Antone Jackim

[Beginning of Transcribed Material]

 

A:        My name is Antone Phillip Jackim.  ANTONE PHILLIP JACKIM

I:          Very good.  When is your birthday?

A:        February 5, 1930.

I:          Ah.  Where were you born?
A:        Racine, Wisconsin.

I:          Could you spell this place where you were born?
A:        RACINE, Wisconsin.  WISCONSIN.

 

0:00:30

I:          Racine, Wisconsin.  Tell me about your family when you were growing up, your parents and your siblings.

A:        My father was born in Poland.  And we immigrated through New York as a baker.

I:          Um hm.

A:        And was a baker and a factory worker during the Depression.

 

0:01:00

In 1930, he became a citizen.

I:          I see.

A:        My mother became a citizen.

I:          Your mom is also Polish?
A:        No.  She is Russian.

I:          Russian.

A:        They met in Racine, Wisconsin, had three children, my brother Harry a year older than me, a sister Mary a year younger than me.

I:          Wow.  So, you are the eldest?
A:        I’m the middle.

 

0:01:31

I:          Middle. Tell me about growing up with six other siblings.  Wasn’t it too crowded?
A:        I don’t believe we were crowded.

I:          So, you were born one year after the Great Depression.  And it must have been difficult at the time, right?  Everything was (INAUDIBLE)

 

0:01:57

A:        My father was a baker.  He supplied bread to people that needed bread.  And he was reimbursed with what they offered.

I:          So, you had enough to eat?

A:        Always.

I:          Always.  That’s very good.  Tell me about the school you went through.

A:        I went to grade school at Steven Pfohl Grade School.

I:          Yeah.

A:        That’s the name of the school.  It was about four city blocks from the house that we lived in.

 

0:02:32

A:        Seventeen twenty-one Howe Street, HOWE Street.

I:          You have a great memory.

A:        Well, I (INAUDIBLE) for exercise memory.

I:          And what high school did you graduate?
A:        I never graduated.

I:          What happened?

 

0:02:57

A:        I went to work in a factory, Massey Ferguson, J I Case Tractor Company.

I:          Structure Company?
A:        J I Case Tractor Company.

I:          Tractor Company.  So, what did you do there actually?
A:        I became an inspector.

A:        Ah.  I was hired directly off the street to be an inspector.

I:          How come?  Tell me about it.  How did you get picked up?

 

0:03:26

A:        I had a critical attitude towards products.

I:          Like for example?

A:        Paint finish, mechanical function, appearance.

I:          Um hm.

A:        Serviceability.  In other words, if I had to work on it, would it be of interest for me to repair it.

 

0:04:03

I:          Where did you get that skill?  Were you born with it, or did you learn from your father?  Or what happened?  How did you get that kind of quality education?
A:        I think as a child, I had competition with my brother.  And I was a year younger, and he was a year older, and he flaunted that on me.

 

0:04:32

So, I attempted to be as good or better than him.

I:          So, it was competition.

A:        Yes.

I:          Oh.  So, until when did you work there?

A:        I worked there until I joined the Army Air Corp.

I:          When did you join?

 

0:04:56

A:        I don’t have the exact date.

I:          But the year.

A:        I think it was 1949.

I:          Forty-nine.  And were you drafted, or did you enlist?
A:        I enlisted.

I:          Why?  You had a good company there.

A:        I figured that I had to do something other than take the draft.  So, to beat the draft

I:          I see.

A:        I enlisted in the Service.

 

0:05:33

I:          And why  Army Air Corp?
A:        Because I enjoyed flying. I flew in an airplane when I was 14 years old.

I:          What do you mean?  What airplane did you fly?

A:        I didn’t fly it. I was a passenger.  Mr. Higgins who owns a retail sporting goods store in West Racine took me up in his airplane along with two other young 14-year-olds.

 

0:06:13

I:          Wow.  You were lucky.

A:        Yes.

I:          What kind of airplane was it?
A:        It was a Piper Cub.

I:          I don’t know about that.

A:        It’s a two-place airplane, tandem seating.  The pilot sits in the front.

I:          Um hm.

A:        The owner sat in the front.  He had three little guys my age, 14 approximately, in the back seat.

 

0:06:45

 

I:          So, were you not afraid?
A:        No because I used to ride my bicycle out to the airport.  I had a Hunber, a British-made bicycle which I bought from my own money.  And I rode it around.  It had a three-speed rear hub which you could shift as you peddled. It was a new innovation at that time.

 

0:07:21

I:          Um hm.  So where did you get the basic military training?
A:        First of all, I enlisted in Milwaukee.

I:          Milwaukee.

A:        Took a train down to San Antonio, Texas.

I:          Oh.

A:        Basic training at Lackland Air Force Base.

I:          Um hm.

A:        I was offered an opportunity to become an officer and take flight training three times.

 

0:07:57

I declined all three times.

I:          Why?
A:        I already knew how to fly.  And I didn’t want to join the flight crew as a pilot because the attrition rate of pilots in private pursuits, single engine, was greater than the attrition for the Army, a ground (INAUDIBLE) Infantry.

 

0:08:32

Infantry lived longer than the pilots did.

I:          So yeah.

A:        So, I figured well if I want to stay alive, I have to have better opportunities.

I:          Smart man.

A:        I was just a kid.

I:          So, from there, what did you do?

A:        I became an aircraft and engine mechanic.

I:          Engine mechanic.

 

0:09:02

A:        Aircraft and engine mechanic.

I:          Right.  Did you learn about that?

A:        Yes.

I:          Did you go to a special training school?
A:        Yes.  I went through A and E school. I was offered another opportunity to become an officer.

I:          And?

A:        I declined again.

 

0:09:32

I:          Why?  You didn’t have to fly. You were offered to be an officer for a mechanic, right?
A:        Yes.

I:          Why did you decline?

A:        I didn’t think that I wanted to be an officer to the kind of people that were mechanics.  I wanted to learn more about the mechanics.

 

0:09:56

I:          So, you don’t want to be in a manger position.  But you want to learn actual skill, right?
A:        Yes.

I:          Good.  You’re a very smart man. I can tell that.   So, from there, what did you do?

A:        Well, I went into combat to the Korean War one day after it started. I was transferred from where I was to Okinawa.

 

0:10:31

I:          Okay.  So, you mean June 26 of 1950, right?

A:        Yes.

I:          You went to Okinawa?
A:        Yes.

I:          And?

A:        Once in a while, we would fly in a B29 as a supplement to a flight engineer.  Being a mechanic

 

0:11:01

I:          Um hm.

A:        I understood the engineer’s activity for the entire airplane. So, I had learned what I wanted to learn.

I:          So, you didn’t become a pilot.

A:        No.

I:          You didn’t become an officer.  But you made your dream come true being in a B29.

 

0:11:31

A:        I don’t call that a dream.

I:          Let me ask, oh yeah, go ahead.

A:        I looked at flying an airplane as a job, not a sudden thrill.  And I sat in the pilot’s seat while they flew the airplane because the pilot might have to go to the toilet,

 

0:12:02

And I sat alongside of the flight engineer on the hatch which was the entrance in the forward part of the airplane.  And when he got sick or actually damaged by aircrafts being fired

I:          Um hm.

 

 

0:12:31

A:        from ground fire. A flight engineer got hurt, so I sat in his seat.  And what happened was a shell came up his rear end and exploded and killed him.  And so, I moved him over to where I was sitting, and I sat where he sat. I put a flack jacket, that’s a bullet proof pad, flexible

 

0:13:04

I:          Yeah.

A:        I put that over the hole where the shell entered him, and I sat in his place for the rest of the mission.

I:          Were you able to steer the aircraft?
A:        I had no, a flight engineer does not steer an airplane.

I:          So, actually

 

0:13:26

A:        Operates the engines and the electric motors needed to supply air conditioning and electric motors that supply electric power to supplement the manual efforts of the pilot and the co-pilot and the navigator and the gunnery.

I:          But where was it?  Where was this B29 attacked by the enemy?

 

0:14:02

A:        Over Korea.

I:          Over Korea?

A:        Yes.

I:          Do you remember when was it?  Around.  You don’t have to be exact.

A:        Well, it was within the first couple weeks of me being there.

I:          Oh.

A:        In Okinawa.

I:          Wow.

 

0:14:30

So please correct me if I’m wrong.  If you didn’t change the seat, you could have been killed.

A:        No, there was no possibility because it wasn’t, I was sitting on the hatch, and there was landing gear directly below me.  And the landing gear would have been penetrated and damaged.

 

0:15:02

I had a fortunate situation with the flight engineer sat on the hatch that had no protection from above.

I:          Um hm.

A:        Or below him.

I:          Were you scared?
A:        I don’t think fear enters into it because you’re in a B29.

 

0:15:28

It’s a four-engine, 3350 engines, four of them.  And we had to fly back on one occasion with three engines.  We wanted to land in Tokyo.  But they wouldn’t let us.  We could have landed sooner went three engines out, but they refused us landing privilege because we were stationed on Okinawa which was 800 miles

 

0:16:08

I:          Um hm.

A:        And so, knowing the logistics, we had a choice of returning. And we did.  We limped back on three strong engines. We landed correctly.

I:          Good.

 

0:16:38

What was our unit?
A:        307 Bomb Group.

I:          307

A:        307^th Bomb Group.

I:          Bomb Group.

A:        372^nd Bomb Squadron.

I:          3

A:        372 Bomb Squadron.
I:          Um hm.  In Okinawa, right?

 

0:17:00

A:        On Okinawa.

I:          What was your rank?

A:        I was a Corporal.

I:          How many crew was in the B29?

A:        Nine.

I:          Nine?  So, how often did you have a sortie?  I mean, how often did you fly to Korea?

 

0:17:26

And what was your mission?  What was the, did you engage in dog fighting or bombing or, tell me about those?

A:        Bombing.

I:          Bombing mostly.

A:        Yes.

I:          Where?  Where did you bomb?  It was within the breakout of the Korean War, within several weeks, right?

A:        Yes.

I:          So, it must have been the southern part of Korean Peninsula?

A:        No.

I:          Was it north?

A:        Yes.

I:          Tell me about those please.

 

0:17:53

A:        Well, there was a dividing line between North and South Korea.

I:          Thirty-eighth parallel.

A:        We were bombing north of that.  We bombed near the coast where the Chinese were supplying the North Koreans.  And we were bombing the landing sights where the ships were unloading.

 

0:18:26

We didn’t bomb the ships because they were Chinese.  But we bombed what landed on shore in a shipyard.

I:          Ah.  So, it must have been northwest of the Korean Peninsula.  The Chinese in the northwest, right?

A:        I guess you would call it northwest.

I:          Um hm.

 

0:18:56

How often did you bomb?
A:        We probably bombed once a week.

I:          Once a week?

A:        Yes.

I:          And when you bombed, how many bombs did you drop?

A:        Five hundred pounds.

I:          Bombs, how many?

A:        Probably 20 – 40 bombs that totaled 500 lbs.

 

0:19:28

I:          Total 500 lbs.

A:        Yes.

I:          Okay.  And were you able to see the bombings?  No.

A:        No.

I:          Um hm.

A:        It happened after we’d fly over the zone that’s being bombed, and we’d turn around and head back.

I:          Were there any follow-up flights to see what’s been done there to survey?

 

0:19:58

A:        I never went on a survey flight.  But there were airplanes that were equipped with photographic equipment.  And they followed us.

I:          And

 

0:20:30

So, you never landed in Korea, right?
A:        No.

I:          No.  Were there any B29 actually intercepted by North Korean or enemy aircraft carrier and crashed?
A:        No.

I:          No.  Never.

A:        No B29s.

I:          Okay.  Any other episode that you want to share about your flight?

 

0:21:02

A:        Well, the airplane had a tube which was large enough for a person to ride on casters on a platform which was big enough for a body.  You went in this tube from the front of the airplane to the rear of the airplane.

 

0:21:30

And if you had to go to the toilet, you’d wait till the river. After the river, the airplanes, where the gunners were, there was a master gunner, I forgot the term that they used.  But he was a higher rank.  He could take control of all the guns in the entire airplane if he had a target, and he was shooting at an enemy airplane.

 

0:22:03

And he could take over the navigator’s guns which was in the front of the airplane.
I:          Um hm.

A:        The navigator was right alongside where I was. Only he was sitting on a higher elevation.

 

0:22:27

He had a blister which is a curved window over his head.  And inside, he had a mechanism which controlled the guns if he threw the switches, for him to control the switches of the guns.

 

0:22:56

And he, the navigator actually also I think shared the nose windows which were below the pilot and forward of the pilot.

 

0:23:25

He was in the very front of the airplane.  Well, I didn’t pay much attention to them because they had their duties, and when you’re flying an airplane, you just take care of your duties.

I:          Um hm.  When were you discharged from the military?  When did you leave Okinawa?

 

0:23:52

A:        I left Okinawa let’s see,

I:          Fifty-one?  Did you stay there longer than a year?
A:        I think I was there for a year.

I:          Year.

A:        Yes.

 

0:24:22

I:          And when were you discharged from the Army Air Corp?

A:        When I got back to MacDill Air Force base, I got a discharge because of another incident.

I:          Um.

A:        But the incident took place in Okinawa.

I:          Um hm.

 

0:24:48

A:        I was attacked by the guy that I tackled because he was knifing a friend of mine.  The friend of mine was Staff Sergeant Franklin.  And Franklin might have called this guy some racial insult.

I:          Jap?

 

0:25:21

A:        No.  This was an American.

I:          American.

A:        Black, a negro, might have been called a dirty

I:          Um hm.

A:        Blank, blank. I won’t repeat it.  But so, this guy turned on him with a knife.

 

0:25:47

And I saw that he was gonna attempt to kill Franklin.  We were in a crew leaving the airplane walking down the road that goes to Tent City.  We lived in tents.

I:          In Okinawa?

A:        On Okinawa.

I:          Oh. You didn’t have a Quonset Hut?

A:        No.

I:          No.

A:        That was privileged for the Navy and the Army.

 

0:26:15

I:          I see.

A:        And what happened is I tackled this guy that was knifing Franklin. He was a Staff Sergeant.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        I was a Corporal.  And nobody else in the crew was gonna help Franklin.

 

0:26:45

And I was 20 years old and young and dumb.  And so, I got badly cut up.  I’ll show you the scars.

I:          Uh.

A:        If you could tell, I have my throat cut.
I:          I don’t see it.

A:        Well, you can look at it if you want closely.

 

0:27:15

I:          Later.

A:        I also got stabbed in the left lung.

I:          Wow.

A:        And I have the scars which I’ll show you. And I ended up in the hospital, the kind you see on MASH on tv.

I:          That’s why you were discharged?

 

0:27:42

A:        No.  I was not discharged because of that.  I recovered in the hospital in Naha, a village. They had an Army hospital there.  I spent a number of weeks regaining health.  And the wounds healed, and I was sent back to the outfit I belonged to.

 

0:28:13

And I was removed from the crew and assigned to a repair facility  where they towed the airplane in, and then whatever skills you have, you work on the entire airplane.

I:          Um hm.  But I want to ask this question.

 

0:28:45

How was life in Okinawa?  How, you said that you lived in tents.  What kind of food did you eat, and how was life in Okinawa overall?

A:        The food was good.  But every once in a while, they’d run out of food.

I:          Run out of food?

A:        Yes.

I:          How was that possible?

 

0:29:14

A:        Well, it’s the Army.  The food came.

I:          But it’s not front line.

A:        What?
I:          It’s not front line of the battle, you know.  So, I don’t know how

A:        You, the front line is the airplane.  And the food that is supplied for the mission of the airplane.

I:          Yeah.

A:        And that is always supplied. And that food was flown over from the States.

 

0:29:47

But the food in the mess hall came by boat.  And sometimes the boats were slow.

I:          Ah, I see.  What kind of food did you eat there?  Did you have real steak?

A:        Rarely.

I:          Rarely.

A:        We had roast beef.

I:          Roast beef. That’s good enough.

A:        Yes.

I:          Yeah.

A:        We had roast beef and roast pork , fish.

 

0:30:18

And we had, we ate in tents, the carry out food from the mess hall.

I:          To tent, yes.

A:        And we slept in tents.  There were eight men to a tent.  And we had cots that we slept in.  And we had mosquito netting for the tent.

 

0:30:49

And we used the mosquito netting, tucked it in when we were gone so the rats wouldn’t sleep in our beds.

I:          Um hm.

A:        And

I:          You said you were a Corporal. How much were you paid?

0:31:09

A:        I think it was something less than $100 a month.

I:          Um hm.  What did you do with that money?

A:        Well, I probably saved most of it.

I:          Most of it.  Let me ask this question.  Did you learn, did you know anything about Korea before you left Korea?

A:        No.

I:          Nothing?

A:        Well, after I was in Korea, I learned.

 

0:31:39

I:          No, before you left for Korea?

A:        No.

I:          The school didn’t teach anything about the Korean history or culture?

A:        I can’t remember any of that.

I:          Um.  And you actually didn’t land because you flew over the Korean Peninsula.  After you came back, were you able to follow up with things happening in Korea, Korean products?

 

0:32:08

A:        Yes, I did.

I:          Tell me about that.  What do you know about the modern Korean economy?

A:        Well, Korea was divided in two, and it remained that way.  And North Korea was constantly invading South Korea all the way to Seoul, their capital city of the South Koreans.

 

0:32:40

I:          Um hm.

A:        And well the best I could tell you is what we learned.  The American ships would bombard North Korean harbors because it was a war against North Korea.

I:          Um hm.

0:33:12

A:        And the American ships, we lost some of them when some of them were badly damaged off that shore. North Korea had MIGG 15, Russian fighters.

I:          Yeah.

A:        And they were better airplanes than what we had to fight the war. We had F86 which is heavily armed excellent airplanes.

 

0:33:47

But it could not outperform the MIGG 15.

I:          My question is about your knowledge on Korean economy, modern Korean economy.  Do you know any Korean products here in the United States that you can buy?
A:        No, I don’t.

I:          You don’t?  Do you know that Korean economy, where they rank in the world?

A:        It ranks pretty high now.

I:          Yes.  How do you know that?

 

0:34:15

A:        Because they were able to accomplish competitive price for identical product.  And they were competitive and could enter a market.  They were in the American market.  And this is what supported Korea.

I:          How did you know about that?

 

0:34:46

A:        Because I saw what was available that’s used in the States.

I:          Uh huh.

A:        I didn’t buy Korean stuff.
I:          Why not?

A:        I

I:          You didn’t trust?

A:        No.  I had severe injuries in Korea.  Almost got killed. And I figured I’m not gonna support where I almost got died or almost died.

 

0:35:16

I:          Oh.  I understand that.  But because of your service and your suffering, Korea became 11^th largest economy in the world now.

A:        Yes.
I:          So, you might have more attachment to the Korean products.  Your suffering produced unprecedented outcome in the history of U.S. involvement in other countries after World War II.

 

0:35:47

A:        Yes.

I:          That is the legacy of the Korean War.

A:        Yes.

I:          Yeah.  Are you proud of that?

A:        Yes.
I:          But still because you were wounded so that you didn’t want to buy?

A:        Correct.

I:          Uh huh.  I understand that.   I, yeah, I think where you are coming from.

 

0:36:06

So, what do you think, why do you think that, I will pick it up later.  Why do you think the Korean War is known as the Forgotten War?  Why is it forgotten?  I mean, the Korean War, you didn’t know anything about Korea because Korea was very small.  Nobody paid attention to Korea at the time in 1950 and before.

 

0:36:28

Now it’s 11^th largest economy in the world.  We are the strongest ally to the United States.

A:        Yes.

I:          And Korea is offering aid to other countries.

A:        Yes.

I:          It’s a beautiful outcome that came out of your honorable service.  But our history textbook doesn’t teach much about it.  Why is that?  Why is it forgotten?  Why didn’t anybody talk about it?

 

0:36:55

A:        Well, I think I can only explain my side of it.

I:          Yes.

A:        I almost got killed.  And when I was knifed and bayoneted, I was left.

I:          What are you talking about?  Where were you bayoneted?  You weren’t involved in the hand fighting, right?

A:        I was bayoneted and knifed by the Koreans or whoever it was, no, it was American GI.

 

0:37:29

I:          Right. It was American GI.

A:        That knifed and bayoneted me.

I:          Yeah.

A:        And I’m gonna show you just so you know.

I:          Um hm.  You don’t have to show.

 

0:38:02

I’ll see it later, okay?  So you were, so tell me about your side of the story, why Korean War is forgotten.

A:        For me, because I almost got killed and I was left to die by the crew that I was on,

I:          Um hm.

 

0:38:30

A:        And then a truck was coming by, and I could tell, you know what a six by is?  Well, I heard a six by coming past.  I was laying on the ground, and I raised my hand, and somebody in that six by saw me do that.  And they stopped and threw me in the back of the truck, took me to a first aid station.

I:          Um hm.

A:        And like you see on MASH on the tv.

 

0:38:59

Well, that’s the kind of first aid station I went to.

I:          Yeah.
A:        And they, I was bleeding so badly that they took care of me.  And then they got me to a hospital in Nawa, a village, where they had a U.S. Army hospital.  And the nurses put me in a bed just outside their office so they could watch me.

I:          Um.

 

0:39:30

A:        And uh, so there’s a touch of humor to this because I had lost so much blood that they were making sure that I would be okay.  But the way they measured how well I was is they could see me roll over on my stomach,

 

0:40:00

And I got a hard on, and my body would be propped up.  Or if I’d lay on  my back, they would see it sticking up.  And they, the humor is, or course, I was getting healthy.  And the nurses there at that first aid station sent me to the hospital where they took care of me for eight weeks.

 

0:40:33

I:          Um hm.

A:        And when I went back to duty, I was no longer on the flight crew.

I:          Right.  You told me about that.  But why is it forgotten to you? Why is Korean War forgotten in your sight, because of that?  You wanted to forget about it?

A:        Yes.

I:          Oh, okay.  Now I understand it.  Okay.

 

0:41:03

Are you still suffering from that memory?

A:        I don’t say I’m suffering from it because I’ve done well.

I:          Um.

A:        Instantly in life.  I became an electrical and electronics expert.  And I went to school, military schools in the States.

 

0:41:32

If I went to assignments somewhere, I would ask for a school and I would attend the school for six weeks or six months, whatever it was.  And I would travel from that school to my hometown of Racine.  In Rantoul,  Illinois, there was a school for electrical and electronics,

 

0:42:09

And I got a 40 grade.  40 was a top grade.  And if there was another class, I attended it.  And I would travel a lot to Racine to spend my weekends in Racine.
I:          Um hm.

 

0:42:37

A:        It was 200, 250 miles each way.

I:          So, do you have any message to our young generation about your service in the Korean War?

 

0:43:21

A:        Well, I can recommend that they not be as anxious to help another person out because I almost got killed by doing that.

I:          Yeah, um.

A:        And that I remember strongly.

I:          Um.

A:        And uh,

I:          But because of your suffering, your friend Franklin survived, right?

A:        Yes.

 

0:43:50

I:          That’s a good thing, isn’t it?

A:        Well certainly.

I:          Yeah.

A:        I wasn’t thinking of anything else.

I:          Right.  So, you did good.  That was the best that anybody could do to save other people’s lives.

A:        Right.  Well, there were other guys on the crew that were bigger and stronger than me.  But I realized that I was the youngest, and I was healthy.

 

0:44:17

And I didn’t figure it’d hurt.  But

I:          But you hurt.

A:        I was

I:          Almost killed.

A:        Yeah.  My crew left me, and a six by truck came by and

I:          Yeah.

A:        They threw me in the back and

I:          So, you saved your friend Franklin, and you did very well as an electrician after you came back, right?

A:        Yeah.

I:          So, your life has been successful.

A:        Very.

 

0:44:55

I:          Yeah.  Then I think you need to encourage others to save others.

A:        Well, I think I did do that by example.

I:          Um hm, yeah.  Yes, you are the example.  Any other comments about the legacy of the Korean War, why Korean War is important to you or anything like that?

 

0:45:24

A:        Well, the important thing to me is I did what I thought I should do when I was in the military.

I:          Um hm.

A:        I don’t regret.  As much as I got hurt bad

I:          Um hm.

A:        I don’t regret it because I lived through a bad incident.  But I do admit I was stupid.

 

0:45:52

I:          No, you were not stupid.  You did the right thing.

A:        Well, I realize that.  But I could have done things.

I:          Differently.

A:        Yes.

I:          I got it. I  think I understand that.  Your point is that you could have done it differently so that you could save yourself, too, and, right?  Yes.

 

0:46:22

I:          Do you have any other message that you want to share with me?

A:        Well, you never asked how much education I had?
I:          Oh.  What education did you have?

A:        I attended local universities for separate classes wherever I went on assignment.

 

0:46:58

I, the first example is at Wichita Falls, Texas.

I:          Um hm.

A:        I was assigned to go to school there for anything mechanics.  Well, I wanted to learn more English, so I found out who taught from Waco University

 

0:47:28

and there was an 82-year-old woman, a professor, that conducted classes in her home.  And I went there when I had the correct time to coordinate with her class.  And she had six or eight students.

 

0:47:56

And I did that in different military training classes wherever I went.  That’s where I picked up credits.  And I wasn’t going for credits.  I went there for the knowledge.

I:          Um hm.

A:        And I did well.  And I’ve been assigned to Wichita Falls, Texas,

 

0:48:38

Topeka, Kansas.  There was different military facilities.

I:          Um hm.

A:        That had classes. And I determined that I could do just as well without a degree just having the knowledge.  And that I would recommend that people should get a degree

I:          Um hm.

 

0:49:14

A:        Because that alone opens the door for advancement.
I:          That’s right.

A:        But I had become a manager of a nuclear power plant based on my knowledge.

 

0:49:39

And I’ve been requested to attend the failing, there’s three nuclear power plants in one place in California. And they enlisted me to go there because I had a variety of training.

I:          Um hm.

 

0:50:10

A:        And so, what I did was I rented an apartment and rode my bicycle to work and took a chain along and a padlock, and I chained by bicycle inside the fence and go to work in that nuclear plant.

 

0:50:37

And I learned to write procedures for nuclear power plants wherever I went.  And the three units were, two were established, and then the third one was being built.

 

0:51:03

And they had me as a consultant there.  I was in a nuclear facility between Los Angeles and San Diego.
I:          Ah ha.

A:        Yeah.
I:          So, your constant pursuit for knowledge entitles you to have those kinds of positions for the nuclear power plants.

 

0:51:31

A:        Yes.

I:          Great.  I think that’s a very good message for our young generation, that they need to pursue education.  And even you are encouraging them to have a degree, right?
A:        Yes.

I:          For the advancement, yes.  Very good.  Antone, we have about 50 minutes.  It’s one of the longest interviews that I had here.  And I would like to thank you for your service during the Korean War.

 

0:51:57

It was very first for two several weeks within the breakout of the Korean War, and you contributed to the bombing in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula around the line of logistics from China.

A:        Yes.

I:          And I think that was a very important mission that you did.  Thank you for a wonderful interview.  And I will let you

 

[END OF RECORDED MATERIAL]