Robert Butler Whitcomb was born in Scipio, Indiana. When he was about six his family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where he grew up. Whitcomb was born on 7 December 1921. On his 20th birthday the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He realized that he was in for some bad business but did not know what. Whitcomb was studying music at the time of the attack. He was drafted in August 1942. Prior to that, he had no interest in the military. His father's uncle was a major at the post where Whitcomb was drafted, Fort Thomas, Kentucky. This was fortuitous as Whitcomb's parents were able to stay with him during the early stages of his time in the service. Whitcomb did not know what he wanted to do in the military. His uncle suggested the Air Corps and he agreed. He was sent to Jefferson Barracks [Annotator's Note: in Missouri] and was planning to go to radio school but he was sent instead to Boeing Field where he was trained to be a control tower operator. Whitcomb then served as a control tower operator in Walla Walla, Washington. While there he decided that he wanted to be a pilot. He volunteered for the cadets and was sent to Fresno, California for additional basic training. He was later sent to Ellington Field, Texas for navigation training. From there he got a short furlough then was sent to New Jersey to get on a boat to go overseas.

Robert Whitcomb went overseas on a converted cruise liner. After arriving in Liverpool he was sent to Chelveston Air Base where he joined the 305th Bomb Group, 365th Squadron [Annotator's Note: 365th Bombardment Squadron, 305th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force]. On his first day there, Whitcomb saw a pilot who was showing off crash and burst into flames. Whitcomb eventually started flying missions. He flew 20 missions in all, some of which were pretty bad. He flew missions to Berlin, Stuttgart, and to places past Berlin. His missions were very long and there was a lot of flak. On his tenth mission they were returning through what they called Flak Alley, between Osnabruck and Muenster. Whitcomb was flying on the lead plane. After he told one of his navigators that he had been hit, the man informed Whitcomb that he had been hit too. Whitcomb took some time off to recuperate then went back to flying missions. Merseburg was a bad target. Whitcomb thought his twentieth mission would be easy [Annotator's Note: Whitcomb flew his twentieth mission on 10 January 1945]. The target was an airfield in Gymnich, which was just outside of Cologne, Germany. The lead plane on the mission had been borrowed from another air field and was set up a different way. When they flew over the target nothing happened. By the time they made their second pass over the target the Germans had them sighted in. Planes were falling left and right. When the group made their third pass over the target, Whitcomb's plane was hit. Whitcomb was not wearing his parachute when the plane was hit. He noticed the bombardier standing in front of the escape hatch but looked like he did not know what to do. The plane was going down so Whitcomb jumped out of it.

When Robert Whitcomb neared the ground [Annotator's Note: after bailing out of his damaged aircraft over Gymnich, Germany on 10 January 1945] he noticed two men on horseback waiting for him to land. When he was picked up by the two men he was all by himself. He assumed everyone else on the plane had died. No bail out order had been given. Whitcomb learned later that the pilot had also survived. Whitcomb was taken to a nearby farmhouse where he was given some bread and coffee. The two men were waiting to pick up more prisoners. After several days, another American was bought in. He was an enlisted man. The prisoners were taken to the autobahn where they were picked up by a truck that took them to Bonn where there was a big prison camp. The camp was for enlisted men so Whitcomb was sent back down the hill with the two Germans who had captured him. He was concerned that he would be accosted by the civilians because he was bombing Germany but he was not. This was on 10 January 1945 and be believes that the civilians were just trying to survive at that point. Whitcomb was walked across the Rhine and taken to a railroad station. Whitcomb was taken by train to Frankfurt am Main where there was a big interrogation center [Annotator's Note: the interrogation center was known as Dulag Luft]. He was placed in solitary confinement for seven days during which time he received very little food. He could hear the air raid sirens at night which scared him. He was finally called out for interrogation. He was placed in a room with an officer who was very polite to him. The man offered him a cigarette which he declined. The man then offered him a slice of an apple which he gladly accepted. The interrogator knew everything about Whitcomb. After the interrogation he was sent to a big room containing other prisoners. A day or so later they were put in a boxcar bound for the big prison camp in Barth [Annotator's Note: Stalag Luft I]. When they got to Berlin they had to wait in the marshalling yard for seven days. That bothered Whitcomb because he knew marshalling yards were prime targets. While he was there the British bombed Berlin. There were numerous fires started but Whitcomb's train was not hit. The train was then turned south and they were taken to the town of Luckenwalde to the large prison camp there [Annotator's Note: Stalag III-A]. There were about 15,000 prisoners there.

Robert Whitcomb was put in a compound with Polish prisoners who had been there for six years [Annotator's Note: at Stalag III-A in Luckenwalde, Germany]. There were also Norwegian prisoners. They received very little food at first but eventually got Red Cross parcels. The parcels contained chocolate, cheese, and other things. They would trade the cheese they got with the Norwegians. Things were getting tough for the Germans. One morning they woke up and the Germans were gone. After the guards left some of the prisoners left the camp, but most of them stayed there. Several days after the Germans left the Russians arrived and liberated the camp. The Russians brought in big tubs of soup. The food was full of grass and worms but it was better than nothing. The prisoners were also given little potatoes which they roasted over a small fire. When American forces neared the area the Russians would not let them go to the camp to get the prisoners. The prisoners were there for several weeks before some trucks arrived to pick them up. The Russians made the Americans park the trucks two miles from the camp then argued with the soldiers who had arrived to get the prisoners. After fighting all day the Russians allowed the Americans to leave with the prisoners. That was a great relief to Whitcomb. He thought he was going to become a prisoner of the Russians. The prisoners did not receive regular shipments of food until they left the camp. The trucks took Whitcomb and his fellow prisoners to an airfield near Hildesheim, Germany from where they were flown to Nancy, France. There, they were deloused and interrogated then issued new clothes and fed. They were then sent to Le Havre where they boarded a ship which took them back to the United States. There were some in the camp who had a radio and kept the other prisoners informed of what was happening in the war. When President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklind D. Roosevelt] died the Germans showed the prisoners a newspaper headline that referred to Roosevelt as a war criminal. Whitcomb learned that Harry Truman was the new president but knew nothing of him except that he was part of the Pendergast Machine. Truman turned out to be a good president.

Some of the primary targets Robert Whitcomb hit were marshalling yards, research facilities, and factories. They made several strikes on Merseburg and Bremen. They also hit targets beyond Berlin. During one mission they bombed a city in Czechoslovakia that was the home town of Robert Schumann, one of Whitcomb's favorite composers. The bombing missions to Berlin and other cities devastated those areas. They were nothing more than shells after they were hit. Whitcomb was never attacked by enemy fighters on any of his missions. He was flying near the end of the war and believes that the Allies had wiped out the German air opposition by that time. On his tenth mission, Whitcomb was wounded. He always felt that he would get through all of his missions. He was surprised that he was shot down on a mission he believed would be an easy one. On every mission Whitcomb flew some planes did not return. Crewmen were returning injured from every mission also because of the flak.

No one tried to escape while Robert Whitcomb was a prisoner. After the Russians liberated the camp [Annotator's Note: Stalag Luft III in Luckenwalde, Germany] some of the former prisoners left the camp. He has no idea what happened to them. They were glad to be liberated from the Germans but were not happy that the Russians would not allow the Americans to come get them. Whitcomb wrote a few letters when he was a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war]. He also received a couple. It was much later that his parents learned that he was a prisoner. They only knew he had been shot down.

The war matured Robert Whitcomb. Before he was drafted he was determined to become a musician. After the war, he used his G.I. Bill benefits to go back to school. He was able to complete his bachelor's and master's degrees. He later became a teacher. When he learned that General Electric was offering aid, he applied for it. He was accepted and moved to Rochester, New York where he completed his doctorate. Whitcomb thought that World War 2 would be the last war. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Numerous conflicts have been fought since the end of World War 2. Whitcomb feels that The National WWII Museum is a nice museum.