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Hap Chandler

WWII | 8th Air Force

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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)