Donald Dean Paynter was born in Madison, Wisconsin in August 1922. His brother was in World War 2 as well. His father owned a tire company in Madison. Paynter would help out in his shop. He attended the University of Wisconsin [Annotator's Note: University of Wisconsin-Madison] and was in his second year when Pearl Harbor came [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was in ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps]. It was not mandatory, but it paid a little bit and that helped. He was in Engineering. He was 19 and decided that he better enlist in the Army Air Corps to stay out of the trenches. They allowed him to stay in school for another six months before he went to Houston, Texas in January or February 1943. He had been working at a bakery when he heard about Pearl Harbor. He knew it was in Hawaii. It was a shock to everybody. There was a draft at the time, and he knew to get into something he wanted to be in before that happened. He had taken astronomy and his eyesight was poor, so he became a navigator.

Donald Dean Paynter attended basic training in Houston, Texas. He just remembers it being physical and he got a lot of shots. He went to San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas] for classification. Navigation school was in Hondo, Texas. Gunnery school was in Harlingen [Annotator's Note: Harlingen, Texas]. In the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber], they had a .50 caliber machine gun [Annotator’s Note: Browning AN-M2 .50 caliber machine gun] in the nose. He was not very good at that. He went into Mexico often for leave. The locals were very nice and that was true all over. He thinks the whole South is friendly. He thought the service was pretty easy. After he graduated from navigation school, he became a second lieutenant. He was sent to MacDill Field in Tampa, Florida for overseas training. His whole crew came together to train together in the B-17 in February 1944. They were there for three months. Getting in formation was quite a job. They practiced navigation and bombing. They were sent overseas. They picked up a brand-new B-17G in Savannah, Georgia, flew it to Fort Dix, New Jersey and landed with their tail wheel up. They ruined the under carriage of the airplane. The crew went to New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] for two weeks and had a wonderful time. [Annotator's Note: Paynter shows the interviewer a picture of his crew.] His crew had a great time together and got to know each other well. [Annotator's Note: Paynter shows a model of a B-17G, he flew B-17F, and shows where each crewmember was positioned.] He was in the 381st Group [Annotator's Note: 534th Bombardment Squadron, 381st Bombardment Group, 1st Bombardment Wing, 1st Air Division, 8th Air Force] out of Ridgewell, England. His aircraft had big letter L on the tail. His plane was called the "Patsy Ann". [Annotator's Note: The camera pans to a picture his daughter made for him as well as a British pound note that he listed their missions on.] They inherited the plane and the name.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer is looking at some war souvenirs of Donald Dean Paynter and puts the camera on some framed medals]. The medal on the right is the Air Medal. He got that after seven or eight missions. For every seven or eight more, he would get a cluster. He has three clusters. On the left is the Distinguished Flying Cross. He also got four campaign medals for Normandy, England, Northern France, and the Rhineland. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Paynter about some of the hot spots he visited in New York, New York in 1944 before going to England.] They did a lot of pub hopping. They went into Times Square a lot. It was a big city for a boy from the Midwest. His uncle lived on Long Island [Annotator's Note: Long Island, New York] and had the whole crew out. They flew nonstop to Prestwick, Scotland and took a train to Ridgewell [Annotator's Note: RAF Ridgewell in Halstead, England], near Cambridge [Annotator's Note: Cambridge, England]. [Annotator's Note: Paynter shows a map to the interviewer then he answers his telephone.] They had two big runways and lived in Quonset huts. The British had nice airbases. They had gone over by Air Transport Command. Later, after his missions, he went into Air Transport Command and came back over in a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft], which required a lot of hopping.

[Annotator's Note: Donald Dean Paynter arrived England around the middle of June 1944]. They started training there. He did not have his first mission until 11 July when he went to Munich, Germany. They did not see many fighter planes. Their main problem was flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. The German 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] were very accurate up to around 30,000 feet. Most of their missions were from 28,000 to 33,000 feet. It was extremely cold at that altitude. They wore heated suits and gloves. It was about 50 degrees below zero. Going to Munich was a long mission. They did pattern bombing with a full group which was 36 planes. They did not often have a full group due to casualties in the early days. An earlier mission to Schweinfurt [Annotator's Note: Schweinfurt, Germany] was 32 planes and they had nearly 50 percent casualties. A lot of his missions were to factories and fuel storage areas. They would get up about 4:30 in the morning, have breakfast, and then briefings. They would take-off in the dark, get up to about 10,000 feet, and form their group [Annotator's Note: Paynter was a navigator in the 534th Bombardment Squadron, 381st Bombardment Group, 1st Bombardment Wing, 1st Air Division, 8th Air Force]. They would follow another group and climb well into Germany to reach about 32,000 feet. The weather was very changeable. Many times, they could not see the target. They had a radar system that could pick up the railroad yards in the cities. They did bomb some of the cities. About half of their missions were PFF, they could not see the target, so they just dropped on the city. A mission to Munich would take about ten hours total. They had fighter escort starting out but not all the way to Munich. After a while, they did go all the way, P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. They were glad to see them.

Donald Dean Paynter had three separate occasions where some of their enlisted men were hit by flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire], but they did not have any killed. One mission to Mersberg [Annotator's Note: Mersberg, Germany] in August 1944, they got hit in two engines. They had to feather them which meant they were losing altitude. Their pilot came on as they were leaving Germany and advised them all to bail out. They decided to go with him instead. They made it back to England, but the plane was too shot up to be used again. Normally they were hit with flak. It would create holes, but they could patch them up. [Annotator's Note: Paynter shows a piece of flak to the interviewer.] If flak hit the engines, it took them out; if it hit the gas tank, it could explode. A lot of planes had that happen and there is no hope of getting out of it. Paynter saw a lot of them get hit in the tanks. The German 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] are what shot that. D-Day was 6 June 1944 [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. After they moved inland, the British were around Caen [Annotator's Note: Caen, France] and the Americans were hemmed in around Saint-Lo [Annotator's Note: Saint-Lo, France]. Paynter went on a mission 24 July [Annotator's Note: 24 July 1944] and bombed from 10,000 feet for the ground troops. Usually, they dropped on the lead bombardier. The trouble was that there were smoke bombs for the target and the wind changed and they killed a bunch of their own troops. He was told General McNair [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General Lesley James McNair] was killed, but he was not sure of that. They would always debrief when they got back. They turned around and went again the next day. It was successful this time. They used cluster bombs. The next day Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] went through and on to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] were not made to bomb at that altitude but they did it. They went to Caen as well. Montgomery [Annotator's Note: British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery] was dug in. They bombed there 8 August [Annotator's Note: 8 August 1944].

Donald Dean Paynter always had problems with his heated suit and would be freezing. He would have to go on oxygen at 12,000 feet. Being on oxygen for several hours really tired him out. It got him to where he did not care about much. He does not know how the foot soldiers in the trenches did it. About every five missions, they would get leave and go to London [Annotator's Note: London, England]. They had a wonderful time. There were a lot of girls around. He loved to get Swedish massages. They had parties at the bases. They could drink a lot, go out on the plane and get on oxygen to sober up. They had many celebrities come there. Paynter had a girlfriend back home who would become his wife. He only got serious when he came back. He wrote a lot of letters and sent pictures. When he came back, he was sent to Santa Ana, California for a rest leave. He saw movies being made and went to Disneyland. He decided to get married and was being sent to Ellington Field, Houston [Annotator's Note: Houston, Texas]. He did not get the letter that his girlfriend and parents were going to be in Houston. They went and then found that he had not checked in yet. His mother found him walking on the street. They did get married. He had not flown in three months and had to get his flight time in to get paid so he did that right afterwards.

Donald Dean Paynter went to Rosecrans Field [Annotator's Note: also called St. Joseph Army Airfield, near St. Joseph, Missouri] in Missouri and then finally to Berry Field in Nashville, Tennessee where he joined the Air Transport Command. He left the service in December 1944 and went right back to school. His last mission was 28 October to Munster, Germany. He had missions all over Germany and France. [Annotator's Note: Paynter shows the interviewer a map of Europe marked with his missions.] Towards the end of the war, there were formations of 1,000 planes doing pattern bombing. The English bombed one plane at a time at night at lower altitudes. [Annotator's Note: The interview is paused while the interviewer changes tapes.] In London [Annotator's Note: London, England] in mid-1944, the V1 buzz bomb [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] would come over. As long as you could hear it, you were fine. It would come down right where the noise stopped. Most of them were aimed at London. Later on, he went to London and was almost knocked out of bed by one. The second thing that was bad was the V2 rocket [Annotator's Note: German Vergeltungswaffe 2, or Retribution Weapon 2, ballistic missile]. They did a lot of damage. It was developed towards the end of the war. If it had been developed earlier, they would have won the war. When Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] got to the German border, he was stopped from going in. It was getting towards winter. The Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] was starting. They also stopped him to get the V2 bombs taken out. They were aimed at population centers.

Donald Dean Paynter came back, finished school with an engineering degree, and went to work for Shell Oil Company. He went to Houston, Texas. He moved 17 times in a two-year training program. He went all over. He took the family and it taught them how to travel. He was working as a Geological Engineer finding oil fields. He retired in Louisiana. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer backs up to his bombing missions in Europe and about what happens when the crew is hit by enemy fire.] The radio operator, top turret and waist gunners, could move around the plane and could take care of the others. The plane was hit practically every mission but they were lucky and did not have much in the way of injuries. They did not have food on their missions. Everything would freeze. That was when he started to smoke, primarily because they gave them away. After being on oxygen for so long, they could not wait to smoke. That was a bad habit he picked up. He did quit in 1952 after starting in 1944. The officers were issued a .45 caliber gun [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol]. They had rations and first aid kits. If they were shot down, they were on their own. Paynter has a history of the 381st Group [Annotator's Note: Paynter was a navigator in the 534th Bombardment Squadron, 381st Bombardment Group, 1st Bombardment Wing, 1st Air Division, 8th Air Force]. The B-17Gs [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] were silver and the Fs were mustard. Paynter had never been to a reunion [Annotator's Note: at the time of the interview]. The last mission of his group was 13 January 1945. They had started 28 May 1943. He is glad he was not there for the early missions.

The war in the Pacific was over in August 1945. Donald Dean Paynter got out of the service that December. He had returned to the United States in October 1944 and joined Air Transport Command. On 29 January 1945, he got married. He did not stay in one place very long. After he left the service, they [Annotator's Note: Paynter and his new wife] lived with his folks. His aunt had a big place where he lived while going to school. He graduated February 1947 and went to work with Shell [Annotator's Note: Shell Oil Company]. He trained in Kansas while his wife stayed home with their daughter. They had a little trailer they pulled with a 1937 Lafayette Nash [Annotator's Note: automobile] with no heater. It was cold. They lived almost two years like that. He was glad to get to civilian life and turned down the Reserves. He was never called back. He has shared very little of his World War 2 stories with his family. This interview is the most he has ever talked about it. He is glad he did this. He feels better getting it down. It was a different life. He would hope that kids today could do it too. He thinks they can. Since he moved around so much, he lost track of his crew. He did see his pilot and copilot in New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. The pilot was pretty bad landing the plane, but when the time came when they were shot up, it was the smoothest landing ever. He was excellent under duress. Paynter found it hard to keep up with things like the American Legion when moving around a lot.