John Symons was born in Calumet, Michigan in July 1915. He graduated from Calumet High School. He moved to Detroit [Annotator's Note: Detroit, Michigan] for work and lived with his aunt until he was drafted. He had one younger brother who worked for General Motors. His brother would swim all over Lake Superior. He drowned in a swimming pool. He was in his 30s. Symons does not remember where he was when heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was probably working. He had to go register for the Army. He does not recall when he was drafted. He went to Jefferson Barracks [Annotator's Note: Jefferson Barracks Military Post, Lemay, Missouri] and then Denver, Colorado for armament school. After that he went to Newport News, Virginia and left to go across [Annotator's Note: the Atlantic Ocean]. They were sleeping in hammocks and on the floor. They went down to South America to Rio de Janeiro [Annotator's Note: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil] to the harbor. They stayed two days and then crossed the ocean. They were on the RMS Mauretania – English cooking. He wanted ham, eggs, and bacon. It was a long trip around South Africa and up into the Red Sea. Some men got off there. The German General [Annotator's Note: then German General, later Field Marshal, Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel] was raising hell in North Africa. [Annotator's Note: He repeats the story.] He was finally left off in Karachi, India. He stayed for a couple of months and he was on the ball team. They had a track meet and he won a race.

John Symons was in Karachi, India and assigned to the 25th Fighter Squadron [Annotator's Note: 25th Fighter Squadron, 51st Fighter Group, 14th Air Force]. They had a couple of raids there. The English were there at a tea plantation. They could attend movies there. After about three months, they went over The Hump [Annotator's Note: aerial supply route over the Himalayan Mountains between India and China] to China. When they got there, leaflets were dropped that said they [Annotator's Note: the Japanese] knew they were there. They had a couple of air raids. All they had for armament was one machine gun. He stayed there for three years in Yunnanyi [Annotator's Note: Yunnani Airfield, China; also spelled Yunnan-yi] on the northern part of the Burma Road [Annotator's Note: a road linking Burma with southwest China built in 1937]. They had some rest camps in Kunming [Annotator's Note: Kunming, China]. Claire Chennault [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Major General Claire Lee Chennault] was there. Symons was loading bombs and machine guns. Merrill's Marauders [Annotator's Note: 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional); also called Galahad Force] were coming up through Burma, got caught, and were taking a beating. They needed food. The transport planes would drop food in a field and the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] knew that. Symons spent three years trying to straighten everything out. [Annotator's Note: Symons laughs.]

John Symons had basic training at Jefferson Barracks [Annotator's Note: Jefferson Barracks Military Post, Lemay, Missouri]. It was not his first time away from home and family. He went with the Army Air Force to Denver, Colorado to armament school. He then went to New York and then Virginia to ship out [Annotator's Note: across the Atlantic Ocean]. He had been in ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] in high school and on the rifle team. He liked Denver [Annotator's Note: Denver, Colorado]. He went overseas on the RMS Mauretania. They did not do any drills, there were too many guys. They started off in South America and went out about three miles and stopped. They were by themselves. The Mauretania was a huge boat. He had no trouble with seasickness. He stood on the bridge and watched flying fish. They landed in Bombay, India [Annotator's Note: present day Mumbai, India] and changed boats to go to Karachi [Annotator's Note: then Karachi, India; now Karachi, Pakistan]. They took a train and there were monkeys all over the place. Symons was in a room with two English officers. They stopped at every station and everyone had monkeys. Some of the Indian men were crippled. The Flying Tigers [Annotator's Note: members of the First American Volunteer Group or AVG, Chinese Air Force, 1941 to 1942] came through Karachi. At Karachi, he was with Chennault [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Major General Claire Lee Chennault] and the 14th Air Force. Chennault had been fighting the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] for quite a while. Symons was with the 25th Fighter Squadron, 51st Fighter Group [Annotator's Note: 25th Fighter Squadron, 51st Fighter Group, 14th Air Force]. Tom Harmon [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Captain Thomas Dudley Harmon], a football player from Michigan, was in his group. Harmon's plane wrecked and he had to walk out [Annotator's Note: January 1944]. The Chinese knew he was a good guy and he got out.

The barracks were about two or three miles from the fields. Sometimes John Symons walked there. They had A, B, and C Flights who would go down and warm up the planes. He would go down early and preflight them. The mechanics would warm them up. Symons would check the ammunition and load bombs. He had had no training with bombs. He kept pretty busy. He only took care of two or three planes. When they came back, they would get new ammunition for the next mission. When they cleared the field, the men played volleyball. A couple of guys on his team were from Indiana and one guy from California. The bombs on an air raid shook everything. The Chinese were about two miles away. It was a scary experience. All of the planes would take off from the field. Symons got a bomb that did not go off and brought it home. He gave it to his son-in-law. They were not too big. No one got injured in any of the raids. A plane returned damaged and a crew chief was standing where the planes were coming in. The crew chief started running but got hit by a wing and was killed. They played games waiting for the planes to come back from their missions. He would worry that his man was going to land alright. [Annotator's Note: He repeats the story of the man being killed.]

John Symons started out with P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft]. Chennault [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Major General Claire Lee Chennault] wanted P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. They were faster and carried more ammunition. They ended up with those. The P-51s were faster and more maneuverable. The P-40s were gone then. Symons stayed for three years then he was sent home. The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] were taking a good beating in Burma. He and two others flew to Karachi [Annotator's Note: then Karachi, India;; now Karachi, Pakistan] for a couple of days. They had swimming pools there. He then took a transport to South Florida. This was before the war had ended. He would get passes [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] when in India, Burma, and China. Karachi was a big town where they could have a couple of beers. In China, it was a little different. There was not too much for entertainment. They would fly to Kunming. He got a two-week vacation there. He drove back over the Burma Road [Annotator's Note: a road linking Burma with southwest China built in 1937]. Symons was in India quite a while. There were other outfits there. They had a track meet, a tug-of-war, and races there. They all got along well. The weather was rainy. On the way home, Symons went across Northern India to Karachi to get a plane. He was selected to go because he had been there a long time. The war was tapering off. Symons went to Miami, Florida and then took a train to Calumet [Annotator's Note: Calumet, Michigan] then returned to Jefferson Barracks [Annotator's Note: Jefferson Barracks Military Post, Lemay, Missouri]. He ended up in Denver [Annotator's Note: Denver, Colorado]. A guy Symons had been in India with worked in the office. He came out and said Symons' discharge was cancelled. It was a joke, but it scared the hell out of him.

In China, John Symons had one slit trench to take cover in in the event of a Japanese attack. One guy jumped in, hit his hand on the edge, and got a Silver Star [Annotator's Note: the Silver Star Medal is the third-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy] for being wounded in a bomb raid. Symons got along well with the Chinese forces. The Chinese would fill in the holes from bombing raids. When he first got there, he was in the barracks and then went to the mess hall where they served him. They always had enough supplies. Symons was in Denver [Annotator's Note: Denver, Colorado] when the war ended. Everybody wanted to get out quick. The guy who worked in the office joked that Symons' orders were cancelled. Symons celebrated with a couple of beers. The Germans had surrendered already when he came back. Symons was discharged as a sergeant and did not join the Army Reserves. He was glad to get out. He did not use the G.I. Bill – opportunity lost. He had no problem finding a job or a house or transitioning to civilian life. His most memorable experience was his first bombing. The ground shook and planes were getting wrecked. That was enough for him and he had another three years of it. He served because he was drafted. He had no reason why he should not go in. The war changed his life because he got a different job, he held for 20 years. His service was good – no problems. Symons thinks that the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] should teach the war to future generations to be prepared.