| Summary: | (6:20) Mr. McCrary describes his life on base in England, free time in London and earning his point to come home during World War II.
Florence- Lauderdale Public Library
Interview with Leon McCrary
March 12, 2010
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 5
Clint Alley: Well, can you tell us some about what life was like while you were on the base? Was it, was the food good?
Leon McCrary: The food was good. We didn’t have fresh eggs; they used to say they’d put a little eggshells in there every now and then to make you think [ unintelligible]. But, food was good. And, ah, they had a green light and a red light over the, the operations building and if you were scheduled to fly, then you’d try to get some sleep and the green light would be on. But if they cancelled a mission they’d turn on the red light and when they did that then we’d start playing cards and we’d go to, midnight mess at the, at the kitchen, you know and everything. So, life was different. You know, I’ve heard people say, “ Man, I wouldn’t want to be flying in the bombers, you know, thousands of miles in enemy territory.” And I’d say, “ I wouldn’t want to be down there in that little foxhole.” I wouldn’t do that, given the choice, you know. Think about those. I, if I made it back home from the mission I had a place to sleep, I had hot food, friends and those poor guys up there on the line, you know, what did they have, really.
CA: Um- hm.
LM: I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t trade what I did for one of them for nothing.
Rhonda Haygood: Did you get leave time while you were on the base during that time that you could get off base and do—
LM: We went to a—
RH: — do things?
LM: — we had a rehab thing we’d go to. Oh, yeah, I could get off the base, you know, like that, day and night and so on—
RH: Right.
LM: — and go into town and whatever.
RH: So, actually, at that time, you were talking about being in London—
LM: Yeah.
RH: You were actually there for, ah, free time. LM: Yeah.
RH: You weren’t there on any kind of service.
LM: No, if we, if we had, ah, if we weren’t scheduled to fly, and we didn’t fly, I think I flew four days in a row once but generally speaking I might fly two times a week or three times a week and, ah, and if we weren’t scheduled to fly and didn’t have some sort of a training thing to go through, we had a pass, we’d go into town, we were suppose to come back, you’re not suppose to spend the night and that sort of thing, but, ah, we had free time. Course it wasn’t anything great, you know, they had their pubs and this sort of thing. And they had some Red Cross places and so on. But we had one rehab that was at Southport on the coast and it was a, it was a recreation type town and they had the different organizations there, they would have dancing and everything. I’ll tell you this one story. I met this young lady and she was a nice young lady, and she invited me to go home and meet her parents. I think she was about ready to marry me; we’d only been, I’d only known her a day. We went home and, and went to her house and took a bus, daily bus, this sort of thing. And she took me in and introduced me to her folks and her, she had her brother and sisters and her dad and mom and, and she says, “ You sit here.” And there’s only one chair. I said, “ Where are you gonna sit.” She said, “ Sit. Sit. You sit there.” She sat down in my lap. And these were nice people, I mean, they weren’t cheap people or anything. And when it come time to go home, the buses had quit running, this is about midnight, so, the avenue went that away for two or three miles, but they didn’t have any lights and they said, “ Now, you just, you, you can get there by just following and listening to the ocean on your right and go on.” I got out there and oh, man it was dark and I, but I could hear the ocean and every now and then I’d come to a sign and I had a flashlight so I’d sort of climb up on that sign and see where it was. It was hilarious. And I made it home; I made it back to the barracks all right.
CA: Well, did you ever see that movie Memphis Belle that came out a few years ago?
LM: Yes. I, I saw that. That was just not—
CA: It wasn’t—
LM: You know how they, you know how that crew fought? Did you see the movie?
CA: I’ve seen it; it’s been a few years, but I’ve seen it. Yes, sir.
LM: Yeah, the, the crew members were fighting and one of them was taking the other guy’s good luck thing and hiding it and, and they were, that was not the way at all. It was not that— our crew was good friends, wouldn’t dare do anything like, wouldn’t just even think of doing anything like that.
CA: Yeah. None of that horse- playing or anything.
LM: Yeah. Unh- uh. No, none of that. So that, that Memphis Belle was not, not typical.
CA: Yeah. It wasn’t very, very accurate. Well, so you were only, you were there about nine months and you said you went home before the war was over.
LM: I flew my last mission in March, March the 21st of ’ 45. And I flew over, but I had to take a big ship home, but I got, I was home sometime in April and the war was over. I was sent to Miami, Miami Beach was a, sort of, we were suppose to go on to Japan, you know, fly again, but—. And I was, I was there when they dropped the bomb on the, on the Japanese.
CA: You were in Miami when that happened?
LM: Yes, um- hm.
CA: What was that like? Was that a, was that an exciting time?
LM: Um- hm. It was. They had, they had point systems that determined after, this is after the Japanese surrendered, they had point systems that determined how many, who could get out right then and who could wait. And you had five points for Battle Stars and, and decorations and time in service and it took eighty- five to get out immediately; I had eighty- six.
CA: Wow.
RH: Wow.
LM: Boy, was I lucky.
RH: You did good.
LM: When they, when they dropped the bomb in, August was it?
CA: Um- hm. August of ’ 45.
LM: Yeah. I was out of service September the 7th of ’ 45.
CA: So, you didn’t waste any time then.
LM: Unh- uh. Unh- uh.
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