Clarence Becker was born in Rochester, New York one week after World War 1 ended, 18 November 1918. He was the fifth of a family of 11 children. He went through school and college in Rochester. His father was a baker and superintendent of the Wonder Bread plant in Rochester. During the Great Depression he had to supervise the plants in Buffalo [Annotator's Note: Buffalo, New York] and Utica [Annotator's Note: Utica, New York]. They did not have much money, but they got along fine. Becker was an Eagle Scout [Annotator's Note: highest achievement in the Boy Scouts of America] and worked in a library after school. He got a scholarship to the Rochester Business Institute [Annotator's Note: in Rochester, New York]. After that he spent two and a half years selling magazines door-to-door in 40 states. He could see we were headed for war. He had his first airplane ride in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois]. At the end of 1939, he went to night school to refresh himself on classes. You needed two years of college to get into the Air Corps. He took a test that would give him the equivalent of those years of college and passed. He entered flying school in May 1941 at Sikeston, Missouri [Annotator's Note: Missouri Institute of Aeronautics, Harvey Parks Airport]. He had basic training in Brady, Texas. Advanced training was at Brooks Field in San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas]. He was commissioned on 9 January 1942 and sent to the 1st Photo Squadron, 1st Photo Group [Annotator's Note: 1st Photo Reconnaissance Squadron, 1st Photographic Group] in Windsor Locks, Connecticut [Annotator's Note: Bradley Airfield]. They were flying F-2s [Annotator's Note: F-2 photo reconnaissance version of C-45 Expeditor; Beechcraft Model 18, or Twin Beech light aircraft] and Lockheed Hudson A-29s that had been adapted for photography. The F-2 is a C-45. They flew at 20,000 feet and it took about an hour to get to that altitude. After a few months of mapping out of Pope Field [Annotator's Note: in Fayetteville, North Carolina], the junior officers went to Lowry Field in Denver [Annotator's Note: now Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado] where he got to fly the P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] photo plane called the F-4. From there he went to the 3rd Photo Squadron [Annotator's Note: 3rd Photographic Squadron, 1st Photographic Group] at MacDill Field, Tampa, [Annotator's Note: now MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida] July 1942. He stayed with that squadron for the length of the war. They mapped Haiti and the Dominican Republic that summer. They took their F2s to Brazil and mapped there. The maps that existed at the time had the mouth of the Amazon [Annotator's Note: Amazon River] about 100 miles off. They were losing B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] going into Belém [Annotator's Note: Belém, Brazil]. It was very important for the photographs to allow the B-24s to get to Africa.

[Annotator's Note: Clarence Becker was already serving in the Army Air Forces when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Clarence Becker was in San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas] and he and some friends were sobering up from a Saturday night party. They were watching a movie when the lights came on and an announcement was made for all military personnel to report to their units. That was the last time he wore civilian clothing until after the war. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks where he went after time spent mapping parts of South America in photo reconnaissance aircraft.] He was sent back with an airplane about to be retired in December [Annotator's Note: December 1942]. He had leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] coming and had orders to go to Petersen Field in Colorado Springs, Colorado to check out the B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber]. He took a train to Denver [Annotator's Note: Denver, Colorado] where he got married on 2 January 1943 before reporting in. He took his wife back to Tampa [Annotator's Note: Tampa, Florida] with him. The train they were on lost its air conditioning. They only had warm beer to drink. He had a car in Tampa and went to find a place to live. His friends there became friends for life. He checked out the B-25 crews and in April [Annotator's Note: April 1943], they took four airplanes to Alaska. They did mapping out in the Aleutians [Annotator's Note: Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. The weather never seemed to be above 1,000 feet. After they got to Adak [Annotator's Note: Adak Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska], through Cold Bay [Annotator's Note: Cold Bay, Alaska] and Dutch Harbor [Annotator's Note: Dutch Harbor, Alaska], they had fairly good weather for Kiska [Annotator's Note: Kiska Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska] and Attu [Annotator's Note: Attu Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. Then they got good weather that allowed them to get the entire Aleutians in two days. He took his flight to Nome [Annotator's Note: Nome, Alaska] and got there about noon. They mapped Saint Lawrence Island [Annotator's Note: Saint Lawrence Island, Alaska] that afternoon. One day, a Catholic priest asked if they would fly him over the ice pack out of Nome about the time it should be breaking up. As a result of the mapping, they did, they were able to get ships into Cold Bay two weeks earlier than they ever had before. The priest gave him an ivory carving of a walrus and a bear that Becker's son still has.

[Annotator's Note: Clarence Becker was a pilot flying photo reconnaissance mapping missions in Alaska in 1943.] They returned to the United States because they finished ahead of schedule. He took his flight to Windsor Locks, Connecticut [Annotator's Note: Bradley Airfield]. He did some mapping for the Army Corps of Engineers. He had his wife come up from Florida by train. The train had no windows in it. When she got off the train, he thought he had married a Black Mammy [Annotator's Note: slang for Black woman]. He had to take the squadron [Annotator's Note: 1st Photo Reconnaissance Squadron, 1st Photographic Group] to Spokane, Washington for inspection in August or September [Annotator's Note: 1943]. They then took their airplanes to Hill Field in Ogden, Utah [Annotator's Note: now Hill Air Force Base] where they had modifications to increase their speed. He went back to MacDill [Annotator's Note: MacDill Field, now MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida] for a month. After that, his aircraft went in to get a seven-man raft installed for crossing the Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean]. He took his entire crew on a test flight to 20,000 feet [Annotator's Note: November 1943]. When he reached altitude, the lift raft popped and caught on the left horizontal stabilizer and rudder. It shook the airplane to pieces. They were over the Gulf [Annotator's Note: Gulf of Mexico] west of Naples, Florida. They were on top of an overcast. He asked for a heading back. When they cleared the clouds, he could see the engines moving a foot up and down and oil was streaming out. He gave the order to bail out and sent his copilot back to the rear of the airplane to make sure everyone was out. Becker went out last and caught his right leg on his parachute. They all landed safely. He watched the airplane come apart in three sections. They were picked up and taken over the airplane. He got his hat. He called his wife and said he would be late for dinner. He still has the ripcord. He was in charge of getting ten F-10s [Annotator's Note: photo reconnaissance variant of the North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] to India. He reported to General Stratemeyer [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant General George Edward Stratemeyer] and was asked how many aircraft made it. He said all of them and was told that was unheard of. One of the airplanes lost an alternator but that was all that happened, and they made it to Khartoum [Annotator's Note: Khartoum, or Khartum, Sudan].

[Annotator's Note: Clarence Becker went to India as a photo reconnaissance pilot.] India was damp and humid, but very nice. They were based at a British-built base called Guskhara [Annotator's Note: Guskhara Airfield in Burdwan, or Bardhaman, India], northwest of Calcutta [Annotator's Note: Calcutta, or Kolkata, India]. There was a maharajah [Annotator's Note: or Maharaja, administrative rank in India] in Burdwan who had graduated from Oxford [Annotator's Note: University of Oxford in Oxford, England]. He invited them to his house and they all got to ride elephants. Becker went to Calcutta to Dum Dum Airport [Annotator's Note: now Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Dum Dum, West Bengal, India]. He was asked to map all of northern Burma in preparation for the Imphal [Annotator's Note: Battle of Imphal, 8 March to 3 July 1944, Imphal, Manipur, India] invasion. He said he could take all ten airplanes to the Assam Valley [Annotator's Note: Assam, India] in early morning. They did it and got the map that allowed the invasion to proceed on schedule. He then went over to China into the Chengdu area. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer remarks that it must have been a culture shock to Becker to have gone to Alaska, South America, India, and now China.] They got used to it. They went back to MacDill [Annotator's Note: MacDill Field, now MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida] on 15 March [Annotator's Note: 15 March 1944]. They turned in their F-10s [Annotator's Note: photo reconnaissance variant of the North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] at Will Rogers Field [Annotator’s Note: now Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma] in Oklahoma for B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. They then moved to Salina, Kansas [Annotator's Note: Smoky Hill Army Airfield] where they trained in B-17s while waiting for their F-13 photo airplanes [Annotator's Note: reconnaissance variant of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] to be built. They got the first one on 15 August [Annotator's Note: 15 August 1944]. The ground crews left in late August for Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands]. The first plane that went was Doug Steakley [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Captain Ralph D. Steakley] in "Tokyo Rose" [Annotator's Note: B-29 Bureau #42-93852]. Steakley arrived the in latter part of October and flew his first mission against Japan on 1 November [Annotator's Note: 1 November 1944]. Becker and his men picked up new planes in Herington, Kansas [Annotator's Note: then Herington Army Airfield, now Herington Regional Airport]. They went to Mather Field, California, then Hawaii, then Kwajalein [Annotator's Note: Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands], then Saipan. Before going to Saipan, they stocked up on supplies. All of the Officer's Clubs had slot machines [Annotator's Note: gambling devices]. The money would have been turned over to the government at the end of the war, so it was taken out and given to the crews. They bought power tools and whiskey that they took with them. They never touched it on Saipan, but when they went down to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] in 1945, it came in handy. They were competing for lumber and were in between North Field [Annotator's Note: now Andersen Air Force Base, Guam] and the docks at Hagatna [Annotator's Note: Hagatna, Guam]. On 15 December [Annotator's Note: 15 December 1944] two of his crews were to build a tent city for 1,000 people by 1 January [Annotator's Note: 1 January 1945]. That was where the whiskey came in handy. The lumber trucks would go by them on their way to the North Field. When Becker and his men ran out of lumber, they would wave down one of the trucks and trade whiskey for lumber. They completed their structures. They competed for tents as well. They were told they were coming by C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. Becker told the Base Operations Officer that they would pick up the tents. Pretty soon, they had more than they needed. On Saipan, Betty bombers [Annotator's Note: Mistubishi G4M medium bomber, known as the Betty] out of Iwo [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan] bombed them every night for about a week. They did damage the B-29s. He had a good time getting started on Guam.

Clarence Becker was promoted to G-3, Operations Officer, in January 1945. He had been a Flight Commander until that time. Doug Steakley [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Captain Ralph D. Steakley] was sent back to the United States to sell War Bonds [Annotator's Note: debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditures in times of war]. Becker was Operations Officer [Annotator's Note: of the 3rd Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, 1st Photographic Group] for the rest of the war. They had more replacement crews than they knew what to do with. Over the whole war, they only lost five airplanes and not that many crews. The crews did not get to fly more than two or three missions a month. At Smoky Hill [Annotator's Note: Smoky Hill Army Airfield in Salina, Kansas], they trained a fourth element of four that went to India. When LeMay [Annotator's Note: Curtis Emerson LeMay; US Army Air Forces then US Air Force General; Fifth Chief of Staff of the US Air Force] moved out of India to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands], that flight of planes came too. They had more airplanes than they needed. Becker knew LeMay. He was a great guy. He was tough, but very fair. When LeMay came to Guam, he had a staff briefing every day. Becker's commander took him to the first one. First LeMay would listen to the weatherman, then the photo people, and then the bomber men. That day, LeMay asked what was going on with the reconnaissance group. General Hansell [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Brigadier General, then US Air Forces Major General, Haywood Shepherd "Possum" Hansell, Jr.] on Guam had told them what to do and how to do it. Becker's squadron commander told him to answer LeMay. Becker said his unit had experience and knew what to do but were being told what to do. LeMay gave Becker a list of 100 cities he wanted complete coverage on in seven days. He said that if Becker showed him that he could do his job, they would get along fine. Becker had the cities photographed in five days. He never had any problems. Becker got to meet with him just before he passed on [Annotator's Note LeMay died on 1 October 1990]. He was a great commander. Becker only flew once a month after being promoted.

Clarence Becker was based at Harmon Field, also called Depot Field [Annotator's Note: now Harmon Air Force Base on Guam, Mariana Islands]. It was right across the street from LeMay's [Annotator's Note: Curtis Emerson LeMay; US Army Air Forces then US Air Force General; Fifth Chief of Staff of the US Air Force] headquarters. It was a short runway, and they could not take off with a full load there. They would stage out of Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands]. They flew to North Field [Annotator's Note: now Andersen Air Force Base, Guam] and put the crews to bed. Then they woke them up, fed them, and went on their missions. Becker had an uncle who had been in the Navy in World War 1, World War 2, and the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 1950 to 1953]. He was in charge of food on a troop ship. He knew Becker was there, visited, and got a ride in a B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. They were invited aboard his ship. They got steaks. He called Becker about two weeks later. The pilots had traded refrigerators from the Seabees for some cases of booze [Annotator's Note: slang for alcoholic drinks]. His uncle sent them meat. He had General LeMay and his staff over for dinner. The Seabees had all the goodies. When they got to Guam, they got mattresses, five regular refrigerators [Annotator's Note: from the Seabees by trading whiskey]. There were still Japanese on Guam. There was an intelligence part of Becker's squadron and they were merged with the Bomber Command's Intelligence. Becker kept track of what pre-strike and post-strike photography was needed as well as mapping of the big island of Honshu [Annotator's Note: Honshu, main island of Japan] and scheduled all of it.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if Clarence Becker had received word that flights were not supposed to go out on 6 August 1945, the day Hiroshima, Japan was bombed with an atomic bomb.] He had sent two crews up [Annotator's Note: to Tinian, Mariana Islands]. He was told he could not substitute crew members and once they were up there, they were out of his control. He sent Omar Cox and Tom Kindle. He never received any word to not be near Hiroshima. He sent an airplane to Hiroshima that day to do some pinpoint mapping of Kure Navy Base [Annotator's Note: Kure Naval Arsenal, Kure, Hiroshima, Japan] and Hiroshima. It wound up that the airplane [Annotator's Note: photo reconnaissance airplane] he sent from Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] got the best picture of all. When the Enola Gay [[Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber Bureau #44-86292, Victor number 82] crew was there [Annotator's Note: in Reno, Nevada on a tour after the war], Becker had pictures in the same room with them. Paul Tibbets [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Colonel, then US Air Force Brigadier General, Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr.; pilot of the Enola Gay that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945] only wanted to sign his book for people. Becker did not have much respect for him [Annotator’s Note: He says to delete this segment. The interviewer remarks that he was told by "John" that he could not deliver his film from the reconnaissance mission to the lab.] He could deliver it; he could not see it. Becker was not in there. He was waiting to hear from Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Mariana Islands]. They had argued on Tinian what to do with their film. They had a C-45 [Annotator's Note: C-45 Expeditor; Beechcraft Model 18, or Twin Beech light aircraft] that Becker flew to Tinian and got the film. Becker brought the film to their lab and stayed with it. He took the pictures to General LeMay [Annotator's Note: Curtis Emerson LeMay; US Army Air Forces then US Air Force General; Fifth Chief of Staff of the US Air Force] at two o'clock in the morning. He could not even let his crew see the pictures. Becker's first reaction to the images was that man is going to have to learn to live with man or we are not going to have much of a world. At most, Becker had expected a 20,000-pound bomb. He did not know what an atomic weapon was. He just thought this ought to end the war. It did. The Nagasaki bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapon dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] was not as accurate. Becker flew up to Hiroshima, took pictures and came down to Nagasaki. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer talks with Becker about some confusion over who had taken the pictures being referenced.] Becker still has a complete set of pictures, both pre-strike and post-strike. In July and August [Annotator's Note: 1945], General LeMay had been ordered to cease all fire-bombing and only support the Navy on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] by targeting airfields and oil refineries and storage.

Clarence Becker was on Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] when the war ended and the treaty was signed [Annotator's Note: Surrender ceremony; 2 September 1945 aboard USS Missouri (BB-63), Tokyo Bay, Japan]. He left on 25 September. He was supposed to fly LeMay's [Annotator's Note: Curtis Emerson LeMay; US Army Air Forces then US Air Force General; Fifth Chief of Staff of the US Air Force] personal things to Ohio. LeMay's Chief of Staff wanted a full mechanical history of the airplane and background on the crew. Becker got fed up and left. He got out of the service in Denver [Annotator's Note: Denver, Colorado] and went to Fort Logan [Annotator's Note: Fort Logan, Denver] for some operations. He got back to his family in December 1945. He stayed in the Reserves. He spent a year in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] and four in Minneapolis [Annotator's Note: Minneapolis, Minnesota]. He got promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and commanded a C-46 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft] group. When the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 1950 to 1953] started, his unit was activated. The Strategic Air Command needed people and Becker went to the 5th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Travis Air Force Base [Annotator's Note: in Fairfield, California]. He flew RB-36s [Annotator's Note: reconnaissance variant of the Convair B-36 Peacemaker strategic bomber]. After a year, he got to command the 72nd Squadron [Annotator's Note: 72nd Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, 5th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing]. He then went to Yokota, Japan [Annotator's Note: Yokota Air Base] to command the 91st Photo Reconnaissance Squadron [Annotator's Note: 91st Photo Reconnaissance Squadron, 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Wing] with RB-29s [Annotator's Note: reconnaissance variant of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber], RB-47s [Annotator's Note: reconnaissance variant of the B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber], and RB-50s [Annotator's Note: reconnaissance variant of Boeing B-50 Superfortress strategic bomber]. After Japan, he was in 15th Air Force Operations at March Field [Annotator's Note: now March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California]. He was loaned to NORAD [Annotator's Note: North American Aerospace Defense Command] staff in intelligence. Three years later he was at SAC [Annotator's Note: Strategic Air Command] Headquarters and wore two hats, Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff and Chief of Targets, targeting all of the nuclear weapons. He spent one year at the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington D.C. and then went back to intelligence. He retired in December 1967. During World War 2, we were a united country. After the Vietnam War [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1955 to 1975] started, he was responsible for targeting the B-52s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber] that were making matchsticks out of the jungles of Vietnam. He thought they were wasting air power. This was McNamara's [Annotator's Note: Robert Strange McNamara, eighth United States Secretary of Defense, 1961 to 1968] way of graduated response. He never would let them bomb north of the parallel and he selected the targets himself. That had something to do with him deciding to retire. He was a weekend warrior all of this time. He went to work after retirement working for a Colonel who was starting a data corporation in Atlanta [Annotator's Note: Atlanta, Georgia]. Becker did the marketing. He wound up in Reno [Annotator's Note: Reno, Nevada] as the vice-president and manager of their office there. Becker thinks it is absolutely important for there to be The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. We cannot say the country is united today.