Synopsis of oral history interview with George H. Slack.

              VIDEO LOG
George H. Slack
US Army Air Forces / US Air Force
World War II / Korean War
b. 9 July 1926
Interviewed on 8 September 2009 by
Jon Ault
00:00:15 Introduction; date of birth
00:01:20 USAAF (WWII); USAF (Korea)
00:02:00 Enlisted 9 Nov. 1943 after graduating high school in Weymouth, MA
00:04:00 Planned to be in Air Cadet program (as minimum age for USAAF was 18)
00:05:00 Brother enlisted in US Marine Corps at around same time; had to obtain written
consent from mother
00:07:00 Tests for Air Cadet program, including flight physical
00:08:00 Boot camp at Wheeler Field in Biloxi, MS. Officer reiterates slogan of Air Cadet program (“You too can wear silver wings”), but adds that Air Cadets cannot be
pilots, navigators, or bombardiers. Instead, depending on test scores, they can
be radio operators, ordnance experts, or career gunners
00:09:00 Radio training in Illinois for two months
00:11:22 Travel by train to TX Panhandle; en route, train acquires two cars full of German
POWs (from the Afrika Korps) – first exposure to “the enemy”
00:14:10 Learns of losses sustained by 8th Air Force in bombing raids over Europe; cousin
shot down and escapes via Sweden
00:15:45 Further flight and gunnery training in TX using A-26 Douglass aircraft; extremes
of heat and cold aboard planes on the ground and in flight
00:21:35 Training on planes with remote-control gun pods; only three types of planes thus
equipped during the war (B-29, P-61 Nightfighter, A-26)
00:23:00 Made Cpl out of radio school, but not Sgt out of gunnery school, due to
diminishing losses in air crews in the European Theatre
00:25:30 Equipped for China-Burma-India Theatre in 1944; B-29s developed as long-
range, high-altitude bombers to hit Japanese home islands, but engine
problems frequent; first B-29s based in China, but trouble with refueling and