Warren Eyer

U.S. Air Corps
Pacific Theater

“Everybody felt just about the same way: fearless.”

When America entered WWII, Warren Eyer was 20 years old, He joined the Air Corps (the Air Force at that time), participating in many important missions and flying a variety of planes. He served in the Pacific Theater and held a record for the fastest flight from San Francisco to Hawaii (10 hours, 58 minutes) for 2 years.

Mr. Eyer, how old were you when the war started?
That would have been when I ended forty-two, so I would have been twenty.

What were your reasons for enlisting?
Primarily to protect our country.

Who did you have to leave when you went off to the war?
I lived here in Tucson at the time. I was a student and I left my mother, father, and sister.

What were your emotions before you left for the war?
I don’t recall any particular emotions outside of a strong desire to get even for Pearl Harbor.

Did you enlist after you found out about Pearl Harbor?
Yes, shortly after.

Why did you pick the service branch that you joined?
I wanted to be in the Air Corps from the time I was about six years old.

Do you have any particular reason why?
I wanted to fly.

The B25, taken in 1943 in Fresno California, in which Eyer broke the speed record flying from San Francisco to Hawaii. Eyer’s recorded time was 10 hours 58 minutes.

What personal items did you bring with you before you left and why?
I can’t recall taking anything; you didn’t have any room to take anything. Shaving articles. That would have been about it. They were going to dress you as they wanted.

As far as pictures or anything at home, you didn’t…
No.

Do you recall your first days in the service?
Oh, yes.

What was it like?
Well, my mother and father drove me to Phoenix, where I caught a train to Santa Ana, California, to attend pre-flight school.

What was the most difficult part about your training?
As I recall, probably Morse Code

What made that difficult for you?
Darn if I know. I just had a difficult time remembering the digits.

Can you tell me about your first experience outside of training?
Outside of training while I was stationed in Santa Ana. Most of my weekends were at Balboa, sailing with a friend who had a boat down there�a sailboat�which was very enjoyable.

What was your most difficult battle or experience in the war; what was the hardest for you?
Probably my first mission, attacking the Japanese held island of Mili at low altitude — skip bombing — located in the Marshall group. We lost 5 aircrafts out of 18. Fortunately, I wasn’t one of those lost.

How did the people of higher rankings treat you?
Just fine. Higher rank in our service was no problem.

Warren Eyer’s, plane on the left, taken on January 23, 1947 has appeared in museums across the country. It was taken in the Maloelap Islands by fellow pilot Bulloks.

What were the medals that you were awarded represent?
First I’ll tell you what I was awarded. I was awarded the flying cross 3 times, for three various actions. The first one was for two or three missions bombing Mili, We lost half our squadron in our first six missions. Next, I stayed and circled my downed flight leader off the island of Nauru until my fuel was about exhausted, barely making it back to my base. I was awarded a flying cross for that. The third one reads “For Meritorious Service, above and beyond the call of duty while completing 52 missions.” I was awarded six air medals, and they were for lesser happenings. I can’t pick out any specific action. I have 3 battle stars on my Asiatic Theater Ribbon and 1 have a battle star on my Pacific Theater Ribbon.

Can you talk about your most memorable experience in the war?
Probably a couple of them: A high-level mission bombing an island by the name of Nauru. They had extremely accurate anti-aircraft people there. On a bomb run, I had my tail gunner yelling at me to take evasive action. He said there was AA gunfire right on our track. Then there was a burst behind us — one through the plane- — it was directly behind me, but it was a dud, missed me by probably three feet.

You were fine?
Oh yeah.

How did that feel –flying and getting shot at?
After I got back I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. There was a string of bursts coming up behind us, right on our track, continuing in through our flight path with the dud passing through the plane, the next burst directly in front of me. If the dud had been alive we would have all been lost.

How many people were on the plane with you?
Five others; a crew of six.

What kind of planes did you fly?
The PT-22 Ryan with open cockpit; you are flying with helmet and goggles. Fun to fly. That was the time we were in primary, the next school, would have been BT-17, and then advanced Flying school AT-9, AT-17, AT-6, and B-25 an experimental class. After graduation, B-24s in March Field; B-25s in Sacramento and overseas; A-26’s as an instructor and Luke Field; and Phoenix, Arizona in the AN-6. In Arizona National Guard a P-51, and that would just about cover it.

Taken August 1943 members of Doc’s Abortion Eyer, Inman, Weinacker, Garrison and Dominick after completing 46 missions. Each member of Doc’s Abortion autographed the plane. Doc’s Abortion was the last plane to be shot down in World War II.So looks like mostly attack Aircraft right?
Yes, except for the B-51 because it filled pursuit and fighter roles.

You enjoyed flying?
Very much so.

What was your favorite plane to fly?
I’d say just for fun going up, playing around in the clouds that the plane I soloed in the PT-22 Ryan, open cockpit, wins hands down.

You put here that you were in the second division to bomb Japan. How did you feel about that assignment?
I had come home. My group, which consisted of four squadrons, went on. We initially went to Tarawa and based at Makin Island and then Eniwetoc and then Okinawa. By that time I had my missions in and came on home and checked out, and A-26s, I was preparing for invasion for Japan, which of course wasn’t necessary.

What was it like going in there and doing that mission?
Exciting. Oh really really, quite a rush.

What fears if any did you have during the war?
I don’t recall having any fears; nothing was going to happen to me. Everybody felt just about the same way: fearless. Until you get a little older, and then common sense kicks in.

What went through your mind when you found out that the Japanese had surrendered?
Oh, I was very very happy. We weren’t looking forward to the invasion of Japan. We had already seen how they conducted themselves. They’d rather die in any manner rather than surrender or be captured. Everybody figured that the Japanese would defend their homeland house to house, which would be a horrible way to fight a war, especially for a pilot.

Where were you when you found out?
I was in Marianna, Florida, instructing in A-26s.

This photo was taken from Eyers plane. The pilot, Ed Feast had crashed into the ocean. Eyer circled the plane until he ran out of fuel awarding him an Air Medal.

How did you stay in touch with your family during the war?
By mail, letters; very rarely a telephone call.

What was your families view on you going to fight the war?
I don’t recall it. If anything it was probably quite proud. My father had gone into business. When we lived here in Tucson and he bought out small sand and gravel company between Coolidge and Florence. He was furnishing materials to build an air base and prison camps. My father also served in WW1

Did you have anything to entertain yourself or something to do while you were in the war? Kind of on your off time and stuff?
Twice, Bob Hope came to entertain the troops during the year’s period I was overseas. Here in the states you had everything, girls, dances, and an occasional movie.

Did you, with some of the people you were stationed with, find ways to anything you know pass the time and stuff?
We did a lot of swimming. My tent was right on the beach and I went surfing every day that I wasn’t flying. It wasn’t too bad, lots of sunshine. Played a lot of poker

Do you recall any particularly humorous or unusual events?
Usually in a situation like this, you really remember the funny parts. The whole group was transferred from California to Hawaii in anticipation of flying on down to Tarawa. My flight from Hamilton Field, which is just north of San Francisco, to Hickam, took three flights before I made it. The B-25 didn’t have the range to fly twenty-five hundred miles to Hawaii. So you had auxiliary tanks. They put fuel tanks in the bomb bay and a fuel tank in the radio compartment behind the bomb bay. That gave you enough fuel to just make it. We discovered a leak the first time out, in one of the tanks and had to abort and put the craft back into repair. The second time out and we’re talking about a flight that took close to twelve hours normally. I was about six hours out and we discovered about four inches of gasoline slushing around in the backend of the aircraft. Of course fumes were everywhere. I shut everything electrical off and we were literally a time bomb. All we needed was one good spark and it would blow. We aborted and headed back to San Francisco. About one hour out of Frisco, we caused an alert, and fighters came up. This was about one o’clock in the morning, very dark, and I was afraid to turn anything on to signal. We have an automatic signal devise that sent out a code. I had turned that off, and I was afraid to turn that on. We just kind of crossed our fingers and hoped they identified us, and they did. They turned on their landing lights and determined that we were a B25 and followed us clear in. In the meantime they blacked out all of San Francisco. It was totally blacked out. We stopped the plane at the end of the runway after landing and got the heck out of there and back into repair it went. Then the final try — that repair took a couple more weeks to get a new tank in. I set a speed record that stood for two years between San Francisco and Hawaii: Ten hours and fifty-nine minutes, which is just about an hour better than normal time. Stood for two years before that was broken and that was with the full combat load of equipment

So, flying out there with just enough gas to get back, sometimes it must have come pretty close to running out of gas and hanging on?
Lots of sweat jobs. I also held the record for number of holes in an aircraft that returned. That stood for a time in the Central Pacific area. I renamed my plane Patches. But they wouldn’t let me paint that on the sides. The Japanese were quite adept at keeping track of the names of the aircrafts and using something out of the ordinary. Tokyo Rose would include the name of the plane and sometimes even the name of the pilot in their broadcast. “We’ll catch you later, we’ll see you again.”

What about sinking the first German sub in American waters, what was that like?
This was my Squadron, the 396 Bomb Squadron (previously the 6th Recon), that sank the first German submarine in American waters in World War II. In contrast to that, my aircraft doc’s abortion — abortion at that time was referred primarily to scratching, or getting out of a mission — was the last plane to be shot down in combat in World War II. Two kind of extreme periods.

You made Major, did you start out commission or did you start out enlisting?
No, I was commissioned when I graduated from flight school. I served in the ROTC First Calvary, U of A, — wild times there, crazy horses we had. The big deal, you know where the Elks Lodge is on River Road, that area. At that time that was totally desert; nothing around there. The big happening each semester was to take a whole Calvary group that might be about sixty horsemen, line abreast up on the bluffs, swords, charged, and this was just before the war. As a matter of fact the war was already going in England and Germany, in Europe. Down the hill you came, the horses were quite smart, and their favorite trick was to reach over to the next guys’ and try to bite you on the calf of your leg, they succeeded most of the time. You’d end up dodging cactus, at a gallop, line abreast, horseman here and horseman there, and a horse that was going to do what he wanted to do.

What was your opinion at the time and now about the atomic bomb being dropped.
I was quite happy that it was dropped, and I still am and I’m probably here because it was. Most of my fellow Airmen felt the same way. If I was a ground pounder, I’d sure feel that way.

So you all felt that it saved a lot of American and Japanese lives?
Oh yeah, without a doubt. No doubt.