When Pearl Harbor was bombed, I was with Burns & McDonnell Engineering Company, working down in Neosho, Missouri, building Camp Crowder. It happened on a Sunday, and we were going to the movies in Joplin, Missouri. Everybody on the street was hollering about Pearl Harbor being bombed!

Then, I was transferred by Burns & McDonnell up to Salina for a month or so, where they were building a new air base.

Since I had a college degree, I wanted to find the best opportunity that I could in the service. So, I found out about the engineering part of the Air Force and was accepted for aircraft engineering school. (At that time, it was called the "Air Corps"; a couple of years after I entered, they changed it to the "Air Force".) In July 1942, I received orders to report to Air Force Technical School at Chanute Field, in Rantoul, Illinois. There were quite a few in my class, from all over the country, but there was no one I knew from back home. In cadet school, we wore patches with wings on our shoulders, and on the front of our caps we wore the pin with wings and a propeller.

After finishing the intense three-month course at Chanute Field, I received a diploma from Air Force Technical School, and was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in November 1942. To apply for openings after Technical School, you put your name in the pot; if you were lucky, your choice was drawn. I was unlucky, and I had to wait to go overseas!

We stayed at Chanute Field for a month or so waiting for orders. After the orders came through, they sent us to the east coast, to Newport News, Virginia. There were around 25 of us and we had no assignment, other than that we were going overseas. We thought we’d go to Africa because that’s where the Allies were making their landings. But, we started out on the ship and ended up in Australia! We still didn’t know where we were going, until we headed down towards the Panama Canal. When we started through the Canal, we said, "We’re sure not going to Europe!"

Incidentally, that’s a Christmas I’ll never forget, because on Christmas morning in 1942, they routed us out of the barracks and said, "We’re pulling out!" So on Christmas morning we got on board ship at about 6 o’clock in the morning. That was Christmas!

About 29 days later, we arrived at Australia. We were put on the train in Brisbane and we traveled as far north as a train could go; to Townsville, Australia. From there, we went by plane to Port Moresby, New Guinea. I still had no idea what I was going to do, since the order just said to report to the 35^th Fighting Group, which was part of the Fifth Air Force in the Southwest Pacific Area.

It happened to be that I was with a fellow from school named Gonzalez, so we caught a ride up to headquarters, in Port Moresby. It was in the evening, and we reported to the Colonel who was the commander. He looked at us, and said he didn’t know we were coming! "Well," he said, "I don’t know…Gonzalez, you report to the 40^th Fighter Squadron, and Huitt, you report to the 41^st Fighter Squadron." And that’s how we got assigned!

There were three squadrons in the 35^th Fighter Group: the 39^th, 40^th, and 41^st. At that time, the 41^st was stationed at a place called the Seven-Mile Strip, on the southern coast of New Guinea. Our squadron was known as "The Flying Buzz Saws"; we wore the insignia on our jackets. Everybody had a nickname in the squadron…mine was "Thumper." Some of the others’ names were "Beaver," "Bambi," and "Dink." The pilots also had insignias painted on the side of the planes like Bugs Bunny and other characters.

The job that I had was Engineering Officer in charge of maintenance of all the airplanes in the squadron. It was a fighter outfit with the single-engine P-39 Bell Air Cobra, which has the engine behind the pilot. It was nice-looking, but it could not compete with the Japanese Zero, but that’s all we had! I was the only engineer; all the rest of the men under me were enlisted men. I always had one man reporting to me, called a line chief. He was usually a Master Sergeant, and he was responsible to me for all the things that were going on. So, as long as he was good, it was much better for me. We usually had about 25 planes.

The P-39 used ethylene glycol as an engine coolant which meant that there was a shortage of antifreeze back home. The problem with this type of engine cooling system was that if a plane was hit, the coolant would drain out, which could be disastrous. The P-47, on the other hand, was air-cooled, which offered some advantage if a pilot’s plane was hit.

Shortages back home often related to aircraft materials. At home, automobile factories had been changed over quickly to making airplanes. Rubber was also in short supply. The P-39 had a "tricycle-wheel" kind of landing gear. The P-47 had two front wheels, and a tail wheel that would blow out if it hit too hard on the landing. One time nearly all our planes were grounded because we had no tail wheel tires.

We did ordinary maintenance on the fighter planes. Every plane had a man who was charged as the crew chief. When he needed help, there were mechanics and specialists: propeller specialists, arms specialists, and radio specialists. Being so far away from the United States, it was hard to get parts to repair the planes. We used to have to "rob Peter to pay Paul"; taking a piece off one plane to put on the others. We’d tell the pilots, if you’re going to crack up, crack it up close to the strip so we can salvage something!

The living conditions weren’t very good…it was not at all a comfortable life. Actually, everything was pretty raunchy! Sometimes, we’d put our laundry in a barrel, and build a fire under it…other times we did it in the Ramu River. Once in a while we had a native that did some laundry for us, but for the most part, you’re on your own. Dress code? There was no dress code, really!

How was the food? Well, I haven’t eaten Spam since! Most things were canned or powdered, like milk, powdered eggs, and lots of canned peaches. Once in awhile, we’d get some canned meat from America.  We also had some canned Australian mutton, and that wasn’t very good either!

There were lots of mosquitoes, so we slept with a mosquito net over our cots. To deter the malaria that resulted from mosquito bites, we took a pill which turned our skin a bit yellow. Besides the mosquitoes, we didn’t have much contact with the wildlife of New Guinea while we were on the coast. We did always have to shake our shoes for spiders before putting them on! Once, a death adder was encountered in a storage area. Deeper inland, there were reports of enormous crocodiles. I jumped in a foxhole once when we were being bombed, and there was the biggest rat I ever saw! I jumped out first of all.  There was no way was I staying in there with that rat, let the bombs fall!

We always had an interdenominational chapel which was usually housed in a tent. There was a Catholic priest assigned to the group, but each squadron had a chaplain that could be of any faith or denomination.

It rained a lot in New Guinea.  When it rained, it really rained hard! What was particularly bad was the heat, being so close to the equator. It would get so hot with the sun shining down, that they’d have to put some kind of canvas cover over the plane when you were working on it, because the aluminum would get so hot.

We got packages from home, but they took quite a while to arrive. As for letters, maybe you’d go a long time without anything, then you’d get a whole bunch of them!

At times, we listened to the woman called "Tokyo Rose" on the radio. She would tell us what we were supposedly going to do. She was reporting for the Japanese, but it was all propaganda.

At the time, the Japanese held all the northern coast of New Guinea. A large mountain system crosses New Guinea from east to west. We were on the southern coast, separated by the Owen Stanley Mountain Range.  Fighters would fly over the mountains, which were pretty high at 12,000 feet.

Nearby were the Solomon Islands, and Guadalcanal which the Americans had already taken by the time I got to New Guinea. Over the Owen Stanley Mountains from Port Moresby was a little airstrip called Tsili Tsili where the 41^st was based, just inland a little ways from the city of Lae. Incidentally, Lae was the last place Amelia Earhart had landed and taken off from when she was attempting to fly around the world before she disappeared.

What was difficult was that all of our fuel had to be flown to us in 55-gallon drums. In fact, everything including food had to come in by ship, and then be flown over the Owen Stanleys. That fuel transport was quite a job.  The transport plane would land, and we had fellows that would pull the drums out and then the plane would take off, and go get more. Once, bad weather settled in, and the planes couldn’t get in to bring us anything.   We had the planes fueled, and we had enough for one more flight, and that was it. We didn’t get any food in either.   We had lots of peanut butter and jelly and canned peaches. Then, the weather finally cleared up. But, we were in a precarious position because the Japanese still held Lae, which was only  a 20 or 30 minute flight away. So, we got out of that one, all right!

After Tsili Tsili we moved to Nadzab, and one time, the Japanese raided us and they caught us flat-footed! We didn’t know they were around; we didn’t even have any foxholes, because they hadn’t been bothering us. That’s when I got hit. Somebody happened to spot them, because they always came in really high he shouted, "Whoa, there’s something up there!" And about that time, you could hear the bomb whistling as they came down.  They hit us really hard!   We just hit the ground, but I got hit in my chest by a piece of shrapnel. They killed some of the crew chiefs and destroyed many planes. There was no warning because the radar wasn’t very good in those days. They just didn’t catch them at all, until they were overhead.

As far as medical treatment goes, there were just bare facilities for taking care of emergencies. They had a big tent with cots and a dirt floor. That’s where they took care of me right after I was wounded.  After a few days, the wounded were flown back inland a little ways further to a better hospital on New Guinea. I was there about four or five weeks, I guess. I thought I had a ticket home --but no way! They sent me back to the squadron!

While at Nadzab our P-39’s were replaced with new P-47’s, which were very good airplanes.

The pilots carried maps made of pure silk. They could get wet if the pilot was shot down, and they were easy to carry. Pilots whose planes were downed, encountered natives at times. From the maps, if a pilot went down he could see generally where he might be, since there were trails and villages marked, and the names of tribes were shown. One pilot, whose plane went down in the Philippines, was picked up by a native with a bola knife. Another pilot downed in New Guinea was met by natives who had never seen a white man. A pouch in the parachute held coins, razors, etc. that, fortunately, interested the natives.

Another time on New Guinea our boys were flying out of Gusap over the Finisterre Mountains (which were very high and rugged), to some places the Japanese held up north of there. One of our pilots, George Gaffney, didn’t come back from his mission, and there’s an interesting story about this. We never knew what happened, until they found his P-47 Thunderbolt 55 years later, in 1999. There is a group called the American World War Two Orphans Network, made up of individuals whose fathers never came back from the war. One of them, a woman named Patricia Gaffney, was born shortly after her father was lost. She saw on television about how plane wrecks were being found in New Guinea, so she made some contacts with others interested in that type search. Eventually, with the help of wreck researchers, a Philadelphia businessman, and others, they did find her father’s wrecked plane. Apparently, Gaffney had gotten lost in the weather, and had plowed into the mountain at about 8,000 feet elevation. The wreckage was overgrown with vegetation, but they were able to verify that it was his plane, from the serial numbers on the wing guns. She was then able bring her father’s remains home for a memorial service in his hometown in Wisconsin, and for burial with honors at Arlington National Cemetery. There is an interesting website about the story at http://www.ideasmith.com/gaffney. About a year ago, the television program "Beyond Belief" filmed a segment about Patty Gaffney and her story. Gaffney was only in our squadron a short time so, I didn’t get to know him too well.

In New Guinea, we moved from Port Morseby to Tsili Tsili, Nadzab, Gusap, and back to Nadzab. Then, we went to a couple of islands farther north, Owi and Noemfoor. At the time, the Japanese held Borneo, Sumatra, and many more islands including the Carolina Islands. Because there were so many islands occupied by the Japanese, MacArthur and the generals decided they’d have leap over some of them. I was promoted in rank along the way; on September 22, 1944 I was promoted from First Lieutenant to Captain.

The 41^st Squadron was sent to the little island of Morotai, south of the Philippines. We were at Morotai from October 1944 to January 1945. The Japanese bombed us quite a bit while we were there. While on Morotai, there were only one or two nights during the month of November 1944 that they didn’t come over! They did a lot of damage; they hit our planes really hard. You see, that’s what they were after, our planes, and they destroyed a lot of them.

In order for the Americans to take the Philippines, we knew that, somehow, we had to get rid of the fuel supply the Japanese were using. While we were on Morotai, the Japanese held Borneo, which had the oil fields that supplied the fuel for their fighters. So, the Americans undertook to fly some bombers from down in the islands, over to Borneo and bomb the oil fields. The first mission was very successful.  Then, the Japanese got onto it and they were shooting down bombers right and left! So, the Americans decided that fighter planes from Morotai, could fly cover to protect the bombers and meet them en route to Borneo. Our squadron and another squadron did just that. It was a long way, maybe 900 miles and back. However, they only had enough fuel in each fighter for no more than five minutes of combat, with enough fuel to make it back. The P-47’s had a fuel tank under each wing and one under the belly, instead of a bomb, and that gave them enough extra fuel. They also had some Navy planes out in the area, to pick the pilots up if they were downed. But, they did get the oil fields pretty well knocked out, and that helped.

One night on Morotai, our bombers were coming back from a mission. A Japanese bomber tagged in behind the others, and of course, the radar didn’t pick it up as being different than the others. So, instead of landing when he got over the strip, he dropped his bomb! When bombers flew over, our anti-aircraft caused metal fragments to shower down on us. We had to hit the foxholes, to protect ourselves from the sharp pieces that could pierce our tents and cause us injury.

Another time, on Morotai, the rumor came out that the Japanese were going to invade us. They figured out which of us would fly what planes out, and the rest would be on their own! But it never happened. I think it was more rumor than anything else.

After Morotai, we moved up to the Lingayen Gulf, north of Manila in January 1945. When we flew over Manila it was still under siege, and we could see smoke coming from downtown. We had P-51 fighters in our outfit when we were in the Philippines.

It was a big relief to hear about the invasion of Europe on D-Day. We heard the news pretty quickly after it happened. The war in Europe was so big compared to the South Pacific. 
As soon as that ended, we knew they could send more forces over where we were.  I was overseas from Christmas of 1942 until April of 1945, and in New Guinea about half that time.

I came home by ship, which took a couple of weeks. It was on board the ship coming back, that we heard about the death of President Roosevelt, and that Truman would be the new president.

After the war I was stationed in Colorado. Then I was assigned to Santa Ana Air Base in California. In August of 1945, I was at Santa Ana Air Base still waiting for assignment. We'd gone up to North Hollywood to visit my wife’s relatives. We were at their place, when everybody in the neighborhood started whooping and hollering! It was V-J Day, and it was quite a time! Everybody was really happy!

With the war over, I knew that I didn’t want to stay in the service.  I received an Honorable Discharge at Fort Leavenworth, on December 28, 1945.

The war changed the direction I took afterwards. My degree from K-State was in Agricultural Engineering, so I had thought I would go into soil conservation, or work for John Deere or Caterpillar Tractors. But, I had worked for Burns & McDonnell just before the war, and when I was heading to Ft. Leavenworth for discharge, I stopped in at the Burns & McDonnell office in Kansas City, just to see if I knew anybody. They needed engineers badly, and said, "When you get out, come back to work!" So, I did, but I didn’t intend to stay. I had something possibly lined up in Denver with the Soil Conservation Service, which later came through with an offer. But Burns & McDonnell made me a better offer than the government did, so I stayed! The reason I didn’t go to work for the Soil Conservation Service right after I was discharged was the fact that at that time you couldn’t draw two government checks, and I had three months of terminal leave coming from the military. So, I did something I hadn't dreamt of -- that’s how I ended up in consulting engineering, designing power plants. I retired in April 1981, after a 36-year career with Burns & McDonnell Engineering.

I was married just before I went overseas and my first wife passed away in 1965. Then, I met Helen, who happened to be a widow and I was a widower, and we went to the same church. We’ve been married for 34 years now! Between the two of us, we are blessed with three children, seven grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren!

Helen and I have greatly enjoyed attending the reunions with the other fellows from the 41^st Squadron. Our first reunion was 11 years ago in Colorado Springs. There were about 30 of us, and we hadn’t seen each another for 45 years! It was a reunion I’ll never forget.  We couldn’t wait to get together and talk. We've met annually since then in cities around the country, including San Antonio, Charleston, and New Orleans. They keep finding people. . .and losing them, too. This year’s reunion in San Francisco should be a great occasion!

Permission granted for use by Dena E. Huitt © 2001
Transcribed by Anne Miller

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