Dracos Burke was born in September 1919 in New Iberia, Louisiana at a time when automobiles were rare. His father was a rice broker; his mother was a homemaker. Burke was second of four children, and his family lived four blocks past the business district on Main Street. He attended public school for his first five grades, skipping a grade because of his advanced reading skills, then went to an all-boys parochial school until he graduated high school at an early age. He got out of school during the Great Depression, and there were no jobs to be had. Because of the glamour the World War 1 pilots enjoyed in the movies and in boys' magazines, he had always been interested in becoming a flying cadet. At the time, the US Army Air Corps required two years of college and a minimum age of 20 years, so Burke bided his time attending Southwestern College, and working at miscellaneous jobs around town for spending money. As soon as he was old enough, he applied and was accepted for flying, but it was before the military buildup for the Second World War, and there were only a limited number of pilot slots available. After about four months of training at Love Field in Dallas, Texas, Burke was eliminated and discharged in April 1941. He returned to New Iberia and took employment at his uncle's sand, gravel and concrete operation. Unexpectedly, Burke received a letter from the War Department stating that he could train for one of two new positions that had come available, namely that of bombardier or navigator. He decided on navigation, but found himself in bombardier training, focusing on the Norden bombsight, which at the time was top secret.

When Dracos Burke commenced his training as a bombardier, the war in Europe was progressing to a point where the U.S. could very well become involved. At Lowry [Annotator's Note: the former Lowry Air Force Base was located near Denver, Colorado] he trained on B-18s [Annotator's Note: Douglas B-18 Bolo medium bomber], which Burke thought ideal because it wasn't a fast plane. He said it would not have lasted in combat but it was big and could carry many cadets and a large number of bombs per flight. The training took place day and night, and under different circumstances, so the cadets became very efficient, and were being trained to teach the next classes of recruits going forward. Upon graduation Burke was made an instructor at Barksdale Field [Annotator's Note: now Barksdale Air Force Base] in Shreveport, Louisiana. Among the students Burke taught at Barksdale were Kermit Beahan, the bombardier who dropped the last bomb of the war at Nagasaki. [Annotator's Note: Later US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Kermit Beahan was the bombardier aboard the Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber Bockscar which dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945.] Burke said he had trained about two classes when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and everything changed. He and his new wife were listening to her new portable radio while on an outing with another couple when the news was broadcast. When they came back through base, "the place was a madhouse." They were going to war conditions, according to Burke, and there were machine guns set up at the gate. There was concern that the Japanese were going to invade California, although the initial opinion among the old enlisted men was that the Japanese could be dispatched within a couple of weeks. But at the time America really had no military, and Burke said that when he was moved to California and assigned to a medium bomb group on a twin engine plane, there were no planes, and he sat around the dessert for a couple of months. Others were luckier, and were assigned to the B-24 Liberator [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] bomber, built for the British, and although the United States had the planes, they didn't have the right ammunition. Burke said things were "very confusing in the very beginning." He was transferred back to a new school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as an instructor, and eventually became the deputy director of training.

Life in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Dracos Burke was hot and demanding. He flew every day without breaks. He said the cadets were great people, mostly college guys. They were flying AT-11 [Annotator's Note: Beechcraft AT-11 advanced trainer aircraft, also known as the Model 18 or the Twin Beech] airplanes, and there were accidents, but Burke was not involved in any of them. He did recall one student who fell out of a plane, although no one could ever figure out how it happened. And there were a few crashes, some with casualties, but not a lot. In one instance a cadet who always wanted to parachute took it upon himself to jump. He got down all right, but he was sent to the infantry. The B-24 Liberator [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] four-engine bomber school was also in Albuquerque, and they had their share of accidents, too. In those days it was just accepted. There was an elimination board, and Burke only remembers one cadet washing out. He was the son of a retired colonel who wanted the student reinstated, but Burke said the young man couldn't think under pressure and held with his decision. Burke said he was never inclined to volunteer for overseas duty. When he was stationed at what is now called Edwards Air Force Base [Annotator's Note: then known as Rogers Dry Lake near Muroc, California, in the Mojave Desert], he recalled living in tents, surrounded by slit trenches that they had dug for protection during air raids, no mess hall and no toilet or shower facilities. He ate his 1941 Christmas dinner out of a mess kit while standing in a snowstorm. He had volunteered for that assignment, and never volunteered again.

Dracos Burke said that at the beginning of the war, there were a lot of things going on at once. Boeing was building the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber], a four-engine bomber, and at that time the United States had the 92nd Bomb Group in Java in the South Pacific. When six brand new B-17s were being delivered to the base, headed for the heat of combat in Java, the base commander asked for volunteers to go, and no one came forward. They all put their names in a hat, and luckily, Burke's was not pulled. Three of the men who went were killed. One of the planes that went missing in action was found over 40 years later on a mountain top in Borneo. The remains of its pilot were buried in Arlington Cemetery. It was a hazardous profession at the time. Burke said he had to get used to hearing about the loss of his friends and students. It's a mindset that can't be explained to anyone who has not had the experience. He was in Albuquerque, New Mexico for most of the war, and at one time was in the same squadron as Jimmy Stewart [Annotator's Note: US Air Force Brigadier General James Maitland "Jimmy" Stewart was a popular American actor from the 1930s to the 1990s]. Burke said the cadets liked flying with Stewart, because as a pilot he was so calm and collected. Burke mentioned that new things were always coming out like having to teach cadets dead reckoning, a form of navigation, or evasive action, the way to straighten out at the very last minute and avoid being a target. Those things had to be worked into the program. Burke said there wasn't a dull moment.

When the US Army Air Corps started closing down the bombardier schools in early 1945, Dracos Burke was reassigned to study B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] aerial gunnery in Las Vegas, Nevada. He said the unique B-29 was the first bomber with guns remote from the gunners and bombardiers, completely different from what had been used in Europe, and it was complicated but fun. The B-29 was "quite an airplane," according to Burke, but it had some trouble with the engines; rarely did it come back to base with all four engines running. He did a lot of practice flights and target shooting, after which he was assigned to a B-29 crew stationed in Gulfport, Mississippi. On his last B-29 flight an engine caught fire and it was leaving a ten-mile trail of black smoke. The crew readied for bailout, but the pilot got the plane back to base where it was met by seven fire trucks and two ambulances. Burke's B-29 crew was waiting to be deployed to the Pacific, but never left Gulfport because of the atomic bomb. He said at his level no one had any idea what that was; all they heard was that it was a big bomb that destroyed a city. The crew went about their business for the next week until the second bomb ended the war. Burke said while the celebration was going on in the streets of Gulfport, he and his wife were in the hotel where they lived with their two small children, except for about ten minutes when someone babysat so they could watch the festivities. The war was over, and many people were being discharged but Burke stayed in the service. He wishes now that he had kept a diary of those days.

Dracos Burke was deployed to Germany, and put into the last B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] outfit in Europe. The B-17 crews were not dropping bombs, however, they were photographing airfields. Because he was a college graduate, he worked as a historian and a public relations officer with the 40th Bomb Wing [Annotator's Note: 40th Bombardment Wing (heavy)]. Burke said he ran a daily newspaper "The Erlangen Owl", a photo lab and a staff, and because it was the wing command, there were detachments all over Europe. Burke was writing articles for the Associated Press and for headquarters in Wiesbaden that sent material to soldiers' hometown publications. It was not like flying at Albuquerque, but he was busy. He was a major, and traveled on business and for fun with a buddy for about a year before his wife joined him. Once she arrived, he spent a week in April [Annotator's Note: April 1946] in Paris with her, having traveled on the Orient Express from Nuremberg. Another time they traveled to Switzerland for a week together. During the time Burke was stationed in Germany, he got a pass to spend a few days at the Nuremberg trials. It was quite an experience for Burke, where he listened to parts of the trial including the testimony of Admiral Doenitz [Annotator's Note: German Grossadmiral Karl Doenitz briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as the German head of state in 1945], "a very dignified and formidable looking person." Burke was impressed with the IBM [Annotator's Note: International Business Machines] translating machines that enabled him to know what Doenitz was saying in his own defense. Burke said Doenitz "came off pretty well." The trials were held at the Palace of Justice, and the courtroom was crowded. There were rumors that the Nazis were going to try to rescue the prisoners, and there were American airplanes, tanks and ground soldiers everywhere.

For Dracos Burke, the Nuremberg trials were fascinating, because he was interested in the law. President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt] sent the Attorney General of the United States to handle the prosecution, which Burke regarded as a monumental task. He said the prosecutor carved out a defense that was legally acceptable. The Russian position, according to Burke, was to "just get rid of them," and there was trouble among the other Allies with the Russians' desire for "quick justice." Asked what he thought about the limited exposure he had to the trials, Burke said he thought the verdict for Admiral Doenitz [Annotator's Note: German Grossadmiral Karl Doenitz briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as the German head of state in 1945] was about what it should have been. He spent time in prison but was not executed. He said the case for each defendant was different, and some of the accused were just two-bit politicians who knew what was going on, but would not "officially" admit to wrongdoing. Burke said he thought they all expected to be executed, and some were surprised when they were spared. Except Goering [Annotator's Note: German Reichsmarschall Hermann Wilhelm Göring, or Goering, was head of the German Luftwaffe, or Air Force]. He knew he was going to be executed, so he committed suicide. Burke said he was disappointed that Goering wasn't hung. Goering had been a good flyer in World War 1, but he went crazy. He was a dope addict and a pig and he stole everything he could get his hands on during World War 2, and ruined what should have been an honorable reputation. Burke had gone to Nuremberg for a few days to see the trials while he was stationed in Erlangen, Germany, a university town. Burke said the Americans took over the university after the war, and the officers of his group made the club their own, with good food and good music. Burke said for him the occupation was "easy living." The hard part was witnessing the POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] who were being treated at the Erlangen hospital, and Burke said they would have been better off dead rather than being damaged as they were. He said the German citizens had nothing; Americans could trade cigarettes, soap and coffee for anything. The Germans would in turn trade those goods for farm produce and other needed supplies. Burke said everybody in Europe was suffering, and his wife put Care Packages [Annotator's Note: the humanitarian organization "Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe" program which sent U.S. Army surplus food parcels to war survivors] to good use.

While Dracos Burke was stationed in Erlangen, Germany [Annotator's Note: on occupation duty with the 40th Bombardment Wing (heavy)], he shared a requisitioned house with two other majors. The town's mayor had the responsibility for moving locals out of their homes in order to make space for the conquerors. The former lady of the house they occupied became the maid and laundress for the three American officers, and kept up her backyard garden. Burke said he often wondered about how she felt having strangers in her home, using her furnishings, and having to work as a servant. Most of the menfolk of the town were gone, perhaps still in prison camps, Burke said, and the town was policed by the Polish Guard, arrayed in American-issued black uniforms and carrying .30 caliber carbines, which they "shot like mad." It was dangerous to go out at night, because the Germans were trying to steal their own stuff back [Annotator's Note: Burke laughs], and the Poles didn't mind shooting a German. The Poles hated the Germans as they should have, according to Burke, for destroying their country. Burke found the Polish soldiers very impressive people; devout Catholics who went to mass every morning in military formation, singing as they marched. Burke said he thought the Poles blamed the higher ups for the situation getting out of control in their country. One thing that stood out in Burke's mind about Germany was the destruction of the country as a result of the Allied bombing raids. When he would fly over the territory, he said old medieval towns were in ashes with the walls still standing. They had obviously been used as targets, and "cleaned out." Burke said we didn't execute the Germans in the way they executed others. We "killed them on the fly." [Annotator's Note: Burke laughs.] When the 40th Bomb Wing [Annotator's Note: 40th Bombardment Wing (heavy)] completed its mission and disbanded, Burke transferred to the European Air Materiel Command. His wife had come to live in Erlangen, German with him, and they wanted to stay. He was a provost marshal for a very brief time, although he had no experience in law enforcement, but soon got the assignment as public relations officer. When his wife became pregnant with their second child, Burke requested a transfer back to the United States.

When he returned to the United States, Dracos Burke joined the 43rd Bomb Wing [Annotator's Note: 43rd Bombardment Wing (very heavy)] in Tucson, Arizona, and he was back to B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] and many of his old friends, which was nice. Burke was a bombardier again, but was not assigned to a crew; instead he served with the general staff as a public relations officer. He worked in that field until he was offered an opportunity to go to law school in Denver, Colorado. He went to classes and kept his bombardier rating up until he graduated and went to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida as a JAG [Annotator's Note: the Judge Advocate General Corps is the legal branch of the U.S. military], and had to choose between flying and the law. He decided on a legal career, and was moved to 2nd Air Force headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, where he served as deputy director for criminal law for four years. Burke then transferred to Spain to work with the Joint United States Military Advisory Group, or JUSMAG, while the United States was building bomber bases and a naval base to be used by Strategic Air Command (SAC) in the event of a war with Russia. Next he served as the first staff JAG for the 16th Air Force in Spain, and was in that country for three years. When he returned to the United States again, he left the bomber groups and went to the Tactical Air Command at 9th Air Force in South Carolina, but after two years was called upon to rejoin SAC in the United States. Burke remembers that General LeMay, as commander-in-chief of SAC, was a hard taskmaster, but he made it a great organization. Burke worked under his successor, another tough guy, and eventually became the head of SAC’s JAG group for six or seven years.

As the chief legal officer of the Strategic Air Command, Dracos Burke was responsible for the legal affairs at 62 bases and supervised over 250 lawyers. The claims departments, which he oversaw, handled claims against the government, such as airplane crashes and the resultant damage. Some of the claims involved nuclear material, and Burke said he would rather not discuss the subject. They also handled criminal cases, called court martial, within the unique military justice system, as well as contracts. The work also included giving legal assistance to servicemen. Burke said he felt the threat of Russia during the Cold War. When he was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base, his wife would have to pile the children into the car and drive away for dependent evacuation drills. When they lived in Omaha, which Burke said would have been a perfect target for the Russians, their basement was stocked with emergency rations. School children were taught how to take cover. Burke said "it was real." Burke does not think the Cold War is over, and said that at the least show of weakness, the Russians will move in on us.

Dracos Burke said he always wanted to be in the military, war or no war. Beginning when he was 17, he participated during his summers in a Citizens Military Training Camp, CMTC, at Camp Beauregard in Alexandria, Louisiana, so he was already enlisted when his draft notice came. He said the war changed his life in every way. It gave him the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and have experiences that would never have otherwise been part of his life. It also gave him an opportunity to progress to a point where he dealt with four star generals and even talked with the Prince of Whales. Important people listened to him, and he found that "pretty intoxicating." Burke said that second to being married to his wife, he is proudest of having been part of the Strategic Air Command, or SAC. He feels that the people he worked with are the finest in the world. Burke feels that World War 2 propelled the United States into the status of a superpower, and placed Americans in positions of importance all over the world. He believes it important to have institutions like The National WWII Museum so people won't distort or forget the history. He feels future generations need to be taught the lessons of the war, so they will understand the effort it took, and recognize the many people who paid the ultimate price, to get the life that Americans enjoy today.