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| James W. Taylor's WWII Experiences |
| Donor | Original Source | PIMA ID | Donor ID | Category |
| Richard P. Ellinger | James W. Taylor | NA | RPE-44019 | OCR-DA-P |
| Barksdale field was a permanent base, meaning that it was a pre WW2 military installation. Camp Roberts, Buckley Field, Sioux Falls Air Base and Yuma Army Air Field had all been built after the draft had been initiated or perhaps even after Pearl Harbor day, December 7, 1941.Barksdale Field was a field where combat crews received their training on the B-26---the Martin Marauder. I was looking forward to that assignment. The delay in route from Yuma, to home, to Barksdale, was too short. It was great to see my parents, my sister, my brother and a few friends that were still living at Littlefield. Best of all, I was able to see a young lady that I had met and dated while I was at West
Texas State before I was drafted. She had since then graduated with a B.S. and was working for Phillips Petroleum in their labs. She lived in a company building in a company town named Phillips. She came down to Littlefield to see me. She had a sister who was teaching at Levelland, a small town south of Littlefield. I drove Doris Nell back to Canyon in the Taylor family car, a '39 Ford Sedan.
I arrived at Barksdale in early September of 1943. Those first few days there were tragic and unsettling. It seemed that every day, the local newspaper headline was "Plane crashes and burns no survivors !" The Free French flew out of Lake Charles, and were in training to fly the B-26, but obviously not very well. Those daily stories did little to inspire confidence and I had started to wonder if I had made an error in requesting "medium" bombers. After a few days, we were assembled in one of the hangers out on the flight line to be assigned to a crew. Lucky me ! When my name was called, I went over to join a crew whose pilot was a Michigander named Edwin S. Barney. He looked distinguished, was tall, rather blondish and seemed a bit older than some of the other pilots. I liked that. The Co-Pilot was Charles Hoeft. WW-18-20 P.19 |
| Page 19 |
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