Darrell Welch is a fifth generation Texan born in Center City, Texas [Annotator's Note: in March 1918]. He moved West and wound up in Midland [Annotator's Note: Midland, Texas]. He attended the University of Texas [Annotator's Note: in Austin, Texas] and graduated in 1935. He was in the depths of the Great Depression and his brother told him he would give him 50 dollars a year to go to school. He got two jobs, one on campus and one off. The off campus job was in a restaurant and he was paid with a meal that was usually his meal for that day. On campus he had a National Youth Administration job helping the janitor in the Journalism building. He did that for one year and got promoted to the Geology building duplicating oil well logs for another year. His brother got married and could no longer give him money and then he could not go back to school. He started working. In the spring of 1940, he decided to go back in the fall. He did not want to live in the country, it was a tough life he found unrewarding. He decided an education was the way out. Just as he was making plans to go back, the United States Congress passed the Draft Law and Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] marched into Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. A friend told him he could get in the Army Air Corps with his two years of college. He had never been in an airplane and had never thought about being a pilot. Within a day or two of thinking about it, he went to San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas] and filled out the application.

Once Darrell Welch decided to become a pilot, he decided it was a good calling. He never had any trouble in flight school. It was exhilarating to fly. There were three phases: primary, basic, and advanced. He started in Pasadena, California. They would fly out of an old wheat field in Newhall Pass. There was one officer from the cavalry and the rest were cadets. The officer had trouble with his solo flight and landed his PT-17 Stearman [Annotator's Note: Boeing-Stearman PT-17 Kaydet primary trainer] incorrectly. He washed out. Most of the wash outs occurred in primary. The wash outs would go to either bombardier or navigation school. There were eight students per instructor. Welch's solo flight take-off was easy and uneventful, and he thought someone was helping him. He landed with no problems. He went to advanced school at Barksdale Field [Annotator's Note: now Barksdale Air Force Base, Bossier City, Louisiana] in a B-10 [Annotator's Note: Martin B-10 bomber]. The instructor pilot had forgotten to put the landing gear down. Welch made a good landing on the belly. He got a new instructor. The PT-17 Stearman is still a good airplane. [Annotator's Note: he describes getting to fly one shortly before the interview]. His secondary phase of training was at Randolph Field in San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas]. It was relatively new. It was well designed. He flew BT-13s, the Vultee Vibrator [Annotator's Note: Consolidated Vultee BT-13 Valiant basic trainer aircraft; nicknamed the Vultee Vibrator]. After that, some of his class went to Barksdale Field as the second class of twin-engine school. They only had old bombers, the B-18 [Annotator's Note: Douglas B-18 Bolo medium bomber], much like the DC-3 [Annotator's Note: the Douglas DC-3 was the civilian variant of the C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. They also had B-10s and B-12s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-12 bomber]. They did practice bomb runs with no oxygen at 18,000 feet. He finished there and out of the entire class, five were picked to go to Michigan to Selfridge Field. Three of the them wound up in the 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group. The 31st Fighter Group was there as well.

Darrell Welch trained on twin engine aircraft. He was flying bombers in flight school and assumed he was going to be a bomber pilot. He went into the 31st Fighter Group with the P-39 [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft] and he thought that was not a good airplane. The first day he requested an audience with the squadron commander. He told the commander that he had trained in twin engine planes and that he should be a P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] pilot. Welch has seen the YP models of the P-38 when he was in California in flight school. The commander picked up the phone and traded them for two single engine pilots. Welch has always felt sorry for those two men who had to fly the P-39. He then went to the 27th Fighter Squadron [Annotator's Note: 1st Fighter Group]. Bill Covington was the commander and a great guy. Three of them who had gone through the Barksdale [Annotator's Note: now Barksdale Air Force Base, Bossier City, Louisiana] training were the three flight leaders. Welch became squadron commander while overseas. Welch finished his missions and came home and that was his last tactical flying. He is a petroleum engineer and got into logistics in the Air Force. He worked in the Pentagon, Japan, the Philippines, and Hawaii; all petroleum jobs.

Darrell Welch was assigned to the 1st Fighter Group [Annotator's Note: 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group]. There were one or two P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] there. They flew P-35s [Annotator's Note: Seversky P-35 fighter aircraft], P-36s [Annotator’s Note: Curtiss P-36 Hawk fighter aircraft], and P-33s [Annotator’s Note: variant of Consolidated P-30 fighter aircraft] before the rest of the P-38s arrived. The squadron flew across the Atlantic from Bangor, Maine to Goose Bay, Labrador, to Greenland, to Iceland, to Scotland, to England, and then to Oran, Algeria, North Africa. Lindbergh [Annotator's Note: Charles Augustus Lindbergh; American aviation pioneer] had done research on maximum mileage. He arrived in Oran with a lot of gas left. There is a rumor that Lindbergh went to the Pacific to experiment with P-38s and shot down one Japanese airplane. Welch believes he did. The P-38 was the most powerful plane Welch had flown at the time. He soloed at Selfridge Field [Annotator's Note: Harrison Township, Michigan]. They would take-off in the direction of Canada. It was unbelievable that it went so fast. He felt like he was halfway to Canada when he got up. He went home and bounded the stairs three at a time and told his wife he had just flown the fastest airplane in the world. It was a joy to fly. The outstanding feature was designed on purpose; it had the best arrangement of guns of any fighter. Most fighters have their guns in the wings, so the point of convergence is far ahead of the plane. The guns in the nose of the P-38 give maximum fire regardless of the range. The Germans called it "the forked tail devil". Welch always tried to engage them head-on. It's speed was about equal to the 109 [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf-019 or Me-109 fighter aircraft] or the Spitfire [Annotator's Note: British Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft]. Welch never thought he would be outmatched. He knew the German pilots had many victories, starting in Spain and then on. He felt sorry for the P-39 [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft] pilots. There were also P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] in North Africa.

After flight school Darrell Welch joined the 27th Squadron, which is the oldest squadron, and the 1st Group, which is also the oldest group [Annotator's Note: 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group]. They were the first to be equipped with the P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] and the Fall maneuvers were started in Texas. They flew to Beaumont, Texas. He saw Gene Autry [Annotator's Note: Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry, nicknamed The Singing Cowboy] come in and land there. One day, his squadron got in a dogfight with some P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft]. One P-38 and one P-40 collided. The P-38 pilot bailed out. Another pilot landed and went to him to discover both legs had been cut off. That was the first P-38 loss. Welch would fly out over the California coast from Mines Field, which is now L.A. International Airport [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California], and see whales. Welch and his wife lived on the coast and he would give her a wake-up call when he was landing. He did not know there was an antiaircraft gun there. It was well camouflaged. He left Selfridge Field [Annotator's Note: Harrison Township, Michigan] when he first heard the news of Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] at the Sunday dinner table. He went back to the base and it was empty. He flew a P-38 to the West Coast after taking off in a snowstorm. In April [Annotator's Note: April 1942], they went to Bangor, Maine preparing to go to England. In Bangor, they practiced flying formations with B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavt bomber] and in clouds. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer, Welch, and a woman off-camera discuss aircraft names, an airshow, and a local aircraft owner.]

Darrell Welch liked to say that he flew from England to North Africa and started a war. Rommel [Annotator's Note: German Field Marshall Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel; known as the Desert Fox] was there and the British had turned him around. Earlier, Welch and the group [Annotator's Note: 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, 12th Air Force] went to Bangor, Maine and practiced flying. They got to North Africa and were escorting B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. He does not recall dreading where he was going as he was confident in his airplane. They island hopped to Goose Bay, Labrador in early summer and the mosquitos were big and vicious. They had to wear nets. They went to Greenland. They were told if they had to land in the water they had four minutes to get into their life raft. There were icebergs in the water. They would stay at each place until the weather was good from the base, in between, and at the destination, which took time. They got to Iceland and were on local defense. He was in the barracks and heard an aircraft that was not a P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft]. He ran outside and it was a Focke-Wulf 200 [Annotator's Note: Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor transport and patrol bomber aircraft] flying low. The squadron commander scrambled with two ships. He was hit in the guns and they jammed. The wingman shot down the plane. The plane blew up and the wingman had to fly through the explosion. He was fortunate to survive that. That was the first kill in the group and the first German shot down by an American in World War 2. He had to share the kill with a P-40 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] pilot. That further gave Welch the confidence that he could do well. They then went to England.

[Annotator's Note: Darrell Welch and the 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group flew into Iceland.] The 94th Squadron [Annotator's Note: 94th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group] followed them in. One day, six P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] and two B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] were coming in, running low on fuel and had to land on ice. They had to be rescued by dog sleds and did not rejoin the group. On the flight from England to North Africa, one pilot disappeared. In England, they flew some missions over France. He went on one bombing mission over France and Me-109s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf-019 or Me-109 fighter aircraft] came up, kept their distance, flew alongside them, but never came in for combat. They staged out of southern England for North Africa. Welch's squadron had been in Bath [Annotator's Note: Bath, England] and lived in a manor house. They escorted B-26s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber] through the Strait of Gibraltar going down to North Africa. They landed at Oran [Annotator's Note: Oran, Algeria] and the runways had bomb craters. They then went inland. The first night he was told to take his flight on a reconnaissance mission to look for bombers coming in. They had learned to fly line abreast from the British. To break the monotony, Welch would do a loop in formation. On one, he looked up and saw a P-38 above him. The pilot, Willie Long, was trying to tell him something when they were maintaining radio silence. When they landed, he just told him he could tell him his tail numbers upside down. Willie was in the first group killed in Welch's squadron. Welch was not on that mission. They lost four planes.

Most of the missions Darrell Welch flew were escorting B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. They would fly at an altitude in the high 20s and he would fly around the 30s [Annotator's Note: 20,000 and 30,000 feet]. Welch would look for the contrails of 109s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf-109 or Me-109 fighter aircraft]. They normally would go for the bombers and not the fighters. As Rommel [Annotator's Note: German Field Marshall Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel] was retreating through Libya, Welch would occasionally fly missions to strafe his columns. They were flying out of Biskra [Annotator's Note: Biskra Airfield, Biskra Province, Algeria]. They would attack from the rear of the column. He would put his flights in a string and go in "S" curves across the target, so they did not shoot each other. Once he was coming across and had straightened out and there was only a motorcycle in his view. He never shot at people, so he decided to just scare him. Occasionally, there were fighters along the way. Welch liked to fly low; it was more fun. You get a sense of speed. Back when he was flying out of Selfridge Field [Annotator's Note: Harrison Township, Michigan] in a snowstorm, his southern route took him over his hometown of Midland [Annotator's Note: Midland, Texas]. His father worked for the Atlantic tank farm [Annotator's Note: oil storage tanks]. As he approached, he dropped down and flew below the tops of the tanks. The men on the top of the tanks were looking down at him and waving. He then flew down the main street of town and out to the house where his family lived and buzzed them. The mayor wrote to the commanding general about it. The general wrote back saying that we needed brave young pilots like that.

In England, Darrell Welch worked with the British. They told them the enemy was tough. The British had gotten Spitfires [Annotator's Note: British Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft] by then. The Battle of Britain had been going on and Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] was bombing non-strategic targets like Coventry [Annotator's Note: Coventry, England; known as the Coventry Blitz; worst was 14 and 15 November 1940]. Welch saw the damage there. London suffered terribly. The best thing the British taught them was to fly in line abreast. [Annotator's Note: Welch references a painting behind the interviewer titled "A Deadly Game of Chicken" by Roy Grinnell]. Welch was leading the squadron [Annotator's Note: 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, 12th Air Force] after escorting bombers on a mission in Tunisia. They were over the Mediterranean. Welch looked back and saw two 109s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf-019 or Me-109 fighter aircraft]. He turned into them and was looking straight into the oncoming planes. The wingman was the first in his line [Annotator's Note: in his line of fire]. They were closing at 500 miles per hour. He hit him and the pilot bailed out. That was Welch's second victory. He had shot down a Me-109 on the way to Tripoli [Annotator's Note: Tripoli, Libya] in February [Annotator's Note: February 1943] and this was 23 March. A flight magazine editor found the German [Annotator's Note: Oberleutnant Wolfgang Dreifke] who had been shot down and interviewed him and Welch. Welch never met him. Wolfgang was shot down three times in his career.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Darrell Welch about his first victory against a German aircraft.] He got him from the back. His next three came in a short span. Intelligence said that the Germans were flying Ju-52s [Annotator's Note: German Junkers Ju-52 transport aircraft] in large formations with escort from Sicily. Welch had been bombing the airfield there. He saw a P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] going down over Mount Etna [Annotator's Note: Sicily]. On 1 April [Annotator's Note: 1 April 1943], Welch was to take his squadron [Annotator's Note: 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, 12th Air Force] to shoot and the 71st [Annotator's Note: 71st Fighter Squadron] was to cover them. They were following B-26s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber] being escorted by the 82nd Fighter Group. The 82nd had painted props [Annotator's Note: propellers] and his squadron did not. He followed the B-26s, broke off, and got on line between Tunis [Annotator's Note: Tunis, Tunisia] and Sicily at around 3,000 feet. The Germans were coming directly for him. They estimated 50 Ju-52s and 25 fighters. Welch took the leader on and then started working the left side. He fired at the engines to hit something that would burn. On his second pass, he was about to open fire when a P-38 came from under him going for the same aircraft. They nearly collided; he got lucky. He thinks he shot down five but only got credit for three, making him a fighter ace. On his last pass, he was told to leave because it was getting too hot. He completed his run and then had to escape. He went full throttle to the deck [Annotator's Note: close the ground or water]. Suddenly a rain of bullets hit him, breaking the canopy. Glass hit him. His supercharger was disabled on his left engine. He could not outrun them now or dive without hitting the water. His only option was to dodge them. He knew they could get a lucky shot, but he did not give up. Two P-38s of the 82nd Group [Annotator's Note: 82nd Fighter Group] were coming by and saw him. They nearly hit him when they went past. He did not wait around to see if they shot the Germans down. He limped home. To get through a war, in a fighter plane, in combat, you have to have a lot of lucky breaks.

A lot Darrell Welch's colleagues [Annotator’s Note: fellow fighter pilots] did not make it. Some wound up in prison camps and many were shot down and killed. He says they shot down twice as many as they lost. There were five aces in his squadron [Annotator's Note: 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, 12th Air Force] out of 24 pilots. A lot of pilots just did not get their fifth [Annotator's Note: five kills makes a pilot an ace]. Welch is a member of the American Fighter Aces Association, but the poor guys with four kills do not get to be a member. Out of the 20 fighter aces in his group, he is the only one left [Annotator's Note: at the time of the interview]. He is invited to talk because he is an ace, not because he shot down airplanes. He accepts the fact that he is blessed to have survived the war, lived a long life. He has had great tragedies in his life, but he survived it. [Annotator's Note: Welch describes his married life in detail.]

Darrell Welch returned home from North Africa in just under a year. He flew 61 missions. He has great praise for the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] pilots. Before they got long-range escorts, they were lucky if they survived four missions. They encountered fighters and heavy flak. When fighters get to the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] area, they go around. The enemy fighters never came into the flak area. Welch's squadron [Annotator's Note: 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, 12th Air Force] did some strafing on probably one out of eight or ten missions. Most were escort missions. The P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] had a great heating system at low altitude but not at high altitude. He wore lined gloves and boots, but when he came down from a mission his hands and feet were frozen. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks what life was like in Africa.] He first got to North Africa and had barracks. When they got to Biskra [Annotator's Note: Biskra, Algeria], there was a hotel and had three to a room. The food was bad, British rations, but the cooks did the best they could. They had to leave there, due to sandstorms. They went to Chateaudun-du-Rhumel [Annotator's Note: Chateaudun-du-Rhumel Airfield, Mila Province, Algeria]. It was a sorry situation. They lived in tents and had no mess hall. This was the longest period they were in North Africa. The advantage of being in the Army Air Forces was that he did not have to shoot people or see dead people. They could not have picked a worse living condition. It did get cold in the winter. Most of the entrees in the British rations were steak and kidney pie. They ate oranges because they could peel them. They did not have coffee, only tea. The tea had powdered milk in it. It was bad stuff. Their outhouse was ten gallon cans full of sand. Their flight surgeon was an alcoholic.

Darrell Welch went to El Paso [Annotator's Note: El Paso, Texas] to get his physical. He went to Fort Bliss [Annotator's Note: Fort Bliss, Texas] and they took his blood pressure. He was told he failed his Snyder and he had never heard the term before so he went to a doctor's office [Annotator's Note: civilian doctor] in town. The doctor took his blood pressure and told him it was great. He told him not to drink alcohol, caffeine, or eat meat before his next test. He did that and he passed. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him to return to talking about North Africa.] At Chateau dun [Annotator's Note: Chateaudun-du-Rhumel Airfield, Mila Province, Algeria], he got some leave and went to the seashore for a few days. That was all he got. Combat was his life. That was his job and he was being paid. Some of the pilots looked at it differently. When they took off on a mission, one of the pilots would often say he had trouble and would go back to base. The mechanics never could find any trouble with the plane. He was literally afraid of combat. He later went to England and was killed in a P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. They would take those kinds of pilots and send them to a rear base to train incoming pilots. Welch feels that was the proper thing to do.

Darrell Welch never turned back from a mission. There was one mission where he should have. Welch had a good mechanic. He had a problem but that was the only time. After the war, he went to a reunion of the group [Annotator's Note: Welch was a pilot in the 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, 12th Air Force]. He asked about his mechanic and found out he had died the previous year. He owed him a lot. The mission with the problem was to Tripoli [Annotator's Note: Tripoli, Libya]. On the way in, 109s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf-109 or Me-109 fighter aircraft] came through. The element leader took off after one. Welch called him to come back, but he did not. He saw him coming back with two 109s on his tail. Welch and his wingman turned to intercept them. Welch ended up back too far. He fired some shots to try and scare them off. Welch's engine went out on him due to the problem. If the German had been chasing Welch, he would have been shot down. That was the only flaw he ever had in the maintenance. That made missions much easier. He never was afraid of the mission, but he did have anxiety on the way. As soon as combat started, the anxiety was gone.

Darrell Welch flew 61 missions and only had one furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. At the time, he did not realize it. On the way home, he crossed North Africa on a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. He flew across the Atlantic in a C-87 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated C-87 Liberator Express cargo aircraft] cargo plane that was a converted B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. They took off from Dakar [Annotator's Note: Dakar, Senegal] and came back. They made a hard landing. They left again at midnight. The next stop, they got on a C-46 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft] and flew over Brazil. The engines were misfiring continually. He got home and his wife told him he was restless when sleeping. He sometimes had nightmares, but they went away. There is no question that combat takes a toll. He copes well with adversity and does not go through the agony that some people go through. In Biskra [Annotator's Note: Biskra, Algeria], there were sandstorms which are bad for aircraft. They used ten gallon cans for filling their aircraft with gasoline. They had to put the gas through a strainer. The visibility was the worst. The airplane held up well though. They had factory representatives all the way who were looking out for the performance of the airplane.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Darrell Welch to explain how missions escorting bombers went for him.] They rendezvoused near base. They escorted B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber], B-26s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber], and B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. About 75 percent or more were B-17s. The B-26 missions were usually against ships. The fighter pilots would throttle back and they had a big fuel tank under each wing that they would drop when they entered combat. The bombers flew a straight line and fighters would weave around so they matched the speed forward. That puts them at a disadvantage because the 109s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf-109 or Me-109 fighter aircraft] came in fast. For B-26s, they would land at their base, let them take-off, and then take-off afterwards to join them. The B-26s used up all of their runway to take-off. For B-17s, they would rendezvous. At Biskra [Annotator's Note: Biskra, Algeria], they were at the same base. Welch would not fly over flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] or ships. He does not recall encountering any fighters at the ships. On one B-26 escort mission, one B-26 pulled up and stalled and crashed into the water. Welch figured one or both of the pilots were hit by antiaircraft fire. On another mission, a little boat fired on the B-26s as they were heading out. On the return, they had saved one bomb and sunk that boat.

Darrell Welch did encounter 190s [Annotator's Note: German Focke-Wulf Fw-190 fighter aircraft], which looked a lot like the P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] which was a problem. The Me-109 [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf-109 or Me-109 fighter aircraft] looked a lot like the P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. There were a few 190s in North Africa. It was a great airplane. Wolfgang Dreifke [Annotator's Note: German Air Force Oberleutnant, or First Lieutenant, Wolfgang Dreifke], who Welch shot down, was a good pilot. He shot down a P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] ahead of Welch. The 109s would sometimes come in head-on to the bombers, but usually they would come in high and dive through them. They did not attack in the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. Welch's most memorable mission was also his most dangerous mission. He encountered two fighters over the Mediterranean with partial power and his canopy broken. He had used up his altitude advantage and maximum speed when they started shooting at him. At Kasserine Pass [Annotator's Note: Battle of Kasserine Pass, Tunisia Campaign, February 1943], he was strafing Rommel [Annotator's Note: German Field Marshall Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel]. Welch flew two missions that day. The first was escorting B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] and he got in a turning fight with a 109. He called for someone to come get him and they did. He later escorted the 71st [Annotator's Note: 71st Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group] to shoot tanks. The P-38 was not designed to shoot tanks. The ceiling was low now. Welch saw one P-38 go up into the clouds and pretty soon it came down. He never saw the pilot. He does not know what happened and he does not know why they were sent after tanks.

Darrell Welch and his squadron [Annotator's Note: 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, 12th Air Force] kind of stayed put. They went to Taparura [Annotator's Note: Taparura, Tunisia] and then gradually moved closer to their target. They went to Biskra [Annotator's Note: Biskra, Algeria] on the edge of the desert [Annotator's Note: Sahara Desert]. They would fly over sand dunes going to Tripoli [Annotator's Note: Tripoli, Libya]. That was a good base, it was close to the target. The sandstorms made them leave for Chateau dun [Annotator's Note: Chateaudun-du-Rhumel Airfield, Mila Province, Algeria]. Welch left a week before the campaign ended. He shot down the Ju-52s [Annotator's Note: Junkers Ju-52 transport aircraft] there. They [Annotator's Note: the Germans] were running out of supplies and men, and he could tell it was about to end. When he would shoot down a Ju-52, he would turn and do a racetrack pattern. He would look back and the Mediterranean would be full of Ju-52s as far as he could see. They would float a little while before they sank. It was easier to stay with B-26s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber] because they were fast. He escorted B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] that bombed a port. One B-25 did a gear-up landing in the desert on that one. The most fun was strafing the columns and the least fun was high altitude because his hands and feet got too cold.

Darrell Welch returned to the 4th Air Force in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California], and was assigned to Portland, Oregon. There was a fighter group at the Portland air base. He was a Major and he became the commander. The local news called him an eagle strapped to a desk. He was sent to Santa Rosa, California to a replacement training unit for P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft]. He was made deputy base commander and promoted to lieutenant colonel. That was a blessing. He had his first child there. He ultimately went to the Army Staff College in Fort Leavenworth [Annotator's Note: US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas]. It was good being back in the P-38s. He went to Panama at Albrook Field [Annotator's Note: Albrook Air Force Station]. He was liaison between the P-38s and the Navy on maneuvers, then Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] surrendered. [Annotator's Note: Welch talks about the European invasion.] Welch returned home in 1943. As soon as the war ended, he left Panama for New York. He separated and went back to college at the University of Texas [Annotator's Note: in Austin, Texas]. He became an engineer and went to work for Gulf Oil. Five months later, the Air Force sent him a telegram with a deadline. He reenlisted, stayed in for 30 years, and made colonel. He worked with the Engineering Division at Kelly [Annotator's Note: Kelly Air Force Base, Texas]. He only had one day off after retiring [Annotator's Note: in 1970] and he started teaching. He taught for ten years. The Air Force was very good to him. He could not have had a better career.