Albion Kenneth Hutcherson was born in Pennsylvania County, Virginia in September 1923. His family moved a lot. His parents were sharecroppers who moved place to place and farmed. His father ended up working on a tobacco farm in Virginia. His brother was a year younger than him. They attended a one-room schoolhouse for second and third grade. He and his brother also worked on a farm and saved up money to buy a bible for their mother and father. In 1938, Hutcherson's parents bought their own tobacco farm, paying 100 dollars a year as the mortgage. They worked from sun-up to sun-down except Saturday, when they worked only a half day, and Sunday, which they took off. He was never able to play sports because he had to go home and work every day. He graduated from high school in 1941, when the war drums were beating in Europe. He was offered a job with the Glenn L. Martin Company [Annotator's Note: an aircraft manufacturing company] in Baltimore [Annotator's Note: Baltimore, Maryland] for 50 cents an hour. As a country boy, he had never been further than Richmond [Annotator's Note: Richmond, Virginia] in his life. He lived in a boarding house and worked there for 15 months. On 7 December 1941, he was on the road back to Baltimore from Virginia with his brother when they heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Soldiers began bivouacking around the Martin Company for fear it might be bombed. They put camouflage coverings around the campus. After Pearl Harbor, he immediately wanted to enlist. His brother joined the Navy, and Hutcherson enlisted in the Air Corps. He was first sent to Fort Meade [Annotator's Note: Fort George G. Meade, Maryland] where he received shots in his arms and was outfitted with clothes. He took a train from there to Keesler Field, Mississippi [Annotator's Note: today Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi] for basic training, which was very accelerated. He arrived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota for radio school in December 1942. It was 20 degrees below zero and they were only equipped with their summer uniforms. Many of the men got frostbite. He spent 26 weeks there training on radio, morse code, and mechanics. Upon graduation, the men were able to pick which branch they wanted to go into. They were given aptitude and eye tests, and put into decompression chambers to see if their ears were affected at 30,000 feet. Hutcherson then went to gunnery school in Las Vegas, Nevada around April 1943. They flew AT-6s [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft]. He got deathly sick on his first flight. He had chosen the Air Corps because he wanted to fly. When he saw airplanes while working in the fields as an adolescent, he told himself that one day he would fly.

Albion Kenneth Hutcherson [Annotator's Note: who enlisted in the US Army Forces in 1942] was sent to Moses Lake, Washington where the men lived in tents. Crews were being put together, each consisting of a pilot, copilot, navigator, bombardier, top turret gunner-engineer, first and second radio operators, one of whom was also the ball turret gunner, and two waistgunners. They would go up at night and shoot at ground targets. Hutcherson was initially assigned as the ball turret gunner. On one occasion during training, the door to the ball turret opened while he was inside and the plane at 8,500 feet. The slip stream blew off his headphones so he could not inform the rest of the crew what was happening. He was scared to death. When he got back in the plane, he said he quit and would not get back in the ball turret. The first radio operator offered to switch places with him, and they did. Many planes were lost in training. They began flying in formation. The crew then moved to Walla Walla, Washington and on to Redmond, Oregon where they were assigned to a new plane and flew a few missions in the Pacific towing targets. They then shipped out to Grand Isle, Nebraska to be outfitted to ship out overseas. Initially they were given what they would need for the South Pacific, but the next day were re-outfitted for Europe. They flew from Grand Isle to Bangor, Maine in early September 1943. From Bangor, they continued to Goose Bay, Labrador [Annotator's Note: in Canada] and Reykjavik, Iceland where the people were not kind to Americans. Traveling this way was like being in another world for a farm boy [Annotator's Note: Hutcherson grew up working on farms in Virginia]. From Iceland they flew to Scotland and had to give up their new plane, then took a train to England and did some refresher training. The crew was assigned to the 94th Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: 94th Bombardment Group] stationed out of Bury Saint Edmunds [Annotator's Note: Bury Saint Edmunds, England]. This was the crew's first experience seeing planes coming back, all shot up and battle damaged. The crew's copilot, a man named Saylor [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Murray Saylor] from Cleveland, Ohio, remarked that the young men coming back had hair that was turning gray. Losses were so great from the Schweinfurt raid [Annotator's Note: either the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission of 17 August 1943, or the Second Schweinfurt Raid, also called Black Thursday, of 14 October 1943] that Hutcherson's crew was soon transferred from the 94th to the 95th Bombardment Group where they were needed, and remained for the rest of the war. They flew along with the 100th Bombardment Group.

Albion Kenneth Hutcherson's [Annotator’s Note: a radioman with the 335th Bombardment Squadron, 95th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force stationed in England] first raid was over Gelsenkirchen [Annotator's Note: Gelsenkirchen, Germany] on a plane named "Darlin' Dolly" [Annotator's Note: a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. After they dropped their bombs, the pilot told Hutcherson to close the bomb bay doors which had frozen open. Hutcherson had to cross over a narrow cat walk while the plane was at 28,000 feet using a portable oxygen bottle. He closed the doors, but in his hurry, dropped the crank. He can still see it tumbling down from 28,000 feet. [Annotator's Note: Hutcherson laughs.] Some might call his first raid a milk run [Annotator's Note: slang term used by American airmen to describe an easy combat mission], but as it was his first mission, Hutcherson would not. A few missions stand out in his mind, including on 10 February [Annotator's Note 10 February 1944], when they hit Brunswick [Annotator's Note: Brunswick or Braunschweig, Germany]. After crossing the Zuiderzee, Goering's [Annotator's Note: German Reichsmarschall Hermann Wilhelm Göring, or Goering, commanded the German Air Force and was second only to Adolf Hitler in the Nazi chain of command] "yellow noses", Focke-Wulfs [Annotator's Note: German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft] and 109s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aircraft], came after them and quickly knocked out their wingman. For three and a half hours they were in constant battle. The P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] escorts had to drop their wing tanks to fight. After a mission, during the debriefing, crews would be given shots of scotch. Of 24 enlisted men on this mission, only six were left. The man he had switched places with as ball turret gunner [Annotator's Note: after a bad training experience, Hutcherson refused to serve as ball turret gunner and traded positions with a radioman] shot down a plane that day and ultimately received three DFCs [Annotator's Note: the Distinguished Flying Cross, or DFC, is awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight]. Brunswick was one of his tougher missions. Being in combat, you constantly think you could be next. They were more afraid of the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire], antiaircraft shelling, than the fighters. You cannot imagine how terrorizing it is to be surrounded by fighters from every direction. They hated the Germans. There were a few American soldiers from the Midwest and of German descent who spoke German. Hutcherson flew with some of them a few times. Losing so many men, men they could have been playing cards with the night before, had an effect on them. One thing that helped was trips they occasionally took to Norwich [Annotator's Note: Norwich, England] to have beers and fish and chips.

Albion Kenneth Hutcherson [Annotator's Note: a radioman on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber serving with the 335th Bombardment Squadron, 95th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force stationed at Bury St. Edmunds, England] thought his crew's pilot ran a tough ship. He was a big, heavyset guy from Provo, Utah, and a good pilot who later flew in Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975]. Their crew later got together a few times after the war. On an average day while in England, they would wake up at four of five in the morning and go straight to the mess hall where they would eat real, not powdered, eggs. They would then go to a briefing run by Major Donahue [Annotator's Note: later US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Colonel F. Joseph "Jiggs" Donahue] who would show the men on a map where they were going, with a target and the route they would take. Questions were rarely asked. The crews were then taken to their planes to check their parachutes. They took care of their own guns. Having all attended gunnery school, they could strip them blindfolded. The planes took off every 30 seconds, regardless of the weather. Hutcherson sweated this more than actual combat, as there were so many planes taking off in overcast weather. One plane that had trained with Hutcherson's crew ditched into the North Sea, and had been rescued. After that incident, that same plane was taking off behind Hutcherson's and he watched it crash with a full bomb load. He knew everyone on board. Over the English Channel they would test fire their guns to make sure everything was working. Hutcherson was responsible for sending bomb reports back to England in Morse code. He received codes every day before they left, as they changed for every mission. On a mission near Lake Constance [Annotator's Note: raid on Regensberg, Germany as part of Big Week or Operation Argument] on 25 February [Annotator's Note: 25 February 1944] Hutcherson received a radio message in Morse code that the 15th Air Force had bombed their target two hours earlier and to watch for fires. Their plane was shot up pretty bad, and Hutcherson had his parachute on ready to jump, but he went back for Pete who was stuck in the ball turret to let him out. The communication with the front of the plane had been shot out, along with their oxygen. Somehow they made it back from Germany to England, out of formation and alone.

Albion Kenneth Hutcherson [Annotator's Note: a radioman on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber serving with the 335th Bombardment Squadron, 95th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force stationed at Bury St. Edmunds, England] thought the B-17 could take an unbelievable beating. In those days, it was a large plane. It flew on two engines and took a lot of punishment. They once had an 88mm [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] shell go through their right wing, it caught on fire but snuffed itself out. They landed with the shell still in the wing. There was rivalry between B-17 and B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] crews. Hutcherson had an accident while riding a bicycle and had a bad cut over his eye. He was scheduled to go on a mission, had his parachute ready and everything, but the flight surgeon grounded him because the injury would freeze in the high altitude and cause him problems. Hutcherson fell behind his crew in terms of number of missions, so he flew his last four missions as a bombardier because there was a shortage. He flew a mission over Hamm, Germany where they were the first crew to arrive. Hutcherson was on twin .50s [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .50 caliber machine gun] in the nose when 15 Focke-Wulfs [Annotator's Note: Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft] came in. He thinks he shot one down, but it was not confirmed. Looking out from the nose, he could see so much. Regensburg [Annotator's Note: Regensburg, Germany] was a tough target. They did a few missions over the North Sea and went into Poznan, Poland. It was a long mission, so they were given peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but they froze. In November 1943, Hutcherson also participated in a raid over Rjukan, Norway, but did not know at the time that they were hitting a German heavy water [Annotator's Note: heavy water is a necessary element for developing nuclear weapons] facility. Axis Sally [Annotator's Note: Mildred Elizabeth Gillars, an American radio broadcaster who worked for Nazi Germany disseminating propaganda] used to say that the Americans were bombing churches, cultural monuments, and schools. Tokyo Rose [Annotator's Note: nickname given by Allied servicemen to any English speaking female radio personality broadcasting Japanese propaganda in the Pacific Theater] in the South Pacific was saying similar things.

Albion Kenneth Hutcherson [Annotator's Note: a radioman on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber serving with the 335th Bombardment Squadron, 95th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force stationed at Bury St. Edmunds, England] wrote to his parents every other day while stationed overseas. It was great to get letters back from them. His brothers were also in the service. His older brother was in the Navy in the South Pacific, and his younger brother was in the Navy V-12 program [Annotator's Note: V-12 US Navy College Training Program, 1943 to 1946] at William and Mary [Annotator's Note: The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia]. He flunked out of the program and ended up in Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] Third Army. Hutcherson also corresponded with his older brother. Hutcherson flew his final four missions as bombardier [Annotator's Note: his normal position was as radioman, but bombardiers were in short supply]. He had a severe cut over his eye due to a bicycle accident, and was grounded by the flight surgeon. The rest of his crew was sent home in February or March [Annotator's Note: February or March 1944], but Hutcherson was left in limbo, not having met the flight quota to qualify to be sent home, so he continued to fly with other crews as a radio operator and bombardier. He was flying with a green [Annotator's Note: a new and inexperienced serviceman or servicewoman] crew, which was more frightening than the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. The left waistgunner from his original crew, his best friend, was still there when Hutcherson got off his last flight. He was not able to go home right away, and was instead assigned to the radio shack to help new crews learn the procedures. He remained there from April until the end of August [Annotator's Note: April to August 1944], through D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. He was offered a direct commission as second lieutenant to stay there, but he did not take it. He just wanted to go home. He returned to the United States at the end of August 1944. On his 21st birthday, he was on a train from Baltimore [Annotator's Note: Baltimore, Maryland] to Miami, Florida for R&R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation] for six weeks. He was then sent to Dyersburg, Tennessee and Sheppard Field, Texas for basic training all over again after coming back from overseas. They did not know what to do with him, since he could not be sent back overseas. He then went to Scott Field, Illinois for radio refresher training, then Langley Field, Virginia training radar operators. The Army did not have enough noncommissioned officers to take care of daily business, so they had PFCs [Annotator’s Note: Private First Class] in charge. The Air Force asked for volunteers to go to the South Pacific with Air Transport Command. Some volunteered, but Hutcherson did not. He ended up instead in Reno, Nevada in LORAN [Annotator's Note: Long Range Navigation] school flying on old C-46s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft] and C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. He just graduated when the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] was dropped. Otherwise, he would have been sent to the China-Burma-India theater. Hutcherson was in the United States when the war in Europe ended on 8 May [Annotator's Note: 8 May 1945]. It was a festive occasion on the base. They felt unbelievable pride.

Albion Kenneth Hutcherson went back to his family’s farm in Halifax [Annotator's Note: Halifax, Virginia]. His brother installed electricity in the house for the first time, and Hutcherson bought them a refrigerator. He stayed there for a few months and in January [Annotator's Note: year unspecified] returned to Baltimore [Annotator's Note: Hutcherson worked in Baltimore, Maryland before the war] and worked for a printing company as a journeyman printer, while attending classes at night using the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment], which Hutcherson thinks is the greatest thing to come out of the war. Those who otherwise would not have the means to go to college were able to go. World War 2 opened Hutcherson's eyes to cultures he never dreamed of seeing. He always says he grew up in the service. It helped him more than anything he has ever done. He thinks all young people should serve. It is an educational opportunity. He never experienced PTSD [Annotator's Note: post traumatic stress disorder; a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event either experienced or witnessed]. He only knows of one man who ever cracked, Armand Capasso [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. Hutcherson believes it is important for younger generations to learn about the war. He speaks to school children about his wartime experiences and they seem to enjoy it. He visited The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] and really enjoyed it. He liked seeing the suspended B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] which is what he flew on during the war.