a telephone booth. And I had enough change- always keep enough change so you can use the telephone. And I call Kennedy's father in Waukegan. He was at the store, told him my problem. He said, 'Bob says you're going to be on your way up. You're getting emergency furlough for your grandmother. I said, 'Yep.' And I told him about the MPs, he said, 'Well, take the elevated train up to Waukegan and I will meet that there. When you get there, you call me.' Now the elevated train out of Chicago, it was elevated, by the... And I got up there and he said, 'I've been checking.' He said, 'They might catch you in in Milwaukee because that's an important railroad depot that they know you have to go through.' He said, 'There's a small train that goes up to Ontonagon, and there's a train from Houghton- Copper Range train that meets that in McKeever.'
Okay.
He said, 'So, if I were you, I got it all set. That I can get tickets and we'd get you on that train. You will miss the one going Milwaukee that- you will miss that one that goes up to to Houghton- to Calumet. I said okay, so that's what I did. Took that train up that was going up to Ontonagon. Got to McKeever and there's a little train with a steam engine and that meets us there. It was half baggage car and half- people. And we got into Houghton. Now, I'm going through there in the middle of winter. No, not the middle. But I think it was still January. And I had a girlfriend in Houghton. My parents called her to meet me down in Houghton that I should take the bus from Houghton to Calumet. And they will meet me at Calumet to take me to Mohawk. That's what they did.
How many days did this trip take?
I've been trying to remember that, but- I wasn't home too long. But when I got here, I told the- I brought my papers up to the train master in Calumet. I said, could you fix me up with tickets to get back to California on this date? And he says, 'Sure, I'll get them all fixed for you. And you'll come up and then you'll pay me and I'll get you the tickets and you'll be at that base on time.' So that's what I did. But I forget the amount of days they gave me. In the meantime, the pilot had a telegram. A lot of it from far away was done by telegrams. And they got it into my home. And he said, 'Let me know if Joe gets there.' Because they're taking bets that I'm not gonna make it. When I got home then I- by telegram I notified him. And he telegrams me- we had quite a few going in between he says, 'Please get back on the date that you're supposed to because we'll be leaving for overseas-' I forget how many days after that. Which I did, and which we did. We left for England.
Did you have to do anything special on the way back or was that just a matter of getting on the train?
Getting on the train went to Chicago and took- at that time a train going to Chicago, I still think they're named with a fancy name. North route, center route, and the southern route. And I got on that train and- Oh, Horace Heidt was on that train. He's a bandleader. Years ago. Horace Heidt. And his crew was on there. So they would be playing music as they could, between the cars. Anyway, I got back there on time. And when the time came, we all shipped out- the squadron shipped out, we had troop trains, troop cars. And that's the first time I had troop cars.
Before, before we get on to shipping out of the country, I want to ask you a couple of these other questions just so that we cover a few of those details. So, do you remember anything about your instructors that were teaching you?
Ah, the one that really taught me as I was there. He said, 'Listen to me. You listen to what I tell you. If you want to get home, back home, you listen. Very good.' And I never forgot those words. You listened. Well, anybody wants to get home. Out of the war, get what I mean?
Yeah.
And I listened and I want to say I was good. I was pretty good. Germans were good too, but- a little bit better. Anyway, what else did you want to know, then?
Did you receive any promotions during your training?
Did, commission?
Promotions. During your training?
Promotions.
Yeah.
Yes. When I got my wings, I got to be a corporal. Now that's another thing when you get your wings, it's honorable service, I'm looking for a word, that you don't have to go and do this job. What do you call that, when you're- I'm looking for a word.
Other than voluntary?
Voluntary.
Okay, that is the word
That's the one there. And we did- it was all voluntary, you got half your base pay extra for flying.
Okay.
Any other questions before we get on now?
Was- Were there any parts of military life that were difficult, particularly difficult for you to adapt to?
No, they treated us pretty good, I would say. We were treated better than like the infantry or things like that. I don't know. Well, we could quit anytime we wanted to. That's why they gave us half pay. On each promotion you got half again extra. But when we went to New York, we went by ship before that, quite a while before that, when you got to be a crew and you got your training in the states you'd go to one of the places where they built the B-24 and you- they kept your there. They had quarters for the crews. You'd take your new plane and you would- How should I do? Make sure everything worked okay, fly it around. Then you would take that plane and fly it overseas to where you were supposed to be, whatever base you were supposed to be over there. But they were losing a lot of air crews by their first flight overseas. And they decided they could they could lose planes because they could make them up pretty quick. I think they popped out from Detroit a B-24 every eight hours a new B-24 would come out of there. So they shipped us by ship. It was the Île de France. It was a French ship. And when we got on to the Île de France, there was a Queen Mary on the side at at the port, let's put it. In New York, New York there. And those two would run without a convoy. They were fast enough. The B-24s from here would take you so far as their range would go. With bombs and that against the submarines.
Right.
When you got closer to England, theB-24s from there would come out there. Not only that, they had Navy men on the Île de France with depth charges, like barrels that they roll off and then they explode. And we had one incident that we had to get up to our our lifeboats. Didn't drop them down, but we were all set if they did put a hole in our boat, we were in our little tub.
Like did they sight like a submarine or?
Pardon?
Did they cite a submarine or what?
Yeah.
Oh, wow. Okay.
And- but we never seen it. And then we- it took about five or six days to get to England. And the ship was a French- It was owned by France, but it was in England- It was in England in a port when the war broke out. So the English took it over.
Okay.
And they made a troopship out of it, just like they did with the Queen Mary's. And- I don't remember how many it would hold, but there were some paratroopers on there, and they were tough. They liked our 45s
Oh.
We had shoulder 45s. So we were told to make sure you sleep with them under your pillow, because they'd maybe be carousing around and they'd- But the trip, oh, the food- well I wasn't used- I wouldn't be a good Navy man. Because you'd stand in line for food and before you'd know it, somebody was barfing and that was all it took before you-
Oh.
So I lived on, Newt- Fig Newtons and Coke.
Fig Newtons were a thing, huh? I mean, I knew Coke, Coke's around forever
From the ship PX. Well. Kept enough of them that they kept me going and Coke would make- keep me going and half the time I wouldn't even go down to try to get into the mess hall. We landed in- Oh, what's that big port in England? During the night then when I woke up in the morning. Whoa, the shift. Southampton, I think was the name. There were ships all over. Different types of ships. And they had a small ship that we'd get off of and go down like a rope ladder and get into port with that. I think it was Southampton. And then we went to the base at Rackheath, England. And that's where we would- we were there for the rest of the the war. Well, that's how I got over there. Now what?
Well, I think we're good. Let's- let's, let's take a brief break. How about that?
