NEW VIDEOS

Bill Owens

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Bill Owens had gone to war at seventeen. As a crew member of the USS Nevada, he saw service at Normandy, southern France, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He had grown up fast and was determined to make a success in life. A friend suggested that he go to school on the GI Bill. The GI Bill? What's that? (5:05)

Hap Chandler

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B-24 navigator Hap Chandler pays tribute to a dear friend from the war, George Brown. Brown led his bomb group to the furious battle in the sky above Schweinfurt where he witnessed some incredible sights. After the war he became a respected professor of mathematics. (1:39)

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It took three navigators. Hap Chandler was the pilotage navigator which meant that he sat in the nose turret with a map and looked for ground markers. Then there was a radar navigator and a dead reckoning navigator who fed instructions to the pilot. In the skies above East Anglia, it was an intricate ballet to get hundreds of planes in formation and carry out the mission. (7:13)

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It was an unbelievable sight. Hap Chandler was the navigator on the lead plane on a bombing mission to Hanover. The B-24 dropped it's load and turned around to head home. That's when he saw the entire rest of the 8th Air Force heading the other way. 1200 bombers representing a lot of lethal force. (3:02)

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The company clerk was Hap Chandler's buddy at the air base in England. He had completed his 35 missions but was due a week off so the clerk sent him to Edinburgh for a little relaxation. It was there that he met the future Mrs. Chandler but he had a little problem back at the base. They were saying he was one mission short. (7:29)

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He'd proven himself in the skies of Europe but Hap Chandler was not done. He flew as navigator on a B-26 in Korea in a type of warfare that was totally different. This time it was single plane missions, finding and disrupting the enemy at night. (5:50)

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Hap Chandler entered the Army Air Corps in 1943 and raised his hand when they asked who wants to go to navigator school. After that was done, he finished the rest of the training, became part of a crew and set out for Wales in a new B-24. He was nervous about finding Iceland at night but he did and safely landed for the last stop this side of the Atlantic. (4:09)

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The training was outmoded and incomplete. B-24 navigator Hap Chandler found out that real combat was totally different. You had to fly really tight formations and so some further training was in order. After a couple of supply missions, he got his first taste of combat over Magdeberg. (6:05)

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During the ill-fated Market Garden operation, Hap Chandler's B-24 was not on a bombing mission. His crew was delivering supplies to the 82nd Airborne troops on the ground. He remembers seeing the chaos surrounding the glider operation and, on his way out of there, it occurred to him that he was glad he was up here and not down there. (5:29)

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The B-24 crew had trained for their low-level mission at Market Garden by buzzing rural England and making farmers mad. Navigator Hap Chandler remembers the confused and chaotic plight of the men in gliders coming in to that battle. His mission was to drop supplies to the ground troops, flying so low no parachutes were needed. (5:40)