Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
2:07 | Aerial gunner William Campbell describes the immense spectacle of D-Day, when ships filled the channel between England and Normandy. His bomber squadron's job was to hit German ground troops as they rushed to the coast.
Keywords : William Campbell D-Day anti-aircraft (AA) German England France flak
Like many other young boys, William Campbell had built model planes and dreamed of flying. When war came to America in 1941, he enlisted in the Air Corps and shipped out to Europe as an aerial gunner.
From the very first mission on, aerial gunner William Campbell experienced intense fire from anti-aircraft guns. The flak was constant during the bomb runs and one piece found him during a mission when he had just seen the adjacent plane blown out of the sky. It was a fragment from the same burst.
As a tail gunner, William Campbell was witness to a lot of aerial disasters; bombers hit by anti-aircraft fire going down in flames and men bailing out. The unlucky ones went down with the planes. It was a big adventure to him when he arrived, but seeing sights like those and getting wounded himself, tempered his enthusiasm.
