Oral history interview with Lawrence E. Griffin, 2000.

ArchivalResource

Griffin, Lawrence E., 1924-. Oral history interview with Lawrence E. Griffin, 2000.

Oral history interview with Lawrence E. Griffin, 2000.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57169775

Lawrence E. Griffin, a South Beloit, Illinois native, discusses his World War II service with the Air Corps as a gunner aboard a B-25. Griffin touches on volunteering for the Air Corps, staying in hotels during part of his training, washing out of airway communications school in Chicago and radio school in Madison (Wisconsin), and gunnery training at Fort Myers (Florida). He describes training on B-25s and B-17s at Greenville (South Carolina) and flying overseas with his crew via Brazil and Tunis to Corsica, where they joined the 489th Bomb Squadron. He comments on frequently flying with different crews, his co-pilot's getting killed, and frequent theft of silk parachutes. Griffin discusses his first missions over Italy, a long, cold mission to Yugoslavia, and several missions against Italian bridges. He reports on some German tricks, such as directing anti-aircraft fire from a captured B-25 and making bridges look like they had been bombed. Griffin details the mission when his plane was shot down: getting blown out of the plane, being wounded by shrapnel, landing in a tree, and being picked up by the Italian Home Guard and taken to a German military hospital by sledge. He comments on being transported with German soldiers, his medical treatment, and almost getting killed by an angry guard, whose parents had been killed in the bombing of Berlin. Griffin talks about being a pallbearer for a prisoner of war who died in the hospital. Griffin describes the food at the German hospital, some of the other Allied POWs, and their injuries. After the war ended, he tells of being liberated by the Red Cross, working with the partisans to accept surrendering troops, and being taken by an American ambulance through Pisa to Naples, where he was flown back to the States. He describes leave in New York City, turning 21 on the ride home, a ninety-day convalescence furlough, and getting discharged. Griffin touches on joining a POW group in Janesville (Wisconsin), getting a POW license plate, receiving a disability pension, and having continuing medical problems from his injuries.

Sound recording : 1 sound disc (ca. 50 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.Videorecording : 1 videocassette (ca. 50 min.) ; sd., col. ; 1/2 in.Master sound recording : 1 sound cassette (ca. 50 min.) : analog, 1 7/8 ips.Security sound recording : 1 sound disc (ca. 50 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.Transcript : 32 p.Military Papers : 0.1 linear ft. (1 folder)

Wisconsin Veterans Museum Research Center