Charles Kneflin was born in December 1923 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He had a very nice childhood. His mother was a home mother for him and his sister. His dad was a pattern maker foreman. The Great Depression affected them because his father had reduced work time. Kneflin sold magazines and cut grass. In high school, he and his sister worked for a store downtown. He worked to earn tuition money to attend Xavier University. He does not recall the aggression by Germany and Japan being discussed at home. His father had been born in France which had problems with Germany. Kneflin asked him and his grandfather why they moved to Cincinnati where there were so many Germans. His mother was Irish, and he never heard her comment until he was involved in the war. His grandparents kept in touch with their European relatives. His grandfather was born in the Alsace region. His father and uncle were in World War 1. His father was on a destroyer on convoy duty leading troopships to England. His uncle was in field artillery and was the first Cincinnatian to be announced as killed in action. They later found that he had only been wounded. He received a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy] and Distinguished Service Cross [Annotator's Note: the second-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy]. His grandfather and great grandfather had been in service. His great grandfather was a soldier of fortune in the Dutch East Indies. His grandfather fought in the Franco-Prussian War. He joined the French Foreign Legion. His grandfather disliked Germany period.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Charles Kneflin what his personal reaction was to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He was a kid, a freshman in college and he does not recall thinking much about it. That Sunday he was at home and he asked his dad where Pearl Harbor was. He said he would probably be going into the service. He wanted to get into the US Army Air Corps when the war broke out. He wanted to a pilot. He was sports-minded and played basketball as a walk-on to his college team [Annotator's Note: Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio]. There was a Reserve Officers Training Corp [Annotator's Note: generally referred to by the initials ROTC] program there. He joined that and was considered part of the Enlisted Reserve Corps. He almost went to Canada to become a pilot, but he could not get anyone to go with him. In 1942, he started talking to four friends to go join the Army Air Forces. Their parents did not like that. He was the best athlete and yet he flunked the physical. He was heartbroken. He could not pass the eye exam. His friends all passed. He went to work in a factory, and he tried to train his eyes to be better. He returned in November and still could not make it. He told his parents he was going to join the Marines. The Marines told him that he was already in the Army due to the Enlisted Reserve Corps. He was then ordered to report to Fort Hayes in Columbus, Ohio.

[Annotator's Note: Charles Kneflin joined the Army in Columbus, Ohio in November 1942.] Kneflin was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for basic training. He qualified for OCS, Officers Candidate School. Two weeks before he was to attend, it was announced that OCS was being shut down. Two weeks later, he was transferred to the ASTP, Army Specialized Training Program, at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. He became the third baseman on the baseball team and starting guard on the basketball team. He was miserable. He had set himself up to be in the service and here he was back in school. The commandant had been in combat and hated the Air Corps. The US Army Air Corps had changed the eye requirements and he thought he could make it but he had to get his commandant's approval. He had skipped class to get his eyes tested. His commandant would not let him transfer. A few months later, he was given orders out of the school. He was told he was going to Camp Shelby, Mississippi for combat engineer training. He did not want to do that. The commandant had gotten back at him for wanting to go to the Air Corps. His new commandant was different though and said he would help him. The camp was being set up for the invasion of France. [Annotator's Note: Kneflin asks the interviewer to stop because he is unsure of how much of this is wanted.]

[Annotator's Note: Charles Kneflin was sent to Camp Shelby, Mississippi for combat engineer training, which he did not want, after requesting to be transferred to the Air Corps.] He got a notice that he was up for a physical. He was nervous, worrying about his eyes. His eyes were fine, but he had high blood pressure and could not pass. A nurse took him to the office to help him but could not get it down. She told him not to work the rest of the day and not to drink any whiskey or coffee and come back. He could not sleep all night. Each time she took it, it went higher so she told him to go lay down on a cot and sleep. When he woke up, she took it and she said he passed. He regrets not taking her name to thank her. He was then transferred to Miami Beach [Annotator's Note: Miami Beach, Florida] to the Army Air Corps. He had never seen anything like it. The Air Corps had taken over the hotels on the beaches. The program was shut down again. He did not want to go back to his outfit. He was asked to go to gunnery school in Harlingen, Texas. He graduated there and went to Lincoln, Nebraska. An officer came into the barracks who was his friend's brother. He was the pilot of a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] and he invited him to be on his crew and go to Europe. He wanted to go but he also wanted to think it over because B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] were going to the Pacific. He knew Europe would be cold and he turned him down. Five months later that crew was shot down. Kneflin was sent to Alamogordo, New Mexico to join a crew and then went to Pratt, Kansas [Annotator's Note: Pratt Army Air Field, Pratt, Kansas] to get the 29th Bombardment Group together.

Charles Kneflin had never seen anything like the B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. They had MPs [Annotator's Note: Military Police] guarding the plane. It had so many innovations that the regular planes did not have like speed and pressurization. His crew was picked to be either lead or deputy lead. There were 11 planes in a formation. The lead plane and the deputy lead are the only ones with a bombsight. The other aircraft dropped their bombs when they did. All new pilots were brought in from flying B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. They took a new crew up and this guy went around a couple of times. He came in and hit the front wheels. Kneflin flew up and hit his head. They went around again. The pilot put the tail down this time. The next time he put the plane down beautifully until there was a screeching noise and Kneflin thought they were on fire. The gear collapsed and they came in on their belly, ruining the plane. They later learned it was a malfunction of the aircraft. They went to Puerto Rico and Cuba to get experience over water. On their return, they could not get into their field due to rain. They were told to land at a base for medium-sized bombers. The pilot managed to land but they did not know how they would get it out. They had to remove everything from the plane to get it to take-off. They went to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] and then Hawaii. They kept going west until they reached Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] where they did a couple of missions [Annotator's Note: between December 1944 and February 1945; the tape breaks].

The first thing Charles Kneflin saw when he flew over Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands], were the biggest bulldozers he had ever seen. He did not see what the runway came out on. It went downhill a little way and then it would go up. The planes would go down a little after taking off. A lot of men would lose control of the B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] and go into the ocean. They slept in tents when they got there. The Japanese would sneak in at night to try and get food. There was an island next to them that was occupied by the Japanese. They would fly and practice bombing there. The first group mission was February [Annotator's Note: 25 February 1945, maximum effort incendiary attack]. They almost did not come back. A day mission would be flown in formation. Night missions they flew alone. Each plane would fly to up to Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan] on their own. Each radioman had a different colored flare that they would fire to get the squadron [Annotator's Note: 53rd Bombardment Squadron, 29th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force] together. They were supposed to bomb Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan]. Kneflin was in the tail. He heard the navigator say they were way off track. There was a full colonel in the lead plane going along for the ride and the colonel wanted to be the lead navigator. Other aircraft told them they were off course as well. They turned to correct course and every city they flew over had flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. They were losing gas too. The engineer said they did not have enough gas to get back. About halfway between Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Mariana Islands] and Guam, they were told they would have to ditch on their first mission. They somehow made it back to Guam.

[Annotator's Note: Charles Kneflin was a tail gunner on a Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber in the 53rd Bombardment Squadron, 29th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force.] They would not fly missions every day. On 3 March [Annotator's Note: 3 March 1945] was their second mission, which started the big bombing raids. The first results were terrible. After one more mission, he said they could not continue this and would have to bomb from lower altitudes. He [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces General Curtis Emerson LeMay] said they would bomb from 5,000 to 7,000 feet and they thought it was nuts, suicide in a bomber that big. They went over Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan] and it was burning like hell. The fire burned 15 square miles of Tokyo. It must have been terrible. He could smell burning flesh. Some planes were so low, and the fires were so high, it turned some of the planes upside down. He does not know what he really thought at the moment. He thought more later. He had no idea there were 100,000 people burning down there. He heard they tried to escape by jumping in water and were boiled alive. He does not recall anybody laughing afterwards or talking about it. It was a job they had to do. They flew four missions close together after. The Navy and Marines were going towards Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan]. They took it. That was the greatest thing for them because it was halfway between Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] and Tokyo. Their missions were 3,000 miles and averaged 16 hours. If they got damaged bad over Tokyo, they were not going to make it home, even with Iwo Jima.

On Charles Kneflin's 11th or 12th mission, two crews each from Guam, Tinian, and Saipan [Annotator's Note: all in the Mariana Islands] were sent back to the United States. They went to Muroc Army Air Base, California and got a week off. He and a friend lived on the East Coast and tried to see if they could go home. They were not to fly on a plane that was not theirs. Kneflin talked to a copilot who said he could take him to Dayton [Annotator's Note: Dayton, Ohio], but he would have to sneak onto the plane. The guy turned out to be a louse. They had to make an emergency landing in North Dakota. Kneflin was waiting for it to be repaired and did not see it around. The pilot had taken off and left them stranded there. They ultimately got another plane home. Kneflin arrived back in California on V-E Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945].

[Annotator's Note: Charles Kneflin was a tail gunner on a Boeing B-29 Superfortressvery heavy bomber in the 53rd Bombardment Squadron, 29th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force.] The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] found out in a hurry that the B-29 could really move. They would often go past the target and come around and pick up headwinds to increase their speed. [Annotator's Note: Kneflin loses his train of thought.] The Japs learned they could not come at them from the back of the plane. Kneflin never got any action in the back because they would attack head on. One day, he got the call that they were coming straight at them. The Japanese were also ramming planes at the time. Kneflin saw a huge explosion right outside of his window. He saw the B-29 off their wing was upside down and going down. He did not see anybody get out of the plane. The enemy fighter had come straight at them, flipped over, and took the wing off the other B-29. That was his closest call. They always got flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. On the daylight missions, they would put up the flak in front of them. They could not deviate from the bomb run or they would miss the target. Night missions were not formation flying. It was a learning proposition. If it was a starry night, they could kid themselves into thinking it was the lights of a Jap plane. They started flying by flicking the lights on and off of one plane and not another. They [Annotator's Note: the Japanese] would trade a fighter plane for a B-29.

[Annotator's Note: Charles Kneflin was a tail gunner on a Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber in the 53rd Bombardment Squadron, 29th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force.] He thought the Japanese were pulling back into Japan to prepare for an invasion. Sometimes they returned from a mission and the bunk next to them would be empty. It reminded them the war was on. Kneflin did not think about making it much. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks what he thought of the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan.] He had heard that a couple of crews had come over to Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Mariana Islands] and were off by themselves. Nobody knew what they were there for. When he was told one plane had dropped one bomb with that much damage, they did not believe it. They never saw the planes or anything. The day before V-J Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945], they were ready to take-off and were stopped. They stayed there and finally they said to take-off. Their commandant flew with them. After the mission, they flew over to see the results. The commandant invited them to his place for breakfast afterwards. On daylight flights, the side gunner on the inside of the formation, took pictures instead of using guns. Kneflin took a lot of pictures. On V-J Day, they were to fly a search mission in Shanghai, China to locate some prisoner of war camps. They were given maps and pictures and took off by themselves. His pilot was excellent but very conservative. They were told to buzz Shanghai, but they were not sure their pilot would do so. He did. People came running out when they saw this. They did it back and forth over the town. They located all of the prisons. Two days later, a fleet of B-29s parachuted supplies to them. He loved that mission. His mother was the President of a ladies club. One day after the war ended, a nun told his mother they were having guests from China. One guest told a story of how she was a prisoner of war and a great big plane came over. Kneflin missed all of the big events of V-J Day.

[Annotator's Note: Charles Kneflin was a tail gunner on a Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber in the 53rd Bombardment Squadron, 29th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force.] Kneflin never saw Japan except from 5,000 feet. He had the top number of missions of anyone there except they had returned to the United States for one month. They got points per mission and other ways. He should have flown home first. His credits were given to somebody else and the points to him, so he had to come home by boat. He was asleep and heard a jeep honking. It was four guys from Cincinnati [Annotator's Note: Cincinnati, Ohio] who told him to come with him to the officer's club to party for VJ Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. The lights on the jeep went out and one guy had to use a flashlight on the hood. They stopped for something and then took off. Kneflin fell out of the back and he went into the gutter and went to sleep. They finally found him. He decided he wanted to go to law school after his service. He never gave any thoughts to reenlisting. He is more emotional now after the war. Sometimes, it is strictly age. He sees things differently. He sees what war is and he tries to bring that to his kids. It is important to teach all wars to future generations. He speaks to grade school classes. It sounds great. He went over and bombed people. That is easy. He reminds them that they do not feel the heat or endure the suffering that the people did. He watches a lot of things on television about the military. Some days he just sits there with his wife and it is fine, other days it is just [Annotator's Note: Kneflin does not complete the thought].