U.S. Military Photos Ehrlich-Laubhan Genealogy

Military Photos

George Reginald Ehrlich, (Gene)

Born March 4, 1924, Died, 12/20/1963

This space reserved for story about Gene

Above is First Lt. Robert (Bob) Anderson WWII

Bob was a first Lt. in 1943 when that pic was taken by an air force photographer. the marine air force was part of the naval air force. He was 22 and was flying fighter cover in the New Hebrides Islands in the Pacific. He was awarded the distinguished flying cross three times as well as the air medal and many other medals. In civilian life he flew as a volunteer with the civil air patrol and went on many search and rescue missions as well as patrol along the border for the customs service. Nowadays he flies via the history channel. By Wife Bernice, 1-2005, Las Cruces, NM.

Transcript of a Conversation with Robert F. Anderson, Marine Fighter Pilot

“20 Questions on WWII”

Summer Shelley

May 05, 2005

(Hi, Grandpa!) This is Summer Shelley, and I’m interviewing my Grandpa. It’s Thursday, May 05, 2005. Grandpa, what’s your name?

My name is Anderson, Robert Anderson. Formerly of the United States Marine Corps, a captain. I was a fighter pilot in World War II. I flew many missions in the South Pacific, Central Pacific, I operated from a carrier, I spent a year in China, and I knew many dangerous hours in the air. OK, your first question:

1. Where were you when the war broke out, and how did you hear about it?

Well, I was in college, in my sophomore year at Texas A&M, our nation’s largest military college. There, every student was required to be in the military -- ROTC, Reserve Officer’s Training Corps. Activities other than classes were structured in a military fashion. I was in the horse cavalry there. We really did ride horses on practice maneuvers several times a month. We assembled and marched to the mess halls, three times a day.

My second year I was a waiter in the mess hall (a pretty good job) and I didn’t have to march to the meals. We wore uniforms all the time, and each unit of the cavalry (they called them “troops”) lived in a dormitory assigned to it. After four years of ROTC experience, and military studies, and so forth at A&M the graduate was able to go to officer’s training school (for several months of intensive training) and upon graduation become a second lieutenant in the Army. Of course, at the end of my two years I went into the Naval Aviation cadet training, so I got into action a little quicker.

Robert: Does that read all right?

Summer: Yeah, that sounded great. How did you hear about the war?

Robert: I don’t know. I don’t remember. That’s 60-something years ago – about 65 years ago!

Summer: OK.

2. How did your family’s lives change as a result of the outbreak of WWII?

Well, my parents operated a 320-acre farm near Abilene, Texas at that time. Many things were rationed during the war. There were no new cars. Good cars were at a premium. Dad had a fairly new one –only about a year old at that time. When he’d go to town sometimes people would go up to him on the street and try to buy it from him. Very few people had cars – I mean very few families had more than one car, and many of them didn’t have a car on the farm. Compared to today it was much more – you would think – kind of primitive. I was not at home during that time, so I could only guess at their difficulties. Farm products they sold brought good prices, though, and I don’t think Dad had trouble finding enough labor to hire. Although I’m sure some of them did because young men, of course, would be drafted or they would go into the Army or they would go off to find better paying jobs.

3. How did you get into the military?

Pilots were the very visible and early heroes, they got best pay, and they were officers and they got the publicity. I was also influenced by my older brother, (two years older), Lanoy. Lanoy was a pilot in the Army Air Corps. It was a very romantic role and the girls all liked them. They got better pay. They got 50% more pay than the ground troops. After Pearl Harbor, everyone had to register for the draft, although college boys and also those at a military school were deferred. I volunteered for the Naval Aviation Cadet program in March 1942. I didn’t before I had to. They didn’t call me up until August, though, of 1942.

4. How and why did you choose the Marines?

Well, the Marines are part of the Navy, and I was in the Naval Flight Training program. All Marine pilots go through the same flight training as Navy Pilots. I was in the Navy until just before graduation from flight school. We were allowed to request duty in the Marines, which I did. On graduation, I went automatically into the Marines and also that’s when I won my commission as a second lieutenant. I requested the Marines in the expectation I would get into combat action sooner. There was a lot of publicity then. The Marines were heavily engaged in the Solomon Islands, and – the “big hero” thing. Anyway, that was it, sort of.

5. What was your military training like?

My military training was quite regimented, but not overly difficult. It was not as stressful (no more stressful)—except for some of the flying could be stressful – as that at A&M. We weren’t “hazed”. At A&M we were. A&M had an intensive hazing thing, especially for freshmen. My background at A&M was helpful, of course. We marched to mess, and classes and all activities. Hard training was on an individual basis, and more on the farm.

6. Where were you first stationed?

Primary flight school was at the Naval Air Station, about half way between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas for three months. After that we went down to Corpus Christi Naval Air Station and nearby naval flight stations for basic and advanced. My advanced training was down about 45 miles south of Corpus Christi. But, we came back then for the graduation ceremonies.

7. What battles did you fight in?

They didn’t name individual battles. We flew “escort” – protection duty for bombers, bombing raids, and fighter sweeps where we would go over the Japanese installations and wait for them to come up. And they usually would. If they didn’t come up, we’d go down. We’d try to shoot as many down as we could to decimate their fighter strength to win air superiority -- which would deny their Navy (if they didn’t have air superiority) mobility. We eventually -- with bombing strikes, combat air patrol, combat cover, and so forth – won complete air superiority through the entire Solomon Islands (there were about six or eight islands). The Solomon Islands were about 600 miles long. We advanced from the southeast island, Guadal Canal, island-hopping, up to near Rabaul, which was their main stronghold. They had half a dozen airfields there, and about 150,000 support troops. We took airfields within striking range, about 200- 250 miles off Rabaul. Eventually, we achieved air superiority. They flew what remaining planes they had away from there then and we were able to bypass Rabaul without having to invade it which saved many thousand lives, of course. There was a campaign called “Consolidation to the Northern Solomons” for one of the major efforts (and also reduction of Rabaul – I forget what that was named).

8. What was it like to be engaged in air combat?

It wasn’t like in the movies. There was very little conversation. To talk, you had to pick up the microphone, and it was distracting to talk into it. It distracted you from looking around for the enemy. So there wasn’t much conversation that way. It was total concentration, of course. You were looking for the enemy, and you were flying, maintaining your position with your group. I don’t remember anyone talking about any thoughts of home, or girls, or mother – anything except the situation at hand. You didn’t want to be distracted. I remember being tense, but under control. I was not so tense that I couldn’t think and plan and execute. After a stressful flight the Flight Surgeon would give us a small bottle of brandy -- 2 to 3 ounce bottle of brandy -- that was a help to calm you down, so that you could give a more coherent report on the strike. If the strike was a “milk run” (that is, uneventful) I sometimes saved my brandies for a “party” (get three or four together). There was no alcohol available, except what you brought in individually in a flight bag. That’s all I had – a parachute and sack that I put up in the back of the airplane. And with a few clothes it was probably about 30 pounds of clothes, just flight clothes and so forth, brought into certain parts of the fenced areas. We weren’t exactly luxuriously living. Whiskey was very valuable, like $75 for a quart bottle. That was about a week’s pay for me, and two to four weeks’ pay for some enlisted men – a lot of money. The ground troops would come by and want to buy a bottle from a pilot, but we didn’t have any to sell. The living conditions were primitive, of course. We usually had a cot – uh, we always had a cot, I guess. But we didn’t have sheets. After awhile, one of the earliest things that they did after invading an island was take care of drainage. They would dig ditches so you wouldn’t have mosquitoes. And they’d spray DDT, put up the mess hall tents, have it so it wouldn’t get quite as muddy, and put in showers. Food was adequate. It wasn’t – most of it was canned, had to be. But it was adequate.

9. What were important issues or worries for your family during the war?

Well, of course I wasn’t there. But I wrote home once or twice a week and they wrote regularly. It took quite awhile for mail to get there. But my parents never complained about war-time problems. They had three sons in the war, two in hazardous duty: my brother who was a pilot in the Army Air Corps, which is now the Air Force, and myself. My oldest brother was not in hazardous duty, but he was a ground officer in the Army Air Corps doing support work. He didn’t ever get overseas. I’m sure they worried a great deal. My father had to have a massive stomach operation to remove a colon cancer while I was gone. My brother and I were gone. Hudson, my oldest brother was on duty in Washington (maybe) but his wife Cely came to stay with them and helped them out. Dad was home and ambulatory from the big operation that took out a part of his colon to get the cancer out. But, he was back and doing pretty good when I got home from my first tour of duty.

10. What was your family life like before the war?

Life on the farm before college was frugal and Spartan and sometimes difficult. I didn’t know anyone in my high school that had a car. Now, many of the students do you know. In fact, in my cavalry division (a group of 75 – 80 students at college), just one of them had a car. You can imagine that money was tight. There was not too much of the kind of recreation that we know now. Of course, without easy transportation on the farm we only went to town once a week. We’d go to the movie on Saturday afternoon. It cost ten cents. Most of the houses didn’t have indoor plumbing or electricity in them until, oh, like 1940 they started bringing electricity to the farms. The homes were heated by wood stoves. The radio was a very important kind of recreation at night. We always listened to the radio. There were favorite serial programs, “Amos and Andy” and others that you might have heard of, that we listened to. We’d play cards with our parents. It was close knit. Our families’ children played with their cousins a lot, too. They were some of my best friends – my cousins in town. There was a lot of work, and the whole family usually set to work then. Mother didn’t do field work, but everybody else did. It was hard work. I was 12 when we moved to the farm, but I was strong and could usually stay up. After the first year I didn’t have any trouble. At 16, I was 6 feet tall and probably weighed 155 pounds. I was real strong. I wasn’t able to go out for high school athletics or other programs either that required after-school participation because the school bus left right soon after school was out. After we moved to the farm, I went to a country school for two years, and I rode a horse or walked. It was about three miles. Then I went to town for my last three years of High School. I didn’t have an allowance. Times were tough. You’ve heard of the great depression. It was sometimes grim, but we had a lot of fun, too. When we did have time for recreation and a little money we enjoyed it! It wasn’t a common thing, you know. But friendships were strong and families were strong. Divorce was almost unheard of – very rare.

I had a horse that I rode to school and I found out that if I put the spurs to him, or used my heels on the flanks, he would buck. And so for a while there I would come into the school yard, and everyone would be playing before school started, and I’d put on a little rodeo for ‘em. He’d run into the school yard bucking, and sometimes he’d fart! But he got to where he wouldn’t do a thing – just kind of grunt.

11. How did being in the war change your life once the war ended?

I was overseas quite a bit, and an officer, and flight pay, and so I was able to save quite a bit of money. We were not “relieved” immediately when the war was over. I had skills that they needed, like experienced carrier pilot in fighters, which requires an extensive amount of training. It takes time. They wanted to hold on to us as long as possible. I think because of the danger of a war with China. Also, I think they were worried about Russia. So, they held on to us for awhile and that is how I happened to be in China. I went out (to China) shortly after the war was over. It was in support of the Chinese Nationalists. We didn’t fly combat missions against the communists, but we flew reconnaissance and just to let them see us and to look at them to see if they were concentrating or anything. They shot at us sometimes, but not seriously. They didn’t try to – they weren’t ready to take over until 1949, and I got out in 1947. I had a pretty good savings and the GI bill. I went back to college and got my degree. I went back to school at Texas A&M, but I didn’t have to go into the military.

12. Do you think the United States did the right thing in entering WWII?

Oh, Yeah! We didn’t have any choice, really. We had to. We were attacked, you know.

13. During the war what did you do for fun and recreation?

We would go into town – take the buses into the nearest town and go to dances and meet girls and go to USOs also. We didn’t have a car for dates, but we got around with public transportation. There would sometimes be activities on the base. Of course overseas, on the islands, they didn’t have anything. The only thing they had was movies. They’d have coconut logs strung out for seats. It was open-air. They put up a screen and a projector, and so forth. It was just there. Sometimes it’d rain – you’d carry a poncho. They’d usually keep ‘em running for awhile. We’d play volleyball sometimes. There wasn’t a great deal of the time occupied with flying. We didn’t fly everyday. We played a lot of cards and you’d do a lot of reading, of course. There was not a lot of recreation overseas. We’d do some of these things on the air bases in the States when we weren’t busy flying.

14. What was your duty in the war as a Marine pilot?

I’d do the flight missions, of course. Other ground duties that I had were squadron flight officer (at one time or another) where I’d prepare the flight schedules for the other pilots. Once I was squadron armament officer. I was responsible for all the guns and the bombs and so forth that the enlisted men took care of for the planes. We didn’t really have much duty other than flying.

15. What was your fighter plane like?

It was big. Fully loaded with a couple bombs, machine guns, and bullets and everything it could weigh as much as 14,000 pounds. That’s 7 tons. And it was big – like a 40 foot wing span, and the length was something like 35 foot. It was a big plane and real rugged. Of course, the plane seated just one person – the pilot. We had little mirrors to position to look to the rear, but you couldn’t really see directly behind you. That was called your “six o’clock”. That was a common saying, “Watch your six o’clock.” That’s where they’d get ya. The only time I was shot up bad was when I didn’t even see the plane. I was shooting at another plane, I think. The plane I flew more than any other was the Sikorsky Corsair. We called it F4U more than anything else, but it’s more commonly known as the Corsair now. It had inverted gull wings – a very unique look to it. Real cool, I thought. We all loved the Corsair. I also flew the one called the Hellcat – the Grumman Hellcat, the F6F -- which is similar in size to the Corsair. Not quite as fast as the Corsair. It was a little more stable, but we preferred the Corsair. It was also a single seater. It had a propeller about 13 – 14 ft. in diameter and a 2,000 hp air-cooled engine. It had 14 cylinders I think.

16. What memories stand out from the war?

There are quite a few of them. First, the flight memories. Well, that’s you know, been 62 or 63 years. Many of them are gone. I loved the Marine Corps. I was tempted to stay on and apply for a regular commission. They wanted me to, but I thought, “Well, heck. The war is over. It’s gotten dull. Go on and do something else.”

17. How did you communicate with your family while you were deployed?

The only way was by writing letters. They had one called “V-Mail”. That was a sheet of paper about, oh, 6 inches by 10 inches. You’d write on that and it’d fold over and glue. Didn’t have to have a stamp. Just where the stamp goes you’d write your name and the location and that was all. And, of course, the address of your parents. It’d probably take about two weeks. We weren’t supposed to write about military action, unless they gave us specific authority to do so, which they did sometimes. Most of the time we weren’t supposed to tell anyone where we were, or anything about operations that could have been of benefit to an enemy that would get hold of the letters. But, actually, we weren’t supposed to have a camera or keep a diary, although some did. If I had it to do over again, I surely would. Anyway, they were kind of scared I guess.

18. Did you make any special friends or meet any important people who influenced you?

I had a lot of friends. I didn’t run into many of them after the war except one I’d went to flight training with and went overseas with, named John Barton. He died, oh, about a year ago. He was the closest friend. I kept in touch with him more than any other. Not too close, at that.

19. What were the living conditions like at the places you were stationed?

Depended on how long we’d had possession of the island. Do you mean overseas? After we’d have possession of the island, it’d be much better. They’d get the roads to where they’d drain so it wouldn’t be so muddy. They’d get control of the mosquitoes, and when they had time they’d put up a sawmill and saw wood from the native trees. They’d use that to put up some buildings like mess halls, and the bases for tents. They’d build a platform, you know, for a floor and then the sides up a little ways, and then the lumber to put a canvas over, screen, and so forth. It was hot. It rained a lot. I grew up on the farm and wasn’t used to having it that easy anyway. Everything considered, they did the best they could. And it being so important for pilots to be in good health, they took care of us better that the ground troops(Probably, because if you had a cold, that would affect your flying. Or, diarrhea or anything like that, it was much more severe than if you were ground troops.) After possession of an island for awhile, we’d roam around some and swim on the beach, stuff like that. On one island, Bougainville, we just took about a five mile perimeter – sort of a semi-circle. The island was probably, oh, 50 - 55 miles long, 15 or 20 wide. But anyway, we didn’t take the whole island. The Japs were at each end of the island, so we just took the middle to establish our airbases, which was the purpose you know: to have an airfield within fighter range of Rabaul. (The main thing we wanted to reduce – to put out of action – so they didn’t have support over that entire area of the South Pacific.) Anyway, on Bougainville, I would get out and roam around as far as I felt it was safe. I was roaming around the perimeter one day and a sniper (I thought it pretty safe there) missed me by about 3 feet. He must have been a long ways off. Kicked up dirt to one side of me. I remember another day I was roaming around just past the edge and came upon where, oh, about 8 or 10 graves were where Marines had had a ground battle there. They had buried them there. I suppose later on they’d go in and get them and send them back to the States. I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t. I had requested burial at sea if I was killed. Of course, the pilots were flying over the ocean most of the time, so if you went down there, you were buried at sea, all right! But, anyway, it was kind of hard to describe it. There was a lot of boredom. An awful lot of boredom.

20. How did you hear about the war’s end and what were your feelings then?

I was at Santa Barbara in a carrier squadron there when the war ended. We were ready to be shipped out. But the war ended there, and I don’t remember what I felt like. It was not unexpected, of course. We had secured control of islands within air range of the Japanese mainland. They were on the run. They had a much reduced – they didn’t have much navy left and they didn’t have much air force left. So, invasion was imminent, you know. But, of course, the atomic bomb was certainly unexpected. Nobody had any idea that we had a weapon like that.