My father, William J Garvey, said that he had only one "war story" to tell: There was one time that they arrived at a new island (probably Kwajalein) right after the Marines had done their work - and there were still huge piles of dead Japanese soldiers. His war story is that there turned out to be a live Japanese soldier in one of those piles - and he had a rifle. Apparently my father had to duck!

His job was to transport the bombs to the plane, and to put fins and fuses onto them before being loaded into the plane. In those days, ground crews apparently serviced certain planes. The plane he was assigned to was the DeadEye II. He always wondered what happened to the DeadEye II. He said he heard that the planes were “pushed over a cliff” somewhere in the Southwest US desert. (It was probably one of the planes that was melted down at Kingman, AZ).

The mail sent back home had to be censored because the ship carrying the mail might get captured, and they needed to make sure that the Japanese wouldn't be able to gauge US movements from that captured mail. He said it became a game to try and sneak home info about where they were. He remembered being on an island called Apamama. All the guys were trying to get hints back to family as to where they were. So they'd write things like "How's A Papa and A Mama?". The other side of the game went on in a quonset hut on every base in which military intelligence would read through, and censor anything in anybody's mail that might give too many hints. He said he could remember walking past the military intelligence quonset hut - and hearing the guys inside laughing about what was in the letters they were reading. In a box of his war stuff is one example of a copy of the mail that got through to my mother. It's not the paper that he actually wrote on - it looks more like a thermofax. And it has so many blacked out areas that it looks like a piece of lace! I think it was called VMail - or Victory Mail.

He told me a story of one night that the call came in to load the bombers. They all hopped into trucks and headed down the runway - and it was pitch black. He said that it was so dark that he couldn't even tell that they were still moving. So when they got to his plane he jumped out - and learned quickly that they were still moving at a pretty good clip. He said he rolled and rolled on the runway pavement before he came to a stop.

My father's squadron had a couple of "crazy Texans" in it. Those Texans had some crooked gambling scheme that they used to rip off the other squadrons /units. He said the Texans shipped all their gambling profits back to their ranch in Texas and bought many head of cattle. He remembered one time that Japanese Zeroes were bombing and strafing the island they were on (probably Saipan). Rather than cowering in a foxhole like everyone else, those two Texans went so far as to climb to the top of the water tower and shake their fists at the Zeroes as they flew over their heads. But apparently those "crazy Texans" made it home just fine.

Something else he told me is that the machine guns on the aircraft could only be fired continuously for a short time - and then they needed to cool down. But he said that guys would panic in battle - and planes would come back with guns with barrels that were practically drooping.

He told me about another time that he was flying on the Dead Eye II when the squadron was moving from one island to another. He said he was lieing down sleeping when they encountered incredible turbulence. He said he got woken up by being body slammed against the ceiling of the plane.

He said that he saw something happen again and again with the natives on the islands they arrived on. When they first arrived you could get them to climb up a tree and bring down a coconut in exchange for a cigarette. But after the fly boys had been there for a month or so, you couldn't get the natives to stir for anything less than a whole pack of cigarettes. He said he could remember natives fishing by tossing grenades into the lagoon and collecting all the fish that floated to the surface. (I assume that was a new trick they'd picked up from their GI friends).

There was one time when he was on Saipan that conditions in the ionosphere must have been just right for the multiple signal bounces required for him to pick up WCCO (from home in St. Paul, MN) on the radio for about half an hour.

All the guys used to look forward to receiving CARE packages from home. He remembers one guy who had gotten a salami - and set it aside for a special occasion. But when that special occasion arrived, the guy found out that he had nothing left but a perfect salami shaped skin. Ants had eaten everything out of the inside.