Robert Doolan was born in March 1917 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was wonderful to grow up in Cincinnati and he still loves it. There is a mural project going on now that he likes, including one of George Washington in drag. The neighborhood he grew up in was a very nice, lower income one. His father was a florist. His mother did not work. His sister was an expert seamstress. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks about life during the Great Depression.] Doolan's neighborhood was a German one and Germans were very frugal. Home loans were given by building and loan associations and not international banks. This allowed them to keep their houses. Everyone helped everyone else. His father's family was Irish, and his mother's family was very German. They were poor for those years, but it did not affect him or his sister really. The German and Japanese aggression at the time was not discussed at home or school. He was 23 years old in 1940, so he was always the oldest man in the service. He did not have a plan for after high school. He wanted to fly. He had two heroes, Lindbergh [Annotator's Note: Charles Augustus Lindbergh, American aviator] and Jimmy Doolittle [Annotator's Note: US Air Force General James Harold Doolittle]. Doolittle did a lot for aviation after World War 1. Doolan was with him one time. Doolittle was not tall. In January 1950, Doolan was with Doolittle as the Air Force Association was formed. Dwight Eisenhower [Annotator’s Note: General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe; 34th President of the United States] was there as a civilian. Curt LeMay [Annotator's Note: US Air Force General Curtis Emerson LeMay] was there in Columbus, Ohio. Doolittle was bigger than life, but only five foot seven.

From the time Robert Doolan was ten or 12 years old, he wanted to fly. He was in high school and you had to have some college [Annotator's Note: one of the criteria for being accepted into the Army Air Force's aviation cadet program was two years of college education]. Flying was a very elite thing. In 1940, if you could pass an equivalent exam you could get in. He took the exam and went to pilot school in 1941. It was the high point and the low point in his life. He learned to fly but can only fly single engine. At that time, they were given a contract. They volunteered to be a pilot and if you failed you went home. He failed and he applied to be a navigator. In 1942, he was commissioned and put on a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] crew. He was working at an insurance office when he heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He could not believe it. Japan was a little island and he could not imagine they had the empire that they did. He graduated navigation school and he was hurt at first that he was not a pilot, but he was still flying. The B-17 is the finest airplane. It's worst enemy was the B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] pilots. The B-17 could fly higher but the B-24 could fly faster. He would not have wanted to ditch a B-24 in the ocean though. [Annotator's Note: Doolan references a book about a plane that ditched in the ocean.]

The first time Robert Doolan ever flew was in a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] and it was heaven. He used to hang out at airports but never flew. In pilot school in California, he was in heaven. Sunny weather, flying every day, and getting paid. They learned how to fly and bomb in the nighttime but were destined to go to Europe where they bombed in the daylight. His crew was very different. They got along very well. They fraternized with their enlisted men. They were flying together every day and they wanted to fly with friends. It was very pleasant. By February or March 1943, they were stationed in Florida. There were no long distance fighters then. They flew the YB-40 [Annotator's Note: Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress gunship], a four-engine fighter plane developed as a stop-gap measure. They had to carry extremely heavy loads of ammunition. Doolan left Florida and went to England. They flew one practice mission and immediately started flying. They were in Alconbury, a lovely town [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force Alconbury]. The English people were delightful, and he loved England. It was only a couple hours train ride down to London. He started dating an English girl whose boyfriend was in the English Army overseas. It was platonic. Captains and above lived in a sort of mansion. Doolan lived in a hut. The food was alright. If you were going on a mission, you got real eggs. If not, you got powdered eggs.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Robert Doolan to describe how a bombing mission would go.] They would be awakened about two-thirty in the morning. If it was a combat day, they got real eggs. If not, they got powdered eggs. Then they would go get their parachute and load it. They would meet with the commanding officer and all the crews. They would have a map. About five o'clock in the morning, the commander would go over the fighter planes they would meet and how much antiaircraft. Then they would get their parachute and load into the plane. They would take-off about six-thirty in the morning. That was more dangerous than combat. The English fog was dangerous and there were a lot of airplanes. They would head overseas then. They had to be at 25,000 feet to cross the English Channel because the German fighters would be waiting immediately. Me-109s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter aircraft] would hit them. The English Spitfires [Annotator's Note: British Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft] could only escort them to the enemy. It was a job. The YB-40 [Annotator's Note: Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress gunship] was the first plane that had a gun that could fire exactly straight ahead. They incorporated that into the B-17G [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress heavy bomber] models that he flew. [Annotator’s Note: Doolan goes into great detail about the differences in gun placement.] Doolan flew seven missions in the YB-40 and they only lost one on 22 June [Annotator's Note: 22 June 1943]. They then went to regular B-17s.

The targets of the first missions Robert Doolan flew were submarines. The East Coast [Annotator's Note: of the United States] had amusement parks with lights that backlit ships, making them easy targets. They would bomb the submarine pens [Annotator's Note: in German-occupied France] with 1,000 pound bombs. They also hit airfields and transportation. He did not have many close calls in these missions. They felt it was an important job and they tried very hard. They were lucky. They were the first group over, and they had fewer men killed than in other groups. There were 120 of them in the YB-40 [Annotator's Note: Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress gunship] and they only had one man killed in the whole war. A lot were shot down and captured. They prided themselves that they flew better formations. He was not wounded until his last mission [Annotator's Note: 12 August 1943]. They took off that morning and immediately met German fighters over the continent. Their number four engine got shot out and they lost a lot of gasoline. They did bomb the target. Antiaircraft [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] got them over the target and he got hit. He had three tiny wounds. There are five men in the front and five in the back [Annotator's Note: on a B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. The back of the plane was hit and four of the men were seriously wounded and needed a hospital. The pilot [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Captain Hans C. Johnson] went into a steep dive and the four parachuted out. One died from his wounds later. The pilot got down to around 150 feet. Two German pilots were flying wing to wing. Doolan had his gun on one of them. They were headed back to England for almost two hours. They were running out of gasoline and had to make a forced landing. He told the most wounded man to stay there for the Germans and the rest took off. All of them left their escape bags hanging in the airplane.

[Annotator's Note: Robert Doolan was a navigator on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber that was heavily damaged and made a forced landing at Haltern am See, Gelsenkirchen, Germany on 12 August 1943.] They split up into two groups. The pilot, copilot, and navigator headed south. They walked all day and got away without any Germans seeing them. Before dusk, a man came up with a bicycle, saying he could help them. The Dutch, Belgians, and French were helping rescue Americans. They slept in his house that night and got civilian clothing. The next morning a car came to get them and took them to a farm. They slept in a room behind a wall outside of the house. They ate with the family. They stayed there two weeks. They sent the pilot [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Captain Hans C. Johnson] towards Spain and then the copilot [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Donald E. Weir] and Doolan were picked up and went to Roermond [Annotator's Note: Roermond, Netherlands]. They stayed one night and were at the Belgian border. They heard that the pilot and the two others had been captured. It was getting cold and the safe house was likely not safe. They decided to go north by train. They went to The Hague [Annotator's Note: The Hague, Netherlands] after that. They walked with two resistance people about 150 feet apart. Doolan was first and just touched the doorknob of the safe house when he was pulled in, hit over the head, gagged, and handcuffed. There were three Gestapo agents [Annotator's Note: German Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police] and three SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] combat men. They were animals. They were taken to Scheveningen [Annotator's Note: The Hague, Netherlands]. There were families there that were on their way to be executed in Germany.

[Annotator's Note: Robert Doolan was captured and taken to Scheveningen, The Hague, Netherlands, along with his copilot after being shot down on 12 August 1943.] They were put into separate cells. They would get gruel in the mornings and had a bucket to relieve themselves. They found out about others there being taken to be executed. They were interrogated. The Gestapo [Annotator's Note: German Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police] only wanted to know who had helped them try to evade capture. He was put in a broom closet before being questioned. They were then turned over the Luftwaffe [Annotator's Note: German Air Force]. He was in an interrogation center near Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Dulag Luft, Frankfurt, Germany] for another eight days. He was then sent to Stalag Luft III [Annotator's Note: a prisoner of war camp in Zagań, Poland]. When he arrived [Annotator's Note: in late 1943], there were 2,500 prisoners there. In January 1945, there were 10,000. He was allowed to write every month and he got more mail than anyone. They had four escape tunnels going at the time. Roger Bushell [Annotator's Note: British Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Roger Joyce Bushell] wanted to get 200 men out in one night. In March 1944, 76 men got out. [Annotator's Note: On the night of 24-25 March 1944 76 men made it out of the camp during what is known as "The Great Escape".] Doolan did not help with the tunnels. There were five separate camps. The Americans were not in the camps with the tunnels. He was only aware of the tunneling and he did not think it would work.

Robert Doolan was in the oldest camp [Annotator's Note: Stalag Luft III in Zagań, Poland]. It had been abused by the prisoners who had been there before them. Delmar Spivey was the finest man Doolan ever served under [Annotator’s Note: US Army Air Forces then US Air Force Major General Delmar Taft Spivey]. Spivey decided to clean the camp up. Some men resisted it. Spivey did not speak German and the German commander [Annotator's Note: German Air Force Oberst, or Colonel, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Lindeiner- Wildau] did not speak English, but they made it work. The Red Cross had a goal of sending each man a package each week. They contained food and five packs of American cigarettes which were used as currency. They did not get them very often. There were times where all they could think of was food. The Germans gave them some blood sausage occasionally. They got soup they called the "green death" and the "black death." German bread was whole grain and they said it was made of sawdust. They had more margarine than they had things to cook with it. They got a lot of vegetables. They were very hungry, but they were never really starving. The YMCA [Annotator's Note: Young Men's Christian Association] sent them music instruments and baseball and soccer equipment. They got books from the YMCA and their parents, so they made libraries. Doolan was the librarian in the center camp. He thinks he read about 200 books. Doolan needed chocolate and he traded to get it.

[Annotator's Note: Robert Doolan was a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft III in Zagań, Poland.] There were about 2,000 prisoners in each of the five camps there by the time they were liberated. In 1944, it was obvious the Allies were going to win. There were rumors. One, they would be killed, which Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] had ordered. The second was that the Germans would just pull out ahead of the Russians. The third was that the Germans were going to make them walk. By 27 January 1945, the Russians were close. It was the winter of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. At two-thirty in the morning on 28 January, the Germans came in and said they were leaving. They told Colonel Spivey [Annotator's Note: later US Air Force Major General Delmar Taft Spivey] he had a railroad car, but Spivey said he would walk with his men. They walked all night. Civilians were fleeing the Russians. Some German civilians would trade with them until the Gestapo [Annotator's Note: German Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police] stopped it. They were three abreast, 10,000 men. They walked for five days, 54 miles. The third day, they came to a factory that was still operating and it was warm. They made tea and shaved and stayed two nights. At Spremberg [Annotator's Note: Spremberg, Germany], they were put into box cars. They were filthy and crowded and could only stand. They managed to make hammocks with their blankets. Once in a while, the train would stop so they could defecate along the tracks. They then were taken to the Moosburg prison camp [Annotator's Note: Stalag VII-A in Moosburg, Germany] where they stayed until the war ended.

[Annotator's Note: Robert Doolan was marched from Stalag Luft III in Zagań, Poland to Stalag VII-A in Moosburg, Germany.] It was horrible. There was not enough food or heat. They were there from February to May 1945 and he only had two showers. They were subject to air raids. There were seldom Red Cross parcels. They would see fighter planes and bombers going over. When the camp was liberated, there were 120,000 prisoners there including Russians, Polish, and French. When Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] came in on 27 April, Doolan did not see him. The American tanks hit the fence. There were some amazing reunions. Doolan felt like it was a new world. Patton left on 29 April. Doolan was there until 8 May then he went to Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France]. He got on a ship. Doolan's ship had to go to Trinidad. He got a tan and bought a box of chocolates. They stayed on board ship. He arrived in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] in June 1945. The Red Cross handed out milk. Before going overseas at the start of the war, a friend's girlfriend was going to meet the two of them and she brought a girlfriend. Doolan asked if he could call on her again and she said yes. They corresponded while he was in Europe. He went to see her when he got back home. They were married 27 November 1945.

Robert Doolan went right back to his office work after returning from combat. He had no trauma. He talked to his wife some about being a prisoner. He talks to groups and gives tours. His most memorable experience is being liberated from the prison camp. He knew there would be no life under German or Japanese rule. He thinks World War 2 makes him appreciate the United States more. He has lived in other countries and there is just no other country that gives you so much respect. We run our country. He is not as impressed with his service as the non-participants are. They had a job and they did it quite well. Doolan thinks there is a great percentage of Americans who do not appreciate the war. He hopes there is a greater appreciation of England. He got to see a lot of it and loved it. He thinks it is important to have The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana], otherwise there is no way to imagine what it was like. Teaching about the war is important because World War 2 is part of our Americanism. It is American. He had an average combat experience. He got a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy] for being wounded by the Gestapo [Annotator's Note: German Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police]. It was not combat, but he was still wounded. [Annotator's Note: Doolan laughs.]