Ernest Brant

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Ernest Brant: Ernest Ray Brant, September 16, ’29 My Dad died following an accident from a coal mine. He didn’t die in the mine, he died later on and um. They lived out in the country.

I: Where?

E: It wasn’t from my Grandfather’s farm there, we would raise vegetables to eat, we would, Momma and I would, and he had another son, I mean she had another son but we would have been hard times.

00:00:30

E: And well we finally, when he died, we had to move out of the country someplace in town, where it’s a search to live Bedford, Pennsylvania.

I: So tell me about the school you went through.

E: School? Ah, I can’t think of the name anyhow it was, my cousin Leo and my cousin Mary I walked up the road toward my grandfather’s farm on the left, walked down a lane by the about a mile and a half, someplace, walked up through a farmer’s field,

00:01:00

E: Up through an orchard, and cousin Leo and cousin Mary we would meet there, then walk the rest of the way. Leo always said around three miles, but I don’t know for sure. I’ll trust 3 miles, but it was a long walk. And.

I: To the school?

E: Yeah, It was a one-room school.

I: One-room school?

E: Yeah, a pot bellied stove in the middle. The youngest ones sat close to the hot, to the stove, the old ones sat out toward the cold walls.

I: Did you have a job?

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E: Ah, my first job was 1947,

I: What did you do?

E: I went through Pennsylvania Lumber and Post company, at 80 cents an hour, and it was a union too, I paid 50 cents a month union dues, believe it or not. 80 cents an hour, and before that I worked on a dairy farm, 10 cents 25 cents sometimes. All depends what kind of a job

00:02:00

E: And all. I did everything on a dairy farm. I went from sunset to sunrise to sunset,

I: So, when did you join the military?

E: We started in ’48 but I finally got in the third day of January ’49. Why I said that is uh it was a friend of ours came home from Thanksgiving and he was in the paratroopers and that time I was working sometime in the pool hall there doing some working there.

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E: He came home and me and Don and Jack, Don and Jack was the other two guys we worked together at the Planing Mill, and the Navy cancelled out of a big contract for some kind of wooden crates and stuff. So we was at tailend, so we got laid off. So, this guy came home. I know he looks like a changed man. Anyhow and man was he sharp.

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E: I mean the braid, creases in his pants he cut hot butter with and all that laced up boots and all that. And I said man John, he said that’s what we want. We want to join the Paratroopers. So we was going right after Thanksgiving then they all three of us finally talked ourself out. No, we wait for Christmas, and we were going to go before Christmas. No, like I said. So then finally after Christmas.

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E: Okay, we went down to Cumberland. I don’t know we borrowed a car or something. I’m not sure which one we borrowed off somebody to go down to recruiter. That was closer than Bedford, Pennsylvania. So we went down there and went in there to the recruiter, up on the second floor the old Post Office up in Cumberland, Maryland.

I: So that was January 3rd of 1949.

E:: Yeah.

I: Ok, where did you go to receive basic training?

E: Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. It was a separate base then.

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E: Now it’s multiple, two actually. It was Air Force wasn’t too far away that time. I don’t know exactly what all happened down there but

I: What was your specialty?

E: Well, took an aptitude test or something like what you call it. And then doing it right at the end of basic training. And I went to Chanute Air Force Base, which was about 100 miles south of Chicago. Ran through to Illinois town, and this where, sheet metal, aircraft sheet metal maintenance.

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I: What were you doing when the Korean War broke out?

E: Well, while I was up there in school, I got home. Went home and had an aunt lives up
Somerset who married a German, Adolf Miers. MI, it’s not MY it’s MI the old German way. And he had family over there, and well he was dead, then but then his wife,

00:05:00

E: My daddy’s sister, there she had all kinds of contact with his family. She was lining me up if I was put in for Germany, because of the Berlin airlift. Anyhow, but, I didn’t get over there. Anyhow, at the time we graduated and up there instead of going to Germany, eh we’ll see, the abbreviation was in the Far Eastern Air Force.

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E: I said ‘what’s this?’ He said, ‘that’s Far Eastern Air Force.’ I said, ‘where’s that at? South Pacific or someplace in there?’ And he said ‘that your destination is Anderson Air Force Base Guam.’ Anyhow, it was the first of the year now, sometime in the first weekend of the year, we left Oakland when I went there, and we stopped was four, was three or four days uh two, three nights at Pearl Harbor there.

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E: When we left, went to Guam, before we got to Guam, we got sideswiped by a typhoon. My first experience in a typhoon. We got the ship sideswiped by and I thought we was going to sink. I mean it was tossing around, then all of a sudden one day a terrible noise. The ship shook apart, looked like was going to blow up.

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E: I mean what happened ,see that troop ship had two props, two propellers. One went far enough over to the side and when it came out of the water, the pressure that propeller took off. When it settled back down into the water it grabbed that water it just shook the ship. I thought. I thought it, I said what did we hit? A couple of Navy guys around on the deck while we was hanging on.

I: But what did you do in Guam?

E: Aircraft maintenance, sheet metal work on there.

00:07:00

E: Then we was there wasn’t doing much of anything. We worked Monday and Tuesday, I think after we was there for a while. Half a day on Wednesday, off on Thursday, Friday. Maybe, did some work and right sometime in July, yeah June was ’50. Anyhow we was, in the general of the 20s Air Force, I had his name on my tongue, I can’t man. Anyhow, he had a B29 converted for a personal plane.

I: (Laugh) Personal?

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E: Well made to fly around what. Why I say personal, they took the bomb racks out of it and closed the bomb bay doors and made a cargo and stuff all that in the back. And they had it in one of the hangers. Well, the hanger’s only halfway in because in the other was big overhang we had it in front in there. We would, uh, taking skins off one side of the wing, it was corroded real bad real corrosion because of the salt air and stuff all over the Pacific.

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E: All we was working on there until June the 25th.

I: What kind of aircraft did you maintain and repair? B29?

E: B29.

I: Have you been to Korea?

E: No what I seen the bomb runs when they took films they developed we come back and see what the damage done all that. Once in a while I wasn’t real busy, I walked into the room in there where they had the film developed.

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E: And was showing the bomb runs and all that kind of stuff. Now that’s the closest one up on the screen.

I: Hmm, so did you see MacArthur?

E: Well from a distance, we was, we was up there. We flew up there in 29, bunch of us did. I don’t know who the pilot was anymore. It wasn’t my CO, I don’t think. He might have been. Anyhow, we went up there for something. I don’t know, it was a Gloria hotel. Mount Fujiama is over right here, this peak.

00:09:00

E: We was on this peak right across. Anyhow, it was a half, not halfway up, about part ways up there was a beautiful lake and the United States Army had a R & R hotel.

I: Wait, what unit of Air Force did you belong?

E: I was in the 20th Air Force.

I: 20th?

E: 20th.

I: 20th.

E: Yeah and 19th Bomb Group

I: 19th?

E: Bomb Group. And the 93rd Bomb Squad. It was that time the Colonel Hatfield was the CO.

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E: And of the 93rd Bomb Squadron. And Colonel Graff was the oldest colonel in the Air Force. He was the head of the 19th Bomb Group. Yeah, Col Graff but I don’t know if he ever made Major General or not.

I: Were there many stories of B29s into Korea from Guam?

00:09:57

E: They did back in when they

00:10:00

E: When they, when they took Guam they did. That was the closest island they had where the airfield on to fly. It was a long flight back and forth until

I: So from Guam to Korea?

E: Yeah, and then when they, well took. During the same time they had a lot of problems with Wake Island

I: Wake Island, yes?

E: Yeah, because that was in the line with the flight back and forth. The Japanese had it so they took that.

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E: I think it was Wake Island. Or, well anyhow, Wake halfway between that and Okinawa and Japan. Anyhow, they took that to, and they had a strip on there too. In case the plane wouldn’t make it back or run out of fuel they landed.

I: Do you know what happened to Korea after the war?

E: I kept looking in the paper and all that and stuff, like that. Then they was, see they started talking and peace talk

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E: In ‘52 and they finally whole year in ’53, July the 27th Yeah, that’s over there and the 26th back here. Yeah same time I was over there, I lost my, well, I lost some good friends. We was in the tent together. It was wait for a flight out someplace. But, anyhow, the Chinese came across and invaded. Then we was max effort farther, you know you

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E: Want what you know. What max effort was, everything you got put into it. All the, all what’s all the planes able to fly that mission right away. Load up. Anyhow, he went up. I think we took, I was watching the radio. I mean the people in the operation there we said. I forget what plane he was on,Fagima, I ain’t sure it was that with the one he was on.

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E: Anyhow he got hit pretty bad.

I: Thank you very much Ernie.

E: You’re welcome brother.