George Roberts was working a good job when he was drafted. He was called up in August and reported to Altoona, Pennsylvania where he took his physical. After a short return trip home he reported for service at New Cumberland, Pennsylvania where he was given a series of tests and received all of the shots required for servicemen. From there, he went down to Tampa, Florida where he stayed in a renovated hotel. At the time Roberts did not even know he was in the Air Force. From Tampa he went to St. Petersburg where he took his basic training. It was also here that he discovered that he was in the Air Force. Basic training lasted five weeks. After that, he went to radio school at Scott Air Force Base, then known as Scott Field. Roberts chose to fly instead of learning how to do radio tower school. After initially failing his physical due to weighing an extra pound Roberts went and sweat off five pounds over a weekend and was able to pass the following Monday. Roberts and his friends then headed down to Laredo, Texas, for gunnery school. There they learned how to fire and clean machine guns, operate the Sperry ball turret, and the upper turrets. After completing his training, Roberts was issued a flight jacket, a .45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semiautomatic pistol] sidearm, and a watch. He then traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah where he was separated from his friends and sent to Blithe, California. At this point he was assigned to his crew and they took their Phase 1 training there. Then the crew traveled to Dalhart, Texas for Phase 2 training. While in Phase 2 training Roberts was sent back home to Pennsylvania on emergency leave to see his ill sister. During the train trip back to Texas Roberts happened to run into Eleanor Roosevelt very briefly. She said that no one else had spotted her or said anything. Roberts recalls that she was a very gracious person.

George Roberts and his crew were sent to Hampton Roads, Virginia where they boarded the USS Argentina [Annotator's Note: SS Argentina] and steamed for England. Conditions aboard ship were not good. There was not enough room for everyone so they were initially forced to sleep in shifts. After 17 days they landed in Liverpool. Then they traveled deep into England to a small town just north of London. Roberts and his crewmates arrived at their new home and got set up. Then he and his crew were split up and assigned to new flight crews. Roberts remembers how the attitudes of the men were often casual and they just tried to keep their minds on the present and to not think too much about the next day. Roberts' first mission was on 4 October [Annotator's Note: 4 October 1943]. Unfortunately, they had to turn back due to mechanical issues. Roberts recalls how when flying missions over the Scandinavian countries, the Danes and Norwegians in particular did not have any serious flak guns, and thus allowed for the Americans to fly lower missions.

George Roberts and his crewmates knew ahead of time if they were flying the next day. On the night of 7 October [Annotator's Note: 7 October 1943], Roberts was alerted and prepared to fly a mission. On mornings when they were flying the men would all gather in a hanger where they would be briefed on what the objectives, route, and expected obstacles would be for the mission. The navigators and pilots had their own briefings. Sometimes the radio operators would have a briefing too during which they would be told what the colors for the mission were. They would then suit up in their early versions of flight suits. These suits were thick and incredibly heavy elongated B3 jackets and pants, with gloves as well. About three months after he arrived in England they started getting electric suits so they did not have to dress so heavy. After suiting up, the men would assemble under the wing. After a quick talk by the captain they would install their guns. They had to be sure that the guns were dry because they could freeze up at altitude. Roberts had a gun freeze up on him one time. The guns were heavily, heavily oiled, and they had to make sure to dry them off well or else risk them freezing up at altitude. They had a good pilot who would calm them and tell them to simply inform him where enemy fighters were instead of yelling incoherently. The mission to Bremen was pretty tough. They lost two of six planes on that mission. An air base housed two squadrons. After taking off the squadrons would assemble in the sky before they left for missions in Germany. Occasionally the lead plane would fire a flare so the rest of the squadron knew who to form up on. Once the squadron was assembled they would assemble as a group. Then the groups would assemble as a wing. A combat wing was made up of nine groups. Three combat wings made up a division. When flying to the target they flew in a combat box to take advantage of all of the guns on the bombers. During the approach to the target the planes may separate. They would try to drop their bombs on the target, get out in flying shape, and then would rally somewhere with the rest of their combat wing in order to make it back to Britain.

The worst part of the mission to Bremen for George Roberts was the fighters. Roberts operated his gun from the radio compartment. There were no controls on his gun. He could fire in any direction. That included firing straight at the tail of his own plane and he is sure he did that at least once. The guns that were in turrets had cut offs which prevented them from shooting off their own tails. Roberts stayed on his gun for about seven missions. Once he became the radio man for whole squadron, he stopped using his gun and just ended up leaving the gun behind to use the radio the whole time. On their first mission they lost two planes. Their second mission was to Gdynia, Poland. That mission lasted 11 hours. Their target was a battleship, either the Scharnhorst or the Gneisenau. Due to poor visibility they were not able to hit the target. They did not see any enemy fighters until they were on their way back and were over Denmark. The first mission Roberts flew was to Bremen. When he saw the German fighters it did not take long for him to realize that he was going to either kill or be killed. Roberts and his men simply tried to just get it over with every time they flew missions, and even though they did not want to go, they could not refuse to because they depended on each other that much. In the first few days of flying missions, Roberts remembers them losing 148 planes. At Schweinfurt, their combat wing lost 29 airplanes out of 54. The 367th Bombardment Squadron only had one plane that reached the target. The 306th Bombardment Group lost 10 airplanes. The 305th Bombardment Group, which was flying next to them, lost 13 and the 92nd Bombardment Group which was in the lead, lost 6. After that week, they stood down due to the tremendous loss of life. There were times when half of the men who Roberts shared the Nissen hut with would be wiped out, particularly on 14 October. During bombing missions the flak was not as deadly as the German fighters. The first B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] that Roberts saw go down was shot down by German fighters over Bremen and had one of his friends was aboard it. He was a young married fellow. Roberts felt a little better that he was positioned on the top part of the plane and could see planes in his squadron being hit but could not see them crashing as they were shot down. The German fighter pilots came in very close when doing their strafing runs. Some of the German pilots were highly skilled and their machines were very good as well.

George Roberts was signed up to fly 25 missions. After flying only 16 missions, however, that required number was bumped up from 25 to 30. Then, when he drew close to that they bumped the requirements up to 35. Roberts flew his first credited combat mission on 8 October [Annotator's Note: 8 October 1943] and did not fly his last mission until 9 July [Annotator's Note: 9 July 1944]. That was a long time. Most crews finished their tours in four months. The heaviest losses suffered by the Air Force was in the fall of 1943. A person flying in the fall of 1943 only had a 15 percent chance of completing his 25 missions. Roberts wrote a memo stating that when he was returning from Schweinfurt [Annotator's Note: following the Second Schweinfurt Raid on 14 October 1943] it was the only time he thought that the Allies could lose the war. Once the invasion took place, he and the other pilots thought that it was fantastic. Now, if they crashed or if there was an emergency, they would have a place to crash land or be picked up. When returning back to England, they felt a sense of relief when they reached the Channel, and very rarely did the German fighters ever follow them over the water. After the fall of 1943, Roberts does not recall seeing an enemy fighter follow them back over the Channel. During the last 16 missions Roberts flew he was constantly on the radio. In addition to receiving and sending messages he also received coded weather reports. The messages were sent over high frequency radio. The communications between planes was done by the pilots using very high frequency. As soon as he got back from Bremen he was told that he was on alert for the following day. That happened a couple more days too. The weather was always a factor. Roberts saw a report on the internet from the Second Schweinfurt Raid that was supposedly from a diary found in a trash can. Much of the information contained in the diary did not jive with the recollections Roberts has. His memories of the things that happened back then during the war are better than the memories he has for the past couple years. Roberts worked for the Air Force after the war and went back to Europe several times. On one trip he was at his old air base and walked directly to the spot where his barracks had been.

When George Roberts flew to Schweinfurt they ran out of ammunition, except for in the radio room, on the way to the target. Roberts did not fire his gun much. The ball turret gunner asked him for more ammo but there was none. As they neared the IP [Annotator's Note: the Initial Point, or IP, was the location at which the bombers began their bomb run] the captain told the tail gunner to let him know when he saw the 369th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group. The plan was to form up on them. The tail gunner replied that there were no planes behind them. They had really taken a beating. One of the gunners was hit in his legs, and he was out of commission for quite a while. Even though the pilot did his best to evade the enemy flak and fighters, they still took on a lot of damage. Just before they hit the IP they lost an engine. The flak that was being thrown up at them over Schweinfurt was unbelievably deadly. After the war, the Germans that manned the flak guns at Schweinfurt became friends with the veteran American airmen. Many of the German flak gunners were six to eight years younger than the American airmen. During the fighting, even though there was always a heavy amount of fire, rarely did much of it hit them. The majority of it either went past them or just fell short. After receiving a particularly devastating hit which knocked out the oxygen system, Roberts always took a little oxygen tank with him up into the air on missions. Roberts would ration the oxygen in the little bottle. It was supposed to last for 15 minutes but Roberts made it last for hours during the Schweinfurt mission. They lost oxygen over Schweinfurt and they lost oxygen over Bremen.

George Roberts knew the losses were severe when flying over Schweinfurt because he could see them [Annotator's Note: aircraft] going down. Those he could not see were called out by someone else. Even though they would be fighting, they would call out the parachutes they saw going out of the crashing bombers. Roberts's plane was the only from his squadron that made it all the way to the target and back. They had originally put up six planes. Much of the fighting they experienced took place on the way to the target. They would be hit after the bombing but that was usually not as bad. The plane Roberts flew in on the first and fourth missions was the Cavalier. The Cavalier was damaged so bad over Schweinfurt that it never flew again. Roberts flew in ten different planes during his tour. He flew 15 of his last 16 missions aboard the Rose of York. When they returned to base on the way back from Schweinfurt, they landed when it was almost dark. The commander, Colonel Robinson [Annotator's Note: USAAF Colonel George L. Robinson commanded the 306th Bombardment Group from June 1943 to September 1944], was out on the runway watching them, and when they had disembarked the commander told them that they were the only ones from the 367th [Annotator's Note: 367th Bombardment Squadron, 306th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] that made it back. After learning that they were the only crew to make it back one of the crewmen told Roberts that he could not fly anymore missions. The next day, the same crewman told the commander the same thing, and they busted him down to private. That man was a very skilled top turret gunner and was no coward. His reason for not wanting to fly anymore was that he feared that he would let the crew down and in doing so, would put them in danger.

George Roberts remembers a pilot named Clyde Cosper. He was a sergeant who went through flight school and was commissioned a flight officer. He was sharp, cocky, and well liked. He was made the copilot of Roberts's plane for the first five missions. The pilot was a guy named Kirk [Annotator's Note: William S. Kirk] who had already flown ten or 12 missions. After five missions, the operations officer told Roberts and the other crewmen that they would be staying with Captain Kirk. Cosper was given his own crew and own airplane. The first mission Cosper flew as the main pilot, he was caught in a thunderstorm and lost control of the plane. He was able to maintain control long enough for everyone else to bail out and to avoid crashing the plane into a small town. The plane crashed into a field and Cosper was killed. The people of the little village where Cosper crashed his plane put up a memorial for him. Roberts never met General Armstrong [Annotator's Note: then USAAF Brigadier General Frank A. Armstrong], who commanded the 306th Bombardment Group early on and was later moved up to division commander. Colonel Overacker [Annotator's Note: USAAF Colonel Charles Overacker] took over the group but did not do well and lost a lot of planes. After that, Armstrong was sent back to the 306th Bombardment Group and stayed there for 11 or 12 missions including the 11 January 1943 mission to Wilhelmshaven. It was the first mission over Germany. Armstrong was the inspiration for the character named Savage in the book and movie 12 O'Clock High.

George Roberts befriended a woman who was the widow of a British officer who had four daughters while stationed in England. Roberts somewhat adopted them and gave them candy and spent almost all his free time with them. He is still friends with the daughters to this day, and refers to their home as his home away from home. When he got leave, Roberts went to the little town of Ashton-in-Makerfield. He was born in the town of Wigin which was about three miles from there. Roberts did occasionally go to London but not often. Roberts's mother wrote him and told him to go to the post office and ask for his uncle. Roberts did so and they realized who he was. They took great care of him after that and treated him like he was their own son. After Roberts flew his fourth mission, which was to Schweinfurt, his plane, Cavalier, was too heavily damaged to fly so they were forced to fly whatever plane they could. Then, in March or April [Annotator's Note: of 1944], they were assigned a new plane which had the name Princess painted on the side of it. The local British lord mayor of Bedford was upset by that since he said that if something happened to the plane it would be a bad omen for the royal family. With that in mind they decided to change the name of the plane to Rose of York. On the day the plane was to be christened a caravan including King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, Princess Elizabeth, General Doolittle [Annotator's Note: USAAF, then USAF, General James Doolittle], General Anderson, and a number of others. The pilot went down the line and introduced the crew to the royal family. After the ceremony Roberts took the King and General Doolittle on the plane to show them the interior of a plane. That night they flew the plane over to Molesworth. The following day the ceremony was repeated at Molesworth in front of the hangar. Roberts flew 15 of his last 16 missions aboard the Rose of York. The plane itself was later shot down on an air raid over Berlin. It was hit and lost an engine and was last seen flying towards the North Sea.

George Roberts took part in the 6 March [Annotator's Note: 6 March 1944] raid over Berlin during which 69 bombers were lost. It was the highest number of bombers ever lost in any kind raid. Roberts has kept a list of the missions he flew. His first mission to Germany was to Berlin on 3 March. Then he went again on 6 March with Colonel Lambert on the lead plane. The ranking officer was called the mission commander. The pilot of the lead plane would fly as copilot and the copilot would sometimes fly in the tail gun position. The Rose of York was not available on 6 March. Roberts still has the mission reports. Captain Kirk [Annotator's Note: William S. Kirk] finished his missions around the time Roberts flew his eleventh mission. Kirk went back to the United States and was stationed at a few different bases. One day Roberts went to visit him but Kirk was then living in a halfway house. Kirk was a very devout person. He went to church on nights off instead of the bars, and was a very kind man. He was the opposite of Cosper [Annotator's Note: Clyde Cosper]. Roberts flew with a couple other pilots who were experienced. His last 14 or 15 were with the same pilot. The Rose of York was a G model. The G model had a chin turret on it. Not long after they got the G model planes they also got an electric suit to keep warm. Unfortunately, the suits would often short circuit and burn the men. Roberts also kept some nice pairs of boots and gloves at all time. Roberts feels lucky that he survived the war. Everyone on his original crew was either killed or received purple hearts. He never flew more than five missions with the same crew due to deaths and serious injuries. Roberts had his missions prorated. That is how they came to the number of 31. When he started flying they were supposed to fly 25 missions. Those missions were tough. They were hitting targets in Germany and really getting it bad. When they were given a target in France they thought they were getting a break. This mission turned out to be a rough one too and they were pounded by flak. During that mission the control cables on their plane were severed by antiaircraft fire. This one was the shortest mission they ever flew and they flew it at only 15,000 feet. They usually flew at 24,000 to 28,000 feet. At those altitudes it is extremely cold.

George Roberts knew people who would give their lives for him in the military. He has spoken to people at Keelser Air Force Base and told them that they would find this bond as well. The Air Force was a terrific experience. Roberts was awarded the Purple Heart Medal for being wounded during the raid on Bremen on 20 December [Annotator's Note: 20 December 1943] by a 20mm shell that hit the bulkhead. He just received his Purple Heart five years before this interview. Whenever he used the VA [Annotator's Note: Veterans Administration] his insurance paid for it. Someone at the VA told him that he did not need to pay for it because he had been wounded. It took three years but he finally got his Purple Heart. The DFC [Annotator's Note: Distinguished Flying Cross] and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters that Roberts has he found lying on his cot the day he left. They were never actually presented to him and are not even on his official records. Roberts wrote to St. Louis where they had the fire [Annotator's Note: Roberts is referring to the National Personnel Records Center]. The Department of the Air Force replied to him and informed him that he had earned a number of decorations including his DFC and Air Medal. The first award he ever had presented was the Purple Heart and that was at Keesler four or five years before this interview. During the same year this interview was recorded, the French Ambassador awarded him the Legion of Honor. Roberts was returning from a mission on 5 January [Annotator's Note: he means 5 June 1944] and saw countless boats in the Channel and thought that the invasion was taking place. Roberts entered the Air Force with ten or 11 other people. He has not seen any of them since. Roberts got a three day pass while at Scott Air Force Base. While he was on pass he met a guy who was in the same barracks with him. They ended up traveling together. The man's name was Schaeffer [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling]. Roberts and Schaeffer went all the way through radio and gunnery schools together. When Roberts was held up because of dental issues they were separated and Roberts did not see him again. About 25 or 30 years later Roberts was at Randolph Air Force Base working as a civilian when he mentioned Schaeffer to someone. The man suggested that they look up Schaeffer's records. The Air Force looked up Schaeffer. One day Roberts got a telephone call and it was Schaeffer. The two made arrangements to meet at the 8th Air Force reunion. Roberts arrived but Schaeffer did not. He had died of a heart attack right before their reunion.

[Annotator's Note: George Roberts served in the USAAF as a radio operator and gunner aboard Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers in the 367th Bombardment Squadron, 306th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force.] The B-17 was a rugged airplane. Roberts saw B-17s return from missions that were so heavily damaged that he was surprised that they plane was still in the air. His plane was severely damaged during the Schweinfurt raid [Annotator's Note: the second raid on Schweinfurt, Germany on 14 October 1943]. While returning from the No Ball [Annotator's Note: No Ball was the code name given to missions that were sent to knock out German V weapon, or Vengance weapon, sites], Roberts could see the control cable fraying. When they came back from a mission to Duren their number four engine started running rough then the propeller started wind milling. They decided to try to get the plane back to base. Finally, the whole engine fell off and the plane flew smoothly after that. The same thing happened to them while on a mission to the south of France with anti-personnel bombs meant for a German pilot's school. When they returned to base, the pilot gathered everyone in the plane and when they landed the propeller flew off and cut right through the ball turret. The first missions Roberts flew were very tough compared to the last ten or so. None of them were easy. Every time they went out there was a 25 percent chance that they would not come back. The plane was rugged and slow but it was a good looking airplane. Roberts has not been up in a B-17 since the war and has no desire to do so. Roberts recalls a plane hitting a tree next to his base but it still landed safely. It was a great time in his life despite of the dangers. Roberts was recalled for the Korean War. He had stayed in the reserves after World War 2 but when he was called up for Korea he failed his physical. After that he was discharged. During World War 2 everybody fought. Roberts has no doubt that Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] could have taken Britain. World War 2 was the last good war. If Roberts was the Commander in Chief he would recommend two years of service for all high school students. The military offers opportunities that otherwise would not be available. Roberts was 20 when he went into the military.