Oral History Interview with William B. Jones

START OF TAPE 1. SIDE 1 Downs: My name is John Downs, and we are at the Kentucky Military History Museum at Frankfort, Kentucky, today is February 18th, 1992. I’m with William B. Jones, Bill Jones, from Lexington…talking about his service in World War II, in the active militia, and in the U. S. Army Air Corps, training for radio and gunnery for B-17s, and then later B-29s, and…I guess we will just start from there. The first thing, Tom’s wanted us to ask this question of everybody. Do you remember what was going on in your life fifty years ago today? February 18th, 1942? The war was out about three months old?

Jones: Not gene, not specifically, but generally I do, I was in…a student at the University of Kentucky, and I had been since…September of 1941, 1:00I recall Pearl Harbor morning, I was working in, in the girl’s dorm, work…washing pots and pans for the meal, and we had a radio back there, and heard the news and…but I was, I was a student at UK.

Downs: And when did you get into the militia?

Jones: Huh…I’m not exactly sure. The 123rd Cavalry, National Guard had been…mustered in, it was mustered into…federal service and I’ve forgotten when that happened, because it was not too long after that, that they recognized that Kentucky was defenseless, because…its 2:00guard was gone, and…I’d say…that summer, probably. Now that’s recollection now and I could be off on that but…it seems to me… Downs: In forty-one or forty-two?

Jones: It seems to me like…if I am not mistaken, that the m…that I joined the militia, or had joined, already joined the militia, because we went, since the guard was gone, they needed the militia to patrol the Kentucky Derby, which was normally one of the functions of the guard.

Downs: So you did that in ’42 then… Jones: ’40.

Downs: …May of ’42?

Jones: Yeah, mm-mm. Then I was in the militia at that time because I…made that trip.

Downs: And then, did…when did you join then the Army, with the army air corps? How long after that was it? 3:00Jones: Huh…I was drafted in…and I think this made a…played a significant part, I wanted to volunteer and my dad said, “don’t get in a rush, get all the education, because you’re going to be going when your time comes.” And…so…I had been writing edit…editorial column in our country weekly newspaper for three years every week.

Downs: In, in Glasgow?

Jones: In Glasgow, and…still have a copy of each of those columns and I was unhappy with everything that was going on as, and so I was really gung-ho, you know, so I was called up, when my number came up, and…and, and failed my physical on the first trip up. That was in the spring of ’43. 4:00I have forgotten what the month was but…like February, March, maybe.

Downs: When you were still at UK…about this time?

Jones: Mm-mm, yeah.

Downs: Was that disappointing to you that you failed?

Jones: Oh hell yeah, because all my friends were going and I’d, I was all set, I wanted at that age, I was really…well, that age, or any age, I thought that a person’s service to his country was the number one thing that you were born to do. And…when--and that was a, I don’t know, and thing, and, and fortunately I was able, I got home, I was really down, and I wound up, and I was able to get, without getting into what it was, I was able to get some remedial work, and I volunteered to go back as soon as I could go back and I went back up September the first, and this time I was accepted, 5:00and… Downs: Were you drafted into the Air Corps?

Jones: No.

Downs: Or did they just draft you and then you decided… Jones: Uh-uh.

Downs: …where to go or they put you arbitrarily in that division?

Jones: No, I was drafted. I was drafted, and I went to…Fort Thomas, where… Downs: Kentucky?

Jones: …everybody went, and I had that…baptism into army life. The first week I was there everybody got passes except, I didn’t, and some others, because we were assigned to KP for that weekend, that first weekend in the service, and I will never forget that. But I had run into, when I was, when I went in the service, I had been…I was, I had been working at the Lexington Leader while I was going to school, as a reporter, and I had a desire to…if I got in, and if I had had my prefers, I wanted to be a combat correspondent. And…at 6:00that time, people like Ernie Pyle, and he was sort of like a junior god to me, his style and the way he wrote, and what he wrote about, and I--that’s really, and writing was in my blood. My grandfather and my father both were in the newspaper business and I had been brought up in it, and that’s what I wanted to do. And at Fort Thomas I ran in one of my classification officers was a man that I had known on the Lexington Leader, and…and I told him, I didn’t get any first, but I ran into him and I told him what I wanted, and he said “well, you ought to make sure your, your records reflects that that’s what you want,” he said, “anything I can do to, you know, I’ll…” and I said “great!” So…I took a typing exam, because that was necessary, one of the requisites of, to be a combat correspondent, though I wondered if you’d carry a typewriter out in the mud, 7:00and…and I was waiting around, and one night I had gone in Cincinnati while I was waiting for them, for them to call for a combat correspondent, you know. And I ran into my friend and he said, “well I’m sorry about what happened.” I said, “what do you mean?” He said, “well, if you didn’t get the word yet.” And I said, “no.” And they had gotten a crash call for clerk typist, and they run all of the cards through and everybody that could peck had been on this order to be filled for a clerk typist. And I said, “I don’t want to be a clerk typist, I want, I want to do this, you know,” and he said, “well,” he said, “well the only way I know you can get out of that is to volunteer for cadets.” And I said, “cadet what?” you know, and he said, “you know, pilots, ba…bombardiers, navigators.” 8:00I said, “hell I can’t even, I’m no math, I don’t have enough math, even I’ve failed every math course that I’ve ever taken.” So, anyway, the next morning when it opened, I was at the…the room that was where you went to, to volunteer and I volunteered for cadets, and that got me off of this clerk typist special order. And I had expected, well I’ll get off of that, and then when I know I, I’ll fail this cadet thing, I, I’m not that kind of…and so when I fail it, either the psychological or the psychomotor, or whatever it is…then I’ll reapply for this--see my mind is working, this is another way to get back to what I want to do, and so anyway, we had some test there and, and 9:00I wound up along some others, and we were sent, we were accepted, and we were sent down to Amarillo, Texas, and there we had the psychological, and the psychomotor, and lo and behold I passed them both and I’m still in the cadet program, and I’m still wondering when this is going to all work out, you know. And then…they were short DIs down at Amarillo, and about ten days after we were there, when… Downs: This was in late 1943 still, is that right?

Jones: Yeah, uh-huh. It’s about October Nov…November, October I guess, early November, and…they were short of drill instructors and I had had a bunch of short or…close order drill, and particularly with UK band and the 123rd Cavalry band that I had worked with 10:00and all that kind of business and, and so I wound getting a class B pass, which meant I could go into town every night, if I wanted to. Then also I had to be a drill instructor during the day, and take a squadron around to classes and to formations and stuff. But anyway, we hung around there for…going through basic, and then we waited the whole, the whole…air corps episode was typical waiting, just like I guess everything and everywhere, and…then we were assigned to a, Iowa State Teachers College for three months of cadet training, yeah we got, you know, s…that’s when you started learning about spit and polish 11:00and s…super discipline and, and also getting some physics and mathematics and some other courses that we were all short on, and that’s how I got that far. Now, how far do you want to go on this?

Downs: Well…so you were, started a band there?

Jones: There.

Downs: You were in the band?

Jones: There, as a Kentuckian not used to that kind of discipline, and I’m sure a lot of other people had the same experience, you start looking for ways to get a little…what’s the word? Flexibility in your life rather than the rigid routine that’s incorporated and by the minute, you know, you, you’re here or there. And so to get out of some of the study halls, or some of this, or some of that, 12:00there were two things that they were short there, they didn’t have a band, and they didn’t have a newspaper. So…now, in order to get the newspaper going, I had to go downtown in Waterloo, Iowa to the newspaper office and use their facilities, and so we got a newspaper going, and the Iowa State Teachers College had a band room with all kinds of instruments, but no students to man the instruments. So we had instruments, and music and all that. All we needed were, was to put the word out in the cadet corps…and there were… Downs: So that was the cadet corps, in addition to all the normal Iowa students, at Iowa State.

Jones: There were very few Iowa citizen students.

Downs: Really?

Jones: But across the campus from us, there were…eighteen hundred WAVES, 13:00and they were going to yeomen school, learning to type and be secretaries for the navy--it’s a matter of fact, my cousin wound up there from Glasgow, (Marybelle Botty?), and…but there were eighteen hundred of those, so.

Downs: So how long were you at, in the cadet program at Iowa State?

Jones: At Iowa State [Chuckling] we finished, we finished our--and we were ready then to go to Santa Anna, California to get in to, to really get to, to get into…the first step of the cadet program, and…and also to get out of, well I was going to say get out of…running up and down the football stadium three times a week, and three-mile runs, and all that kind of stuff there, but they still had pretty rigid physic…phys-ed out and at Santa Anna. 14:00But they decided that they had enough cadets, and I think maybe l…I’ve often thought the reason that maybe some of us got in was because at that time we were really losing a lot of people with our aerial…bombardment to Germany, in the day time. We, we were really losing the manpower.

Downs: so they were trying to buildup a reserve.

Jones: And, well yeah, mm-mm, and…you know, you send, you send out a thousand bombers and three or four hundred are getting knocked down, why that’s…about ten-men crew, that’s a lot of people. So you really need to, something to replace what you’re losing, much less get ahead of the game. So anyway, they decided though at that time that they…they’d gotten a handle probably on that and they 15:00had enough people in the pipeline, and that they had enough, and…they didn’t need anymore cad…pilots and bombardiers and what have you. (Phone ringing sound) Downs: But they still have all these people.

Jones: But they did… Downs: …that are in the system.

Jones: …they got fifty thousand people who… Downs: No, I don’t have to get it.

Jones: They had fifty thousand people in, in training to, to go into that kind of business, and so…they washed everybody out and it really wasn’t a washout because nobody failed at, they just got, they just said, I’ve forgotten, regulation fifty or whatever it was, some. I know it made the news, and so fifty thousand people were automatically out and they either had the option of going into--well some 16:00who had volunteered in from other services got the chance to go back in to other services. And people like me, and…others, and some who had volunteered just as, from civilian life, you know, like eighteen years old had volunteered in the cadet program and come straight there. They were…they wound up, we all wound up, you either became a radio operator, an engineer, and this flight engineer, an armorer, or a gunner, and, and then they went down and took, I guess took a look at, at some of your background, and I wound up in radio.

Downs: In i…in, 17:00in what, just learning the signals and broadcaster, or actually taking the radio apart or… Jones: No, no… Downs: …putting one back together, or… Jones: I, I was sent to…Si…Sioux Falls, Io…Siou…Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and there was a big radio school there and I wound up…you learned--you spent half of the day learning code. You were there six months, and you learned code, sending and receiving, and then you also learned radio mechanics, and not major repairs but enough if there, if something happened to one, you’d have some general idea might--what to look for.

Downs: Yeah.

Jones: So you spent half a day learning code, sitting at a table with earphones on, and the other half in a sort of a classroom setting learning about the various radio sets 18:00that you might be working with and, and how to tune them and how to do this for them and that with them.

Downs: It, did you, when you were in California, did you say? For a while did you have a band or anything out there, or did… Jones: No but… Downs: …you do any newspaper work at all?

Jones: No, but in, at Sioux Falls, there was a, a similar school in, in Illinois, Scott Field, that was older and more substantial in many ways than in Sioux Falls, and they had a, they had a base band program where each squadron, and in the way it was divided you had to, about five hundred people in the squadron, and a s…that squadron was a training unit and Scott Field, each, each u…each squadron had a band 19:00composed of trainees, and it seemed like most--I think frankly that, that one of the reasons I wound up at, in Sioux Falls, was because of my music background.

Downs: They didn’t have a band.

Jones: Well, no they, because I think they, the, the rhythm, there is a rhythm angle in code that’s helpful, and so I think anybody that had any sort of any background in music, I don’t care whether it’s marching band, violin, piano, what have you, because the, the base was full of musicians. Every, every squadron was full of musicians, and so they wound up…calling for all musicians to come down for, in front of the (quarterly?) and what they were going to try to do, they match or exceed Scott Fields’ band program. And so we wound up, I had had more 20:00pre military with the UK band. The UK band helped me a lot all the way through everything, and, and it wound up at, I was a surrogate sergeant in charge of the band, we got our own band barracks and I got to go to town and, and buy a bunch of instruments and charge them to the squadron, I’m--never known how in the world they, they worked that out, because everybody was going in town getting instruments, we cleaned that town out. But we wound up and we wound up and with a band and so that was the Sioux Falls Band.

Downs: And then from, how long were you there, at Sioux Falls?

Jones: I was there approximately six, ten months.

Downs: One, one thing, getting back to the…the thing about the air corps having so many people, I was reading somewhere that some of the other--not so much some of the other 21:00armed forces, other branches, but the Pentagon was saying, look you got all of these people that you’re just keeping in training that are there, you need to, it, it wasn’t just the air corps deciding they didn’t need that many people, I think there was a lot of pressure from other branches and from the Pentagon, from Washington say look you’ve got all these people that you got on reserve, you really don’t maybe necessarily need that many.

Jones: I think that they, they were right about that too.

Downs: Because they had, and because you didn’t mention it so much but I was reading something about morale, it became very big morale problem, we had all these people like yourself who had these big aspirations to fight for your country and, and to be either in the prestigious air corps or to, to do something along that line, and then you were not able to, because they just kept you in, constantly in training. Was the, was the morale a problem that you noticed with the people that you were with, or even… Jones: Well… Downs: …with yourself?

Jones: …the big--well with me, that was the first time that, that the occasion came that I thought I was going to be able to get back to what I wanted to do in the first place, 22:00though I hadn’t worked at it. It is a matter of fact, to, I’d, to the contrary when our bunch were washed out, and we had, we had about three hundred and fifty, of us, at Cedar Falls, and they just moved us over in one dormitory and, and I was appointed cadet major in charge of the washouts and we didn’t have to do anything, period, until we got this business about transfers out. Some people were really heartbroken, and I wasn’t, but those--I thought, well now I will get on with my life’s career, with what I want to do in this world.

Downs: But the band at Sioux Falls, that wasn’t necessarily it.

Jones: No-no, hell… Downs: You wan… Jones: …the band was just… Downs: …it was just a… Jones: The band was some way to get out of study halls and, and to have some, some 23:00living flexibility in an otherwise drab…thing where every time you turned around somebody was coming in and you were bracing against the wall, sort of like being at West Point, you’d work like hell on your belt buckle and somebody would come in and, speaking from experience, some inspecting officer, and the shoes wouldn’t be shiny here, you’d look down the shoes looked like a million dollars, with the belt buckle, everybody is using blitz cloths and what have you. One gig for that and two for that and the next thing you know, the weekend comes and you’re walking tours, you know, in the snow. But anyway, but there were a lot of people that were really, really…were heartbroken about it, and I know of one fellow was--he wasn’t from Kentucky, but I, he was from te…--well he was from Texas where he was from, and his dad was an 24:00f…was an FBI agent and we got--he was in, in our band, but he didn’t, he never would do what he was supposed to do, he didn’t even go to classes, and his bunk looked like it snowed in there with notices to report to the…to the, orderly room, you know, he would be reported absent and hell he was absent, he never did do anything, never got to go anywhere, and, and he’d just go and add all that, the…at the dayroom somewhere, some didn’t see—not the NCO but the…there’s, there was a club there on the base and about the time they were getting ready to unload on him, damn if he didn’t get appointed to the naval academy [Laughter – Downs], and he told them all to stick it and off he went and…he left all of his 25:00notes and everything else. So--no, but I think you’re right, I think that, that in an abundance of caution they really had, had something and that’s something I liked that I noticed, and you probably noticed in all your work, war is a very, very wasteful way to, to do things. It’s, it’s…it’s wasteful in lives, it’s wasteful in sacrifices of innocent people, like mothers and fathers, and it’s, it’s wasteful in that this waste is just total, war is waste, but s…unfortunately that’s the only way you can resolve… Downs: Sometimes it… Jones: …the, the ( ) of interest… Downs: …eventually comes to that, yeah.

Jones: …it, it’s got to be that way and, and if I know one thing about anything it’s that, if you’re going to do something it’s better to be over 26:00prepared… Downs: Then under.

Jones: …then under. Those that lose are usually under something.

Downs: The…I say, I was going to say something there again about, about the over abundance of people. I think probably part of that also came with the fact that the air corps was relatively new in 1941, and it was becoming a very important part of the armed forces of the United States, they were growing by leaps and bounds, they just didn’t know exa…it’s like growing too fast, they were growing up too fast and didn’t know exactly where and what to do, or how to, to route people, how to classify people there was one thing that, that you have mentioned that I also have read in this book…that there was a lot of miss-assignment and miss-classification, they just d…you know, they needed, you know, fifty people for this or that, well they’d look at a thousand applications and they’d just go pick fifty, they wouldn’t necessarily--because they needed them right now or needed them yesterday.

Jones: They needed fifty bodies to 27:00get on this troop train, no question about it. The…if there was any, anything that I saw it was, it was that way, and of course this was army air corps, army, air, corps, not air force corp.

Downs: Yeah.

Jones: This was an adjunct to the army, and… Downs: And army went in ( ).

Jones: …and the tail was getting about as big as the body of the dog, you know.

Downs: Yeah.

Jones: And it… Downs: The army was--wasn’t going to give the air corps any more, I guess than they could absolutely have to give them. You think there was, was there that kind of rivalry even then?

Jones: I think, I think the rivalry was there, I think, you know, the, they…the army is, when you’re fighting about that time, you’re in the South Paci…--you’re not only in Europe, you’ve landed, you, you got all the demands that modern war calls for in manpower, you got now an exploding situation in the Pacific, 28:00and, and everything from Guadalcanal on, and the island hot thing and then you start losing men like snowflakes on a hot stove to…Tarawa, and Iwo Jima and places of that nation--that nature, and then you’re facing the potential invasion of the main islands of Japan with, which would have, no doubt, meant millions of casualties.

Downs: No doubt. Did, do, do you think…by the middle of ’44, I guess, it’s about where were are at now in your, in your career?

Jones: Mm-mm.

Downs: Were you beginning, well like in June d…there was D-Day as you just mentioned the, the islands, I think Guadalcanal was getting just about that time, Iwo was a little later, it was in early ’45, but, were you, or people that you were with at that time, were you beginning to wonder that maybe the war is going to be over with before you even get a chance to get out there and, and do your thing?

Jones: No.

Downs: That wasn’t ( )… Jones: Uh-uh.

Downs: Do, you, that ti…it wasn’t that far along yet… Jones: Uh-uh.

Downs: …I guess.

Jones: No, as a matter of fact…part 29:00of that early on stuff, when, when you could see…even, even with censorship, we were sustaining substantial losses and we knew--and I’m talking about the planes and, and all that, I, I, I remember thinking, well it’s fortunate my mother--my mother had died just a few months before I went in the service--and that sort of took a, a little hold off, because I was glad… Downs: That you ( ).

Jones: …not that she was dead, but that… Downs: But if something happened to you, then you wouldn’t have to put her through… Jones: That’s right.

Downs: …the sorrow or grief.

Jones: And, I mean no, there was never any--it is a matter of fact, even in training, in those days, we lost crews and, and it wasn’t all funs and games, it was, the, the equipment wasn’t that, that good, particularly in the twenty-nine training. 30:00Go, go ahead.

Downs: And I think the…you, in, in ’43 there was a lot we were beginning so…a lot of heavy bombing of Germany and we were losing a lot of crews and I think that probably picking more trained people like some of the officers who were supposed to be training you and, and, and…and NCOs who had some experience pulling them, to actually put them in crews, and then there were these r…recruits, or cadets, or people that didn’t have any competent even instructors because they were being drug out in ’43 to actually be put on crews.

Jones: To be, because yeah… Downs: because they… Jones: …there is no question about it.

Downs: …because they, they didn’t have enough people, and that may have been part of the reason why they had, by the end of ’43, fifty-thousand people at, that they decided they really didn’t need.

Jones: Mm-mm, very possible.

Downs: Then, you were in… Jones: Then… Downs: …from there with… Jones: …we finished, we finished… Downs: …what, what was the radio? You mentioned it earlier, was there a particular radio or any particular code, anything 31:00particular that you remember about?

Jones: No, we… Downs: ( ) that, was it… Jones: …no, I just, I remember the only…we used the trouble wire antenna and you had to tune it, you had tuning units that had to go in, it was a real bitch. And then the Collins transmitter came on and that was--and then that was the transmitter actually that we were into in…had on twenty-nines, and but we didn’t have them on seventeens, but we learned to use them and, and operate them and, and also there was a, of, the…seventeen was full of radio equipment, High up equipment, identification friend and foe that we had to take care of and the pilots radio, his, his system, and…and all that, but… Downs: So, after you were in Sioux Falls for a while.

Jones: And we completed that training… Downs: And you… Jones: …and then, 32:00we were sent to…Yuma, Arizona for gunnery school, and--Oh, back one s…one thing. After this fifty-thousand business, I went to…the CO there. It’s a matter of fact I went--didn’t go to the CO, I went to the executive officer, and asked--and he was the one that was handling where people were going to go, and I expressed my desire, I didn’t, if it’s possible now, I would like to get back to what I was doing before I was so rudely interrupted. And I wasn’t that facetious I didn’t say that, I, I did say that I had planned on that until I got ( ). He s…and he said, “sorry Bill, but there is only A, B, C, and D, those things 33:00and that’s it. In other words there wasn’t any business of getting over here and going into that or something else, they use the channels and so I was locked in to whatever, whatever happened, and I was going to be just like the other forty-nine thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine, you were going to go down one of these four channels. So anyway, I wound up going down to Yuma for gunnery school and learning…how to use, and how to tear down, and how to… Downs: Fifty calibers?

Jones: Fifties, fifty…air cools and, and…oh and, and forty-five automatics, and Thompson subs, and carbines and, and just, I don’t think that--that’s it, but those, and so we spent… Downs: You just trained, actually using the weapon, you did not, like 34:00they didn’t have B-17s where you could actually get in there and feel what it was like to be inside of a turret or… Jones: Not there.

Downs: …( ).

Jones: Not there, not there, all you did was learn the firing, and of course some people were--wound up instead of going on and being like radio operators, we also ran into a lot of people there that were going to be armor, armorers, and engineers, and all that kind of stuff, but…the closest that one of the, one of the things they had there which was interesting was a, they had a big--of course we are out in the middle of nowhere, Yuma, and it’s a desert in the summertime. I was always in South Dakota in the wintertime, and places like Yuma in the summertime, getting hot, and hot, and cold is cold you know, 35:00but…they had a, they had a bunch of trucks and they had a pipe with, with a mount so you could stick a, a, a, mount a, mount a fifty-caliber shotgun with a fifty-caliber grip on it, and ring, ring sight, and posted ring sight, which is the whole concept of, of an aerial fifty-caliber machinegun, handheld, and because you were, your deflection is judged by the relative position, if it’s ninety degrees coming head on, you used it’s right arm, but if he is forty-five, then you go over the next c…circle and what have you, of the ring side, and but you, you’d ride, there is a figure-eight course 36:00probably a mile and a half long, figure-eight post, and they had…stations where they’d, half the day you would be up there loading trap and, and sending them out to people to shoot at, and get, and you’d get shot at too because the shot hit with the trap house, and then the other half of the day, why you’d ride around on those trucks shooting trap, getting used to--that was a part of the training. But then after, after that was finished, after we got through that course, nothing--like you say, it’s a six-weeks course, that didn’t mean you spent six weeks here and then maybe, maybe another three or four weeks or whatever it is, why you wound up going to your next…wherever they tell you to go.

Downs: A, any musical activity there?

Jones: Not down there, nothing there, and then…and then 37:00we were sent to…to Lincoln, Nebraska. And then from Lincoln, Lincoln we were crewed up with a B-17 crew and then we were sent to…Rapid City, South Dakota, in the wintertime.

Downs: This was ’44-’45…that winter?

Jones: This was late ’44 and really about…I have forgotten what the months are, but it was, it was winter, and… Downs: Did you actually get your plane, or you just got your crew?

Jones: You got your crew and you used base planes, and… Downs: Taking off and landing, ferrying?

Jones: Oh you did everything there, you did--we were there… Downs: Taking them apart… Jones: …that was a three… Downs: … ( ) good, back together?

Jones: …that was, that was a three-month training as a, as a crew, and each flight 38:00a day…like the radio operator. You had--and there were fifty crews in a, in our class and you were, you were…and of course you, you’d gotten there the month before, so this, there’s fifty in yours and, and in other words, when you move out, we move up, another fifty takes, takes the place, and you always got three, three…classes going at a time. And each month, that base was shipping out fifty crews. So…but each day though of training, you had, you had an assignment to do certain things. Everybody had his own thing to do. We might have air-to-ground gunnery, or shooting at towed targets, the radioman had to shoot in a seventeen, but he also 39:00had a training program of, he had to, to--he had a log he had to complete and a, accurately and everything you were judged. And they also judged how good the copilot did whatever he was supposed to do, and the pilot did his thing… Downs: So you’re actually flying.

Jones: Yeah we flew… Downs: Yeah.

Jones: …that was, that was all flying there.

Downs: Yeah.

Jones: And… Downs: Bombing runs… Jones: Bombing and… Downs: …practices and things?

Jones: …we did bombing runs, practice bombs and we did, we, we shot, and we bombed, and we did high level, and low level, and… Downs: Did you have that Norton bombsite on that plane?

Jones: Mm-mm, yeah.

Downs: Remember that we have one in our collection.

Jones: Do you?

Downs: I think it’s down to the old Capitol now, they’re going to put it on the war--in the World War II e…--I mean the…bicentennial exhibit, and look at the Norton bombsite.

Jones: Well, at the first of the war it was very…secret. But anyway that’s what 40:00we did there. And then the crew in front of us…wound up shipping out, got completing its training, shipping out, and we had one hell of a fine B-17 crew, we had a good crew, and it was the top crew in our class, and they… Downs: What was your rank at this time?

Jones: I was a buck sergeant, at--which is the highest that I achieved, and the only reason I got that is because everybody got, got it at the same time, along the way you got, I never was a PFC, I was just a private a long time, and then made corporal, but when I made corporal, everybody else like me made corporal too. I mean they were hundreds of corporals, just and then there were hundreds of buck sergeants, and, and that’s, that’s the most I ever got. And I think I could have won the war and still have--it wasn’t the right timing, 41:00you, then everybody at one time, why, and I’m being facetious there too, but anyway, our, our class was the next air powers, (wadman?) was a, our group was the next one out, and that’s when they decided…sort of like cadets, we got enough of these, we need some of those.

Downs: Now the B-17 was a little bit older model too, wasn’t it?

Jones: Well they had been modifying it.

Downs: And the B-29s… Jones: Yeah but these… Downs: …that’s where the next one on down the line what about ( )… Jones: Yeah, but now, see the twenty-nine was used in the, the Pacific and, and our whole agenda had been heading for Europe.

Downs: For Europe.

Jones: But the B-17, they’d continued to modify the seventeen.

Downs: On that, you know I just, I brought some, this book just as, it has some picture, a picture or two actually in it, I don’t know if anything in here might ring a bell with you or… 42:00Jones: No, but the G was the final.

Downs: The G, there is the line drawing of the G.

Jones: That was a fine airplane but it, it didn’t carry that much and it was awfully slow, but at the time it was, it was a great airplane.

Downs: And, and that, that was the last the G then was the last thing you trained on?

Jones: As far as I--yeah.

Downs: We…as far as the B-17 was the G, and then from there they decided they didn’t need B-17s… Jones: Need anymore… Downs: …(planes?) anymore?

Jones: That’s right, and then so we laid around there for two or three months, until they finally decided what they wanted to do and, that’s when they decided to break the crews up, and…and the radio operators went back--well, some of the others did too, went back to Lincoln. But I never did see those people anymore, and, and then I wound up, along with a bunch of others, being assigned the B-29s (clears throat) 43:00I was, I was hoping to get on the… Downs: Where was this?

Jones: …then I was sent to Chathan, c-h-a-t-h-a-n, Chathan Air Force base outside of Savannah, Georgia, and it was a temporary camp, an air force base, out in the middle of a, a pine forest and about a mile and a half from that, a pulp mill, which… Downs: Smelled pretty bad.

Jones: …which it was terrible. Well, at least I’ll say one thing, you always knew which way the wind was blowing [Laughter – Downs], but no, they were tar paper shacks and, and out in, and it was hot as hell, and we were in the summertime. So…and mosquitoes. But they, anyway, we were re-crewed and we did the same thing there that we had done up at…Rapid City, and that was…it 44:00was called phase training, but it’s where you work as a crew, on a, on a training program together to b…to become a knit unit and… Downs: Was the B-29, was it bigger, better?

Jones: Much bigger.

Downs: Faster?

Jones: It was bigger and faster, and… Downs: Fly any better?

Jones: …Yeah… Downs: Did it… Jones: …except it had a problem with engines catching on fire at that time [Chuckles – Downs], particularly on takeoff. And, and you always n…hoped that it didn’t blow before the pilot could get it back around and down and then, and that happened on several occasions, and not only with us but we only had--that’s just, that was one of the early problems with the, with twenty-nines.

Downs: So they were training you then to move you to the Pacif…Pacific 45:00 eventually.

Jones: That, yeah, which is the only place they used twenty-nines.

Downs: Yeah. I’d, I would, working on an interview with another fellow that someone else had done and I’m transcribing it now, and he was in the marine corps on Iwo Jima, and apparently, the main reason why they decided they needed Iwo Jima was so that they wouldn’t lose so darn many B-29s where they had to ditch them, because the closest airbase was Tenian or some place… Jones: Yeah.

Downs: …was a couple more thousand miles away… Jones: That’s right.

Downs: …or flying all the way to China, and…they gave, he gave and th…his interviewer agreed, and he talked to a, an arm, an air corps general after the war, and he had said that they probably taking Iwo Jima probably saved about twenty thousand lives, air corps lives, by taking Iwo Jima to keep from having to ditch all those planes…and they could land on Iwo Jima, not twenty-thousand maybe, it sounds like a bit--a high number to me, but, I don’t know.

Jones: Yeah, 46:00well I, I don’t know either, because you’d have to have the statistics available to, you would have to know how many planes actually…landed on the emergency strips there and I know that they had the lifeline of subs stretched out from here to there, surveying as a, and they’ve, and they picked up a hell of a lot crews too.

Downs: Yeah.

Jones: But…talking about the twenty-nine, it had a lot of sophisticated equipment on it that or for its day, that the seventeen didn’t have.

Downs: Did planes have any kind of radar at that time?

Jones: Yeah.

Downs: Did they have that?

Jones: Oh yeah.

Downs: So you could tell when something was coming, you had the IF to tell whether it was friendly or… Jones: Huh, the friend, the for, friend or foe, and of course, one of the interesting things about the twenty-nine, for those of us that had been in the seventeens, 47:00was that when you went in, when you were in the seventeen and you got to ten thousand on up, you went on oxygen and you were, you were bundled up, you had no, in the later stages, you had an electric suit plugged into the wall, and, in, in addition to your normal outer wear, and, but, you, you had an oxygen mask that they, every now and then, periodically, you’d have to reach up and stretch with your hands because it was icing up, and it was cold up there, and frostbite was a problem, and particularly when you get into the waist, the radio room was a, was a nice--everybody liked the radio room then there were plenty of plug ins in there and we had a lot of company in there, and it was… Downs: It was sort of… Jones: …right behind the… Downs: …( ) the equipment probably is a little warmer, wasn’t it?

Jones: Well, it created but no…--it created some but not that much. Nothing warmed up. 48:00Downs: It was always cold.

Jones: It was cold and the radio room was right, one bulkhead, the bulkhead separated the radio room from, from the bomb bay, and…and there was a bulkhead that separated the radio room from the waist, and of course the waist was open and you had a gunner in each…each side. And… [Sound of gun being cocked?) Downs: Did it, is that? Do you have to hit this? Yeah I think… Jones: Oh I, hell I know nothing about it either, let me have the gun. I may have, I may have missed it on, but anyway, but on the twenty-nine, you…you, you didn’t have that problem 49:00because you were, you were pressurized.

Downs: Was pressurized heated? Or was it still cold?

Jones: It was cold, but not near like, and it was pressurized and not near as cold, you didn’t have, you weren’t open to the elements, you know… Downs: Yeah, yeah.

Jones: …and there again, the, the radioman however didn’t have his own…compartment. It’s a matter of fact he was stuck behind one of the remote turrets there in the right next to the, in front of the bomb bay, and right up over your shoulder was the tube that…you crawled through and connected the front end of the airplane with the back end, and though I’ve never saw it happened, I’ve heard of it happening, when you had a, an explosive dep…decompression, and if you were in that tube, then you were like a projectile [Chuckles – Downs], because it, depending on which way the, 50:00where your… Downs: Where the break was.

Jones: …where the break was, you’d go in, you’d go in that direction… Downs: Yeah, yeah.

Jones: But… Downs: If you were shot, I guess, or, or whatever.

Jones: No, you’d slide--you, you became the bullet.

Downs: Yeah.

Jones: But, anyway I, I never saw it, so I don’t, does that me…I don’t even know that it ever happened, I just always heard that it… Downs: It sounds possible. How long were your, your training flights in the B-17 and or the B-29?

Jones: The seventeens, we usually about three to four hours, and the B-29s would be six to eight hours.

Downs: That’s more realistic I guess, flight for a… Jones: Mm-mm.

Downs: …for a bombing run.

Jones: Well, some of those, some of those B-29 flights though were, were long ones, you might get eight, eight or nine hours, maybe more. But they would be long cross-countries, that, that was really more for…to 51:00give your navigator and, and your pilot and co-pilot, because you sure didn’t do any shooting, and you didn’t do much of anything.

Downs: Because it gets long.

Jones: It gets boring!

Downs: Boring.

Jones: Mm-mm. And as a matter of fact… Downs: I guess you don’t talk on the radio the whole time, I guess, do you just…give your position or just keep it open in case you had to… Jones: Yes, periodically, periodically, it… Downs: …or get your position or… Jones: Periodically you would…well, what, what the radioman would do, he would triangulate and get fixes on…and get locations by triangulation and pass them on to the navigator, but he knew where he was anyway and there was a little something, but normally you just sat there and do nothing, you know. It’s a matter of fact we were on a, on a long oversea flight out over 52:00the Atlantic, when…VJ Day happened, because I, I picked it up, and called it in, called it on the intercom to, to the crew, you know.

Downs: Were you expecting it?

Jones: No, uh-uh, no because we didn’t… Downs: Everybody was still thinking that we’ll probably going to have to invade Japan?

Jones: Yeah!

Downs: What did you think about the, this new bomb that they had? Did you have any recollection of caring… Jones: No.

Downs: …or knowing anything about that?

Jones: I don’t have that much recollection about it, but I, I, I do and I don’t. It seems to me like I didn’t really ap…appreciate the true significance of… Downs: Of what it did.

Jones: …what had happened.

Downs: Yeah. I don’t think, I don’t think anybody did for a long time…afterwards.

Jones: But I, I know that those who criticized Truman for doing it, need to have their head examined.

Downs: I…talking to several people and listening to several interviews, 53:00that’s been the consensus, because it would have been your butt or his butt that went to Japan, if that’s what it came to.

Jones: Well I, I think…not as much mine because… Downs: Yeah, well you could… Jones: …because I would be up there, but I, I can sure, I have a lot of empathy for the guy on the ground that’s got to go in against a bunch of fanatics and…and, and take that problem on, and I think we would have had a lot of unnecessary blood letting and, and that I’m, I’m just thrilled to death that we had a president at the time that… Downs: That took the initiative.

Jones: …that had the guts to do… Downs: Yeah.

Jones: …what needed to be done.

Downs: Yeah, we definitely would have had more casualties out of that, if we had to do that, and it’s hard telling if it would have ever ended, you know, because they were, I read somewhere recently that there was 54:00the last Japanese soldier surrendered on Iwo Jima in 1951 or two, and that was six years after the war was already over, can you imagine if we had tried to take Japan? There may still be people over there fighting us if we… Jones: Right!

Downs: …had to, if we had to do that.

Jones: I think that, I don’t think there is any question about it, I think that that’s one of those kind of situations where nobody--and I can see some of that potential right now in some of the mid east situation, you got, you got fanatics that, that will die to the death of their last daughter, wife, son, you name it, they will all go, you know, and those kind of problems are something else.

Downs: So you were over the Atlantic on V-J Day. What were you doing on V, on VE day, do you remember that?

Jones: Yeah, I was in--we weren’t flying that day, we were in town in…Rapid City.

Downs: I guess it was what? May… 55:00Jones: Whenever… Downs: …second, third, fifth, some… Jones: Whatever… Downs: sixth, something like that.

Jones: …it was, I just remember, I remember the day because, unlike the B-29 crew, which had a pil…--which had an airplane commander, that, a West Pointer, and he, he was a person who did not believe in, let’s use the term fraternization because it was against army regulation, between officer and enlisted men, and…the…unlike him, our B-17, everybody partied together, we’d go to town together, we’d would get a hotel suite together, we’d go out and have dinner together and drink together, whatever it is would, anyway it was a big--we were a team. And 56:00on VE Day, we’d flown the day before, the night before, and we were off that day, and we went in, and, and the word came out, VE Day, and…so we got a suite and the bombardier and the navigator went out find some dates for all of us, and we wound up having a big party there at the hotel, and then went out to a nightclub that night.

Downs: This was where?

Jones: In Ssssioux Fall--Rapid City. And that was one of my first experiences with, with…it wasn’t--I don’t know whether I want to get into it or not, with racial discrimination, because you saw it, you saw different kinds in different places, 57:00up there, Indians, and down in Yuma, and Amarillo, it was…Mexicans, and of course in the south, why you had Blacks that were discriminated again; but up there, my…my date, as it turned out, the, the one, they, they were all Anglos, except one, and she was the prettiest one, and she was, she was a Sioux, and was a student, a music student at the University of Chicago, and her dad was chief of the…of the reservation.

Downs: That caused trouble with some of the local people, between you all and them, or… Jones: No we--well we went out to…this nightclub (phone ringing sound) and all of us, and we just got up there to dance and somebody taped 58:00me on the shoulder and said, “come here, I like to talk to you a minute,” “sure” and he said, “is she an Indian?” I said, “as far as I know.” He said, “She--we don’t allow them in here.” So our whole crew, we all left and went back downtown. But that was my first experience with--though I had seen signs in a lot of windows up there, but that was a, a real experience and education for a young guy.

Downs: So then after the war then how much longer, after the end of Japan, how much longer did you stay in B-29 training after the, after the actual, end of the actual war?

Jones: Oh, they kept us there because o…obviously they, they were shutting down along the way, and so they wound up then keeping us down around Chatham for about another six to eight weeks and they broke the crews up, and they sent the radio operators up to Greensboro, North Carolina, and we were then 59:00given a new classifications, and those who had had any, any college, and I had had two-and-a-half years, were, well we were all going to Europe. That was--Greensboro was a (POE?). So I was going over and I was going--my assignment was to be some sort of an English instructor in some kind of an army school over in Europe some place, and there were some others like me, and, and so that, that was the way it was, and then they came by one morning at four o’clock and had us empty our bags out and then repack them, and then they sealed them, and we were to be shipped out at noon, put on a train, to go to, catch a ship some place and, 60:00and I went down at about eight thirty I went with some others, we’d went over to the PX there, a bunch of us did, and as soon as it opened up, we got a few beers and just waiting, killing time until time to catch a train and went back to, went back to the barracks and the guys were opening up the bags and I remember distinctly telling my bunk mate, who was a good friend, I said “you’re going to get your ass in a sling, you know, somebody checked the times you busted the seal in that thing.” He said, “hell they came by and just said, the shipment is off.” And I said, “off?” you know, here we go again.

Downs: Were you looking forward to going to Europe?

Jones: Yeah! I mean it, then… Downs: Now the war is over.

Jones: …now the war is… Downs: It's a whole new world over there.

Jones: …it’s like getting a free trip, you know, of all of, it is a goodie.

Downs: Part of the liberating army and welcomed everywhere?

Jones: Except in some parts of Germany, why you got… Downs: ( ) yeah. [Laughter – Downs] Jones: But, 61:00no, that would have been a, what a beautiful assignment you know. So, anyway, the… Downs: Let me turn this over.

“END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1” “BEGIN OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2” Jones: But anyway, that was cancelled and then we laid around there for about two or three weeks, and then we were assigned to Bowman Field, Kentucky on detached service, and fun.

Downs: Was that just a, did they know you were from Kentucky… Jones: No.

Downs: …did that just happen or did they want to get you close to home, or… Jones: Well, I was very happy when I heard somebody said, “we are being assigned to Bowman Field.” I said, “that is just ducky,” you know. And, anyway, we wound up being put on a troop train 62:00and…sent to Camp Beale, California and that was, that was assignment to Bowman Field on detached service, which meant we never even saw Kentucky, you know [Laughter – Downs] and…so anyway, we were sent to Camp Beale, which is an infantry camp right outside of Marysville, California, about forty miles north of Sacramento, and we wound up out there as separation counselors. Now, after the war, returning veterans who really had done something, came through, they were interviewed, and, and we typed up this form 63:00one-hundred, I think it was, or, I believe that was the name of it. But it, it went through the whole thing, with all of the data and on the back it gave a description, and actually what you were supposed to be able to do is to take this thing and show it to a potential employer and he’d have the full detail on, on you and what you’d done, and also if there was any good stuff that you could put in there, like, I mean, here, you got a, here, here you got returning veterans that got five years for the rifle coming back from the, I mean you know, sixty points, seventy points coming back and they spent their whole military career, they went through a short basic and then got a gun and were sent out and they lived in the jungles and, and they grubbed it out, all this time, you know. And so you got to find some, well, 64:00it might be that you drove a jeep some place, or they drove a truck, well then they want to be a truck driver, they don’t want to go to school, you, you explain, you know, the GI Bill now is our, is our road back to a better life and what have you. But those who just wanted it to end and get out, you know. It is a matter of fact, a lot of them didn’t even want to sit at your table because they wan…this they wanted to move it on, and I don’t blame them, and so anyway I spent six months out there doing that, and then I was finally discharged and at Camp Beale, so… Downs: And then you came home…back… Jones: I came back… Downs: …right straight back to the ( )?

Jones: No, I didn’t come straight back, I’d, I decided I wanted to see some of that country and I hitchhiked around for three or four weeks, and spent my discharge money and, I’d go as far as--I might not go but from one time to the next and liked to see what it looked like and I’d spend the night there or something. 65:00So I went down to L.A., and then back up through Oregon, Washington, to Spokane, and across, and I did about fifteen hundred miles and never did get closer to home than Wyoming. So I came on from there by bus, and that’s, that’s a very…dull and boring way. I’ve often thought, John that in, in thinking back over, I mean it’s all been…you’re doing what you’re told to do. And that is a part of the whole mess anyway, a very, I’m very grateful that I didn’t have any more problems than I had. At the same time, I’ve often thought, 66:00had my, my initial experience in the draft, when I went up and then I had to go back and get hit, get a little work done, and then go back up, that made about a four-month, maybe four or five months difference in my whole cycle, really, and when I think back, you know, a matter of fact that four months, for or five months, of course, if everything else had worked, that’s not, it’s, it’s just difficult to say well, everything would have stayed the same. But I’m saying for example that four months would have made a hell of a difference at Rapid City, because… Downs: Whether you got to Europe on that B-17 or not.

Jones: I would have been, on, on the seventeen, I’d, I’d been in and out of Rapid City, you know, three or four months before I ever even got there. 67:00But that’s assuming that everything else stays the same, that’s assuming too, and, and, and we were reminiscing that when I was at Fort Thomas, that there would have been a call coming for…clerk typist which would have then compelled me to, to go over and get into cadets.

Downs: And after the war I, after the war, I guess like probably ’46 when you actually got out of the service?

Jones: I got out in the spring of ’46.

Downs: And then did you come--you came back home, did you go back to UK?

Jones: Yeah.

Downs: The GI Bill.

Jones: Yeah.

Downs: And you finished up in what, forty…eight or nine?

Jones: I got a BS in Commerce in ’48 and a law degree in ’51.

Downs: ’51, and then do, w…you’re in private practice then after that, or…what, what did you do ( )?

Jones: I went into private practice. Well, before we get of there, just touch briefly, back to the music. When I got back, 68:00I spent five years as a drum major of the UK Marching Band. So that’s always been the love, but I also had a dance band in Lexington, and that augmented my income.

Downs: Y…before, before you started, you had some photographs, and I just kind of looked over them.

Jones: Yeah.

Downs: There was a band picture and there was that from, from that… Jones: No that was the… Downs: …period?

Jones: …that was the band that…at Iowa State Teachers College.

Downs: Okay. So, you wo…did go back to music then at, at UK.

Jones: I’ve been up, I’ve--music has been a hobby all my life and still is.

Downs: I don’t know if we mentioned it earlier, but you were also not an official part of, but you had something to do with the 123rd Cavalry Band in… Jones: Well I was a kid… Downs: …around 1930 or ’32.

Jones: …I was a kid in it.

Downs: Yeah, because your father at that time was the adjutant general between ‘27 and ’31 I believe it was.

Jones: Mm-mm.

Downs: Is that right?

Jones: But they, the band director of the 126th Cavalry band in Glasgow 69:00was also the high school and grade school band director, and so everybody that played anything… Downs: You were associated with him… Jones: I was just… Downs: …even before there was a 123rd Cavalry Band then, I guess.

Jones: Well, I don’t know about that, because the band was there when I moved back to, to Glasgow from Frankfort, and, but I know, I moved back in the fourth grade, and when I got to the fourth grade, I was a drummer, and Wayne (Tyre?) in my book, one of the greatest band director ever to hit the state, or any place, invited me to come down and play with the--on Tuesday night with the, with the band, with the 123rd, and he was a, he taught me many lessons. It’s a matter of fact there were some other people that were in that band, like Russell Daugherty 70:00who wound up a four-star general, (Hetta Sack?) and Billy Vaughn, the, who made millions in music, he was in that band, and…but he taught many lessons, non-musical lessons, like, like…punctuality. The, the, my first, my first visit after he’d said come down, next Tuesday night, and we, we begin at eight o’clock, and I said, “thank you,” and so I got my drum and my sticks and my stand and I went down on Tuesday night, and I walked in the door at eight o’clock, and the town clock was striking, and I walked in down to the stage of the armory, and the band was up there on the stage and I walked around to the drum section and set my case of and I sat it up and about the time I’m ready to--(Tyre?)--Tire 71:00we call him--he said, “what are you doing Billy?” And I said, “I’m getting the drum ready.” He said, “not this week,” I said, “but I thought you said”--he said, “remember, I said eight o’clock.” I said, “yeah.” He said, “what time was it when you walked in the door?” And I said, I said, “the clock struck eight.” He said, “were you ready to play?” And I said, “no,” he said, “you come back next week when you are.” And I’ve seen him leave… Downs: That was a lesson you never forgot.

Jones: I’ve never forgotten it, ever, and I’ve seen him leave people…went to, went to Harrodsburg to play Mercer County Fair and Horseshow for a weekend when I was sixteen and, and he’d taken fifteen people of the, of the band and I was a drummer, and I’ve seen him leave a man, you could see him coming two blocks away but we were supposed to leave at five in the morning he’d drive off and leave him.

Downs: He’d drive off and leave you, huh.

Jones: But anyway, 72:00back on the other, I wound up…like dad, I’ve, I had a very deep interest in the American legion and…and he’s, he, he was, I’ve always thought that the legion was a very, very great thing for this country and for veterans, and it’s the father of VA of, of the, it, it is the one that caused the creation of the veterans administration, it’s the author of the GI Bill, It’s the author of many things, it’s the author of boys state, junior baseball, all of those goodies, but it also is, and always put it, it’s con…it’s concern has been for the widows and orphans and more than for itself, and…I’ve been active in the legion--I was until I left Kentucky in 1970. 73:00But I was active in the boys state program, I was, I was a boy at the first one, but I wound up ultimately as the director of the program and, and before that the dean of the program, and before that… Downs: In, in Kentucky?

Jones: Yeah, for about nine years, and…then I don’t know of anything else that...of course my business, and I went back after I started practicing law, I wound up going to Louisville as an assistant U. S. attorney and I went up to stay for eighteen months at the most and wound up staying eight years, but the longer I stayed, the more there was to do and I wound up as a, instead of the, an assistant, I wound up as United States attorney, and then there was an Eisenhower, 74:00an appointment and, then I went back to Glasgow in 1971--nineteen…sixty-one, spent nine years, I went back in the newspaper business…running the Glasgow Republican, and oh after I got back my dad and I started a little daily newspaper in Glasgow in addition to the, The Morning Sun, in addition to the weekly, and, but anyway I was involved in the newspaper business and the practice of law, and then I left Glasgow in 1970 to re-join the justice department and in the organized crime program, and my assignment was to go to Saint Louis and set up an organized crime strike force 75:00and we were interested only with the program in the mafia in those days, and I was out there eighteen months, and then they moved me to Washington as a senior trial attorney and I spent seven years traveling around, trying mafia cases, and then I wound up the last part of my life was justice as a senior attorney advisor in Washington, and… Downs: And when did you come back to Kentucky?

Jones: I came back in the, the summer of ’89 and that’s basically been about it, I guess. I’m married…I…have been married twice, married the first time 1947. I have a son and a daughter by that marriage, and I was divorced in, 76:00and I was separated in ’63 and then I was, then, then we divorced in ’68, and then I remarried in 1970 and I’m still…married to a very fine woman.

Downs: Any children with the second marriage?

Jones: Not, no children by the second marriage.

Downs: We didn’t talk much earlier about the active militia and, and I mentioned the photos again, I’m going to, we will get them out and look at them you can tell me about them, not in… Jones: There is really no… Downs: …( ).

Jones: …those, those photos are really not that interesting ( ).

Downs: Just with the band, just the bands and the, the, was a picture of the B-29 crew that you were talking about ( )… Jones: The B-29 crew… Downs: …with the training pla…plane.

Jones: And, and some of the B-17 personnel, and my pilot and gunner and engineer maybe and armorer, both turret gunners in one of those pictures, 77:00but you were, I interrupted you, you were saying… Downs: So…something maybe more about, was there anything in particular, any stories through any of that time. I know we’d, we were talking about m…a lot of just basically this is what I was doing, this is what I had to do, but something, like any do…any particular stories, about the band, when you were in the cadet school, or any things you did, not necessarily extra curricular things like outside, you know, go on partying or anything but like what kind of things did you do… Jones: Well I’m… Downs: …if, if you weren’t involved in the band, in the band, after hours or so to speak.

Jones: Well that, that band that I showed you that had my buddy, the piano man, we decided we would put on a cadet show, and, and did. One of the, 78:00on of the cadets had been in burlesque and he had a lot of material. So we used, we, we, really it was a combination of the burlesque show and, then with some singers and dancers and, not dancers but singers and…nah, I think there may have been a dancer, but mostly it was burlesque, and we put that show on two nights to full houses with all the WAVES and all the, and it’s a matter of fact they, we had only intended it for one night, but after the first night, why the commandant of the cadet corps liked it so much he had sent, he wanted to do another, go another night and he sent invitations to a bunch of other places and what have you and we did it two nights, but that was an interesting experience and… Downs: Any, any remembrance of any ri…rivalries between yourself and other crew, or another bunch of… 79:00Jones: I don’t remember ( ).

Downs: …or other branch of service even that you may have had, been close to?

Jones: No, no rivalries.

Downs: I-I, I d…and what makes me think of that was this, this one fellow who was a marine, he, after the war he--I mentioned it a little earlier, he was on a, on a plane and he was talking to some one whom he just thought was, he knew was in the air cops but he, and he knew he was an officer but he wasn’t sure. This fellow was a marine corps sergeant, and they were talking and he figured he was a, an officer in the--Hey John--he figured he was an officer in the, in the army air corps and he said, “well, I, I, I was in the marine corps but I, I was at…about the same as an army air corps colonel [Laughter – Downs and Jones] he like “what are you,” oh, I was a marine corps sergeant. But, that-I just wanted to mention they… Jones: No we took, we… Downs: …any kind of… Jones: …we, we took as lot of flak in those days, when I say we, I didn’t take a lot of flak, but you know, ninety-day wonders and air force colonels at nineteen 80:00and all that kind of stuff, of course, I think one reason that, I, one thing that people didn’t recognize was that one reason a lot of the, a lot of our, our kids and I, I can use that term now at my age, I’m, I’ll be seventy this year, but of course I was, I was younger than those kids in some way, but one of the reason that they were able to go up so fast it’s because people were getting shot out, and they, they, the vacancies were opening up quick, you know, so you’re a major today but your colonel is gone tomorrow so you, you, up you go, you know, and, and you’re the, you are the former colonel yourself after two or three days. So I mean there is a lot of, and when you get right down to it, you…no doubt that there some who…didn’t, didn’t, didn’t make their, 81:00their birds that way, they got them in other ways too, you know. I never did, I never was concerned. Of course, the same thing about air force, air force crewmen, you know, here we say, I’m a, I’ve been in, we’ll say, a year and a half, or two years and I am a buck sergeant. Hell somebody may be in the infantry and he is still a PFC, you know, after four. There’re, there is, there is some only highlights now. I remember on that troop train, I was telling you about, going to, from Greensboro to…Camp Beale, one of our fifty radio operators that were being seen out there to do that kind of stuff, was a former amateur golf champion of the state of Illinois. I’ll just use his first name, Oliver, 82:00and Oliver got off the troop training in Omaha, because it had a fine reputation as…liking servicemen and, and really not having enough manpower in the town. Well, Oliver didn’t get back on the train, he, he…he showed up about a week or two after we had gotten, but somehow the paperwork in the system failed because they never did know Oliver wasn’t out there [Chuckles – Downs], except, he, his name came up on the payroll and he had, he’d come out and signed the payroll and, and go back to town, and he lived in town the whole time we were there, and he was dating very seriously a very famous movie actress. Oliver was a very good-looking guy, 83:00about six foot one and athletic you know, and all that kind of stuff and, and every time I see an old movie channel movie, occasionally I’ll see her. I remember meeting her the last day that before he got on the bus, and it is a matter of fact they were driving her car. But Oliver…had eighteen months service when we went out there, and the oldest guy in our group had about over, almost five years and he by far on points, he was, he was supposed to, well he, he was the first one out, because he had as many points as a lot of the guys that we were separating, but he was the first one in our bunch that was going out and it was just a matter of days until his paperwork was finished, 84:00and then lo and behold, the, the thing comes up on, on the bulletin board to report for separation processing, and who is it, but it’s Oliver, and Oliver was discharged before any of us, including that guy with the five years, and here he’d, he’d been, he’d been AWOL the whole time we were out in California. So, I c…the only reason I’m touching on that is to show that the system is an interesting system, and when you’re dealing with fifteen million people, and people manipulating the, the whole thing it’s bound to be a lot of pitfalls. And I think despite the fact that we wasted so much time and effort and money it, that they did get the job done, and I use the term they because I, 85:00I just feel like I was sort of…just in the mill, I didn’t, didn’t contribute to it, but I did my part, I did what they told me to do.

Downs: Yeah.

Jones: But I have too many friends that I’ve seen that, that--it’s a matter of fact, I have a picture of my draft, one of the, the little group that went up with the, when we…did go, and he wound up involved in exactly the same kind of thing except he wound up as an instructor, a gunnery instructor, instead of getting into--when, when they washed him out.

Downs: So they made you a drill instructor for a while and, in Texas, is that right?

Jones: Amarillo.

Downs: Amarillo? What did you…do… Jones: I had barracks… Downs: …for, for, for basic?

Jones: Yeah.

Downs: You, so d…people that, fresh off the streets came in and you… Jones: Had, had fifty guys 86:00and they are fresh off the street, and none of them--well, maybe one or two, might have had some high school band or something, but if, if you’d had, if you hadn’t had any band, or ( ), but I’d had…I’d had loc…local band, and college band, and, and, it is a matter of fact, I used part of that down with the militia, down in Glasgow, I was a sergeant, but I never did do anything except go that, go by that…derby, but I’ve often recalled, and I, I’d like, I’d like if it, if any of this you use, because mine is really a very dull story, but if it’s any used, I’ll re…I’ll never forget my first experience with the militia. Now… Downs: I want, I want to get back to that, we kind of moved on after that. Anything, 87:00that especially, yeah, anything that you remember… Jones: I’d--the thing that stands out in my mind about that as much as any other one thing about any of this, is that…the first meeting that I attended, and that may well have been the initial meeting of the militia, I’m hazy on that aspect, but I remember we, we hadn’t gotten any uniforms at that time, we did later, and at that time though, we were told that there were no…there were no weapons, that all the weapons had gone to war, and not only that, but if any of us had any extras, that we could turn loose of, then, that we would be, it would be necessary that we supply our own weapon, but if we had any extras, that they were really calling for them because 88:00they needed them over in England… Downs: So they take them to the citizens, I guess… Jones: Yeah.

Downs: …getting there, because I’m, whose… Jones: Because the… Downs: …for a while in ’40 it was pretty imminent that, that… Jones: …that… Downs: …Hitler was going to attack England.

Jones: And they were expecting and, and they had lost, I guess Dunkirk had happened, and but they would like, I guess they wanted to--and they’d lost all so many weapons there, and anything, shotguns, rifles, whatever, anything, because it was considered to be a very critical thing. But I’ve oft…I’ve, I’ve often thought and I remember now, with all of the gun control arguments going on, that oh well, you know, the national guard is m…the national guard is not the militia, the militia of the people, and if there ever was a time that, that debunks that kind of chit-chat, it was our experience here in Kentucky with the Kentucky militia, 89:00because the guard was gone, and if you needed anything, because the guard normally served in…and I recall the guard going to the eastern Kentucky to work…in, in the minefields, when, when you had the labor problems, they worked in the ’37 flood, to prevent looting and things of that nature. But then just for…flowers and stuff of that nature, the governor calls it out and sends it over so that there be an adequate force to make sure that the town doesn’t overrun the derby on derby day. There is a place for a, an organized, something that is more than a local police, the gendarmes of the highways, and particularly in those days, because then they, the state police were just highway patrol, and it wasn’t until Guthrie 90:00(Crow?) org…re-organized the state police in about ’48 that or whenever it was, late… Downs: It was about that.

Jones: …about ’48, I think, and, but the militia has a very definite role and that may stay for generations and never be used, or decades, but when the time does come, it’s there, it’s written in and it’s preserved, and people should never forget.

Downs: Yeah, at, that’s one reason I’m going to go back, because I remember you had said that something along that line to me before, and it seemed rather important to you.

Jones: Oh it, it was, and it is. I’m, I’m…I am a very staunch believer in the, the people, the citizens have a responsibility and that, that responsibility not only to do what 91:00it’s government ask it, ask it to do, but also to take care of itself to some extent, it’s not, it’s not like a worm crawling along, it’s, it’s, it needs, it needs to remember that they’re those who do something to it, the citizens have a responsibility.

Downs: And at that time forty, forty-one, with all the national guards gone, there was nobody here to, to take that place, and you all… Jones: There was none.

Downs: …did that.

Jones: That’s right, and but for… Downs: And you, did you have your own, you brought your own weapons?

Jones: Yeah.

Downs: And that, did anybody send any weapons to England?

Jones: I don’t know.

Downs: Do you think--that you recall?

Jones: I don’t know. I d…I don’t remember. I didn’t have, I didn’t have--it’s a matter of fact, I didn’t have anything but a, the twenty-five pistol, caliber pistol.

Downs: Did the… Jones: Of course some people had shoguns.

Downs: That, this was a, this was where, in Lexington?

Jones: Glasgow.

Downs: In Louisville? In Glasgow.

Jones: And we met… Downs: That was a big guard--National Guard town, I guess, wasn’t it?

Jones: Then and now.

Downs: Yeah. 92:00Jones: Then, the Glasgow was the, had headquarters and, there was the 123rd, and also had the band, and which gave it a double shot, and the only mounted band playing on horseback in the country. But, but it was headquarters company, had, had headquarters troop… Downs: Yeah.

Jones: …and, but, but Glasgow has been very…very devoted to its troops.

Downs: Did you, did you have, I guess in Glasgow was your headquarters, for you in particular, even when you went to UK?

Jones: Yeah.

Downs: You used to, whenever there was a militia thing in Glasgow, you had to go to it?

Jones: No, I didn’t have to go, I was excused. When I wasn’t there, I didn’t have to go. So, that, it depended on whether I was home or not home, as to whether I had to attend.

Downs: What, what kind of training 93:00did you do, and where did you go for that?

Jones: Just short, just close order drill and that’s it. And then… Downs: Any target practice or anything like that?

Jones: No, uh-uh, uh-uh.

Downs: Or no arms?

Jones: Uh-uh.

Downs: work at all?

Jones: Because there was no…[Chuckling] the firearms were of such a diverse, diversity, you know, twelve-gauge shotgun, or four-ten, sixteen gauge, somebody with a twenty-two rifle.

Downs: Know how to use what you’ve got… Jones: You… Downs: …but you can’t necessarily train everybody on… Jones: No… Downs: …because there was… Jones: …( ).

Downs: …everybody has something different.

Jones: Everybody had to take care of his own deal in it.

Downs: What, what were your uniforms like and, do you remember about how long ago, how long…into it… Jones: At… Downs: …was it before you got anything like that?

Jones: Huh, it was a matter of several months. I remember…the uniform was gray with a, made out of the same kind of stuff that…that the national guard summer…uniform 94:00is, and…but it was gray instead of tan, and it had…it had a black stripe down on each side, a gray shirt with pockets on each side, and a black tie, and an overseas cap.

Downs: Gray?

Jones: All gray, and that’s it, and you furnished your own shoes, black, and black socks.

Downs: And were you at the, the derby?

Jones: Yeah.

Downs: That year? What did you do there?

Jones: I…worked on the backstretch and chased people that jumped over the…[Chuckles – Downs] fence. I’ve often thought, the derby is, holds so many different kind of memories. The first derby I’ve ever went to, I was with my dad and mother 95:00and we were--and he was a AG and he sat with Governor Sampson and we were in the governor’s box, and I remember going to Louisville and got me something to wear to the derby and it was a white, white flannel pants and a brown flannel sport coat, and I was a sharp dude and I thought, and I was about seven, seven-eight-years old, but anyway that was my first derby. And then thereafter it’s been all kinds of ways (phone ringing sound) drum major at UK band, we were over in the infield, but that was good stuff too because we weren’t with the crowd, we were right up, next to this circle there and several, several…derbies that way, and then I attended… Downs: This was after the…World War II then, is that right?

Jones: Mm-mm, in ’46, seven, eight, nine, ’50 and ’51, 96:00and then…I’ve been to the derby just as a sitting neither here and there, not that many, two or three times, and then… Downs: I guess… Jones: …then of course… Downs: Moving to Washington, everybody knows you’re from Kentucky, and everybody know derby--that’s ask you about… Jones: Ask you… Downs: …Kentucky Derby… Jones: Everybody wants… Downs: …everybody ( ) yes.

Jones: …to come down and go to the derby with you… Downs: Yeah.

Jones: …and then you say, getting tickets to the derby is like getting tickets to see…you know, Kentucky play basketball.

Downs: Mm-mm, yeah. Are you still a big UK fan?

Jones: Ah, I have been, I’m, I’m losing some of my…I found that when I got back, I got put, seats for football, but the seats are, were up so high and down so far that I don’t think I’ll get them season tickets this year. I’ve had them three straight years. And I applied, of course, like everybody else and I think I’m about 97:00fifteen thousand down the list. I’ve been to a number of games at…Rupp Arena, but I’m about to lose my interest.

Downs: What about the band? Do you ever do…and do you do anything with the band, you know, do you go over there?

Jones: I’ve been over there, few times, but the band, the band is, they’re, I don’t think they’re interested to have, I’ve heard this, this comment from others and that’s been my experience too. Like a lot of things, people aren’t necessarily interested, I guess because old people ramble on, like here you’re finding today, and, and they, they’re really not that much interested that’s it’s another world that I was in, and my band…in it’s day, and I use the term my band, everybody that was in it uses the term, my band, 98:00it was smaller, it was a hundred pieces, but it also had the nickname the best band in Dixie. In those days it was, and then bands started…getting bigger and people pumping more money, and what have you, and the next thing you know, like now, they’ll march, they’ll march two-hundred-fifty, two-hundred-eighty people and, and what we’re talking about is like right now, if I, I would go, we’ll say to an air force meeting and start saying, well let’s talk about the B-17s. They’re not interested in the B-17s that way, if you want to talk about the B-1, the B-2, or…the F-16, or this or that, but what I’m talking about is another age and another era 99:00and they’re really not that much interested in, in it. Of course, if somebody, if that was in a book and somebody saw it they’d say, well that, that’s not true, why we have alumni band, you know, which is true, but that means that on one day a year…you can go, show up and they’ll give you a horn, and you can march from one side of the field to the other side, you know, if you’ve got a ticket (clears throat).

Downs: Any other things that might stand out that you did during, between ’41 and ’45 that… Jones: I don’t know of any--I didn’t even do anything.

Downs: …any emergencies in the B-17 or a B-29?

Jones: No, I learned a few things, oh the emergency, yeah, you have emergencies, you have it, like I mentioned you have engines on fire… 100:00Downs: Did it ever happen to you personally?

Jones: Yeah, we’ve, on a number of times, yeah.

Downs: I guess the first time is likely… Jones: It scared the hell out of you.

Downs: …to scares you, yeah [Chuckles – Downs] Jones: You better believe it, you, because on the twenty-nine you had scanners, a bubble on each wing, instead of like on the seventeen, it’s wide open, you know, the air would blow in on you there. You had scanners and their duty was to watch the engines, as well as anything else out there, and when, when you’d hear on the intercom, number three is on fire. Well of course then you, it, it’s frightening. Actually you can’t see it, you don’t know whether or not you got a big one, or a little one, or, you know, that kind of stuff. All you know is your airplane is on fire.

Downs: That could be potentially dangerous, I guess.

Jones: Well yeah… Downs: Or if… Jones: …It can blowup.

Downs: … if you--with four engines though, you could just cut it off maybe you wouldn’t need it… Jones: Well… Downs: …but with, you got fuel… Jones: You got fuel… Downs: …you got to it.

Jones: …and that’s, that’s… Downs: And I guess they had wing tanks too, didn’t they? 101:00Jones: Sure!

Downs: They had the, the tanks were in the wings.

Jones: They were, and they would blow and, no you’d have those kinds of things and… Downs: Parachute practice… Jones: …you had to have good weather.

Downs: …when, when did you learn that? Very early in the air corps career or… Jones: What?

Downs: Parachute. Did you learn that?

Jones: Oh yeah, we learned that…down in, learned that in…cadets… Downs: I take it you never had to use it.

Jones: No, we had… Downs: …of course ( ).

Jones: …to carry it, or you had to, you had, you lived with them. You’d check it out and check it back in, and, and you’d hope that you never had to use it, because you didn’t know, you didn’t have your own.

Downs: Any…people that you knew from home and you were s…were saying that forty-two a lot of your friends were going, signing up and leaving but it was ’43 before you actually went. Any…memories of, of writing 102:00to any of these people, or getting letters from any of these people, or hearing about any of these people… Jones: Oh yeah!

Downs: …from home? What some of them were doing and, and what, it, a, any of them die in combat or anything and what, and what--how did that make you feel? What did you…what did you feel about that kind of thing?

Jones: Well we had…it, when, when the 123rd went in the service, Dad got Virgil (Neilly?) who was a local fellow…the son of the chiropractor in Glasgow, got Virgil to write a column and Virgil started writing that column as soon as Glasgow, the, the 123rd left, and the column ran on page one, 103:00left hand column, and weekly, and it traced…the experiences and exploits of the 123rd which were converted into the five-hundred and…what, five-twenty-third, or five…whatever, antiaircraft.

Downs: Coast artillery unit… Jones: Yeah.

Downs: …was it? Yeah.

Jones: And they went to Camp (Hue?) in Texas and…and ultimately wound up over in…in…Italy--Africa, Italy, Anzio, and so all of--it’s, it’s a history of the 123rd, I still call it the 123rd.

Downs: And I guess all through your military career, you continued to get your local paper… Jones: Oh yeah… Downs: …is that right?

Jones: …sure. And… Downs: And so you could keep up with people you knew in that way?

Jones: …and their, and their experiences, and also…I have a very strong 104:00recollection that one of the…one of the, one of my friends was an early, was an early death in the Pacific. He was H. C. (Biggers?) and he was trombone player, and he had gone in the cadets and he was flying a P-38s and I guess he was one of the earliest Kentucky veterans killed in World War II, killed in the Pacific. So, no I, I’ve known many…of course we’ve, we had a medal of honor winner down home and there, there’s, you see people who…who responded and I know that their contributions, people can never say or do enough about their contributions, and 105:00I know that, that so many of them made a lot of sacrifices, but like I’ve often thought, they probably, sometimes, some of them, just sort of got caught in the same bind that they, they, they were aware they were because that’s the way the system put them, and you either sit down and die or you get up and try to, to go, you know, and they had the gumption to get up and go. But I think that’s the way the military is anyway, and you… Downs: So just then.

Jones: …you do what you’re supposed to do then you’re not. I, I’ve know very few people that were exactly where they wanted to be. I never was, so, I guess that’s about all I know, the…that, I think there is one other thing that I want to comment on, 106:00while I’m commenting, I’m very gratuitous, and rambling, but I’ve…those who--and I guess I’m touching on the Vietnamese, or the Vietnam experience, I’ve, I have some very, very strong holdings and belief that when your government plots a course of action and says it’s up to our citizens to execute it, that you don’t say, well now I don’t know whether or not I want to do that or not. I don’t believe in that concept, I don’t believe that that’s, that’s the way it works. I don’t believe we can have a government, I don’t think we can have an America like that. 107:00Now, by the same token, and I’m going now to some experiences that I had.

Third Party: Hi, it’s me.

Downs: Oh, oh, come on in, that’s okay.

Jones: This is John; this is my wife Betty.

Downs: Hello Betty, nice to meet you. I talked to you a couple of times on the phone.

Jones: But I’m, I’m about to winding it up, I’m rambling, but I’m rambling on, on something that I am very, very genuinely sincere about. I had this experience when I was in the U. S. attorney’s office. There was a lawyer from Brooklyn who was a general counsel of a particular church, national denomination and he, or his denomination was pushing the idea that, of not serving, and he would, he would set these kids up, like in Owensboro, 108:00Paducah, Louisville, wherever, to refuse to perform military duty, and then he would defend them on whether or not there is a notice on the bulletin board or this. And then he would do the same thing with some kids let’s say in California, Florida, getting them to different judicial districts so that he might have a conflict in one district to do one thing, and another do another, and then he could go to the supreme court with it. And he spent all his…that was his full time job. And I saw some, some interesting kids (skidded?), one or two had work in armam…in an ammunition factory, claiming, you know, that. And I saw, and I saw selective service giving them the right not to go into the military duty, but if you don’t want to, to do that, then you can be, you can exercise your C, 109:00you can get a CO classification, conscience objector, and you can go over here and work in this hospital here in Frankfort, forty hours a week, just that’s your contribution. Well they’d refuse that too. Now, I guess the point that I’m making is this that, if you don’t want to shoot, if you don’t want to kill, if you don’t want to do this, you don’t want to do that, now, okay. I can understand that there are some who have a genuine attitude like that, and that’s why the system has a built-in valve, escape valve, so that they don’t have to mess with that, they can come over and do something--you--they don’t even, they don’t even have to go to camp, they can just stay home at night and go over to the hospital and get paid, and but that’s, that’s the ( ) but at least they are doing something for the good of the country. 110:00And, and of course, they, they, they wouldn’t do that either and as a right result, I prosecuted many of them and they wound up getting anywhere from three to five years in the penitentiary.

Downs: But there’s still, I remember a couple of years ago that, of course in ’81, I guess it was, they re-instituted, it’s like a, a registering for the draft, and there was a s…I remember several years ago, some people that were still going through the, the process that they decided that they just won’t want to even register. Do you know anything much about that… Jones: Mm-mm, no.

Downs: …did you ever ( ) certain things ( )?

Jones: Because that happened after I was out of it.

Downs: Do you remember, or recall any kind of thing like that going on among your peers at that time, at UK?

Jones: No.

Downs: In 1941? No way, everybody is… Jones: Just the other way.

Downs: …gun-ho. Everybody was gun-ho all the way, anything, and everything.

Jones: It’s a matter of fact, the day after Pearl Harbor, the, the place 111:00was emptying out, actually ( ) it was, was, I know I called, I called home and I told my dad, and I said, “what do you think? Think it’d be okay, if…” he said, “you just stay where you are.” And… Downs: Because if they want you, they’ll get you anyway, you might as well get all the education that you can first.

Jones: Yeah the more, and when I saw him, he told me, and, and it was true. I found that two-and-a-half years of college didn’t meant anything, and…then when…af…after…when I got back in ’46 and I started back to school, two-and-a-half years, I was supposed to…to be getting my first degree in about…at, in about a year or so, because I was on a combination commerce law secure program that my fourth year of commerce was first year law, and…and 112:00lo and behold, I’m getting ready to start my September in ’46, and things looked terrible, ominous, threatening, in Europe and, and then they air lift, the Berlin air lift, and this and that, and I could just see things breaking out again, and here I am with two-and-a-half years and, and getting caught with that, and so I changed, instead of--and I went ahead to try to get my, my first degree as quick as I could, and as a result, and I didn’t get, you know, we didn’t get called back but it made…it made me stay in college an extra year, as a result of the one route that I took. But now, no, then…you 113:00didn’t, you didn’t, I, I don’t recall, the only people that I recall against the war back in those days were a few congressmen who I wrote about in my column, I’ll show them sometimes when you come over for lunch, and I’ll, I’ll show you some of those columns, if you’re interested.

Downs: Mm-mm.

Jones: And Father (Kauflan?) in…Chicago, and I well remember the new reels of, of his black boots, I mean the black boot followers and what have you in those days. But, but all in all, you didn’t, you didn’t have the sentiment that, that you had the right to exercise an independent analysis of whether, what the government wants you to do is or isn’t proper. And of course, after Pearl Harbor, they, the sentiment was, a li…you know, sneak, sneaking of course, spin doctors too, 114:00really took advantage of it because man, they… Downs: I think… Jones: …they’ll get that.

Downs: I think, of course, part of the, one of the things before the war, in ’38, ’39, ’40, a lot of people in the United States just wanted to, to stay out of it, it’s their problem, let them deal with it, we got our own little world over here, I--and, I see that as becoming a problem with the United States today, is that everybody is like okay, there is no more Soviet, we have no more bogie man on our back, let’s just tell everybody to go do their own thing, let’s just do our thing, let everybody go. And I think that’s one reason why we got--of course we were, Roosevelt had the foresight enough to get ready for 1941 before it got here, thank God, but, I mean, and there were a lot of people in the world that were thinking just well let them do whatever in the world. I don’t think, I don’t think we can afford to let the United States become 1930 isolasist--isolationist anymore.

Jones: Well, you sound like my dad. I, I will remember sitting in our little breakfast nook… Third Party: Did you take ( )?

Downs: Huh, 115:00wait, wait a second, ( ) some more, I can make another co…I can make a copy of this for you too.

Jones: Huh, I remember sitting with him the night before I left to get on the bus to go to Fort Thomas, and…and we had a very serious talk and, and but the, the bottom line was, he said, “when you get out,” he says, “and I think you’ll get out,” I mean he was an optimist, he wasn’t going to say well if you live through it, that’d be another way to say it, but he said, “the big mistake that this country made after World War I, was that everybody said, bring the boys home, bring the boys home and…” Downs: Mass discharges.

Jones: …and they pulled the plug, it’s like, like here is the army to pull the plug and all of the sudden it’s like one of these balloons that all the gas goes out, it’s nothing but, 116:00it’s, disband the army, and the army became, composed of a lot of derelicts and this and that, the army was really not an army worth a damn, period. And then the next thing you know, we have lost our place in the world, nobody is afraid of us, nobody gives a damn what our--what we think, and, and then you r…you run into the buildup over there, my columns, I’m, I’m, I’m preaching get ready, you know. And, Dad was editing the columns anyway. But…I’ve, I’ve, and I’m about to lose my trend of thought. Oh! But the point was and he h…his, he says, “when you get home, if you don’t get home for a year or two, don’t worry about it, just make sure that it doesn’t happen this time like it happened the last time, and let’s make sure that the army stays strong, 117:00and that, and that we don’t sub…sub…succumb to the mass hysteria of bringing the boys home and, and we’re, we’re right now in that, that… Downs: Everybody just want to spend that peace dividend.

Jones: Peace dividend now.

Downs: Let’s… Jones: Let’s take the money from this and let’s put it into this and that and what, you name it, we’ll build some more…this or that. And but it’s exactly the same thing and this is a more dangerous world now than it was in the previous twenty years.

Downs: Yeah, yeah. And I think, without getting in the politics of it all, there is something to be said that the fact that our last president spent billions of dollars to make sure that we didn’t get flabby and fat and although we probably did somewhat, our military was ready, I think ’91 would be, 1992 would be a much different year if we had let our military 118:00stay like it was in 1980. I think 1992, the history of Eastern Europe and everyth…and a lot of things in the middle east would all be different if we had, had not decided that we needed a strong and important military.

Jones: I, I, you asked a question a minute ago about the morale. Betty and I lived in, in Washington, in ’72 until ’89, so we, we were there over, we were there, I saw, I saw the mob trashing, I saw the mob throwing bottles and rocks, and you name it, to the, the buildings along Pennsylvania Avenue, through the justice windows, and…so all of that, and then, then you see the, the various presidents 119:00and what have you and what’s happening, and you, in, and all, and you live with the atmosphere, I guess it’s sort of like living in Frankfort, you, you live, when you’re living with--well it’s even worse. Here, or there, you got umpteen hundred thousand s…staffers up on the hill and, and, and six hundred, you got hundred, hundred senators employed and four hundred and twenty-five representatives, and, and…you see a lot of them, but we lived amidst so many people. Our, our neighborhood, we had all kinds of colonels and there was a m…major across the street, he made general by the time we left, air force, and our neighbor on the left…made a very rare captain, see in the coast guard. They don’t have--unlike 120:00the regular, like the navy, coast guard you don’t have--captains are hard to come by. But riding the bus into town, it was my first stop after we got on the Shirley bus lane was, was the Pentagon, and so you had a lot of military, admirals, generals, majors, and lieutenant colonels are, are like…like buck sergeants, you know, there is so many of them, and, and they bring them in from everywhere but I, I was, so, so, the point that I’m making is that we, we lived amidst them and when Carter came in, and then he started making his, his cuts, and the military took--we, we took them in justice, well, re-channeling 121:00funds would be a better way to put it. Instead of doing something about crime, we’re going to do something, we’re going to put in…neighborhood things, you know. But the morale among those that I knew in the military and, and you could sense it, because I got off the bus at, at the Pentagon too to catch a subway into town there in the last number of years. But the m…but they, the morale was bad, and you could sense then that we are doing now, we are destroying the only thing, the only strength that is making the word of this country worth a damn, and then you see a lot of people on the fringes trying to get to it, and they want, every dollar you save here they want to spend two of it over here.

Downs: And they should be not spending that, s…put it towards that deficit that all my grandkids are going to be paying for today.

Jones: That’s right. You got it! 122:00Downs: Today’s money. So…well Bill, thanks a lot.

Jones: Well, we’ve, we’ve…rambled along, but I wish I had some interesting tales to--I didn’t have any interesting experiences, I just [Laughter – Downs], what where… Downs: Well, like I said… Jones: …( ) Downs: …I mean, everybody, we don’t want just, you know, the fellow that raised the flag on Suribachi, we don’t want just his stories, we want everybody’s, it’s not everybody got to serve in 1942…Kentucky Derby, the guard wasn’t here anymore, you know, and that type of thing.

Jones: That, that experience… “END OF INTERVIEW”