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Clayton Byrd

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While he was recovering from a flesh wound, Clayton Byrd's division was making history in the push to the Rhine. Soon after he rejoined them, they were put in reserve and saw no more combat. The German war effort was spent. After the war, he got an up close look at some Soviet soldiers which disgusted him. (4:16)

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A veteran of the European theater, Clayton Byrd tells the story of a friend who escaped from a German POW road gang. He was on the verge of starving when he walked right into a German church to attend Mass. (3:53)

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Following post-war duty in Czechoslovakia, Clayton Byrd had a few years of civilian life before returning to the service during the Korean War. He served in Germany with an engineer battalion and when some land was cleared for a baseball field, he got a rude reminder of the last war. (3:40)

Clayton Nattier

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His first semester at Kansas State University was going fine. Then came Dec. 7, 1941. Clayton Nattier knew that, if he had to go into the military, he wanted to fly airplanes, so he went to the airfield where Kansans could take the tests for cadet training. (6:19)

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Having successfully passed all the tests for cadet training, Clayton Nattier arrived in Santa Ana for preflight classes. The next step was primary training where he flew the Stearman trainer, a bi-plane. The site had been a private aviation school and was fairly luxurious compared to the next stop which was an actual military base. (5:14)

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The second phase of pilot training was called basic training. You flew a more powerful aircraft and you did acrobatics, which taught you how to recover from bad situations in the air. Clayton Nattier knew he wanted to fly the big planes, the bombers, so when he moved on to advanced training, he flew multi engine aircraft. (6:44)

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Transition training is the part of pilot training where you move from trainers to the actual aircraft you will be flying in the military. For Clayton Nattier, the move was a significant one. He would be flying the mighty B-17. The last training stop was crew training, where the men who trained in different disciplines leaned to jell as a unit. (5:24)

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It was the last test. Clayton Nattier's crew was aloft in a B-17 for their check ride, after which they would be assigned to a bomb group in England. The testing officer took them up to a higher altitude than they'd ever been and this contributed to an unfortunate situation which would separate pilot from crew. (6:15)

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B-17 pilot Clayton Nattier had a great crew assembled as he readied to join the air war against Germany. He goes through the roster and describes all the men who would be joining him in the skies over Europe. (4:41)

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He picked up a new B-17 loaded with freight for some bomb group in England, then Clayton Nattier flew the first leg of the trip up to New Hampshire. That's where the weather got nasty and he and his crew had to wait out several delays. (6:11)