D-Day Special | Honoring the Greatest Generation P1

On this special D-Day episode of What's The Scuttlebutt Podcast, we pause to commemorate one of the most significant moments in modern history and honor the men and women who helped secure freedom during World War II.

To mark this important anniversary, we're taking a step back in time and revisiting powerful moments from our conversations with two remarkable WWII veterans: D-Day veteran Papa Jake Larson and Keith Anderson, a veteran of the legendary 8th Bomb Group.

Through their own words, these heroes share firsthand accounts of war, sacrifice, courage, and perseverance. Their stories provide a rare and deeply personal glimpse into the experiences of the generation that faced some of history's greatest challenges and emerged victorious.

Join us as we pay tribute to the bravery, resilience, and legacy of our WWII veterans. Their stories deserve to be remembered, and their sacrifices must never be forgotten.

Lest We Forget.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:22

You are about to embark upon the Great Protectors, toward which we have driven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving peoples everywhere march with you. In company with our brave allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machines, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well-equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savages. But this is the year 1944. Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats in open battles, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good luck. And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Mr. Jake Larson.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

So we were put in uh what they called a baloney. I don't know if you ever heard that name.

SPEAKER_05 2:04

No.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

It's like a ring of baloney, but it's all quantits around there. And you could go in on one side, you could come out the other all the way through. If anybody in that baloney was was classified top secret bigot, B-I-G-O-T. That's the highest classification you could get. And we were working on the invasion. After the war was over, I received the Bronze Star for what I did working on the invasion. Anybody that was top secret bigot in those balloonies, you didn't walk around like anybody else. You were always kept under guard. Bigot was so top secret that you weren't able to be out, walk around with what you knew. And so you didn't have the luxuries of freedoms that the other soldiers had by oh you you you were kept right in there, and when you when you were there, you worked on the invasion. That that's what you did. A day was June 5th.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yeah, it's correct. June 5th was the original day. And because of bad weather and be because the invasion was going to rely heavily on the um Pathfinders and the airborne going in first, you guys had to and plus obviously with ocean tides and the sea levels, the whole thing had to be scrapped and pushed out a day.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

That's exactly what happened. Over a m a month before D-Day, we went w went back to uh our units and uh to get them all ready to move at the invasion. And uh the British at that time were uh having an operation, they call it an operation, at Slapton Sands. It was uh for the benefit of the Americans, they were invited to participate and uh Slapton Sands on the southeast coast of uh England between Plymouth and uh and uh Portsmouth, the landings there were were like landing on Omaha Beach. And these special landings, we were supposed to come in there on LSTs, that's landing ship tanks. These landing ship tanks, instead of holding tanks, they held 400 soldiers. The British were gonna greet them at Slapton Sands with live fire.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Now, for those listening at home, correct me if I'm wrong, but this Slapton Sands operation was essentially a dress rehearsal to prepare you guys for the D-Day invasion, correct?

SPEAKER_03 4:43

Absolutely, yes. So uh that we we were gonna get a little indoctrination from the British. And uh there were three of those LSTs, and uh I happened to be in the left one, with 400 of us there. They had armed soldiers and uh machine guns and everything, so that we we couldn't be intercepted. There was there was another one of these landing ship tanks to the right of us. I was very poor at judging distance in in the water. I would say half a mile away. And then there was a third one, uh, another half mile further on. And behind us, there were groups of landing ship tanks, and I think there was eleven in all, but they were in trees coming up there to slapping sands. W when we got close to slaptin sands, two German e-boats intercepted us and they torpedoed the two landing ship tanks on my right, and they shot the heck out of the components that were taking care of the one that I was in. In fact, they shot so much of the stuff that they cut off our air, and we were diesel gassed. Four hundred of us laying there on the floor vomiting and uh trying to breathe through wet handkerchiefs. I I don't know how we made it back to Plymouth, England. We got down there and uh we stumbled out of there, and there was a full bird colonel got us to attention, and uh he said, uh under penalty of court martial, you you cannot talk about this even to your commanding officers.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Well, of course, because when the news if if the news would have gotten out that this happened during, as we said, a dress rehearsal, not only would it have been horrible for the Allies in the morale, but it would have been a huge morale boost for the Germans to know uh the amount of damage they caused. You guys were basically sitting ducks, you really couldn't defend yourselves from the dress.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

We carried the M1 grand. Well it was like uh a peace shooter.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Well, I often tell people who don't realize that you when you guys landed and when you're doing these operations, you were essentially wearing your Sunday best. You had on wool trousers, a button-up shirt, boots, and then you just put on some leggings, a helmet, and a haversack and called it a day.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

Our main piece of defense was our helmet.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

And that pretty much provided you protection from ricochet and flying rocks. Exactly. Do you recall how many lives were lost during the uh incident at Slapton Sands?

SPEAKER_03 7:35

Uh 795 people died there. Uh and uh our army did not tell anyone uh of the surviving families that their sons w were uh killed at Slapton Sands. They told them they were killed in the invasion of Europe. I've got uh also an exciting thing about D-Day, if you want to hear a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

I got all the time in the world. I'll say here for the next three hours. You just keep talking, sir.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

All right. Uh I was on the command ship, but I landed with the first division.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Big red one.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

The big red one. We had the first and twenty-ninth divisions under us. We were in charge of Omaha Beach, that's uh Fifth Corps, was in charge of Omaha Beach under First Army. And First Army also had Utah Beach. That was under 7th Corps, and the Fourth Division was supposed to come in on Utah Beach. Now I didn't know this this particular until years after that uh flaps and sands incident was brought up. But but four hundred of the ones that were sunk were from postalap uh land on Utah Beach. So they had to get another division in there, and I don't know today what that division was, and uh those were guys that landed on Omaha Beach without any warning. That passed.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Wow. What wave did you go in on?

SPEAKER_03 9:22

The waves were all screwed up because uh Omaha Beach, they could not take any more onto the beach because uh the Germans were defending it so much. We just went around in circles out there. It seemed like forever.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Now that's a very good point. I want to pause right there, real quick. Two things for the listeners at home who aren't um up to speed on D-Day. One, uh part of the battle planning was that the Air Force was going to go in and bomb the beaches making deep craters to provide giant foxholes for you guys to hide from guns. That didn't happen. Most of the pilots were you guys didn't have the craters to rely on. But more importantly, you were out there circling for hours and hours. For those left at home, imagine you got your helmet on, you got your ammo, you got your block in your uh setback, or your hammer stack on your back.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Oh, wait, I just got a backpack. 75 pounds we carry. Thirty of us in that in those LSTs.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

And so 30 of you are riding around for hours, cramped, can't move, got all its weight on you, and then finally the time comes and they expect you to be able to get up and run through deep water.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

It was a flat bottom boat, it it was rough seas. Some of the guys were vomiting seasick, and uh that's another blessing I've got. I I don't get seasick. And uh but but uh I got pretty upset when you see others vomiting.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Those ramps, when they get water wet, were super slick, and so not only have you been sitting there, now you're getting fired upon, you're supposed to get down this ramp in an orderly fashion, carrying all this heavy weight and not slip, fall into the water.

SPEAKER_03 11:02

We didn't have any problem there. W when we got off, the the ramp w w was so down we landed in water that came up to our chins. The guy didn't put us in close enough.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

But uh Did you have to inflate your invasion belt?

SPEAKER_03 11:20

We had no invasion belt. I had no invasion belt. None of us had the invasion belt. Our helmet was upside down and and uh a air in the top of that helmet held us up, I think. Now w when we got on that uh landing ship, I was the first one in there, came down that rope ladder, and uh the water was coming up three, four feet, and then down, and then up and down, and that that landing craft w was coming like that. So so getting on it w was just about a impossible thing, and but we did. I was at the last end there right by the navy pilot. So when they came off, I was the last guy out. And w w when we started in line walking toward the beach, one thing came to our minds that Germans had over a million landmines set in that beach, and there there were other lines coming from other other uh ships coming coming in, and every once in a while you'd see a spurt of water shoot up from some guy stepping on a landmine. I made sure that I was walking in the steps of the people in front of me. And when we got to where the water was pretty sp hardly any there, and I I could step out, I I found a little burl six, eight inches like sandstone, but it didn't shoot up against the German machine gun fire that was shooting at me from two sides. They were shooting from the left and from the right. These uh German machine guns, these were shooting twelve thousand rounds a minute, like a butt saw.

SPEAKER_05 13:26

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

They were shooting in front of me, and man, I I was I I was kind of nervous then. I was smoking cig cigarettes then. And I had a waterproof cigarette holder, and I reached in and got out a cigarette. Dang, I reached in again, my matches were wet.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

Not three feet behind me, there was there was another soldier. So I turned around and said, hey buddy, have you got a match? I got no answer. I turned around and looked again. There was no head under the helmet. And to to this day, uh I thanked the spirit of that boy for me getting up and running. Uh I I came in at the must have came in at the time where they were reloading their machine guns and I ran and then they started to shooting at me. And uh part of the way there I looked up and I said, God, what what the hell am I doing here? I can't see anybody to shoot at, and they can shoot at me. But I made it to the cliff. I I made it, and I thank God to this day for guidance from the soul of that soldier. Lost his head down there back there.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

How old were you?

SPEAKER_03 14:46

Twenty I was a twenty-one-year-old buck sergeant. We we we finally made it up the c that place where we were gonna go up was filled with uh barbed wire and stuff, and we couldn't get get in there and crawl up that damn cliff. And uh so they got some bangalore torpedoes and they started putting those together and the Germans killed uh at least two two of the guys that were pushing them together. They finally got a charge up through that di debris there and landed up in that cleared spot so we could make it up there. And as quick as we made it up there, the Germans cleared out, they cleared out. If you get behind those fortifications, they have no protection. Their whole thing is the protection from the front. So they just cleared out.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

They didn't have any reinforcements because of the operation we did with Patton and the Ghost Army. Because Hitler sent all their tanks and most of their equipment up north because they because of what the French resistance did and the false information that was given out, they the Germans thought the landing was going to be farther up north.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

So we got the command post set up, the G3 command post, and uh it was uh uh about seven o'clock at that time, seven o'clock in the evening, and uh Madison Rich, Corporal Madison Rich and I were were digging our foxholes in the sand, and uh I I found a new litter that hadn't been used, just laying there. So I dug my foxhole a little bit larger so I could set that down in there. Uh I planned to have my sleeping bag on top of that so I wouldn't be in the damp sand.

SPEAKER_05 16:39

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

And uh it got to be about a quarter after seven, and I just put that litter down in there, and someone said uh called from the command post, uh, Sergeant Larson, Colonel Hill wants to see you immediately. So uh I went in to see Colonel Hill. He was G3, a full bird colonel, and uh we we we only had two officers in G3, a full bird colonel and a lieutenant colonel, his assistant. So Colonel Hill says, uh, sergeant, he says, I I just got word from First Army. He says, they they want me to keep G three open twenty four hours a day. He says, You are gonna run the night shift from now on. I haven't slept since the fourth. I was running on guts, I don't know how else he said, or adrenaline. And uh I said, uh, what time is that going on? He says, from 7 30 to 7 30. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

It's a long shift.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

So uh uh I went back to uh where I had the foxhole and uh Corporal Rich wa was just climbing into his sleeping bag and I said, Maddie, you could sleep in my foxhole tonight. I got that little litter in there. He reached over and laid his M1 grand rifle on my litter. I went in to work, he went to sleep. At midnight, German reconnaissance planes came over, and uh they lit up the sky with these l little uh handkerchief parachute uh magnesium flares, and uh our anti-aircraft started shooting up at uh reconnaissance planes a after an hour that all quiet down and uh I I I don't know how I spent that night. I I I was in another no another land, another world, but uh it came time to be relieved, and uh I went back to where Madison Rich was and uh he he reached over and picked up his M1 grand off of my litter and it fell in two. A piece of shrapnel from our anti-aircraft had come down and hit that gun and broke it right in two.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Wow, and that's a heavy fixed stock on that thing too.

SPEAKER_03 19:16

It's un unbelievable. This story uh people say, uh did you just pick that up for confirmation? On the 75th anniversary of D-Day, uh, I was over in France. Uh I was on Omaha Beach. I had five reporters following me, and a German photographer trailing behind. After the five reporters got through with me, a reporter from Moscow came in and uh this was broadcast all all over the United States, and uh I I got uh cards from Sweden and uh there was a uh a young guy in New York that saw that broadcast, and uh he he called his brother in New Jersey. He said, uh you know Frank, he says, uh I wonder if that Jake Larson they're talking about is the one our dad always talked about. And and finally the they got they got a hold of the bagel shop because I mentioned that, and they got a hold of my son Colin, and uh this guy said you know my my dad talked about Jake Larson when he was over there, and uh uh about that his gun being broke right into at the landing on D-Day, and uh Colin says, Well, what was your dad's first and last name? My my dad's name. I I can't I can't believe that uh getting into this this way. My dad's name was Madison Rich. And my son said, Yeah, that that's my dad. Yeah, this Madison Rich's son came to California and saw and saw me uh because of that broadcast. So I I'm reassured this isn't a made-up story. It's confirmed now. I I I am I am so blessed, John. I I'm so blessed in life and I I was blessed over there and uh I I want to hear state that my my reason for going over to uh the 75th anniversary of D Day was was not for my benefit. I I wanted my children to to go over there and s see some of the stuff that I'd gone through and I I wanted to pay my respects to

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Mr. Keith Anderson. So basically at this point they're going to streamline your training, and you're basically going to get the uh the fast track and not get the um the in-depth consistent training that was fast track.

SPEAKER_04 22:27

It was faster than fast track. They had been uh serving as a year as a training group, which was training uh other groups that were heading over. None of them had been overseas themselves. All of a sudden, uh from a voice up people and any training in a tactical airplane, I was being sent right through a bomb group as uh way overseas in uh quite an acceleration. We were the very last B-17 group assigned to the 8th Air Force. Now at that time, the last year of the war, there were 30 bomb groups in the 8th Air Force. I think there were 32, divided into three divisions, the first, the second, and the third division. The first division uh was B-17 groups only, the second division was B-24 groups, and the third division was a mixture of both of them. At any rate, here I graduated on January 7th, and in February I was always already assigned to a bomb group as a uh on a sway overseas. And I was very lucky when once I got there. When I was there, I was assigned immediately to a crew, an existing crew, and it turned out to be the leading pilot and the lead crew of the whole group. So from the beginning of the joint, when I joined that group, I was in a very select company. My pilot at that time was only a second lieutenant still, but he had over a thousand hours of B-17 time and a lot of hours prior to that as a civilian. He was also 25 years old, which is as old as he could be, to start a flight training. Each crew was assigned an airplane of its own, and immediately we went and painted ours up and named it so far.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Do you remember what you guys named it?

SPEAKER_04 25:19

Yeah, they named it any uh any time Annie, after the girlfriend is some guy, some one of the gunners on the crew. And uh the interesting thing is that we flew those airplanes over to England, and uh two days later they were all gone, and we had brand new airplanes just used as a supply of mob overseas because they still had to go through a modification center in England uh to get it up to stuff for combat. I understand at that time uh the manufacturers would ever down again completely revamp their airplane so and with what they call a new model. And we had a brand new Model G, the ABC D E F G model of the B-17. And but even then in combat things progressed so rapidly they'd have to make changes. Um decided they were gonna change, make a modification to the airplane right away. They had modification centers right in England where they would send the airplane um and get it prepared for combat. So they took our brand new Anytime Any away from us and uh it went to modification center and eventually was assigned a group. And I read later that it was shot down on about a four-profit mission over the North Sea. So anytime Annie didn't last too long. Um from then on, we didn't bother naming our airplanes. We also found out that as a league crew he flew special airplanes. For one thing, they were equipped with radar, all the airplanes weren't equipped with radar at that time, uh, and they had special bomb sites and specialists and that. So each airplane, each group had six or seven lead airplanes, and then the lead crews would punctuate flying those lead airplanes.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Now I understand you quickly learned there was a disadvantage almost to being a co-pilot in a lead airplane, and when that happened, um an NCO or a um member higher up would oftentimes take your seat and you're relegated to being a uh observer to the tailgunner. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_04 28:29

Well, yeah, I soon found out, and I wasn't very happy about it, that the uh co-pilot on the league crew was replaced by generally a senior officer. Our group commander was a full colonel, and he flew several missions with us, with him sitting in the co-pilot seat, me flying as a tail gunner. And I wasn't very happy about being killed as a tail gunner after I'd been spent all that time learning how to fly.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

You just went from seeing what's going on to watching what just happened out the back and staring at the faces of the gentleman flying behind you.

unknown 29:12

No.

SPEAKER_04 29:13

Yeah, it was a good place to be because I later on I saw a lot of airplanes blow up, and the tail used to come off intact and flutter down on its own. And often you see women's one's figure jump out of there and open a chute, and uh no chute's coming out of the main section of the airplane. So from that aspect, you know, the tail gunner was favorable.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

From a logistical standpoint, was the escape hatch closer to the tail or to the uh cockpit of the plane? You could get to it quicker.

SPEAKER_04 29:54

The escape hatch for the tail gunner was a zone escape hatch right next to the tailgunner. So we could get out of there or it was just very easy to just kick the hatch open and jump.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Were there any times during the war that that you had to evacuate your plane, or your plane didn't make it home from a mission?

SPEAKER_04 30:17

We had an engine catch fire as we were climbing to altitude, and uh engines had a built-in fire extinguisher system, but we actuated that and it didn't work, and it kept burning, and we decided that it was gonna the plane was gonna blow up any minute. We better get the hell out of there. So we we all jumped, and uh I remember I I was supposed to be I was a tail gunner on that mission, so I went out the tear with uh three other gunners. We all jumped together, and we could talk to each other on the uh all the way down, and uh we did. And all of a sudden we hit the ground and I remember that landing a lot harder than I thought it would be. I was trying to judge when I was gonna hit the ground.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

Now, when you're in a situation like that, is jumping's probably not even a concern at that point. I guess you you in the forefront of your mind you're thinking, okay, this plane's going down. Either I stay here and probably die, or I jump out of the plane and most likely survive. But I guess it happens so quickly, you probably don't really get a chance to register the idea before you even jump out that plane. There's just probably instinct at that point, fight or flight.

SPEAKER_04 31:57

Well, I was never afraid of having to bail out. I always figured the shoe would open, and uh from then on it would be unknown, but so it's by then you're so used to having getting shot at or getting killed in multiple ways. Not too selected. So I was I didn't have any hesitancy about getting out of that airplane.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Now, when you landed, did you have the luxury of landing over friendly territory, or did you go down over enemy territory, or was it neutral?

SPEAKER_04 32:43

No, we knew we knew we were over friendly territory. We we knew we were still over England, and uh so that was not a concern.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

So once you and your your two gunners landed, and you basically, I guess the first thing you have to figure out where you're at, obviously you knew you're in England, but not sure where at, how do you go about uh getting back home? You just find the the nearest village and pin out communication, or or what's the process of the uh recovery for that?

SPEAKER_04 33:14

Well, we all saw each other land, or we were close enough so we got together, by the way. And uh I just we were in somebody's ended up in somebody's yard, so I knocked on their door, told them what we were who we were, what we were doing. They said, Well, there's an RAF pilot that lives down the street. Why don't you go see him? So I did that. I went down there and he was having breakfast. So he says, uh, if you wait for me to finish breakfast, I'll try to my field. Well, he said, okay. Turns out he was a test pilot, and I forget the name of the field now. But it was their equivalent of right field in this country. He took us news field and I phoned the air base to tell them where we were. And uh they said they'd send an airplane down to pick us up and say what we did. And uh now how many times I see these airplanes taxiing by with no propeller and uh a lot of heat waves coming out from the earth. Well, I'd never even heard of a jet airplane by then. Never even heard of it, that I remember. So they were the first English jet, and I forget the sequence of events by then, but by then we knew that the Germans had a jet airplane, whatever that was, and uh we should see them occasionally, and here was the British answer to the German shot, but they were way far behind.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

It was the Gloucester Meteor, I believe, was the first British.

SPEAKER_04 35:21

It was, it was the Gloucester Meteor, which uh the uh short plane.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

What was your impression when you heard that thing take off? Because clearly the the audible output of a jet engine is far, far superior than that of a prop plane. I mean, just the the noise those things put off. What was your first impression when you when you saw that thing taxiing out on the runway?

SPEAKER_04 35:45

Well, they didn't make a lot of noise taxiing and took so long to take off that they were practically out of sight down the end of the runway by the time they got off the ground, you couldn't hear them anymore. So I didn't have any pressure at all.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

I gotcha. Now I understand you flew about seven missions or so as a tailgunner. In that time, did you ever have to engage the enemy with your uh your machine gun?

SPEAKER_04 36:16

No, I never I never had to actually fire that machine gun. I did fire it at airplane so far away that I could barely see them, just so I could say I'd shot at a German airplane. But uh no. Now, another thing I should explain. When we first got over there, uh then the uh 8th Air Force had developed its tactics pretty well, and they'd finally settled on 36 airplane group as an ideal bomb group. 36 airplanes in a formation.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Yeah, I believe in a past interview you said you guys had 12 ships to a squadron and three squads to a group.

SPEAKER_04 37:04

We flew with four squadrons. You had uh an echelon of three airplanes and one tail. You had a V-plane, right wing, left wing, and tail. That would be a four-plane unit. And with a 12 group formations, we would fly four of those. Uh pretty much after D-Day.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Now, speaking of D-Day, I understand that uh right on Operation Overlord that the uh 600th bomb group participated in um bombing and attacking coastal defenses of the enemies on uh the Cherizburg Peninsula. Did you participate in that during D-Day? We were bombing the beach.

SPEAKER_04 37:50

We carried 100-pound bombs that day. And they were designed not to blow up things as much as to create puxholes of the infantry to have something to jump into.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Yeah, that's what a lot of people don't realize. Part of the strategic planning for the D-Day invasion was to have you guys lay bombs onto the beach to create craters, as you just said, to allow the gentleman to get below the surface line to get take cover from the enemy machine gun fire.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

That was our function of our group. Now, different groups had different functions.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 38:27

Now D-Day, we flew just six-ship formations. That that was the only day time I ever flew in the six-ship bombing machine.

SPEAKER_02 38:38

Um was the flak fire real bad on that day, or were they pretty much caught off guard?

SPEAKER_04 38:43

There was I did see a burst of flak in the sky that day. They were concentrating on any uh heavy enough artillery they had available was concentrated on the shooting at our fleet, our invasion fleet. We were just a nuisance as far as they were concerned. Not D-Day.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

Now, speaking of Flack, the first time you experience FLAC, is it what can you compare it to? I mean, probably very little. I mean, is it like obviously you have stratinal penetrating your plane, but when those bursts go off, do they create blast waves that create turbulence, or is it just simply the the stratinal penetrating your plane?

SPEAKER_04 39:28

An 88 shell uh would blow a plane apart. They had 8890 and 155, I think. So even an 88 shell would could do more than just create the fragments, the shell fragments. It would just blow a whole airplane part of it, blow the nose off, blow the whole air airplane up.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

Flack did a lot of different things. But luckily, for the grace of God, during D-Day and during your mission to provide foxholes for the uh upcoming landing invasion, luckily you guys didn't have to deal with Flack. Was for you on that day, was it pretty much a straightforward mission, or did you guys have any issues that you had to overcome?

SPEAKER_04 40:15

No, it was a pretty much a straightforward mission. We didn't even get shot at. I don't think we saw a burst of flak in the air even.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Those are the missions that you marked down as the the best ones to go on, obviously, because uh you get out there, you do what you're uh told to do, and everybody gets home safe and you uh get to fly another day.

SPEAKER_04 40:37

Yeah. In fact, originally we were gonna fly two missions on D-Day. For some reason, uh, they call off the second one. So we just came home and turned on the radios and listened to how the invasion was going.

SPEAKER_05 40:53

This has been a digital 410 production.