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Hap Chandler

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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)

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The navigator was the hardest working man on the crew. Hap Chandler filled that role on a B-24 above Northern Europe and was so busy, he didn't have time to be scared. He learned to read the flak explosions to know when it was getting dangerous. If you saw red at the center, it was time to get worried. (4:53)

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It was not a pleasant sight. B-24 navigator Hap Chandler could see other planes getting hit, breaking up and the desperation of men in parachutes who did not have good odds on making it safely to the ground. The 8th Air Force had the highest casualty rate in the war, making the air war in the skies of Europe a very deadly business indeed. (6:33)

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Just before the firebombing of Dresden, B-24 navigator Hap Chandler flew a mission there but when his flight arrived, the target was obscured by a smoke screen. Fortunately he spotted a railroad yard that made a fine secondary target. It was on that mission that he saw one of the new German rocket planes. (6:26)

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B-26 navigator Hap Chandler recalls observing the release of American POWs by the Chinese at Panmunjom. They were greeted by chaplains, mail, showers and new clothes. He did lose friends in that war including his roommate who volunteered to fly extra missions. (5:31)

Erik Halfmann

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His dad was a Recon Marine for 20 years with service in Vietnam so it was only natural that Erik Halfmann would feel the same call to duty. He was working for Coca-Cola when the news about 9/11 hit his workplace. Time to sign up. (3:29)

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That first deployment to Iraq was all about the artillery for Erik Halfmann. They fired a lot of shells. It was only a couple of months after he returned that word came down. We're going back, this time as provisional infantry. Some new Marines were brought in including one who liked to joke around a lot. (4:33)

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It was a plum assignment. Erik Halfmann's platoon became the security detachment for Gen. John Kelly. They traveled with him everywhere he went. It was on one of these convoys that an IED struck the lead vehicle and then the ambush began in earnest. (6:31)