Carrol Joy was born in Morris County about 25 miles south of Manhattan, Kansas in 1920. He had one brother and one sister. His brother was drafted and was badly wounded during the war. His brother made it home and died in his 80s. Joy’s sister passed away just before her 100th birthday. Joy attended a local school that never took a day off no matter what the weather was. He graduated from high school in 1938. He assisted his father on the farm until Pearl Harbor [Annotator’s Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941] came along. Joy heard the news over the radio in the front room of his home. It curled the hair on his back. It meant a war was coming on. He and two of his buddies went to Wichita to enlist in the Air Corps on Christmas afternoon. They were sent home to obtain three letters of recommendation. That was something he found difficult to understand [Annotator’s Note: Joy chuckles at the irony]. On 4 January [Annotator’s Note: 4 January 1942], Joy was sent to Fort Riley. He was sworn into the service on 9 January.

Carrol Joy was erroneously given three sets of shots after swearing into the United States Army Air Forces. His first encounter with an officer was startling for him. He did not know how to react. The officer realized the new recruit’s dilemma and put him at ease [Annotator’s Note: Joy chuckles at the recollection]. After arriving by troop train at Shepherd Field in Texas, he received his third and final complete set of shots. The men practiced close order drill without guns of any kind since there were not even wooden ones to issue. After a few weeks, he was sent to airplane mechanics school. On the first day of training, the men were told not to go near the aircraft while they were on break. Joy and another trainee did not adhere to the order and were caught. They spent the rest of the day sweeping out a large hanger [Annotator’s Note: Joy chuckles at the recollection]. He graduated from there on the Fourth of July [Annotator’s Note: 4 July 1942]. He was sent to another school in Santa Monica in California, but they were between contracts. It was with Douglas Aircraft who manufactured A-20s [Annotator’s Note: Douglas A-20 Havoc light bomber]. Joy was billeted in a hotel right on the beach. It was nice to be able to go out into the water. Everyone enjoyed the food but Joy appeared yellow to one of his buddies. His friend recommended that Joy get checked out. It turned out that Joy had yellow jaundice. He spent a week in the hospital. His next base was Key Field in Meridian, Mississippi. He was first able to fly in the A-20 during that time. It was his first time up in a military aircraft and he became sick. He filled a bucket that was kept in the plane. There were large mosquitoes at the base. He gradually got away from the A-20s and started working on the A-24 [Annotator’s Note: the Douglas A-24 Banshee was the Army variant of the SBD Dauntless dive bomber]. Although it was a good airplane, the brakes did not function well. In 1943, a new group was formed that turned out to be the 406th [Annotator’s Note: the 406th Fighter Group]. Joy was a member of the initial cadre of men in the group. There were four squadrons: the 428th, 429th, 430th and 431. Joy was in the 430th Squadron initially but that was changed later to the 512th, 513th and 514th. Joy was then assigned to the 514th Squadron. The squadron was a fighter-bomber outfit then. The bombing role would be dropped later and the unit renamed the 406th Fighter Group. The group was in the Third Air Force at that time. Joy was crew chief on the first A-24 that was provided to the group. There were two other men in his maintenance crew that reported to him. One of the men was Joy’s assistant and the other was the armorer for the aircraft. Joy also worked on an A-31 and an A-35 [Annotator’s Note: the Vultee A-31 Vengeance dive bomber was modified to become the A-35], both of which were bombers built for the British. It was a sizeable single engine plane. The engine was very loud. Joy left Meridian for an Army airbase outside Jackson, South Carolina where he worked on P-39s [Annotator’s Note: the Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter] and P-47s [Annotator’s Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber]. He received a whole new crew of pilots in the process. From there, he moved to a base along the coast where planes were flown out with tow targets to practice firing over the ocean. In February or March, his unit returned from that assignment. They were given word that they would be traveling. They went by train to Camp Shanks, New York. In New York, they were placed on the Stirling Castle [Annotator’s Note: the MV Stirling Castle was a British ocean liner] in late March 1944. It had taken a long time before Joy went overseas after his enlistment. The food on the ship was not very good. The ship convoyed across the ocean. Ships could be seen from horizon to horizon. The men slept in hammocks in the bow of the ship with their mess kits above them. One night, the sea was rough and the kits crashed down on the deck. It startled the men who were worried about submarine attack but there were no attacks as far as Joy could tell.

After Carrol Joy arrived in England, he was sent by train to Ashford Kent. They may have been the closest base to the English Channel. His outfit may have been the first to operate in the field. They were stationed in an unused English airdrome that likely was abandoned during the blitz. It took a month to ready the base with supplies. The aircraft seemed to be castoffs from other groups. Joy’s pilot was L.C. Beck. A month after his assignment to the base, Beck looped the deck [Annotator’s Note: Joy gestures with a circular motion of his hands]. The pilots began to fly escort missions for the Eighth Air Force in early May before D-Day [Annotator’s Note: D-Day was 6 June 1944]. The planes began to fly missions with a belly tank and a 500 pound bomb under each wing. Joy wrote a message to Hitler on one of the bombs. On 6 June, Joy’s squadron was the first to fly cover missions over Utah Beach since they were the closest outfit to the beaches of Normandy. The night before, Joy had a pass into London. Their base was 65 miles from London. He returned home on a train. He was cautioned by a couple GIs in London that his pass would be cancelled if the MPs knew how far his base was from the city. It only took 15 minutes in London for that to happen. While Joy was on the train returning to his base, he learned that the invasion had started. Joy had no idea about the magnitude of the invasion. It was noon when he returned to Kent. The base was very busy. There was a water trailer ready to return. The planes used water injection to cool the engine and give it a power surge. Joy’s plane flew multiple missions on D-Day. There were at least four or five flown with the plane returning after the last flight at five o’clock. That pace would persist for several days. Pilots were being lost in the action. There were A, B, C and D flights. Joy was constantly with the A flight. The A flight was a cocky bunch and it was obvious when they returned [Annotator’s Note: Joy describes some of the detailed identifications utilized within the squadron and flights]. Marion Benson was a pilot in Joy’s flight group. He sacrificed himself by attacking an antiaircraft position after he had been hit. That action was in a heavily defended area. Benson indicated he had been hit and that was the last word that was heard from him. L.C. Beck flew the plane that Joy maintained as crew chief. Beck named his plane The Sherriff of Los Angeles. The plane crashed in France but Beck was not flying it. Newell Epstein was the pilot on that mission. Beck told Joy that the crash marked the end of The Sherriff. On 29 June, Beck had a fight with an Fw-190. Both planes were shot down. The German pilot was killed. Beck rode his plane down and was rescued by some French locals. Beck was in hiding for two weeks during which time he started writing a book on the back of French menus. After that time, he hid his manuscript and probably donned civilian clothes to attempt to evade the Germans. Someone tipped off the Germans about Beck and he was captured by the enemy. He was taken to Buchenwald [Annotator’s Note: Buchenwald was a Nazi concentration camp] not a PW camp [Annotator’s Note: Prisoner of War camp]. Beck died in November from his wounds. His book was retrieved by Americans who came through Beck’s original hiding place. The book was given to Beck’s parents in California. At Christmas 1946, two of Joy’s friends who were in college using the GI Bill wanted to take trips to the west coast. They asked Joy to go along. He did and all three visited his sister by surprise. They arrived early in the morning and she prepared Christmas dinner for the three of them. Beck’s parents lived close by and Joy took the opportunity to visit them while he was there.

Carrol Joy moved from England to France in July [Annotator’s Note: July 1944]. Afterward, his squadron would be in Belgium and Germany. He served as a crew chief in those base locations as he had been in England. A pilot was shot down and Joy met his fiancée afterward. The squadron started moving across the Channel in July but operations never slowed down. Upon arriving in Normandy, landing craft were used to take the troops to shore. There was RAF [Annotator's Note: British Royal Air Force] personnel on the ship with the Americans. Joy could see the big bluffs on the Normandy beach. He bivouacked there the first night. From the beach, the men walked into an airfield designated as A-13 [Annotator’s Note: at Tour-en-Bessin]. Back in England, Joy had heard the buzz bombs [Annotator’s Note: the nickname given to the V-1 flying rocket bombs] flying over his base in middle June. If one had landed on the base on one particular day, it would have wiped them out because they had 36 planes loaded on the flight line. The buzz bomb came in at tree top level. It had an English fighter in pursuit and firing on it. Joy hit the dirt after getting his pilot out of the plane. The bomb landed 100 yards beyond them. The bombs exploded near them but never on top of them. While at A-13, Joy had the opportunity to ride piggy back with his pilot, Newell Epstein. When the two of them got up, another P-47 [Annotator’s Note: P-47 Thunderbolt fighter bomber] pilot saw two heads and did a double take. Joy had to duck down when they approached the tower which was nothing more than a truck. He did not get sick on the flight, but he did severely sprain his right ankle because of the cramped conditions in the cockpit. He wrapped up his ankle and proceeded through the hedgerows with a makeshift cane. It took six months to get over. He next went to airfield A-14 [Annotator’s Note: at Cretteville]. A-14 was in the area of St. Mere-Église. It had a short runway. One plane could not get off the ground soon enough and crashed into a ravine with trees. The pilot survived but some of the .50 caliber machine guns were stuck in a tree and the ammunition began to cook off. The next base was A-36 [Annotator’s Note: near Louplande in the Pay-de-la-Loire region]. The locals would come out on Sunday to see what was going on. Joy and some of the men got hold of a Weasel tractor [Annotator’s Note: the M29 Weasel was a small tracked vehicle] that must have been left on the beach. It had a Studebaker engine on the opposite side of the driver location. Joy did some repair work on it and got it running. He used it to move to his next airfield. It would get about 25 miles an hour before the track would come off. Joy also had a motorcycle. The men alternated driving the vehicles. While in the Weasel, an officer in a jeep who was accompanied by two trucks ran into the rear of their vehicle. The officer’s lip was cut through. There was paperwork that had to be filled out after that incident.

Carrol Joy and two of his buddies took most of their equipment with them and loaded up their carbines to head to Challans. They had started on a motorcycle and a tracked vehicle. Eventually, they were taken by truck to base. They were billeted in a two story barracks. They were lucky. They were in a good spot when the Battle of the Bulge started [Annotator’s Note: the Battle of the Bulge was fought from 16 December 1944 until 25 January 1945]. Before the battle started, his plane had to be checked out. The engine had to be changed out. The plane was taken out on a mission before the engine had been properly prepared. Joy was on guard duty at night so the plane only had eight hours on it before they had to have it. The plane, with its new engine, was shot down. It was the third plane Joy lost [Annotator’s Note: as a crew chief, Joy lost his first plane in late June over Normandy and a second on a failed short runway takeoff near St. Mere-Église]. The unit was moved to another runway. Joy did not have a plane then. Joy was glad he did not have a plane at the time because of the cold weather. When he worked on a plane during that period, he would warm it up for two hours to provide warmth for himself. He could not work on the planes with gloves during that harsh weather. Aluminum would get cold fast. After losing the third plane, Joy got a new one with a bubble canopy. The pilot was Kenneth L. Glimley [Annotator’s Note: unsure of spelling] and he remained with Joy throughout the duration of the war. After the Battle of the Bulge was over in January, the unit was moved up to Metz. Joy was there for about a week. The unit had been part of the 19th Tactical Air Command under Patton’s [Annotator’s Note: General George S. Patton] command. They received all the supplies they needed at that point in support of ground operation.

Following the Battle of the Bulge, Carrol Joy and his outfit [Annotator’s Note: the 514th Fighter Squadron, 406th Fighter Group] moved to Asch Airfield in north Belgium. En route, they stopped in Luxembourg City and Bastogne. Everything was cleaned up by then. Asch was flat country. There were coal mines nearby. Slag piles were outside the mines. Clean showers were available to Joy while he was there. While in England, the 513th was the first American outfit to carry 5 inch rockets. When a plane would return with a rocket hung up in its rack, the men would scatter. Joy never witnessed one coming off its mounting but a 500 pound bomb could fall off. It would bounce like a football after it did; however, they never exploded. One pilot examined a bullet hole that had pierced his wing. He checked the trajectory and saw that it had just missed his chest. Another pilot named “Jonesy” Jones came back injured from a mission. Part of his foot was shot off. At Mourmelon, Epstein returned to base with six feet knocked off a portion of his wing. He did not attempt to turn around to land. Epstein was shot down later and died. His parents lived in Israel and that was where he was buried. Some of his ground crew did not like him, but Joy got along with him. While in Belgium, the 406th was assigned to support the First Army instead of Patton’s [Annotator’s Note: General George S. Patton] Third Army. The 406th was based in Flemish country while in Belgium. From there, the group crossed Holland and was based in Handorf, Germany. The civilians were told to move out to make room for the Americans. They lived in local homes for a short period. The home that Joy occupied had a shed with a washing machine out back. They were able to clean their clothes using wash powder left behind for the machine. When the war ended, Joy was still in Handorf. After being there a month or so, the 406th transferred to Nordholz near the North Sea. Located there was an airbase and many warehouses. There were competitive flights between the Americans and the Russians while Joy was at Handorf. The Russian planes spelled out CCCP and USA in the sky. The American planes came back and spelled out [Annotator's Note: expletive] in perfect formation. A voice over the radio asked for identification of the American group that performed the sky writing. None was given. There was not much to do after the war ended. The man who had designed the P-47 came by the base for a visit [Annotator’s Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber was designed by Alexander Kartveli].

After the end of the war in Europe, Carrol Joy began to see people released to go home. He did know how many points he had, but he was placed on a truck to begin the journey home. Joy was given his records for his service. He found out his brother was in England. He was given the option of leave in England or the French Rivera. He chose England to see his brother. He found his brother in a kitchen doing KP [Annotator’s Note: KP, or Kitchen Police, is worked by enlisted men under the direction of the kitchen staff. It is considered undesirable duty]. Joy’s brother was making a salad. Joy asked if the salad was any good [Annotator’s Note: Joy chuckles at the memory]. After the leave, Joy returned to Germany and overhauled a C-47. There was no record of him working on the C-47. On the trip home, Joy crossed France and sailed to Southampton, England on the same ship that originally brought him from the United States to Europe [Annotator’s Note: the MV Stirling Castle]. Troops came home as individuals based on the point system. There was a seasick tech sergeant with a bunk right next to Joy for the two weeks to sail the Atlantic on the return voyage. The ship was the sister ship to the Lusitania that was torpedoed in World War I [Annotator’s Note: the RMS Mauretania was the sister ship to RMS Lusitania]. With no worry of German submarine dangers, it only took a week to sail from England to the United States. After reaching America, Joy went to Fort Leavenworth for a few days. On 13 October [Annotator’s Note: 13 October 1945], he received his discharge papers and money to take a bus ride to Manhattan [Annotator’s Note: Manhattan, Kansas]. Joy received his ribbons for the bronze star but never received the medal itself. After reaching home, he had to wait in a bus station for awhile. He used a crank phone to contact the operator to place a call to his aunt. His aunt came to pick him up from the station. His brother’s wife and son also made the trip to pick him up on 14 October. His brother was still overseas. One year later, he met his wife through a friend.