Lyle Bradley December 13, 1991 Pat Schwabik

Transcription

1 Lyle Bradley December 13, 1991 Pat Schwabik The date is Friday. Friday the 13 th in the month of December, My name is Pat Schabik. I am going to interview one of our Historical Society members, Lyle Bradley, who was a veteran in World War II. Good morning, Lyle. Good morning. My name is Lyle Bradley, and I m currently living at Seventh Avenue in Andover. I was born in Dubuque, Iowa, and I was living there when World War II broke out. Matter of fact, I was a junior in high school. I remember vividly the day of Pearl Harbor. Matter of fact, I was out rabbit hunting that day, and came back about five o clock before I found out that the war had been going on. And the next day in school, we spent basically all day long glued to the radio, listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt declare war, and his famous infamy speech, and so on. I almost was on the Arizona in Pearl Harbor, because a very good friend of mine wanted me to quit school a year before that and join the Navy, and I went to my father, and asked him about quitting school to join the Navy, and he said, Absolutely not, because he had wanted to get into World War I, and his parents wouldn t okay it. So I didn t go. But his name was Jim Bennett, and he is still at the bottom of the Arizona in Pearl Harbor. So maybe I would have been there, too, because at that time, they were allowing friends to stay together. But anyway, I continued on, and graduated from high school, and then entered the University of Dubuque in the fall of 1942, and I was on the boxing team there with another guy by the name of Bob Pete, and he and I were sparing constantly, and one day, Bob suggested we both join the Marine Corps. This would have been, I suppose, late September early October. Well, I said, that sounds like a good idea. So we went down and we enlisted in the Marine Corps. And the guy said, Well, you won t be called for another month. He said, You might as well go back to school, so we did. One week later, they had a traveling caravan come around, and it included people from the various branches of the military including the Naval Air, Army Air Corps, and so on, and I d always been nuts about airplanes, but I thought you had to be some super human person to be able to fly airplanes. Well, I found out, they wanted a bunch of pilots in a hurry, so I talked to the guy afterwards. I told them we d already enlisted in the Marine Corps. He said, No problem. He said, If you can pass the tests, he says, we ll take care of the Marine Corps. So

2 immediately I filled out the papers, sent them in to Minneapolis, here, and the papers came back the day before I was eighteen. The day I was eighteen, I was on the train to Minneapolis to take my tests for the Naval Air training. Bob Pete and I both came up together. We took our tests. He flunked the oral exams because he had a very slight lisp, and they figured it would interfere with radio communication, and he was heartbroken about it. I passed, and so I waited, and they brought me in in a couple months, and so I started the Naval Air Program. The first thing, I went to Aberdeen, South Dakota, and learned to fly light planes. From there, came down to Minneapolis, here, for primary flight training, and it was in the fall, and it was cold, and we had open cock pit airplanes the old byplane. We had flight suits. We had to fly with a mask on. But it was excellent training. From here, I went down to Pensacola, Florida. Went through there, got my wings, and then went to Green Cold Springs, Florida, where we flew the old F4F Wildcat, which was the primary fighter of World War the early stages of World War II. And I always wanted to get in fighters, anyway, and so went through there, and almost killed myself several times there, but anyway made the grade. Then from there, went to the west coast to the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and there we got Corsair, and that was my love life, because the Corsair, in my estimation, was the most beautiful airplane I d ever seen. And flew the Corsair there, and then we went out to the Pacific, and I flew off an aircraft carrier, and the aircraft carrier was named the Bennington. I m shortening this considerably because there were a lot of stages in between, but anyway, carrier I loved flying off carriers. It was a real challenge. You had to be very accurate on your navigation, because it was very embarrassing to come back and not find the carrier. One thing I did not like about carrier life, I did not like the spatial arrangement. There was not enough space, and I love space. And so the food was great, and everything, but I guess that s the thing I missed being on a carrier. I can remember many times going out on the carrier, and of course, we didn t have any lights on the ship at all, so I d go out, and I d just lay down right on the edge of the carrier at night, and just look at the stars. And I remember vividly one night I fell asleep right on the leading edge of the carrier deck, and I heard this noise when I awakened, and I couldn t figure out what the noise was. And suddenly I realized that there was a huge bird right over my head that was picking up the wind from the forward part of the flight deck, and it had to be an albatross with a wing span of probably 7-10 feet. And it was right over the top of me, within just a few feet, and it was picking up that draft, and wings were - I could hear the wind going through its wings. And it stayed there for a long time. I just was awed by it. And then pretty soon it was gone. But anyway, those are some of the interesting things about it. On one of the missions that we went to Japan on, we had to hit an aircraft factory in Kuma Mato, Japan, and we had to be there at seven o clock in the morning.

3 Not two minutes after. Not two minutes before. Right at seven. The reason is Japanese were very prompt on their timetables, and at that time, they changed their what do you call it? You know, their shift, I guess. And so we went in there it was about we had almost 100 airplanes from several different carriers, and we went in there at exactly seven o clock, and we hit em. And I remember when we on the first dive, I looked off to the right, and I saw a train coming. Boy, that s a primary target. So two of us wheeled over, and I lined up my rockets, and I shot at the engine, and the first rocket went right to its target, and the engine exploded, and it was almost my waterloo, cuz I went right through all the debris, and of course, it was very close to the ground. And when the train and when the engine exploded, the cars went all over the place. I did a good service, I thought, at that point. But anyway, we did our job, and we were rendezvousing, and all of a sudden I saw a Japanese airplane way down in the sun streak, cuz the sun was just coming up. And I Tally Ho d it, and there was a major leading the flight, and I always thought he was a little blind. He couldn t see the airplane, so finally he turned the lead over to me, and so I went down, and I opened up on the plane, and immediately it burst into flame. And after it started burning, it just sort of went right down in the water, but there was a rear gun on the airplane, cuz it was a twin-engine airplane. And the rear gunner was trying to beat out the flames on it, and I really felt a little sorry for him. The pilot probably was already dead cuz he was slumped over. That s war. And anyway, I got back to the ship, and the major our flight leader was trying to take credit for the airplane, and I m an obstinate guy, and I wouldn t let him. Of course, I was a little second lieutenant at that time, and he was trying to pull his rank, and he said that he would have me court marshaled if I didn t give him that., but I wasn t about to. Anyway, I won the case, and so we ll get back to this a little later on. There s an interesting anecdote. So anyway, we went on, and Bull Halsey was the admiral in charge of our whole fleet, and so on June 5 th, 1945, we were scheduled to go in to another massive strike setup against Japan, and there was a typhoon coming. And this guy, and I just get my hackles up every time I think of it he sent us right through that typhoon. In one fell swoop, he did more damage to the United States Navy. We lost more airplanes and more men than we d lost in the last year to the Japanese. We had to push over 55 airplanes on our aircraft carrier alone. Just shove em right over there; just completely ruined. We lost three guys on our carrier that were swept overboard. We had a destroyer that was capsized, and all hands lost. And the next morning when we got up, we had two of our air carriers with us. We d lost all of our screening ships. It was just a mess. The front part of our carrier deck had been smashed on the waves coming down 20 feet on top of our

4 carrier. Now our carrier sat up 60 feet out of the water. So you know what s happened. And so I get a little angry when I think about Bull Halsey being a very great individual. I think he should have been court marshaled, and probably some other nasty things done to him. Well, anyway, we came back to the States, and I was put in a new squadron, and guess who was my new CO? He was the same guy that claimed credit for my for that plane so I thought, well, this will be interesting cuz I knew, obviously, he didn t like me. But anyway, finally we got out the war. They dropped the bomb while we were back in the States, the atomic bomb, that is. And we were about ready to get out, and he called me in one morning. He said he wanted to know what I was gonna do in the future. And I said, Well, I said, I want to go back to college. And all of a sudden he shed a few tears. He said, There s something that s been bothering me. And then he said that this had been bothering him all these months the fact that he had tried to take credit for it. So, that was interesting, and so we parted our ways, and I didn t see him again. I went back and finished college. Then when Korea broke, I was recalled, again, because I was in the Reserve program up there in Minneapolis, and I used to drive up to fly on the weekends when we were still flying Corsairs. And anyway, I got to Korea; joined a squadron over there. And Korea was a much different operation than World War II was. There were 15 of us from Minneapolis that were flying in Korea, and of the 15, nine were killed. Now that is a phenomenal loss record that almost parallels the loss record of the heavy bombers in World War II that were in Germany. But we did. We just had a real problem over there with the terrain being what it was, our airplanes were old at that time, and airplanes do age very fast. We found out another factor over there. We found out that some of the pilots had been smoking up till that time about 10 years. And now, that was having a direct effect on their flight, because we had to schedule pilots that were smoking together along with pilots that were not smokers, because the non-smokers could go up so much higher. And you can t have two different ones because you always have to keep airplanes together in twos because your guns all face forward and you have to protect each other s tail. So that was one thing, and that, by the way, that was a direct effect that triggered the surgeon general s report in 1964 was what we found out up there. On my first time in Japan, and I was back from Korea, I was sitting in a railroad station and there was a gentleman across the way a Japanese man across the way with a Geisha girl. And I was sipping a cup of tea, and I had my uniform on, and pretty soon he got up, and he was a big guy for Japanese. Most of them were smaller. And he came over and he glowered at me, and I thought, Oh, oh. They didn t like the fact that we beat them. And in perfect English, he came up and he said, What kind of airplane do you fly? because I had my wings on. And I told him a Corsair. And he said, Oh, he said, A fabulous airplane. He

5 said he was a pilot, Japanese pilot from World War II, and he told me what he flew and so we had an interesting conversation. He says, Where you going? So I told him. He says, Why don t you take the next train. He says, Come on over to the house. I live about two blocks away. So we went over there, and his wife met us at the door. She couldn t speak a word of English, but we sat down, and we had some Sake and we had peanuts and we had fish and so on. Well, anyway, I found out that he was - Number one, he was the son of the mayor of Nara; Number two, he was a medical doctor, and of course, he could handle English very well. He graduated from the University of Tokyo, and had an English minor. Well so we got talking about airplanes, and I asked him what kind of plane he flew, and of course, he gave me the Japanese term. We always identified them by common names, so we got the book out, and immediately I saw that he d flown a Nick(?), and that was the type of airplane I d shot down. I only shot down one airplane. And so then I told him, You know, I said, A friend of mine shot down one of those airplanes, and so he wanted to know where. And so I showed him on the map exactly. Oh, he said, That was one of our squadron, because at that particular time, that was the only place in Japan that that airplane existed because they were down to one squadron. And he wanted to know that date. Well, I gave him the approximate date, and so he went back and he looked and he gave me the name of the pilot that was flying that airplane. Well, anyway, that was the first time. We got together about four other times. He took me to one of the Japanese schools, took me to a Japanese hospital, and so on, so we got to be pretty good friends. And about the fourth or fifth time that we were together, and we were drinking Sake, again, I said, I have an admission to make. I was the guy that shot your friend down. And he looked at me, and he smiled, and he said, We have to propose a toast. So we proposed a toast to his friend that I had shot down. And it was sort of a. Is that a story! Yeah. You know it really is. But anyway, we came back here from Korea, and still stayed in our squadron here in Minnesota. We flew Corsairs for another several years, and then we transitioned into jets, and flew those for several years, and then finally I decided that I d been in the military long enough, so I retired then in about I think that s where we re gonna cut it off. Okay. I have just a couple of questions for you. Back a ways, you said you Tally Ho d it.

6 To a non-professional, what did you do when you Tally Ho d it? Tally Ho means you re drawing attention to something you re seeing. Okay. Tally Ho. Bogie means it s an unidentified airplane. In this case, we were sure it was an enemy plane, so we say Tally Ho. Bandit. Nine o clock. Right in the sun streak. And that s basically what I said. And so Tally Ho is just terminology to draw everyone s attention, you know. What an experience! Back in the beginning, you were so very young when you did this the day you were eighteen how was it leaving home? Do you have sisters and brothers? I have one sister. One sister? Did you get homesick when you? I ve never been homesick in my life. Is that right? No. No bother at all. Why do you think that is? I don t know, but I ve seen many grown men just cry because of this, but it never had bothered me at all. And I don t know I ve thought about this because other people have asked the same question. I ve always been interested in so many things. And you know, wherever I go, it s just fascinating. All the new the only thing I was ever even bored at was on the carrier. I read every single book there that they had. They had three records, I remember. And we used to get Tokyo Rose on the radio, and listen to her. And I thought instead of court marshaling her, they should have given her some type of an award because it was so interesting listening to her on the radio. And that was the only thing we could pick up out there. And we had a 24-hour a day poker game going and a 24-hour a day bridge game going, and if it wasn t for those things, we would have gone

7 stark because in the military, the biggest problem is boredom. Ninety five percent of it is boredom, and five percent of the time, its sheer terror. So to speak, as somebody once said. But, no, I never felt homesick at all. Well, I asked you that, and knowing you to the degree that I do, that would have been my answer for you, too, that you re just so vitally interested in where you re at right now, that you don t fill your thoughts with other things. You re just absorbing everything around you, so to speak. Okay. You re on a time schedule. We will continue this. By the way, I see one thing here. Do you remember any special buddies? Something happened just two weeks ago that was sort of interesting. One of the guys that was in the Minneapolis squadron here, and there was also my wing man over there in Korea, Bill Holten. And when we came back to the States, he decided to stay in the Marine Corps, and fly and I got out. Or I went to Pensacola, Florida, and then got out. And I d lost track of him. A former county commissioner, Dick Lange, was in a church down in South Minneapolis and he was sitting next to a guy and so they got talking and he said he s from Anoka, and this guy said he was in the Marine Corps. One thing led to another. I had Dick in class as a student. He said, Oh, he said, I know a guy that used to be in the Marine Corps, and Bill Holden says, For goodness sakes. He used to fly with! Well, anyway, he s living in California now, and he came back because his sister s dying of cancer, so anyway he called me up on the telephone, and so anyway, that was so neat. Medals. Lot of medals. They were given away very easily.that s enough for now. Okay. We will continue this, and I thank you very much.