The National Museum of the Pacific War (Admiral Nimitz Museum) Center for Pacific War Studies Fredericksburg, Texas An Interview with H. James Avery B-26 Pilot April 11,2001 Interview With Mr. H. James Avery Mr. Cox Today is April 11, 2001 and my name is Floyd Cox. I am a volunteer with the oral history program of the National Museum of the Pacific War. Today we are interviewing Mr. H. James Avery of Kerrville, Texas regarding his experiences during World War II. Can you tell me when and where you were born and a little of your background? Mr. Avery I am told that I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I am really not sure about that because when a I applied to get a birth certificate to join the Army Air Corp I couldn’t get one. I had to get minister’s affidavit in place of a birth certificate that I had been baptized in the church when I was twelve years old, but I assume that I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That is what my mother tells me anyway. I was born December 7, 1921, so I was twenty years old on Pearl Harbor Day. I was in my fraternity house at the University of Illinois that Sunday afternoon, studying for some exams coming up, when all of a sudden I heard all kinds of noise out on the street. There were horns, trumpets and drums, and I thought, “What kind of a parade is this going on out there?” It was about one o’clock. I wondered what in the world is going on with these guys, are they drunk or something. They were marching up and down the streets waving flags and blowing horns. Then someone told me what they had heard on the radio, that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor! The next morning in class we all stopped to listen to President Roosevelt say, “I hate war”, but that we are going anyway. Mr. Cox Did you join right away? Mr. Avery their flight Yes, within a week or two. I had heard that the Navy might be the best deal, that training would be better than any other offered, and I knew that I wanted to fly. I went down to the Naval recruiting office and took the exam. I passed the exam but before I signed up someone said to me, “Hey Avery, the Army Air Corp will let you sign up now and you can finish your was a junior degree before they take you.’ I thought that that maybe would be a better deal. I then and I wanted to finish school. Even though I was in the R.O.T.C. at the University of Illinois not sure I wanted to be a pilot. So, I went down and signed up with the Army Air Corp, but I am whether or not I took a physical exam at that time. Anyway, the war got hot and heavy in Europe and in the Pacific. Things weren’t going very well and all we heard was bad news. We all knew it was getting pretty serious. All of a sudden they let us know that we would be called before long. The Army Air Corp wasn’t able to honor its commitment that we could finish our degree. Instead, we were told that we should expect to be called before our graduation. So then I started watching for my number. You knew by the sequence of the numbers when you might be called. I could tell my number was coming up, so I dropped out of school at the end of the second semester in February 1943. In March, they called me and I was sent down to Decatur, Illinois to get on a troop train. We went through the back woods through Missouri and Arkansas down to San Antonio, Texas. We had to pull the shades on the train at night because the rumors were that the Japanese were going to try to fly balloons with bombs over here. (Laughter) We knew it was serious because we were taking the back routes to San Antonio. We weren’t slamming down the direct line. We got to San Antonio and they pulled the train in beside a big cyclone fence where we all got off. The first thing I heard was somebody yelling, “You’ll be sorry!” (Laughter) I thought well that is a great way to be greeted! I thought to myself yeh, we’re sorry looking enough, but don’t rub it in. We got our uniforms at Lackland Air Base and were placed right away into the preflight program. We were the new kids on the block and the hazing started right 2 away. It didn’t bother me because Ihad been in a fraternity at the University of Illinois. Back in those days we had to buy our own wooden paddle for the upper classmen to swat us with. (All of that is against the law now.) Our fraternity emblem was carved into the paddle. As pledges we would get swats for almost any little thing. If we ate with our elbows on the table or did not have our tie on straight or something like that, we would get a swat from one of our upper classman. I got burned four times one night and went to bed with my butt burning. So I thought the hazing at preflight was kind of funny. When we would get back in the barracks and if something very minor happened, we would have to walk like a duck around the barracks for half an hour or hang by our elbows from the bar on the top bunk. Some of the cadets weren’t used to hazing and some of them just down right cried, literally cried. They sobbed, “I didn’t come into this war for this. I came to fight the war, but I’m not taking this.” Well, that just brought on more. The idea was that as a potential officer if you can’t take it, how are you going to be able to give orders. We went through the hazing for one month and then, as upper classmen, it was our turn. At the end of two months at preflight, we were shipped out to Fort Stockton on a train. Mr. Cox Did you take any type of courses during this time? Mr. Avery At Lackland, we took aviation ground school courses, like weather, navigation and identification courses so we could identify different planes, ours, as well as enemy planes. Of course, we were all chomping at the bit and very anxious to get up in the air. So when the time came for us to go on to Fort Stockton, we were ready to go! Let me say one thing here about Texas that impressed me, my being a kid from Illinois and my first time in Texas. I was very impressed with how gracious the people in San Antonio were. There was a USO club downtown at the Gunther Hotel 3 for us. There on weekends they would have buffets for us, and teenage girls from around San Antonio would come down there and dance with us. Some were nice enough to take us out to their homes and introduce us to their families. They would drive and show us around San Antonio. Then, when we went out to Fort Stockton I found the same thing. People would invite us into their homes for dinner and take us to see interesting places on weekends. I soon realized that the people in Texas were very warm and gracious, and this is one of the reasons I am here today. One of my dear friends is a girl named Jane Sibley whom I met in Fort Stockton when she was just seventeen. She lives in Austin now and my wife and I had breakfast with her not long ago. It is a nice friendship developed over 50 years ago back when I was a cadet in Fort Stockton. I learned to fly in a Fairchild PT-l9. I soloed after eights hours flight training. My flight instructor one day, after we had been up on a training flight, got out of the back seat where he sat and would chew me out when I didn’t make a smooth turn or maneuver. One day he said, “Avery, here you fly this thing. I’m getting out before you kill us both!” That was his way of saying that I was ready to fly it on my own. After my primary training at Fort Stockton, I went on to Goodfellow Field in San Angelo to learn to fly a BT-13, a basic training airplane. After two months of basic training, I went on to Reese Air Base in Lubbock to train in an advanced trainer AT-17, and that is where I got my wings in January 1944. But while I was stationed in San Angelo I used to see these “hot rocks” come in from Del Rio flying B-26’s. They were hauling fuel back to Laughlin Field in Del Rio where there was a gasoline shortage. We would be down there on the fight line at Goodfellow Field and this hotshot B-26 lieutenant would get out with no shirt on and his hat all crumpled up and his lieutenant bars pinned on his pants waistband. I thought now that is a cool dude! We didn’t often say “cool” back in those days.