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Burns, Estel G., 1921-. Oral history interview with Estel G. Burns, 2009 October 14.

Title: Oral history interview with Estel G. Burns, 2009 October 14.

Interview with retired Lieutenant Colonel Estel G. Burns, an Army Air Forces veteran (8th Army Air Force, 401st Bombardment Group) and a recipient of Distinguished Flying Cross, concerning his childhood and education in rural Missouri; struggle to survive the years of the Great Depression and the drought ; enlistment in U.S. Army following two years of farm work after 1940 high school graduation; his pre-aviation cadet basic training at Sheppard Field II Army Air Corps Training Center in Texas, and training as a radio operator in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, followed by extensive pilot training at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama (pre-flight school), Thompson-Robbins Field in Helena, Arkansas, Freeman Army Airfield, Seymour, Indiana, Sioux City Army Air Base, Iowa, and Chanutte Field, Illinois; Burns's marriage to Dorothy Perin; promotion to First Lieutenant as a B-17 pilot in charge of a nine member crew; deployment to England, and crossing the Atlantic on USS Brazil; the accident at RAF Deenethorpe airfield; thirty-five combat missions flown over France and Germany from Deenethorpe, England as a member of the 612th Bombardment Squadron (part of the 401st Bombardment Group); return to the US in November 1944; his training as an instructor pilot at Lockbourne Air Force Base, Columbus Ohio, and assignments in Charleston, South Carolina; release from the service and work for Naublits and Sparks Industries in Indiana, and, later, for an Indiana telephone company; his return to active duty and service for twenty-seven years before retirement in 1969; loss of his first wife and loss of the eldest son. The interview contains many details about the training, the daily life of soldiers, B-17 and its operation. Estel Burns remembers each of his nine B-17 crew members and recounts some of the many dramatic moments of his service in WWII. Appendix consists of photocopies of photographs of First Lieutenant Burns, his B-17 crew, a list of their names and of the thirty-five combat missions they flew.

ArchivalResource: 223, [5] leaves of plates ; 29 cm.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/761731196 View