Dale Koestler

[Beginning of Transcribed Material]

 

D:        Dale Koestler.  Last name is spelled KOESTLER.

I:          Koestler.

D:        Koestler.

I:          And, is that German?
D:        Yeah.

I:          Yeah, yeah. Okay.  What is your birthday, sir?

D:        Eleven, twelve, thirty-three.

 

 

0:00:30

I:          So, you are young, 87.  Very good.  And your face tells that.  Ya, ya.

D:        Yeah.
I:          Where were you born?
D:        Kosuth, KOSUTH, County, Iowa.

I:          Iowa.  I know that place.

 

 

0:01:00

Lots of corn.

D:        Yes.

I:          Yes.

D:        And oats.

I:          Yes.

D:        And soybeans.

I:          Yes. I just had oatmeal this morning for myself.  I love it.

D:        Yeah.

I:          So, Kouth?  How do you pronounce the county name?
D:        Kosuth.

I:          Kosuth.  Is that German also?
D:        It was Hungarian.

I:          Hungarian.

D:        Uh, he was a Hungarian, who

 

0:01:30

was trying to break away from the Austria Hungarians.

I:          Ah.  Empire.

D:        Empire.  And a lot of the people left Hungary at that time to come to the United States.

I:          Good.  So, tell me about your family background when you were growing up in Kosuth County, your father, your mother, your siblings,

 

0:02:00

brother and sisters.

D:        Well, we were farmers.

I:          Yep.

D:        And we had a small farm.  And my grandfather had a larger farm just a mile and a half from where we were at.  And one of my great uncles has written up in the Iowa history

 

0:02:30

about his modern farm.

I:          Um.

D:        He had electricity out on the farm away from everything in the 1920’s.  He put in his own, he had in his basement all these batteries in big glass jars.  They were set down there.  And he had a little windmill on his farm.

 

0:03:00

And his cows, when you brought them in, they could get their nose in a dish, and it would run water into it, and he didn’t have to carry water to them.

I:          Ah. So, did you have animals on your farm?
D:        Oh yes.  We had
I:          What kind?

D:        Well, we had horses.

 

0:03:30

I:          Ah.
D:        We farmed with horses.  We did plowing and cultivating with horses.

I:          Um hm.

D:        And we had the cows, and we would milk them and separated the milk, and we sold 12-gallon, big 12-gallon cans of cream

 

0:04:00

to the creamery.  They came by and picked up two of those every week.

I:          How many cows?

D:        What?
I:          How many cows did you have?
D:        Well, it varied.  But 12 to 15.

I:          Fifteen.

D:        We’d be milking.  And of course, we bred and got calves from them and fattened the calves.

I:          Um.  Did you have to work for them, right?

D:        Um,

 

0:04:30

1. We had an Australian Shepard dog.But I don’t know where my father got the name, but she was called Bondo.

I:          Bondo.

D:        And he would come out in the evening, and we had pasture laid down the hill from our place.  And he would bring her out there to one spot, and he would say

 

0:05:00

Bondo, bring up the cows.  And she would go down into the 20-acre pasture that we had, maybe more than that, and she would bring them all up.

I:          Wow.

D:        And we had as many as 14 cows that we milked.

I:          So, that’s like a movie scene.  It’s Australian Shepard.

D:        Yeah.  He had bought her somewhere.

 

0:05:30
I think he had gone out when Australians brought a load of trained dogs to the United States.

I:          Um.

D:        Took them around to farmers and sold them.  He happened to buy this one that was called Bondo.  And I don’t know where the name came from or anything.  BONDO.

I:          Yeah.

D:        And I was amazed by

 

0:06:00

this as a child because once in a while, she would be one or two cows short.  And my father would say Bondo, you missed one or you missed two.  And she would take off.  Pretty soon she’d have the last ones up there.

I:          Huh.  That’s amazing.

D:        Yeah.  I mean, what

 

0:06:30

you could train dogs to do, I was really amazed by that.

I:          So, they recognized this human sentence.

D:        Oh yeah.  She recognized those as commands for her.  And so

I:          So, you don’t have to do work.
D:        Huh?
I:          You don’t have to work.

D:        Well, it reduced our work, yeah.  We still milked the cows by hand.

I:          Um.

D:        And uh, that was

 

0:07:00

how I was tested by my father before I started milking one cow every morning and one in the evening.

I:          Um hm.

D:        He wanted me to take ahold of these two fingers, and he said grip my fingers as tight as you can.  He said ah, you’re not very strong yet.  But he said I think you could probably take this particular cow, and you can milk her.

 

0:07:30

I:          Um hm.

D:        And

I:          You did?
D:        Yeah, I started milking the cows.

I:          Excellent.

D:        So, we lived on a farm.  And then when the Second World War began, we were asked to move because the lady that owned the actual farm, we were renters, we didn’t own, she had a

 

0:08:00

son that would have been subject to the draft.

I:          Um.

D:        And so, we were asked to move off the farm in 1942.

I:          Um.

D:        And so, we moved off the farm.  And my dad found work with a dairy farmer.  And we moved then to a little town, real little town.  It was called Hayfield, Iowa.

 

0:08:30

I:          Um hm.

D:        Um, dad worked for a dairy farmer there all through the War.

I:          Why did the owner ask you to move out because if the farmer’s not going to be, if the person is a farmer, then he’s not gonna be drafted?

D:        He’s not gonna be drafted.  There were draft exemptions for

I:          Farmers.
D:        For farmers.

I:          Huh.

D:        And uh,

 

0:09:00

We were asked to move off for him to move on.  I don’t know how long he stayed on the farm.  I know he was gone before the War was over because I don’t think he knew anything about farming.  But being on a farm, he was draft exempt, right?

I:          That’s interesting.  So, when did you graduate high school?
D:        Fifty-one.

I:          Nineteen fifty-one.  What high school?
D:        Algona, ALGO

 

0:09:30

NA.

I:          Algona High School.  And up to that moment when you went to elementary, middle and high school, did you learn anything about Korea?  Did you know anything about Korea?
D:        Yes, yes I did.

I:          Wow.  See?

D:        Because I was always curious about history and geography.  And um, those

 

0:10:00

were favorite subjects.

I:          Um hm.

D:        And I remember the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed.  And one of the interesting things is when it came on the radio in the afternoon, they kept saying Pearl Harbor and Manilla.

 

0:10:30

I:          Hm.

D:        In the Phillipines.
I:          Why did they say about Manilla?
D:        They said it was being attacked as well.
I:          Yeah.

D:        The attack was over in Pearl Harbor by that time in the afternoon.  But they never said Hawaii.  They just said Pearl Harbor.  And it was two hours before anybody said in the Hawaiian Islands.

 

0:11:00

I sat there and kept listening, and I got out my Geography book and leafed through it and was looking for Pearl Harbor.  No reference to Pearl Harbor.

I:          Hm.

D:        But it’s talked about the Hawaiian Islands.  And as I said, it was a couple hours before Hawaii was mentioned at all.  Then I could locate it in my Geography book.  I was in fourth grade I think.  I started school

 

0:11:30

when I was five.

I:          Um.

D:        I think that was my mother’s plot to get me out of the house.

I:          So, your mom saved you from the hard work.

D:        Uh, no not really. I always had chores when I came home in the evening.  The first thing I did was I shelled corn with a hand crank

 

0:12:00

sheller.  And I carried that down to the chicken house.  And I would put it out in the boxes in front of the chickens, and they would come out of there, the hens would come out of the nest, and then you could pick up the eggs without getting your hands pecked.  And we just reached in.

I:          Yeah.  I have experience.

D:        Yeah.

I:          So, you were very interested in history and geography.  And you knew where Korea was.

 

0:12:30

D:        Well, I knew there was a Korea. I didn’t know, I can’t say that I knew specific location.  But I knew it was somewhere in the Pacific.  And so I was able to look it up in my fourth grade book.  I started school when I was barely five.

 

0:13:00

And had a wonderful first grade teacher. It was a one-room country school.

I:          Um hm.

D:        My two brothers were there.  Four of the Carlson kids were there. Two of the Weber kids were there.  And Applegates’ girls were there.  So anyhow, I was the only one in first grade.

 

0:13:30
And so a lot of times, she’d just say come up here, Dale.  We’re gonna work on the alphabet and numbers.  And we had the big letters and numbers up on the board.  And she’d point to one and she’d say what’s that?  What’s this?  Yeah.

I:          Um hm.

D:        And so she had all eight grades.

 

0:14:00

But there weren’t children in every grade.  There was one girl, I was in the first grade, one girl in second grade, and then we didn’t have anybody in third grade or fourth grade.  So, then she started with fifth, and my one brother was in fifth grade, and one brother was in seventh grade when I started.

I:          So, you got all the attention from the

 

0:14:30

teacher.

D:        Well, yeah when it was time to do my, you know.  And she was really nice to me I felt, you know.  It was just like I was one of her family.  And that’s the way I felt she looked at all the kids in the class.

I:          What’s her name?

D:        Miss Wolf.

I:          Miss Wolf.

D:        Wolf.

 

0:15:00

I:          Yeah, Wolf.

D:        WO

I:          L

D:        OF.

I:          Yeah.  It’s very fortunate to have a teacher like that in very early childhood.  And so, how did you come to know about the breakout of the Korean War?  You were in the high school, right?

D:        I graduated from high school.  And the Korean War started in

 

0:15:30

August before my Senior year.  I think it was August, June actually.

I:          June.

D:        So, a lot of, we were in a farming community.  And a lot of the boys remembered the Second World War.  And I mean, all of us remembered the Second World War.  And we went

 

0:16:00

down in twos and threes and talked to the recruiters.  And uh, we tried to find out what they were offering.  And they gave us a little exam. I don’t know what happened to you.  You didn’t get one maybe.  But the ones that we had gave us a whole exam.  And I

 

0:16:30

and one of my friends both scored high enough on the whole exam that we were given that he said I can guarantee you, each of you, a school.  We had a third one with us.  He said your responses and your knowledge, he said, well, I wasn’t very good in school.  So,

 

0:17:00

two of us got assigned to go into the Navy.  The Air Force didn’t offer us anything.  The Army didn’t offer us anything.

I:          What did Navy offer?
D:        Uh, they were interested in people to be aviation mechanics.

I;          Um hm.

D:        Uh, radio men, uh, ordinance men.

 

0:17:30

And I became a metal smith which was what he became I think or something to do with aviation outfit.  But they sent me, they promised me a school in the aviation trades when I finished the first eight-week school.

I:          Where?

D:        Uh, Jacksonville, Florida.

I:          Jacksonville.  Yeah.

 

0:18:00

So, when was this?
D:        That would have been in ’52, 1952.

I:          When, about what month?
D:        Well, I went in in October and went to what was called ANP school at (INAUDIBLE) Tennessee,

 

0:18:30

Memphis.  And when I got through that, based on what we’d done there in school,

I:          You went down to Jacksonville, Florida.

D:        Yeah, Jacksonville, Florida.  And if you finished well enough in that first school, you were eligible to go to a second one which I went to Aviation

 

0:19:00

Structural Mechanic.

I:          Aviation what?
D:        Structural Mechanic.
I:          Um hm.  Explain it.  What is it?

D:        It’s a metal smith.

I:          Okay.

D:        And I was pretty good at welding.  And so, when they came around assigning, they had people from various

 

0:19:30

squadrons who came in.  And, like if I would be your student, you might say to him he did very well in welding and hydraulics, you know.  And then, yeah.  Squadrons if they were looking for people in those trades would say yeah, we’ll take him.

 

0:20:00

And so, we had two, no, yeah, two – weeks’ leave when we finished that second school.  And then we had a choice.  They put all of the billets up on the board and said these have

 

0:20:30

openings for your, that would be most in line with your skills.  And they put up two squadrons of patrol planes, BV23 and 21 and 23.

I:          Um hm.

D:        Up, and they said you know, you’re eligible for this.  You might eventually

 

0:21:00

get into a flight crew.  You’re coming in new, but you’ll have, as time goes on, you’ll become eligible for being on a flight crew as well.

I:          Uh.

D:        And I said that sounds good to me.

I:          Um hm.

D:        Because I had gone in wanting to go to flight school.  And I passed everything except the eye exam.

I:          Um hm.

D:        And later on, when I got into flight crew,

 

0:21:30

About two years in my service, two, two and a half years,

I:          Um hm.

D:        Um, I got into flight crew because we had an opening taking care of the structural situation on the plane.

I:          I see.  Did you actually go to Korea?

D:        No, I did not.

 

0:22:00

I:          You did not.  So,

D:        I was, the squadron that I chose, and I didn’t know where it was initially,

I:          Um hm.
D:        Was in Brunswick, Maine.  But I chose it because of learning more about planes and also the possibility of getting into flight crew.

I:          Hm.

D:        Which they gave us

 

0:22:30

extra money for if you were in flight crew.

I:          Ah.

D:        Ah hah.

I:          That’s good.

D:        So, at the time, it was $50 when I first went in the flight crew.

I:          So, that’s extra $50 on top of your regular salary.

D:        Yeah.

I:          How much was it?  Regular salary?
D:        Well, let’s see.  I was third class by then.

 

0:23:00

So, I’d have had $140 base and the flight pay was $50 at that time.

I:          So, you made quite good money.

D:        Yeah.  I managed to buy a car on it.  I mean,

I:          Wow, that’s nice.

D:        It wasn’t much of a car.  But it

I:          And you didn’t have to be in the ship, right?

D:        No.

I:          No.

D:        No.

I:          So, you’re a

 

0:23:30

Navy flight crew member.  So, where were you?

D:        Patrol squadron, Brunswick, Maine.

I:          Where?

D:        Brunswick.

I:          Brunswick.  New Jersey?
D:        Maine.

I:          Maine.  And there was a patrol squadron.

D:        Twenty VP.

I:          Twenty VP?

Male Voice:  No, no.  JVP.

D:        VP23.

I:          Twenty-three.

 

0:24:00

Male Voice: (INAUDIBLE)

I:          You were in a tank?  So, did you know each other?
D:        No.

I:          Not at all.

D:        He was in Virginia, Bethesda.

Male Voice:  Pax River.

D:        Pax River.  And I was in Brunswick, Maine.

I:          Um hm.

D:        So, I was not very far from being, getting ready to get discharged.

 

0:24:30
And they were going to send me aboard ship.  And so, I went down and talked, and I was pretty good friends with the leading chief, you know. I got along well, and I never screwed up anywhere in terms of being absent without leave or anything.  And so, he said well yeah, you know I have,

 

0:25:00
We’d be transferring you for five months.  And I said yeah. I said I’d just as soon stay here.  So, I got orders and everything to transfer to, down into Virginia.  But about three days before I was supposed to pack up and go to Virginia, the chief

 

0:25:30

told me in the morning after our morning muster, he said we’re not gonna send you there.  We’re gonna keep you here instead of transferring you for that amount of time.  So, I spent my whole time with VP23.  And we did, we did some search and rescues.  And we lost one plane and one crew that went out

 

0:26:00

to take off early in the morning.  And they only had one man in the tower which was against all the rules.  And the plane took off and lost power on take off and crashed into the water which was right off the end of the runway where we were flying out of that day.

 

0:26:30
And lost a crew.  So, you know, mine was really, in many ways, was really uneventful as far as getting directly into the War.  I was willing to pick and choose where, I mean, I was allowed to pick and choose.

I:          You had control of your life, yeah.

D:        And uh, so,

 

0:27:00

that was my contribution.  I was there if they had wanted to send me to Korea.  And they sent some patrol squadrons to Korea.

I:          Yeah.
D:        Uh, but my, the number didn’t come up.  And I didn’t have anything to do with it one way or the other.

I:          That’s right.

D:        So, I was there to serve my country.

I:          Yes.

D:        How they, however they wanted to use me.

 

0:27:30

I:          Um hm.  Did you hear anything about the Korean War from your people while you were serving there?
D:        Yes.
I:          What did they tell you about it?

D:        We heard about the um, bad winters, the Chosen Reservoir invasion and the killing of

 

0:28:00

American troops without cause.  I mean, we got that feedback in our squadron, uh.  And of course, our superior enlisted personnel told us about it.

I:          Um hm.

D:        The Navy chief and first-class petty officers.  And a lot of them

 

0:28:30

were career.  But they had served in the Second World War as well.

I:          Yeah.
D:        We had one who was in our squadron who had been a tail gunner on the B17s.  And you know, we talked with him with interest in what that’s like.

I:          Um.

D:        And of course, we had some incidents with our

 

0:29:00

planes at times.  We lost all the hydraulics one time.

I:          Um.
D:        We had one side mount down.  And the other one wouldn’t come down and lock in place.  And we were about ready to go in, and I was responsible for the hydraulics on the plane.  And I said the hydraulic

 

0:29:30

fluid is low.  And they said what can you do about it?  I said well, we’ve got a couple extra gallons of hydraulic fluid on the plane.  And so, uh, I said we could put that in and take one more shot at getting that landing gear down.  And I said if we don’t, then we have to do a crash landing

 

0:30:00

with one wheel down and locked in place and the other one just kind of flopping in the wind out there.

I:          Um hm.

D:        And so, we did that.  And we managed to crank it down and land.  But it took a while to get that through the system and out to where we used.  I shot off some other valves so it would go

 

0:30:30

out to that mount.  It was a right-hand mount on the plane didn’t go all the way down.

I:          So, that’s your contribution, major contribution.

D:        Well, yeah.  I guess it it.

I:          So, you are Korean War era veteran.
D:        Yes.

I:          And, what do you know about Korea now?

D:        I know it is a miracle country.

 

0:31:00

I:          Tell me please.  What do you know?
D:        It went from being basically an agricultural country that was abused over the years.

I:          Um hm.

D:        By both China and Japan for centuries.
I:          Um hm.

D:        And both of them wanted the fish out of the Sea of Japan and out of the, can’t say it right now.

 

0:31:30

I:          West Sea, Yellow Sea.

D:        Wester side.

I:          Yeah.
D:        And uh, I knew that they had been subject to them for, to one or the other, Japan or China, for centuries.  And that once they were set free to do their thing, they’d become one of the top economies

 

0:32:00

of the world.  And it’s just, and basically in turning the people loose to work and to learn, and go to work.  And of course, I see some similarities with us with the virus at present.

 

0:32:30
We aren’t letting people do what our people want to do.

I:          Um hm.

D:        And that’s the place that we’re in in my view, screwing up.

I:          What are those?  What are those that

D:        The restrictions on, all the kind of restrictions.

I:          Um hm.

D:        You restrict people.  You don’t get their best ideas, their best work.

I:          What restrictions are you talking about?

D:        Well, the restrictions

 

0:33:00

of moving about.

I:          Huh?
D:        Restrictions about moving about, taking our children out of schools when they need to be in schools.  I think that’s a big mistake personally.  The little kids don’t seem to be subject to it through about sixth grade at all, nothing, yeah.  They should be in school.  We’re hurting their

 

0:33:30

life by them not getting instructions in basic education.  Cause you can’t go on to advanced education until you got the basic.  You build a basement, then you put the house on top of it.

I:          But children are being killed by the Corona Virus, too.

D:        Not

I:          No, there are

D:        Some.

I:          Very substantial number of anyway.

 

0:34:00

So, why do you call it a miracle, about Korea?
D:        It’s a miracle they’ve become, I think, the world’s number one ship builder which Greece was number one.

I:          Oh, you know that.

D:        Yeah.

I:          How do you know that?
D:        I read quite a bit.

I:          Uh huh.
D:        I, you know.

I:          Number one ship builder, and what else do you know?

D:        Well, you’re maybe number three

 

0:34:30

or four, five in automobiles.

I:          Automobiles, yeah.

D:        And uh, so, it’s a miracle where Korea has come in our lifetime.

I:          Um hm.
D:        Uh, I don’t know how old you are.  But

 

0:35:00

I was born in ’33, I told you that.  So, that is a short span of time for a nation to become powerful in terms of lifestyle, in terms of having a military and of course,

 

0:35:30

the United States was lucky.  And Korea was lucky because we had a man who at that time as President, who came from a little bitty town, (INAUDIBLE)

I:          President Truman.

D:        Yes.  And he was interested in allowing the people to show him what they could do.

 

0:36:00

And he said we want to see you as a capitalist country.  And you were fortunate.  Roosevelt was a President who really knew nothing about people

 

0:36:30

working on the farm, people working in a factory.  He was a rich, very rich man.  He didn’t know what he was doing.

I:          Um hm.

D:        Hoover, they would have been better off to keep Hoover in because they went to Hoover to reorganize and come out of the Depression.  So anyhow

I:          Um hm.

D:        I’m sorry.

I:          No, you’re making good points.

 

0:37:00

So, it was a miracle called Miracle on Han River because at the time the Korean War broke out, Korea was one of the poorest countries.  And Gene and I’ve been watching, you know, doing interviews yesterday and the before yesterday here, and everybody’s talking About how POOR Korea was, how destroyed Korea was completely at the time.  And they

 

0:37:30
never knew that Korea would become like this today, 11^th largest economy in the world.

D:        Um hm.

I:          It’s a little bit bigger than Indiana, smaller than Iowa.  We don’t have a drop of oil.  All the natural resources in North Korean side, there was a rice paddy all over.

D:        Um hm

I:          But now it’s the 11^th largest economy in the world.  But we still don’t teach about this good story that came out of the

 

0:38:00

services like you, you know, Korean War veterans.  Why is that?  Why is it known as Forgotten War?

D:        Well, for you and the Koreans, it was a big War.  It was a big war because you were after we made the demarcation

 

0:38:30

and said we’re gonna keep it marked off.

I:          Um hm.

D:        We’re gonna live, we’re gonna give South Korea a chance to develop.

I:          Um hm.

D:        And see what they do.  And they took the offer and ran with it.  And so, we have an

 

0:39:00

important country, not only to Korea itself but to its’ neighbors.  It’s a functioning capitalist system.  And the capitalist system is very simple.  It says you work and make a success for yourself, you get to keep the benefits of it.

 

0:39:30

I:          Yeah.  But why has it been known as Forgotten War and we don’t talk about it in the school?  That was my question.

D:        Well, I guess the world size, even at its best,

 

0:40:00

Korea is going to be judged as less than a major sized country.

I:          Um hm.

D:        I, you know, I’m small. I weighed 100 lbs. when I got out of high school.  I weighed 100 lbs. when I got out of high

 

0:40:30

school.  Almost didn’t get in the Navy because I didn’t weigh enough.  I mean, the guy looked at the scale and he said step off and step on again.  So, you know, uh, on the other hand, I could be very decisive.  I had a large boy stole my sled one time in school, took it down the hill.

 

0:41:00

And I ran right along beside him.  And when he started to roll off, I picked up my sled and hit him twice with it.  Nobody had ever seen that done.  And he was two grades ahead of me in school, and he started to get up, and I said you try to get up and get my sled, you’re gonna be hit again.  He decided that wasn’t what he wanted to do.  So,

 

0:41:30

Korea has done it through it’s industrialization.

I:          Um hm.

D:        And I think that’s what it amounts to.  It’s very important.  As I said, you took over the ship building of the world from Greece.  They don’t do any ship building.  And we have instances of

 

0:42:00

minor things being the thing that made it a success.  And Herbert Hoover, I know a lot about him, or I know quite a bit about him, don’t know a lot really.  But he was orphaned at the age of three.

I:          Um hm.

D:        Bounced around between relatives,

 

0:42:30

got one who said yeah, he’d pay for college if he could do it, and he went to Stanford and became the biggest mining engineer in the world.

I:          Um hm.

D:        But it was the fact that he was given an opportunity, and he took it.  And Korea was given an opportunity, and they took it.

I:          Yeah.  So, nobody really imagined that Korea would become like this today, 11^th largest

 

0:43:00

economy in the world.

D:        No.
I:          One of the most substantive democracies in East Asia when they left from Korea, from their service.  So, that is the legacy of the Korean War and your Korean War veterans.  And that’s why we are doing this so that they know, young children will know about what happened in 1950.  And now the Republic of Korea is one of the closest allies to the United States dealing with all this

 

0:43:30

Superpowers, power competitions in East Asia.  Do you have any message to the Korean people who are commemorating the 70^th anniversary of the breakout of the Korean War which has not been replaced by a Peace Treaty.  What would you say to the Korean people?

D:        Well, I, first of all I’d say keep it up.

 

0:44:00

I:          Yeah.

D:        And do it for yourselves.  Don’t let somebody come in with big ideas that don’t have any basis for their big ideas.

I:          Hm.

D:        I mean, the Communist thing is that we know everything. You don’t have to know anything.

 

0:44:30

And that’s false, the whole idea of education and independence. You’ve probably gotten all you’re gonna get from me.

I:          Great message.  Is there any other episode you want to tell us about your service?
Were there any dangerous moments during your service that you could have been killed?

 

0:45:00

D:        Well, anytime you took off in a plane, you could get killed.  I mean,

I:          Yeah, actually true.

D:        We had other incidents where we had minor things.  We had where we couldn’t get the Bombay doors closed one time.  That was on the old four-engine

 

0:45:30

plane.  And, but that was a big thing because they were just like a garage door that opened up that way up sides.  And we just landed and repaired it and went on.  But if you had been out there going through the Bombay at the time,

I:          Um hm.

D:        that occurred, it could have been pretty bad because we never wore our chutes in the plane.

 

0:46:00

I:          Uh huh.

D:        And after we lost the one plane, we found out that they weren’t in proper position for a crash landing as it was so early in the flight.

I:          Um hm.

D:        And they had no advanced warning.  But you know, yeah.  We lost a crew.  The funny thing about that crew, I knew all the members of the crew,

 

0:46:30

the officers, pilots and the enlisted men.  And I didn’t do it consciously.  But I tried unconsciously to put those men out of my mind.

I:          Um.

D:        They were gone.  It wasn’t anything that could be done about it.

 

0:47:00
And I had been friends with, really with two of them on that crew.  And I tried to block out thinking about that could happen to anybody in the squadron any time.

I:          Um.
D:        So, that was

I:          Hard moment.

D:        Yeah.  Not pleasant.

 

0:47:30
But I tried to

I:          Block it.

D:        Block it, yeah.  So, anything else you wanna ask me?

I:          No.  We had a long interview, almost 50 minutes.  And you’ve been perfect.  And I also appreciate that your knowledge about the Korea before and after, and you knew that Korea was the largest ship builder, used to be.  Now Chinese are chasing up, and they tried to chase it.

 

0:48:00

But I think South Korea is getting back to number one in ship building.  So, I really appreciate this interview.  And thank you for your service.  And on behalf of Korean nation, we thank you for your service.  Thank you, sir.

D:        Thank you.

I:          Thank you.

 

[END RECORDED MATERIAL]