George Allen was in New Orleans, Louisiana on a trip with his family when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He was too young to enlist but the guys all talked about what branch of the service they would go in. Allen wanted to go into the Army Air Forces. He had never flown before so he hoped he would not get sick. He won an Army scholarship to attend LSU [Annotator's Note: Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana] for a three year engineering degree. After graduating, he would become a second lieutenant, go into the Engineering Corps, and serve two years or until the war ended. About a week before high school ended, he told his father he wanted to go in the Air Force instead. It worked out well for him. He got his wings and flew a B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. He attended basic training in Gulfport, Mississippi. He then went to Biloxi, Mississippi for testing. He was then sent to CTD [Annotator's Note: College Training Detachment] at Texas A&M [Annotator's Note: Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas]. CTD was the most military thing he had ever been in, including the Air Force. His first time in the mess hall, some upperclassmen yelled air raid and the plebes [Annotator's Note: newly entered cadet or freshman, especially at a military academy] got up on the table and started pretending to shoot at him. He thought, "these guys are going to be officers?" [Annotator's Note: Allen laughs.] Allen stayed one year in CTD. He attended navigation school at Selman Field [Annotator's Note: Selman Army Airfield, Monroe, Louisiana]. He applied to be a pilot, navigator and bombardier. The military was losing too many B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] in Europe that they cut back on the number of pilots. He liked maps so he chose navigation. After that, he went to Alamogordo [Annotator's Note: Alamogordo Army Air Field, Alamogordo, New Mexico] for his B-29 training [Annotator's Note: with Combat Crew Training Squadron 151].

George Allen was born in September 1925 in Alexandria, Louisiana. He had two sisters growing up there with him. His father had been in the Army in World War 1. Both of his grandfathers were immigrants from Belgium. His father was one of the men who went to the Mexican border to fight outlaws. His father had gone to Louisiana while serving and that is where he met his mother. He liked it, moved there, and went to work in the same hardware store as her. They eventually married and went into business for themselves. He had sold hardware, was a locksmith, sold Harley-Davidson motorcycles and more. The family did well during the Great Depression but did not have a lot of luxuries. His parents worked ten plus hour days and would put the children to sleep on the countertops of the store until they were finished for the night. Allen played baseball, hunted and fished. He was too scared to do anything illegal. When he was in high school, Alexandria had several military bases built. On Saturday nights, the soldiers outnumbered the citizens. Allen was in New Orleans on a jaunt with his father when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. They were in the car together and Allen was in charge of the radio. He came across the news and thought it was a play. They listened a while and realized it was real. He decided they need to get home. On the way, they came across soldiers trying to get back to their bases, and put as many as they could fit into their car. He doubts many of them are still alive. It was a sad day, but they had to get them there.

George Allen says that instructors have to be rough on cadets by design. After they got their wings, they were nice to them. Allen's father saluted him first. He had given him a dollar which is the custom for new commissions. Allen was on his graduation furlough, and went down to Walgreens to see if his old buddies were hanging out. He was in uniform and saw a WAC [Annotator's Note: a member of the Women's Army Corps; women's branch of the Army, 1942 to 1978] coming towards him. He thought she would salute him. She started the salute but then wiped her face. He took it as a joke. [Annotator's Note: Allen laughs.] He went to Lincoln, Nebraska for just a layover until they were assigned to another base. He was there for several months. He would fly just four hours a month. The men had to sign in every day. A friend of his had a girl in Omaha [Annotator's Note: Omaha, Nebraska], and asked him to sign in for him if he did not come back. Other men asked him to as well. He waited to be turned in for it, but nobody did. He knew he was assigned to B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. It is a pressurized airplane. There is a putt putt [Annotator's Note: a small engine] to give a push to help get off the ground. It was operated by the tail gunner. On take off one morning, the pilot assumed the gunner had started the putt-putt. The airplane had a hard time getting off the ground. The putt-putt was not on and that could have been a disaster. The crew also has to check out the airplane before flight. The flight engineer makes the decision about flying and one morning he said they could not fly the plane. One of the engines was not right and he would not go up in the plane. The crew was angry because they had to leave and not fly. The next morning another crew took off in it and crashed. It did not kill anybody, but it ruined the airplane.

George Allen was sent to Lincoln, Nebraska to train on the Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bombers with Combat Crew Training Squadron 151. He had been in the service one year by that time. The base was nothing unexpected. Of the 64 men that started in his class, Allen was the only one who made it through. There were about seven of them in school when they were told that the war in Europe was ending. They were given the option of staying in or going home. Allen was the only one who chose to stay in and finish his training. He got his commission and his wings. He had to get a haircut every week. The barber would give him a haircut and then he would have to go sign something that said he had gotten it. His family was coming to see him one week. He got the inspection and the lieutenant did not believe he had gotten a haircut. He and Allen walked down to prove he had signed in. The officer then said he thought he got a terrible haircut. They were always trying to see your reaction. It was part of the training. This was at Texas A&M [Annotator's Note: Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas]. He then went to New Mexico and joined his crew of 11 men. The airplane was one of the most expensive in the Army Air Forces. Allen was one of the youngest officers at just 19. Most officers were 21 or 22. The two enlisted gunners were in their late 20s. The airplane was being flown by a bunch of kids. The B-29 was the airplane of the time. The Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana] does not have one [Annotator's Note: the interviewer says it is because the plane is too big]. Allen told the Museum to put one on the roof and build around it. It did all of the bombing of Japan. They could stay in the air for 13 or 14 hours, had a large bomb-load, and were well protected. The guns were fired remotely, unlike the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. It was a perfectly designed airplane.

George Allen says the officer accommodations in New Mexico were okay. Most of the time they were in the field though. If they had a morning flight, they would go to the mess hall. They had pancakes, eggs, syrup and anything else they would want. The cooks were German prisoners of war. They had a gravy train [Annotator's Note: easy job] and they made them feel good and fed them well. Allen enjoyed it. 16 July 1945 they were going through their normal routine. They would be picked up by a vehicle. They would eat breakfast and then go to their briefings. Allen's job was paying attention to the wind direction and speed. Everything else was covered by the instruments. They were on the runway and told to hold position. It is not unusual for this to happen. The second time was not normal, but they were told not to call again on their third try. This was 5:30 in the morning and the sky was black. They could just see light coming from the horizon and it went right over the top of them, all the way across the sky. It then went back down again the same way. No noise, no troubled air, just the vision. They were about 30 or 40 miles away [Annotator's Note: from the first detonation of a nuclear device; part of the Manhattan Project; code name Trinity]. Allen read in a book by Bill O'Reilly [Annotator's Note: William James O'Reilly, American journalist] that said that glass was broken 150 miles away. Allen and the crews were close enough to see the light but did not have any other feelings about it. They were then told not to fly so they went back to the barracks. They were making jokes about it. They had no idea what it was. They were in the barracks one morning and saw it on the news. That is when they knew about it. They had flown over that testing site where Oppenheimer [Annotator's Note: J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist] and his gang were, 100 times. It was so well camouflaged they had no idea what it was. One of the crew members said, "Those fools did not know what that was going to do. It could have blown up." [Annotator's Note: Allen laughs.] Allen said it was true that they did not know what was going to happen. It won the war though. He thinks the Japanese would have been stubborn and kept on fighting. About a month after the first test bomb, Allen and the men were allowed to go within a reasonable distance. They could see the sand had solidified and turned green. It stayed hot for quite a while. A friend of his was in the service later and was out at the site on an Army tour. Not as much radiation there now. Allen recalls seeing cattle roaming around afterwards that were brown on one side and pure white on the other where the radiation had killed the pigmentation. Those cows died. They could not be saved.

George Allen still hears from his bombardier. He was his closest friend on the crew. He has no idea where the rest of his crew is. Some records were lost in a fire. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer says it was in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1972. The date was 12 July 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center.] Allen had no idea about the atomic bomb testing [Annotator's Note: Trinity test of the Manhattan Project, 16 July 1945]. They must have flown over it 50 times and did not know. Allen was ready to go back home when the war ended. His girlfriend was waiting for him, his father was ill and needed help. He also had some college in, and he could have gone back to engineering. But his father had put in too many hours and had become very feeble. Allen decided to take over the business then and is glad he did. It was difficult work and it fascinated him. It is an occupation that kept him on his toes [Annotator's Note: Locksmith]. He came back home in 1946 at age 20. When he quit the work, he was 80. He taught classes too. Nowadays the people who say they are locksmiths are not, they are just hammer and drill guys. Allen only stayed in the service for one year.

George Allen says he was part of something that worked out well. He was worried that we [Annotator's Note: the United States] were not really prepared to defend ourselves. If the Japanese had had a second attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] they could have occupied it. He knew we would have a hard time coming back from it and we did. Island hopping, Guadalcanal, one thing at a time, a lot got killed. He has a lot of friends who were Marines during the war, and they took the brunt of it. Allen's most memorable experience was getting his wings. His dad put his bars [Annotator's Note: second lieutenant rank insignia] on him and his mother put his wings [Annotator's Note: aviator wings badge] on him. He was 19 and on top of the world. A WAC [Annotator's Note: a member of the Women's Army Corps; women's branch of the Army, 1942 to 1978] who gave a joke salute brought him down from that. [Annotator's Note: Allen laughs.] Allen feels the war made him mature in every respect. When he was up in the airplane, everybody was looking to him, the navigator who had to be right. When he was a cadet there were three navigators per flight. The first navigator led the airplane by celestial navigation or dead reckoning or other means. The second guy followed the airplane by any means necessary. The third guy looked at the ground, which is pilotage, using the terrain and landscape. They had to worry about getting lost. The magnetic effect of the airplane on the compass had to be taken into consideration. On one flight he gave the wrong heading to the pilot. He knew he was off but he was not sure how to fix it. The pilot asked him, and when he told him what he thought, the pilot said he was getting out of the plane. When they landed, Allen got chewed out. [Annotator's Note: Allen laughs.] Allen received two unsatisfactory marks. A major took him up and tested him again. He helped him a lot and Allen passed. He thinks that many Americans do not think about World War 2 because most of them were not alive at that time. They read about it. He saw some protesters on television. He thinks the president is doing a good job and people are not satisfied. He really enjoyed the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana]. He went around it two or three times. It was almost like getting back in the service. He hopes people come from all over to it. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer gives him details on the visitors.] He saw some airplanes he had not seen in years. He thinks putting a B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] there would be really nice. The B-29 was the airplane of the war, without it we might still be fighting Japan.