Henry Burkle was born in West Monroe, Kansas in September 1921. West Monroe was a coal mining town of immigrants. His father was from Austria and worked in a coal mine. The coal mine was half a mile from the town. He was seven years old when his mother died. He had one older sister. His father took care of them along with his Austrian neighbor and friend. On weekends, they would butcher hogs. His father would ask him how to pronounce words. His father would have to take an exam in front of a judge to become a full citizen. [Annotator’s Note: The civics test is an oral test and the USCIS Officer will ask the applicant up to 10 of the 100 civics questions. An applicant must answer 6 out of 10 questions correctly to pass the civics portion of the naturalization test]. When his father passed the exam, it was one of the happiest days of his life.

Henry Burkle was in service at Chanute Field, Illinois when he heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He had graduated high school in West Monroe [Annotator’s Note: West Monroe, Kansas] during the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s]. A salesman from a business school in Joplin, Missouri came and interviewed honor students. They told Burkle they would find him a job. He went to school in Joplin and worked in the hotel. He had a room and would get to eat with the help. This got him through two years of business school. In 1941, he started job hunting with his friend Jimmy. They could only find temporary positions and then they decided to join the service in June 1941. He was at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri for basic training. They had draftees coming so fast that they had to put up tents and help in the kitchen. Then they were sent to Chanute Field, Illinois which was the school for airplane mechanics and weather people. Burkle and Jimmy both qualified for the airplane mechanic school. They were in school when Pearl Harbor happened. He was visiting his sister in Chicago, Illinois. They were listening to a Chicago Bears football game on the radio when the news came across that they had been attacked. Burkle rushed back to base. They cut the training short after the attack. Graduation was in January 1942. Burkle ended up with an instructor’s position at Keesler Field in Biloxi, Mississippi. They were still building Keesler Field when he got there. Burkle had two years of business school, so they would pull him out of the classroom for special projects. He was promoted to staff sergeant. They had to determine what a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] squadron would need in order to be successful when sent overseas. They generated so much paperwork that they needed typists. This is when Burkle met his wife. His wife had seven brothers and eight sisters.

Henry Burkle’s wife’s father was trying to raise chickens. One of the things Burkle did during the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] was raise show chickens. His wife’s family had him over for dinner every Sunday. Burkle was a staff sergeant and he took an officer’s exam. He passed the test. He left Biloxi [Annotator’s Note: Keesler Field in Biloxi, Mississippi] in July 1943 and went to Miami Beach [Annotator’s Note: Miami Beach, Florida] for officers' training. They were stripped of their rank in order to join the program. If they washed out [Annotator’s Note: slang for fail], they would go back to their old rank. He was engaged when he graduated. After graduation, he was sent to New Mexico for staging. They had to postpone their wedding. He was sent to Virginia before going overseas. They left Virginia in a 90-ship convoy of all liberty ships [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. They did not know where they were going. They hit a storm two days out and everyone got seasick. German submarines were picking out the fuel tankers. They were supposed to land in Italy. The supply ships were starting to unload when the Germans bombed them. They had to sit there for five days before they were given orders. They went to Taranto, Italy, and unloaded. They were in an olive grove for camouflage. It rained and people got sick. Many of the planes had to be stopped because they were not ready for them to come into Italy. The aircrews flew 25 missions and then they got to go home. Burkle and his crew had to stay there for the duration.

Henry Burkle remembers that they had to put up all the tents and get a kitchen organized [Annotator’s Note: after arriving in Taranto, Italy]. The supplies started coming in from that ships that had survived the German bombing. The engineers made a clay runway for the planes to land. They had to get pierced steel planking so the planes could get a good take-off and landing spot. They put the airplanes away from the olive grove. They had double runways. They kept the planes separated as well as they could. The mechanics were working in mud. They had a tripod crane to pull the engines out of the planes. Burkle had to borrow a lot of equipment in the beginning. Burkle was the officer of the maintenance people. He checked all the equipment. He would have to meet with the communications officer and make a report. Each squadron had its own commanding officer and operated independently. The B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] was good for carrying a heavier bomb load than the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber], but it was the flying boxcar. The B-24 was difficult to maintain because of the hydraulics and electrical equipment. They lost several planes at the end of the runways. When they left Virginia, they had 2,000 people who were with the 455th [Annotator’s Note: 455th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force]. Of those 2,000 men, 170 were killed in combat and 179 of them were taken prisoner of war. They would use a B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] to pick up planes that could not make it back. Behind the lines, it was touch and go, and sometimes they could go in and get the planes, and sometimes they could not. On one mission, the planes could not get the bomb doors open due to them being frozen shut with mud. They dropped the bombs anyway and came back with the bomb doors flapping in the wind.

Henry Burkle would meet every crew that came back to get the word from the pilot to know what was wrong with the planes. Aircrew respected the ground crew because they kept the planes going. The mechanics worked day and night on the planes to make sure they were ready for the next mission. The ground people built a shower with a heating tank, as well as a mess hall. Axis Sally [Annotator's Note: Mildred Elizabeth Gillars] was a Chicago woman who would aggravate the men on the radio. Everyone had to be on alert when she mentioned the new roof on their mess hall. The British were their anti-aircraft people. A fighter group was on alert as well. Axis Sally found out about the food because some Italians were still giving her information. They had a lot of alerts when they got there. The bombers started hitting the refineries to cut off the oil supplies. Later on, the targets were the railroads and bridges. They were awarded seven major battle stars at that time. One oil field target was a high-priority target and they lost four out of ten planes that day. They lost 10 planes out of 36 planes over Vienna, Austria. The planes came out with a lot of flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] damage that they would take longer to fix. Southern France was not as covered as the other part of France. They had to knock out the troop covering before the landing in southern France. [Annotator’s Note: Burkle lists the awards they received as an organization.]

Henry Burkle remembers that they were kept heavily guarded because the squadron could not operate without the permanent party people. They were told they were going home when the war was over. Burkle went to a rest camp twice. A pilot was hit by flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] and a co-pilot had to take over. Burkle and the crew had to help get the pilot out of the plane when it returned. After the war ended, his unit returned home. They were there when the Pacific war ended. Burkle was sent to a P-38 base [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightening fighter aircraft] to deactivate the unit. There was a point system [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to determine when they got to go home. The colonel told him to leave the planes there because it was more costly to return them to the United States. Seven days after Burkle returned home, he married his wife. He will never forget when he heard the war was over. After he got married, he was to go to Florida to be processed to go overseas to Japan. Right before he was to ship out, the Japanese surrendered. If they had not dropped the bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945], thousands of lives would have been lost. They did nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific. Burkle stayed in the service until the end of 1946. He returned home and started a business. He worked at the Firestone rubber and tire store in Nevada, Missouri, and then worked at an auto store. When the war broke out in Korea in 1950 [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953], Burkle was called back up. He was sent to Rapid City, South Dakota and was assigned to the B-36 airplane [Annotator’s Note: Convair B-36 Peacemaker]. The Cold War with Russia was at its peak. They were looking for a way to penetrate radar systems. They had to pull a 25-hour inspection on the B-36s. Burkle was in charge of the various inspections.

Henry Burkle was in charge of periodic maintenance [Annotator’s Note: referring to his service during the Korean War, fought between North Korea and South Korea from 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. He had to schedule specialists to come to look over the planes. They ran into a lot of trouble with the B-36 [Annotator’s Note: Convair B-36 Peacemaker]. Burkle taught a course on strategic bombing. They implemented case studies. The course went over great. After that, Burkle went to the University of Illinois to finish his bachelor’s degree. Then he was assigned to Korea. He started out as a maintenance officer of a ground crew. They had aircraft warning signs all over South Korea. Burkle would go around to places that were having trouble. He rode in a light airplane. During one landing his back went out and he ended up in the hospital. He was evacuated to Tokyo [Annotator’s Note: Tokyo, Japan]. He was sent back to the United States to a hospital in San Antonio [Annotator’s Note: San Antonio, Texas]. He returned home and got out of the service in 1966.

Henry Burkle went to the ballistic missile command in California, and then he did top secret contract work. He wanted to get out of the service because he was offered a job at the space station. He went to the VA [Annotator's Note: United States Department of Veterans Affairs] and then went on 50 percent disability. He had to get surgery on his back They fused two rods into his back. Then he went back to work on the Apollo project until Apollo 14. He worked with NASA when they landed on the moon. General Electric offered him a contract job in northern tier states. He wanted to stay in the south. He worked in a shipyard that was using airplane-type engines. He fully retired in Biloxi [Annotator’s Note: Biloxi, Mississippi]. He thinks children should know about World War Two and how the War Department planned for the war.