Robert G. Aldous was sometimes called "Bob". He was born in July 1925 in Ogden, Utah and grew up in Huntsville, Utah. He had one sister named Ruth. His father carried milk from farms to dairies in his truck. he worked at the dairy seven days a week for several years. He worked through the Depression years [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. Near the end of World War 2, he became ill due to the dampness in the dairy. He became a Deputy Sheriff for eight years. He then worked at a brick manufacturing facility. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Aldous what he was doing when he learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He was in church when someone came and told them. They had no idea where Pearl Harbor was. They were shocked. They had to learn a lot of things in a hurry. He did not know the impact it would have on this life. The draft was already going. He was interested in aeronautics and aviation. If he was drafted, that would not happen. He planned on volunteering. He looked at the Navy and the Army, but the Navy did not make it. He graduated from high school on 20 May 1943 and was in Salt Lake City joining the Army Air Corps in mid-June. He signed in about 28 June 1943 and was called to active duty in early August 1943. He had not wanted to go to sea or be on a ship so that is why he did not choose the Navy.

Robert G. Aldous went to Wichita Falls, Texas to Sheppard Field in August [Annotator's Note: August 1943] and it was "hotter than the devil." They marched every morning. For 15 minutes of every hour, they wore a gas mask. It would be filled with sweat and was miserable. He had been there for about three weeks when he was put on a detail. Five of them were chosen to go with the entertainment corporal, Billy Nations [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. He was to clean up a dance hall for that night and Aldous was to be a bartender. They served beers for the men and Coca-Colas for the girls. They had the afternoon off and went swimming. They went back to the party and Aldous was at the end of the bar. A sergeant had already used his tickets and asked Aldous if he liked it at Wichita Falls. Aldous told him he hated it. The sergeant told him that if he gave him all the drinks he wanted that night, he would get him shipped out of there the first of the week. Aldous gave him what he wanted. Monday afternoon someone came looking for him with shipping orders to Texas Tech University [Annotator's Note: then Texas Technological College; now Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas] in Lubbock, Texas. He left on a bus and got to Lubbock. He found out he was going to be a university student for one semester. The Air Force had a rule for cadets that they had to get some college education. They had good meals and good quarters. From there he went to Santa Ana, California [Annotator's Note: Santa Ana Army Air Base in Santa Ana, California] for Cadet screening and washed out because he blushed when he was asked by a psychiatrist if he liked girls. He was then sent to Denver, Colorado to aircraft armorers' school [Annotator's Note: at then Buckley Field, now Buckley Space Force Base, in Aurora, Colorado]. Denver was a good town. At PT [Annotator's Note: physical training], they had to roll in the dirt. Then they had to go to class. After that he went to Harlingen, Texas [Annotator's Note: then Harlingen Army Airfield, now Valley International Airport, in Harlingen, Texas] for gunnery school. Then he got into the B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] and they shot at targets towed by planes flown by women. That was an interesting thing to see. After gunnery school, he went to Lemoore, California [Annotator's Note: Lemoore Army Airfield in Lemoore, California]. They were divided into crews. He was assigned to a crew whose pilot was Dave Simons [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling]. They went to Walla Walla, Washington. They would fly all around the Northwest and over the Pacific Ocean. They then went to Hamilton Field, California [Annotator's Note: now Hamilton Air Force Base in Novato, California] and then Fairfield-Suisun Air Base in California [Annotator's Note: then Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base, now Travis Air Force Base, in Fairfield, California] to await transportation to the Pacific. Aldous had some friends from his hometown near San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. They were to go to dinner on Christmas Day [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1943]. They went to get their passes and were told they had a plane waiting for them instead. Second Lieutenant Jim Roberts [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], a radar operator, was waiting there. Aldous had trained as a ball turret gunner. He could not wear a parachute. The pilot told him he was going to be the top turret gunner. He spent most of his flight across the Pacific getting to know the top turret. They flew out to John Rogers Airbase in Hawaii [Annotator's Note: then John Rodgers Field, now Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, on Oahu, Hawaii] after the Christmas dinner was gone. They spent the night and flew to Canton Island [Annotator's Note: Canton Island, Phoenix Islands, Republic of Kiribati] across the equator on their way to New Guinea.

Robert G. Aldous flew from Canton Island [Annotator's Note: Canton Island, Phoenix Islands, Republic of Kiribati] to Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands]. By the time they got there, the Army and Marines were having good luck fighting the Japanese. Aldous had trouble with their radio. They were carrying mail. Aldous was put on guard duty and had to watch the repairman "like a hawk." Some guys were stealing mail from planes. The radio operator told him he had been in a CCC camp [Annotator's Note: Civilian Conservation Corps; 1933 to 1942] in Huntsville, Utah where Aldous was from. After guard duty, they shared pine nuts. They flew to Nadzab, New Guinea the next day [Annotator's Note: in February 1944]. He was there for two weeks and was assigned to the 90th Bomb Group, 319th Bomb Squadron, 5th Air Force [Annotator's Note: 319th Bombardment Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force]. They claimed to the best in the world. From Nadzab, they went to Biak [Annotator's Note: Biak Island, West New Guinea in August 1944]. Their tent was over an area of jungle. There was a rock cliff on the other side. There were Japanese still in the caves starving to death. One was shot and killed in the mess hall stealing food. Aldous flew his first mission to Davao in Mindanao [Annotator's Note: Davao City, Mindanao, Philippines]. Shortly after that, the 90th was sent to an island further north. His squadron was sent to Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines] which had just been taken back from the Japanese. They were stationed at Tacloban [Annotator's Note: Tacloban, Philippines]. They were told they were having air raids there and showed them foxholes. They were all full of water. That night they had a raid. All of the guys in the tent ran out and jumped in water up to their waists. Aldous stayed in bed. He told them he was going to die dry. They had only heard antiaircraft guns firing so they had not needed to take shelter. They had three more air raids. They had been starting their second mission out of Leyte and had gone down to clean their weapons. There were infantry men waiting on a truck who were going on an R&R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation] to Australia. Aldous and his crew were cleaning their guns when they heard a bang. They saw that a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] taking the men off for their R&R and a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] going on a mission crashed. Both planes caught fire. They watched at least 30 men burn to death. That was one of the first real traumatic and tragic things they witnessed. Aldous was near the first aid tent. A guy screamed and all Aldous saw was bubbles around his mouth. The medics went to put gauze around his fingers, and they all broke off. Aldous is sure the man lost his life.

Robert G. Aldous and his crew flew many missions to Formosa [Annotator's Note: Republic of Formosa; present day Taiwan]. The Japanese were still fighting in the Philippines at that time. Formosa was being used as place the Japanese fighters, supplies, and ammo was coming from. Formosa had accurate and intense antiaircraft fire. Aldous also flew a mission or two near China. Their radar operator was being used to see if he could find Japanese ships. He did not. The radar operator was used on a crew that was shot down over Formosa. They all lost their lives. They got a new gunner and had no radar operator anymore. [Annotator's Note: Aldous reaches for something off-camera to get his mission list. The interviewer asks him when it was that he went overseas.] Aldous left for the Pacific on Christmas Eve, 1944. He flew 42 missions altogether. Six of them were to China. He flew one mission to Hong Kong [Annotator's Note: now Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China] and one to Shanghai [Annotator's Note: Shanghai, China]. He flew 16 missions to Formosa. He flew 12 missions to Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines], three missions to French Indochina, four missions to Borneo [Annotator's Note: Borneo, Malaysia], and one to Davao [Annotator's Note: Davao City, Mindanao, Philippines]. When they first were transferred from Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines] to Mindoro [Annotator's Note: Mindoro, Philippines, January 1945], they had been on temporary duty with the 22nd Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: 22nd Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force] on Leyte. They went back to the 90th Bomb Group on Mindoro and the 280th Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: 380th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force] was there at another airfield. A P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] group was on a third airfield. Major Bong [Annotator's Note: Major Richard Ira Bong, American Top Fighter Ace] was stationed there for a while. Aldous was a gunner. One day they were flying near Hong Kong and saw some Zeros [Annotator's Note: Japanese Mitsubishi A6M fighter aircraft, referred to as the Zeke or Zero] approaching. Before they got there, a flight of P-38s chased them away. That was the only time in his 42 missions that he saw enemy planes. He saw plenty of flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. Aldous saw a P-38 crash when it lost an engine. It cleared his group but crashed into the Navy group nearby. A tent started to burn. Aldous could see a sailor in his bed, reading a book while burning to death. A Filipino was in the flames too. The pilot ejected and bounced off the top of a tent. He died from shock. Ammunition was exploding so they had to stand clear. The 320th Bomb Squadron [Annotator's Note: 320th Bombardment Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force] was right next to theirs. A clerk sat at his desk in the sand and a cobra was under it. He pulled his .45 pistol [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] and shot the snake in the head. It was about seven and a half feet long. He was a very lucky guy. As time went on, they bombed Corregidor [Annotator's Note: Corregidor Island, Luzon, Philippines] in Manila Bay, Bataan [Annotator's Note: Bataan, Luzon, Philippines], Clark Field [Annotator's Note: now Clark Air Base, Luzon, Philippines], and several places on Luzon. His group had gone into Australia in late 1942. Aldous got in there in late 1944. They were bombing before, but he was bombing to kick the Japanese out finally.

When Robert G. Aldous first got to Mindoro [Annotator's Note: Mindoro, Philippines in January 1945 with the 319th Bombardment Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force], he was put on a detail to help build a chapel which essentially was just clearing the jungle and putting up a tent. He broke a cartilage in his knee and could not fly for three missions. He then flew with other crews, besides his own, to make up the missions so his crew and he could end at the same time. He was flying with another crew to Legaspi on Luzon. As he got to the plane, the crew was making a preflight and not doing a good job. He could see a gas cap ajar, and he went up and fixed it. He told the pilot they had not done a good job. They flew over and got back. They were to go to lunch and go back. He was a substitute in the nose turret that day and he cleared his guns. The other men had not cleared their guns. He cleared them for them. He missed the truck to go to the mess hall. He was walking back. The Operations Officer, Oscar Bradford [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], picked him up and Aldous told him what had happened. Bradford chewed that pilot out for his crew leaving their guns hot. The pilot made them get another gunner instead of the "little snitch" Aldous. On take-off they crashed, and eight of the ten were killed. Aldous got to thank Bradford for saving his life at a reunion once.

Robert G. Aldous and his crew were flying over Formosa [Annotator's Note: then the Republic of Formosa, present day Taiwan, with the 319th Bombardment Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force.] The target was Hito [Annotator's Note: unable to identify]. They had real tough antiaircraft. He was in the top turret when a 120mm shell went through the wing. He pulled his throat mike [Annotator's Note: microphone] loose. The shrapnel went to the rear, hitting the other gunners. One of them was "hit in the ass" and he got a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy]. He never saw the one gunner again and he thinks he lost his eye. The B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] had a couple of faults. One was an electric pump installed on the top of the front bomb bay that pumped hydraulic fluid used by the landing gear, flaps, and bomb bay doors. They were flying to northern Formosa and had an auxiliary bomb bay gas tank installed. The B-24 bounced around on take-off, and it would shake that tank up. Gas fumes would come out the vent. If that motor started to pump hydraulic fluid, there was a spark, and it was bye-bye B-24. The day he was to fly with another crew he thinks they did not turn the pump off. [Annotator's Note: Aldous tells this story in the clip titled "Close Call on Mindoro" of this interview.] Aldous was flying one day when a B-24 from another squadron pulled up below them and suddenly blew up. They had not turned the pump off and adjusted their flaps. A very good friend of his was in that plane.

Robert G. Aldous and his crew lost their radar operator. Their copilot went to get a suntan and went to sleep. He fell asleep and got a sunburn so bad he could not fly with them. Another copilot came on and flew with them. Their copilot got a flight with another crew to make up for the one he lost. That crew got shot up and had to bail out over China. Some Chinese patriots got him back to them, but he was sent home. They had a substitute copilot. They had a guy named Harrington [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] who got shot in the eye. The sub [Annotator's Note: substitute] copilot was called "Dog" Darrington [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. The pilot, Dave Simons [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], decided to take a nap. Dog increased the rpm [Annotator's Note: revolutions per minute, a measurement of engine speed] to fly faster. They burned up more gas and they had to land in northern Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines], far from their base. Otherwise, they would have gone down in the ocean. Dog only lasted that flight. Their next copilot was Phil Nabb [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] who was a good guy. A B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] sank like a bottle full of rocks. B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] would float for a while. B-24s would either break up or sink. They had one crew that bailed out. Two of the guys drowned. [Annotator's Note: Aldous tells the interviewer he has a couple of more stories. They stop to change tapes.]

Robert G. Aldous and his crew flew their last mission out of Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. It was going to be their 42nd mission and the date was 24 July 1945. They were to go and bomb a target being chosen for them. It was the northern airbase in Okinawa. They were originally slated to bomb a dry dock for Navy vessels where a cruiser was supposed to be. They were to use 2,000 pound bombs. Aldous got himself a metal helmet that made a great wash basin and he took it with him. After he loaded the bombs, he used it to wash up. He was in his cot and had the helmet underneath. He woke up and he could hear the helmet being slid across the dirt. He pounced down and he had the hand of Colonel Ellis Brown [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Colonel Ellis L. Brown], his Group Commander, in his grip. Brown asked if he could borrow his helmet and he said he could, but he had to bring it back. That afternoon, word got down to Admiral Bull Halsey [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey] that that naval ship was going to be bombed. Halsey said that was going to be an all Navy operation. They had to unload their bombs and load 100 pounders to bomb an airfield in Shanghai, China instead. Aldous knew that in order to have a bomb explode, you had to create a wave of some kind. If you dropped a bomb on dirt, it would not create that wave. Aldous dropped the first bomb on the dirt ground. A new guy on the crew named Yarrington [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], called him a fool and ran away. Aldous explained to him later that he had taken the fuses out. The next day, they load 80 100 pound bombs into their B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. Yarrington helped him. The flight was scheduled for the next morning, so they went souvenir hunting. Some of northern Okinawa was still occupied by the Japanese. They went to an area with caves that had ammunition and supplies. They walked further down to a shack where somebody had been cooking breakfast. They went further and the canyon made a turn. They saw a crashed Navy plane there. They got closer and he could see the pilot and the gunner were in the plane but looked dead. Yarrington was behind him. Aldous jumped on the wing and dirt started popping [Annotator's Note: enemy bullets were kicking up the dirt] around Yarrington. They got back up the airfield and an MP [Annotator's Note: military police] was waiting for them. He pointed to a sign that said it was a restricted area and was still enemy territory. Once again, the Guy Upstairs [Annotator's Note: slang for God] had looked after him. On this same mission, their airplane was brand new. They were the second airplane in the formation. Their bombardier hit the salvo button, and nothing happened. The older B-24s had mechanical systems of rods. The new ones were all electric and it did not work. They were losing their place in formation due to the bomb load. Dave Simons [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], the pilot, called Aldous to get back there and get rid of those bombs. The bomb bay was open with 200 mile per hour winds and he could not wear a parachute. He had a screwdriver to pry the release lever loose. The bombs were dropped unarmed. He had to do that for 40 bomb shackles. It was a white-knuckle experience. That was his last bomb run.

Robert G. Aldous and his crew were on Ie-Shima [Annotator's Note: Ie-Shima, Japan] at the time [Annotator's Note: of his last mission as a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber top turret gunner with the 319th Bombardment Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force]. The atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] was dropped while he was on an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] east of Formosa [Annotator's Note: Republic of Formosa, present day Taiwan]. He got back to Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines] where the 22nd Replacement Depot was. He was put on a Dutch ship called the Japara [Annotator's Note: the SS Japara]. It took 28 days to get from Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines] to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. Aldous went to Fort Douglas, Utah [Annotator's Note: now part of University of Utah and Fort Douglas Military Museum, near Salt Lake City, Utah] to get discharged. He was told he had one more thing to do. He could hear a lecture on joining the Reserve or sign-up and get out of there now. He chose to get out of there. That hour cost him one year when the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] started. He was called back and flew 32 missions in B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. Some of those were not easy. He did get to shoot at an enemy plane. He got a probable on a MiG-15 [Annotator's Note: Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 jet fighter aircraft]. Aldous had been discharged from the Army Air Corps on 28 October 1945. He was supposed to have 60 points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. He had many Air Medals [Annotator's Note: US Armed Forces medal for single acts of heroism or meritorious achievement while in aerial flight] that were worth five points each. He had 59 points and he was let go. He was discharged as a staff sergeant. He did not fly any missions to Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan]. He flew to Takayo [Annotator's Note: unable to verify or identify]. That was a rough place. [Annotator's Note: Aldous shows a list of personnel to the interviewer.] He was on a crew of 11. The pilot, copilot, engineer, and radar operator were regular Air Force. All the rest were Reservists and were all World War 2 veterans. His crew was used very early on in Korea. When the MIG-15s came in, the B-29s were sent in to destroy bridges. The regular Air Force did not have trained crews so the Reservists were sent overseas first. Frank Kappeler [Annotator's Note: US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Frank Albert Kappeler] was the navigator on plane 11 of the Doolittle Raid [Annotator's Note: bombing attack on the Japanese mainland on 18 April 1942 carried out by 16 North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) and named for the raid's commander, then US Army Air Forces Colonel, later US Air Force General, James H. Doolittle]. He was a nice guy. A guy named Juice [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] that was a Captain from West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy, West Point, New York] that was the radar operator. He demanded he be addressed as "Sir." They found out that he got sick from cigar smoke, so the crew would smoke them in the back of the plane. After about five missions, Juice demanded to get off the crew. Major Frank Kappeler was his replacement. The pilot, copilot, and engineer were all regular [Annotator's Note: regular Air Force officers serving on the B-29s in the newly formed Air Force post-World War 2]. Aldous and the other Reservists needed very little training. One of them had been on B-29s and another had worked in the Boeing factory as a B-29 crew chief between the wars. They were up in MiG Alley [Annotator's Note: nickname given by United Nations pilots during the Korean War to northwestern portion of North Korea where the Yalu River empties into the Yellow Sea] south of the Yalu River. Aldous was on the left waist gun. They were being attacked from below. A MiG came up and sort of stalled out. Aldous caught him just then and fired a six-round burst. The waist gunners could fire both bottom turrets and the tail turret. He caught him with two turrets. They had F-86 [Annotator's Note: North American F-86 Sabre jet fighter aircraft] fighter coverage. They saw a plane go down on that side and he got a probable. That was the only time he fired a machine gun in 74 missions. Aldous had just graduated from Utah State [Annotator's Note: Utah State University in Logan, Utah] on 6 June [Annotator's Note: 6 June 1950] and the Korean War started on 25 June [Annotator's Note: 25 June 1950]. He was recalled on 12 July [Annotator's Note: 12 July 1950] and had to report on 12 August 1950. Ironically, he was sent overseas on Christmas Eve [Annotator's Note: 24 December 1950] again. He was not too upset and he knew that is what he earned by joining the Reserves. He had friends who did not get caught.

Robert G. Aldous had difficulty transitioning to being a civilian after World War 2. He got home and thought everything would be lovely. He had grown about three inches, and nobody knew him. He did not feel good about sharing his experiences with his parents. He was with a lot of veterans going to school. He started drinking heavily for about two years. He was not the best college student. He would date girls and when they found out, they would date someone else. He finally decided to stop drinking. His grades improved and he got married. He is sure he had stress disorder [Annotator's Note: post traumatic stress disorder], but they did not have a name for it then. There were four of them who would hang out together and they always had something to drink. He went to Utah State [Annotator's Note: Utah State University in Logan, Utah] with a different group. Most of these guys were natives of New Jersey and they were different. Aldous did not have the same side motivation. When he got out of the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953], he trained as a schoolteacher and looked for a job. His former high school Principal needed teachers and hired him. He started teaching in his old hometown [Annotator's Note: Huntsville, Utah]. [Annotator's Note: Aldous tells the interviewer that he knows a fellow in one of the displays at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.] Aldous knew Keith Renstrom [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeant Keith Arnold Renstrom's oral history interview is available for viewing on this Digital Collections website] and his family well. Their home was next door to the school he was teaching at. Renstrom was quite a guy. Aldous flew 32 missions in Korea and was discharged on 12 August 1951. He was a staff sergeant and did not get a medal or anything.

Robert G. Aldous did not have nightmares early on. He has reoccurrences of some of the things he went through during World War 2 [Annotator's Note: as a member of the 319th Bombardment Squadron, 90th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force], but they are not frightening. He does not feel that they were a problem. [Annotator's Note: Aldous shows a picture to the interviewer and asks if he knows the people in it.] Aldous is on the side, the man in the middle is Yarrington [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] from his crew, and the other man is Paul Tibbets [Annotator's Note: US Air Force Brigadier General Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr.; pilot of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber "Enola Gay" that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945]. Tibbets not only dropped the A-bomb but also flew the first plane out of England in World War 2. Aldous' most memorable experience of World War 2 was dropping the bombs out of the plane [Annotator's Note: Aldous tells this story in in the clip titled "Last Bombing Mission" of this interview]. It was the scariest. The other was the day the shell went through the wing [Annotator's Note: Aldous tells this story in the clip titled "Deadly B-24 Problem" of this interview]. They had four air raids. Three of them were in Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines]. They landed during an air raid and had to get off the airfield in a truck. The next morning there was a Japanese plane that had crashed about 15 feet from their plane. It was a kamikaze. The pilot had been ejected somehow and was caught in the fork of a tree. It split his rump, pants and all. His bloody bum [Annotator's Note: slang for buttocks] was sticking out. He remembers that well. They were supposed to bomb Clark Field [Annotator's Note: now Clark Air Base, Luzon, Philippines]. As they came to the target, the bombardier went to open the bomb bay doors at the same time the copilot started lowering the flaps. Their hydraulic system had a pump in the third engine. All the pressure went to the flaps, so they went down fully and got stuck. The engines started conking out. They finally dropped the bombs on the pilot's command. They started throwing things out of the plane. Near the Lingayen Gulf [Annotator's Note: Lingayen Gulf, Philippines] there was a just cleared landing strip for fighters in a dried-up rice paddy. They only had one engine and the pilot spotted the airfield. They went down, he slammed on the brakes, and they did a ground loop. He remembers that vividly.

Robert G. Aldous and his crew were supposed to go to Australia on R&R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation]. Some of the other guys went down there and did not come back. His was the first crew that did not get to go and were sent to Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines] instead. It was a mess. He and two others went downtown and were in a muddy alley. A car beeped at them. Aldous was next to the car and there was a red, metal sign on the fender with five silver stars in it. He was looking in the face of General Douglas MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area]. Aldous did not salute him. MacArthur stuck his face out and glared at him until he went out of sight. During the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953], he came out of the Daiichi Building [Annotator's Note: Daiichi-Seimei Building, now DN Tower 21, Tokyo, Japan, which housed MacArthur's headquarters] where Aldous was and that time, he did salute him. They had a guy on their crew that could sell anything to anybody. They got a two-ounce jigger of bourbon whiskey after every mission. The ones who did not drink filled a canteen with them and after several missions, they had booze to sell for 60 dollars. They also got a beer ration, and they collected a case and a half of beer. They took it to where ships were being unloaded. They asked a sergeant for lumber for the beer. They got enough lumber to put a floor under their tent and sold about half of what he had given them. A guy went to Australia and came back with really filthy, pornographic pictures. Aldous had a camera and he loaned it to the guy who wanted to use it to copy the pictures. Aldous got a dollar for every picture sold. Aldous threw his pictures overboard on his way home. He was embarrassed by them.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Robert G. Aldous if he was religious when he went to war.] He was and then was absolutely totally removed from church. He has since become active in the church. He decided that he had to have some help from upstairs [Annotator's Note: slang for Heaven, or where God dwells]. His lifestyle is better too. One guy was called in with him for the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] who was from San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. When he would go to any new base, he would find a woman to shack up with the first night. A guy on the crew named Ken George [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] had been a long, long time guy in the service who went in in 1939. He would say the Air Force was only different from the Army when he saw a woman in the barracks. They were at Tampa, Florida at MacDill Field [Annotator's Note: now MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida] on a Sunday. Ken George was in the latrine washing his overalls wearing only a thin pair of shorts. The guy from San Diego, whose name was Fichus [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], was next door with a woman drinking beer. Fichus sent the woman to their building to use the bathroom. She was urinating and saw Ken George. She yelled out to him about how badly she needed to use the toilet. George went into where Aldous was and said it had indeed changed. They had new uniforms. He was one of the first ones to wear the blue uniforms.

Robert G. Aldous' attitude was to either fight in the war or lose the war [Annotator's Note: when asked by the interviewer why he chose to fight in the war.] If he was going to fight, he wanted to do it in an outfit he liked. The Air Force was more his cup of tea. His Korean [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] missions were more intense [Annotator's Note: than the missions he flew during World War 2]. They had the MiG-15 fighters [Annotator's Note: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 jet fighter aircraft] with limited range. The choice targets were in MiG Alley [Annotator's Note: nickname given by United Nations pilots during the Korean War to northwestern portion of North Korea where the Yalu River empties into the Yellow Sea] and the Americans could not fly over Manchuria [Annotator's Note: Manchuria, China], where the MiGs were stationed. The Chinese really dominated in the first six months of the war. It looked like they were going to win it. Getting into MiG Alley was one way to fight, and it was bad. The first day they were sent in, they lost six B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. The next day, where he got his probable, they lost three. The B-29 gunnery system was obsolete and too slow for the MiG-15s. Aldous flew with the 343rd Squadron, 98th Bomb Group, 5th Air Force [Annotator's Note: 343rd Bombardment Squadron, 9th Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force] and SAC, the Strategic Air Command, of Curt LeMay [Annotator's Note: US Air Force General Curtis Emerson LeMay]. He watched LeMay land a C-54 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster cargo aircraft] downwind one time at MacDill Field, Florida [Annotator's Note: now MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida] . [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Aldous how World War 2 changed his life.] It did substantially. The G.I. Bill of Rights [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] got his college education for him and that was the biggest assistance he had. He became more acquainted to the geography and lifestyle of the people of the United States through living many places. He feels the Bill was tremendously important to the growth of postwar America and its economy. Aldous is glad he had his service. Being a veteran of World War 2 in particular gets him a certain element of respect. For example, the Vietnamese War [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] is tainted from so much drug use. He thinks the war does not mean as much to America now as it did. It evaporated the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States] that had been a tremendous handicap to the country. Many of his friend's fathers were in the WPA [Annotator's Note: Works Progress Administration]. That was not an easy thing for those families. As time goes on, the education system has almost forgotten World War 2. Women were working and producing critically needed materials. It gave them a certain prestige that do not have now. Women have tried to be their own thing since then. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Aldous what he thought the first time he saw female pilots when he was in training.] He thought it was wonderful that they could fly those planes. They had not thought they would be able to do it. One guy shot at one those gals instead of at the target and he got told off. Aldous thinks The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] and the teaching of children about the war is very important. He has seen the numbers of people who come to it. It pleases him. He was an educator and has seen how education has gone downhill relative to the things that are important to families and individuals. A lot of things in this society that are happening would not be if everybody had a chance to go through. He has been to the thing in Washington [Annotator's Note: World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.] and thinks the museum's program is much better. [Annotator's Note: Aldous holds a picture of Paul Tibbets for the camera.] He asked Tibbets [Annotator's Note: US Air Force Brigadier General Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr.; pilot of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber "Enola Gay" that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945] about how he felt about dropping the bomb that killed so many people. Tibbets told him it is a horrible thought that he does not like to think about it. He tells himself he was following orders. During World War 2, the Japanese were stark enemies, and he could not stand any thoughts of the Japanese. When Aldous was stationed in Japan during the Korean War, he had to change his opinion of the Japanese people. They are energetic, honest, and industrious. He found them to be very good, honest, and with a good lifestyle. That was a big change that he had. He went to high school with Japanese kids who were the kind he saw in Japan. Some of the old tough guys were still there though.