836 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1eb3bdfb0360cab9d398b33ea1d5ce7c.mp4 9d27582402c54d0599b3e4c1c8450c00 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/66d8a46302cf09188e1b9f556fb4c91c.pdf db9f39ba6e1994d19f2aa75d6e61fad1 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Special Collections & University Archives RHC-88 Fei Hu Films Flying Tigers Interview Interviewer: Frank Boring Interviewee: Robert T. Smith Date of Interview: 04-23-1991 Transcriber: Frank Boring [TAPE 1] FRANK BORING: Well to begin with, could you tell us what you were doing before you even heard about the AVG? R.T. SMITH I had gone through the Army Air Corps flying school as a Flying Cadet in 1939 and in 1940 and I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant at Kelly Field in 1940 after completing the Air Corps flying school thing. I was sent back to Randolph Field in June 1940 to a basic Flight Instructor at Randolph Field, which wasn't exactly what I had in mind. I wanted to get into a combat outfit or something that was flying airplanes that might eventually be in combat. But I was sent back to be a basic Flight Instructor and, as it turned out, I spent one year there and instructed quite a number of students that came through and I guess it was about the middle of June 1941, that I saw a copy of Time Magazine and this particular issue had a small article about the fact that the Japanese had closed up all of the seaports for China and the only way China could get any supplies to defend themselves anymore against the Japanese was through a thing called the Burma Road and that was from the port in Rangoon in Burma which was way down around the corner and by rail and then a very tortuous trek through the mountains, about 600 miles from northern Burma into southwestern China to Kunming, China. This was called the Burma Road and this was all truck convoys. It was the only way that China could get any supplies to help defend themselves anymore. That was when I first heard about the idea that somebody �might be going over to help defend the Chinese. This article in Time Magazine said that a certain number, a few people who were commissioned officers in the Air Corps or the Navy and experienced pilots were being allowed to resign their commissions to go over as volunteers to help the Chinese and defend the Burma Road. I thought, boy that sounds pretty good to me. I didn't want to be an instructor for the rest of my life, I wanted to get into some activity and this sounded like a pretty good thing. So at that point I started taking some action to find out who you contacted, how you go about finding out how you get into this outfit and at that time it didn't even have a name, it wasn't called the American Volunteer Group at that time, which it was later known as. But that's when I first found out about this thing going on. FRANK BORING: What was your first actual contact with the people that were eventually AVG - the CAMCO? R.T. SMITH: When I had read this article in Time Magazine, I started asking around the officer's club and different places around Randolph Field there in Texas and nobody had ever heard anything about this at all. Until finally I ran across a guy over at Kelly Field and got a hold of him and he said he didn't know too much about it but he knew the name of a guy in Washington, D.C. that could be contacted and maybe he would fill me in on the thing. So he gave me this guy's name and a phone number in Washington and I called this number, talked to somebody in an office there and apparently it was the office that was going to recruit the people and I explained the situation that I was ready to go. I wanted to find more. I was told well stand by, you'll be contacted in a few days and it turned out that that happened. I was told - I guess I got a telegram from Washington saying that somebody, one of the recruiters from this outfit was gonna be down in San Antonio a few days later and to check in with this guy on the occasion when - he mentioned the date that he'd be at a certain hotel in San Antonio. So that's what happened. (break) �FRANK BORING: We'll start from you're gonna be meeting somebody in San Antonio in a hotel. R.T. SMITH: Well I got a notice from somebody in Washington, D.C. that said that they would have a member of their recruiting organization in San Antonio on a certain date and to check in with them at a hotel and we would talk about it. It happens that my buddy from Randolph Field, who was a classmate of mine and also another instructor, he and I had both been talking about this thing and he was as interested as I was. This was Paul J. Green, and one of my dearest friends, so when we finally got around to it, we went into the hotel and got a hold of this guy. His name was Skip Adair and Skip had been over in China for 3 or 4 years I guess at that point and had been involved in training Chinese Air Force pilots and had been working with Chennault, who was gonna be the head man of this whole outfit. We went in and talked to Adair and at that point Adair said "Well gee, you guys you've had good training and I'm sure you're great pilots and all, but how much time have you had in pursuit planes?" and we said none and he said "You've no time at all in P-40's for instance and it's what the people are gonna be flying" and we said no. As a matter of fact, at that point we'd never even seen a P-40. "Have you had any aerial gunnery experience or any kind of gunnery experience?" no, and all we had was about 1000 hours apiece of flying time as instructors sitting in the back seat of a BT9 airplane, a basic flight airplane at Randolph Field. And he said "Well I'm sorry, I don't think that's gonna qualify you guys very well and I don't think I can sign you up for this thing." So we went away from that little meeting at the hotel there in San Antonio that evening very discouraged. Went back to Randolph and the next day Green and I both decided well let's have another go at this guy and we went by the officer's club and picked up a quart of I. W. Harper 100 proof bottled in bond bourbon, took it back into see Skip Adair again the following evening, got in there about 5:30 in the afternoon, which we figured we'd catch him after he got back to the hotel from his chores out at - he was �interviewing other people out at Kelly Field and different places and we caught him all right and we used the better part of that quart of I. W. Harper - which incidentally cost $2.00 at the officer's club in those days - so by the time we'd spent a couple of hours talking with him again, we finally managed to convince him that we had to be part of that American Volunteer Group. So he got out the papers, we signed them, we didn't know what we were signing, but we signed up and the whole proposition was that he offered that the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation offered us a contract to go over and to fly - it didn't say anything about combat or about the Japanese or anything like that - just to fly airplanes for that company in Burma and China and they would pay us $600.00 a month salary, air expense over - our fare over and our fare back after a year of contract and that was it. So we signed up and were told at that point by Skip Adair that probably within a week or ten days we would have orders relieving us from active duty from our jobs there at Randolph Field as Instructors - releasing us to go to San Francisco and join up with a group that would be going by boat over to the Far East. And that's how the whole thing happened. FRANK BORING: When you actually heard about the money being paid, was that the first time you actually heard you were gonna get paid that amount of money? R.T. SMITH: Yes. FRANK BORING: Could you talk about your reaction to that? Because you wanted to get in… R.T. SMITH: When they told me that the pay was gonna be $600.00 a month, I thought well that seems reasonable. As a matter of fact, as a Second Lieutenant at that point, I believe after a year's service, I was making something like $250.00 a month in the Air Corps. But of course we had a few perks that went along with that made up for quite a bit. But I thought that sounded reasonable as far as that �went, as far as pay went, particularly since we knew that we were gonna be sticking our necks out and we were gonna get shot at and so it seemed a reasonable trade-off and the money wasn't why - I don't think more than one guy out of 20 went because of the fact that he was gonna get paid a little more than he'd been paid in the service. I think almost all of us went because strictly we were - in the first place we were crazy - but we were anxious for adventure. I think most of us had read books by Conrad and Kipling and those people who wrote about the mysterious Far East, Burma, China and different places and I think a lot of us were intrigued with the idea that this would be a grand adventure. We wanted to - I think most of us wanted to get out of the rut that we may have been in, in the service branch that we were in. For instance, Green and myself having been Instructors all this time and figuring that there was gonna be a war coming on very shortly and we didn't want to be stuck in the training command as Instructors or whatever, when the stuff hit the fan. We wanted to get into something that allowed us a little more adventure and flexibility and of course all of us that went in wanted to fly fighters. In those days the Air Corps still called them pursuit planes, but the Navy called them fighters. But that's what most of us wanted to do and the pay seemed fine so we said let's go. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flying Tigers Interviews and Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Chinese World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Collection contains original 1940s films and interviews conducted in the 1990s, documenting the history of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) "Flying Tigers." The Flying Tigers were organized by the United States to aid China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Original filmstrips were recorded by AVG crewmen Joe Gasdick and Chuck Misenheimer, as well as Chinese Air Force Interpreter P.Y. Shu, who was assigned to assist Col. Claire Chennault as he trained Chinese pilots and established the AVG. Interviews with members of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) “Flying Tigers” were conducted by Frank Boring for the documentary film Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers, which he co-produced with Frank Christopher under the production company Fei Hu Films. The AVG Flying Tigers were a group of American aviators, mechanics, medical and administrative military personnel, led by Col. Claire Chennault to assist the Chinese Air Force in their defense against Japanese air strikes from 1941-1942. The AVG Flying Tigers also flew in defense of the Burma Road, a major Chinese military supply route. The group disbanded and returned to regular U.S. military service after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boring, Frank Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films Research and Production Files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1938/1991 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fei Hu Films Christopher, Frank Gasdick, Joseph Misenheimer, Charles V. P.Y. Shu Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4; application/pdf Language A language of the resource English; Chinese Type The nature or genre of the resource video; text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1938-1945 World War II Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88_Smith_Robert_T_1991-04-23_v01 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Robert T. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-04-23 Title A name given to the resource Robert T. Smith interview (video and transcript, 1 of 8), 1991 Description An account of the resource Interview of Robert T. Smith by filmmaker Frank Boring for the documentary, Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers. R. T. Smith joined the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in 1941, after resiging his commission as a U.S. Army Air Corps basic flight instructor. He served in the AVG as Flight Leader for the 3rd Squadron, "Hell's Angels." In the AVG he was credited with shooting down 8 Japanese planes and was awarded the Nine Star Medal and Order of Cloud Banner by the Chinese government. He returned to the US in 1942 and was drafted into the US Army, but was quickly re-commissioned as a US Air Corps Second Lieutenant. Over the course of the war, Smith returned to the Pacific Theater and flew 55 combat missions over Burma. He was awarded the Air Medal, Distinguisghed Flying Cross, and Silver Star. In this tape, Smith discusses his background in the Army Air Corps before joining the American Volunteer Group in search of adventure and the honorable mission to protect the Chinese. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (interviewer) Christopher, Frank (director) Fei Hu Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films research and production files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d80a22ed1ce8054d08ae0aa94c979075.mp4 7822de2add6097801229d9f77de05ec9 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b1125edc68fbc6fa44cc9b67ce0ed73c.pdf 4da0c613ba5be0d3af9cd05cccd58466 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Special Collections & University Archives RHC-88 Fei Hu Films Flying Tigers Interview Interviewer: Frank Boring Interviewee: Robert T. Smith Date of Interview: 04-23-1991 Transcriber: Frank Boring [TAPE 2] R.T. SMITH: So when we signed up to go, we didn't think of ourselves as mercenaries, but it just happens that that is the definition of mercenary and later that's what happens is that we find out that we were. (break) FRANK BORING: Let's just comment again about the mercenary without the smoke around you this time. R.T. SMITH: In later years there's been some talk about whether or not we were mercenaries. Some people resent - some of our own guys - resent the fact that we have been referred to as mercenaries in magazine articles or books or whatever, but I don't quite understand that because the dictionary definition of a mercenary is someone who goes to fight for a foreign government and being paid by a foreign government - that's the definition of a mercenary. Well that certainly fit our description. We were part of the Chinese Air Force. We went over there, we flew under their colors, we were supposedly part of the Chinese Air Force and were being paid by the Chinese Air Force or being paid by China. The fact that China got the money to pay us from the United States, was completely immaterial, as far as I'm concerned, but to draw a fine line as to whether or not we were mercenaries, doesn't bother me to think that I was, any more than the Eagle Squadron guys that went over to fly for Britain before the United States got in the war, they were �mercenaries, they were flying under the British colors, they were paid by the British and they were flying for a cause that they believed in. They were mercenaries. Does that make them any worse? I don't know - not to me. FRANK BORING: Let's now go to - you've already met with Skip Adair, you've already signed up, could you describe how you got out of the Air Corps - what kind of process? R.T. SMITH: Well, after the meeting with Adair, the final one where he signed us up and we were all set now. Within a few days we got TWX's from Washington, D.C. to our headquarters there at Randolph Field that were releasing us from active duty as of a certain date and that meant that we were able to settle up our accounts around the field, turn in our parachutes and all that kind of stuff, and as of a certain date, we were released from active duty. It happened that fast. This of course was because the AVG people in Washington, with Roosevelt's blessing of course and the State Department, had greased the skids and boy, this didn't take long. So the next thing most of us knew, or at least I knew, I was released from active duty. FRANK BORING: So first thing - you got out quite quickly then what was the next step? R.T. SMITH: Yeah, well I had orders relieving me from active duty in the Air Corps Reserve and I was free to leave Randolph Field. The same happened with Green, my roommate and my buddy there, who went at the same time. We were sent money from the organization there in Washington, the American Volunteer Group, to - actually it was called the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation, that was the front company that handled all the business affairs, but we were sent enough money to buy airline tickets to San Francisco and were supposed to report late in July - this was about the 22nd or 23rd of July - in order to be there in plenty of time to get on a boat and go with a few other people heading for the Far East, and �that's what we did. We spent 3 or 4 days in San Francisco and the other guys came in. As I recall we had about 15 pilots and maybe another dozen ground crew people, who assembled at a given hotel there in San Francisco and on a given date we were put aboard a Java Pacific Lines boat, which was kind of a combination passenger and cargo boat, and we headed out through the Golden Gate and on our way to the Far East. That's what happened. We spent the next 7 weeks, practically, before we finally got to Rangoon, Burma. That's kind of a long story, but we went to Honolulu. Spent a day and a half or so there and then out across the Pacific, we thought we were heading for Manila, then turned out we wound up in Australia, Brisbane, Australia for about a day and a half and finally got to Manila, in the Philippines - 3 or 4 days - and then we thought we were heading for Singapore and instead of that we wound up in Batavia, Java - 3 or 4 days more. Finally to Singapore. We thought from Singapore we'd be going on up to Rangoon, Burma, but it turned out we were in Singapore for 10 days before they could get us on another boat to get us to Rangoon. And we finally got on a little Coastwise boat to get us up to Rangoon, but all together the whole trip took about 7 weeks. By the time we got to Rangoon, we had had plenty of shipboard life and were awfully happy to set foot on land again. FRANK BORING: Could you describe any of the high points or low points of the trip over on the boat? R.T. SMITH: Well I'm not sure there were many either high or low points. It just got to be awfully boring. We had a lot of trouble trying to occupy our time. Of course there were a lot of crap games going on and poker games and this and that. Every now and then we'd get out on deck and do a little exercising. They had a - of course this was a Dutch owned boat, Java Pacific Lines was owned by the Netherlands and the Dutch being the great gourmets that they are, our meals were fantastic and they fed us about 4 times a day and we had very good food. They had a bar of course that was open practically the whole time and we helped ourselves to that. The �problem I guess was mostly just boredom and when we did finally hit a landfall and spent couple of days or three days or whatever on these different occasions when we got to some port, it was like being released from jail. We were all very happy to take advantage of it. But it wasn't until we finally got to Rangoon and knew that our whole trip was over, that we really felt good. FRANK BORING: There's a couple of things about being on the ship itself that have been mentioned and you talked about in your book before, one was you guys went there under the passports of different professions. Could you talk a little bit about that? R.T. SMITH: The thing there of course was the United States was not at war with anybody and I guess the State Department was a little bit leery about letting the Japanese know that a bunch of American pilots and ground crew people and all were heading for the Far East to oppose them, so they made it pretty strict that our passports read anything from - I think I was supposed to be a Plantation Manager - of what I don't know - but we had guys who were acrobats and circus performers and salesmen - all different kinds of occupations that were listed on our passports, which none of us were. But that was just simply a ploy I guess, by the State Department to try to cover up the idea that we were going over to get into trouble with the Japanese. FRANK BORING: Can you comment on some of the fellow passengers? R.T. SMITH: It's funny, we had - our group was about 27 or 28 people and there probably another 75 people on this particular boat and I think about probably 20 or 30 of them were missionaries and there were several low level diplomatic people from various countries that were heading for various places throughout the Far East. I guess we had more of a problem with the missionaries than anything else. In the lounge, where they had a piano, which also accommodated the bar, the missionaries were always congregating around the piano and wanting to sing hymns and the rest of us �were over around the bar, singing ribald songs that the missionaries didn't appreciate. But we managed to get along with them all right. They had a bunch of very nice people and we did have some interesting things where some of the people that were on the way over there who had lived there before, gave us little lectures about - in the lounge - about customs of the different countries that we might see and the people and that kind of thing. It was kind of interesting. I don't think the missionaries appreciated our sense of humor too well. FRANK BORING: Could you say that again? That was great. R.T. SMITH: Well the missionaries, of course, they were gathered around the piano playing hymns and singing hymns. Meanwhile over in the other corner of the lounge, we had our record player playing Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey records and stuff. FRANK BORING: Could you describe for us the Raffles Hotel in Singapore? R.T. SMITH: When we got to Singapore it turned out that the boat we'd been on all this time that got us to Singapore, was not going to be able to take us on to Rangoon. So we had to be put up in Singapore for a few days until transportation could be arranged on a coastal steamer to take us on up to Rangoon. Most of wound up going to the old famous old Raffles Hotel, which I guess was built around the turn of the century. It was an old, big, spacious place, lots of atmosphere, the old British atmosphere of course. After getting off this boat with its cramped quarters, and we had these big rooms with great big ceiling fans and just big rooms and we were very happy to be put up there and it turned out that we were there for about 10 days. It also turned out that that was sort of the social gathering point of Singapore. The Raffles Hotel was the place for the British. And of course they were very stodgy as we were concerned and very formal and when this bunch of guys came in from the States, we kind of took over a little bit of the Raffles Hotel's scene and I don't think the British appreciated us too much. �We were a little too loud and noisy and full of everything and I don't think they really appreciated it too much, but we managed to get along somehow. FRANK BORING: You were quoted as saying that - about the charm - it had a certain amount of charm? You said, "It has all the charm of a funeral home." R.T. SMITH: Well that was sort of the way the Raffles Hotel was. It was so quiet. The British, of course, in their typical way of understatement. (break) FRANK BORING: You were talking about how it was quiet and that the British… R.T. SMITH: Yeah, well I guess at one time I did make a statement that the Raffles Hotel, the lounge area down there, when we first got there, had all the charm of a funeral home because it was so quiet. The British of course in their subdued and understated way didn't believe in raising their voice or anything and all of a sudden these American guys come in, about 25 of us and we sort of took over the bar and the lounge. We didn't necessarily try to disrupt their way of living, but we were a little bit different than what they were used to and I don't think they appreciated that too much, but eventually I think they understood that we were about to go to war and it wasn't any problem. FRANK BORING: If you could describe your impressions of arrival… you had already you mentioned that you had read books of Kipling and you talked to people on the boat about what you were going to be expecting when you arrived. What were your first impressions upon arriving in Rangoon? R.T. SMITH: Well first I guess was - it was terribly hot, humid and of course I had not seen that many people of that color and of that race and all, �this was a completely new experience. It was all fascinating and we were all quite enthralled when we landed in Rangoon and got to looking around. We wandered around the city for a little while after we first got there and before we had to get on a train to go up north. We were able to take in some of the sights. It was a very pretty city actually. Typically old British colonial city that had been going for a long, long time. But we were quite intrigued with it, not disappointed at all from what we had heard and read about the Far East. This kind of lived up to what we'd expected. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flying Tigers Interviews and Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Chinese World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Collection contains original 1940s films and interviews conducted in the 1990s, documenting the history of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) "Flying Tigers." The Flying Tigers were organized by the United States to aid China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Original filmstrips were recorded by AVG crewmen Joe Gasdick and Chuck Misenheimer, as well as Chinese Air Force Interpreter P.Y. Shu, who was assigned to assist Col. Claire Chennault as he trained Chinese pilots and established the AVG. Interviews with members of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) “Flying Tigers” were conducted by Frank Boring for the documentary film Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers, which he co-produced with Frank Christopher under the production company Fei Hu Films. The AVG Flying Tigers were a group of American aviators, mechanics, medical and administrative military personnel, led by Col. Claire Chennault to assist the Chinese Air Force in their defense against Japanese air strikes from 1941-1942. The AVG Flying Tigers also flew in defense of the Burma Road, a major Chinese military supply route. The group disbanded and returned to regular U.S. military service after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boring, Frank Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films Research and Production Files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1938/1991 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fei Hu Films Christopher, Frank Gasdick, Joseph Misenheimer, Charles V. P.Y. Shu Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4; application/pdf Language A language of the resource English; Chinese Type The nature or genre of the resource video; text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1938-1945 World War II Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88_Smith_Robert_T_1991-04-23_v02 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Robert T. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-04-23 Title A name given to the resource Robert T. Smith interview (video and transcript, 2 of 8), 1991 Description An account of the resource Interview of Robert T. Smith by filmmaker Frank Boring for the documentary, Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers. R. T. Smith joined the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in 1941, after resiging his commission as a U.S. Army Air Corps basic flight instructor. He served in the AVG as Flight Leader for the 3rd Squadron, "Hell's Angels." In the AVG he was credited with shooting down 8 Japanese planes and was awarded the Nine Star Medal and Order of Cloud Banner by the Chinese government. He returned to the US in 1942 and was drafted into the US Army, but was quickly re-commissioned as a US Air Corps Second Lieutenant. Over the course of the war, Smith returned to the Pacific Theater and flew 55 combat missions over Burma. He was awarded the Air Medal, Distinguisghed Flying Cross, and Silver Star. In this tape, Smith describes his journey overseas to join the AVG from San Francisco to Rangoon, in addition to his first impressions upon arrival. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (interviewer) Christopher, Frank (director) Fei Hu Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films research and production files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ded1137ee0926a9f95bbe6b83588b0e8.mp4 6b423758516cb4a296535dbd9a825607 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/09002de3637c42baff56c2e8e18a274f.pdf a8170e84f8421fd26fb90748f9258ce8 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Special Collections & University Archives RHC-88 Fei Hu Films Flying Tigers Interview Interviewer: Frank Boring Interviewee: Robert T. Smith Date of Interview: 04-23-1991 Transcriber: Frank Boring [TAPE 3] FRANK BORING: Around this time the Raffles Hotel and all that and from the trip on the boat, you started to get to know some of these other guys. Can you give us some impressions about the AVGers that you were meeting at that time, just getting to know? R.T. SMITH: Well I got very well acquainted with all of them of course, by the time we got to Rangoon after 7 weeks on the same boat. You're in pretty close quarters. My impressions - number one they were all I thought - real great guys. I didn't have any problem with anybody and we all got along very well. All of them I think were similar to my own situation, they were all looking for adventure and that was the main motivation for going over on this thing. We came from various different backgrounds of course. I think if you had to put an average on the whole group, you would say we were middle American, young men, anywhere from 22 to 25 years of age, I guess our average age was maybe 23 or 24 at that time and all of us came from middle class backgrounds, practically all of us as far as I know. Obviously we were all white - this was before the days of integration of course, but a real nice cross section, I think, of young America. I was happy to be one of them and we got along pretty well and we did get to know each other very well. Some guys of course stood out, there were several in our group that would later become stand-outs. One being Tex Hill. Tex was an ex-Navy pilot and Green and I first met him and a couple of his buddies, Ed Rector and Bert Christman, we met the first day we �arrived in San Francisco and we got acquainted with them right off the bat and then there were of course many others that we got to know as the trip went on. But just as a blanket statement I can say they were just a great bunch of guys. FRANK BORING: I guess what I'm trying to get to is that you were already aware that you were going to be fighting in a war. You knew that you were going to be going ahead of - that you weren't going there as American military or anything like that, you were going to be putting your life on the line, did you have any doubts or did you have any kinds of feelings about the guys that you were going over to fight with? Did you feel like you guys were going to be able to defend yourselves, be able to work together? I guess I'm getting more towards the war aspect of it. R.T. SMITH: Well, I think to answer your question, the fact that the other guys that were going were pretty much a mirror image of myself, they all had confidence in their own ability, their flying qualities and all, they had confidence in the idea that we were going over for a just cause to help the Chinese who were being beaten to hell by the Japanese at this point, I think most of us were sympathetic to the Chinese cause certainly, and antagonistic maybe toward the Japanese. The Japanese of course had been beating the hell out of the Chinese for about 3 or 4 years up to this point and for no reason that any of us knew. So I think all of us had confidence in the other guys. We all went over pretty much for the same reasons and we had confidence in our own ability and that's the way it worked out. FRANK BORING: All right you've arrived in Rangoon. What was the next step? Where did you go from Rangoon? R.T. SMITH: Well from Rangoon a few hours after we arrived in Rangoon they put us on a train to take us up to northern Burma, or at least halfway up to northern Burma. I guess it was about 170 miles up to a little town called Toungoo, Burma. The RAF had an airfield �there that they were not using and previously had been agreed by the American Volunteer Group people and the British that the British would allow us to use that as a gathering point to get our act together, get our airplanes together, our people, do some training and stuff, before moving on up to southwest China. So that's where we wound up. Now the train load that I went up on got into Toungoo and we were about the third bunch that got there. There had been a bunch of about 30 ground crew people who had arrived maybe six or eight weeks before that, who had started the process of assembling the airplanes in Rangoon and these were technicians, almost entirely I guess. Then the second boatload that got there about a month before we did had a whole bunch of pilots and ground crew people and they went up to Toungoo. They had established their quarters and kind of got things organized up there and the third boat that I was on got up there, and then of course, in the next few weeks there were two or three other boats that came on with other people, both pilots and ground crew people, and they kept arriving until about the end of November. It wasn't until about the end of November, after we had gotten into Toungoo, that we had our whole group together and had I guess about all of our airplanes assembled and brought up to Toungoo and of course this amounted to - supposedly we were going to have 100 pilots and 100 P-40's, and about 200 ground crew people. So by the end of November we pretty much had that. We had lost, in the meantime, of course I got in there around the middle of September, and the other guys some of them came in later - but we had lost a number of airplanes in accidents. We had 3 or 4 fatalities, quite a number of airplanes that had been damaged beyond repair in accidents there at the training base in Toungoo and we were not really what you would call a real fit and ready combat outfit at that point at the end of November. Of course was still the same thing, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, we were pretty well organized at that point and we had done most of the training we had wanted to do and had figured to move up to China very shortly, early in December. Of course when Pearl Harbor was attacked on the 7th in Hawaii time, this happened to be the 8th of December where we were on �account of the International Date Line thing, but when we finally heard the word over the radio that the United States was now at war and Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, now we're in the middle of Burma and the Japanese, we had heard, had already occupied part of Thailand and maybe had some air force people over there and some airplanes and we're sitting about 60 miles away from the border of Thailand with no warning, so we immediately went on alert and went on from there. FRANK BORING: Now the living conditions in Toungoo … you ever got in a P-40? You can talk about that, your arrival there, conditions there. R.T. SMITH: Well when our train pulled in from Rangoon to Toungoo, we were met by some of the guys that already arrived and as a matter of fact they had a little 3 piece Burmese brass band to meet us that was playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever," if you could recognize it. Anyway we were met by these guys and they spent an hour or two in the station restaurant bar before we got there so they were in pretty good shape and of course we were too because we'd brought a few things along with us on the train ride. But they got us out to our field and took over and it was night and we got out and they told us where we were supposed to go and went to these bamboo bashes that were our quarters. It wasn't of course until the next day that we really realized that we were in some pretty primitive living conditions. The climate there was not too good. It was still the rainy season when we got there and it was about due to end, but we were having thunder storms 2 or 3 times a day and a lot of rain and we couldn't do much flying. The living conditions, the food was bad - this was provided by Burmese contractors who were supposed to supply the mess facilities. The quarters we were in were barracks type bungalows with thatched roofs and no screens, lots of mosquitos and lots of other kinds of insects. It was kind of miserable. But the thing we had gone over of course was to fly airplanes and they did have some P-40's there and after 3 or 4 days of getting acclimatized a little bit, we were gonna check out in the P-40. All of us who had come over, the pilots, were assigned to �various of the three squadrons. I think 5 or 6 of us that were in the outfit that I was on, on the old Bloemfontein boat coming over, were assigned to the Third Squadron and after 3 or 4 days we were gonna check out in the P-40. I had seen a P-40 at Hickam Field on our way over. We stopped at Honolulu for a couple of days on the way over in the boat and I had gone out to Hickam Field to see an old friend of mine and he pointed out some P-40's and that was the first time I had seen one. I was given a cockpit check, had read up a little bit in the book, the flight manual, about how to fly this thing and then I checked out in the P-40 and I was like a kid with a new toy. This was something else, I had a lot of power out there and the airplane was a real dream to fly as far as I was concerned and I loved it from the moment I got in it. The other guys checked out also the same way. The next 3 or 4 weeks we got in more time flying the airplane. It was difficult because we were running into bad weather. There was a lot of thunderstorms and rain - it was the end of the rainy season but it seemed to hang on longer than usual. In the meantime, there wasn't much to do in and around Toungoo. I guess they had an old movie about once a week or so that they played at the mess hall. Which was usually something about 1935 vintage, black and white and the projector didn't work too well and the sound wasn't any good and this was our recreation. We were about 7 or 8 miles from the city of Toungoo and the city of Toungoo - maybe 50,000 population and of that number a very few that were of British extraction or whatever. Most of them were of course Burmese and there wasn't a hell of a lot to do in Toungoo even if you went in there. So we were pretty bored and it was not a very pleasant situation physically because of the climate and the bugs and every other damn thing. But most of us decided well we'll put up with it. That's what we came over for, we weren't expecting summer camp. Some of the guys decided this was not what they wanted and they quit and went home - some of the pilots, some of the ground crew people. We of course thought well okay, good riddance. If they can't take it let them go. I guess that's the way Chennault thought of it. Chennault himself of course was a tough old guy. He pretty much has been pictured looked like a road map - �his face wrinkled and weather beaten and all, but he had a good sense of humor, he was a good athlete, he loved to play games with us like - hell he was always involved in our softball games or volley ball or whatever that we did for recreation. He was tough but fair and he sure knew his business when it came to what the Japs were up to and what their airplanes could do. We had ground school all the time during this period in Toungoo while we were training. He held ground school courses for us and tried to teach us what not to do and what to do as far as fighting the Japanese airplanes went. We were all quite taken with the old man, he was a great guy. FRANK BORING: You were a flight instructor yourself. How did you rate Chennault as a flight instructor? R.T. SMITH: Well he wasn't a flight instructor as far as we were concerned. Hell, he never got in an airplane with us and told us how to do something. But what he did was tell us his experience as what he knew about what the Japanese planes could do as opposed to what we could do against them with the P-40. That was the big thing. He knew the things that would work to our advantage with the P-40 and the deficiencies that the Japanese planes had that we could try to take advantage of. So in that respect he was our instructor but he never got in an airplane with us and told us how to fly it. FRANK BORING: What was your impression of the Japanese as pilots before he started educating you in that? R.T. SMITH: Well I was not one that - they thought the Japanese pilots weren't good. I remember that every now and then you'd read something somebody had the idea that the Japanese all wore coke bottle lenses for glasses and none of them could see worth a damn and they couldn't fly anything and that their airplanes were all copies of things that other people had built and they weren't any good. I never quite subscribed to all of that kind of stuff. I expected to run �into some pretty damn good pilots and I did and all of us did. So I wasn't surprised when we ran up against some good pilots. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flying Tigers Interviews and Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Chinese World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Collection contains original 1940s films and interviews conducted in the 1990s, documenting the history of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) "Flying Tigers." The Flying Tigers were organized by the United States to aid China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Original filmstrips were recorded by AVG crewmen Joe Gasdick and Chuck Misenheimer, as well as Chinese Air Force Interpreter P.Y. Shu, who was assigned to assist Col. Claire Chennault as he trained Chinese pilots and established the AVG. Interviews with members of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) “Flying Tigers” were conducted by Frank Boring for the documentary film Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers, which he co-produced with Frank Christopher under the production company Fei Hu Films. The AVG Flying Tigers were a group of American aviators, mechanics, medical and administrative military personnel, led by Col. Claire Chennault to assist the Chinese Air Force in their defense against Japanese air strikes from 1941-1942. The AVG Flying Tigers also flew in defense of the Burma Road, a major Chinese military supply route. The group disbanded and returned to regular U.S. military service after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boring, Frank Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films Research and Production Files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1938/1991 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fei Hu Films Christopher, Frank Gasdick, Joseph Misenheimer, Charles V. P.Y. Shu Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4; application/pdf Language A language of the resource English; Chinese Type The nature or genre of the resource video; text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1938-1945 World War II Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88_Smith_Robert_T_1991-04-23_v03 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Robert T. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-04-23 Title A name given to the resource Robert T. Smith interview (video and transcript, 3 of 8), 1991 Description An account of the resource Interview of Robert T. Smith by filmmaker Frank Boring for the documentary, Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers. R. T. Smith joined the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in 1941, after resiging his commission as a U.S. Army Air Corps basic flight instructor. He served in the AVG as Flight Leader for the 3rd Squadron, "Hell's Angels." In the AVG he was credited with shooting down 8 Japanese planes and was awarded the Nine Star Medal and Order of Cloud Banner by the Chinese government. He returned to the US in 1942 and was drafted into the US Army, but was quickly re-commissioned as a US Air Corps Second Lieutenant. Over the course of the war, Smith returned to the Pacific Theater and flew 55 combat missions over Burma. He was awarded the Air Medal, Distinguisghed Flying Cross, and Silver Star. In this tape, Smith discusses his first impressions of his fellow Flying Tigers and how they embarked on this journey together, in addition to their arrival in Toungoo and their reaction to the news of Pearl Harbor. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (interviewer) Christopher, Frank (director) Fei Hu Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films research and production files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7b90d3b27356f51e99f483a690550c77.mp4 ec70c40265861649f2f8ac74dcb254e6 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d31b24be93f4062943713e2841b82689.pdf 2cdb79a43ea2e12d01e42901c49180de PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Special Collections & University Archives RHC-88 Fei Hu Films Flying Tigers Interview Interviewer: Frank Boring Interviewee: Robert T. Smith Date of Interview: 04-23-1991 Transcriber: Frank Boring [TAPE 4] FRANK BORING: Just beyond just the training part of this to the camera… R.T. SMITH: Well in the training that we went through there, of course the biggest problem I guess that we had was the fact that our group, our pilots were composed of ex-Navy, ex-Marine Corps, ex-Air Corps people, many of whom had not been flying fighters or pursuit planes in the Air Corps. We had a lot of guys like myself - I was an instructor. We had guys from the Navy that had been flying PBY's, flying boats, guys from the Navy that had been flying dive bombers, no fighters, we had guys from the Air Corps who had been ferrying airplanes, bombers, to Canada from the United States, we had all kinds of people and only of the whole bunch, maybe 25% who could legitimately be called fighter pilots or pursuit pilots, who had had any kind of training in that kind of an airplane and gunnery training and all that. So we had this training problem, people trying to learn how to fly this P-40, which was not the easiest airplane in the world to fly anyway and the Navy guys had a lot of trouble. They were used to landing like they were gonna come in on a carrier deck. They would land, stall out in a three point position maybe five feet above the deck and flop down and the hook would catch them. Well this didn't work of course with the P-40. When the P-40 landed, hell it touched down at about 90 to 100 miles an hour and you didn't dare land that thing high and then stall in because if you did you were gonna smash the gear and ground loop and raise hell. This happened of course a great �deal with some of the guys that were flying and not only the Navy guys, hell we had Air Corps guys that were doing the same thing. As a result, we lost a lot of airplanes in training accidents. Fortunately we only lost 2 or 3 pilots lives in those conditions, but we did lose 2 or 3 that I recall. One guy - two of our P-40's up on a combat training exercise where they were gonna being doing individual combat with each other and they had a head-on collision and one guy managed to bail out and he came down all right and the other guy didn't get out so he was killed and on another occasion Pete Atkinson, in particular. (break) R.T. SMITH: Another accident that we had at that time was a guy named Pete Atkinson who was an engineering officer for the First Squadron, I believe it was, he may have been group engineering office, well anyway, he went up to test fly one of our… (break) FRANK BORING: If we could start up with Pete Atkinson also his relationship to you. R.T. SMITH: Well I had no particular relationship with him except that I knew him. He was a guy that I liked and he was in a different squadron, but he was up testing an airplane one day and was doing a dive and something went wrong. Apparently the propeller governor gave way and ran away and the engine I guess blew up and he was coming straight down and wasn't able t pull out and he was killed. All of us were upset about that of course and it turned out that part of his elevator - one half of his elevator apparently blew off while he was coming down in this high speed dive and later it turned out that another one seemed to have that same problem and so all of a sudden the airplanes were suspect and they started having to check all of them and make sure that the elevator hinges and all that were working right. Pete was lost on that. We had another guy, one of the guys that came over on the boat that I was on named Max �Hammer, he was up flying a P-40 and wound up in a thunderstorm not too far away from our base there and apparently got disoriented in this violent thunderstorm and spun in and he was killed. So we had some accidents that were fatal, we had a lot of them that weren't fatal, we lost a lot of airplanes. At one time I think Chennault was about fit to be tied, figuring my God, if we keep going like this another six weeks, we won't have any airplanes left to fight with. Well it wasn't quite that bad of course, but these things did happen and eventually we managed to get over it and we wound up with enough pilots that were able to fly the airplanes and knew what they were doing that we were able to go into combat when the time came. FRANK BORING: Once training period was over with in Toungoo, where was the next step? Where did you go next? R.T. SMITH: Well that wasn't until after Pearl Harbor was attacked. It was decided very shortly after that that Chennault wanted to send two squadrons - we only had three squadrons of course - and he wanted to send two of the squadrons up to Kunming, which was where we had been planning to go anyway about that time and the British asked for a squadron to come down and help defend Rangoon, being the shipping port for Burma and Chennault and Chiang Kaishek and the people in China agreed to allow one squadron to go to Rangoon. It happened that it was the Third Squadron, which is the one that I was in that was sent to Rangoon and a few days later the other two squadrons moved up to Kunming. At that point the only thing left at Toungoo was maybe half a dozen airplanes that needed some work done on them to get them flyable and a skeleton crew of people, mechanics and ground crew people to do that. FRANK BORING: Where did you come up with - or who came up with the name for the Third Squadron? R.T. SMITH: The Hell's Angels? I don't really know. That's always been a mystery to me. I don't recall that we ever had a meeting of the �squadron to decide what we would call ourselves. All of a sudden, as far as I knew, somebody had decided we would be the Hell's Angels Squadron and one of our crew chiefs was quite a talented artist and he had drawn this outline of a red nude figure, with a halo and that was gonna be our squadron insignia and then later this same guy drew individual figures of this angel in different poses as individual insignias for different guys. I had one - he drew one for me that was kind of seated - like sitting on a cloud or something and he did different individual poses for different pilots. But anyway I don't know exactly how that came about, but it was decided that we would be the Hell's Angels Squadron. FRANK BORING: How about the shark’s teeth - what can you tell us about that? R.T. SMITH: Well the shark's teeth - a couple of our guys at one point there in Toungoo had gone to a party someplace at a British guy's house and there was a magazine called the "Illustrated Indian Weekly" or something that came out of Calcutta, India and it had a picture - I guess it was a color picture - of a P-40 in the African desert that was an RAF P-40 and it was in the Libyan campaign and it had a shark's mouth painted on it. A couple of our guys happened to be there at this party that day and they saw that and said hey that looks pretty good, so they got back to the field and took a piece of chalk and marked out a shark's mouth on one of the P-40's and painted it up and had Chennault come by and take a look at it and said what do you think - and I guess the guys decided they wanted that for their own squadron and Chennault at that point said "that looks pretty good. Let's do the whole group that way." So that's what happened. The strange part is that there was never again pattern for this, no stencil or anything like that was ever made. So when it was decided that each guy could do his own airplane, each guy drew it and so no two were exactly alike. Well let me say something about that though, the sharks thing. There's been a lot written, I've seen in books about we decided that we would make these things Tiger Sharks because the Japanese were deathly afraid of sharks, Tiger Sharks particularly and so we would make the �shark mouth to scare the hell out of them - well hell, we never even thought of that and I'm sure that not many Japanese airplanes in the sky that we came after ever saw the shark's mouth, they saw a lot of machine gun shooting at them, but not too much of the shark's mouth. But that was one of the stories that was written about how we were gonna intimidate them by putting on that shark's mouth. FRANK BORING: What was your reaction to hearing that Pearl Harbor had been bombed? R.T. SMITH: I thought it was awful. FRANK BORING: I guess what I'm looking for is, you had stopped off in Honolulu and I know that some of the guys that were in the AVG actually knew people that were there and it was also a major turning point in terms of the action. At that point there was a lot of - you were getting kind of antsy about getting into battle. R.T. SMITH: I don't think, after we had arrived in Burma and were in Toungoo for a while and we knew that the Japanese had already moved some troops and air people into Indo-China and we had heard that they were moving into Thailand, so we were not exactly - I think the thing that we were surprised at was that the attack came at Pearl Harbor, not that the Japanese had attacked and started things going, it was the fact that they had attacked Pearl Harbor. I don't think any of us had expected that. But the fact that we were all of a sudden at war with Japan, didn't surprise us at all and we were quite prepared that this was gonna happen before long. (break) FRANK BORING: So you said you were prepared… R.T. SMITH: Oh yeah, we figured that the Japanese were gonna start something some place over in the Far East and that we would be right in the middle of it, the minute it happened. But as I say, the thing that �surprised us was that they attacked Pearl Harbor. If they had attacked the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, we would have expected that much more readily than we did the idea of Pearl Harbor being attacked. But we weren't terribly surprised when something happened like that and we knew we were in the middle of things when it did happen. FRANK BORING: When did you first have contact - when did you first actually see combat with the Japanese? If you could describe that day and what happened? R.T. SMITH: The squadron I was in was sent to Rangoon to help protect that being the port where all the military supplies, lend-lease or whatever, was gonna come in to eventually get to China. So the Third Squadron was sent down there. The other two squadrons a few days later were sent up to China and when my squadron got down to Rangoon, which was about the 12th of December, we stood at alert. The British meanwhile had a squadron of Brewster Buffaloes down there and they had a radar set up and we were supposed to work closely with them. We stood at alert, we went up on a few false alarms where they thought there was something coming in and nothing happened. This went on for some days and it wasn't until the 23rd of December, which was just a couple of weeks after Pearl Harbor, that the radar reported a big bunch of Japanese planes coming from Thailand toward Rangoon. So on that particular occasion my squadron, the Third, got 14 P-40's up. I think the Brewster's got about the same number of Brewster Buffaloes up. I don't think they did much damage later but they were up at least. There were two flights of our P-40's - seven in each flight - and we were patrolling southeast of Rangoon and all of a sudden off in the distance we saw these huge swarms of Japanese bombers coming toward us followed by a bunch of - a couple more swarms of Japanese fighters and that was our first sight of the Japanese and we headed in their direction and they were heading in our direction and we intercepted them, started attacking the bomber formation. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flying Tigers Interviews and Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Chinese World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Collection contains original 1940s films and interviews conducted in the 1990s, documenting the history of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) "Flying Tigers." The Flying Tigers were organized by the United States to aid China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Original filmstrips were recorded by AVG crewmen Joe Gasdick and Chuck Misenheimer, as well as Chinese Air Force Interpreter P.Y. Shu, who was assigned to assist Col. Claire Chennault as he trained Chinese pilots and established the AVG. Interviews with members of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) “Flying Tigers” were conducted by Frank Boring for the documentary film Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers, which he co-produced with Frank Christopher under the production company Fei Hu Films. The AVG Flying Tigers were a group of American aviators, mechanics, medical and administrative military personnel, led by Col. Claire Chennault to assist the Chinese Air Force in their defense against Japanese air strikes from 1941-1942. The AVG Flying Tigers also flew in defense of the Burma Road, a major Chinese military supply route. The group disbanded and returned to regular U.S. military service after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boring, Frank Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films Research and Production Files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1938/1991 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fei Hu Films Christopher, Frank Gasdick, Joseph Misenheimer, Charles V. P.Y. Shu Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4; application/pdf Language A language of the resource English; Chinese Type The nature or genre of the resource video; text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1938-1945 World War II Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88_Smith_Robert_T_1991-04-23_v04 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Robert T. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-04-23 Title A name given to the resource Robert T. Smith interview (video and transcript, 4 of 8), 1991 Description An account of the resource Interview of Robert T. Smith by filmmaker Frank Boring for the documentary, Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers. R. T. Smith joined the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in 1941, after resiging his commission as a U.S. Army Air Corps basic flight instructor. He served in the AVG as Flight Leader for the 3rd Squadron, "Hell's Angels." In the AVG he was credited with shooting down 8 Japanese planes and was awarded the Nine Star Medal and Order of Cloud Banner by the Chinese government. He returned to the US in 1942 and was drafted into the US Army, but was quickly re-commissioned as a US Air Corps Second Lieutenant. Over the course of the war, Smith returned to the Pacific Theater and flew 55 combat missions over Burma. He was awarded the Air Medal, Distinguisghed Flying Cross, and Silver Star. In this tape, Smith describes the training period in Toungoo, his experience belonging to the Third Squadron, and their first combat with the Japanese pilots near Rangoon. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (interviewer) Christopher, Frank (director) Fei Hu Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films research and production files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/28fce4e50a1d0db5b36957fa9a294dfa.mp4 6a98a745b0bcff62e32681fa132f1adf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8963228ec1f97fb238df085e3559c5ca.pdf 98b38c126d9591be423605c3402136b7 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Special Collections & University Archives RHC-88 Fei Hu Films Flying Tigers Interview Interviewer: Frank Boring Interviewee: Robert T. Smith Date of Interview: 04-23-1991 Transcriber: Frank Boring [TAPE 5] FRANK BORING: Just start with the sighting of the Japanese. R.T. SMITH: Well when we saw them in the distance and of course they were some miles away when we first saw them. It was just a bunch of specks together, but it obviously was a big formation of Japanese airplanes heading our way and when we finally got up to them it turned out there were two formations, 27 twin engine bombers in each formation and behind and above each bomber formation, maybe a dozen or so of single engine Jap fighters. So each of our flights went after one of the bomber formations and started pecking away at them and that was the first aerial gunnery that many of us had had any experience at all with and I gotta tell you, that was onthe-job training to the utmost because most of us had never fired at an aerial target until we actually shooting at the Japanese. So it took a little while to figure out exactly where you wanted to do this and most of us figured out pretty early in the game that the best way to shoot at a Japanese airplane was to not have any deflection at all, be able to come up behind him and shoot with no deflection so you didn't have to try to come in from the side and lead him and all. So after about the third pass I decided that was what I wanted to do and I picked up on a bomber that was off to one side a little bit from the main formation, pulled up behind him and opened up at about maybe 200 yards and bored in directly astern and saw flashes all over the place and the next thing I know the damn thing blew up in front of me and I'm pulling up to try to get up above �him and the bomber just plain blew up and a piece of his - one of his engine cylinder heads I guess it was, went up through my left wing and I was blown up like a leaf in a windstorm and the only thing I knew for sure was that I was still in one piece, I still had control of my airplane although it had been blown up in the explosion pretty well, but everything seemed to be working and I remember the greatest feeling of glee that I guess I've ever felt at knowing that I had blown this guy out of the sky. That was a complete feeling of accomplishment as far as I was concerned. So then I came back in and started making passes at the other guys and about that time, the fighters started coming down and making life miserable and we had to dive away from them to get away, come back and try to make another pass at a bomber and then another fighter would come down. Well this went on for another 20 or 30 minutes and meanwhile the other guys were going through pretty much the same thing I was going through. They were shooting at Japanese planes and getting shot at times and unfortunately, a couple of them got shot down and were killed. Neal Martin and… (break) R.T. SMITH: A couple of our guys who had dived into these bomber formations weren't quite as fortunate as I was and the rest of our guys. Neal Martin was shot down by the bombers as he came down attacking and I think very shortly after that, Hank Gilbert was shot down - I believe he was jumped by 2 or 3 Jap fighters who shot him down and they were both shot down and killed. Meanwhile my old buddy, Paul Green who had come out of Randolph Field with me and decided to join up on this thing, he was shot down by Jap fighters but he managed to bail out. He was shot out of control and got out of his airplane, bailed out and then a couple of Jap fighters followed him down and started strafing him while he was in his parachute floating down not too far away from our airfield there in Rangoon. They put a few holes in his parachute but fortunately they didn't hit him and he landed in a rice paddy and eventually got back to our base. But we had lost 3 planes, two pilots killed and I �guess when we finally got to tallying the whole thing up, we figured we had shot down 8 or 10 Japanese planes, but this isn't quite what we had in mind of course. It was two days later came the Christmas day raid, which was even bigger than the one on the 23rd. On Christmas day we only had 13 P-40's and pilots that we could get up and we sailed off into another big armada of Japanese bombers and fighters coming toward us and this time they had even more Japanese planes and we had 13 P-40's. But this time the guys that had gone back up on Christmas day, were guys that had been bloodied a little bit, if you will, in the 23rd fight. We knew a little more what to expect. We had had a little experience. We'd gotten over some of the buck fever, which is inevitable I guess in any kind of a thing like that, and so we sailed into them pretty good on the 25th. I think before the day was over we'd knocked down somewhere between 20 and 25 Japanese fighters and bombers with 13 P-40's and that was probably the best day that my squadron ever had against the Japanese - and that was Christmas day of 1941. (break) R.T. SMITH: Well, in my own case, I was in McMillan's flight and we started peeling off against this first bomber formation, much as we had done on the 23rd. It wasn't too long before I had gotten behind another twin engine Sally bomber and it caught fire on the right hand wing - the right hand engine caught fire and it just sort of peeled off and was smoking like crazy and that's the last I saw of that. Pretty soon I had to turn away and I saw there was a fighter coming at me and I knew it was one of their fighters because it had this big radial engine out there. Well anyway, we squared away at each other maybe 1000 yards apart, got head-on and I opened up at him with what I guess to be about 5 or 600 yards and I could see his guns blinking and firing at me also and I don't recall either of us taking any evasive action, but we just kept firing until we passed and somehow I passed just directly above this guy and I doubt if our prop tips cleared by more than about a foot. I whipped into a turn to the left as hard as I could to see if I was going to be �able to get around and get another shot at this guy and when I turned and finally could see him, he was blazing like a torch and heading down toward the Gulf of Martaban, which is where we were by this time out over the Gulf water, and he just went down like a torch. I was quite relieved to see that because I had expected he'd outturn me and come back and be taking another shot at me. I went out on over the Gulf of Martaban which was heading from Rangoon toward Moulmein, the old Moulmein Pagoda and this was this big shark-infested water area that we had to fly over and I ran across a couple more of our guys and a few more Japanese bombers, now heading for home and 3 or 4 of us were nipping at their heels and we managed to shoot down another 2 or 3 of them before they got back over toward the mainland of Thailand and eventually we ran out of ammunition and were about out of fuel and had to head for home. We finally got back and landed and we discovered that two of our guys were missing, two airplanes and two guys were missing. We thought they'd probably been shot down and killed like in the first day's fighting but it turned out that both of them had been - their airplanes had been damaged, their engines had been shot up and they'd had to make crash landings in the rice paddies and before the night was over they both showed up and we had a big party. That one was the one where we came out and we lost two airplanes but no pilots and we'd shot down quite a big bunch of Japanese. FRANK BORING: What was the reaction of the pilots when they arrived back to the airfield and the ground crew after these big battles - what was the mood like? The 23rd when you first came back after your first engagement, what was the reaction like when you got back on the ground? R.T. SMITH: Well when I pulled in my crew chief jumped up on the wing and I had the canopy back and he jumped on the wing and said "How'd it go R.T.?" and I said "It went pretty well. I got a couple of the bastards." and he said "Great" and I said - by this time most of the other guys had landed and I said "Is anybody missing?" and Jess, �his name was Jess Crookshanks, a great crew chief of mine from Tennessee, and Jess said "Yeah, there's three of our guys are missing." I said "Oh lord, who are they, Jess?" and he said "Well Gilbert and Martin and P.J. Green" and I thought oh Lord, Green of course having been my closest buddy from old times at Randolph Field and we were roommates in the BOQ there and we'd gone over together. The last thing I said to his mom in Amarillo, Texas or Clarendon, Texas as we were leaving to go to San Francisco to get on the boat, she said "You take good care of Paul now R.T." and I said "You bet I will". So I mean these thoughts were going through my mind. As of course it turned out that Paul had been able to bail out and he got down okay. Martin and Gilbert were killed. But the crew chiefs and our ground crew people all were terribly excited and wanting to know - and of course they couldn't tell what the hell happened. (break) FRANK BORING: The crew chief's reactions… R.T. SMITH: Well later after the airplanes had been serviced and reloaded with ammunition and refueled and all that kind of stuff and of course everybody got together at the alert tents and of course in the evening when we knew that we weren't going to be called upon to do anymore flying, why there was quite a feeling of camaraderie among all of us, the crew chiefs, the pilots, everybody else, figuring that we'd done a reasonably good job, but not as good as we had hoped to do. Of course we were all upset about the loss of the pilots that we'd lost. There was definitely a feeling of - wait till next time, we'll get the bastards. So I think all of our guys were gung ho including the pilots and next shot we'll do better and we did. FRANK BORING After the first two battles, what was the daily routine like. I mean now that you'd had these two major battles in December and January what else was going on? �R.T. SMITH: Well we had to stand on alert. We had an alert flight of 8 airplanes that were ready to go on 30 minutes’ notice and a stand-by flight of another 4 an hour notice. We had an alert tent at the edge of the runway near where the airplanes were parked and we had a direct telephone line to the British headquarters where they had the radar set, so if there was any kind of an alert warning, why we would get in our alert tent and we'd go out, get in our airplanes, take off and go patrolling and looking for trouble. Well this happened quite often. We had a lot of false alarms and this happened quite often, but actually my squadrons, the only two actual fights that we got into were on the 23rd and the 25th and then it was decided Chennault up in China now decided that he would relieve the Third Squadron in Rangoon by sending the Second Squadron from Kunming. They hadn't been in anything, send them down, relieve us, let us bring our wounded airplanes home and our people and try to get everything squared away up in China so that the Second Squadron took over. That's what happened. FRANK BORING: If you would describe the reaction of the crew chiefs and pilots after the first encounter on the 23rd, saying you're gonna go out and get those bastards and then you had the second on the 25th you got a chance to actually go out and do it. What was our reaction and the reaction of the other people when you came back from that second battle? R.T. SMITH: Well I don't know - it was pretty much I suppose the same way that it was the first time. Individually we didn't know what the other guys had all done at this point. We knew what we had done as an individual and from viewing the overall thing, we figured we’d done pretty well. But it wasn't until after we'd gotten home and started counting up what this guy had done and what that guy had done and all that, that we were quite aware of how well we had done. I was very pleased with myself that particular day and I guess everybody else was. We didn't know what the other guys had done. �FRANK BORING: I guess it's when you arrived home and you started tallying it up. What we're looking for I guess is just - I don't think you sat around and well "how many did you get?" � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flying Tigers Interviews and Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Chinese World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Collection contains original 1940s films and interviews conducted in the 1990s, documenting the history of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) "Flying Tigers." The Flying Tigers were organized by the United States to aid China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Original filmstrips were recorded by AVG crewmen Joe Gasdick and Chuck Misenheimer, as well as Chinese Air Force Interpreter P.Y. Shu, who was assigned to assist Col. Claire Chennault as he trained Chinese pilots and established the AVG. Interviews with members of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) “Flying Tigers” were conducted by Frank Boring for the documentary film Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers, which he co-produced with Frank Christopher under the production company Fei Hu Films. The AVG Flying Tigers were a group of American aviators, mechanics, medical and administrative military personnel, led by Col. Claire Chennault to assist the Chinese Air Force in their defense against Japanese air strikes from 1941-1942. The AVG Flying Tigers also flew in defense of the Burma Road, a major Chinese military supply route. The group disbanded and returned to regular U.S. military service after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boring, Frank Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films Research and Production Files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1938/1991 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fei Hu Films Christopher, Frank Gasdick, Joseph Misenheimer, Charles V. P.Y. Shu Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4; application/pdf Language A language of the resource English; Chinese Type The nature or genre of the resource video; text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1938-1945 World War II Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88_Smith_Robert_T_1991-04-23_v05 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Robert T. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-04-23 Title A name given to the resource Robert T. Smith interview (video and transcript, 5 of 8), 1991 Description An account of the resource Interview of Robert T. Smith by filmmaker Frank Boring for the documentary, Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers. R. T. Smith joined the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in 1941, after resiging his commission as a U.S. Army Air Corps basic flight instructor. He served in the AVG as Flight Leader for the 3rd Squadron, "Hell's Angels." In the AVG he was credited with shooting down 8 Japanese planes and was awarded the Nine Star Medal and Order of Cloud Banner by the Chinese government. He returned to the US in 1942 and was drafted into the US Army, but was quickly re-commissioned as a US Air Corps Second Lieutenant. Over the course of the war, Smith returned to the Pacific Theater and flew 55 combat missions over Burma. He was awarded the Air Medal, Distinguisghed Flying Cross, and Silver Star. In this tape, Smith discusses his first two major battles and the reactions of the ground crew, in addition to their daily routines in the days that followed. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (interviewer) Christopher, Frank (director) Fei Hu Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films research and production files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/13e0752401df53b50310b6ffaf2e36b8.mp4 8bbe037b2486555bf7bb321c3e0408ad https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d12803e1a8e5b62b7831390ef772ca06.pdf f81b7f1e5b5faa84bddb9422a145b481 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Special Collections & University Archives RHC-88 Fei Hu Films Flying Tigers Interview Interviewer: Frank Boring Interviewee: Robert T. Smith Date of Interview: 04-23-1991 Transcriber: Frank Boring [TAPE 6] FRANK BORING: About the confidence and the reaction... R.T. SMITH: I thought we did that? FRANK BORING: It wasn't on tape. R.T. SMITH: Well I think all of us, after the fight on the 25th when we came back and finally got our reports written and each of us had explained what had happened to him individually and we started putting the whole picture together, it was obvious that we had done an awful lot better than we had on the 23rd and of course of particular note was the fact that we had lost a couple of airplanes, but the guys survived. They put the airplanes down in crash landings and they survived. So we knew at that point that we'd done a great deal better than we'd done on the 23rd and we all felt much more confident about our own ability and about our airplanes and about the whole deal, than we had maybe two days before that. FRANK BORING: What was the situation like in Kunming when you arrived there? You had never been to China up to this point? So what was your reaction to it? What were the living conditions were like compared to Rangoon? R.T. SMITH: I guess it was on the 31st of December that my squadron was supposed to be relieved by the Second Squadron that was coming �into Rangoon from Kunming. We in turn then were gonna fly up to Kunming. We flew up the night before that up to Toungoo and overnighted there and then on the next day, on the 31st, to Kunming. It was a completely different scene. Kunming is on a high plateau 6000 feet above sea level and mountains all around. But it was cool up there, in fact it was winter time and quite cool as opposed to what we were going through in Rangoon. Of course it was a completely strange atmosphere. None of us had ever been to China before and all of a sudden here we are in the middle of southwestern China. It's hard to describe - the cultural shock is something else - you're not used to seeing all these people with these foreign features and none of them speak English. By this time, however, when they saw an American going through town in a jeep or something and we were in our leather jackets or whatever and they knew that we were Americans that were flying and fighting for them, by this time they'd already started calling us Flying Tigers apparently. The Chinese press had dubbed us Flying Tigers and so when our little cavalcades went through town on the way from our hostel to the airfield, these people would all cheer and they were all very happy with us and of course we were happy to be greeted that way. But the weather was cold and kind of nasty at times, rainy and overcast and the one nice thing about it was that the food was so much better. We had hostels set up there that had been pre-planned all along and our hostels had individual rooms for the pilots and a good mess, decent food, hot baths, all kinds of wonderful goodies that you expect to get back home, but we were not getting in Burma. So it was a big thrill to get up there and be able to enjoy life for a while and we did. FRANK BORING: R.T. if we could just go over the comments about the Chinese reaction of you going through the village, through town. Just about the fact that you arrived and they already knew who you were R.T. SMITH: Well when we arrived and we were being transported from the airfield for instance, to our hostel, which was across town and we'd be traveling by jeep or truck or sedan or however, the Chinese �people were just great because they would recognize us as being people who had come over and had already bloodied the Japanese a little bit, which they had not seen done in many years and we were their heroes and in fact the Chinese press and then the people picked it up - started calling us Flying Tigers. Well that amused the hell out of us. We didn't know where that came from, but the Chinese are the ones that came up with that Flying Tigers thing. But they were all - boy they couldn't wave to us and greet us enough. Of course that made us feel good. FRANK BORING: What was the routine like in Kunming? Were you flying? The airplanes were being repaired. Describe to us what was going on. R.T. SMITH: Well mostly in Kunming it was practically like R&R. We were on alert. We always had an alert squadron ready to go in case the Japanese came up toward Kunming. For years they had been bombing the hell out of Kunming from Indo-China and eastern China and all of a sudden, now that we were there, they weren't coming in. So we didn't really have too much to do. We'd go out to the field, spend the day on alert, maybe fly around a little bit just for fun, but we weren't in any combat for quite a little while there. So this was like R&R after Rangoon. FRANK BORING: What was the next occasion where you were called into combat again? R.T. SMITH: I didn't actually get into combat again until I think until March or April. One thing I should explain to you, let's see we got up there first of January and early February, I was one of six that went to Africa to pick up a P-40 to fly back to Kunming - six of us went. It took us five weeks to do that. We didn't get back until the end of March. It was April when I finally got back down into Loiwing and that area when I got back into a combat situation. FRANK BORING: That's the P-40E's right? It's Olson, McMillan, P.J. … �R.T. SMITH: No. McMillan, Green, myself, Older, Hedman and Laughlin. FRANK BORING: Would you tell us about that trip? R.T. SMITH: My squadron was enjoying life pretty well in Kunming after the hassle in Rangoon in January and it was in early February that we found out that the U.S. was going to allow the Chinese to have a few more P-40 airplanes and one thing developed into another and the next thing I know, Chennault had said to the Third Squadron, our Squadron Commander, Ole Olson, said "We can get six more P-40E models that are in Africa and we gotta go pick them up." So he told Ole to pick six pilots and send them to Africa to bring back six P-40E's. Of course we were all delighted with this idea, particularly since the P-40E had six 50 caliber machine guns, which is a lot better fire power than our older model airplanes and of course all of us wanted to go on this ferry trip. We thought this sounded like a great adventure and a little time off and a chance to see some of the other parts of the world. I was lucky enough to be one of the six that was chosen by Olson to go and pick up these airplanes. So it turns out that McMillan was gonna be our fearless leader and McMillan and Green and myself and Chuck Older and Tommy Haywood and Link Laughlin were the others. We took off - CNAC flew us to Calcutta and a day or two later we were able to get on a British overseas flying boat heading for Karachi, India. Flew all the way across India on this big 4 engine flying boat, quite similar to a Yankee Clipper or the Pan Am Clippers that were flying Pacific. We went on from Karachi then to Cairo, Egypt, where we thought the airplanes were gonna be. We get to Cairo, land on the Nile in this flying boat and went into the city and discovered that the airplanes were in a crawl on the Gold Coast of Africa, which is now Ghana. This meant we had to go almost as far from Cairo to get to pick them up as we'd already come. Well we had to arrange and got on a Pan American - had a survey route that they were doing for the Air Transport Command at that point, and they were flying around over Africa and we were able to get aboard one of their C-47's and fly down to Khartoum and then �across to the Gold Coast of Africa, another few day it took. We got there and sure enough there were six P-40E's there for us. We spent 2 or 3 days there getting organized again and checking out our airplanes. We each flew the airplane we were gonna fly back at least once, making sure it was gonna work all right. Then we started back across Africa toward China with these six P-40's. This was quite an adventure. We ran into sand storms along the way, engine problems, tire problems, every kind of a problem you can think of. Eventually we finally got 4 out of the six back up to Cairo at one time. I was one of the guys that didn't make it out of the four. I'd had a little trouble along the way and I was a day or two late getting into Cairo, but eventually we all got into Cairo. Then we started off from Cairo by way of Palestine, which it was called in those days. We landed at Tel Aviv. Then we flew across Syria and into what is now Iraq and down the Euphrates River and into places now in the Middle East that have been in the news so much lately, Bahrain? and different places that we landed for fuel and eventually kept flying until we got to Karachi and at that point the Air Corps had a bunch of people there in Karachi that could examine our airplanes and kind of tune them up a little bit and kind of tune our guns a little bit and eventually we got going and flew across India and up into the northeastern part of India to Assam and then across the Hump. Finally got back into Kunming exactly five weeks after we had left. But we got all six of them back eventually and it turned out to be quite an adventurous trip and I wouldn't take a million dollars for it, but I sure wouldn't do it again for a million and we got all the airplanes back okay. FRANK BORING: What was the reaction and what were the differences I suppose in the older model airplane and the P-40E? R.T. SMITH: Well there wasn't a great deal of difference. The airplanes were basically the same, they still had pretty much the same engine and the airframe and the whole thing - the biggest deal the difference was that the E model, the later model had three 50 caliber machine guns in each wing, whereas our old ones had two 30 calibers in �each wing and our old ones had two 50's firing through the propeller which wasn't as satisfactory and the E models didn't have anything flying through the props. So the fire power difference was, hell it was 150 percent better than what we'd had before and this made a big difference. FRANK BORING: Did you get a chance to fly that P-40E then - was that one of your airplanes then? R.T. SMITH: I didn't fly it as much as I did the older model. Our squadron wound up keeping the earlier models and we didn't wind up with too many of the new ones. Eventually of course we got more E models in. I was one of the six that brought in the first bunch, but eventually as time progressed we were getting a few more from time to time of the E models. Most of those went to the Second and First Squadrons and the squadron I was in didn't get too many of them. I flew the E model on 3 or 4 occasions in combat. In fact I shot down one Japanese airplane with an E model and was completely amazed at the fire power on this thing. But the E models mostly went to the Second Squadron, which is almost all Navy guys and they were gonna make - the E model also for a change had provisions to - you could mount a belly tank on the fuselage, the mid-line fuselage - you could mount a belly tank or a 500 pound bomb and I think they also had provisions to put a couple of wing racks on for very small bombs on the wings. So the fact that the Navy guys were the most prominent in the Second Squadron, many of them had dive bombing experience, it was decided they were the ones could carry the bombs and maybe do a little dive bombing, which they did and did quite well at it as a matter of fact, as the thing went on. But the squadron I was in didn't get too many of those. It was only on occasion when we were all mixed up, maybe two or three squadrons were mixed together, which happened on a few occasions, where I wound up with an E model to fly on a given occasion. �FRANK BORING: We get to April of that year, you had written in your diary that you had 12 planes left and you wrote that you felt like it was 12 planes against the whole Japanese Air Force. R.T. SMITH: Well that was in my squadron. FRANK BORING: What was that particular period of time? You were going up again and you were going back into battle by that time in April? R.T. SMITH: I think we were in Magwe, a little air base in northern - well it was right on the northern Burma border of China. Loiwing I think is where we were at that time and my squadron had 12 airplanes and we were the only ones there at that time and we felt like we were kind of outnumbered a little bit. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flying Tigers Interviews and Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Chinese World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Collection contains original 1940s films and interviews conducted in the 1990s, documenting the history of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) "Flying Tigers." The Flying Tigers were organized by the United States to aid China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Original filmstrips were recorded by AVG crewmen Joe Gasdick and Chuck Misenheimer, as well as Chinese Air Force Interpreter P.Y. Shu, who was assigned to assist Col. Claire Chennault as he trained Chinese pilots and established the AVG. Interviews with members of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) “Flying Tigers” were conducted by Frank Boring for the documentary film Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers, which he co-produced with Frank Christopher under the production company Fei Hu Films. The AVG Flying Tigers were a group of American aviators, mechanics, medical and administrative military personnel, led by Col. Claire Chennault to assist the Chinese Air Force in their defense against Japanese air strikes from 1941-1942. The AVG Flying Tigers also flew in defense of the Burma Road, a major Chinese military supply route. The group disbanded and returned to regular U.S. military service after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boring, Frank Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films Research and Production Files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1938/1991 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fei Hu Films Christopher, Frank Gasdick, Joseph Misenheimer, Charles V. P.Y. Shu Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4; application/pdf Language A language of the resource English; Chinese Type The nature or genre of the resource video; text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1938-1945 World War II Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88_Smith_Robert_T_1991-04-23_v06 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Robert T. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-04-23 Title A name given to the resource Robert T. Smith interview (video and transcript, 6 of 8), 1991 Description An account of the resource Interview of Robert T. Smith by filmmaker Frank Boring for the documentary, Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers. R. T. Smith joined the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in 1941, after resiging his commission as a U.S. Army Air Corps basic flight instructor. He served in the AVG as Flight Leader for the 3rd Squadron, "Hell's Angels." In the AVG he was credited with shooting down 8 Japanese planes and was awarded the Nine Star Medal and Order of Cloud Banner by the Chinese government. He returned to the US in 1942 and was drafted into the US Army, but was quickly re-commissioned as a US Air Corps Second Lieutenant. Over the course of the war, Smith returned to the Pacific Theater and flew 55 combat missions over Burma. He was awarded the Air Medal, Distinguisghed Flying Cross, and Silver Star. In this tape, Smith describes the living conditions in Kunming and the reaction of the Chinese people to the Flying Tigers, in addition to their five week trip to pick up P-40E airplanes in Africa. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (interviewer) Christopher, Frank (director) Fei Hu Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films research and production files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e9b115f7fea5bd8d3732cbd5dc84bee7.mp4 ba57d4561d41ac607e56177259168bf9 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c256829de2ca1127f6b251cba881fca0.pdf c3952465b2f1082ac3412f02ac2813d3 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Special Collections & University Archives RHC-88 Fei Hu Films Flying Tigers Interview Interviewer: Frank Boring Interviewee: Robert T. Smith Date of Interview: 04-23-1991 Transcriber: Frank Boring [TAPE 7] R.T. SMITH: Well, when I got back from the African trip, I spent a few days in Kunming relaxing and enjoying life again and it was about that time that the squadron, my squadron was sent down to Loiwing, China, which was right next to the Burma border and near the Salween River. Meanwhile, while I had been gone, our guys had been kicked out of Rangoon. The First and Second Squadrons had been pushed out of Rangoon and worked their way up through Magwe and the other places and some of them now were coming back to Kunming and others were moving up to this little airfield called Loiwing and the squadron I was in was sent down to join up with them and we were gonna carry on from there. The Japanese ground army had been pounding all the way up north into Burma and their airfields - they had taken over the airfield in Rangoon, they had taken over the airfield in Toungoo and other places that we at one time had occupied. But they kept moving up north and we had to… (break) R.T. SMITH: So my squadron it was decided they would be moved to Loiwing. We went down there and then we started flying some missions down - the Chinese had some ground army down in the vicinity of Toungoo and it was decided that we would fly some morale missions to go down and show the Chinese star on our wings and try to make the ground army feel good. We didn't like those because we had to do it at low altitude and every now and then �we'd get jumped by Jap fighters and we got into a few scraps that way. But actually there wasn't too much activity for a while. Then eventually we started going out and doing some offensive raids into Indo-China and Thailand trying to catch them on the ground with their airplanes and shooting up their airfields. Go on raids and all and we did that a few times. We lost a few airplanes and a few pilots doing that and then the Japs started coming back and trying to catch us unawares at Loiwing and they did that a time or two. One morning early, they caught us before we could get our airplanes ready to go. This went on for some weeks and there were a lot of fights going on, but a different kind of activity. FRANK BORING: ………missions and I know that it did cause a certain amount of dissention among the ranks. Could you talk about that a little bit? R.T. SMITH: Well this was something I guess that the Chinese - Chiang Kaishek and his people decided they wanted to do to show the Chinese troops that there were Chinese airplanes around to help protect them. Because our airplanes had the Chinese twelve pointed star on the wing and all. So they wanted us to fly that - well hell, in order for the Chinese troops to see what the insignia looked like, we had to fly pretty low - 1000 feet or so. Well this meant that we were exposed - we were flying down, this was in the front line area where the Chinese and the Japanese were fighting each other on the ground and the Japanese had airfields all behind that area and all we had to do was fly down there at 1000 feet and expect to find a few Jap fighters coming down on top of us. This did not sit well with us and we let that be known pretty well to Chennault, and he in turn passed that on I guess to Chiang Kai-shek and eventually that sort of thing was kind of stopped. This was a lousy way to run a railroad as far as we were concerned. FRANK BORING: There actually was a confrontation I understand with Chennault. Perhaps the only one you ever really got into with him. �R.T. SMITH: Yeah, that was part of it. At one point someplace there in Loiwing there were several missions that were proposed. Those morale missions were among them. There were a couple of others that they wanted to run taking some P-40's to escort a bunch of British RAF Blenheim bombers over to Chiang Mai to bomb that airfield and we were supposed to send a few P-40's along to escort them at low altitude in daylight, 160 miles into enemy territory and that was a complete idiot mission and all of our people were involved in that sort of thing. Brought that to the attention of Chennault and Chennault was saying "Well this is what we're supposed to do" and by this time Stillwell, who was a ground officer and who was over Chennault in that area had told him this was one of the missions he wanted him to do and Chennault reported back to Stillwell "Well our guys say they're not gonna do it." So it was one of those funny thing where all of our guys got together and said we're gonna tell Chennault this is a stupid mission and knock it off. Chennault comes back - of course we have this big meeting - and Chennault came back and said "Listen, you're gonna take orders or else you're gonna be guilty of desertion and all of you will be subjected to dishonorable discharges." Well hell, we're all civilians and who ever heard of a dishonorable discharge in a civilian organization? So we brought that point up too. We had this big meeting and hashed it out. It came up to be one of those things where about 5 out of 6 of us of about 30 said "Okay if you want to do this kind of stuff, we'd like to get out of our contract and resign our duties with the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation." We wrote a thing to that effect and I think about 25 out of 30 guys signed this thing and handed it to Chennault and now all of a sudden he's about to lose half of his air force and he called another meeting and said "I won't accept this" and we kind of laughed and said "We didn't expect you to" and the next thing we knew was the whole thing was pretty well settled and Chennault got the message. He went back to Stillwell and Chiang Kai-shek and said "Don't ask me to send my guys on some stupid thing like that." And I think they got the message and we were never asked to do that again and the whole thing blew over. It didn't amount to much. �FRANK BORING: Just to finish up that whole thing, there was an incident where Chennault said something about a white feather that got you pretty steamed. What was that? R.T. SMITH: Yeah that got me steamed. Well it was during that meeting and he was talking about - now I hadn't been scheduled to go on this particular mission that was scheduled to escort these Blenheim bombers to Chiang Mai, but when the guys objected to that and then Chennault came in at that meeting and said "Well if you guys want to show the white feather, by God, I'll accept your resignations." That really bugged me and I got up and shot off my two bits worth and said "General Chennault, I don't know how in the hell you can accuse anybody in this outfit of showing the white feather. I think we've already demonstrated the fact that we're not cowards," which is what white feather means, and I said "I think you owe us all an apology" or words to that effect. And by God, if he didn't turn around and apologize. He said "That's not what I meant really and blah, blah, blah" So we got over that little thing but that was kind of a bone of contention with some of us and was just one of the things that happened. FRANK BORING: Could you describe for us the incident - the Salween Bridge, which was May 7th? R.T. SMITH: Well, I don't know too much about that. I think on one or two of those occasions over the Salween, I was flying in the top cover thing and the other guys, Tex Hill and his gang, were doing the dive bombing and the strafing down right around the bridge and on the Burma Road. I'm flying up there at 12000 feet looking for enemy Jap fighters and was not involved in that. So I can't speak too well of that. FRANK BORING: We had talked earlier about an incident where you were chasing 3 planes. You ended up getting the tail one and the other two kept flying. Could you describe that again for us? �R.T. SMITH: Well that again was out of Loiwing. We'd gone up on an alert and the Japanese came in with a whole bunch of fighters and started shooting up the Loiwing area and we went up, played around with them a little bit through the clouds and shot down 3 or 4 in all. But I hadn't done any good and I wound up all by myself out in the middle of nowhere and started heading southeast in the direction that I thought the Jap fighters would be taking when they headed home and sure enough, in the distance I saw 3 specks and I was sure that they were Jap fighters. So I fireballed everything and tried to catch up to them and I stayed down low, wanting to come in underneath them so they wouldn't look around behind them and see me sitting there in the sky. So after about 10 minutes or so I was practically underneath all three of them, particularly the last guy. It's a funny thing, there were two guys flying together very close to each other in formation and then the third guy was about 200 yards behind the two in front and I was right underneath this last guy, maybe 1000 feet below him, so by trading speed for altitude I was able to pull right up behind him and park right on his tail, maybe 100 yards behind him, and opened up with everything. He pulled up very sharply and then peeled off and headed straight down and I expected him to blow up when I first hit him or catch fire, and he didn't. So when he pulled up and headed down that way, I did the same thing. I'm shooting at him all the way down and he's heading right straight for the ground, I'm shooting all this time and thinking my God why doesn't he burn? By this time I had to pull out myself and he went right straight into the ground and I pulled out and headed back toward the southeast and I look in the distance and there's these two guys still going straight and level right heading for home, never knew what happened to this guy behind them. I kept kicking myself, because I think the guy that I shot in the first place, I think he was dead in the first instant and I could have slid over behind the other two and picked them both off in the space of 15 seconds if I had known that. But I didn't and meanwhile the other two guys they just kept merrily going on their way. �FRANK BORING: What I'd like to do now is just give you some names of various people that you knew back then - just any comments that you have. Some of them are very well known, some of them aren't that well known, but for example we'll start off with - did you have much interaction with either Harvey Greenlaw, Olga Greenlaw? R.T. SMITH: Enough to get to know them quite well I would say. I wasn't close to them but I was exposed to them on many occasions. I got to know them. As a matter of fact I liked old Harvey and Olga too, as far as that goes. I can't say much more than that I guess. FRANK BORING: I guess what I was looking for was - in Harvey's case for example, he was there to help with administration, but so often a lot of guys said they never really saw him administrate anything. I was just wondering what were your impressions of his duties and what did he serve to do with the AVG? R.T. SMITH: I don't know. You'd have to talk to some of the guys that were closer to him in the administrative area than I was. I didn't have anything to do with him in that. I know he spent a lot of time around the office, what he did, hell I don't know. FRANK BORING: What about Olga? She must have had a certain fascination; she was a very attractive woman. R.T. SMITH: She was a very attractive woman and a lot of our guys found her very attractive and I think she found some of our guys quite attractive and I wasn't one of them, unfortunately, I guess. But Olga was a very attractive young lady. FRANK BORING: What about Greg Boyington? Did you know him at all? R.T. SMITH: Yeah I knew him. I didn't know him real well at that time because we were in different squadrons. (break) �FRANK BORING: Okay. We'll just start off with Boyington. R.T. SMITH: Greg Boyington. I didn't know Greg as well as many of our guys did because he and I were in different squadrons and it was only on a couple of occasions, for short periods, that our two squadrons happened to be at the same place at the same time. So I didn't know him too well. I didn't have any trouble with him. I know that he was a trouble maker in many ways according to a lot of people. He never gave me a bad time but that didn't mean anything either. I got to know Greg a lot better after the war was over than I did while it was on. So I'm afraid I can't speak too much about Greg. FRANK BORING: You had mentioned much earlier that you had met Bert Christman with Tex Hill. R.T. SMITH: Well he was on our boat going over to Burma from San Francisco. A hell of a nice guy, very talented, he was an artist of course as I guess everybody knows. He at one time had contributed to Scorchy Smith cartoon comedy kind of thing in the papers. A real nice guy, very quiet, very subdued, but just a real nice guy. Here again, he was in a different squadron. He wound up in the Second Squadron. The only time I really got acquainted with him was on the boat going over. FRANK BORING: General Bissell? R.T. SMITH: Bissell? I don't know too much about him either except that he rubbed everybody the wrong way when he came up to Kunming and started telling everybody if you didn't sign up to go back into the Air Corps and accept commissions over there, we were going to be met by our draft board when we got home and it was that or else. And of course, that was about it all it took from a bunch of us to say well "or else" and I didn't know Bissell any more than that, except to be exposed to him to that degree. As far as I'm concerned he was a sorry specimen of an Air Force officer who was trying - if �he was trying to get us on his side, he sure went about it the wrong way. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flying Tigers Interviews and Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Chinese World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Collection contains original 1940s films and interviews conducted in the 1990s, documenting the history of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) "Flying Tigers." The Flying Tigers were organized by the United States to aid China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Original filmstrips were recorded by AVG crewmen Joe Gasdick and Chuck Misenheimer, as well as Chinese Air Force Interpreter P.Y. Shu, who was assigned to assist Col. Claire Chennault as he trained Chinese pilots and established the AVG. Interviews with members of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) “Flying Tigers” were conducted by Frank Boring for the documentary film Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers, which he co-produced with Frank Christopher under the production company Fei Hu Films. The AVG Flying Tigers were a group of American aviators, mechanics, medical and administrative military personnel, led by Col. Claire Chennault to assist the Chinese Air Force in their defense against Japanese air strikes from 1941-1942. The AVG Flying Tigers also flew in defense of the Burma Road, a major Chinese military supply route. The group disbanded and returned to regular U.S. military service after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boring, Frank Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films Research and Production Files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1938/1991 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fei Hu Films Christopher, Frank Gasdick, Joseph Misenheimer, Charles V. P.Y. Shu Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4; application/pdf Language A language of the resource English; Chinese Type The nature or genre of the resource video; text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1938-1945 World War II Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88_Smith_Robert_T_1991-04-23_v07 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Robert T. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-04-23 Title A name given to the resource Robert T. Smith interview (video and transcript, 7 of 8), 1991 Description An account of the resource Interview of Robert T. Smith by filmmaker Frank Boring for the documentary, Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers. R. T. Smith joined the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in 1941, after resiging his commission as a U.S. Army Air Corps basic flight instructor. He served in the AVG as Flight Leader for the 3rd Squadron, "Hell's Angels." In the AVG he was credited with shooting down 8 Japanese planes and was awarded the Nine Star Medal and Order of Cloud Banner by the Chinese government. He returned to the US in 1942 and was drafted into the US Army, but was quickly re-commissioned as a US Air Corps Second Lieutenant. Over the course of the war, Smith returned to the Pacific Theater and flew 55 combat missions over Burma. He was awarded the Air Medal, Distinguisghed Flying Cross, and Silver Star. In this tape, Smith discusses the morale missions that his squadron was a part of in Loiwing, in addition to his impressions of Harvey and Olga Greenlaw, Greg Boyington, Bert Christman, and General Bissell. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (interviewer) Christopher, Frank (director) Fei Hu Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films research and production files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d60575775971d90014c616d91836cd8a.mp4 13568c0ff2a34d686186b27b25231c24 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3bad029ff0c34299218c6ae870eb50da.pdf e08017c15cdb65fd90a428243ac59570 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Special Collections & University Archives RHC-88 Fei Hu Films Flying Tigers Interview Interviewer: Frank Boring Interviewee: Robert T. Smith Date of Interview: 04-23-1991 Transcriber: Frank Boring [TAPE 8] R.T. SMITH: Well I think when Bissell came to Kunming and explained how we owed it to our country and we had to sign up and go into the military right then and there, if we decided we didn't want to do that, we'd have to figure out how to get home on our own, there wouldn't be any help from the Air Corps or anybody else, we'd be met by our draft boards the minute we got to the States. He was predicting all these wonderful dire things that were gonna happen to us. I think many of us might have accepted induction there at that time if he at least might have said "We'll give you a couple of weeks leave, go to Calcutta, let out some steam, relax and enjoy yourselves a little while and then come back and take your commissions here and carry on." Well we were told that we would not have R&R at all, we could have no leave and took it or left it and by this time most of us were pretty peed off with Mr. Bissell General Bissell and we said the hell with it, we'll go back and take our chances. We knew we could all be re-commissioned in the service branch we had left when we went over there. The minute we got back we knew that they'd take us back and give us a good commission, appropriate rank and whatnot, plus the fact we knew we could have a little time off. So I think that was the big thing for most of us and that's what happened. Most of us came back and I think only 5 of our guys said "Okay we'll take commissions over here." They did and more power to them, but most of said "No we'll go back and take our chances." Almost all of us went back into the service branch we'd been in before we left and were re- �commissioned or whatever and most of us wound up back on a second combat tour someplace in the World War II area before it was over. FRANK BORING: Why did you need time off? R.T. SMITH: Jesus Christ! That shouldn't be necessary to tell anybody. What the hell, after all these months of fighting and flying without any decent food or living accommodations, attention - the whole goddamn - Jesus Christ - do you have to tell somebody why we felt we needed a little time off? Did I tell you? Did you get it? Why anybody would wonder why we needed a little time off. (break) FRANK BORING: Why did the guys need time off? R.T. SMITH: Well I think most of us felt that we would like to have a little time off because we'd been under quite a bit of pressure and hardship for some months now. Combat, living conditions, the whole damn thing. We hadn't had any recreation, no place to go, nothing to do that was fun. We'd been through 6 months of this and we thought well golly at least they could give us a couple of week to go someplace and unwind and get rested up a little bit. And Bissell and I guess the powers that be in the Air Corps said no, hell there's a war going on. As a matter of fact, I think he used that term with Bob Neal at one point and Bob said "Yeah I'm pretty well aware there's been a war going on." But I think Bissell actually used that expression at one time. And I think that was the most asinine thing I ever heard. Well anyway we thought we not only deserved, but needed maybe a little bit of time off to kind of unwind… only when I was getting shot at. I get this question all the time "Did you ever have any second thoughts about going over there in that AVG?" I said "Only when I was getting shot at." �FRANK BORING: Just looking back on it now, how do you look at that period of time in your life? How do you feel about that particular time in your life in terms of your life? R.T. SMITH: I guess it was obviously the most exciting and satisfactory period of my entire life. The fact that I survived made it satisfactory certainly. I was reasonably satisfied I guess, with the job I did, which I felt was something that had to be done. I was glad to be able to contribute a little bit of whatever I did. It was damn sure exciting. It was the adventure I had looked for in spades and as I say it was one of those things I wouldn't take a million dollars for the experience and that adventure and I sure as hell wouldn't do it again for a million dollars. Does that answer your question? FRANK BORING: Give us the answer you give everybody else about any regrets. R.T. SMITH: I'm frequently asked by people that give shows for different places if I had any second thoughts about joining up with the AVG, and getting into all that business and my stock answer is that the only time I had second thoughts about it was when I was getting shot at. I had a lot of second thoughts at those times. FRANK BORING: Okay I have one last question. I see your books, you've read a lot, you know about that period. Give us some evaluation on your part of what the AVG, the Flying Tigers meant to the defense of China and the United States during that time. R.T. SMITH: I guess as I look back on it and realize what happened at that time, I don't believe that any of us at that time realized that what we were doing in Burma and China in those very early days after the United States got into the war with Japan, I don't think many of us realized that we were about the only outfit that was chalking up any victories and having some success against the Japanese. They apparently were running all over everybody all over the Far East and we were about the only ones apparently that were doing any damage to them and it wasn't until some weeks after that, that we �started getting newspaper clippings and magazine clippings and stories and all of a sudden we're the Flying Tigers and the American Volunteer Group is doing this and that. Many of these stories that were written were blown out of proportion, they were exaggerated. But apparently, what we were doing gave a lot of people in the United States some hope that the Japanese were not going to beat the hell out of everybody that happened to be wearing an American uniform, or that were fighting as Americans. I think we were all pleased with this of course, and that meant a lot to us. But I think to the people in the States it was something to kind of get a hold of and say "Hey, we've got some guys over there that are doing pretty well." and of course that made us proud. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Flying Tigers Interviews and Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Chinese World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Collection contains original 1940s films and interviews conducted in the 1990s, documenting the history of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) "Flying Tigers." The Flying Tigers were organized by the United States to aid China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Original filmstrips were recorded by AVG crewmen Joe Gasdick and Chuck Misenheimer, as well as Chinese Air Force Interpreter P.Y. Shu, who was assigned to assist Col. Claire Chennault as he trained Chinese pilots and established the AVG. Interviews with members of the American Volunteer Group (AVG) “Flying Tigers” were conducted by Frank Boring for the documentary film Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers, which he co-produced with Frank Christopher under the production company Fei Hu Films. The AVG Flying Tigers were a group of American aviators, mechanics, medical and administrative military personnel, led by Col. Claire Chennault to assist the Chinese Air Force in their defense against Japanese air strikes from 1941-1942. The AVG Flying Tigers also flew in defense of the Burma Road, a major Chinese military supply route. The group disbanded and returned to regular U.S. military service after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boring, Frank Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films Research and Production Files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1938/1991 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fei Hu Films Christopher, Frank Gasdick, Joseph Misenheimer, Charles V. P.Y. Shu Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4; application/pdf Language A language of the resource English; Chinese Type The nature or genre of the resource video; text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1938-1945 World War II Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-88_Smith_Robert_T_1991-04-23_v08 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Robert T. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-04-23 Title A name given to the resource Robert T. Smith interview (video and transcript, 8 of 8), 1991 Description An account of the resource Interview of Robert T. Smith by filmmaker Frank Boring for the documentary, Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers. R. T. Smith joined the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in 1941, after resiging his commission as a U.S. Army Air Corps basic flight instructor. He served in the AVG as Flight Leader for the 3rd Squadron, "Hell's Angels." In the AVG he was credited with shooting down 8 Japanese planes and was awarded the Nine Star Medal and Order of Cloud Banner by the Chinese government. He returned to the US in 1942 and was drafted into the US Army, but was quickly re-commissioned as a US Air Corps Second Lieutenant. Over the course of the war, Smith returned to the Pacific Theater and flew 55 combat missions over Burma. He was awarded the Air Medal, Distinguisghed Flying Cross, and Silver Star. In this tape, Smith describes the meeting with General Bissell in the final days of the AVG and the significance of the Flying Tigers in Chinese and American history. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (interviewer) Christopher, Frank (director) Fei Hu Films Subject The topic of the resource Oral history United States--History, Military China--History, Military Veterans China. Kong jun. American Volunteer Group World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/540">Fei Hu Films research and production files (RHC-88)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/27561b53bdfcc6145cf1c5dd198c6318.jpg abdc40affe910795fbd8dc33073b527e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Adriana B. and Peter N. Termaat collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Termaat, Adriana B. (Schuurman) Termaat, Peter N. Description An account of the resource Collection contains genealogical, personal, and family papers and photographs documenting the lives and interests of Adriana and Peter Termaat. The bulk of the materials are related to family history and genealogical research carried out by the Termaats, including research notes and materials about places in the Netherlands that were significant to the Termaat and Schuurman families, such as the city of Alkmaar. Other materials in the collection are related to the Termaats' experiences on the eve of and during the Second World War, especially the German occupation of the Netherlands and the Termaats' participation in organized resistance to the Nazis. Also included are materials that document the family's post-war life in the United States, including their public efforts to recognize, commemorate, and honor people and events significant to World War II. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1869 - 2012 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/719">Adriana B. and Peter N. Termaat collection, RHC-144</a> Subject The topic of the resource Netherlands Netherlands--History--German occupation, 1940-1945 World War, 1939-1945 World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Netherlands Dutch Dutch Americans Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-144 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Text Image Type The nature or genre of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng nl Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-144_Termaat_PHOT_1990-Yad-Vashem-Robert-van-Amerogen Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990 Title A name given to the resource Robert van Amerogen at Yad Vashem ceremony, 1990 Description An account of the resource Photograph of Robert Van Amerogen at Yad Vashem ceremony. Subject The topic of the resource Dutch Americans Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/719">Adriana B. and Peter N. Termaat collection (RHC-144)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/24344c0b444aaa97d083d4b282ff995c.jpg 23604bd25e0829058a075050684421c9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1960s Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1968 Title A name given to the resource Robert York, GVSC student teacher Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_001612 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Description An account of the resource Robert York, GVSC student teacher in Mr. James Eaddy's 7th grade class, working with students at Ridgeview Jr. High School in Grand Rapids. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Universities and colleges Education Students Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In copyright - Non-commercial use permitted.</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4c0c56ebde72c5c9d131db4493022837.jpg ae3614e8d50e4b72a5e1b7d0fdf0bd41 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RobertPierre Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Robert, Pierre Description An account of the resource Pierre Robert, French Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/03ae80ad380806108b4871bb5cc1f404.jpg 2d35d5d377588dcb957e04c1bf3d37fc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource GVSU Concert & Event Posters Subject The topic of the resource Posters Events Michigan Universities & colleges--Michigan Description An account of the resource Division of Student Services provides programs, services, and environments that enhance the personal, social, and intellectual growth of undergraduate and graduate students at the University. Events including concerts were managed by the office of Student Life. Posters for music, speakers, poetry readings and other campuswide events are included. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Division of Student Services Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/106">Student Services concerts, events, and posters files, (GV028-06)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-07-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV028-06 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1963 – 1981 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV028-06_Flack Title A name given to the resource Roberta Flack, October 28, 1973 Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Grand Valley State College Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities & colleges--Michigan Events Posters Description An account of the resource Roberta Flack, in the GVSC Fieldhouse, October 28, 1973 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/106">Student Services concerts, events, and posters files, (GV028-06)</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/84436cc563f00a94bf6efa73caa37da5.pdf fca0af828e934cf63e33c678e92dad11 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Roberto Jiménez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/9/2012 Biography and Description Roberto Jiménez is son of “Tio Funfa” Jiménez. Today he lives in the small mountain town of Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, but did live for some years in Detroit, Michigan, traveling back and forth in the 1950s, “when there were not that many Puerto Ricans living there.” It was cold in Detroit. And Mr. Jiménez recalls having to rely on family and friends for transportation and other things. He likes to raise rabbits for sale, and chickens. Mr. Jiménez also grows green bananas and other vegetables in his backyard behind the three houses where his brothers and sisters live in separate apartments. At least one of the houses is an inheritance and it is not bad to be able to live and to share supper with family. When friends arrive to visit, he has a habit of giving them some bananas or a chicken or a rabbit. If he has to do the work to prepare it, he will charge for his time. Mr. Jiménez considers himself to be just a humble worker and recalls going to the United States because farm labor was seasonal and there was no work. Sometimes construction was good. But it did not last long because there were many people trying to do it. Mr. Jiménez had heard about the Hacha Viejas, but they were his cousins, children of Tio Gabriel Jiménez, and workers who worked on his uncle’s farm, and not part of his immediate family. Today, Mr. Jiménez has no plans except to enjoy the tropical breeze from the same chair he sits on daily in their patio/garage entrance. Here he is calm and can think as he enjoys the car and truck traffic blaring as it passes the house. � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cccaa63d02d47bb877a5368c7b0456e5.mp4 8598819a0234f4d582e6d784f232a989 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Roberto Jiménez vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Jimenez_Roberto Title A name given to the resource Roberto Jiménez video interview and biography Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, Roberto Description An account of the resource Roberto Jiménez is son of “Tio Funfa” Jiménez. Today he lives in the small mountain town of Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, but did live for some years in Detroit, Michigan, traveling back and forth in the 1950s, “when there were not that many Puerto Ricans living there.” It was cold in Detroit. And Mr. Jiménez recalls having to rely on family and friends for transportation and other things. He likes to raise rabbits for sale, and chickens. Mr. Jiménez also grows green bananas and other vegetables in his backyard behind the three houses where his brothers and sisters live in separate apartments. At least one of the houses is an inheritance and it is not bad to be able to live and to share supper with family. When friends arrive to visit, he has a habit of giving them some bananas or a chicken or a rabbit. If he has to do the work to prepare it, he will charge for his time. Mr. Jiménez considers himself to be just a humble worker and recalls going to the United States because farm labor was seasonal and there was no work. Sometimes construction was good. But it did not last long because there were many people trying to do it. Mr. Jiménez had heard about the Hacha Viejas, but they were his cousins, children of Tio Gabriel Jiménez, and workers who worked on his uncle’s farm, and not part of his immediate family. Today, Mr. Jiménez has no plans except to enjoy the tropical breeze from the same chair he sits on daily in their patio/garage entrance. Here he is calm and can think as he enjoys the car and truck traffic blaring as it passes the house. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Spanish language--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource spa Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-09 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c258909e1a0454ef125f3f239048da5d.mp4 4d628d22a20a204204f15fe238ba1385 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9f23cf6a5ca64562c163fb9051610781.pdf 05feaa466d92a8c7ab1f75d6b8b6f5a8 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Fredrick Robins (00:22:21) (00:15) Background Information • Fred was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1926, but moved four years later because his mother thought there was too much crime in the area • His father worked for a supply office of an ice cream factory in Wisconsin • They lived on a small farm that Fred spent time working on • Fred had been one year short of finishing high school when he got into a bad auto accident • He did not want to go back to school because he had a scar on his face • Fred tried to join the Army and the Navy, but neither would accept him because he had scar tissue on his eye • He later passed the medical exam for the Merchant Marines and joined in August of 1944 (2:50) Training • Fred traveled to New York City for basic training for 6 weeks • He then was asked to start radio operator training on Hoffman Island in NY Harbor • They classes were very strenuous and it was very hard for him to catch on • Fred studied very hard and graduated in March of 1945 • He had leave for a few days and then took a train to Portland, Oregon • They left on a victory ship to Hawaii to pick up supplies • Fred had been in Luzon on VE Day and in Hawaii on VJ Day (8:30) Osaka, Japan • From Hawaii they loaded the ship with trucks and supplies and headed to Japan • They went ashore in their uniforms and took a train to Tokyo • The train was crowded, but the people were all very nice to the Americans • Fred visited the Air Force base in Tokyo and then flew back to Osaka • They hit a huge typhoon on their way back through the Pacific and it really slowed down their trip (12:40) Ship Life • Fred served as a radio officer working on the ship and got along well with others • He spent most of his time with the chief engineer and the captain • The men on the ship were of all ages, from about 22-50 years old (15:40) Post War • Fred continued working on the ship and delivering supplies • They traveled from New York to France, from Texas to Aruba, to Rio De Janeiro, to Buenos Aires �• • Fred was able to have one month off in Buenos Aires and had a nice vacation there In Europe they delivered supplies to Algeria, Rome, and Marseilles (18:20) After the Service • Fred met a girl in Montreal and they had written to each other during the war • He left the Merchant Marine in 1947 to get married and moved to Milwaukee • He got a job at Western Electric, but his wife became very lonely and home sick so they moved back to Canada • Fred got a job at the central office of Bell Canada and worked there until he retired � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RobinsF Title A name given to the resource Robins, Frederick (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robins, Frederick Description An account of the resource Frederick Robins was born in Chicago in 1926. He joined the Merchant Marines in August of 1944, and went through basic training for 6 weeks in New York City. He completed radio operator school and graduated in 1945. During his tour of duty, he traveled throughout the Pacific dropping off supplies to and from islands. After the war was over Fred continued to travel around South America and Europe delivering supplies until he was discharged in 1947. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Merchant mariner World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Merchant marine--United States Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-05-21 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/be994189c5bbeee3b6894e93bf926c79.jpg 8c8d17c2cdd47ca8deb00e4e25e830e0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection Kenneth W. Robinson Living Center Robinson Living Center Robinson Living Center 1970s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_000055 Title A name given to the resource Robinson House. Construction Description An account of the resource Construction of Robinson House, ca. 1966. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Facilities Construction Dormitories Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1966 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4cd80a812689a8aa770b67a4e89f1858.jpg 08bdfd8f2e891433738259bb87db573e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RobinsonBrenda_Photo1 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996 Title A name given to the resource Robinson, Brenda Description An account of the resource Brenda Robinson, Dean of International Affairs Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Colleges and universities – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng 1996s https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/303af09893a5a434db224a67d787ce32.jpg 32fe738373a7986f0bb57c30a865db13 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RobinsonBrenda_Photo2 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Robinson, Brenda Description An account of the resource Brenda Robinson, Dean of International Affairs Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Colleges and universities – Faculty Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8936776d506282bbadfdaeba1430dc88.pdf cbd22704f6fe405f53bddbdbee0ac3ea PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Claude Robinson World War II, Korean War 33 minutes 3 seconds (00:00:08) Early Life -Born in Detroit Michigan. -Achieved the rank of Major. -A senior in high school when Pearl Harbor was attacked. -Enlisted into the military on October 18th, 1943. (00:01:42) Military Training and WWII -Sent to Jefferson Barracks Missouri for basic training. -Prepared for the aviation cadet program to train for the Air Force. -Educated at the University of Missouri instead of an academy (predated its use). -Continued on to San Antonio Texas for flight training. -At that time it was called the Army Air Corps. -First served in Yuma, Arizona (after a number of special training schools). -Because they had too many potential pilots, they retested and assigned for more specific assignments. -He was sent to Navigational School in Hondo, Texas. -Graduated from Navigational School in June of 1945. -Next, went to Carlsbad, New Mexico for bombadeering school. -After that went Yuma, Arizona for radar school to be a radar specialist. -Assigned to fly B-25 planes. -Went on patrols over the Pacific toward the end of WWII. -Re-assigned to the B-29 plane as an observer and navigator. -Discharged from the Air Force on December 1st 1945. -Re-assigned to South Ridge Air Force base in Detroit to the reserves. -In 1950 he was called into active duty for the Korean War. -Reported to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. -Initially he was intended to go overseas, however because he was a bridge engineer with Wayne County Road Commission, he was considered necessary to remain in the country and sent back to South Ridge. -Re-assigned to reserves and changed to the Engineering Corps. (00:10:00) -Many of the events his squadron was involved with were deemed classified because it was the squadron that bombed Tokyo. -Did early proto training for what would become landing/taking off from an aircraft carrier. -The Japanese bombing missions were strictly voluntary. -While he was at South Ridge WWII ended. -Pursued his engineering degree after the War. -Two degrees in civil engineering, and a masters in structural engineering. -He was injured in a stateside training accident where another plane misfired upon the plane he �was in. -Many of the men present in his training were injured during the parachute training. -Using heavy nylon parachutes at the time. -Gunnery training: purpose was such that any person on the plane could take over any of the various gun turrets. -During pilot training he trained using the Piper Cub. (00:00:00) -Values his time in the military. -Since he was only 17 and a half when he entered, he believes it helped give him necessary life skills. -After being discharged, returned home after three years away. -Decided to marry his long-time girlfriend. -There was some feeling of being separated from those who hadn’t spent some years in the military. -Further ahead in life and not the same experiences to talk about. -Received a degree from University of Missouri. -Worked on a degree for masters of business administration, but decided not to finish. -Worked for American Seating. -President or CEO of some of their divisions. -Hopes that younger generations don’t have to endure war such as the World Wars. -Grateful for the training and opportunity he received, and to those that died in war. -His father served in WWI. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_RobinsonC1808V Title A name given to the resource Robinson, Claude G (Interview outline), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-05-24 Description An account of the resource Claude Robinson was born in Detroit, Michigan. After Pearl Harbor he voluntarily enlisted in the military in 1943 and was sent to Jefferson Barracks Missouri for basic training. In Yuma Arizona he was assigned to fly patrols using the B-25, the squadron involved with bombing Japan. Later he would be re-assigned to fly on the B-29. When the War ended he was discharged from the Air Force on December 1st 1945 and put into the reserves. He was considered to join the Korean War in 1950 however his job as an engineer was considered too crucial to be sent overseas. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robinson, Claude G. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Schantz, Jacob (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Air ForcesOral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7624d2a93a010dafdcaa2dca132a8f6d.jpg 88bfb57dd9f702179945fe0cb149de2a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1970s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_000775 Title A name given to the resource Robinson, Copeland and Kistler dormatories Description An account of the resource Robinson, Copeland and Kistler dormatories looking across Little Mac Bridge. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Facilities Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives color photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6ab7f631eb45336f3e94580a42b1139a.jpg e82a2bd557b9023bc515225b000d967d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1970s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01_UAPhotos_000776 Title A name given to the resource Robinson, Copeland and Kistler dormatories Description An account of the resource Aerial view of Robinson, Copeland and Kistler dormatories. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Facilities Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives color photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/11ea1869008f3d5bdbe74b6eca98ccb6.pdf 39b52b83ffbbfe3c6e9ac2cdbdccd697 PDF Text Text 1 Grand Valley State University Special Collections Kent County Oral History collections, RHC-23 Miss Doris Robinson Interviewed on November 5, 1971 Edited and indexed by Don Bryant, 2010 – bryant@wellswooster.com Tape # 50 (1:03:49) Biographical Information Doris H. Robinson was born 2 January 1893 in Grand Rapids. She was the daughter of Albert Robinson and Jennie M. Baker. Doris lived in Grand Rapids her entire life. Albert Robinson was born in Salem, Massachusetts 12 March 1848, the son of Jeremiah A. Robinson and Harriet A. Brown. Jennie M. Baker was born about July 1858 in Wilbraham, Hampden County, Massachusetts. Albert and Jennie were married 24 December 1876 in Paw Paw, Michigan. Albert was a dentist and he died in Grand Rapids on 14 May 1898 when Doris was five years old. Jeremiah Robinson was also a dentist and he died in Grand Rapids two years earlier on 3 March 1896. __________ Interviewer: This interview with Doris Robinson was conducted November five, nineteen seventy-one. O.K. Fine. Miss Robinson: Alright, we‟ll begin with Sheldon Avenue where I lived for sixty years. I came there when I was about a year old, and that was almost seventy nine years ago almost, yes, seventy nine years next January, My father had built us a house in the second block down from Monroe, from Fulton Street. Kitty-corner from where the YWCA is now, was next to the corner. He had decided that it would be, he would leave his dental office down on Monroe Avenue and have a dental office in a house in which, which he would build. And, the house was completed in eighteen ninety-four and it was there until nineteen fifty-three when I moved, oh it was there until nineteen fifty-four when it was taken down by Mr. Ellis for a parking lot and a quick wash. Sheldon Avenue was very different in those days from what it is now. It wasn‟t a very busy street and it was quite an aristocratic street and it was a street on which people enjoyed living because they get down, they could get downtown, quickly and yet it was a very beautiful street. People today would never realize that it was as beautiful street as it is, as it was then. It was a street lined with maples and elm and the beautiful homes all along the sides, on both sides. The street was a dirt street lined with cobblestones and there were many hitching posts and horse blocks in front of each of the houses where cement parking walks went down from the sidewalk to the parking lots and that‟s the block. The horse blocks were made so that you could get out of your carriage easily; there were no automobiles in those days. People would be horrified to see �2 these hundreds of automobiles parked along the sides of the street and down the middle of the street. There were beautiful carriages going down the streets drawn by horses. I can‟t, we had a surrey, fringe topped surrey, with a horse and a carriage and a sleigh in the winter, the surreys were more family carriages and not, not so elegant. But down the street came many an elegant carriage with a coachman at the back, driving it or at the top, with the lady down below. In those days ladies wore long train dresses. And my, I can remember my mother‟s dress that she had when I was born, I‟m not, I couldn‟t remember it at that time but she, we kept it for a dressup dress. It had, it wasn‟t, it‟s, with, struts the ground. It was, and it had a bustle at the back. And there were large sleeves and then, there were trimming around it. It was made by a very elegant dressmaker; you didn‟t buy your dresses in those days in stores. They were, they, sometimes the dressmaker came to your house and stayed for two or three days or even a week and had her dinner there, her yes, a dinner at noon with you, and you paid her so much by the hour. But there were some very elegant dressmakers too in the house and my mother wasn‟t particularly fond of clothes but my father wanted her to have very lovely dress, so he, I can‟t, I don‟t remember the woman‟s name, of course, I wouldn‟t remember at that time. But my mother told me about the dress, who made it and I think she married a Winegar [Frank B. Winegar married Aurilla Pearl in 1893; lived at 203 Sheldon] who was quite a prominent man woman here, family here. He owned Winegar‟s store on South Division, right opposite, at the end of Cherry Street. It was a furniture store. And the Winegars lived on Sheldon. She had a carriage, I think after that with a coachman. But this dress that I enjoyed so much through my years - I was born in the year after she, she had it made - and she had to have it made to hide her condition. It was that she had extra piece of cloth, it was made of red, moiré, I think. It‟s in the museum today and it came, the piece of cloth from the shoulder down to the waist went over her. Now she was a very small woman and it came to here, the waist came to a point and was buttoned all the way up to the top. And that was all hidden, and so then she could let it out with strings. Well, when I used to wear it, I was so much larger and grew so much fatter than my mother ever was, that was it was very fashionable to have a small waist and by the time I was a young woman that wasn‟t, of course I wasn‟t so large as I am now but, I never was as small as my mother. So I had to wear it when I was dressed up with the, the piece of material that hid the front of the dress and I‟d let all the strings. I gave that dress to a museum and a lady is wearing it, a figure, in one of the shops in the Gaslight Station. I got quite a kick out of this. Well. Anyway, I think maybe you‟d like to know about different people that lived in the first block. On the corner of Fulton and Sheldon was the Watson home, Major [Amasa B.] Watson, I think he might have been major in the, I don‟t know. Interviewer: I think it was the Civil War. Miss Robinson: Was it the Civil War? Mrs. Watson was quite old then. It was a beautiful home and it looked like a castle with its turrets, sort of, a number of turrets, it faced Fulton Street and could look across at Fulton Street Park. The side, on the side was a porch and when I would go by the house, I would often see Mrs. Watson and her nephew Billy Mead, sitting on the porch, looking down Monroe Avenue because there was a beautiful view looking down the street. And people liked living downtown. They, they enjoyed that. On the front, between the house and where the Metz building is, was a large fence, a wrought iron, black wrought iron, and behind �3 that you could look through and see Mrs. Watson in her garden. There was a beautiful pond on which she raised lilies, beautiful lilies. It was a lovely, garden and she lived there I think even up to the time of the Metz building. When I was a little girl, every year at Decoration Day, the National Guard sent up, or the Watson Post, sent up a military group of people, I don‟t know, it wouldn‟t be a regiment, with a band and the parade it, this, they would play patriotic music before the parade began. And often the parade started on Sheldon. Sometimes up around on Jefferson. And I could, I‟d run down the street and see all the parades, as a matter of fact. Most of them started up there. Later on the Christmas Parade started up there on Sheldon and would go down. But that was after Sheldon was getting to be more of a business street. Mrs. Watson could look out on Fulton Street Park and she could look across the road at the old Godfrey, May Godfrey home, which was on the corner of Park and Fulton; a lovely old-fashioned home which should never have been destroyed. That‟s where, they have parking lot now. It… Interviewer: What was Park Street? Which street is that? Miss Robinson: Park Street is the street that goes… well there were two Park Streets, Park Street going down, past Park Congregational Church. Interviewer: Oh. Miss Robinson: And, next to the Congregational church was a second Godfrey home. I think it was Mrs. Godfrey, Miss May Godfrey‟s brother that had that. And there was a Georgia Godfrey and I don‟t know whether that, she was quite a lot older than I and whether there were some other Godfreys or not. They moved to California. They were quite wealthy people. May Godfrey was a very wealthy woman. And so was the Godfrey family. And there was another Godfrey family that lived up on Fountain Street, right southwest of Lafayette, about two, two or three houses down. I think it was the house that the Booth people later on, Esther Booth lived in later on. Yes I‟m quite sure that was the Godfrey built by the Godfrey family, related to these Godfreys. They owned, I think a block down on Monroe Avenue. Interviewer: Well the Booth family house was come to be known as, the Booth house was built by the Shelbys. Miss Robinson: Oh, it was? Interviewer: Yes. Miss Robinson: Well, then it was the house next to it because I remember definitely there was a Godfrey house. But could it, it had been later, before that? I use to go to Fountain Street School. I went up the hill every day past all those houses. Interviewer: It was, it could have been perhaps the house…. Miss Robinson: I think it was the Booth house back then but it had gone long perhaps quite a time before that. And the Shelbys lived on at, the Shelbys that in my day lived on the other side of Agnes Caulfield or Mrs. McKnight‟s home. �4 Interviewer: Yes. Miss Robinson: They lived in a brick house on? Interviewer: They built this? Miss Robinson: On Lafayette. Interviewer: Yes, they built the three homes, they built two facing Lafayette Miss Robinson: They did? Oh. Interviewer: And they built the Booth house. Those three are all Shelby houses. Miss Robinson: Oh, I see, Yes. Well, Mrs, another little interesting thing about Mrs. Watson was that she, after her husband died, she went into deep mourning. And that was quite customary of widows in those days. And she wore a veil, a black veil, over her face for quite a while. This custom was, well, then she was, well, she stayed in mourning for a long time and they, she had a cemetery up here, Oak Hill Cemetery; a beautiful mausoleum where her husband was buried. And she would go up there occasionally and have, and look at, he‟s, she‟d have the drawer where he was placed, opened, and she could look in at him. And that, my father thought was very, what was the word? Interviewer: Morbid? Miss Robinson: Morbid. My father felt that mourning was terrible but they, you would see widows going down the street in their lovely carriages drawn by horses with docked tails and mourning ribbons tied on their ears or around their necks. They stayed in Side one second section: Miss Robinson: …. mourning for a year. My mother, my father begged my mother never to do so, so she didn‟t. He would, he wouldn‟t even drive through a cemetery. Well, Mrs. Watson was the aunt of the mother of well, she was the aunt of Mrs. Tom Carroll [Julia Agnes Mead]. I don‟t know whether Mr. Tom Carroll was an adopted, she was a Mead. And Katherine Carroll inherited the Watson home. And that was called the Wa, when they built, a building, they built the building on there which was called the Watson building. And there were offices in it and little stores along the side later on. And now it‟s, of course, Jacobson‟s. Then, next door there were just two houses in that block. Next door to Mrs. Watson, on the other side of the alley that ran from Sheldon to LaGrave was Mrs. Putnam‟s [Caroline nee Williams; Mrs. Lemuel D. Putnam] home, that was built up quite high, it was a hill, a slight hill there and it had beautiful lawn all the way around it. Mrs. Watson is, when I was a little, young girl, was very old, at least she seemed so to me, and she was very wealthy. And, I don‟t know what her husband did. She had once been the president of the Ladies Literary Club and at one time I think she was a teacher at a time when St. Mark‟s had a school for young women. One of… �5 Interviewer: Was this Mrs. Watson or Mrs. Putnam? Miss Robinson: Mrs. Putnam, excuse me. Interviewer: OK. Miss Robinson: Mrs. Putnam. She was once the president of the Ladies Literary and had been a teacher in the early days. I think in the Saint Mark‟s School for Young Ladies. One of the first schools here in Grand Rapids. And, so she was quite old, she had a daughter called Carolyn and then she, no maybe her name was Carolyn, her daughter was Isabelle [Isabel W. Putnam died 14 July 1901], because the Isabelle home was given in her, the member memory of her daughter. And, it was a home for old ladies. At first, in the first place it was out on, well, they called it Central Avenue, and they later changed it to, calling it Sheldon. But when, Sheldon ended at First Avenue, First Avenue, is it Buckley now? Interviewer: I‟m, I don‟t know. Miss Robinson: I think it is, they‟ve changed all those avenues from First, Second, Third and Fourth and Fifth. Interviewer: OK. Miss Robinson: And gave them the, because on the West side there are also First, First Streets and so forth and so they, it was often confusing. Well, Mrs.Ca, Mrs. Putnam, was known as the American Princess. Because she took, she went to Algiers every winter and that was quite a thing to do in that day. Not too many people went to Europe, as they do today. It was very wonderful to be able to have enough money to take a European trip. Well, she would take not only herself, but she took a nurse and a doctor, and a doctor and his wife and a companion sometimes and they were known as the American Princess, who took this great number of people. Well, I, then we come to my block, the block I live in. I don‟t remember this but my father bought, I think my father bought the lot, it was the second lot from Weston and in those days that was called Island Street, because that street went down to the Island, that had been in the, years ago destroyed but it went down near the jail. They, I, I guess the market place was on the, you know the market place. Interviewer: Yes. Miss Robinson: I think that was, where the island was. Of course that was filled up. Well that was called Island Street, and I think it should be Island today. It was named after somebody, I don‟t know who Mr. Weston was, but he sometime or other, the commissioners decided to change it from Island Street to Weston. Well, I think that‟s too bad because that‟s really a historical name. And, my father bought the second lot from the corner and on one of the leases it says it was from Mrs. Putnam, so she must have owned that land in there. They built in eighteen ninety-three and we moved in there in eighteen ninety-four. His first office had been on Monroe Avenue where the, above Herkner‟s. �6 Interviewer: Your, your, I don‟t think we‟ve established your father just for the sake of this tape. Your father was a dentist? Miss Robinson: Yes, well, yes, I was going to. He had, he came with my mother from, they were Massachusetts people originally. Their ancestors were all New England people. And they had come out to Paw Paw; my father went there to practice dentistry. My Grandfather Robinson, he wasn‟t, he came and died here in Grand Rapids at our home but I wasn‟t going to bring him in because he, his home was Jackson. His home was Ca, he was born in Concord and my father had been born in Salem and they‟d come out to, early days to Jackson. They went first to Ohio and then up to Jackson and he in those days, dentists did not go to college. There were no college, no dental college, that‟s what I was going to say. There were no dental colleges. The university, I don‟t know the year that university established a dental college, but my grandfather was one of the earliest dentists in the United States, but he began at a time when it was called a trade. And he was known; he was offered the deanship of the University of Michigan, the first deanship of the dental school at the University of Michigan. But he wasn‟t able to accept it because it didn‟t pay enough for him to support his family on. And so, Dean Taft became the first Dean. Well what it in was. The reason I brought this up was that dentists, dentists as lawyers, learned their trade in another dentist‟s office and that is how my father learned his trade. He learned it from, it became a profession, but he learned it from his father. And my, his father taught dentistry to many another dentists and our family was a dental family, because the uncles and my pr and cousins become dentists. And, my brother later became a dentist. But he, by the time that he was ready to become a dentist, the school had been established, of course Grandfather had, it was in his day that the school was established. And he went to the university and he came back. Well, then father built this for his office and it was a very nice home, fourteen room home. The Barth, I think there was a family by the name of Barth that lived next door on the north, on the corner. We were the second house. The house where the Imperial is today had been the Amberg home. And, they moved away about the time that we came in. You see, Sheldon apparently was changing somewhat in its nature. It was a degenerating, deteriorating somewhat. Not, not too much but a little bit because it was near downtown. And the Ambergs went out to Cherry Street to live. That was Julius Amberg‟s and Hazel Amberg‟s family. The Hazel A. is named after her, are on, the boat on the lake, and of course on one of the boats on the lake was named after Major Watson. The, that was a red brick house and surrounded with an iron wrought… Interviewer: Fence. Miss Robinson: …fence in front of it. Then the next home was, belonged to a man by the name of General [Byron] Pierce. They moved away when I was a small girl and I don‟t remember too much about them. And the next house belonged to Charlie Leonard. And I think this is a rather attractive story. They were there when we first moved there and mother said that Mrs. Charlie Leonard told her that she couldn‟t sleep nights because of [Mr. and Mrs. Clarence] Peck‟s baby, that‟s Clara, and Johnson‟s cow who lived on, kitty-corner. The Doctor Johnson lived kittycorner from the Leonards and they kept her awake, the cow kept her awake at night and the cow evidently was pastured between the Johnson home on Sheldon and Division Avenue, in a vacant lot. Now I talked with Agnes about that, and Agnes said she didn‟t remember anything about the Johnsons having a cow but I know my mother told me that. But Agnes remembered that, the �7 [George H.] Longs in the third block up, had a cow and that, just was disturbing some, disturbing sometimes and they brought it in on, into their yard and milked it at night. And, so you can see what Sheldon Avenue, how different it is today. The corner, where the Leonards lived, they didn‟t stay there too long. Across the road was the old All Souls Universalists Church, where I went to Sunday School. And there were a good many prominent people going to that church. My mother was an Episcopalian but my family, my father‟s family who had come from Concord and had, they had gone to the old meeting house, that first old meeting house during, which had been built there in Concord, the very first one and where the Concord, well Massachusetts had a provincial congress that met there at that meeting house and they voted to separate from England, in that old meeting house, and my grandfather had been born there, right next door to the meeting house. Well, let‟s see, what was I going to tell you? Oh, All Soul‟s Church had in it Judge [Willis] Perkins and his wife, the [Eilert] Clements family, Earle Clements and Roy Clements went there. The [Albert] Hicks [family], there was Russell Hicks and Kenneth Hicks going there. Mary Louise Powers and her mother the per, Powers. She‟s a teacher here. They went there. She had my, one of the Sunday School classes. The [William] Collins no, the [Ralph P.] Tietsort family. Yes and I guess Helen Collins. Helen Tietsort and Helen Collins went there to Sunday School, and the Hilton girls they were friends of my aunts went there and Judge Perkins was the head of the Sunday School and wait a moment, Marion Sprague, no what was her uncle‟s, her father‟s name? They lived up here on Madison. He was prominent, I think it was Sprague. Yes. It was Sprague and very prominent people living up here on Madison Avenue. They came down to the All Souls Church and one of the early ministers there was a Mr. [Charles] Fluhrer, and he was very prominent, and mother who was an Episcopalian would go with Father there and of course they sat, and Aunt Molly [Mary B. Robinson] lived with us. Grandpa and Aunt Molly came to live with us from Jackson, Michigan. Grandpa, Grandma had died when I was, the year I was born at eighty-five and Grandpa came to live when he was eighty-five, and Aunt Molly came and lived with me until I was thirty years old, and I was only a year old. Aunt Molly was a singer. Well, she went there, she, her name was Robinson, her name was Mary Robinson and she hadn‟t married. And then, let‟s see who else went there? Of course there was Mary Perkins and Margaret Perkins and June Perkins; they were all children of Judge [Willis B.] Perkins. They were down there, and Willis Perkins, they were all down there at that Sunday School. And it was a nice Sunday School and I remember the chicken-pie suppers we used to have there and on Christmas night every year Santy Clause always came and I was so excited because everybody, we all got a box of candy, Christmas candy in a box that looked like a chimney and a Santy Claus gave us all a gift. Then I‟d go home to my home and mother would tell me I could have some bread and milk and go to bed because Santy Claus had to come and to, bring down the chimney and then while I was eating the taking my bread and milk, my brother who was fifteen years older than I, would go around and knock on the window and I thought it was Santy Claus that was knocking on the window, and I would jump up, I‟d knock my milk over and I‟d go to bed. And then when we‟d come down in the morning the grate is the fire, that we had a fireplace. We had a quite modern house for those days because a lot of my friends tell me that they still had oil lamps. We had gas and electricity. Electricity was somewhat new and we had a furnace, a hot air, hot water furnace in the house. It was a fourteen room house and the pressure from the city was not too strong so it just brought the water into the city water into the house on the lower floor. And so we had a hydraulic pump in our kitchen. And we had a cistern and there were two faucets on the hydraulic, pump and one, pump would, one faucet would bring up, the water to a tank, we had a tank room on the second floor, and the water would be carried �8 up from that pump to that tank. And then we had our water in the bathroom you see. From the tank that was on the second floor, in the, just back of the bathroom. And we all, we drew up the city water, from other faucet. And later the, the cistern we just had to, it grew so commercial down there, so much smoke that we couldn‟t use the cisterns anymore and we had to disconnect that. Anyway we disconnected, then we had a new pipe brought in and we had water sent up from the city without the hydraulic pump. And at the, in that house, it was modern enough so that we had a switch on the first floor that we could light the electric light in the hall upstairs. And I think that was, for eighteen ninety-three was quite, quite modern. And we also had, we had hot water in the winter. We had, in our bathroom upstairs, and later we had, one of those old, instantaneous heaters over the bathtub to bring hot water. But of course the first years in the summer, we always had to heat our water in the tea-kettle. In the kitchen we had gas, we had a range, a wood or coal range, and on one end of it there was a boiler for hot water that we used for our dishes. We did, and we had to heat our water in the, later we put in a gas, a gas stove. I can remember having leg aches; they called it growing pains in those days. I don‟t know what, what it was, I out grew it anyway I used to go and sit with my leg on the edge of that, oven. Then, up the next block there were, there were the, beyond the church was the Doctor [F. Josephus] Groner home and then the Foster Stevens. Mr. Stevens, Mr. Sidney Stevens owned a very lovely home. And he was one of his, the owners of Foster and Stevens stores down on, down on Monroe. That was a very large and very lovely store. Hardware on the first floor and beautiful china on the second floor, and the Mr. Rood, I think was the buyer of that china, up there in that, Foster-Stevens Store. The next, his brother was Wilder, but he didn‟t live on Sheldon. Next to it was Agnes Caulfield‟s home, or Mr. Caulfield‟s home, Agnes was the youngest of the children. There was a Mr. Caulfield owned a grocery, wholesale grocery store, a whole, not store, a wholesale grocery company. And he must have made a lot of his money thru real estate, throughout the city. And their home was a lovely Victorian brick home, and the children were; George, Marie, maybe Marie was the oldest, Stella, Agnes and John. John married Clara Peck, later on. Interviewer: What, could we, I think this tape‟s about all over so I‟m going to turn it over O.K.? Miss Robinson: Yes, Alright. Interviewer: You were saying who married Clara Peck…? Miss Robinson: Well, John, the youngest of the Caulfield family married Clara Peck after her tragedy with Arthur Waite. She first married Arthur Waite and, you know that story. I don‟t, don‟t know whether I‟d better put it in or not. Interviewer: No, it‟s that‟s alright…. Miss Robinson: No, most everybody knows… Interviewer: If anybody wants to know they can certainly find out… �9 Miss Robinson: Yes, but after her tragedy, John Caulfield courted Clara, she had gone to California to live, and had a very lovely home in Pasadena. Both John Caulfield and Voigt, Ralph Voigt went out to spend the winter out there and I think they probably both were, maybe they were, I don‟t know of course their intentions, I don‟t know was, the, I don‟t know Mr. Voigt‟s intentions, but he was out there with, with John during that same winter and almost everybody thought that the two people were, courting Clara, but John was the one that married her. And they lived in California from then on. One of the most prominent members of the Caulfield family was Anna and she was among, I don‟t know, I think, I don‟t know where she‟s, whether she was the oldest or not. I, I don‟t know whether George or she. I didn‟t mention her before did I? Interviewer: No Miss Robinson: Or Marie, she was a very attractive woman and a very brilliant woman and she studied art. And became a very authority, connoisseur would you say of in art. She brought to Grand Rapids the Alliance Française, or she started one and she also started a dramatic club. And she was president of the Ladies Literary which was right across from where I lived. The Ladies Literary Club must have been founded in eighteen seventy for it had its hundredth birthday last year in nineteen seventy. Agnes, Anna was, wore beautiful clothes and she was a very, gracious president. I can remember the Ladies Literary Club from a very small child, it had a great many of the prominent women of Grand Rapids in it and who, numbers of whom were presidents. Mother was a member and I used to like to go over there when, when there was no club going, where there was nothing when I was a little girl. And I, if the janitor was there I‟d go in there, sometimes, I‟d, the club was a little different than it is today, It‟s been made over. It was, it had a flat floor, today it has a raised floor, for, had a flat floor and all the chairs were caned bottomed, they were oak cane bottomed. And the platform now you have to go enter the platform from the back of the stage. At that time it was not as high as it is and it, you could, you could go up by steps. There were three wide steps that go up. And it was very pretty, very attractive. It had two lovely tables, I remember and two lovely chairs up there. They didn‟t have as many dishes in those days. There were two rooms back there as it. It didn‟t it, they haven‟t changed the plan of it, the auditorium and the stage had been changed. Mrs. [Loraine] Immen was a very prominent woman there, she had Shakespeariana; she was the head of the Shakespeariana. My mother was a member of that. Some of the, she‟s given a window in the Ladies Literary, a beautiful window in the, in the front room. It was given in, I don‟t know, I think she gave it. Her class, she was a very brilliant woman and her classes were very brilliant. Then there was a Mrs. Fletcher. Now Mrs. Fletcher I‟m not sure just how she was related to Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Ward is related to the Corneliuses. But Mrs. Fletcher was the second wife and I think Mrs. Ward was the daughter of the first wife. I don‟t know, she was the mother of the Corneliuses, wasn‟t she? I, I may not… Interviewer: Yes? Miss Robinson: I‟m not very straight on this. They owned the Fletcher block that was on the corner of Division and Weston, not far from me. Mrs. Fletcher had a Shakespeare group in the club. I don‟t know whether Shakespeariana was outside the club in those days or not but it is today. Mother belonged to both of them and Mrs. Fletcher thought that she was her star pupil because Mother was a very beautiful reader. When I was coming, Mother had to retire from the �10 Shakespeare Group and Mrs. Fletcher was quite disappointed when she had one of her star pupils leaving. Well, that, I can remember going down to the Fletcher Block. That was the corner, was a saloon there later, but I think there were rooms up there that Mr. Fletcher owned. People lived above buildings in those days. I mean they were not just scum, but quite nice people. In fact, I think my mother and father on Monroe Avenue, till he got started in his business, had rooms right in, next to his office, above the Herkner building. Interviewer: Yes? Miss Robinson: And, other people lived all those rooms are all empty now you know, but they, and there was a restaurant, a quite a stylish restaurant down there under the Herkner. But I‟m wandering, the Fletchers, I lived there and I used to like to as a little girl, run up into the Fletchers. I‟d go up the back door, on Island Street and Mrs. Fletcher would give me maple sugar candies. That‟s how I remember Mrs. Fletcher. But she was a very bright woman and carried on the Shakespeare group in the Ladies Literary Club. They had, at one time; Mrs. Russell was the president, Mrs., what was his name? She was a Comstock. Interviewer: He was a Comstock, Mr…. Miss Robinson: No, a Mrs. Russell was a Comstock, Mr. Russell, and Mrs. Boltwood was her sister. They were Comstock sister, Comstock was named hot little town, he owned all that land, out there now…. Interviewer: I think that, I think that the way it was, was because I‟ve interviewed the Russells is that Mr. Russell was the Comstock and Mrs. Russell was a Hopson. Miss Robinson: No that‟s, you‟re talking about the son. I‟m about the, Mrs. The older people. Interviewer: Oh, OK, I see. Miss Robinson: Mr. Russell and Mrs. Boltwood. Mrs., that Mrs. Russell was the father of Francis Russell, and Francis Russell married Lucille Hopson and they went to school with me. Interviewer: I see. Miss Robinson: Francis Russell was in my class in high school. And Lucille Hopson was probably the next class down, a year or so later. And no they‟re my, but this is the older group. They lived up, they lived out at North Park, not North Park, near the Soldier‟s home and we, in Mrs. Russell‟s home they had a very beautiful, ballroom and gave many, a young parties out there for the young people of the town. There was Francis Russell and his older brother, Charles Russell, he, they still live out in that home out there. And then, Mrs. Boltwood lived on the, there was Wealthy-Taylor bus that went out, out there and went right between those two houses. The Boltwoods on, near the river. Now the Boltwoods and the Russells owned all that river land and they gave it to the city and it, it‟s a park land. It was given on condition that they would redeem it from the swamps; it was in the swamp land. And maybe, at this time I‟m diverging from Sheldon Avenue but during the war, Lucius Boltwood was in the army. I suppose Francis was �11 too, I don‟t know, but I knew, I knew Lucius. And, Lucius was, tried to get in the army. He was turned down many times and then he was, he wanted to go into the Navy and he couldn‟t get in. This is the First World War. And then he went into, he finally got, he was finally drafted. He‟d been turned down time and again and during this time, he was engaged to a Marian Berkey, who married him and before, I think he went to war. Yes, I‟m sure because he died in the war. And she was, became Marian Boltwood. You see and then later, she‟s Mrs. Whinery now. She married Ingles Whinery, after a number of years after Lucius Boltwood‟s death. Well, I was telling, the reason I brought in the Boltwoods and the Russells on Sheldon Avenue was because they were, Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Boltwood were both presidents of the Ladies Literary Club at different times and as a little girl, the Ladies Literary Club, when it was first new, you know that was one of the first big clubs in the ladies clubs in the United States. It was known all over for its wonderful programs, they brought in such marvelous people and Anna McKnight, Anna Caulfield McKnight when she was president, brought a great many of the, she brought Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft and many prominent people before, while most of the ladies clubs of the country were just having well, programs among themselves. Interviewer: Yes. Miss Robinson: What do you call them, what‟s the word I want to use, homemade programs, current events and so forth. Well, mother would go over to the Ladies Literary. I can remember this first, they had a janitor just half a day in those early days and we were right across the road and very convenient, and they didn‟t have many dishes and they would be going to serve the tea so or they would be going to put, bring flowers down. And they would come down to our home and they couldn‟t get into the club because the Janitor wasn‟t there so they would say “can we leave our things in your vestibule?” And they‟d leave a lot of these different dishes and /or vases in the vestibule and I always thought of it as well I think we were kind of an annex to the Ladies Literary Club. And then after the membership after the club was over, a lot of mother‟s friends would come over and we almost had a reception there, following the Ladies Literary Club. Well, then when Mrs. Russell and some of these people that mother knew became president, then she, they weren‟t quite so strict about letting people in those days, she would think of me , I was thirteen or fourteen years old and she would think of me and think, oh I wish Doris could go over and hear that program. So she would go up to some one of the ladies and say, “Can I get a ticket, a guest ticket for my daughter?” And they‟d say “Just bring her over.” So I remember that when Mr. Roosevelt, that is what happened when Mr. Roosevelt came to town. Anna McKnight was then president. Anna Caulfield McKnight and she gave mama permission to bring me over, and I sat on my front porch at the time be, before mother came over, and up the street came Mr. Roosevelt in a very elegant carriage, with someone driving and some prominent man beside him. And he went in to the club house, and then I, Mama came and got me and I went over and I heard Mr. Teddy Roosevelt talk and he was very much impressed with Mrs. McKnight. She was a very gracious woman, very, very educated, very cultured and a connoisseur. I told you before in art. Later Mrs. Knight, Mrs. Cau, of course Anna, she was Anna Caulfield; she married Mr. [William F.] McKnight, a prominent lawyer here and they built up on the, or they bought up on the corner of Fountain and Lafayette, right next to the Shelby home. That is where Anna, is living to, that is �12 where Agnes is living today. A Mrs. McKnight went later to France and lived there quite a while and met very prominent people there and she had photographs of many prominent people there where she had her, photographs of many prominent men that she had met here in America when, Agnes has them there I think on their grand piano. They‟re very, it‟s quite, I would say a very valuable collection of pictures. Well, then across the road, let‟s see if I can think of anything else, George, oh well Marie, Marie was a very attractive, oh I know what I wanted to tell you about, I can remember Marie and Stella, she, Stella was one of the children. Stella and, she was a friend of my mother‟s though quite younger, they, they would pass our house and I was a little girl and I can just see those girls with their trains and their lovely, full skirts, ruffled skirts and lovely picture hats with lovely parasols. Every, these girls in those days carried parasols and they looked just beautiful, I can remember that so well. And of course, John was older than I, oh I would say he was quite a bit older than I but he was and he was younger than my brother. My brother was fifteen years older. My brother, I think, maybe I‟d tell a little bit about my father and my brother in my home, there before I go get through. My father had been a prominent dentist and when he came to Grand Rapids, there were just nine dentists in the town. And he was quite aggressive in a way, he was, I think he was a popular man, I think he was very much liked because he died when I was five and I can remember him but I had so many people, Mrs. Russell, Mrs. Boltwood use to come to me and say, your father was such a nice man. And he had quite a big (practice?) at the time on Sheldon he had built his practice up to quite a good practice of quite prominent people. There the Voigts that came to him and the Russells and the Boltwoods, but of course I was so young I can‟t remember all the rest, I just remember my mother telling me, and I can remember that he died of diphtheria. Interviewer: How did he catch diphtheria? Miss Robinson: Nobody in this city no, had it and we don‟t know but we think it might have been a carrier because he practiced, you see, he was practicing dentistry and he worked over their mouths and he might have had it and it was very, very, virulent black diphtheria in those days. An antitoxin was just new. And I was taken out, I had had the grippe, and I had a nurse, and that nurse went right over to my father who had colic, they called it colic but what I think it was appendicitis. I don‟t think they knew what an appendicitis was, and I think he had actually, every once in a while he would have an attack of colic, and I think it must have been his appendix that were not right. And then so this, he had colic and then he went down to Dr. Randall, no Rankin. Dr. Rankin was a prominent throat man and a doctor, no he didn‟t go... Yes, Dr. Rankin operated on his throat. And I think, that was the worst thing in the world that may, he may he had throat trouble, and he didn‟t go for his colic but he went down there evidently for this throat that would, left a raw place and he had, he had, black diphtheria starts in the nose and they didn‟t recognized it and he was very, very ill when they recognized it. Well, they took me out and they took me to the Bradley, to the Bradford home, and it was a farm out on West Leonard that was all farmland there, no none of these houses. And the [Charles] Bradfords were very good friends of my mother‟s and father‟s and one of the Bradfords married an Afkin and the other Bradford, Leona, of course she was a child older than I at that time but, she married Mr. [Arthur M.] Godwin of the bank. What‟s his first name? Interviewer: I don‟t �13 Miss Robinson: Mrs. Godwin, Mrs. Per, Mrs. Godwin was here, Lillian, Lily Godwin, she was a Perkins, she married a Perkins and Mable Perkins is her sister-in-law. Well, Mr. Godwin‟s first wife, he was vice president of the Grand Rapids Savings Bank and his first wife was Leona Bradford. And that‟s where I was, out there on that Bradford farm at the time of my father‟s death. But I was five years old and, in those days it was, of course, that was quarantined. They had two nurses then and so Dr. [D. Emmett] Welch became his doctor and Dr. Welch was one of the prominent doctors in the throat, ear, nose and throat. He married Fanny McCrath, a very prominent family here who lived on Cherry Street near Jefferson. And right up on in the cemetery where my father is buried in Oak Hill, my family plot, is in McGraths, a large tombstone for the McCraths. Dr. Welch is buried there and Mrs. Fanny McCrath Welch is buried right next to where all my and then the Davises are, that live on Fountain are right next to us, and the Waters mausoleum is right there. I grew up there, I don‟t go very often, my father didn‟t like it, didn‟t want anybody to go. We go once a year. Well, now what else oh, I‟m up on the corner of the Caulfield house, I diverged there and told them a little bit about my family. Anything I want to tell anymore about that, I guess not. Across the road from the Caulfields was Johnny Burns home, now that, remember that‟s an older family. That isn‟t the John Burns that died later, that, the mother of Mrs. Alexi Burns, that‟s her grandfather. Well, they were a prominent family and they had a daughter, a son John Burns and a daughter who was Mrs. Hollow and they had s son, he, the grandson lived there. Well, he was quite a gay young fellow. They had a lot of money, they were very wealthy people you know the Burns. You know Mrs. Burns, don‟t you? She just died. Don‟t you know who Alexi Burns is? Interviewer: No. Miss Robinson: Oh, they were prominent people here and they were very prominent and very wealthy. An Irish family and there are I „m thinking why I‟m smiling a little bit, he was quite a friend of the McGurrin boys who lived up in the block on another side of the road. There was Mickey McGurrin and I can‟t think of the names. Tom sometimes I used to know him by, but that isn‟t the name I know. The Woodcocks lived on the corner and the Woodcock boys were Harold Woodcock and Robert Woodcock, they never married. But that was a big brick house, very in that this is the block that‟s just this side, that‟s I‟m talking about that‟s just this side of the Catholic Church. And this block had a number of Catholic families in it; quite wealthy Catholic families. Interviewer: Now that is which street? Miss Robinson: What? Interviewer: Which street is that? Miss Robinson: It‟s Sheldon. Interviewer: Sheldon. �14 Miss Robinson: It‟s on Sheldon, the corner of Sheldon and Cherry. The Woodcocks, and they were a wealthy family, they were across Cherry Street from the Caulfields. Johnny Burns was across the road from, on Sheldon Street. He was on the corner of Cherry on the west, the northwest corner of Cherry, and then the Turners who was the, who started, who owned the Eagle newspaper. Lived on the, I think his name was Aaron Turner, and who lived on the north, we, the southwest corner. Burns‟ lived on the northwest corner and Turner lived on the southwest corner and the Woodcocks and with their sons Harold and Bob, who many people will know here in this town, the one just died recently, lived on that other corner. The second house next to the Woodcocks was the, was the McGurrin House and there was Mickey McGurrin and we‟ll call him Gerald McGurrin. Gerald McGurrin. I think he‟s known by Tom too. Mickey McGurrin was quite a friend of Bern Halls. Burn Hall was the grandson of John, the Burns. They were, he was about my age, a little older, these and they had a gang. And up here on Cherry, on a Fulton Street lived Brandt Walker and Brandt Walker told me they had a gang. Brandt is dead now, he lived between Lafayette and Prospect and they had a gang. But they were not quite; they were a little milder than the McGurrin gang. And they were scared to death for fear the McGurrin gang would come up and attack them. And they had their barns filled with stones they‟d collected stones and they were ready for an attack. And sometimes they did, the two gangs got together, I guess and had good little fights. Well, Irene McGurrin became a music teacher in the schools and Mr. McGurrin was General McGurrin, a general in the Army during the War of 1812. Oh, the war, Spanish-American War. The Spanish-American War. And later he was made head of the Soldier‟s Home, out on the North end where the Veterans are now. It was the Soldiers‟ Home and he was demoted, well he was Colonel because that was the actual title that went with that home, that office. They were quite a colorful family, I think, and I can see him riding horses during the parades that came up Monroe Avenue on Decoration Day, he always led a company. There‟d be the coming those parades would have soldiers of the, GOP is it? Interviewer: G.A.R. Miss Robinson: G.A.R. Interviewer: Grand Army Republicans Miss Robinson: Grand, yes Grand G.O.P. is Republicans. Interviewer: Republicans. Miss Robinson: Grand Party of the Republican and then, they kept getting older and older each year and then they finally couldn‟t march anymore and they‟d come in carriages and then finally there were none at all. And then, there would be the second, army thing would come up would be a regiment of the Americans, Spanish-American War, and I can remember when that war ended, and all the Dewey‟s pictures that would be in all the windows and I can remember when Mr. McKinley died. They had his picture in the window draped in black. He was, of course killed by an anarchist at Buffalo. I can remember I was seven years old I think and I ran out and told the people next door that Mr. McKinley was gone. �15 Interviewer: How did you get the news? Miss Robinson: My mother. Newspapers, extras would come out, all the different newspapers; we had two, three papers in town. There was the Herald which had been the Eagle. Mr. Turner so got old, made his money I guess, he was the head of the Grand Rapids Eagle and he sold it or it became the Herald, I think he lost his money and he had something to do with and William Alden Smith was a Newsboy I think on that paper and they knew him quite well through that and he I think Mr. Turner lost his money and Mr. Smith recommended somebody to buy it and he sold his paper to him and he never got his money out of it. Interviewer: Yes? Miss Robinson: It was beautiful where he lived in that beautiful white house on the southwest corner. I don‟t know, I can remember one or two incidents that Mrs. Moser, she was the daughter of Mr. Turner and lived in that house. Interviewer: Now that house on the southwest corner of…. Miss Robinson: Yes, Cherry and Sheldon. Interviewer: OK. Miss Robinson: Across from Johnny Burns on one corner and Mrs. Woodcock on the other, and Gerald McGurrin, they were good Catholics and Gerald was full. Harry as I told you was the head of a gang and he went up in, he used to go up in that church and he‟d, the Catholic Church and he‟d get into pull the belfry bell and the priest would go after him and he‟d run and one day he ran down Sheldon Street and he got into the Turner home and he ran right through the front door an out the back door and down to Division and after, the priest, Mrs. Moser told me. She said we never gave Gerald away to the priest but he was the one that pulled the rope. Then there was another family on that side, another two families. There were the [George H] Longs right next door to the [Aaron B.] Turners. . Mr. Long was a lumberman and he made a great deal of money thru lumber. It was a beautiful red brick house trimmed in white and there were a number of daughters. He was quite, I don‟t know what to say here in public about him. Because he had a daughter, maybe you better put that out but he had a very lovely wife and very lovely daughters. There was Emma and she became Mrs. [John P.] Homiller. There was Helen, I can‟t remember what her name was but her daughter is Mrs. Kendall, out here. And then there was Anna and she married Alex McPherson and their daughter is Anna, Margret McPherson the music teacher here. And the youngest was Louise. I can remember Louise better than the others. Though I did meet Mrs., they were grown up you see when I was still little. But I can see Louise passing our house and she was educated in France, I think. And he was very strict with his daughters but, in some ways they were afraid of him, I think. They were a colorful family. Now I can‟t go into the all the details I‟ve just heard it repeated you know. Interviewer: OK. �16 Miss Robinson: Doctor Sinclair a homeopathic doctor was our doctor and he lived next door to the McGurrins, the third house down. It was the Woodcocks, the McGurrins and the Sinclairs. He was a doctor M.C. He had a brother in town here by the name of Dan. D. S. I guess Doctor D. S. and M. C., Sinclair and he was, I just loved Dr. Sinclair, he was, they don‟t have homeopathic doctors anymore. He was didn‟t believe, they didn‟t believe in the other, other doctors were allopaths and their idea, oh I think it was to give medicine that was of the same type. I‟m not sure, I might get it mixed up, but I know their medicines tasted good. There never was anything bad in that you tasted, they tasted of sugar and they even when they were water, put it into a glass of water they never tasted bad. He was a lovely man. And Jean his daughter married Mr. Curtis who was president of the Old Kent Bank at one time. And they lived up on Fulton Street here and Douglas Sinclair was the son. Interviewer: I think that‟s about it Miss Robinson: Alright. Interviewer: I think that was a very good interview though Miss Robinson: Was it? Interviewer: Yes. INDEX A F Alliance Française Club · 10 Amberg Family · 7 Fletcher, Mrs. · 10, 11 B G Godfrey Family · 3, 4 Boltwood Family · 11, 12, 13 Booth Family · 3, 4 Burns Family · 14, 15, 16 C Carroll, Mr. and Mrs. · 5 Caulfield Family · 4, 9, 12, 13, 14 Clements Family · 7 Collins Family · 7 D Davis Family · 14 H Hicks Family · 7 I Immen, Loraine · 10 L Ladies Literary Club · 5, 10, 11, 12 Leonard Family · 7, 14 �17 M Russell, Mr. and Mrs. · 7, 11, 12, 13 McKnight, Anna · 4, 12, 13 S P Shelby Family · 3, 4 Perkins Family · 8 Perkins, Judge · 7, 14 Putnam, Mrs. · 5, 6 U R Robinson, Albert (Father) · 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14 Robinson, Jennie M. Baker (Mother) · 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16 Robinson, Mary P. (Aunt Molly) · 8 Roosevelt, President Theodore · 12, 13 University of Michigan · 6 W Ward, Mrs. · 10 Watson, Major Amasa B. · 2, 4, 5, 7 Winegar Family · 2 Woodcock Family · 15, 17 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2b7f136dcd276cee4d38435a209846b9.mp3 309fb3e1b9ad60260bb1524891f55f12 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grand Rapids Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Local histories Memoirs Michigan--History Oral histories (document genre) Description An account of the resource Taped and transcribed interviews conducted in the early 1970s primarily of the children and grandchildren of many of the founders of Grand Rapids, Michigan; many of whom were residents of the Heritage Hill neighborhood. Interviews were collected to develop a significant collection of oral resources that would supplement other primary and secondary local history materials. Initially funded as a private project, Grand Valley State College (now University) assumed responsibility for continuing the project until 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/452">Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf; audio/mp3 Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text; Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1971 - 1977 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-23_34Robinson Title A name given to the resource Robinson, Doris Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robinson, Doris Description An account of the resource Doris Robinson was born in 1893 in Grand Rapids, where she lived her whole life. Her father was a dentist. She once saw Theodore Roosevelt at the Ladies' Literary Club when she was fourteen years old. Subject The topic of the resource Michigan--History Local histories Memoirs Oral histories (document genre) Grand Rapids (Mich.) Personal narratives Heritage Hill (Grand Rapids, Mich.) Grand Valley State University Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf audio/mp3 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Rapids oral history collection (RHC-23) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a8abcf5f1e7d1fcc3b64ac53db5f7a8f.mp4 82de836b55d5664e150f0702d632ad13 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7a952516e54a2b667b1eb66ba7367471.pdf 74fa74f54beb2fa37aecc5db318c2e4e PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project George Robinson (01:20:37) (00:20) Background Information • • • • • George was born in Allegan, Michigan in 1922 His father worked at Baker Furniture as a factory foreman George graduated from high school in 1942 While in school he had paid much attention to news of the war, but had never expected to be drafted George enlisted in the Army with a good friend of his after graduating high school (2:45) the Army • George was first sent to Fort Custer in Battle Creek, MI where he was sworn in and received physical examinations • He was then sent to Camp Crowder in Missouri for basic training • There was tons of red clay in the area and it was hard to breathe with all the dust • The men trained on a rifle range, marched, and did many physical activities • George was in basic training for about six months and then went to Midland Radio School in Kansas City to learn Morse Code • The classes were very difficult, but they had an excellent instructor • George and others were staying in a luxury hotel and able to go out to town on the weekends • The classes were much better than basic training and they were treated well (11:55) Camp Picket, Virginia • George continued training in Virginia and then was transferred to Little Creek for amphibious training • They worked on mock landings near beaches • They were working as a unit with the 294th Joint Assault Signal Company • George was working on furnishing communications along the beach (16:30) Florida • He was then sent to Fort Pierce in Florida to work on maneuvers in swamps • The men had been staying in tents near a sand bar when George all of a sudden got very sick • He was sent to the infirmary and the doctor told him that he had a sinus infection, but he felt much worse • George was later diagnosed with Spinal Meningitis and was sent to an Air Force hospital �• • • • • A doctor later told him that he needed to get involved in more outdoor activity, so a nurse took him out to hang out at the nearby Yacht Club on Palm Beach They met many nice rich people and visited all their mansions along the beach George continued to recover in the hospital for about two months and was then sent back to Virginia He had been told he would have to start right back in with the strenuous activity and he appealed to a general with his recent sickness George was sent home to recover for another two weeks (22:15) Europe • After his time on leave George once again went to Virginia and then to Boston • They took a troop train to Halifax, Nova Scotia and then boarded an old Canadian ship • The ship was very old and they had to sleep on hammocks and eat codfish all day • They crossed the Atlantic with a few other ships, but George said he would not have considered it a convoy • They trip lasted about a week and George was sick the whole time • They landed in Liverpool and took a train to Swansea, Wales • The area was devastated and they were there for about 3 months, working on maneuvers and other physical work (27:20) Training for the Invasion • They were getting ready for the invasion of Normandy and George was working on a SCR 284 code radio; it was very heavy and had to be set up with an antenna and a generator • They moved out to a D-Camp along the coast where there was constant air raids • The Germans were trying to blow up ships at the port and every night was like a fireworks display • They often had to hide in trenches to avoid being hit with shrapnel • George and others were in a secret briefing about a week before the invasion (35:15) Locals in Europe • Before preparing for the invasion George had met many nice people in Swansea and in London • Many locals invited them over for dinner • They people were very strong and resilient; London had been blown to pieces and many were still worried about a possible German invasion • During the war it seemed like the whole country was loaded with American troops and ships (37:30) Normandy �• • • • • They were supposed to board a ship for the invasion on June 4, but the ship was blown up before everyone boarded They left the next day on a different ship and headed for Normandy There were rockets flying all over the place where they landed, on Omaha Red, one of the worst places to land They were immediately being shot at with machine guns, artillery, and rifle fire They got off their landing craft and there were dead bodies all over the beach (45:30) Clearing off the Beach • The Germans had great technology and were able to lock down on anything that moved and destroy it • The Americans finally made it through with a tank in the evening and many were able to make it up the hill • George and a few others found a trail that Germans had been moving on and made their way up the hill • The next day they moved along the beach and ended up in a small French town • Their company took over an old French farm house and George ended up staying in the barn • They had not known much about what was going on with the invasion and there were not many superiors to answer to (51:20) Last Days in France • George began working with a ship to shore radio, trying to get ships loaded and to shore with men and supplies • They moved out of Omaha to Cherbourg and also traveled through St. Lo, which was completely devastated • Many pilots were parachuting out of their planes over France so they could cross the channel • Once the invasion had occurred, there was no longer work for an amphibious unit and George was able to go back to the US (56:55) Aboard the Queen Mary across the Atlantic • The Queen Mary was a luxury liner and the ride was much more comfortable and shorter than the ride to Europe • George went home on furlough for 2 weeks and was then sent to California on a luxury train • George was sent to Camp Pendleton for more training and to learn Allied Code for international communication in the Pacific • He had a good friend that lived in California and visited him on the weekends, spending some time in Hollywood �• George was in California for about 4 months training for the invasion of Japan (1:00:45) Hawaii • The men were sent out to Hawaii to practice maneuvers, but soon news of the end of the war came through • George was very glad that he did not have to continue working with the unit from Hawaii because he thought they worked terribly; maybe they had been stationed in Hawaii for too long • He continued to work on changing radio frequencies while waiting to be discharged • George was in Hawaii for about an extra month living in a large tunnel near a pineapple farm • They had a large parade on Honolulu after the war (1:08:45) Discharged • George was sent to Illinois to be discharged and then traveled back to Michigan • He had earlier worked in a shoe store and was not sure if he wanted to continue that work • Many of his friends were leaving to go to college at the University of Michigan and tried to talk him into it • George ended up buying his own shoe store and worked there for 40 years, but sometimes regrets not going to college � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RobinsonG Title A name given to the resource Robinson, George (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robinson, George Description An account of the resource George Robinson was born in Allegan, Michigan in 1922 and enlisted in the Army shortly after graduating from high school. George went through basic training in Missouri, radio code training in Kansas City, and amphibious training in Virginia. He then went to England to prepare for the Normandy invasion, and landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. After the invasion George was sent to Hawaii to train for the invasion of Japan. The war ended before George was shipped across the Pacific and he was discharged shortly after. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-06-08 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/481a2069776f2f3fc6f235d512c86daf.m4v 2288b500001b75e9dec72f3510ab7e2a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/98bafa2e7f6d031cc1238bca07cdd759.pdf 8002cb5f203f19c1ae547a0352f2a94c PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project George Robinson Post-Vietnam Cold War 59 minutes 29 seconds (00:00:38) Early Life -Born in Billings, Montana on July 3, 1954 -Father was transferred to California, Washington, Kansas, and back to Montana -Settled down in Montana when George was nine years old -Worked in finance services -Served aboard the USS Badoeng Strait (CVE-116) in the Korean War -Mother was a medical secretary and did transcriptions for doctors -Graduated from high school in 1973 (00:02:30) Vietnam War -Very aware of the Vietnam War -Watched the evening news and saw footage from the war and anti-war protests -Father was pro-military -He was in the Civil Air Patrol and the Reserve Officers' Training Corps in high school -Aware of the events happening in the country and in Vietnam -Two of his football coaches were drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam -Came back changed men -Older brother was drafted, but never got called up to serve (00:04:47) Enlisting in the Navy -Planned on enlisting in the Navy after high school -Always fascinated by planes and the water -Meant that since middle school he was interested in going into Naval Aviation -Enlisted two or three months before graduating (spring 1973) -Recruiters were happy that he enlisted -Went to Butte, Montana for his enlistment physicals -Exciting to get into the Navy -Took an aptitude test to see where he would do well in the Navy -Told he would do well as an aviation structure mechanic -Fit him well since he liked to work with his hands -Eventually got the job that he was promised (00:07:51) Basic Training -Ordered to report to San Diego, California for basic training -Got to fly there, which he enjoyed -Went through basic training with his best friend -When they arrived in San Diego the Navy recruits were calmly told to go wait for a bus -The Marine recruits were screamed at and immediately given orders -Arrived in San Diego at night -Brought into a big room on the base -Formed a training company -Given a brief orientation �-Taken to get food then issued a bunk for the night -The next day they got up early and walked over to a building for further processing -Vaccinations, haircut, and breakfast -Basic training was split into two phases -Together they amounted to about nine weeks -Shorter because the Vietnam War was coming to an end -First phase of basic training was a week and a half, or two weeks -Worked on discipline, protocol, and getting used to working as a unit -A lot of the recruits resisted discipline -Didn't make sense to him since they were all volunteers -There was some ethnic tension in the first phase of training -Had an idea of what to expect from his experience in the ROTC -If someone resisted, or made a mistake, the entire company was punished -Ex. Standing at attention in the cold at 12:30 AM -Men washed out -One man smashed his own head on bathroom tile to get discharged -Next phase focused on the details of being a sailor -Navy history -Uniform Code of Military Justice -Ranks in the Navy -Seamanship -Didn't receive any specialized training in basic training -Basic training consisted of marches and classroom work -Learned about ships and the parts of ships -Had a mock ship called the USS Recruit (TDE-1) Learned about how to navigate a ship and the jargon used on a ship -Learned how to fight fires on ships -How to go into a room with a fire and put out a fire -Received gas training -Went into a room and put on a gas mask, then tear gas was pumped into the room -Once the room filled with gas they had to take off their masks -Unenjoyable, but not traumatizing -There was a lot of pomp and ceremony for graduation -Received orders for further training -"Cinderella Liberty" -Got to leave base, but had to be back by midnight -Received dress uniforms -All white, and more like an officer's uniform than the "traditional" uniform -Marching to graduation a seagull pooped on him -Nothing he could do to clean it off -Didn't get in trouble for it though (00:23:17) Aviation Structure Mechanic School -Received orders for Naval Air Technical Training Center Memphis -Sent to the "A" School to learn how to be an aviation structure mechanic -"A" School would be like undergraduate school �-"Fleet" is like an internship, and "C" School is like graduate school -Lasted six weeks -Focused on learning about metallurgy and riveting -A lot of classroom work and hands-on training -Learned about hydraulics, metals, and locks and oxygen systems -Trained from 9 AM to 5 PM then had homework -The base was away from Memphis, and there wasn't much to do on base except study -Didn't bother him because he was underage anyway -Limited transportation off base limited travel off base too (00:27:00) Stationed at Naval Air Station Miramar -Received orders for VFP-63 at NAS Miramar, San Diego, California -VFP-63: Light photographic squadron of the Navy -Upon arrival he checked in with the chief of the squadron -Had jets coming and going all the time, so it was always very loud -Worked with variants of the F-8 Crusader -F8J: fighter jet and RF-8G: photo reconnaisance -There were five detachments aboard five different carriers at sea, and the "Home Guard" -He was part of the "Home Guard" which supported the five detachments -Supplied jets to the detachments and repaired jets for the detachments -Helped train new pilots before they went to an aircraft carrier -There was always something to do -The F-8s were older jets and always needed repair -Repaired jets due to rough carrier landings, or hard landings at Miramar -Replacing brakes, arresting gear, or landing gear -Stopping corrosion from salt water -The base worked 24 hours a day and there were three different shifts -Afternoon and evening shifts were more relaxed -Had enough work, so there was always something to do -Went to Naval Air Station North Island and collected parts from the "boneyard" -Place where planes were retired and used for scrap (00:33:27) Carrier Duty -Did "night qualifications" aboard the USS Enterprise and USS Ranger aircraft carriers -Went aboard a carrier for two weeks and sailed around Alameda, California -Pilots had to fly at night before going to a carrier at sea -He worked as a troubleshooter on the flight deck at night -There were never any major injuries or accidents while he was on the carriers -Most injuries were basic bumps and scrapes -Worst accident happened after he left the USS Ranger -A jet made a hard landing and the landing gear hit, and killed, a sailor -Jets took basic damage because of being flown by new pilots -Exciting to be on the flight deck of aircraft carriers (00:37:13) Men of VFP-63 -Unit was diverse in terms of military careers -One man had fought with the Marines in Vietnam and transferred to the Navy -Men that had been in Vietnam and served off the coast of Vietnam �-A lot of them had enlisted out of high school (00:38:26) Post-Vietnam Military Climate & Morale -Saigon fell in April 1975 -After the fall of Saigon the Navy maintained a minimal presence near Vietnam -There were financial cuts to the military -Negative public opinion of the military after the Vietnam War -Civilians ignored servicemen, but weren't rude -Felt like being nonexistent -Shops wanted money from sailors, but didn't want to deal with sailors -Morale was good in his unit -Nobody was having major problems, or getting thrown in jail -There was recreational drug use, but it never caused problems (00:41:56) Foreign Military -Saw Iranian officers at NAS Miramar -Buying stripped down F-14 fighter jets from the U.S. government -Fortunately, they weren't sold any scrap parts -In 1979 Iran was taken over by religious extremists (00:44:30) Downtime -Spent time with cowboys -Went to country bars -Set up informal, impromptu rodeos -Didn't spend a lot of time in downtown San Diego -There were still a lot of hippies in San Diego -Found them interesting, but felt no connection with them (00:45:40) Getting Married -Met his wife, Theresa, while stationed at NAS Miramar -Wife was in VF-121 -Known for Top Gun -Met his wife at the Enlisted Men's Club in late 1975 -Navy didn't care about fraternizing between men and women -At the time, women were kept separate from the men -Different barracks -Not allowed to serve aboard ships -Most did clerical or medical work -Didn't notice any tension between men and women -There were more men in the Navy than women if his own unit was evident -Received orders for HT-8 (helicopter squadron) in Florida -Supposed to report there the week he was scheduled to get married -Wife pulled some strings and his orders for HT-8 were cancelled -Got married and moved into an apartment in San Diego -Secluded, nice apartment, but it got broken into -Decided to move to an apartment in Poway, California (north of San Diego) -Brand new apartment -Spent their first Christmas there together -Lived below the poverty line, but managed (00:52:43) End of Service �-Signed up for four years -Planned on making a career out of the Navy, but getting married changed that -Doesn't regret getting married, just wonders how different life would've been -Left active duty in August 1977 (00:53:43) Life after the Navy -Had his first child, a son, in May 1977 -Went on to have three more children -Planned on returning to Montana, but the economy was bad -Moved to Theresa's hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan -Lived with her parents for a few months -Got a job at Metzgar Conveyors through his in-laws -Applied to a lot of different businesses that dealt with airplanes -Didn't have the necessary license paperwork from the Navy, so he couldn't do that -Brother-in-law worked for the Postal Service -Took the Civil Service Test and a year later he was hired -Wound up working for the Post Office for 37 years (00:57:07) Reflections on Service -Helped him understand different people and different ethnicities -Exposure, working, and living with different people -Showed him that everyone is human, for better and for worse � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_RobinsonG1750V Title A name given to the resource Robinson, George S (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-04-23 Description An account of the resource George Robinson was born on July 3, 1954 in Billings, Montana. Shortly before graduating from high school in 1973 he enlisted in the Navy. He received basic training in San Diego, California and went to Aviation Structure Mechanic School at Naval Air Technical Training Center Memphis, Tennessee. He was assigned to Naval Air Station Miramar, California and worked in VFP-63 (a photo reconnaisance squadron). He also did work aboard the USS Enterprise and USS Ranger on two week training exercises near Alameda, California. He stayed with VFP-63 at NAS Miramar until he left active duty in August 1977. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robinson, George S. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/19ff2d33656fc847383143bf390bedb2.mp4 3cbe182406010324653671d650ff9f63 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/459d605bea529769bfa686e7224f39eb.pdf ad8d4eeacecc1fadf91fa2548d8ea65a PDF Text Text Jack Robinson  WWII Veteran  United States Merchant Marine  (58:58)    (:15:00)Born in Newton Massachusetts 1924; Grew up in Boston Massachusetts       Adirondacks, New York: Lake George  • Started racing sailboats when he was 10 yrs old  • Began competitive racing  • Heard about the war right before 18th birthday      (:55:00)Enlisted in military on his 18th birthday      Family  • Father went to MIT for architecture but lack of jobs put him in the insurance business with his  father  • Great Grandfather was a sea captain who built the house on Lake George during Civil War days    (2:22) Enlists in the Merchant Marine‐September 1942  • Enlisted in the Merchant Marine so he could guarantee he would go to sea‐felt he could do the  most good there  • Captain Bassett was a neighbor‐Captain of the Maritime Academy  • National Academy at Kings Point‐Sea training was at sea  • Older brother was in Navy‐Submarine Service    (4:53)Kings Point‐Long Island‐Great Neck  • Based in the old Chrysler Estate    (5:30)Pass Christian Mississippi  • Basic Training  • Taught how to tie knots‐in charge of helping other cadets  • Spliced line  • Short term physical training‐ 3‐4 months long  • 6 months of sea duty before assigned to Kings Point  • Called the Inn by the Sea  • Still under construction at time  • He drew plans for some of the buildings‐delayed his sea time by 1‐2 months      �• • • • • • • • • • • • • • (8:00)Mobile Alabama‐First Cruise  Liberty Ship  Loaded Cargo‐mostly ammunition and some poison gas  (10:00)Went to New Orleans –picked up convoy  Went to New York for orders‐had to run black‐even east coast lights were black at this time  Phoned his dad saying he would meet him at grandma’s house as means of telling him location  without getting into trouble for betraying war secrets  Anchored in New York Harbor right off of the Statue of Liberty  Went to Halifax‐picked up more ships in convoy  (12:20)Shipped out at 4:00am headed for Belfast, Northern Ireland‐July 1943  Cadet‐learned about handling a ship‐billow soundings‐went down into 4 and 5 holes of ship  shafts‐drop chalk lids in holes‐measure water lines‐recorded it in ships records(called the black  gang by Jack)  Convoy made 10 knots  Only 4 Canadian Corvettes for protection  (15:45)Suppose to have 96 ships in the convoy only had 80  Still holds data to archives of the ship he was on‐data and crew information  HX244 was his convoy number    • • • •   • • • • (17:00) London  Visited Selfridge Department Store‐later bombed  Air Raid 1 week before‐under siege  Quiet for two weeks while they were in port unloading  1 week after they departed London‐ bombed again  Cardiff, Wales  Untouched at this point  Visited Cardiff Castle  Gave pound of butter and dozen egg to friend living there  Civilians in London treated military men well—as Merchant Marine sailor, he wore civilian  clothes    • • • • • (20:30)Le Havre, France  Picked up 200 barrels of wine‐brought back to French consulate in New York  Dead fog for 13 consecutive days‐never saw the sun  Dead reckoning the whole way‐within 13 miles of destination with no radar  Came within inches of other ship  (23:18) sirens warning of u‐boats but no sight of them  • (23:45) New York  Reloaded supplies for troops in North Africa    �• 15 ships of convoy broke off headed for Casablanca Africa‐had aircraft carrier and destroyers  protection on the way‐Fall 1943      • • • (27:27) Casablanca North Africa  Tanks lined up as far as eyes could see waiting to move across North Africa  Supply Line  Casablanca smelled like untanned leather and flies    • • • • • • (28:00)New York‐Returns to Academy at Kings Point  Comprehensive training‐cargo handling, ship instruction, rules and regulations, rules of the road,  signaling, navigation, first aid, mechanical drawing  Towards license for coast guard  Everyday 8‐4pm 9 month course  Started with 48 members and ended up with 24 members  Jack was grouped with men with 3 years of college and law degrees. He was also the youngest in  his group.  (31:21)Jack finished 4th in his class    • • (31:26)Free time  Jack was company commander of the rifle company at academy  After dress review on Saturday‐Jack could venture into New York where his sister lived in Mount  Vernon. He stayed over on Saturday night and returned to ship on Sunday    • • • • • • • • • •   (32:00)Graduation  October 13 1944    (32:20)Kemp P. Battle ship  Made 3 trips   1st to Marseille France  Mariposa had just arrived with troops‐kept the Battle waiting in harbor  Unloaded and reloaded 500 Arabs and took them back to Oran‐all were seasick  Morning‐breaking down convoy to go thru the straights of Gibraltar‐two ships ahead of them  smashed into each other and caught fire. Dutch captain Peter Dowling‐blew abandon ship signal  (35:35)Jack’s position was third mate  Bob McGraw‐high school classmate‐onboard ship at dry dock in Oran  Commodore was navy tanker with 20000 barrels  of high octane fuel‐minute he turned his light  on‐was hit with three torpedoes from a German submarine drifted in‐PBY seaplanes hadn’t  picked him up  Headed up Spanish coast towards Marseille  �• • • • • • • • (39:45)Back to the United States to Reload and off to Italy  Adriatic to Trieste  Water spout‐rained fish  Thru straights of Messina‐anchored in Naples  Air raid‐two Italian ships opened fire on airplane‐turned out to be an observation plane  Went to Livorno instead Genoa because Germans had control of Genoa   (43:50)Anchored at Piombino  American tattoo on British sailor  Climbed leaning tower of Pisa    • • • • • • • •   (49:00)Headed back to United States to Reload 1945  Roosevelt died‐Jack said Roosevelt was their friend  (52:20)Welding instead of Riveting put ships out quicker‐could prefab the ships‐made number 3  hatch a weak spot‐put belly bands around ship‐done while docked  Went on SS Maria Mitchell to South America‐no cargo‐war had ended‐hauled coal to Brazil  Loaded tonnage went to Argentina to Rosario  Graf Spee‐German pocket battleship sunk down there‐off of Montevideo  Rosario had political upheaval‐gun fire‐loaded corn‐topped off in Bahia‐headed to Africa  (56:20) Canary Islands to Algeria  Sub pens‐ caused rift between Americans and French  � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RobinsonJ Title A name given to the resource Robinson, John (Jack) (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robinson, John Description An account of the resource Jack grew up with boats, and enlisted in Merchant Marines as soon as he turned 18 because he wanted to be sure to go to sea. He served on several different cargo ships, crossing the Atlantic several times and visiting Britain, North Africa, France, Italy and South America. Describes convoy duty, life on ship, and explosion of a tanker hit by a U-Boat's torpedo. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) Video recordings United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Merchant mariner Merchant marine--United States Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-10-23 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives