I recently posted a WordPress question asking whether I was patriotic. Unferth commented that I should write about my Uncle and my Father’s experience.

Before he died, my Uncle sent this document. It’s long, so I’m going to break it over a couple of days so it is readable.

He went from high school to commanding a bomber fleet over Tokyo on the last mission of WWII.

Enjoy

THE WORLD WAR II EXPERIENCES OF JOSEPH A. SIMONDS.
649 Balmoral Road, Winter Park, FL 32789
Serial Number O-799083

Written August 3, 1992. The following was written for no specific purpose. I just thought I might set down a few dates and experiences for my own personal benefit. If the reader enjoys perusing this effort, the writer will be happy. Probably the two most significant events are 1) being on the initial flight into the Pinecastle Army Air Field in 1943, which is now called Orlando International Airport, and 2) flying the very last mission of World War II, dropping the last bombs on Japan.

I was born on January 14, 1923 in the General Hospital in Orlando, Florida. I graduated from the only high school in town, Orlando Senior High School, on Friday, June 6, 1941. I was 18 years old at the time. I enrolled as a freshman at the University of Florida the following September. While in High School, I had taken a couple of rides in an airplane. My first time aloft was in the back seat of a barnstorming Howard airplane from the Orlando Municipal airport. I don’t know in what year that occurred, but it was during the depression years. I enjoyed the flying experience, but I never thought I would ever go up in an airplane again. However, in High School, I joined a fraternity named Omega Xi (a very socially select small group), and one of the members, Mac Nangle, was a pilot. His father owned a side-by-side two-place Taylorcraft, which he kept on a private airport in his orange grove in western Orange County. Mac took me up two or three times. I’m not sure Mac had a pilot’s certificate, but he knew how to fly and had access to an airplane. Sadly, Mac was later killed during the war in an Army basic training aircraft in Oklahoma.

During this era, the people of the United States were about equally divided on the issue of World War II, which was going on in Europe. It had started in September of 1939 when Germany invaded Poland and conquered all of Europe except England. It had been underway for two years when I graduated from high school. In this country, I was among those who favored Isolationism, for I did not believe the U S should again fight in a European war.

On Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Japanese suddenly and secretly bombed Pearl Harbor. The entire world was shocked by this dastardly attack. The United States was thereby thrust into World War II. The exact moment I heard the news I was in a football uniform on the P.K. Younge School grounds in Gainesville, Florida, practicing for the annual football game between my Phi Delta Theta fraternity and the Sigma Nus. It was in the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house living room that I heard Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech the following day.

In early January 1942 I finished my first semester at the University of Florida and withdrew from school to join the military service. I only considered the Army Air Corps…never gave the Navy a thought.

March 30, 1942 I became an Aviation Cadet in the U.S. Army Air Corps. I was sworn in as a Private at the Orlando Air Base on March 30, 1942 with Serial Number 14052578. I was classified as “Private Unassigned” and sent to my home address in Orlando to await further orders. The pay of a Private was $21.00 per month.

On June 1st, I received a telegram ordering me to “active duty” and telling me to report to U.S. Army Camp Blanding, Starke, Florida on June 13, 1942. While there for only a day or two, we slept in square, eight-man canvas tents, sans uniforms.

June 15, 1942 I was appointed an Aviation Cadet and transferred to the Air Force Cadet Classification Center at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama. I rode in a private car owned and driven by Ralph L. Smathers of Orlando, from Camp Blanding to Maxwell Field with John Stonecipher, Jack Lee, and two other Orlando boys who were also newly appointed Aviation Cadets. At Maxwell Field, I was issued my Aviation Cadet uniforms and insignia. Also, there I took various tests to determine if I was to become a pilot, a navigator, or a bombardier. On June 26, 1942 I was classified as a pilot trainee, assigned to Class 43-C, and issued orders to report to the AAF Pre-Flight (Pilot) Training Center at Maxwell Field on July 10, 1942. Because we had a few days of freedom, we all climbed in Ralph Smather’s car and drove to Orlando to show off our new uniforms. Margaret’s mother was very impressed with the quality of my military uniform. I recall sitting on her front porch at 520 Anderson Street in Orlando as she examined my hat very carefully. She had, of course, already lost a son in the war when her middle child Joe Baker’s ship was sunk by a German submarine on May 25, 1942 in the Gulf of Mexico. He was probably Orlando’s first fatality of World War II. We drove back to Maxwell Field to report for duty on July 10, 1942. I spent approximately two months in Pre-Flight training at that base.

On September 9, 1942 after completing the Pre-Flight training I, along with about 180 other Cadets, was issued orders to report to The Civilian Elementary Flying School AAFTD, Southern Aviation School, Camden, South Carolina. I reported there on September 13, 1942. The “troop train” ride from Montgomery, Alabama, through Atlanta, Georgia to Camden, South Carolina was my first experience riding on a troop train. There were many such adventurous train rides to follow. When we arrived in Camden, South Carolina, about ten in the morning, we got off the train and looked up at the sky to find it filled with many, many PT -17 training airplanes. And we noted that many airplanes had differently colored lower wings on opposite sides of the airplane. Some were blue, some were yellow, and some were silver. Some airplanes had both wings the same color, but many did not. Before we left Camde,n we learned that the P T -17 has a “ground looping” characteristic which frequently caused the lower wing to be damaged, and therefore changed. It was obvious that the mechanics simply installed any new lower wing they had in inventory, no matter what the color.

On September 15, 1942 I took my first: 32 minute flying instructions in an Army airplane with my instructor Frank W. Poe 3rd (certificate number C-93789). The airplane was a primary trainer Stearmen PT-17. Woodruf Field at Camden, S.C. was a grass airport with no pavement at all. I loved it.

On October 2, 1942 I soloed in that airplane after having received 9:27 hours of dual instruction. My solo flight was from an auxiliary field located north of the main Camden airport, and lasted 20 minutes with several landings. On my first solo landing, I dragged the lower left wing along the ground, but the airplane went straight, and I avoided that dreaded “ground loop” for which this airplane was noted. I taxied to the side of the airport to a buildin,g and a mechanic came out to examine my airplane. I kept the engine running while he shook the lower wing up and down once or twice, then indicated to me that it was O.K. and I taxied out for some more landing practice. I flew 60:00 hours in this airplane at Camden, S.C., before I finished the course and was transferred from a Primary Flight school to a Basic Flight school.

I, along with approximately 140 other Cadets who had not yet “washed out,”, was transferred on November 16, 1942 to the AAF Basic Flying School, Cochran Field, Macon, Georgia. There, I flew the Vultee BT-13 basic trainer airplane for approximately 70:15 hours. I did my first night solo work here. My brother John, who was also in the Army based at Camp Blanding, Florida, somehow managed to visit me briefly while I was based at Cochran Field. This was the first Christmas I spent away from home, and I hardly left my barracks room on Christmas Day because there was no military activity, and I was a very blue aviation cadet.

On January 26, 1943 I was transferred to the United States Army Advanced Flying School at Turner Field, Albany, Georgia. While there, I flew Beechcraft AT-10 and Curtiss Wright AT-9 advanced twin-engine trainer-type airplanes.

On March 25, 1943 I graduated from the U.S. Army flying school at Turner Field, Albany, Georgia in Class 43-C with a grand total of 272 hours flying time. On that date, I was discharged from my assignment as an Aviation Cadet, Serial Number 14052578, and appointed a Second Lieutenant in the Army of the United States with a new Officer’s Serial Number O-799083.

My first Active Duty assignment was to report to the Army Air Force School of Applied Tactics, Bomb Department in my hometown of Orlando, Florida on March 27th 1943. Mother, Dad, and my sister Mary (who had ridden the train to attend my graduation) were delighted, as was I. I reported there and was assigned to the 5th Bomb Squadron, 9th Bomb Group Heavy, located on the Signal Hill portion of the Orlando Air Base. I was assigned to fly as co-pilot on four-engine B-24 bomber airplanes. Soon thereafter, on April 15, 1943 our entire Squadron was transferred from the Orlando Air Base to the new Pinecastle Army Air Field, at Pinecastle, Florida. That was the first day any airplanes ever landed at Pinecastle airfield. The first airplane to land was piloted by our Squadron Commanding Officer, Major Role E. Stone. I flew a little Piper L-4 “Grasshopper” Liaison observation airplane solo between the two airports. The air base was later renamed McCoy Air Force Base and later became the Orlando International Airport.

to be continued….