Interview with Edmund A. Jung
Captain, 87th Fighter Group, 527th Squadron, Army Air Corps, World War II
Cook Memorial Public Library
November 17th, 2007

 ELLEN: This interview is taking place on November 19th, 2007 at the home of Edmund Jung. Also present is Mr. Jung’s wife Ruth and friend Don Jenkinson. My name is Ellen Bassett and I am interviewing Mr. Jung who was a bomber pilot in the Army Air Corps in World War II and also a member of Lee’s Lieutenants. Mr. Jung was born on September 29th, 1921 and currently resides in Chicago, Illinois. Can you tell me did you enlist or were you drafted?

 EDMUND: No, I enlisted.

 ELLEN: What were you doing at the time?

EDMUND: I was a sheet metal worker for the Board of Education.

ELLEN: What made you decide to enlist? Why did you pick the Navy, Army Air Corps, I’m sorry. Why did you pick the Army Air Corps?

EDMUND: I had flying in college, I took flying lessons. The Army offered a course and they only charged my dad $30. I got my private pilot’s license.

ELLEN: Oh, so you had your license already?

EDMUND: I had my private pilot’s license, yeah.

ELLEN: Did you join the Army Air Corps knowing you’d be a pilot? Was there any guarantee?

EDMUND: Well I wanted to be a pilot. That was the idea in college.

ELLEN: Alright so you were a sheet metal worker. Where did you enlist at? Where were you living at the time?

EDMUND: I was living on the south side.

ELLEN: So you enlisted somewhere around there?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Where did you go for basic training?

EDMUND: Well, I went to Fort Sheridan. I was in the Army as an enlisted man but then I took a test for the Army Air Corps.

ELLEN: And you did obviously pretty well on that?

EDMUND: Well yeah although the washout rate was pretty high. It’s a good thing I had my flying lessons earlier because they washed out about fifty percent of the pilots.

ELLEN: So from there did you have to go through a basic, a rigorous basic training?

EDMUND: Yeah over nine months for various flying.

ELLEN: What was that like? What memories do you have of that?

EDMUND: Well we went and we flew single engine light planes and then we advanced into more advanced flying then into formation flying and then into gunnery.

ELLEN: Where did you go? This was a nine month training, where did you go for that?

EDMUND: I went to Edid, Oklahoma and Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Army Air Force base in San Antonio.

ELLEN: So a nine month training.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Did you train for a specific position or was it kind of a general training?

EDMUND: Well to fly single engine fighters, that’s what I…

ELLEN: So you knew you would be flying them. What plane did you fly?

EDMUND: B-47 Thunderbolt.

ELLEN: Did you know ahead of time that that was what you would be flying?

EDMUNG: No I didn’t know that. I flew and trained on a P-40 and then advanced to a B-47.

ELLEN: And those were all single man…?

EDMUND: All single yeah.

ELLEN: And so you were there for nine months and from there once you finished your training, where did you go from there?

EDMUNG: Well then I went to Eagle Pass, Texas and from there I was shipped overseas.

ELLEN: Where were you shipped to?

EDMUND: To England.

ELLEN: To England okay, is that where your base was?

EDMUND: I was based in Corsica, down in Corsica.

ELLEN: In Corsica, and how soon before you had to start flying missions?

EDMUND: Well it was about 1944, January of 1944 I started flying missions.

ELLEN: Do you remember your first mission that you flew?

EDMUND: Oh yeah.

ELLEN: What can you tell me about that?

EDMUND: Well somebody was leading a mission to bomb an airfield in Italy and we were all over the sky. Everybody was confused and we learned a little bit from that, stick together in four ship flights.

ELLEN: So that one was a little…how often did you have to fly missions?

EDMUND: Well see I flew 114 combat missions in 15 months so sometimes we would fly two a day or three in a week or so.

ELLEN: Wow that’s quite a bit. Do you remember some of your most dangerous missions?

EDMUND: Well yeah one mission was where I-it was raining and they wanted to get into the Po Valley in Italy so two planes took off and I had a wingman. In fact my wingman is Ed Brown, he lives up here in Northbrook so he and I took off and it was so bad I was going to go back to the field then this one two ship flight called me up and said, “Red Leader I’m up 13,000 feet” he says, “I’m going over to the Po Valley.” I thought, “Crazy.” I says, “Well if he did it I have to,” so I told my wingman to get on my wing and we climbed up, about 25 minutes up, got up to about 13,000 feet and headed north into the Po Valley to bomb and strafe but when I got through I decided now I got to get back to find the base again so I climbed up to 13,000 feet. The controller got a hold of me and he says, “I’ll steer you over the ocean,” so I had to depend on him so he steered me, he says, “ Okay, you’re over the ocean now,” so I had to believe him so I went down and we were still at about 1,000 feet and I found my base and landed and they gave up on me, they thought I was gone.

ELLEN: Wow.

EDMUND: That was one of my hairiest missions.

ELLEN: But you turned up okay.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Was combat involved in all of these missions?

EDMUND: Well we didn’t have too much air to air. We’re strictly after locomotives and bridges and trucks and troops so we would go down on the deck and bomb and strafe.

ELLEN: And then you would get out of there.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: So there wasn’t much, whatever was on the ground was not shooting back at you.

EDMUND: Oh yeah but they couldn’t shoot, well, they hit me 18 times.

ELLEN: Oh my goodness, you mean your plane, obviously…

EDMUND: Yeah, yeah.

ELLEN: Was it bad damage to your plane?

EDMUND: Well sometimes I would go too low and I would drop my bombs and I would get the bomb blast that kind of crushed the bottom of my ship. At one time I was strafing and I hit trees and I had to fly back to base and I had to belly in so I bellied in at 100 miles an hour and I hit down and I jumped out of that plane and I ran and the crew chief said, “Where’s the pilot?” and I said, “I’m over here!” I figured the plane was going to blow up.

ELLEN: Wow so you were obviously-these kind of emergencies, was this instinct, your reaction, or had you been trained on how to handle these things?

EDMUND: Well I was supposed to give a talk on how to belly in a ship afterward.

ELLEN: Obviously you did it well.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: How did you feel, was there a lot of stress in this job?

EDMUND: I didn’t feel too much stress, no.

ELLEN: How can you explain that?

EDMUND: My age at that time, I guess. I figured that it was always going to be the other guy.

ELLEN: Well, that’s good. How about fear?

EDMUND: I didn’t have too much fear.

ELLEN: Really? Even when you had some of these dangerous things happen?

EDMUND: Well I figured with my .850 caliber machine guns and my bombs I was the master of it all.

ELLEN: That’s probably what helped you get through it. Now you were a part of Lee’s Lieutenants. Who was Lee?

EDMUND: He was a Colonel and he would take some of us on missions, he would lead the missions. The trouble is he would fly in first and by the time he lifted, the guns were all after us so we lost a lot of pilots with him but then I was assigned to John Dolyak (?) 527 th fighter squadron of the 86 th fighter group. So I wasn’t under Lee all the time. We didn’t have too much respect for him because he would go in first and by the time he left, the guns were after us, you know.

ELLEN: What was his name?

EDMUND: Colonel Lee.

ELLEN: What was his first name? Do you remember?

EDMUND: No.

ELLEN: So he wasn’t well thought of by the men.

EDMUND: Not really.

ELLEN: Did you know him personally?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: How was your relationship with him personally?

EDMUND: Well I wasn’t too anxious to fly with him because he would lead us into targets and he would…..

ELLEN: Take off? Boy, how’s that. Amongst this group, in Lee’s Lieutenants, did you make any good friends while you were in that group?

EDMUND: Oh yeah quite a few.

ELLEN: Did you have nicknames for one another?

EDMUND: Well one of them was, he was, we were all in our early twenties he was about twenty-nine so we called him Pappy Pierce. He was the old man, he got shot down but he made it back.

ELLEN: Oh good. Did you have a nickname, one that you can mention?

EDMUND: No, I don’t think so.

ELLEN: You mentioned getting shot down. If you were shot down, what were the chances that you would survive?

EDMUND: …if they would catch us…(?)

ELLEN: Really? So the chances that you would make it back were almost nil.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Were very slim. If someone was shot down were the chances that their plane, they could land the plane or was it….

EDMUND: Well as a rule they would just bail out.

ELLEN: Okay.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Can you tell me any of the stories about some of the men that you were friends with some of things you guys did or…

EDMUND: Well this one, George Hill and Taylor, both of them were killed. He’s the one that went up to 13,000 feet and said, “We’re going in.” He just was quite a pilot, quite a war hero. But this day he and this Taylor tried to get into the Po Valley, while the weather closed in they flew in and they were both killed so this John Dolyak (?), my C.O., he and I were supposed to be next to go but the fact that they didn’t come back, he said we better not go so we finally found that they crashed and were killed but this George Hill he would go in enemy territory, I remember he found these hand grenades that the Germans had and he’d pull them them throw them.

ELLEN: Sounds like he was kind of a daredevil.

EDMUND: Well yeah. But it’s too bad he ended up the way he did. One time he was chasing a German bomber and he ran out of ammunition so he came in so close that the pilots looked around and they flew right into the ground so he got credit for a kill because, he just was so determined. I know one time he would fly and he saw a whole group of Germans walking down the highway they didn’t hear him coming. He strafed and he killed them all. He was just kind of a wild man.

ELLEN: Gosh, was he one of your closer friends?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Oh he was.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Were there other men in the group that you became good friends with?

EDMUND: Yeah who was it, Shirow, (?) he finally died but…

ELLEN: Did he die during the war?

EDMUND: No, after the war.

ELLEN: What do you remember about him? Any stories? Any funny stories?

EDMUND: One time the Germans dynamited a dam and the water went up to about 14 feet and we had to go up to the second floor and there was a vehicle down there that was covered with water. Cows were swimming around and Shirow (?) found a boat and they went over to this place, they rescued some old people or they would have drowned, so he got the Medal of Honor for that.

ELLEN: Oh he did. How many men were in Lee’s Lieutenants?

EDMUND: That was just that one group but we probably had about forty of us, forty pilots.

ELLEN: Were they all bomber pilots like you that flew this B-47?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Explain, which I didn’t realize, the difference between that and some of these other planes. That was a single man plane and what you did and your job was when you flew this thing and explain what else that you did.

EDMUND: We had to bomb bridges and strafe troops, strafe locomotives.

ELLEN: You said you mentioned you did dive bombing.

EDMUND: Well that was every time we would go, we’d go down to the ground.

ELLEN: How close to the ground did you get?

EDMUND: Just tree top level.

ELLEN: Really.

EDMUND: Hundred feet or so.

ELLEN: And how fast would you be going?

 EDMUND: Probably about 300.

ELLEN: 300 miles an hour?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: What was the casualty rate amongst dive bomber pilots?

EDMUND: About 25 percent.

ELLEN: Was that average?

EDMUND: I guess so, yeah.

ELLEN: So you obviously lost a lot of good friends.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: You explained what happened to that one gentleman, were there any other good friends that you lost during the war?

EDMUND: Blaine Nelson, he was ahead of me, he was strafing and he got hit so he jumped out of the-tried to get on his chute, hit the tail and he went in and was killed.

ELLEN: What was the reaction of the other men when you lost somebody?

EDMUND: We’re sorry to see them go but…

ELLEN: You just kind of went on with what you needed to do.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Did you ever have to evacuate your plane?

EDMUND: No just that one time I bellied in.

ELLEN: Bellied in, but you never had to use your parachute?

EDMUND: No.

ELLEN: So you obviously weren’t a daredevil, but you knew what you were doing.

EDMUND: Well one mission I can remember I was supposed to, I was leading these eight ships. We were supposed to bomb…from Nancy, France we were supposed to bomb a bridge and the wind pushed me past the bridge. I didn’t see the bridge, I had a picture and next thing I know I was flying down the Rhine River, big river, and I looked up and there was a big bridge but it didn’t look like the picture I had so I told my (?), “Arm your bomb, get ready to bomb,” and we looked over and there was about eight American planes. So my C.O. was flying, Tailing Charlie, and he says, “Hey Red Leader that’s the Remagen Bridge,” so I told my guys, “Let’s get out of here!” The Remagen Bridge, that was the bridge that the Americans were trying to go into Germany and the Germans were trying to prevent anybody from bombing it. So these P-38s were there to protect the bridge, so they looked at us coming in there and they didn’t know what to think. It’s a good thing I decided to get out of there because if I would have bombed there, in fact, there’s an (?), that Sunday he was down there, so I told him the story, “You know I (?) killed me, you know I was down there-the Remagen Bridge.

ELLEN: Wow it’s a good thing you recognized that.

EDMUND: Well I wouldn’t have, but my C.O. said that’s the Remagen Bridge. That didn’t mean much to me but I knew it wasn’t the picture I had so I got out of there so we found the bridge that we were supposed to bomb and I bombed that and we got back to the base.

ELLEN: Do you have a mission that you consider was your most successful or the best mission maybe?

EDMUND: Well I had one mission that I was supposed to bomb Gestapo headquarters and it was solid overcast and I kept flying and flying and I looked down and there’s a break in the clouds and there’s the building, so I peeled off and bombed the hotel. (phone rings, recorder turned off)

ELLEN: We were just talking about bombing Gestapo headquarters and there was a break in the clouds.

EDMUND: Yeah, I could see the ground finally and there was the building I was supposed to bomb so I told my C.O., I says, “Hey I’m pretty good at finding targets,” and he says, “Yeah.” After this mission where I almost bombed the Remagen Bridge I said, “Remember how I was able to find these targets?” “Yeah I know, you’re okay.”

ELLEN: So you did bomb Gestapo headquarters?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Where was that located?

EDMUND: It was north of (?).

ELLEN: That was probably considered quite a success then. Yeah, I can see why.

EDMUND: And we also dropped fire bombs. The Germans protested it because if it didn’t burn, it sucked up all the oxygen, 210 gallons napalm.

ELLEN: What did you carry in terms of weapons? What was it that you carried on the plane since you were by yourself?

EDMUND: I had a .45.

ELLEN: What was the plane equipped with in terms of weaponry or bombs?

EDMUND: Two five hundred pound bombs and eight machine guns.

ELLEN: So you had to go in to do a strafing, a bombing and strafing mission. How many passes could you go through, in other words, the machine guns were loaded with ammo….do you know what I’m trying to say? How much ammo did you have on board for these machine guns?

 EDMUND: Probably about 2000 rounds

ELLEN: So you could go through again and again if you had to?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: That’s what I’m trying to get at, but the bombs…

EDMUND: There was one mission where we had done some strafing and bombing so I was just going back to base and I see this ship coming into the (?) and I can still see the guy steering the ship but I decided not to shoot him. I was going to try and sink the ship so we were told to strafe right at the water’s edge so I strafed at the water’s edge and I pulled up I was down at a hundred feet and one of my wingmen called me and he says, “Red Leader, I’ve still got my bombs should I go after that ship?” I said, “No they’re too hot, it’s too hot a target, salvo your bombs and we’ll go back to base.” I never did find out what happened to that ship but I imagine that captain that was steering that thing was wondering, “What’s this guy doing shooting at my plane?” Of course I probably did a lot of damage to the ship but whatever happened to it I don’t know but I could have shot him but somehow I didn’t.

ELLEN: You mentioned that they called you Red Leader. Why were you called that?

EDMUND: Red Leader, if you were leading a mission, you have the name Red Leader.

ELLEN: Were you considered a leader of the group?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Really. So when you flew formations, where was your position in the formation? You were the lead plane.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Was that a dangerous position to be in or a good position?

EDMUND: Good position because you were in charge of the whole flight, what you were going to do.

ELLEN: Did you guys, on Corsica, did you ever have any entertainment on the island?

EDMUND: Yeah we had Bob Hope and Jerry Colonna.

ELLEN: Did you get to see those shows?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Did you get to meet him?

EDMUND: We touched base with him yeah.

ELLEN: What do you remember from the show, did you enjoy it?

EDMUND: Well yeah they had a couple of sharp women too.

ELLEN: Oh how about that, sharp women. Were you able to keep in touch with your family while you were over there?

EDMUND: Yeah I used to send letters.

ELLEN: Did you ever receive any care packages from home?

EDMUND: No.

ELLEN: Was there anybody special that you kept in touch with, from home?

EDMUND: Just my family. We didn’t know one another (points to wife).

ELLEN: What were the living conditions on the island like?

EDMUND: Well we were in tents.

ELLEN: Oh you were.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: So you didn’t even have barracks.

EDMUND: No.

ELLEN: So my next question, how was the food?

EDMUND: It was pretty good although one of the pilots that was with me, Dodo Gates was his name, he knew all about living in tents so he dug a trench so that if it rained it would avoid our tent. Well that night it poured rain and we were in there. It didn’t bother us in the tent. We heard voices yelling, “Our tents down! Our tents down!” All the tents went down except ours because he loosened these ropes and the others were tight and pulled out of the ground. Their tents were down. The mess tents went down, everything went down except ours.

ELLEN: Really? Was the weather generally pretty good on the island?

EDMUND: You know yeah.

ELLEN: Since it was an island was it warm most of the time?

EDMUND: Yeah it was pretty warm yeah.

ELLEN: Were you able to go on leave?

EDMUND: We went to the island of Capri.

ELLEN: Who did you go with?

EDMUND: Just a couple pilots .

ELLEN: And what did you guys do?

EDMUND: We rode some donkeys.

ELLEN: Rode donkeys.

EDMUND: And then they had a place down there, Blue Grotto, but we weren’t interested in those things like that so we just had a few.

ELLEN: A good time.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: What did you guys do in your spare time?

EDMUND: We played baseball, horseshoes.

ELLEN: Horseshoes. I haven’t heard that. That’s interesting. I know you received some awards and citations. Can you tell me about those, what you got the awards for?

EDMUND: We didn’t appreciate when they would come and give awards. Most of us wouldn’t even attend because we didn’t feel like any heroes or anything like that.

ELLEN: That’s interesting but yet you’ve got a lot of medals.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: What are the medals that you have?

 EDMUND: The DFC and Air Medals with clusters.

ELLEN: How many clusters?

EDMUND: Four or five.

ELLEN: Four or five clusters and what was the first medal you said, the DFC?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: What does that stand for?

EDMUND: Distinguished Flying Cross.

ELLEN: Was that given to all of the pilots?

EDMUND: No, just for certain missions.

ELLEN: What other medals did you get? You have a couple of them there.

EDMUND: The Air Medal.

ELLEN: And there were some ribbons or bars, do you remember?

EDMUND: These are things you were supposed to pin on.

ELLEN: Did that tell your rank?

EDMUND: No.

ELLEN: What was the highest rank that you achieved?

EDMUND: Captain.

ELLEN: You were a Captain.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: So when you wore your dress uniform you wore these.

EDMUND: We put them on our uniform.

ELLEN: Were you on Corsica, stationed there for the duration of your…?

EDMUND: No, I was in Orbatello, in France and Germany, most of the time I was on Corsica.

ELLEN: Oh but they did move you around, is that as the war progressed you moved to these…

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Were you over there for V-E Day?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: What do you remember about that?

EDMUND: We flew formation.

ELLEN: Oh you did.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: And where did you go.

EDMUND: Just over Germany.

ELLEN: Did you, you didn’t shoot or anything, you just flew around and flew formation? Do you remember how you felt?

EDMUND: Glad the war was over.

ELLEN: Good. There was no danger that when you flew over Germany that you would be, at that point…

EDMUND: Not at that time, no.

ELLEN: How soon before you were able to go back home?

EDMUND: You have certain points you get. I finally, I was sent home on the Queen Mary. Normal times there would be 2000, but there were 14,000 of us on that.

ELLEN: Wow. How long had you been over in Europe?

EDMUND: Fifteen months.

ELLEN: So you were able to come home on the Queen Mary. What do you remember about your homecoming? Once you docked, where did the ship come into?

EDMUND: Santa Ana, California.

ELLEN: From there did you have to stay there a while or…

EDMUND: I was going to stay in the service and then finally I decided I said I wanted to get out.

ELLEN: What was your homecoming like when you got home? Was there a big party for you?

EDMUND: I remember getting on a bus or something from the airport. In fact, when I was coming home I had my parachute and they said, “Please don’t bring that parachute in here, other people will get nervous.” I said we were supposed to use it every time we were flying and they said, “Please don’t.” So I stashed the parachute. Anyway, I got on the bus and after flying the bus was going so slow I said, “Let me off.” So I got off and I walked home.

ELLEN: Probably took you a little while to adjust.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Your family I imagine was glad to see you.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: What did you do once your service ended? Were you able to take advantage of the G.I. Bill?

EDMUND: I did but not too much I went to IIT and I took courses there but then I went back to my trade sheet metal.

ELLEN: Oh you did.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Did you ever consider becoming a pilot after the war?

EDMUND: Yeah but the fact that we were single-engine pilots and they had all these men who flew four-engine bombers they had a better chance you know.

ELLEN: So that didn’t work out.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: But did you continue with your career, you were a sheet metal worker, throughout your career then.

EDMUND: Yeah. Then I became a supervisor on the Board of Education and I was in charge of roofing and sheet metal.

ELLEN: I know you started a newsletter called Flyboy.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: This was once you had finished your service. What can you tell me about that?

EDMUND: Well I contacted most of the pilots that I flew with and then they would send fifty cents or a dollar to pay for the postage, you know, so for three years I sent out a monthly letter and I got a lot of recognition from the parents of the ones that were killed.

ELLEN: What types of things did you put in your newsletter?

EDMUND: I would just keep encouraging to send me stories, you know, what they were doing.

ELLEN: So it was stories about what everybody was doing since the war and were these just guys who had served in Lee’s Lieutenants that received this?

EDMUND: Well in the 527 th fighter squadron, it’s what I represented.

ELLEN: How many guys were in that squadron?

EDMUND: About forty.

ELLEN: So it was about forty guys that got this newsletter.

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: And you kept this up for three years?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: And did you attend reunions?

EDMUND: Yeah about a dozen or so.

ELLEN: How often were the reunions?

EDMUND: Every year.

ELLEN: Obviously then you kept in touch with a lot of these men that you met?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: How often did you get to see them?

EDMUND: We got together with a group of them that came to Chicago but most of them were in other states, you know.

ELLEN: It’s interesting that you kept in touch with them for so long you must have been pretty close on that island. Did you stay with these men for the remainder of the war when you were you all moved together?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: So you were together for fifteen months?

EDMUND: Yeah.

ELLEN: Do you belong to any veterans’ organizations?

EDMUND: No .

ELLEN: Oh you never did.

EDMUND: I guess I joined the VFW for a while.

ELLEN: I think that’s about all the questions I have. Was there anything else you wanted to add? Did we cover everything, any other missions that you wanted to talk about? I know we touched on a few. Any other ones that stick out in your mind or anything that you want to mention about your time over in Europe or any of these men you served with, any other stories?

EDMUND: No.

ELLEN: I think we covered it, seems like pretty thoroughly. Ruth, any other stories you can think of that he might have forgotten about?

RUTH: No, I think he covered it pretty well.

ELLEN: Okay, well I want to thank you.