Oral History Interview with Raymond Turley

START OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1 Milligan: This is Sarah Milligan with the Kentucky Oral History Commission. I’m here in , it’s February 23rd, 2008. I’m, in doing World War II interviews, and right now I am interviewing Robert Turley… Turley: Raymond.

Milligan: Raymond Turley—sorry, I lost my list, oh there it is—Raymond Turley…who was in the army air corps, correct? In World War II.

Turley: The Army Air Corps.

Milligan: Air Corps.

Turley: ( ).

Milligan: So, tell me…tell me how, what, what started your, your World War II experience?

Turley: Well…I, in September the 21st, I was twenty years old and I knew that they would, I was, I would soon be drafted, and I didn’t know where they would send me, what branch of the service. But I wanted to be an air, aircraft…mechanic. So I had my dad to take me over to Lexington to the recruiting officer and…I, 1:00I told him that I wanted to…enlist for three years in the, and I wanted to be an airplane mechanic. So he, he…asked me several questions and, and…and he weighed me and, and he…he said, “you, you only weigh a hundred and thirteen pounds,” and he said, “you’re supposed to be a hundred and seventeen pounds, in order to enlist in the, in the army.” And I said, “I sure would love to be an airplane mechanic.” I said, “I am tired of following them old mules on the farm, and I’d like to get away from following them, be an airplane 2:00mechanic.” So he said, “well,” he said, “you will probably gain a few pounds.” So…he wrote down, he said you’re supposed to weigh at least a hundred and seventeen pounds. So he wrote down a hundred and seventeen pounds and, and, and enlisted me in the service, and…that was…in the afternoon, and, and they…and my dad went back to Mount Sterling, or to win…back to Winchester, and…thus they sent me up to Fort Thomas, and there, and they gave me my shots, and gave me a thorough examination, and…there was some more fellows with us and they took us over to the Cincinnati train depot and put us on the train, and we rode all night to Fort Slocum, New York, a New York train…station there and they took us to the train station over to Fort, Fort…and 3:00we stayed there for…several days, and, and when they got enough for a…to lo…—ship load of, of…army personnel, they put us on the ship, and we sailed down the east coast, down to the Panama Canal, and I thought the Panama Canal ran east and west, but when we got down to the Panama Canal, it run north and south. So…Balboa is on one side and Cristóbal was on the other side, and I, I have forgotten which, which is which, but anyhow, we went, we…was going through the Panama Canal, 4:00and…we went up on the deck of the plane—I mean the ship, and…there was a rainbow, and, and we all got into, into the rainbow, but there wasn’t a pot of gold there [Laughter – Milligan]. So we went on through the Panama Canal and sailed up the east coast to San Francisco and we got off the ship there and they, and they took us over to Angel Island while they…refueled the, that ship and put on new, new supplies and…when we got—while I was on Angel Island they gave us a pass to go to San Francisco. So…when we were coming back from San Francisco, we…we stopped at…Alcatraz 5:00Island, the island of Alcatraz, and the fellow that was running that…small ship, he said, “now if you all want to say you’ve been on Alcatraz,” he said, “step out on the deck and then get back onto, on the ship, and then we will take you on over there” at Angel Island, you can say, “I’ve been on the island of Alcatraz.” So we got [Chuckles – Milligan and Turley] we, we did, we, we did that. And then when they, they, as soon as they got the…the ship loaded and ready to go, they…announced at four o’clock one afternoon they headed out for Hawaii, went under the Golden Gate Bridge and…just before dark, we came around, and they started posting guards on the ship, from the front of the ship to the back and…they put me right on the back of the ship, and…about eleven, eleven o’clock that night, 6:00they…well they told me to stay there on guard, and they said, “if you see anybody overboard, or anything unusual,” they said, “you come over and pick this phone up and howler, ‘man overboard, man overboard.’ And said, “you stay here until you’re relieved. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll bring a, a, a guard around to relieve you.” Well this storm came up and…it ke…kept getting worse and worse and, and…the, I noticed the front of the ship as it got to where it was dipping in the water, but I didn’t see anybody on, on the deck of the ship, but…and the, the storm kept getting worse, and worse, and…they, it got to where the front of the ship 7:00would go under the water and then the back of the ship would come out of the water, and of course when the, when the front of the ship came up, the water would just pour off the sides of the ship. Well, they took everybody off of the, the deck of the ship, but me and they forgot me back there on the back of the ship. But the way the ship was made, the water couldn’t get to me and, and they, about four o’clock in the morning, the storm began to quiet s…quiet down, we got, we got re…pri…pretty quiet then and…then they came around and started posting more guards and they, when the…officer came around and opened the door, where you go down to the lower deck, the guard—the officer came up with the guard and I stood at attention, and the officer stood there and looked at me for a while 8:00and, and finally, he said, “what are you doing on this ship?” And I said, “I was posted here on guard last night and told not to leave my post until somebody relieved me.” He said, “was nobody supposed to be on this deck of this ship last night in that terrible storm.” He said that, “come with me,” he said that you won’t have to worry about anything between here and .” And so they took me down to the mess hall, and they had metal tables, and…the, the table I sat was very close to the side of the ship. So he said…told the cooks, he said, “bring this boy a cup of coffee.” So they brought me a cup of coffee and I was kind of sleepy and groggy and I was about, they set it up on, on the, the table. 9:00At about that time the ship rocked to one side and the cup of coffee slid off and hit the side of the ship, and, and broke it and run down the side of the ship. He said, “go get this boy another cup of coffee.” When they brought that cup of coffee, I had both hands there to k…get it [Chuckling]. But any…from hence from then, after that, why I didn’t have any more guard duties or anything from there to , and, and…that, when we left, when we left… Milligan: What year was this?

Turley: …, that w…the, that was, the 7th day of December, 1940, when we set sail for … Milligan: Okay.

Turley: …from . And…a, on the way to , see…it seemed like it was calm; we never got into any more storms. And the col…—it seemed like the closer we got to , the warmer it got. And one night…it…where, 10:00where we slept there was three bunks high and they was, they got in the habit of opening the portholes was, so…it was so hot in the, in the, where we were sleeping, and one night, about two o’clock in the m…in the morning, a flying fish came through one of those portholes [Chuckles – Milligan] and got in the bunk with a fellow just above me and he started screaming and hollering, and wha…he, he woke up everybody in there [Chuckling] and they come to see what was wrong with him and, and that flying fish had got in around his, his ribs here and, and scratched him up and he was a bleeding, so [Chuckling], they, they took him and, and cleaned him up and, and put bandage on him. The next morning when we looked at the, the 11:00bulletin board, it said, “no more portholes will be left open between here and .” So we, we docked at Pearl Harbor on the 18th of…of December nineteen and forty, and they took us…by (us?), narrow gage railroad from, from…Honolulu to…Wheeler Field. That’s where the fighter planes were. They had their fighter planes, and…while at Wheeler Field…Wheeler Field and Schofield Barracks, they just joined the, the…Wheeler Field is south of…on the south side, and, and Schofield Barracks is on the north side but they just join. And while at Wheeler Field 12:00I got my basic training. They sent a sergeant from Schofield Barracks down at, at, at Wheeler Field, and we got our basic training there on the air field, and I worked on the P-26s and P-40 fighter planes, and… Milligan: What did you think when you got to , what a, when you stepped off the ship and saw where you were?

Turley: …and, and…in nineteen and—yeah, this was a week before December the 7th, in 1941, and…we were, 13:00we had a, a rifle and a belt of ammunition, and a steel helmet, and a gas mask, and we was, we were out there day night and they brought our meals, they brought them to us and we stayed there, and they took the fighter planes and had revetments made, they were made like a big horse shoe, and each one of these fighter planes was back—but they f…well each revetment faced a different direction. And then they had these P-40 fighter planes backed in there, and they were…had…loaded with ammunition and fuel and the pilot was with them, and we 14:00were supposed to be out there for on week. And…that was on Monday morning, when we started our maneuvers and…w…the…machine gunner from Schofield Barracks, he showed us how to feed, feed the ammunition to him, if he had to use the machine gun. Each d…each day he’d tell us something, usually a little different or something, how to help him, in case we had an attack, you know. ( ) and on…we were out there for, from Monday, until about four o’clock on the Friday afternoon. Then the engineering officer came around and he said, “maneuvers has been called off.” He said, “you…fellows from Schofield Barracks, you take your machine gun back over to Schofield Barracks,” and he said, “you other fellows take your guns and your ammunition and your steel helmet and your gas 15:00mask and turn, turn them in.” And…he said, “then you go and get you a pass and go to for the weekend.” So there were so many of them gone, that it was three of us, we decided that we weren’t going. We were going to wait until Sunday morning, and we were going early Sunday morning. And we had a little, a little thing going that whoever…woke up there, the two fellows, we, we were going to get up early and eat breakfast and get, get our pass and go to for, for the day. And we had a little deal going that whoever woke, the one that woke up the other two was going to get a steak dinner in , and all the coca cola we could drink. We didn’t drink any beer, in fact neither one of us ( ). So we, we drink coca cola. So I, I went around and woke them up. Of course I was raised on the farm, I was used to get up at four or five o’clock in the morning, that didn’t bother me one bit. So I, I woke them up and we went 16:00down to the mess hall and I thought, oh I am going to get me a good steak dinner in today. So, we were, we just sat down to eat and we just ate a few bites and we heard a, a plane come in a dive and on Sunday mornings, rare, real often the Navy would come up and they would just simulate attack on Wheeler Field. And we’d hear them come in a dive and then, here another plane would come in to dive and, and the, this morning we heard this plane come in a dive, and then we heard an explosion, and we, we yelled “oh the navy’s, the navy’s cracked up.” We thought one of the navy planes had, had, had…crashed into…one of the hangars or something on the ground. But it—well anyhow we ran to the windows, and it so happen, they were bombing from the west to the east and we were 17:00over on the east side of the hangar, hangar line, and there was windows in the west side of this…mess hall where we were eating, and we ran and looked out these windows and we saw another plane come in a dive and it dropped a bomb, and when it peeled off, up, when they turned up and we saw the rising sun on the wings that was, and we yelled, the Japanese are bombing us, the Japanese are bombing us, let’s get out of this mess hall. So we ran out of the mess hall and I ran up the, towards headquarter, the headquarter building and I, and I, I don’t know where those other two fellows went to, we got, we all separated, because we didn’t want to stay together, we figured if one got killed we’d all get killed. So 18:00we all separated, and I was running from the headquarter building, and they had a high curve there, a concrete curve, and there was a big tall fellow came right there with me and he said, “lay down next to that curve.” And I laid down next to the curve, and these planes come over strafing and when the planes went by, why, he said, “jump up and run.” So we, we ran to the east…of, of the hangar line, because they were bombing from the West to the East, and we ran over just a little knoll where they were building some temporary barracks out of wood, and they’d dug a, a line there to, they dug a ditch to lay a water line in, and we was, we s…we saw the…where they had these two rows of P-40s just lined up on the east side of the, the hangars. We saw these…two Japanese planes that came in and, and the pilot was down real low, I’d say he wasn’t over a hundred feet from the, 19:00from the…in the air, because the trees there are real, they are tropical and they are, they are real low, and, and when the pilot came in and fired through one row of them, and then he, he (mushed?) the plane out and he had a gunner behind him that shot back through that same row of planes. And then the next Japanese plane came in and he did the same thing. The pilot shot right through that row of planes and then they (mushed?) that plane out and the, and the gunner behind him shot back through those planes and, and they just, of course they loaded with ammunition and, and, avia…aviation fuel, and they just, they just melted down with ( ) heat and…we was standing there by this t…temporary barracks and all of the sudden someone said, “Zing, Splat” I went in to the side of this building, and he said, “jump 20:00in that ditch.” So we jumped in that ditch and laid in that ditch until, until the bomb and then the strafing let up, and then we got up out of that ditch, walked up in front of headquarters building and I went back down to where my barracks was near the hangar line, and, and I felt like this was a guardian angel watching over me, because neither one of us got a, a, a bullet, or a piece of shrapnel, or anything, and…a, after they, the Japanese had, had destroyed everything we had there, ( ) all the planes and, and the hangars did, we…at night they had us going down to Hawaiian air depot, and we were assembling P-40s, and…we stayed there at Wheeler Field for, I guess four or five months, and then went up on the north end of, of Oahu that’s, at Kahuku Point, that’s the most 21:00northern part of the island was Kahuku Point, and they built a runway from one side of the island to the other, and we, I had, the P-40s up there for a month or two, and then they brought over some…B-24s, four-engine liberator bombers. And…they…they, they, they assig…I was just in maintenance of course, and they, they assigned me a maintenance crew chief and they gave me four maintenance men to help me with that big-four engine bomber and…I thought Lord, what am I going to do? I, they’ve been tell…somebody had been telling me what to do all this time, and now, here they put me in charge of this big airplane and four men. And I thought well Lord, 22:00there’s four engines, so I’ll assign each man to an engine and then I’ll take the rest of the plane myself. So that’s what I did, I, I assigned each man to an engine and, and we, we, each, each fellow had a toolbox. So I said, “now boys, this plane has to be inspected every day, whether it flies or don’t fly, especially if it does fly. We got to check it over real good if it flies.” And then I said, “let’s, let’s t…let’s pull our inspection, everything, everything on this plane has to be inspected every day.” So I took my toolbox and I went inside the plane and I was gone, I guess for a couple of hours or so, and came back out with my toolbox, and these fellows they were lined up 23:00in this big…rivet that we had the plane backed into, and they were sitting over there talking and we talked a little while and then one of the fellows called, I believe his name was O’Leary, called me over to one side and then he said, he said, “Turley,” he said, “Moody didn’t pull his inspection on engine number four,” he said, “what are you going to do?” I said, “Lord, I don’t know what I am going to do [Chuckling].” So, I said, “well it has to be done,” I said, “I’ll do it myself.” So I got my toolbox and my ladders and I got up and took all the cowling off of that engine and, and I pulled the inspection myself and put, and I put it back, the cowling back up on it, I took my toolbox and went over and sat down and talked to the boys. The next morning, when we came back at night they had a guard that guarded the plane while we were sleeping and the next morning when I came back, down why Moody said, “what do you want me to do?” I said, “well number four engine,” I said, “that’s your baby, you got to take care of number four engine.” And he said, “but when, when we were in the states,” 24:00he said, “we had two men to an engine,” and said, “they had three men for the best of the plane.” And I said, “but we are not in the states, we are fighting the Japanese,” and I said, “this is all we’ve got, and we’ve got five men and that’s all we’ve got.” So he said, “well, okay.” So he, he took care of number four engine from then on, because he was really an asset to the crew, because those four men had been through AM school, airplane maintenance, and, and…I hadn’t been, I had just been working on the line, and I actually didn’t work on the planes myself, and…so, but he was really an asset to the crew, because he remembered just about everything that he’d, he’d, he had read in the books, 25:00and, and a lots of time we’ve asked him, “Moody, what’s a torch on this nut?” when we had, had to check the nuts and, and on, and different things on the plane, we would, we would…everyone of us we’d ask him, and “Moody what’s a torch on this?” He’d say, “well, that’s forty, maybe this will be eighty, this would be sixty, or whatever.” And…we…we left…left Oahu and went down to , and…the…all the P-40s—I mean the B-24s we had, we went down and, and the runway ran from one side of the island to the other. And we landed there about four o’clock in the afternoon with all these planes had them lined up along the side 26:00the runway, and, and O’Leary and I was, we was in the plane just goofing around, we wasn’t doing much, just looking around, talking and, and it’s almost dark, and the engineering officer came by in a jeep and, and he hollered and we answered him back and he said, “boys get out of here,” he said, “go in where the coconut trees are or something, get away from this hangar now, do anything, get away,” he said, “the Japanese are going to bomb us.” So we, we got out of that plane, we, we, we headed back into the coconut trees and it was almost dark and we got separated and I, and we were running as far—trying to get away as f…as far away from the hanger (line?) as we could before they started dropping the bombs, and I was running, and something tripped me and I fell in a hole and on my face and a bomb landed on each side of me, and…I could 27:00make out, it was almost dark, but I could make out the, there was some kind of a, a, an old building there and come to find out it was an old church building there, that had been vacated and, and the next morning I went up to see where I, I g…I fell, and they, it was an old well, and they had filled this old well up almost full with just about everything and I looked around that old well and I couldn’t find anything around that well to trip me and throw me in it. And I thought, well I guess the good Lord just took me and throw me in this well so I wouldn’t get a bomb or get killed. Well anyhow… Milligan: That well saved your life then.

Turley: Yeah, that was another time the…the Lord took care [Chuckling] of us, that… Milligan: The first man, the first man whenever…when 28:00you’re talking about the man, he was telling you to get down by the curb and that was running with you, did you know him?

Turley: No, I didn’t know him, I didn’t, I…tell, I’d, I’d…been there almost a year and ( ), and see December the 18th, 1940 was when, when I got there, and this was…December the 7th, nineteen and forty-one when the attack happened. Well I had been there that long, and I had never seen him before. And then I was there…I, I guess three or four months or maybe longer than that, and I have never seen him again… Milligan: You never saw him again?

Turley: …never, never saw that man again. And…and he, I felt like he was a guardian angel watching over me. But we left…when we, we…went in to the Gilbert Islands, I don’t remember whether it was Gilbert or Marshall, but anyhow, we moved to another island the next day, from … Milligan: After you fell in the well, the next day 29:00you fell in the well?

Turley: Hum… Milligan: The next day after you fell in the well you moved… Turley: Yeah, yeah… Milligan: …to these islands?

Turley: …then, yeah, the next, yeah that next day, I went outside real early in the morning to see it was, I got up real early, but even before breakfast, I went to see where, and, and, of course we left out about noon that day, we left…flew up to another island and the runway run from one side of the island to the other, and while we was in the…the…Gilbert Islands and Marshall Islands, every island we was on, the runway run from one side of the island to the other. And…the, the Japanese would bomb us then we’d bomb them. They’d bomb us and we’d bomb them. And, and of course they, they had, they just had the smaller bombers, they had what they call the “Betsy” bomber, they were just the 30:00two-engine bomber, and we had these big four engine bombers, and we, and of course we could carry such a, much bigger load of bombs and bigger bombs. They could only carry a hundred pound bombs in those “Betsy” bombers, with the, the B-24s could carry up to five hundred pound bomb, which could destroy so much more, you know. And of course, when…they’d bomb an island, and they thought it was big enough to run a runway on it with these B-24s, they’d bomb it until they thought they killed all the Japanese off of them. And then give the…in…the infantry or the navy…I mean the marines, in the, 31:00the…infantry or the marines would secure the island, they, they would…go on the island, and they would have troops that’d go all over the island, and if they could find any Japanese left, they would kill them, you know. And then, they’d bring the…the Seabees come in and they’d build a runway from one side of the island to the other. And then, then we’d, we’d move up to that island, and we’d stay on that island for, until we could bomb another island and…we went in the Gilbert Islands, Marshall Island, and while I was on Kwajalein Island, they thought they had…they thought they had killed all the Japanese there, but they was a, they had a, a dock there, and there was one Japanese he hid back in that dock and on that island, they had, had made…they had pillboxes set up all around 32:00that island, but they had little tunnels where they could go from one pillbox to the other all the way around that island.

Milligan: What’s a pillbox?

Turley: That was a place where they could get in and, and they had a little, a little place where they’d look out and, and, and point the rifle out and if they could see any, anybo…any American, they, they would shoot and kill, you know, shoot to kill.

Milligan: Just through a slit….

Turley: Yeah… Milligan: …through a slit.

Turley: Uh-huh. And they…on, on there was one Japanese, he was back under the…some place in this dock, and he was in there for I believe it was almost a month. And then there was another one in one of the pillboxes and, and of course, they’d, they, at, when they d…one of the Japanese, one of those Japanese would shoot at somebody, then they could pretty well tell where he was coming from and then finally locate—they finally located both of them and they, and they killed both of the, the Japanese. And…on the island—this 33:00island on the the Japanese had built a, a…a headquarters building and…they…on the top of the, these buildings, they had a little stacks made up where air could go out the building. And what the Seabees did, they, on that island, the…I believe it was the…the marines I believe secured that island, and they, they, they, they killed all of them but, the, the ones, these officers that was in this headquarters building, and what they did, they, they took—the Seabees took a bulldozer and covered up the entrance to this building, and, and then they…the…en…the marines, they went up on the top, they climbed on the top of the building and kicked the tops off of these…vents they had up there, and took the flamethrowers down in there and killed all these Japanese officers that was in there. And they left them in there for about thirty days 34:00and…while they was cleaning up all the other Japanese bodies and getting all of them and, and they’d scoop out a big place with the bulldozer and they just dumped the Japanese bodies in there, and then they’d cover them up and stick up a sign, four hundred and eighty Japanese or ci…five hundred, or whatever was. And I don’t know why they left these officers in this headquarters building so long, which one day they opened them up, and…the…there was—the officers, the officers had a place to where they fenced in where they could eat without the flies bothering them, and I have never seen such big green flies in all of my life. But when we’d take—started taking a bite of the food, we would have to flip the green flies off to eat the food, and from the smell 35:00of the bodies you know, on that island, when they opened up that…headquarters building and, and took, took those bodies out to bury them, I, I’ve never smelled such an awful odor in all my life. We couldn’t—it was so bad that day, we couldn’t hardly eat, they, the day they did that.

Milligan: You didn’t have to open the barracks, you were just on the island, is that correct?

Turley: Yeah, we were on the island, yeah, but this, this building…the Japanese they had built this headquarters building though, and of course after they got all the Japanese out of that, they just, they just bulldozed the building down, you know. And then we moved to…I was on the island of Wake and, and…I believe it was the Wake…anyhow…we went from the Marshall, in the Marshall Island, Gilbert Island, and then we went to Guam, the big island of Guam 36:00and when we got to Guam, the runway was out in the, in the middle of the island and we, we couldn’t hardly [Chuckling] believe that here, here we was on, on the big island when we was at on those little islands where the runway went from one side of the island to the other, and I don’t remember which island I was on before we got there. One, one time, the…while the flight crew was out on a bombing mission, they, the Japanese had a dock there and…we…we went fishing, and, and we caught enough fish…fresh fish, that…we could get all the…maintenance men and the cooks. 37:00We, we caught enough fish for all of them while the flight crew was all out on a bombing mission, and we really enjoyed that, but the flight crew they was, they didn’t get in on that deal [Chuckling]. But anyhow, when we landed on , and a…every island we was on, they had a battleship with us. And when the Japanese planes would come over to bomb us, they tried to shoot them down, and occasionally they’d…rather, rather often, they’d shoot the Japanese bomber down when they come up and when we got on Guam, was that the, the…navy, with this battleship, they would have practice during the day…when they wasn’t going to have a bomb, the Japanese wasn’t going to bomb, they, they’d fly a little plane with a target behind it, 38:00and they’d fly the—fly at the same speed that these Japanese bombers would fly, and they’d shoot at that target. And they, they got so good at it, almost every day they’d cut that target off of that plane. Well when we, we got on Guam, the guy on the bomb, this battleship of course was right with us and they sent over, I believe it was either two or three bombers that night, and they shot down every one of them, the, the navy did with this battleship. And…while…they was building a, a big runway up in the mountains there on Guam, and…they were working on it day and night, of course, if the Japanese come over, why they’d just shot down everything, turn off all the lights and everything. And…they had worked on it day and night 39:00except if, when the Japanese was going to come over and bomb us. And…I couldn’t wait, I thought, well, I just can’t wait until they get that runway finished, and…see these big B-29s that they’re going to bring in here to bomb Tokyo with. Well, they had it almost completed and…they told me that—they come around and told me that they was going to send me back. I had signed up for three years in the, in the service, you know, and it was…and then it was over four years, and…I had been in the service and…they…they sent me back and I didn’t get to see them finish that big runway and bring them B-29s in there to bomb Tokyo with. 40:00But they sent me back and, and then I was down at, at , for a while and…and…well they first sent me back to…to… now that…and then they had a place down there where they…had a mess hall open day and night. But our food o…when we was over there…what we had was dehydrated vegetables and powdered milk, and…wh…they…it was not very appetizing, so we didn’t eat very little, but they had a mess hall open day and night down in Florida for us and, and I, I, last, I had, my stomach had drawed up to where I couldn’t eat…no 41:00more than a teacup fool of foo…of, of food, and…because, and, but, they kept us down there for about a month and then sent me, I think it’s out to Amarillo, Texas, and Roswell, New Mexico…and while I was down there, they decided to, to sent me to Camp Atterbury, and…get me out of the service. Then the engineering officer came around, and…and he tried to…get me to stay in the service, but I was so homesick to get back to , I, I said, “no, I want to get back to .” So he, he said, “well,” he said, “if you’ll stay,” he said, “I’ll jump you a rank,” 42:00and…well I was over the, what happened, while we were out in the South Pacific flying from island to island, the, I would fly from one island up to another island…and, and, then they’d go on a mission, and they’d come back to that island, then I’d check the plane over to see whether we’d go back to our home base island or not, and…I was supposed to be getting flight pay, but I didn’t know that until the…the flight crew, they, they, after they flew fifty bombing missions…on…in that B-24, then they would sent that flight crew back and send in a new crew. When they sent in a new crew in one time, we got to talking about…you know, the, 43:00a maintenance screw—crew chief was flying from one island to the other, but the, the…flight crew, and they said when you were in this, if you was in the states, you’d be getting flight pay for that. So and we were…we were all technical sergeants then, so they, they said well, we will jump you a rank. So they made us master sergeants. They never did pay us a flight pay, but the [Chuckling] made us master sergeants. So anyhow, when I, I was a master sergeant when I was down, they was talking about sending me back to…out of the service, and the engineering officer said, “if you will stay,” he said, “we will jump you a rank, and,” and said, “all you will have to do is about ten o’clock in the morning, will be to…you go to, each one of these hangars and see if they have left any oily rags or 44:00any airplane fuel, any grease or anything on the…around the planes or any out on the planes or around the planes or anything.” He said, “if it was about, about ten to twelve in the morning,” and then he said, “in the afternoon from about…three to five, or something like that,” he said, “you go check them out again.” He said, “now that’s all you’ll have to do if you’ll stay here with us.” And I said, “I want to go back home” [Laughing]. So, so they, they sent me back to Camp Atterbury and, and…and they mustered me out at Camp Atterbury and I, I went back to, to…my home down on Donaldson, in Montgomery County, and…I had, I had a sister at, that was living in Mount Sterling and, and I, I came to Mount Sterling and 45:00I stayed with…them for a while, and…I guess that’s about it. Anything else you want to ask of me [Chuckling]?

Milligan: Gosh, there is not enough time to ask all the questions. Do you, you are a very good storyteller, you, you’re very good… Turley: Well, I… Milligan: …recollection.

Turley: …I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that guardian angel watching over me so many times.

Milligan: That’s amazing.

Turley: I think about how many times the Japanese dropped bombs on us and, and…the Lord watched over us, and our bomb shelters on those islands, they, the Seabees had just scooped out a big place and, and, with a bulldozer, and then they’d l…they’d lay, a layer of coconut logs across, one layer across, and then they’d lay another layer across the other way, then another layer across, like they’d laid the first layer, and then they’d take, cover that up with s…with sand and coral, and then make us a little place just, just wide enough to, to where we could go back in there and go back in this bomb shelter. And every time they dropped a bomb on the island somewhere, the sand 46:00would sift down through us in at where we were, but just, we just thank the Lord not, there wasn’t a bomb dropped on any of us. But while we were on , we…infantry that, they dropped a bomb in, in one of the, there was two fellows and they did have a bomb shelter there…similar to that, I guess. And they dropped a bomb in the shelter in one and killed two, two…of the infantrymen while we were there that night. We was there, we was on the .

Milligan: Did, did you have nurses or medical workers along with you?

Turley: Well, the only nurses I saw was one day, one day when I was taking a bath…I don’t remember what island we were on, but I, I was standing there taking a bath, and I had a, a steel helmet and 47:00a, a washrag, and I was taking a bath, and I heard some women laughing and, and I, I turned around and looked and here come a jeep up the runway, and, and they ha…they had nurses in that, and it was kind of embarrassing to me [Chuckles – Turley and Milligan] Milligan: Standing there with just your hat and your hands?

Turley: Stand, standing there with my, just my washrag [Laughter – Milligan and Turley]. But that was all the nurses I saw [Laughing].

Milligan: It might have been enough [Laughter – Milligan].

Turley: [Laughing] that was enough. Oh my! Yeah that was a… Milligan: So you came back to .

Turley: And I came back to .

Milligan: What did you do… Turley: And… Milligan: …for a career?

Turley: Well, I…I started in, in , down on . They had a service station down there and, and I…started working 48:00there, at…fifteen cents an hour, and…then I met…a woman that was working at the (Cab?) manufacturing company which is on East High Street, which was not far from where I…and I met her, this woman from the…they had an opening in the shipping, well they, they hadn’t, they’d, they hadn’t been just open very long. And they…had an opening in the shipping department. So I went to work there for twenty-five cents an hour in the shipping department, and I worked there until they, they built a new building out over the viaduct there in Mount Sterling, built a new building and, and they moved up there and I worked on it, in the shipping department up there for 49:00almost five years, and…they had—I found out they had an opening in the, in the pol…at the post office, and…they had got, they just got up to ninety cents an hour there at the, in the (Cab?) manufacturing company, and…I, I heard about this opening down the su…at, at the post office. So I, I found out they was, they were paying a dollar and twenty-five cents an hour. So I s…told in the shipping department, I said, “Boss, I’m going to leave the shipping department and I’m going at the Post Office.” And…they said, “Oh you can’t leave,” they said, “You’re senior man here in the shipping department.” And I said yes but I, I’m going to go out and get a dollar and twenty-five cents an hour starting out,” and I said, “and they told me after ninety days, 50:00if…if I worked out all right, then I would go from a dollar twenty-five to a dollar thirty-five cents an hour,” and I said, I’m just getting ninety cents an hour here, and I said, I am a goner.” And I said, “I’ll tell me what I am going to do,” I said, “Bill Jackson is in charge of this, of…the…(Cab?) Manufacturing company here,” and I said, “he is…got something I don’t approve of.” I said, “if he don’t like the color of a woman’s hair, he’ll call her in about a quarter to four on Friday afternoon and say we don’t need you no more, or maybe he don’t like the shoes she is wearing, or the dress she is wearing, or something,” and I said, “he is, he is…I don’t like him doing people that way.” I said, “at…at a quarter to four, Friday afternoon, 51:00I’m going to walk in his office and tell him that I am quitting and I’m, I’m not going to work here no more.” And he said, “oh, you wouldn’t do that, would you?” I said, “you watch me say it,” I said, “but don’t tell nobody.” I said, “you keep him quiet, I don’t want you to tell nobody. I want to disappear so fast.” And that’s just what I did, I kept watching my watch Friday afternoon and, and I made sure at a quarter to four I was in up there telling them girls I wanted to see, see Bill Jackson. And they let me in to see Bill Jackson and I told him that I was quitting, and he looked at me and he couldn’t, he c…he couldn’t say anything for a while. Finally he said, “what are you going to do?” I said, “Monday morning I’m going down to the post office, and I am going to work for a dollar and twenty-five cents an hour.” And I did! [Laughter – Milligan] Milligan: I’m glad.

Turley: [Chuckling] And, and I worked 52:00there until nineteen and…December the 31st nineteen and eighty-three.

Milligan: Oh gosh!

Turley: Last year I had five heart attacks, and the last… Milligan: Five?

Turley: …Five… Milligan: Five heart, heart attacks.

Turley: …and the last on December the 22nd, I…at about two o’clock in the morning, I…was hurting so bad through the center of my chest here, it felt like somebody was pushing something about the size of a fence post through my chest, and I was just so weak I just barely could scratch my wife on the shoulder enough to wake her up and she turned the light on there beside, on, on the wall beside the bed and she said I looked just about as white as a sheets are, and she called an ambulance…for an ambulance, and…they came and…they…tell the driver of the ambulance 53:00he came in, in the bedroom and they had to, the cot, the or… Milligan: Stretcher?

Turley: …stretcher in the living room and he just run his arms under me and picked me up and carried me in there and laid me on the, on that stretcher and they put me in the ambulance and, and took me from Comargo to, to Mount Sterling, and I remembered…pulling out on four-sixty and here at Comargo, this side of Comargo there is a big dip in the road, I remember that, about the golf course and somewhere going to run, going down over the viaduct and…my wife said, “what’s?” She was riding with me at that time, you could ride…, she said, “what’s the matter?” And I said, standing on my head, and I said, “no, I’m going down over there, take me over the viaduct.” Well I had been carrying the mail all over town, and I couldn’t figure out, after I lived to, go down the viaduct, 54:00somewhere between there and the hospital, I never could figure out just where I was, but just before I went out, out of it, the greatest peace and calm come over me and, and I, I, I had wondered what it would be like to die, and I thought well, this is it, I’m dying. And I didn’t remember being put in the hospital at all. I, I was out of it, and they said they had me in a room with a, another man, and back then they had o…oxygen tents around the bed, and…I was out of it, I didn’t know, but they moved me from there—I don’t know how long they had me in there, but they moved me down in a, a quie…a private room in the quietest part of the hospital where, where they’re going to die, because they, they were sure I was going to die. And…I, 55:00I…I came to somewhere, somehow but I know where they was all praying for me, they had to be, or I wouldn’t be here, and, and the…I, I opened my eyes and I looked to my right, and my wife was on the right side of the bed, and I looked on my left, my oldest daughter was there down the foot of my bed, the youngest daughter was down there, and I couldn’t believe it, I closed my eyes and I opened them up again, and I couldn’t believe it. I said, “well somebody’s prayed, and I’m still here.” And…the…they, that was in…well that was, that was the last part of December because, and the doctor, I was up there, in Mount Sterling, I was in Mount Sterling Hospital, and the doctor told my wife, he said…he said I don’t know what to do with him. He said, “I can’t send him home” and said, 56:00“well, if it was your companion, what would you do?” And he said, “well, I would send him down to Doctor DeBakey down in, in ”, said world known heart specialist. And she said, “well can you make arrangements?” And she—he said, “well I’ll go see.” Well he came back in about an hour and he said, he said, “well I’ve made arrangements for you to go down there, but” he said, “you’ll have to go right with him. You’re going to have to stay right with him.” He said, “you get, you get somebody to take you all to Monday morning, at, I believe it was eight o’clock—it may have been seven o’clock. Anyhow, he said, “and, and get on the airplane, and you, you go, 57:00you stay right with him now all the way.” So they come out with a little two-wheel (Julie?) and had me to back up on it and they put—strapped me to that little two-wheel (Julie?) and, and they took me up to the steps of the plane and rolled me down to my seat and unbuckled me and sat me in the seat, then when we got down to Atlanta, Georgia we had to change planes, and here come the, with that little (Julie?) again and they put me out on it and then buckled me on it, and took me off of that plane and, and we had to wait I think a couple of hours or something, and then they loaded me on another plane and took us down to…Doctor DeBakey down in Texas and they kept me down there for—well that was, I got down there I, I think the first week of January in ’74. 58:00Well they ran tests in there for about a week and, and one day Doctor DeBakey came in, he sat down on the side of the bed, and he said, “Mr. Turley,” he said, “I, I,” he said, “we’re going to operate on you,” he said, “I believe you can go back to work.” I said, “well, I had to retire from the post office in December, of nine—on December” the first I had. And of course that was the first week of January 1974. And he said, “well being you’re retired, he said…I’ll come back to talk to you tomorrow.” So he came back the next day and sat down on the side of the bed there with me, and he said, “well,” he said “Mr. Turley,” he said, “I checked your records over,” he said, “we, I ( ) these test re-run.” Of course they had been running tests for about a week, and, and he said, “they check out pretty good.” He said, “it looks like you’ve been pretty active.” I said, “yeah. I have been walking about twelve 59:00or fourteen miles a day carrying that mail up on, on my shoulder, on my left shoulder.” And he said, “well,” he said,” being you’ve retired,” he said, “I believe, if you do what I tell you to do…I believe in a year’s time, you will be feeling pretty good.” He said, “we won’t operate on you,” but he said, “if you have the least bit of trouble, you get on that airplane, you get right back down here and we will operate on you.” I heard him talk about cutting them fellows open, and pulled their ribs out here and operating on them and put them back together and st…sew them up with stainless steel wire, and, and I said, “Doctor DeBakey, if you’ll write down on a piece of paper, I’ll do everything you say to do, right to the letter.” Well, of course, I’d been over to Lexington in the, the veterans hospital too one time when I had had a heart attack, and 60:00ever, ever doctor I went to, the first question was, they asked me, they said, “do you smoke?” And I said, “no.” They said, “have you ever smoked?” I said “yes.” They said, “how long has it been since you smoked?” I said, “it been about twenty years.” They said, “well that’s in your favor.” They said, “you drink any alcohol beverage?” And I said, “no.” They said “how long it has been?” “it’s been about, about twenty years.” “Well that’s in your favor.” They said “Do you drink any coffee? Regular coffee?” I said, “oh, I love coffee.” “Don’t drink no more. Nothing with caffeine in it.” I said, “okay.” And they said, “don’t drink anything ice cold, drink at room temperature. Don’t eat any more ham, or I mean no more pork, no more eggs, no more salt,” and…he had a whole list of things for me to do. No more running, and no more pushing on the automobile or lifting on the refrigerator or anything heavy, and he said, “if it’s ( ) don’t 61:00go up the steps two at a time anymore like you’ve been doing.” Of course he knew I had been carrying the mail… Milligan: Uh-huh.

Turley: And he, and he said, “if there is as many as five steps, you start walk at an angle. If it’s more than five steps, you turn and walk in an angle. Don’t go straight up them steps if, if it’s as many as five steps. And…no more eating after six o’clock at night, and…” Milligan: So you did the stuff… Turley: He… Milligan: …obviously.

Turley: …oh, he had a whole… Milligan: You’re still here.

Turley: …a whole list of things for me to do, you know. And, and he said, I believe in years time you will be feeling pretty good, but he said, “the main thing is when you get tired, you sit down and rest.” And he said, “now there will be some time when you don’t feel like doing anything.” He said, “don’t do anything. As soon as you get rested up, you start moving around and do, do something. But,” he said, “watch what you’re doing now, be real careful.” And I said, “I will [Chuckling].” 62:00The, any how I did, I did what he told me to do, and… Milligan: And you’re still here to tell the story today.

Turley: And I’m, I’m still here today.

Milligan: That’s great.

Turley: Still here today.

Milligan: Yeah. Well, I’m really glad that you decided to come in. It, it’s been a real pleasure to sit and… Turley: Well I… Milligan: …sit and listen to you for an hour. Can you believe it’s been hour?

Turley: Really?

Milligan: Yeah [Laughter – Milligan].

Turley: I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it’s been an hour.

Milligan: It’s been a very enjoyable hour for me.

Turley: But I, I…I do, one, I did…I didn’t, I didn’t tell you about, about when I got married. I married, married just a beautiful woman, the prettiest woman in the world, I thought, which she was. We, we…started going about two years after we got married, we started going to church, the Church of God on North ( ) there in Mount Sterling, and we got saved and started living with the Lord, and about three months after we’d…we 63:00got saved, one night she said…said, “honey,” said, “do you love anybody more than me?” And I thought for just a little bit and I said, “yes.” And she started bawling and crying, and I thought I’d never get her to hush [Chuckles – Milligan] from crying, and she said, “but I thought you loved me more than anybody in this world!” And I said, “well, honey, I tell you what, I love the Lord first,” and I said, “I’m going to put him first, you’re going to come second, and the children is going to come third, and I said, “honey, if I can keep things in that order, the Lord first, you second and the children third, you won’t have to worry about this old boy has been faithful and true to you, you won’t have to worry about me being mistreating you in any way at all. I’ll do everything I can to make you happy and to please you, if I can keep the lord first 64:00all the time.” And we’ve been married sixty-one years… Milligan: Oh my goodness!

Turley: …and we ha…have never said a bad word before her or the children, and, and we have never been in an argument. I’ve got, I think twenty-some hats and, and a lot of hanging over the backdoor, and there’s, there’s been a few times when I put on a hat and go be, out and come back about an hour or so, and…if things was all right well I, I’d stay and take my hat off and stayed, and, but to this day we have, we never had an argument, and the children have never heard me say a bad word.

Milligan: Yeah.

Turley: …or anything at all. And we have had a wonderful life.

Milligan: Well rounded life.

Turley: And…about…three years ago, 65:00of course we go to church Sunday morning and Sunday night and on Wednesday night, and on Wednesday night we have a prayer meeting and we have bible study, we study a chapter in the bible, and we…on one Wednesday night about it, about three, three years ago at least, we both felt real bad all day long, and she said that, she said…”are you going to church?” I said, she said, “I feel too bad to go.” I said, “I don’t feel like going.” I said—but the closer it got to the time to go to church, I said, “I, I hate to miss bible study, and I,” I told her, I said, “well honey I’m going on to church,” I said, “I can feel bad at church just as well as I feel bad at home.” So I, I got in the automobile and I went on to church. I was sitting, I set up close to the front of the church anyhow, and now I felt bad all during the service, just when the service, 66:00just, just as it ended, I, my body got so weak and my face, head dropped down on my chest, and I, I was so weak I couldn’t even raise my head up, and I looked down in my hands and the, they was, I had lost the color and I looked like a dead person. It just so happen these two guardian angels sitting behind me, two, two women and they tapped me on the shoulder about the same time and said, “Brother Turley, are you sick?” And I said, “yeah.” They said, “you want to go pray,” and I said, “yes,” and they helped me up there and they sat me on that altar rail and I was so near gone, I didn’t hear anybody ( ).

Milligan: Really?

Turley: All I heard was, I don’t know how many, several gathered around me and somebody said, “Amen, amen, amen, amen.” Each time somebody said amen, the life come back to my body… Milligan: Huh!

Turley: …I raised my head up, and strec…looked down there and my color had come back. 67:00Milligan: Yeah.

Turley: And, and…I stood up and the pastor said, “Brother Turley,” he said, “give me them car keys, I’m going to drive you home.” I said, “You don’t need to drive me home, ain’t nothing wrong with me!” He said, “give me them car keys.” I said, “well I won’t argue with a preacher here.” Milligan: That’s right.

Turley: ha! So… Milligan: Another… Turley: …so he… Milligan: …another story.

Turley: Ha! Yeah!

Milligan: Okay, I’m going to stop this now, because I’m getting…the lights are coming one and off in there, and… Turley: Well… Milligan: …I’m so glad that you participated.

Turley: I talk too… END OF INTERVIEW”