With Introduction by
\nLarry Pearce
\n6\/24\/03 & 1\/21\/15<\/p>\n
Richard O. Miller (1920- 2015) was my wife Susan\u2019s father, and was part of an extensive project at the Pennsylvania State Historical Center in Somerset to record and preserve the experiences of area World War II veterans. Our thanks to Barbara Black of the Historical Center for her help in obtaining this transcription of Richard\u2019s taped interview. The transcribing involved the use of outside court stenographers working quickly, writing what they think they heard and using spelling that they believed to be correct. Because of certain vocal inflections common to native Somerset County speakers, some particular spellings, and of course simple lapses of memory on the part of the interviewee, some errors have been made. I have made as many corrections in brackets as possible. In the future we hope to have audio excerpts from the recording. Richard also furnished and donated many artifacts for the World War II exhibit, including his uniform and other memorabilia. These will be displayed from time to time at the Historical Center located just north of Somerset along Rt. 985. We hope to have a hyperlink to a photo exhibit sometime in the future. What follows is the transcript of the taped interview Richard did with Carl Kahl pertaining to his time in the old Army Air Corps, the predecessor to our modern Air Force, and his experiences as a ball turret gunner in a B-17 in nearly three dozen missions over Germany:<\/p>\n
MR. KAHL:\u00a0 This is Carl Kahl and this is March the 20th, 1999 and we are at the Historical Center here in Somerset and this is the day when we are trying to document experiences of our World War II Veterans so that we have their stories on file for future use.<\/p>\n
I have with me today Mr. Richard Miller who is going to be sharing some of the information that he has experienced during his lifetime and I would start by asking Mr. Miller if he could just tell us a little bit about his family background, grandparents, parents, that type of thing. So Mr. Miller?<\/p>\n
MR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I never saw any of my grandparents.\u00a0 They were gone before I can recollect anything.\u00a0 My parents were Art [Howard] P. Miller, my father, and my mother was Sara Miller.\u00a0 We lived on the north side of the Quemahoning Dam in Jenner Township and\u00a0 or lived on a farm and back as far as I can remember that was on the same farm all the time.<\/p>\n
MR. KAHL:\u00a0 Do you remember your grandparents’ names?<\/p>\n
MR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 On my mother’s side was Frank Bear [Baer].\u00a0 She was a Bear [ditto].<\/p>\n
MR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.<\/p>\n
MR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 And my father’s side his dad was Pearson [Dibert] Miller.<\/p>\n
MR. KAHL:\u00a0 Pearson Miller?<\/p>\n
MR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah, I think I am right on that.\u00a0 He is buried at Stoystown, that large cemetery.\u00a0 I don’t know what the name of it is.<\/p>\n
MR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 And what was your mother’s maiden name?<\/p>\n
MR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 She was a Bear [Baer}.\u00a0 Sara Bear [ditto].<\/p>\n
MR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Fine.\u00a0 And what is your birthdate?<\/p>\n
MR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 My birthdate is October 20, 1920.<\/p>\n
MR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 1920.\u00a0 Do you have brothers and sisters?<\/p>\n
MR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I have\u00a0 there was five of us, five brothers.\u00a0 I was one in the middle.\u00a0 There is two older and two younger.<\/p>\n
MR. KAHL:\u00a0 Could you give me their names?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 The oldest one was Elmer [Omar] and the next one was Clyde and then myself and next was Charles and the youngest was Aldon [Alton].
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Very good.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 There is two oldest ones that are gone now.\u00a0 There is two younger than I am and I am in the middle yet.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 You are there the middle yet.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 You were the middle one.\u00a0 I don’t know what to say about the middle child.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I don’t know either.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 How about telling me what you were doing prior to the beginning of World War II?\u00a0 Were you working anywhere; were you going to school; what was your situation?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, I had enough brothers at home yet and so I left the farm after I was graduated from high school in Boswell High School.\u00a0 And I went to Baltimore where at that time my wife had gone\u00a0 which wasn’t my wife at that time.\u00a0 She was down there because she had a brother living down there and she stayed down there and then I moved down and the first job I got down there was working at Montgomery Wards store until I got a job\u00a0 that was over Christmas.\u00a0 I went down in the fall and I got a job then that Callards [Calvert\u2019s] Distillery and I worked there about six months and while I was working there I went to night school to learn to be a machine operator, machinist.
\nI completed that course around July the first of July sometime and then I went to Glenn L. Martins, which was an airplane, aircraft manufacturer in Baltimore.\u00a0 And I got a job there\u00a0 the first part of July and I worked there in the experimental department on machines.\u00a0 And we done work on the Mars [?], which was a C plane six engine job, the biggest made at that time and it was quite a plane.\u00a0 It flew some.\u00a0 Where it ended up, I really don’t know the history.\u00a0 I have pictures of it at home.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Those would be good sometime if you are coming this direction to share those picture as we make copies of them, you know, so we have them on file because it seems to me I remember a little bit about that airplane and it was a very huge, huge plane.\u00a0 I am not just sure what happened to it or how they used it.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 The size of engines were pretty big because we carried oil up to it.\u00a0 We put 15 gallon of oil in the one engine to test it to start it.\u00a0 So what it held normally I don’t know, but that is what the 15 gallon we carried up the ladders.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Some of the experiences you have talked about there those are sometime we could maybe go into more detail, because I am sure some of those things are interesting experiences there.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 We will continue on, then.\u00a0 You were working there, then, when the war started?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, I was at home yet when Pearl Harbor.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Do you remember?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah, that was Sunday morning.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 What were you doing?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 We got it on the radio.\u00a0 I was at home\u00a0 I don’t remember.\u00a0 It was on a Sunday morning.\u00a0 I don’t know, we must not have gone to church that day.\u00a0 I am not sure.\u00a0 But we had the radio on.\u00a0 We had a radio run by a car battery.\u00a0 We didn’t have electricity in the house or did we?\u00a0 I don’t know if we had electricity then or not.\u00a0 No, we didn’t.\u00a0 No, there was no electricity.\u00a0 We had telephone but that was it.\u00a0 And that is where I heard it on the radio Pearl Harbor was bombed.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 What was the feeling in your family and with yourself when you heard this news?\u00a0 How did you react to that?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, I was pretty well upset.\u00a0 I was figuring now what is going to happen?\u00a0 What is next?
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Did at that point you have some feeling that you were going to probably be part of this war?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Not that I can recall.\u00a0 I wasn’t gung ho on going as far as that goes, I just took it into stride and wasn’t too long after that why we were all\u00a0 we had to sign up for the draft.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Where did you do that?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Somerset.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 In Somerset you had to sign up for the draft?\u00a0 You were what about 21 at that
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I was older than that.\u00a0 Let’s see\u00a0 when was Pearl Harbor?
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 41.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah, I was about 21 then.\u00a0 That was before I went to Baltimore.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 So you would have been prime age really for drafting, so you signed up and then what happened?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, I was required to sign up.\u00a0 I didn’t do it on my own really.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Right.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 We had to sign up.\u00a0 And then I went to Baltimore and worked down there.\u00a0 And I was drafted while I was working at Glenn L. Martins aircraft plant.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And how did that happen when they drafted you?\u00a0 Did you get a letter, what?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah, I got a letter.\u00a0 I am not sure now.\u00a0 It was probably at home, but then it was transferred to me in Baltimore.\u00a0 And I remember the wife said, well, if they don’t need you to work here they don’t need me either, so she quit same time I did.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 And we came home.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 You came home then?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 When did you enter the service?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 February\u00a0 the last part of February of ’42.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 And when you got the notice that you were drafted, where did they send you and how did you get there?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I came to Somerset and got on a bus and the bus took us\u00a0 I don’t know\u00a0 where was it now?\u00a0 They took us to Johnstown or Altoona.\u00a0 I don’t remember.\u00a0 We got the train then and went to Indiantown Gap at Harrisburg.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Is that where you had your training?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 That is the first\u00a0 no training there, just inducted in the Army service there.\u00a0 I was there for a couple of weeks, not too long, a couple weeks I would say.\u00a0 And then from there we went down to Floria, Miami Beach, Florida.\u00a0 That is where I took my basic training.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 You had it pretty nice?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, I will tell you when we left up here the snow was laying and it was cold.\u00a0 And we shipped us\u00a0 we were dressed in O.D.’S which was our winter clothing.\u00a0 Until we got down on the train, we were sweating from one end to the other and it was terribly hot to us, because we were used to the winter.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Sure.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 And we were so glad to get those off and get khakis on, which is a summer uniform.\u00a0 And we lived in a motel in the front street of Miami Beach.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Right on the ocean?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Ocean side, yes.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 And we lived in the hotels and we had our basic training, which was mostly marching and physical therapy\u00a0 the calisthenics we called it.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 What was a typical day sort of like at that time, if you can sort of recall, I mean
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, they got us up about daylight or before daylight.\u00a0 We went out on the beach and took our calisthenics exercise, which lasted probably oh, between 15 minutes to a half an hour.\u00a0 I don’t know exactly how long it was.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 I can picture you fellows all having nice suntans within a couple of weeks probably.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yes, and probably a little sun burned maybe and then we would practice our drilling on the streets in Miami Beach.\u00a0 Traffic stopped and we went straight through.\u00a0 And there was quite a few of us, many groups of us going.\u00a0 How many I don’t know.\u00a0 And while we were down there we took I don’t know how many physicals, one after another and that is where they separated us to go Air Force, ground force or any other\u00a0 in other words wherever we were physically fit for, that is where they put us.\u00a0 I didn’t volunteer for anything.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 You were smart.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I think I was.\u00a0 I hope so.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Where did you end up?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, then they wanted the best physical fitness people they could get which went to the Air Force and then they grouped us together and sent me to Denver, Colorado.\u00a0 There was two bases out there.\u00a0 There was Larry Field and Buckley Field.\u00a0 I am not sure which base I went to first.\u00a0 I was at both of them three, four times in my career.\u00a0 So I lot track.\u00a0 My memory didn’t stick good that way.
\nAnd there we took schooling on bombs, turrets, ammunition, rifles.\u00a0 I guess that covers most of it.\u00a0 And how much schooling we had there, I don’t remember anymore.\u00a0 I was there for a couple months anyway.\u00a0 And another thing that happened while I was there\u00a0 and I don’t know if this is the time or another time that I was there, we went to school from 6:00 in the evening to midnight, possibly in the morning, too, then.\u00a0 I don’t remember how many times.\u00a0 One thing in particular was when we came out from class at midnight, I saw a beautiful rainbow by the moon.\u00a0 I never saw it in my life and I never\u00a0 I don’t know if I would believe it if you would tell me or not, but I believe it now.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 I have never seen something like that.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 It was a beautiful rainbow.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Was it raining?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 It was drizzling somewhere or it wouldn’t have been.\u00a0 I don’t recall it raining right where we were.\u00a0 That is one of the first things I saw when I came out of the building.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 So you are ending up in the Air Force then?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yes.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And once you had your training there what happened?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Then I moved, they shipped me down to Las Vegas Nevada, the air field down there.\u00a0 There is where we started to fly.\u00a0 The first plane was an ET 6, single engine, single wing plane to get us familiar in the air.\u00a0 And it was hot there.\u00a0 That was about the middle of summer, about the hottest time.\u00a0 And when it got hot there, it got hot, up in the hundreds or better.\u00a0 And the humidity was part of one percent humidity, which is awful dry.
\nAnd I think one of the first times or the first couple times I got air sick and they said it was mostly because of the heat and I wasn’t used to the heat at that time yet.
\nAnd then the next plane was an AT 18, I believe, it was an 18.\u00a0 That was a two engine plane we flew in that then and we had some gunnery practice.\u00a0 I don’t believe I had any gunnery practice in an AT 6.\u00a0 That was more or less familiarity to the air.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Getting your feet off the ground.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I am not sure if we had any gunnery practice in the AT 18 or not.\u00a0 It was just a little bigger plane and more of us went in it, but there was only one in the pilot in the AT 6.\u00a0 And we flew around down there in the Vegas area.
\nAnd then from there we\u00a0 well at the same time we were going to school, too, more schooling, schooling of all different types, electrical schooling, turret schooling, ammunition, guns, which was 50 caliber machine gun and I think we had a little bit on 30 caliber which we never used.
\nAnd we were there for, gee, I don’t remember how long we was there.\u00a0 And then from there I think we went up to Dalhart, Texas, I believe, and then we flew out of there and there we had some gunnery practice there on B 17’s.\u00a0 It is up in the panhandle.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Is this your job, I will call it, on the airplane was to\u00a0 was a gunner; is that
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 And a ball turret roughly.\u00a0 They put me in that position because I was small.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And what, a ball?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 A ball turret which is underneath the plane.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Underneath the plane?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 I don’t think I would have liked that.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, I will tell you another thing, a lot of things I didn’t like in the Army, but they could make you wish you did like it, see.\u00a0 See you didn’t have much choice.\u00a0 If they hollered jump, you jumped.\u00a0 If they hollered sit, you sat.\u00a0 And if they hollered shut up, that meant be quiet.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Well, tell me a little bit about this ball turret.\u00a0 It wouldn’t have been very large, I am sure.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I was thinking this morning about that.\u00a0 I never measured it, but I haven’t seen anyone for a good while now, but I would say they were anywhere from four to five foot in diameter.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Um hum.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 And a little more than 50 percent of it hung outside the plane, maybe 60 to 70 percent of it hung outside the plane.\u00a0 It was supported by one\u00a0 now there was a ring around and it was in a plane and this rode on top with rollers.\u00a0 It would turn the whole way around.\u00a0 In other words, 360 degrees it has.\u00a0 And elevation was from zero to about, oh, a little over halfway up.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And you ended up there mainly or for one reason because of your size?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 I weighed roughly 135 pound then.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 They needed a small fellow to fit into that.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Once you had that training, was it after that that you went overseas?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Oh, no, we had training yet for probably another year of it yet.\u00a0 And while\u00a0 it was always classroom and flying both.\u00a0 It was tied together.\u00a0 Every place I went there was a classroom of one type or another and we spent a lot of time in class.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 So it took from basic training then really your training took a good while?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yes.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 The schooling and everything else was there before you actually
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Oh, yes.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 went overseas?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah, that was probably a year or better, better than a year.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Eventually did you go overseas then?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And where did you go?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, before we went overseas, I was in Dyersburg, Tennessee.\u00a0 We had training there.\u00a0 That was one of our last part of our phase training in the states and that was air to air gunnery.\u00a0 They took another plane and they towed a target around and we were flying and we were to shoot at that target and anyway that was interesting and
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Was it easy to hit a target like that?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 If at first\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the first run the time we went up I think or one of the times I remember we were up and we shot our ammunition practically all away and there wasn’t a hole in the target.\u00a0 And when we got down there was “H” to pay.\u00a0 We got reamed out.\u00a0 And we went back up.\u00a0 And the first pass we made we shot the target off the plane.\u00a0 It was back with a wire rope to the target from the back of the plane.\u00a0 We shot the target down.\u00a0 They put another one out and we put holes in that, so when we came back down they said, we know you can do it; why didn’t you do it in the first place.\u00a0 Of course we didn’t answer that.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Being in this turret like you were in a small space when they were firing this weapon it would just seem to me there would have been a lot of noise.\u00a0 Where would the cartridges go?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Outside.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 They went outside?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Oh, yes.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 They went outside?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 We had over 1,000 rounds of ammunition in that ball, 50 caliber, two guns.\u00a0 I think there was more vibration\u00a0 as much vibration as what there was noise.\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Now, going through the air took care of the noise a lot and the noise was outside from your discharge of the barrels were outside.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 True.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 They were air cooled guns was in the air, but you could heat them up and bullets came out the side of them sometimes.\u00a0 I never really had any myself, but as long as you held that trigger down it kept on shooting.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Just curious from the position you were in the airplane there, when you would take off you weren’t
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Oh, no.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 You were up on the
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Up in the air before we got into that.\u00a0 I was the only position that was not entered right away when we took off.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Once you were into your flight then that is when you would get down?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 There was only one way to get in.\u00a0 That was from the plane down in on a trap door like and once you are in, that trap door was closed and latched and then you could turn\u00a0 you couldn’t get out when you were in there with the guns out.\u00a0 The guns were straight down when you got in, that way the door was up.\u00a0 Once you was in with the guns down, you couldn’t get out of it then.\u00a0 You were there.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 I would think it would be pretty cold in there, depending on what altitude you were flying?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I didn’t mind that when we were in the states, because we didn’t fly high.\u00a0 We were only a couple thousand feet.\u00a0 I don’t know what our elevation was in the states here.\u00a0 I don’t know.\u00a0 But overseas we were up, then.\u00a0 It was cold then.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Now, we are still all this schooling.\u00a0 Was there any more schooling or when were you able to\u00a0 when were you sent overseas?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 We were back to Denver and I don’t know how many times I was back to Denver, two or three times, I think, but I don’t recall right.\u00a0 But the last place was in Dyersburg, Tennessee and then from there we was a crew then, put together as a crew ready for combat.
\nAnd then they shipped me to Kearney, Nebraska.\u00a0 That was supposed to be the, I guess they called the APO or the shipping point for overseas from there.
\nAnd we got up there and we were always taking physicals, no matter where we were and shots and I had more shots and physicals than I hate to think about anymore.
\nWhile we were in Kearney, Nebraska we were as a crew, ten men and the pilot developed ear trouble.\u00a0 I don’t know the extent of it, but he was grounded for a period of time and then they said at that time our pilot or our crew was subject to breaking up\u00a0 in other words, wherever they needed a fill in for anybody that was ready to get on the boat to go or to be shipped directly, we could pull from our crew.
\nSo I was the lucky person to be the first one to leave the crew.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Yeah, I would think you talked about the crew, I would think it would be a pretty close relationship?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 We were close.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 You probably learned to know each other quite well and so if you are asked to leave and fill in
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 And while we were up there, once they broke our crew up, the pilot was disqualified for flying, we had to stay in the barracks or let somebody know where we were at all times.\u00a0 If we went to the toilet, they had to know.\u00a0 If we went outside to the PX, they had to know, no matter\u00a0 we was not allowed to leave that building unless everybody knew where we were or somebody.
\nSo, one afternoon a couple of us said we are going to go to the movie for a change.\u00a0 So, we went to the movie and while we was in there, why I don’t know part of the movie was through and somebody called my name out.\u00a0 So I got up and went back.\u00a0 Two MP’s there said, You are scheduled for shipment.\u00a0 I said okay.\u00a0 And they stayed with me.\u00a0 We went back\u00a0 didn’t even go to the barracks.\u00a0 Somebody in the barracks got my things together and took it to the building where they processed me through.\u00a0 I was in there\u00a0 they took me there and I went through that like a streak from one end to the other and they would just throwed clothes at me and took what clothes I had and they threw them out and give me all, like\u00a0 maybe that is where I got\u00a0 I got a lot of my new uniform there and shoes and everything.\u00a0 I was fit from one end to the other.
\nI already had my shots and everything.\u00a0 It was just clothing.\u00a0 And it didn’t take very long.\u00a0 That building was maybe 100 feet long or something like that or more.\u00a0 I went in one end came out the other fully equipped.\u00a0 I had a rain coat, overcoat.\u00a0 I had a canteen.\u00a0 I had a 45 on me.\u00a0 I was full dress.
\nAnd from there the MP’s took me in town to the railroad station, put me on a train.\u00a0 I went to Omaha, Nebraska, took me to the airport.\u00a0 And while I was being processed through they were telling me this and that and when I left at the end they give me a paper\u00a0 I had my records with me.\u00a0 And one thing they told me, Don’t let anything leave your sight that you have here now.\u00a0 In other words, they don’t check nothing.\u00a0 It stays with you.\u00a0 No matter where you go, if it is in a plane or train or cab or anything else, you are\u00a0 everything stays with you.\u00a0 Nothing leaves your sight within reach.
\nAnd they took me in and put me on the train and I went to Omaha, Nebraska and it was about 10:00 or 11:00 o’clock, maybe 9:00 to 10:00 through there sometime, I don’t even know exactly.\u00a0 I was the only one in the waiting room there at the airport and there was a lady back of the desk and everytime they said, you go anyplace you take this paper and present it to the office, where you get your\u00a0 what do they call it\u00a0 get your ticket or whatever.
\nAnd I took it in there and showed it to her.\u00a0 She looked at it and she said, Well, that plane don’t leave until, I guess an hour or something.\u00a0 I don’t know what it was.\u00a0 It was a good wait there.\u00a0 She said to have a seat.
\nSo I went and sat down and all I remember was going through that process.\u00a0 You don’t talk to anybody.\u00a0 You are going shipping.\u00a0 Well, of course, you have to talk to some people.\u00a0 Of course, while I was sitting there why the lady behind the desk said, you are sure of getting on this plane.\u00a0 I said, Yeah?\u00a0 How is that?\u00a0 Well, she said you have the highest priority of travel.\u00a0 She said they can take anybody off the plane and put me on.\u00a0 So that was a sure ride.
\nAnd I flew from there to New York City.\u00a0 I don’t know which airport.\u00a0 I can’t tell you that.\u00a0 I got off there.\u00a0 There was two MP’s there for me.\u00a0 When I got off the train or the plane, I went to the office or the counter and showed them my paper and that is where the two MP’s picked me up there and said hurry, we are going\u00a0 we got the train.
\nSo they put me in a jeep or I don’t know what it was anymore, some type of transportation.\u00a0 They took me to the railroad station and had the train waiting for me.\u00a0 They held the train up.\u00a0 They helped me get the stuff on the train and I wasn’t more than on until the train started and that took me down to New Jersey.\u00a0 I believe it was Dover.\u00a0 I am not positive anymore.
\nAnd when I got there there was two MP’s picked me off the train.\u00a0 Of course, my stuff was all with me.\u00a0 And they\u00a0 let’s see.\u00a0 First they asked, Did you have anything to eat?\u00a0 And I said, No, not yet.\u00a0 They took me to the mess hall and they said, Feed this guy; feed the soldier.\u00a0 They stayed there with me, and I got something to eat, ate it and they took me out to where the men were, crew.\u00a0 There was an area there, a big area with a lot of people, a lot of soldiers there.\u00a0 They were getting ready for shipping.\u00a0 And I met my crew there and then the MP’s left.\u00a0 I was with the crew.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 So then you were with the unit that you were
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 That I flew with.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That you would be flying with.\u00a0 Okay?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 That is the first I met them and I couldn’t\u00a0 well at the time I guess I remembered some of them and that day yet we were on a ship in New York City harbor to leave the next morning\u00a0 that night we left.\u00a0 So there was some quick moving.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 It seems as though they had a real urgency to get you where they wanted you to go.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I had to be there to make that ship, that plane, that crew.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 And we left it was on an English ship.\u00a0 The name was Maritani.\u00a0 I don’t know if I pronounced that right something like that and someone said or I don’t know how it came up, but I can\u00a0 as near as I can remember they said there was 50,000 soldiers on that one ship.\u00a0 Seemed like a lot.\u00a0 But it was a big\u00a0 and it went across the ocean by itself.\u00a0 No escort or nothing.\u00a0 Just one ship.\u00a0 And they would go so many seconds one way, so many seconds another way.\u00a0 It just kept going kind of torpedoes.\u00a0 They just kept going from one side of that ship just kept rocking like this and the day I got on it I was sick until the day I got off of it, which took I think it was seven days, seven or eight days and we were in Liverpool, England.\u00a0 I got off.\u00a0 And the ground was still moving when I got off.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Took it a couple days to stop, probably.\u00a0 I can appreciate that.\u00a0 I have been sea sick, so I know it is a terrible feeling.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Just like some of the guys said, I don’t care if it sinks or not, don’t belong to me.\u00a0 That is a feeling you get.
\nAnd when I was on there if I was lucky I slept under the table in the mess hall on the floor.\u00a0 There was no room to sleep otherwise.\u00a0 Sometimes I wasn’t lucky, I was on the floor other places.\u00a0 I figured if I was under the table nobody was going to tramp on me and it was crowded.\u00a0 And the things on the table would move with us, too.\u00a0 And I wasn’t at the table too much.\u00a0 I was out other places more time.\u00a0 I don’t think I was ever any sicker at that time yet.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That is a terrible feeling like I said, so I can appreciate it.\u00a0 I have been that way, so I can appreciate what you are talking about.\u00a0 So you were\u00a0 you went to Liverpool?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 And then we got off there and I think by train.\u00a0 I am not sure anymore.\u00a0 They took us out to trucks and then they took us into the\u00a0 now wait.\u00a0 I don’t think we went\u00a0 we didn’t go to the airport, I don’t believe, where we flew out of.\u00a0 I don’t remember where we went exactly from there, but we ended up at what they call the wash.\u00a0 It was on the northeastern side of England and there we had more training.\u00a0 Air to air flying, gunnery in a B 17.\u00a0 And we were there\u00a0 I don’t remember anymore, anywhere from a couple weeks to a month.\u00a0 I don’t remember.\u00a0 And then from there we went to our base where we flew out of.\u00a0 And we stayed at the base then and that is where we flew our missions.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 So here you are now, you have had some morning training and you now have, I guess they assign you a particular airplane?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And you have your crew and\/
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Do you\u00a0 a couple of questions, I guess.\u00a0 Do you remember\u00a0 do you remember the names of your crew members?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Some of them.\u00a0 I had a dollar bill with me with all the names on there.\u00a0 They signed every name on it and after I was home I don’t know how many years why somebody was in the house and stole a coin collection we had and it was in with that.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That is a shame.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 That I valued more than the money.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 I would think so, yeah.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Do you remember any of the names at all just offhand?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Lieutenant Vogel was a pilot.\u00a0 The bombardier was a Lieutenant Ford.\u00a0 And there was two more officers, but I can’t think of the name anymore.\u00a0 And the next line was the engineer.\u00a0 That was Sargent White\u00a0 no wait.\u00a0 The radio operator was\u00a0 I think the radio operator was White.\u00a0 And then waist was gunners one was Portnoy and I don’t remember the other one.\u00a0 And the tail gunner was Jack Lawler, L A W L E R\u00a0 something like that.\u00a0 And the other names I don’t remember anymore.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That is fine.\u00a0 Did your plane have a name?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah, How Soon.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 How Soon?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 They got the name because while they were training\u00a0 which I wasn’t with them then, the guys would ask the crew or the pilots or the officers\u00a0 there was four officers\u00a0 pilot, co pilot, bombardier and navigator.\u00a0 Those are the only officers.\u00a0 The rest were all listed men, total crew of ten, but they would always ask the officers, how soon are we going to do this?\u00a0 How soon are we going to do that?\u00a0 And that is where they came up with the name they were going to put on the plane which was before my time.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 So now you are there you have your crew and you are going to start flying your missions.
\nWhere do they fly you?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I don’t have the record right with me now, but we went to over to France, Germany, all those countries in there.\u00a0 And we had a brand new plane.\u00a0 It wasn’t painted.\u00a0 It was silver aluminum.\u00a0 And it was a brand new one and the first mission we made, they took\u00a0 I am not sure if it was our pilot or co pilot, I think the co pilot took him off of our plane and put him on another plane and we got a seasoned pilot, which had flew missions before to go in our plane, so we didn’t have a green crew.
\nHe flew with us one or two missions.\u00a0 I am not sure anymore, but he was\u00a0 he knew what was coming.\u00a0 He knew what was there.\u00a0 We didn’t.\u00a0 We were green.\u00a0 That was our first mission with the new plane.
\nI don’t remember where the first mission was, but when we got back we had 57 holes in the plane, plus nobody got hit.\u00a0 That was the main thing.\u00a0 With that many holes, I don’t know why we didn’t get hit.\u00a0 Somebody was with us, I guess.\u00a0 And I have some flak and a piece of metal which they are taking care of here.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That is great.\u00a0 You still have that?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Now, if it is the same piece, God only knows.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Right.
\nWhat was your feeling\u00a0 what was it like to, on a first mission like that to be flying into something you didn’t know what to expect and can you recall at all the feeling that you had?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 As I can remember it didn’t seem to bother me too much because I felt it wasn’t my idea.\u00a0 I was put there to do a job and I thought to myself, well, I was put here to do a job, I am going to do what I can do as best I can do it, because all of us depended on each other.\u00a0 It wasn’t a one man crew.\u00a0 It was a ten man crew.\u00a0 I don’t know, I guess I had enough faith.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Okay.
\nThat and your training and your education that you had, you sound as though they had you pretty well prepared and
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 We were geared up.\u00a0 We were geared up.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 You were.\u00a0 You were dropping bombs, that was your mission to
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 To bomb?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 On the mission\u00a0 that mission or other missions, does the type of resistance you would run into, was it usually from the ground or was it from the air or
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Most of it was from the ground.\u00a0 Any aircraft came up and we were very lucky, we didn’t have no direct hits or I wouldn’t be here possibly.\u00a0 We had\u00a0 these shells were shot up and they would explode in the air.\u00a0 We had them explode close enough that it shook the plane and you could hear it explode..\u00a0 And then the rest were far enough away that you could see it, a puff of smoke and fire and you never saw anything fly, because it was too small and flew too fast.
\nAnd we had good air support, which we were thankful for.\u00a0 P 51, P 38, P 40, P 38, did I mention that?\u00a0 There was about four different fighter planes flew with us.\u00a0 P 51 want the furthest.\u00a0 P 40 and P\u00a0 I am kind of mixed up there but there was a couple of planes that didn’t have the range.\u00a0 They flew as we were bombing France or part of Germany, western part of Germany, but we went into deeper territory which the furthest we went was Berlin.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 You did go into Berlin?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 There we had 51’s with us.\u00a0 They had the best range.\u00a0 And we had no jets.\u00a0 They were all propeller.\u00a0 I don’t know what the range was, but the 51 with us in Berlin.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 When you go on these missions, do you recall how many\u00a0 how many planes, bombers, let’s say, would you have with the B 17?\u00a0 How many would you have on a flight or don’t you know?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I am not sure anymore, but we flew in pattern.\u00a0 I think there was six in a group like in a triangle or\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I can’t explain it right and then there was a group here and a group there and there was how many groups, I don’t know.\u00a0 There was a lot of groups.\u00a0 But we flew in tight formation as a group and then off to the side above us or below us was another group and there was probably dozens of groups because there was planes everywhere.\u00a0 And they were all B 17′.\u00a0 s.
\nAnd we flew\u00a0 well before we took off, they told us when we were going to land and where we were going, what time it was going to take off and that is what it was and we were within minutes of the time we came back and landed when they told us before we left.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Sort of amazing because you know, of course I guess they had to know the wind currents and all that, because that could all throw your time schedule off, but I guess the idea was get in and get your mission accomplished and get back out of there and get home.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 When we took off there was three planes staggered on the runway at all times to start out, revved up and every so many seconds one left loose on this side; next time one was on this side or they were staggered a little bit so they didn’t get directly in back of the other one.\u00a0 Every so many seconds one plane would take off.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 What was it like\u00a0 we mentioned earlier, you know, I said it might be cold.\u00a0 When you started flying these missions you were probably flying pretty high.\u00a0 What was the conditions like in the airplane?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, I think we had\u00a0 not every time\u00a0 I don’t believe\u00a0 most of the time we had heated suits, which was pants, jacket, gloves, and I think the boots were, too.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 How were they heated?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Electrically, plugged into the system in the plane.\u00a0 Everybody had a heated suit.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And down where you were at, I would think it would have been particularly cold.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 It was.\u00a0 I remember one mission, I am not sure which one it was, that I was in there and I was getting cold and my back was getting kind of numb because my back was almost against outside.\u00a0 It was just like sitting in a barrel is what it was.\u00a0 In other words, you looked out between your knees.\u00a0 And your controls was up over your head like this and you looked down between and you were just in a barrel like.\u00a0 That is how you sat in there\u00a0 laid in there, rather, when you were down.\u00a0 When you would bring the guns up straight, you were laying like on your back looking out between your knees.
\nBut this one time I recall we were up pretty high and I don’t recall what the temperature was.\u00a0 It was way below zero, maybe 30, 40 degrees.\u00a0 I don’t know.\u00a0 But I had my electric suit on.\u00a0 We a thermostat we could turn it to what temperature we wanted.\u00a0 And I had it turned up the whole way I think and I was still cold.
\nSo, I called up to my buddies about my suit\u00a0 get my leather jacket and slide it down on my back, because my back is getting too cold.\u00a0 I can’t feel anything there anymore.\u00a0 So I run the gun straight down.\u00a0 They opened up, put my jacket down back of me.\u00a0 And I went back in again and that helped.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 But when I got back that day, I had burns across my knuckles from my gloves, the wires because I was on the controls like this and it was burning my knuckles and I didn’t know it until we got back and took the gloves off and I had the marks.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 The burn marks there from the heat?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Otherwise I had no other marks.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 When did you go down into the turret?\u00a0 Did you\u00a0 when you were getting close to your mission is that when you got down in OR did you have to go down in pretty way before that?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, we would take off, get in formation as we got to the channel, to the water and then it was time for me to get in the water.\u00a0 Others were all in their position right away, shortly\u00a0 I don’t know if the ball gunner\u00a0 or the tail gunner.\u00a0 I don’t think he was at the tail when we took off.\u00a0 I am not sure.\u00a0 But I was the last one to get in position.
\nAnd well I will tell you lots of times when we got in the plane, if we were setting oh, maybe, half an hour or something the engines were started up, we taxied around to get on the runway, I would lay down in the radio room, which was right in front of where my ball was.\u00a0 I would lay down there and fall asleep and I even slept when they took off to get up and times I would sleep then until it was time to get oxygen on.\u00a0 They would kick me and motion for oxygen.\u00a0 We are getting in close 10,000 feet already, right up the North Sea to get up into Keel or Northern Germany we would go up the North Sea and I didn’t need to get in the ball until after we were up a ways and then I would sometimes\u00a0 I don’t know\u00a0 I think I got in the ball then and hooked up the oxygen.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 What a view you would have had on a good day.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I had all the under and contact was made by positions, not by name.\u00a0 In other words, the pilot was in control and he would say ball gunner or the bomb bay doors open.\u00a0 I was underneath.\u00a0 I could see it.\u00a0 It never went by name.\u00a0 It was always position.\u00a0 Waist gunner this or that.\u00a0 Tail gunner this or that.\u00a0 And then they would ask me, where did the bombs hit when they dropped.\u00a0 And different times I had glasses to look through\u00a0 what do you call
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Binoculars?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 binoculars.\u00a0 They told me to take binoculars different times.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 You certainly would have had
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I had a view of everything below.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That is interesting, but I was talking to someone the other day and I don’t know whether this could happen or not, but someone was talking the other day, but they said for some reason the bombardier forgot to open the doors.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 That is possible.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And they dropped them and they said it just took doors right off, I guess.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Right through.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Went right through them.\u00a0 So it is possible you think?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 But with you at times they checked to see?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 They always checked.\u00a0 That probably happened before and we were for warned, make sure the doors were open.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 I don’t remember\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 someone I was talking to recently they said they forgot to open the bomb bay doors.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Now, the engineer was the closest to the bomb bay doors, but he had a turret and he was occupied for protection up over top.\u00a0 So they didn’t want to disturb him, leave his position to look to see if the doors were open.\u00a0 So, they called me, because I was underneath.\u00a0 All I needed to do was just turn the turret around and there the bomb bay doors were.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 How good a view did you really have?
\n(The tape apparently ended without the interviewer realizing at this point and then continued as follows:)
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Where did we leave off there?
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 We were looking at the destruction that was taking place.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, then when I was in there the different tours we were on, different missions, I spotted one time\u00a0 see they had a turnpike over there which they called the autobahn.\u00a0 It was a highway east and west like our turnpike here and I spotted a convoy on that.\u00a0 I forget which direction it was going anymore and I called to the pilot and to the crew\u00a0\u00a0 a little crooked here\u00a0 I said there was a convoy going and they wanted to know how big it was.\u00a0 And it was hard to see because we were at an altitude maybe of 28, 30,000 feet.\u00a0 I don’t recall what elevation it was at that time or altitude, but I said, I counted as near as I could in the direction they were going.\u00a0 Well that was recorded on the record then and we got back to briefing, which was done every time when we got back, and that was reported right away.\u00a0 Probably at that time there was smaller planes sent out, dive bombers to get them.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Um hum.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 In your flight that you had, did you ever run into enemy aircraft?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 We saw\u00a0 at the distance I saw a lot of it.\u00a0 I saw some of them being shot down.\u00a0 I saw some of our bombers being shot down.\u00a0 Well I better not say shot down.\u00a0 It could have been from flak or from antiaircraft, I don’t know, but they went down and when it went down most of what you could hear was the crew say, Get out of that; get out of that.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That was your crew that was saying that?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 To themselves, you know.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That would have been terrible, I would expect to see whatever was happening a plane going I suspect at times it might have been on fire, at times they might have lost part of the plane perhaps?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Spinning.\u00a0 Maybe a wing gone or just part of a plane gone.\u00a0 It was rough.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Did you ever see them getting out?\u00a0 Did you see some of them get out?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 We saw chutes.\u00a0 That was my job.\u00a0 I was down below.\u00a0 How many chutes?\u00a0 How many chutes?\u00a0 That is what was coming to me and I could see\u00a0 I would count what I could see.\u00a0 That wasn’t on every mission, just some of them.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Right.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 How many, I don’t know.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 But that is that close connection you had with those people in those other planes and you knew they were in trouble and you wanted to see them get out and concerned to see
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Regardless if I knew them or not, it was our planes.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Do you have any idea how many missions you flew?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 34.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 34.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, I was given two because when I started it was 20 missions, 25 I guess\u00a0 yeah when I started it was 25.\u00a0 While we were flying they made it to 30.\u00a0 Before I got done, they made it to 35.\u00a0 So every time they jacked it up five missions, they give me one, so actually I only flew\u00a0 I had two given to me.\u00a0 I actually only flew 32, but I got credit for 34.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Were these missions all\u00a0 did you fly them all in the same airplane or was there
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Flew them all in the same airplane?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I did, yeah.\u00a0 I think so.\u00a0 I\u00a0 as near as I can remember, I think they was all the same plane.\u00a0 Same position I know.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Did you ever know what happened to that airplane after the war?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I wondered.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 I would wonder the same thing.\u00a0 You had a lot of
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 We had one man fall off the wing, the engineer.\u00a0 See he checked the plane before we took off.\u00a0 It was his responsibility to check and make sure the fuel tank caps were on, different things.\u00a0 I don’t know what he checked.\u00a0 I am not an engineer.\u00a0 But he had to check the plane different things before we took off.\u00a0 That was his job.\u00a0 He knew the plane, probably more so than what the pilot did.\u00a0 And I think if I am not mistaken he was one that if the pilot or co pilot was injured, he took the place to carry on.\u00a0 We didn’t have to do that, that I recall.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 You fly\u00a0 did you fly in all kinds of weather?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yes.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 So I guess sometimes you would take off you would have bad weather, but it might clear?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Sometimes we got to the target and we had cover, in other words, cloud cover.\u00a0 We didn’t see the target.\u00a0 We would drop bombs anyway because they had a bomb sight, which they could detect through the clouds.\u00a0 And there was only about two or three planes in a squadron that had the bomb sight.\u00a0 The rest we would see the other planes dump or they would radio\u00a0 I just forget how it was.\u00a0 We didn’t have that.\u00a0 It was a connection between the planes.\u00a0 And they knew and they would all drop at one time.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 When you had your flights over Berlin the war was getting close to the end then at that point?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 That was after D Day and we flew north of Berlin to the east of Berlin and made a bomb run going directly west.\u00a0 Because you had a tail wind, if I remember right.\u00a0 And while we were on the bomb run through some mistake of somebody\u00a0 I don’t know who\u00a0 another group sifted through us from the north to the south, close to the same elevation, same altitude.
\nAnd all of the sudden possibly the pilot\u00a0 I don’t know which one\u00a0 said I believe it was holy hell and all of the sudden the plane went down nose dive with a bomb load to miss and as near as I know, I don’t recall if there was any accident through that or not.\u00a0 I don’t recall anymore, but we went down like that and when they pulled it out, I just crumbled right down.\u00a0 I had no control at all.\u00a0 I was dead weight.\u00a0 My head went down on the sight.\u00a0 My hands come off the controls and I imagine I blacked out for a little bit.\u00a0 I don’t know.
\nWhen they pulled out, I could feel the vibration.\u00a0 They had the bomb load was still on yet.\u00a0 We had probably about half our gas and that gas was 2800 gallon of gas that we took on for that mission.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That would have been very frightening?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nI think that was about the worst.\u00a0 Some of the times the way the flak was pretty thick, too, that was rough.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 What an experience.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 What an experience.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 One time is enough.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Yes, I would agree with you.\u00a0 And these are\u00a0 you know the reasons why we need to know this\u00a0 some people at times will say some of these things didn’t happen and they did happen.\u00a0 The generation we have coming on needs to know and hear that these things were part of that.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 They happened.\u00a0 Another time is I think should be here was D Day, June the 6th.\u00a0 That is one day I will never forget.\u00a0 A couple days before we walked around on the base and there was planes in the sky over England everywhere you looked.\u00a0 I don’t know why they didn’t collide.\u00a0 Maybe some of them did.\u00a0 I don’t know.\u00a0 But they were towing\u00a0 what do you call these that you tow?
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Gliders?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Gliders.\u00a0 They were towing gliders and everything else.\u00a0 And we were walking around as buddies together and I said something is going to happen or this wouldn’t be like this.\u00a0 And I think June the 6th in the morning they got us out about 1:30, 2:00 o’clock\u00a0 a lot of us wasn’t even in bed yet.\u00a0 I was.\u00a0 I slept maybe a little bit, but they had come in the barracks and they had hollered up and at em.\u00a0 Then they would start reading off which crew that was going.\u00a0 They would read the crews off and you heard your crew you hit the floor and you got dressed.
\nAnd we had a short period of time to get dressed and we were outside to get on the truck.\u00a0 The truck took us to breakfast.\u00a0 We were lucky.\u00a0 We had fresh eggs and I don’t remember what else it was.\u00a0 We had good eats.\u00a0 There wasn’t enough time allotted, but we had good eats when they came.
\nAnd then from there we were trucked\u00a0 I think, I am not sure between the mess hall, I guess we were trucked to a briefing room.\u00a0 We went to the briefing room, why there was an armed guard at each door and that right away registered on me.\u00a0 I figured this is it.
\nAnd during the briefing I\u00a0 why there was a general come out.\u00a0 I don’t remember who it was.\u00a0 And they uncovered a big map and they started explaining everything.
\nNow, the officers had a different briefing than what the enlisted men, but everybody was under briefing and they told where we were going and we had bombed the shore where they landed.\u00a0 And we took off before dark.\u00a0 We hit the water, the channel before the sun was just starting to\u00a0 in other words just starting to break daylight.\u00a0 We could see.\u00a0 As we crossed the channel why there was more ships and boats on there than looked like flies.\u00a0 We only flew, I think it was 14,000 feet\u00a0 12 to 14, in that area.\u00a0 I don’t remember what it was.
\nBut as we were going over there was three or four battle ships lined up facing the broad side to the shore of France and they were shelling the shore and when their guns went off, they all went off at one time, each ship.\u00a0 And it was just a puff of fire and smoke and the whole ship\u00a0 we got back and made a wave.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That much propulsion?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Force.\u00a0 And there is three or four of them, I just forget.\u00a0 And then we kept on going and we bombed the shore, circled around and came back to the base.\u00a0 And they took us in for dinner.\u00a0 We ate.\u00a0 And nobody went back to the barracks.\u00a0 We went right back out to the line.\u00a0 And as soon as they could refuel and put bombs again, we took off the second one.\u00a0 And the second one they wasn’t\u00a0 wasn’t shooting the shore then as they did before, because our men was in already.\u00a0 And we dropped again just a little beyond the men there at that time.\u00a0 That was a scary day.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 I can tell still has an effect on you even.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 As many years later.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Yeah, I am sure.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 How did the\u00a0 through all this how did the war end for you; how did things
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, I was done, you know something, after I was done it bothered me more.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 At that time it was a job that you had to do.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yep.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 I think what you said earlier and you did it and later you would think about it.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 We were pretty jumpy later on.\u00a0 We were there probably about a month before we shipped out to come home.\u00a0 We came home on small boats, small ships in convoy, took us 13 days to come home, sick again.
\nWe brought prisoners back, German prisoners.\u00a0 We had more prisoners than what we had GI’s on the boat, which was kind of scary in a way.\u00a0 But we had rifles loaded coming back.\u00a0 We were armed.\u00a0 And we were briefed different times before we got on the boat and while we were on the boat.
\nAnd I don’t remember too much about that more than they told us we were supposed to take these back to the United States, but if it is between you and I getting there, I am going to be there before they are.\u00a0 In other words, we are not supposed to take too much, but we are still not supposed to shoot them unless we have to.\u00a0 That was our orders.\u00a0 And they said, don’t vote what I told you.\u00a0 That is the orders we had.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And so you were taking what, 13 days to get back?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Yeah.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And where did you come back to?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 We landed in New York City again.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And were you there long?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 We had to stay on the boat until all the prisoners were off and that kind of p.o.’d us.\u00a0 We were last to get off.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 And did it\u00a0 from that point did it take long to go through the debriefing or whatever was involved to put you on your way home?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I don’t remember exactly how long it took us.\u00a0 We had to go for some debriefing.\u00a0 I think it was down to Atlantic City then and then we went home for furlough and that was probably about two weeks, I don’t know, but in the middle of the ocean it was my birthday, October the 20th, coming back.\u00a0 And Thanksgiving was at the end of October, isn’t it?\u00a0 31st?\u00a0 Thanksgiving?
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That would be October 31st would be Haloween.\u00a0 The end of November would be Thanksgiving.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Well, I was in Atlantic city on Thanksgiving\u00a0 now wait maybe it wasn’t.\u00a0 Anyway, it must have been Thanksgiving when I was at Atlantic City and that is where we were briefed again and given different clothing.\u00a0 That is\u00a0 well I went home first for\u00a0 I don’t know how long I had, two weeks or
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 What did home seem like after this length of time?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Good.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 I’ll bet.\u00a0 I’ll bet.\u00a0 Because you had been away by this time what a couple of years probably?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 No.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 It wasn’t that long?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 No, just well from\u00a0 I don’t know what month we went over, but I came back\u00a0 I remember when I came back.\u00a0 But I went home and was there for a while.\u00a0 I don’t remember how long it was, maybe two weeks or more.\u00a0 I don’t know and then it was back to Atlantic City and then more briefing, because I remember there I think we was there for Thanksgiving or at least we had a big meal there and they had a table.\u00a0 It was going to be 100 feet long or more, everything on that that you could mention for eating.\u00a0 And we had a meal like a king and the wife was with me then and she had whatever I had.\u00a0 We went through the line.\u00a0 And when we came out of the line and went through why each of us got a pound box of candy, too.\u00a0 And we had anything you wanted to eat and I had an ice cream\u00a0 they made ice cream, I guess, there.\u00a0 We had ice cream all you wanted to eat.\u00a0 Any time you wanted to eat it was there.\u00a0 We were treated very good.
\nAnd we had a briefing there and then we shipped out from there, we shipped to Laredo, Texas and the wife had a train ticket the same as mine.\u00a0 We traveled together.\u00a0 It was either three days and two nights or two nights and three days until we got to Laredo, Texas.\u00a0 And that was by one car, one troop car took us a group that went to the same place.\u00a0 Everybody scattered everywhere.
\nAnd we were briefed a good many\u00a0 I don’t know how many times we were, physicals were took and everything else before we left there.\u00a0 We was in that big convention center, I guess they call it, in Atlantic City on the boardwalk.\u00a0 And that big building is where everybody\u00a0 we were in there everyday and I don’t know how many days we were through.\u00a0 And that is where I got grounded.\u00a0 I made up my mind, I will tell you it was safer to fly overseas than it was in the states.\u00a0 If a plane took off you flew them in the states.\u00a0 But overseas, when you took off you knew it was going to fly.\u00a0 Only one time we had to abort or run up over the North Sea and one of the fuel tanks siphoned fuel out somehow.\u00a0 I don’t know how, but I saw that from underneath see.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 You could see it?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 It was coming underneath the wing.\u00a0 I reported that and that all was on record then and we flew then yet.\u00a0 I don’t know how long seemed like a good while.\u00a0 And they had contacted the leader of our group and got so far and he said, well, you turn around and go back because you lost too much gas.\u00a0 You will never return without gas.\u00a0 So we come back and we had a rough briefing after that, because some trips some of the guys would cut, destroy things on the plane so they wouldn’t have to make the mission.\u00a0 It was done.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Well, that is interesting to hear.\u00a0 In other words, sometimes intentionally things were
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 They cut or\u00a0 they would break an oxygen line or something like that.\u00a0 I don’t know what all went on.\u00a0 I heard different things.\u00a0 But that is\u00a0 that is why when you abort a mission, you could expect trouble, really, a rough time, really.\u00a0 You come back and everybody was questioned and then you were held there until the mission came back and get what the mission had information and when they come back and had the information, that cleared us.\u00a0 Until then we were held.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 That is something I never thought about, you know, knowing human beings and being in situations like that, if you could do something like that.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 Some guys done that and then there were some fellows that cracked up before they were done, couldn’t take it.\u00a0 They were put into other jobs, taken off the flight.\u00a0 But it was pretty rough.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 We will end up here.\u00a0 I know we are getting, had a long interview, a big interview.\u00a0 You had a lot of interesting things to tell us.\u00a0 I wish we had more time to talk.
\nWhat did you do after the war?\u00a0 What was your occupation?
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 I came back and it was before\u00a0 in the fall, cold weather.\u00a0 And we stayed with my father in law, stayed there in the wife’s home and I got a job up in the mountain in a sawmill outfit.\u00a0 I went out dragging logs in with a caterpillar and a cart or a sled in back of it and by myself doing that.\u00a0 And I worked there a couple month.\u00a0 I don’t know how long it was.\u00a0 And then until spring, I guess, I worked there.
\nAnd then I went and got a job from a contractor, building contractor and I worked there from up until about 1949 or 50.\u00a0 And the main contractor was Joe Miller at that time.\u00a0 He passed away and his son took over.\u00a0 As you hear quite often, when the son takes over, a business it went to pot.\u00a0 And there was too much of the wrong thing going on and it went downhill pretty fast.
\nSo I got a job with another contractor and it didn’t last too long there because I maybe had one or two checks that passed, the rest all bounced.\u00a0 And I didn’t like that.
\nSo, from there I started on my own, made my own business up, building business and I run that for 20 some years until I had arthritis too bad.\u00a0 I would work some days and then I would be sick for two or three days and I told the wife, I said, that is no good.\u00a0 I can’t keep going that way.
\nSo I phased that out and kind of went in the hole there through that.\u00a0 And I got into another business which was fire extinguisher business, selling and service, which is lighter work, which I had to do and I run that up until again 20 some years.\u00a0 I kind of phased one into another.\u00a0 I couldn’t one day off of one and the next day into something else.\u00a0 I couldn’t do it that fast, but I got into the fire extinguisher business and then I had that until I retired, it was ’91 I think when I retired from that.\u00a0 And I was a little over 70 years old then.\u00a0 I was at the point where I figured I couldn’t do it right and I was going to quit.\u00a0 I sold out to another place.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Well, it sounds to me with all that you have been through and involved with you you deserve some time to just take off and relax.
\nMR. RICHARD MILLER:\u00a0 In the meantime I was in building.\u00a0 We built ourselves a home.
\nMR. KAHL:\u00a0 Well, I am going to stop here, not that I particularly want to, because there are a lot of questions I still have in my mind I would like to ask you and we appreciate very much your sharing with us today this tape and so I will turn it off at this point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With Introduction by Larry Pearce 6\/24\/03 & 1\/21\/15 Richard O. Miller (1920- 2015) was my wife Susan\u2019s father, and was part of an extensive project at the Pennsylvania State Historical Center in Somerset to record and preserve the experiences of … Continue reading