Gerald Auerbach was born in New York City [Annotator’s Note: New York City, New York] in 1924. Because of the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s], his father lost his accounting firm and was hired by the WPA [Annotator's Note: Works Progress Administration] as a timekeeper on various infrastructure projects. Auerbach had one younger brother. At the age of 12, Auerbach began running errands for a blind man who lived nearby to earn some money for the family making a nickel or dime. Once a month, Auerbach took the man to Lower Manhattan [Annotator's Note: Manhattan is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York] to collect government funds. At 13, he was hired as a messenger, delivering packages, for many of the shops and department stores along Madison and Fifth Avenues. Doing so, Auerbach became familiar with the New York Subway system. He attended Stuyvesant High School, one of the top engineering high schools in the country at the time, with the intent of studying aviation in college. Auerbach was a good student. Upon graduating in 1940 at age 16, Auerbach attended City College in New York City. During his sophomore year, he joined the ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] program and began participating in military training. When war broke out following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator’s Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], Auerbach, not wanting to be drafted into the engineer corps, and seeing an opportunity to become a pilot, volunteered for service with the Army Air Corps. He went downtown one day and took the initial tests and passed, so he volunteered as a reservist in August 1942 and was called up to active duty in March 1943. He was sent to pilot training in Nashville [Annotator's Note: Nashville, Tennessee], but could not pass the courses so he was sent to navigation school and then radar-bombardier school at Tyndall Field [Annotator's Note: now Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Florida]. He also learned to be an aerial gunner while at Tyndall. He was then assigned to a crew in Omaha, Nebraska. He successfully navigated the B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] and its crew to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands] in December 1944. Auerbach was then assigned to the 881st Bombardment Squadron, 500th Bombardment Group, 73rd Bombardment Wing, 20th Air Force. He flew his first mission, a weather reconnaissance mission, on Christmas Day. By May 1945, Auerbach says General LeMay [Annotator's Note: Curtis Emerson LeMay; US Army Air Forces then US Air Force General; Fifth Chief of Staff of the US Air Force] launched his plan to firebomb the wooden cities of mainland Japan. Instead of flying in formation over the island, the squadron flew in a stream and dropped incendiary bombs one after the other on Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan]. The columns of hot air that rose over the city pushed the planes from 5,000 feet to 12,000 feet. Auerbach says they then bombed other Japanese cities, including Nagasaki, Kobe, and Osaka.

In late May 1945, Gerald Auerbach's crew was chosen to become the lead crew in the squadron [Annotator's Note: 881st Bombardment Squadron, 500th Bombardment Group, 73rd Bombardment Wing, 20th Air Force] and sent to Muroc Air Force Base, today, Edwards Air Force Base [Annotator's Note: in Edwards, California] in California to receive training to better coordinate with each other and the rest of the squadron while in the air. Upon returning to the Pacific, Auerbach was based at Clark Field [Annotator's Note: now Clark Air Base] in the Philippines and engaged in secret bombing missions aided by submarines with the use of distance measuring equipment. [Annotator's Note: Auerbach explains how this system worked and allowed him to drop bombs within 200 feet of the intended target which was near Japan.] The war soon ended, and Auerbach and his squadron had quite a large party on the base. They eventually flew home. Auerbach had flown 21 missions. Upon their surrender, the Japanese gave the location of various POW [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] camps so that supplies could be sent to them to ease their suffering. Auerbach took part in two missions over the camps and dropped 55 gallon drums of supplies to the prisoners. On one of the missions, a drum became hung up in the bomb bay door which forced Auerbach to climb down through the open door without a parachute to sever the rope with his trench knife. He returned to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Marina Islands] to await a flight home. While on Saipan the original wing commander, who had been captured, was welcomed back into the outfit. The man was hard to recognize as he was so emaciated from his time in captivity. [Annotator's Note: Auerbach goes back in time to tell a story concerning the crash of the first plane he was assigned to.] While completing low altitude engine checks, the plane developed engine trouble, forcing the wing to not feather completely. The plane came in over the beach, its landing gear hit the water and sent its nose down into four feet of water, collapsing from the force. The pilot and copilot were both killed. Six sailors who had gone up with them survived. Auerbach and the bombardier had luckily been told to stay on the ground that day. VJ-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945] was a very celebratory day and they had a good party. Upon his return to the United States, Auerbach remained on active duty as a lead navigator in a new outfit. He applied for pilot training and was sent to Randolph [Annotator's Note: Randolph Field; later Randolph Air Force Base, Texas] where he learned to fly. He was sent to various bases and trained on various planes. He returned to Randolph and reunited with a girl he was seeing. While he was doing a mission in Bermuda, he told her that it may be a couple of weeks before he could return. She decided that she would try to travel to see him. Fortunately, he was able to return home and surprise her with a steak dinner.

After completing training at various bases and trained on various planes, Gerald Auerbach was assigned to Kelly Field [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas] from where he flew Military Air Transport missions aboard DC-3s [Annotator's Note: Douglas DC-3 commercial airliner], C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft], and C-54s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster cargo aircraft]. Most of the missions were like an airline route. He would fly to various cities in the west and then return to base after four days. Upon returning from one mission, his wife got wind that he was to take part in the Berlin Air Lift [Annotator's Note: Allied military operation which delivered food and other supplies to the people of West Berlin between 24 June 1948 and 12 May 1949] and requested they be married before he left. Auerbach was married on 31 July 1948 [Annotator's Note: The interviewee is interrupted by someone off camera 0:29:13.000.] While in Germany, he was based at Fassberg in the northern part of the country. The base and barracks were very nice. Everything was new. Because of the proximity to Tempelhof [Annotator's Note: Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, Germany], Auerbach flew three missions a day over Germany. It was great practice for a pilot fresh out of training. The pilot he flew with was a veteran and gave Auerbach the lead for many of the missions. He made over 200 trips over Berlin, dropping mostly coal and flour. They typically carried nine or ten tons on each mission, which was equivalent to a two day supply for the people of Berlin. A man in the crew had a German shepherd who flew with them on many of these missions. Once while in England for repairs, Auerbach says the crew cleaned nearly 1,000 pounds of coal dust out of the cargo hold. On another repair trip to Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany], Auerbach had the chance to visit a cousin of his. The cousin was born in the United States but was forced to move back to Germany with his mother when the war broke out. He fought for the Germany army and resented his mother for the rest of his life. While visiting his cousin, he went to a porcelain factory and got complete dining set. He eventually sent it home to his wife. [Annotator's Note: The interviewee converses with someone off camera at 0:36:49.000.] When he returned to the United States after the Berlin Air Lifts, he saw a B-47 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber] and wanted to fly it. He thought the plane was pretty good but there was tweaks that needed to be done. During the Cold War, Auerbach flew coastal reconnaissance missions along the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland [Annotator's Note: Newfoundland, Canada] to Brazil. He had an incident when trying to fuel his plane after takeoff and had trouble holding his position. When they landed in Newfoundland, he was given 2,000 extra pounds of fuel. He had a slow takeoff but made it up with his squadron. When he landed in the United States, the staff at the base knew his situation so all the emergency vehicles were out waiting for him. Fortunately, he made a safe landing. Additionally, he flew several six month reflexes over the Soviet Union. He says these flights were shows of force to the Soviets and many of his missions were for reconnaissance purposes only. He traveled all over the world including Russia and Africa.

Gerald Auerbach's most memorable experience of Word War 2 was the first incendiary raid over Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewee is interrupted by a person off the camera at 0:45:26.000.] His plane was one of the last planes in the stream, following five minutes behind the other planes. He stopped navigating 150 miles outside of Tokyo as he could see the glow of the burning city. Once over the city, he navigated to an area not yet burning and the bombardier dropped the full load. [Annotator's Note: Auerbach goes into detail about the bombs dropped and says they dropped several regular bombs with timed fuses that were set to go off many hours after they were dropped.] The path of the bombs was 4,000 feet long and 100 feet wide. They had a difficult time keeping proper altitude because of the vortex and heat the bombs create when they exploded. Auerbach fought in World War 2 because he did not want to speak Japanese, Italian, or German. He says World War 2 changed his life because it allowed a Depression-era [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] kid to fulfill his dream of becoming a pilot. Over the course of his life, Auerbach has logged 18,000 hours, equivalent to one hour per day for 50 years. Today, he says World War 2 represents a lot of good memories for him, memories of doing something good. And no one speaks Japanese here, unless they come from Japan. He is not sure what World War 2 means to America. He believes that the riots happening are not America and those people involved do not care about America. He believes in the mission of The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] and the need to teach it to future generations because he says those who forget history are doomed to redo it.