World War II Experiences
"Timeless Voices" Oral History Project
Interview with
Bill S. Clack, 398th Bomb Group Ball Turret Gunner
600th / 601st Squadrons, Eighth Air Force
Interviewer: Marilyn Gibb-Rice
Interview conducted at the
398th Bomb Group Annual Reunion
Austin, Texas, September 12, 2009
Background:
The 398th has been interviewing its members as part of the Timeless Voices of Aviation project. More information about the project and a current list of video interviews can be found at 398th Timeless Voices Interviews. In addition to the video interviews, some of the interviews have been transcribed to text.
Interview with
Bill S. Clack, 398th Bomb Group Ball Turret Gunner
600th / 601st Squadrons, Eighth Air Force
[TIME OF INTERVIEW 0:38:35]
MGR: Interviewer, Marilyn Gibb-Rice
BC: 398th Ball Turret Gunner, Bill Clack
Time of Interview: 0:38:35
MGR: I'm Marilyn Gibb-Rice and today is September 12th 2009 and we're at the 398th Bomb Group Reunion in Austin, Texas. Would you please introduce yourself?
BC:
MGR: What did you do when you were at Stoke-on-Trent for those three weeks?
BC: Really nothing. Really.
MGR: No training?
BC: No training.
MGR: Okay alright, so what did you think of England when you arrived?
BC: I loved it. The uh, especially the ladies.
MGR: Okay.
BC: Well uh,
MGR: Was, was he killed?
BC: We thought he was dead.
MGR: Yeah.
BC: He walked, hee he he landed in some farmer's yard, er er farmer's field and the farmer came and got him. He uh, dislocated his shoulder and uh abrasion. He looked like he'd been rubbed down with a wire brush. Scratched all over. Herbert Guild G-U-I-L-D was his name. I visited him in the hospital two or three days later. But the landing, at that point we had the option, talked about the option of bailing out. They decide we brought it down, somebody decided. Nobody bailed out. And that, one long runway up in England at the end of it, one end was the English Channel where you went, if you had no flaps, no breaks, wheels up whatever. And fortunately, they had just installed on both sides of the runway gas jets that would burn the fog away. So, he went into there.
MGR: Was a very dangerous landing and lucky that you guys all made it.
BC: Yeah, and um
MGR: So obviously you were out ball turret when that was happening.
BC: Yeah, yeah yeah, well I got out you got out of the ball turret when you were going to land.
MGR: Okay.
BC: I was really standing behind the radio room. And went to, I was standing and hit the ground it
MGR: So when you took off were you in the ball turret?
BC: No.
MGR: No.
BC: No, I didn't, that was sitting normally, you did not ride the ball take-off or landing. There's stories about the guys locked in the ball of uh,
MGR: That ever happened to you?
BC: No.
MGR: Oh.
BC: And, and flying spares I uh wasn't necessarily a ball, a float. Tail or waist gunner or whatever. I was trained as a radio man. But uh, some reason or another my wife said did you flunk? I said no I didn't flunk but
MGR: Mmm hmm.
BC: You kept
MGR: Right.
BC: And uh,
MGR: Alright, let's go back. How did you hear about the bombing of Pearl Harbor?
BC: I was home. I went out to the state by a Japanese car.
MGR: And did you, you said you were drafted?
BC: Yeah.
MGR: Okay, and why did choose to go into the Army Air Corp as opposed to…
BC: I wasn't, I didn't choose.
MGR: Oh they, okay when you were drafted you went to the Air Force
BC: They sent, they just sent me.
MGR: Oh okay, okay I didn't realize that.
BC: I could have been a foot soldier, I don't know.
MGR: Oh, and where, did you have a girlfriend at that point or a wife?
BC: I was married at that time.
MGR: You were married.
BC: It was a mistake, but I was married.
MGR: Oh, okay. How old were you?
BC: I was 20 when I was drafted. Married at 19 and you got no business marrying at 19.
MGR: How did she feel about you joining the mil… or being drafted?
BC: Uh, I don't think she really had any strong feelings. Wasn't anything you could do about it. If you had children you might have a, get a deferment but there were no kids thank goodness.
MGR: No, hmm. What did you think about the food in UK?
BC: Food?
MGR: Did you have flak leave to where you went up into Scotland?
BC: I had flak leave but I got on a plane and uh meet a British lady and I got off with her.
MGR:
BC: Oh, I didn't get to Scotland.
MGR: You,
BC: Not during the war.
MGR: No, okay okay. Alright.
BC: Now the Rogers' crew went to, they all went to Scotland.
MGR: Mmhmm yeah Most of them.
MGR: Yeah, yeah you didn't make it?
BC: No. uh, Another incident that
MGR: But you landed in Brussels?
BC: Yeah.
MGR: And stayed there?
BC: Yeah, yeah there in Brussels.
MGR: Hmmm.
BC: Rogers, our pilot Rogers being like any other farm boy, that he was also conservative he took the bombs into Brussels and he took them home. And you're not supposed to do that.
MGR: Right.
BC: He wasn't going to waste it in the English Channel.
MGR: Yeah So you landed with them?
BC: Oh yeah. He did that more than once.
MGR: Mmm mm.
BC: And they uh, we made, with Rogers we made three trips to the emergency strip. Once without hydraulics at all, once with no flaps, I'm not sure what the other one was...now.
MGR: So when you didn't have the hydraulics, did you have to crank the wheels, the landing wheels, down manually?
BC: Yeah, yeah.
MGR: And did you ever have to, did the bombs ever get stuck to where someone had to get those out when you were bombing?
BC: That did happen. Bill Cook did that.
MGR: Mmhmm
BC: No, yeah Bill Cook did that. No we had a bombardier. Bill Cook was the Engineer. If a bomb bay doors don't ever want to open, he'd crank them open.
MGR: So tell me what it was like being in the ball turret for a mission.
BC: Hah, well it was boring, ‘cause we never saw fighters, only one time… and that was uh November the 2nd I believe. Uh you didn't see much.
MGR: Did you usually keep your ball turret to where you were like facing forward so you can see where going?
BC: We did go around and around and around, and round once you went. Occasionally on the four or five min…. once every 30 minutes or so looking all around and down and, of course you couldn't look up.
MGR: Right, so did you ever get cramped? Or, I mean ‘cause you had to pretty much sit in the same position, didn't you?
BC: Yeah, and I was a lot smaller then.
MGR:
BC: I weighed 120 pounds.
MGR: Mmmhmm.
BC: I think. It never bothered me that I was not chosen as a radio man. I was just happy to be somewhere and get it over with.
MGR: So did you choose the ball turret over waist or tail?
BC: No, no.
MGR: No, you were assigned?
BC: You were assigned that. Yeah
MGR: And you did, didn't shoot your guns much?
BC: Almost every, almost every take off. Uh On a mission, in the beginning of the mission you would test fire.
MGR: Mmmhmm.
BC: Just a burst and that's it.
MGR: When you got up and, and for each mission did you have to physically take your guns and load ‘em into the plane? Or were they already there?
BC: No, no they were loaded.
MGR: They were loaded? So you didn't have to take any equipment with you?
BC: No, no. All we took were electric suit and a parachute.
MGR: And could you wear your parachute in the ball turret?
BC: I don't thin, I don't think so.
MGR: Mmm, So it was like outside?
BC: Yeah.
MGR: In case something happened and you could, and you always, once you took off then you got into the ball turret?
BC: Yeah, well once we got into uh, to um. Once across the English Channel. We got in the ball turret.
MGR: Oh okay, and then before you went back over the channel you got back out of it?
BC: Yeah.
MGR: And wasn't it, would it be much colder in the ball turret as inside the plane?
BC: Not really because we had, we had electric suits. And you could plug them in in the ball turret too. Uh, so it was no colder there than in, uh, and you had to wear oxygen just like masks just like you had to everywhere else. It was cramped yes, but uh…
MGR: Yeah not bad. Did you
BC: There was, there was what you call a rele a relief tube.
MGR: So you had your own private one?
BC: Yeah, yeah.
MGR: What about food or drink? Did you take anything with you on the missions?
BC: No, uh uh nothing.
MGR: Did you have any good luck charm that you took with you?
BC: No.
MGR: No. So what was typical day like when you had to go on a mission when, you know, tell me like when they woke you up and walk me through the day.
BC: Usually they woke you up about 4 o'clock or before, before 4 o'clock and you ate breakfast and you were at the plane usually in the dark. Another matter of interest
MGR:
BC: I did not see Booth Luce or Brokaw. They saw one another. And uh they didn't stay long.
MGR: So her name had Brokaw in it. Were they married? Or related? Or…
BC: No, they were related. Clare, her, she I think her maiden name was Brokaw. Claire Booth Brokaw Luce. Her maiden name might have been. She was a Brokaw somehow, they were related. Somewhat
MGR: Mmmhmmm. Do you remember, where you there when Glen Miller came to the base?
BC: I was there when Glen Miller, yes
MGR: Yeah
BC: He was supposed to come.
MGR: Oh supposed to, okay. He didn't make it? Was that, ah, after he had…
BC: That's when he disappeared.
MGR: Okay, ‘kay
BC: Yeah
MGR: And did we have dances on the base? Do you remember any dances?
BC: Oh we had uh, at the 100th, 200th, and 300th mission they brought all the ladies in. And a big banquet of feed. And I don't remember dances. Uh uh I remember there'd be several, several days or a week or two before all the ladies left. I don't know where they stayed.
MGR: Okay, they stayed somewhere didn't they?
BC: Yeah they did.
MGR: So what were your living conditions like?
BC: Oh they were adequate. A Nissen hut. I think we had 18 guys to a Nissen hut. The enlisted people from three different crews. And uh, double deck bunks, a coal, coal stove for heat but one bathroom for eighteen of us and when we ran out of coal, and Bill Cook our engineer found a cross cut saw and went to cut some wood. But we got stopped because you can't cut His Majesty’s wood. Well, anyway we survived. When you're young you don't have any sense. No, no sense of fear. No uh.
MGR: So what did you do in the evenings when you weren't flying but you were on the base… or even during the days, what would you do?
BC: Well, generally um we didn't play cards. We didn't have exercise. We didn't have routines of any kind. Uh, we had lots of liberty time, free time. In fact the trucks would run, we'd call liberty trucks would run starting about 5:30, 6 o'clock to Hitchin, Letchworth, and Baldock and other places and bring you back. What'd you do then? Go to the bar and drink beer.
MGR: Were you ever in the Woodman Pub?
BC: I don't recall ever being there. I went back in uh ‘94, that would in Nuthampstead, on a Sunday and the Woodman was closed. I remember being there.
MGR: But not being in it. Were you there for D-day?
BC: Nah, I was on a war ship going over on D-day.
MGR: Okay.
BC: I was on a war ship coming back when Roosevelt died.
MGR: Do you remember how long it took you to get over?
BC: About two weeks.
MGR: Did it? Okay.
BC: Convoy, convoy goes at the pace of the slowest ship and some of them were slow.
MGR: Mmmhmm. Would you say that you were afraid when you were on your missions?
BC: Uh, cautious I'd say more than afraid. As I said earlier, at that age you don't have sense enough to be afraid.
MGR: And your, I guess the biggest danger was the flak while you were flying?
BC: Yeah.
MGR: Did you ever see the jets? Some of them were talkin’ about the Jets, the Germans had just adopted jets. Do you ever recall seeing that?
BC: I never saw one but I did see… you'd see the launching pad, launching places for the V2 Rocket Bomb. You didn't see, you didn't see the rockets you saw the contrail it was going so fast.
MGR: Did you ever hear those when you were in London?
BC: Yes.
MGR: Or the buzz bombs?
BC: Buzz bombs yes.
MGR: Are they the same thing?
BC: There was a lot when
MGR: Did you see them like when the planes go down though and you'd get the parachutes coming out?
BC: Yeah some, you'd count on the intercom - you'd hear them counting. Some of them you saw none come out. Uh, McCormick I think he must uh uh have died [since the war]. Uh, he was in a cra, an air crash somebody came up and hit him from below. And he was the only survivor of that crew.
MGR: He was the pilot?
BC: Yeah. Um, I remember Doctor Gonzalez was the only survivor of a crash, and that was remarkable and uh…
MGR: He was in Colonel Hunter's…
BC: Who?
MGR: He was in Colonel Hunter's crew correct?
BC: Yeah.
MGR: Gonzalez. Yeah, were you on that mission?
BC: No.
MGR: No? And how many missions did you say you flew?
BC: Thirty-five.
MGR: Thirty-five, and did you fly the last one that went to Pilsen?
BC: No.
MGR: No?
BC: I’d finished and come home by then.
MGR: Okay. How did you hear about the bombing of Hiroshima?
BC: I must have been listening to the radio.
MGR: And did you feel it was necessary?
BC: I wa, I was all for it. I remembered Pearl Harbor. Nah I say, there's still some criticism today about that, I'm not afraid of it at all, all for it.
MGR: Did you know during the war about the Holocaust and what the, what the Germans were doing?
BC: No.
MGR: Nah, you just didn't know about it didn't you. So how did you find out about the surrender of Japan?
BC: I was, I was home. I had been discharged and uh… and think it was by the radio, or before, really before television. Radio or newspaper.
MGR: What are your memories of VE day?
BC: I was home. I guess with my ex-wife. No, I was pleased it was over with. But I had been discharged and I wasn't facing Japan or B-29’s.
MGR: Did you use the GI Bill after you got home?
BC: No I did not, I possibly should have but
MGR: So what would you want people to know about that time period in history?
BC: We want them to remember it for what it did and what it stood for and the sacrifices made by everyone. And uh food was rationed. Gasoline and tires were rationed. Uh, the years prior there was a big depression. Uh, it was a period of time that we'll never experience again.
MGR: So did you keep in touch with your crew after you got back?
BC: Uh,
MGR: So, and you have been back to Nuthampstead you said?
BC: Yeah.
MGR: Yes, and have you been back into the B17?
BC: Have I been back into one? No, I didn't fly one.
MGR: Yeah but you've been back in one?
BC: Oh yeah.
MGR: Yeah, did it seem smaller to you then?
BC: Yeah, yeah my wife says, you mean you got in that thing?
MGR: And would they let you in, have you back into the ball turret on any plane?
BC: No, I couldn't get into one.
MGR: And do you think that anything happened during the war that has affected you for the rest of your life?
BC: Mentally no. I remember...good things and bad things. I don't have bad dreams.
MGR: Okay, mmmhmm so do you have any other stories that you can tell me.
BC: No.
MGR: No?
BC: I think we've touched the highlights and uh.
MGR: Alright. Well if that’s that's all, I just, I want to thank you from the second generation and from the ones of us who want to keep this going. I want to thank you for your time that you spent during the war and that you come to the reunions and, and gather around us all. Well thank you and we hope to see you next year.
BC: Well I would hope so.
See also:
Notes: