1
50
1
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/861c4a8622b50c863364ad29464e0761.mp3
b24d0e631862d9d325ce6501e83e46f6
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/93c47b258fb9502e4d561b22cb433ad1.pdf
bb3566de9ac96ac5b84485c247948f7f
PDF Text
Text
Military Oral History Interview Transcript
Jack Wayne Alexander
Mercersburg, Pennsylvania
15 October 2011
SB: Sean Bolick
JA: Jack Alexander
SB: Alright, this is Sean Bolick I am here with my grandfather Jack Alexander at his home in
Mercersburg, Pennsylvania to conduct an interview about his time in the military. The day is
Friday October 14, 2011. So to start off can I get when and where you were born?
JA: I was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania on November 9, 1924.
SB: Now did you have any siblings growing up?
JA: Yes, I had three brothers and two sisters.
SB: What made you decide to join the military? Were you drafted or did you enlist?
JA: I enlisted, but I enlisted in the Aviation Cadet Program. I was always wanting to learn to fly
ever since I was wee little and when I was in high school and junior high I used to hitch hike out
to the local airport and wash airplanes or anything for a ride.
SB: Did any of your family influence you to also go into aviation?
JA: There was no influence but I had a brother that was in the Army Air Corps as an enlisted
man and then he ended up as a bombardier.
SB: Once you...when did exactly you decide to enlist? Do you remember when that was?
JA: I don’t remember exactly when that was. Could have been...had to been in '43.
SB: How old were you?
JA: I was well ... depends on what time in '43. Either 17 or 18. I graduated from high school
when I was 17.
SB: Do you recall your signing up and going to the recruiting station or anything like that and
that experience?
JA: Not really, it was 1943 so there were a lot of servicemen being enlisted and that impressed
you.
SB: Now from there where did you go for your initial training?
1
�JA: Well I went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to take my examination. And I had to go twice. I
passed the written and the physical except my weight. I was 12 pounds underweight so I had to
gain 12 pounds.
SB: What did you do to have to gain those 12 pounds?
JA: Well, eat bananas and drink milk and I went back the next week and I had gained twelve
pounds. But it's about 45-48 mile from Uniontown to Pittsburgh where I lived and I had a sack
of bananas on the seat and a quart of milk and I did that on the way down. So when I got there
the sergeant happened to be from Uniontown too that I knew. He weighed me and he says I can't
believe it. In a week you gained 12 pounds. He said, “It’s got to be true because you sure don't
have any pockets.”
SB: So once you got there and made the weight, where did they send you from
Pittsburgh?
JA: Well, I went from there to Keesler Field in (Biloxi), Mississippi and that was a basic training
field for the Army Air Corps.
SB: And can you tell me a little bit about your basic training experience? How that went.
JA: Well, I was probably one of the smallest ones in the whole unit. But I had no problems when
we were doing our running or hiking or this and that. I took a lot of kidding from the other
people the rest of the week but when we got into something like that I was able to kid them
because it was a lot easier for me then.
SB: Now as somebody whose been through basic training themselves. Did you have any; I know
for me, did you have any memorable instructors? Anybody there like a drill sergeant that you
remember distinctly? Any characters?
JA: Yes, memories weren't too good (laughs).
SB: Do you have any stories in particular that stand out to you about your basic training
experience?
JA: Not really. I guess I was kind of different cause I enjoyed what we were doing you know
while the other people were all upset about it and doing this thing I seemed to enjoy it.
SB: What exactly in particular did you enjoy about it? Was it the training or the...
JA: Well, it was the training
SB: Do you remember about what time you completed the training, got done with your initial
basic training phase?
2
�JA: We had I think...I'm not sure now. Oh I think it was about...14 weeks of basic training and
then we were sent to a unit to decide where they want to send you and whether you were going to
be classified a bombardier, a navigator, or a pilot. So that decided which field you went into.
SB: Do you remember how they made that decision?
JA: I guess it was through your request things you did in basic training and examinations that
you took and what you were adept for.
SB: Did you go through with a big class then in '43? Was it...do you remember about how big
you guys were?
JA: It was a pretty good size class but I couldn’t tell you how...it'd be wrong if l could just
guessing now but I would suppose it was about 50 at the time.
SB: What did you request after leaving basic training as far as your follow on, what did you want
to do?
JA: To go to pilot training.
SB: Did you have a preference about what you wanted to be flying or
JA: No, you had no control or no thoughts even. You had to go to primary training school first
for primary training
SB: Can you tell me a little about the primary training school?
JA: Well, it was a single engine aircraft built by Fairchild here in Hagerstown ironically now. It
was about, you got about 65 hours in the airplane at that time and you were given a flight test
and things with check pilots and decided whether you were going on to that or taken off 9F pilot
training and go to bombardier navigator training if you couldn’t fly.
SB: Now you mentioned the selection process. What did exactly they decide that you were going
to be doing?
JA: Well, you didn't know until you went through the other two phases of basic training in a BT13 and advanced training where they sent you. They were all different fields and different places.
But after I left Mississippi, the bases were in Texas, and ah, Corsicana; and Greenville and Eagle
Pass. After Advanced, then they had to decide where they wanted to send you, to what type of
flying; single engine or multi-engine or what.
SB: And where did you end up getting sent?
JA: I got sent to single engine, like I said, to Corsicana or Greenville or Eagle Pass. And then
after you finished your training, about 65 or 70 hours in advanced training, then the ones that
were going to be fighter pilots spent about 10-hours in a P-40. And that was the greatest
3
�excitement you ever had to get into something that powerful at that stage. And then they decided
where they wanted to send you. And different phases of fighters at which kind of units.
I got sent to TAC Recon School, which was...a version of the P-51. But you didn’t know any of
this at that time but as you got there and got acquainted with it and the people, the P-51 had a
camera mounted vertically in front of the air scoop on the right side of the airplane, missing the
wing so you could take pictures. And we had bunch of different things that was longer than the
fighter pilot.
I had probably about seven or eight months just in reconnaissance. Because you learned to take
pictures and to adjust artillery and also to support troops. You had all your firepower in that
airplane. It wasn’t a stripped airplane. You had your guns and they were mounted. So you could
go out on missions to take pictures or adjust artillery or what you were going to do. You had
another airplane with you. You always went out in pairs.
SB: Do you have any memorable experiences from that portion of your training, getting into
your P-51s for the first time?
JA: Well, you were just overwhelmed by it. And the P-51 was brand new. And we thought when
we flew this P-40 fighter in advanced when we left there it was something. And it was really
funny how we got sent there. There was about 60 or 70 in our class and 2 of us got sent to F-6
school which was the fighter version. The only F-6 I ever heard of was a Navy Hellcat. And I
couldn't understand the “F-6.” What's this?" One of the men went and got it and here it was the
photo version of the Mustang. Boy we were overwhelmed.
SB: So we've discussed a little about the training so far. Now while you guys were there, did you
have any down time? Were you able to go on leave? What were the conditions like for you as
cadets?
JA: Well, after we finished cadet training, we were given a leave. And that's when I first met
your (grand) mother. When I come home, and of course we lived in Uniontown, and that was a
town of about 28,000 people I guess or something like that. There was a war going on and I
come home a hotshot pilot, in this officer's uniform and everything and I thought I was about the
hottest thing Uniontown ever saw. The story, one evening, it was in the Christmas time and of
course your grandmother lived a little bit out of town and the townships weren't running the
school buses. And they wanted to go a basketball game that night. So she stayed in town with my
sister. That's when I met her, when I was home on leave. And I considered them the little kids,
you know. But she was only three years younger than I was.
I took them, gas rationing and everything, and this car; I took them to this basketball game. And
then I went to pick up a girlfriend that I had a date with that night and we went out. I got back in,
what was it, about 2:00 in the morning or something. I'm not going to tell you the bathroom
story. But she wasn’t very impressed with me. And I was really impressed with her. She was a
beautiful girl. When I came home from the service she wouldn’t go out with me for about two
years after the war ended. But I finally hooked her.
4
�SB: We’ll go on and talk about when you got back to training. Do you have any memorable
experiences?
JA: The most memorable occasion I had…we were going out for training in Mustangs with our
flight, which was four of us. Our leader was Major O'Riggan. And three of us were a wing for
him. We were scheduled to do high altitude acrobatics above 20,000 feet. And we were doing
“Immelmanns,” which is like a loop and when you get to the top, instead of going on over, you
roll out and go the other direction. So technically the Air Force called it a 180-degree change in
direction with an increase in altitude. Well we had done one and we were doing the second one.
And I flew his wing.
And as I rolled out over my back the airplane stalled. And started to spin, flat, upside down. And
Major O'Riggan radioed and said "Jack, if you can't get out of it, bail out!" But I had taught
students in advanced training acrobatics before I got sent to TAC recon school and I wasn’t
concerned about it. It was a powerful airplane and just getting out of spin, you know, that wasn't
anything.
So I tried to do the normal things you do in a spin. If it's spinning to the right, you lead with full
rudder to the right and throttle back. And then when you have the turn-stop, you dump the stick
and come on with full power and that would come out of the spin. Well, this one just went the
other way every time I did it. It started about 20,000 feet and O'Riggan kept hollering at me. He
said, "Bail out!" So finally he said, "I said bail out." And I looked and saw how close to the
ground I was and I decided I better get out.
The bailout procedure for the Mustang, and of course you never do these things, so your first
experience is your first experience. And you are supposed to lower the seat and drop your head
and pull the canopy release. It's not like now they have canopies that roll off. This canopy was
supposed to, you pulled the pin so the air was supposed to take it off, and well it didn't. It just
slid back on the rail. And so I'm spinning one way, and then the other way and losing altitude
fast. I raised my anus and hit the canopy and bumped it and it went off.
I started to jump out and you want to, in a spin you want to jump inside the spin so the tail is
going away from you so you don't hit the tail. And no one explained to me that the wing is
coming at you though. And I didn’t leave the wing enough so when I jumped out, well, before
that even, you don't want to get excited and pull the ripcord or anything to soon because the
parachute might open and catch the tail. And you’ll go down with the airplane. So I had my hand
on the ripcord and then I thought, no you can’t do that, and get excited and pull it. It's a good
thing I didn’t because I hit the wing and then I just pulled to the end of the wing and slid off it.
Then when the tail cleared me I pulled the ripcord and the chute opened. And I was looking for
the airplane after I got in the chute and I saw it below me. It just did a tum and a half and hit the
ground and exploded. And it happened to be down in Mississippi and I was coming down in the
middle of about 4,000 acres of virgin timber, all pine trees about 40 foot high. And here I am a
skinny little thing and the airplane; no one knew anyone was in it. I figured I was going to hang
up in that tree with that parachute about 40 feet up. The flight is looking for me but they can't
find me. And they keep circling and circling and I'm trying to find, I want to get down to where I
5
�can signal them. And strangely enough, I come down through all those trees right to the ground,
with the parachute with me. They tell you that part of that training is don't throw the parachute
away or don’t leave it. It’s a hammock, a cover at night, you know, and will help you survive if
you are in an area where you can't be found. Well did you ever try to carry a 28-foot canopy
chute open through the forest? And I finally found a little place that was open wide enough and
they were circling right over the trees, the three of them, and finally I was able to wave at
O’Riggan and he rocked his wings and I knew they saw me and would go back and report it. Just
as I went into the trees I saw, am I boring you? I mean, should I go on?
SB: Yes, yes.
JA: I saw this log road to the right. And I thought well if keep walking this direction, I'll when
hit that road and I'll tum left and start walking out to civilization somewhere. Well, unbeknownst
to me, there was a bunch of Mississippi lumbermen working there at that time and they were
watching us. And they were really excited. Well they saw me bail out. And they started to me
and started to me and they started to holler. And I holler back, I just sat down and hollered back.
And they came. And it's funny, poor old minimum educated log men from Mississippi during the
war. I can remember the one came up to me and he looked and saw that parachute, with all that
white silk. And he said, "My God, no wonder my wife can't get any underclothes." And they
insisted on carrying me. They wouldn’t even let me walk. They patched up where I was cut on
the legs on my parachute some were tore out...legs on the parachute I mean flight suit.
And they carried me to the ranger station and called the base you know. Well I tried to tell them
that...you know, I knew O'Riggan would send, they'd be sending a car out in that area to hunt for
me. Well, they had everything and we were really tickled to death because they thought I was a
hero. I didn’t do anything but lose one of their expensive airplanes. But its, instead of a staff car
coming for me or a car where I could ride back to the base, the ambulance came. When these
guys called back to base they got the base and they sent an ambulance out too and this sergeant
patched everything up, else up and looked me over and I told him, I said, "Sergeant, operations is
sending a staff car out for me and I'll just wait here." And he said, "Oh no you won't," and so he
says "you're going with me," he says "if I get back to that base and you’re not in that
ambulance...the chief medical man will crucify me, you’re going with us."
And I couldn't out, out rule him you know although I over ranked and you know. So I had to get
in with them and as we got out on the road, main road and turned on the main road here come the
staff car the other way and I tried to get him to stop but he wouldn't, he let them go. What’s
funny, at the beginning-of this thing how I got this airplane, it wasn't the one I was training in my
own the one assigned to me which was painted OD (olive drab). This was a brand new P-51…it
was shiny and silver and no paint and I thought boy when we go out on that mission I'll give
these guys a fit cause I have a better, the better equipment.
Well unbeknownst to me, something wrong with it. I was coming from the base hospital walking
back to my barracks and I met this friend of mine and he was coming the other way and he said,
"What airplane were you flying?" and I didn’t know the number of that one because it wasn't the
one that was, I wasn’t assigned to it and in my tom pocket I got the operation sheet out and I still
remember the number, last four numbers: 1914. And he says to me "Let me shake your hand, I
6
�flew that airplane yesterday and I wrote it up. There's something wrong with it. It's not to be
flown. It's a test op by engineering." And probably what happened was it was a brand new
airplane and everything and some second lieutenant that read this maintenance sheet says oh that
lieutenant doesn’t know what he was talking about, this is a new airplane and he ignored that and
put it back on the line. Well what had happened it was a...they called it captive air.
We didn’t get to fly them but new recruits or new pilots coming in that was to check out in it, it
was mounted on concrete blocks at level flight altitude so they could get in it and work the gears
and the flaps and the systems and start it up and nm it up. Well when you got an airplane bolted
wings and it’s sitting at level flight and you start that engine and run it and run1400 horsepower
and it can’t go and these guys are running the power up on it and it sprung it. And that’s what
was out of rig. So that's, I had to go to a hearing for the accident and he got up and testified cause
this engineering one wanted to crucify me for ruining a new Mustang. He got up and testified, it
was the story I had just told about flying it the day before and wrote it up. So they exonerated
me.
Its funny...anything else or? The base in this hearing, this colonel he come up to me after the
hearing he says "Jack I'm going to shake your hand and I'm going to thank you," he says, "We
been trying to get rid of that guy for a long time and now we can do it." And then they did. Well
every time I'd go out to get an airplane to go fly one crew chief would holler at my crew chief,
"Hey Edelburg, take the papers out of that airplane he ain't going to bring it back." And then they
got on my back and said that if l got two more Mustangs I was going to be a German ace.
Fortunately, I didn’t do that but I tried to hide after that and I shouldn’t talk about being in a bar
but the colonel and his wife came in, the base commander. She was a real petite sweet thing and
he was a big burly guy you know. He came in and I saw him coming and I dipped way down and
tried to look all insignificant and he come by and he said, "What are you looking for a rematch?"
But that was my most exciting experience I think in training.
SB: Now I've seen a newspaper article that talked about you and your brothers I saw being in
service at the same time. Can you tell me a little bit about that and what that was like for your
family to have all of you in service, in uniform?
JA: Well, it was kind of hard on mother and dad I guess. I had a brother Joe, the oldest one. He
was assigned to an anti-aircraft...my brother Dick had been a musician all his life so, I mean he
graduated from high school two years ahead of time and music was his life and he wanted to go,
this was during the war, the war had started this was about 1944, he wanted to study arranging
and composing and he went there and he was too young to join the union.
So he had to take a job playing. He played bass fiddle and bass wherever he could go and
they...he got to play with some of the big bands then and really on tour maybe all over the United
States and the draft board had been hunting him, they couldn’t find him cause he wasn’t in one
place long enough.
I was, started training out and I went to a college training detachment for, I forgot to say, six
weeks before you went to flying school. He stopped in he had been playing in a town near and he
7
�wanted to know if he could get if I thought, he was my older brother and the really bright one, if
he could get in the service, Air Force. Yes, so he went and took his exam and got in and he was
classified as a bombardier. So he ended up flying as a bombardier on B-29's. And then I had the
brother next to me that’d gone in, quit high school, went into the Army Air Corps in 1937 when
the army was real small and the Air Corps.
Most of the people were in the service then as enlisted personnel or…they couldn’t get a job and
they did that. But he had a, my mother had a fit when he said he wanted to enlist and my dad
thought that was a good idea for him before he ended up with a problem so he did and he ended
as a staff sergeant in the peacetime Air Force before he was 20 years old, which was amazing
and he was a commanding officer’s crew chief.
This captain...he was portrayed in papers after that in Terry and the Pirates and he was his crew
chief. But he couldn't learn to fly because he hadn’t had college and this was back before we had
really had went so he went over the hill and joined the Canadian Air Force to learn to fly in
Canada. And they found out he was an American soldier and sent him back and Cocheran busted
him to a buck sergeant. He said, "You want to fly so bad, I'll send you to flying school." And he
sent him to pilot training with his orders to train and he ended up and he stayed in for 20 years.
Four of us in the service in this article you were talking about in the paper was about how very
odd it was for one family to have four sons in the service and they're all officers. And that's the
way it ended but it’s just because, the only reason he got to be an officer was... cause when you
went through pilot training they gave it to you. Wasn't anything you really had to do. It was
good, I can’t complain.
SB: Did any of your brothers give you any advice, any of the older ones when you enlisted? Any
words of advice to you?
JA: Well, this brother next to me that had been in so long you know. Do what they tell you, yes
sir, no sir, no excuse sir. That’s the way it was. I didn’t get to see any of them after that until the
war ended. It was funny, the brother next to me was what, Waite would be about five years older
than me. We looked alike and of course he had gone into the Army Air Corps when it was wee
little in 1937 and almost everybody knew almost everybody else. And I'd be on a base going out
to an airplane or something and some crew chief would say "Hey Al, hey Al." No one called me
Al. So I'd go over and say "Sergeant, you call me?" and he said, "Sure, don’t you know me from
Mitchell Field, Langley Field?" And here he was with my brother and I'd say "Oh you must
mean my brother." “My gosh," he said "your twins!" That’s with five years difference. But that
was a family experience too, to have people then but these old crew chiefs and sergeants really
knew each other and stuck together.
SB: Now do you remember where you were, we kind of talked about when the war ended, not
seeing your brothers until the war ended. Do you remember where you were when the war
ended?
JA: Well, yeah we were...had all new gear ordered and now it was onboard ship and everything
and all our belongings and we were on our way to Okinawa. The war ended.
8
�SB: I bet you definitely remember that then.
JA: Oh, yes.
SB: How much longer after that were you in the service?
JA: Well then after that when you know the Japs surrendered they started releasing people...I got
out probably three months later.
SB: So you went home after that? Did you do anything else once you got out of the service?
JA: Yes, I worked for a contractor and I went back to working for him and he wanted to get an
airplane and I went and flew for him ...and that was pretty nice... ended up staying in civilian
corporations (audio fades out)...he sold to them ...owner here in Mercersburg is how I got here
and then we merged with American-Marietta and he, American-Marietta merged with Martin so
I flew for American-Marietta and Martin-Marietta and then they wanted me to move to
Baltimore and I didn't want to go down there. And I went with Fairchild, worked with Fairchild
until I retired. There were different airplanes that we built (audio fades out)...I was too lazy to
work and too nervous to steal that’s the reason I flew.
SB: So looking back now on your military experience how would you describe it?
JA: It was great, I...looking back on it I didn't take advantage of some of the things I could of
and I often wish that I would have stayed in because I was so young, stayed in twenty years I'd
have had a good retirement out of it. But then of course you had the Korean War and Vietnam
War and a lot of things could have happened in the meantime.
SB: I'll go ahead and conclude the interview at this time. I'd like to thank you very much for
your time.
JA: Well, thank you. You are certainly welcome I hope I didn't bore you too much.
9
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers.
Copyright Notice:
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC).
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Alexander, Jack W.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Bolick, Sean
Interview Date
10/15/11
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
34:32 min
Copyright
Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used.
Tag
Pennsylvania, Mercersburg, Pittsburgh, Aviation Cadet Program, Keesler Field, Army Air Corps, pilot, P-51, P-40, Immelmanns, Mississippi, World War II
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Jack Wayne Alexander, 15 October 2011
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945
Air pilots, Military
Alexander, Jack Wayne
Veterans
Veterans
Interviews
United States
Description
An account of the resource
Jack W. Alexander, interviewed by Sean Bolick, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 9, 1924. Alexander talks about his experiences as a pilot during World War II.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Alexander, Jack Wayne
Bolick, Sean
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a>
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
9 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
Aviation Cadet Program
fighter pilot
Pittsburgh
WWII