Mackey, Ralph
Ralph Mackey: World War II
Interviewed by Anita Carter (student interview)
Interview date: April 27, 2004
Q: Mr. Mackey, I would like to ask you some questions on World War II. Please sir, when and where were you born?
A: I was born in Checotah, Oklahoma, in 1925.
Q: And when did you first begin thinking that the US might get involved in World War II?
A: Well, of course, I was a – in high school, and things began to look bad and I realized then that, you know, by the time I got to be 18 years old that the chances that, you know, I would be in the service, and I started kind of working toward that.
Q: OK. Did that occur after the attack at Pearl Harbor or did you think that US involvement in the war was inevitable prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor?
A: Well, I had been following it, and I – I really thought that it would happen – our involvement would happen before it did. Of course, Pearl Harbor brought it to, ah, you know, immediate attention, but, ah, in my thinking, I could see what was going on in Germany that I didn’t think anyone could . . . (tape stops for phone call).
Q: OK, well, what was your reaction and the reaction of your family and friends when Pearl Harbor was attacked?
A: Well, they were like everyone else, eh? It was a surprise that Japan would do that, but that brought it the attention of everybody that the United States had to get involved.
Q: OK, how old were you in December of 1941?
A: Sixteen years old.
Q: Were you already in the military in December of 1941?
A: No.
Q: If not, were you drafted or did you enlist?
A: Well, I graduated from high school in May of 1942 and I realized that by the time I reached my eighteenth birthday that I would probably be drafted, and I wanted to get in the air force and my ambition was to fly, but I had to have a year of college. So I graduated in May and a friend of mine – we hitchhiked to Stillwater and, ah, enrolled in the summer session, and we were fortunate to get a year of college, which you had to have to get into the aviation cadet program. And a week before my eighteenth birthday I went down to the draft board and I asked them how much time. They said, “When is your birthday.” I said, “In a week.” They said, “You got probably 10 days after your birthday.” So we both hitchhiked to Tinker Field and we took the physical and the mental for the aviation cadet program, and it turned up that he was color blind, so he immediately enlisted in the Marines. And I went ahead and, ah, went in as an aviation cadet in the air force.
Q: That sounds nice. How did the other men in your area feel about serving in the military?
A: Every boy that was in my graduating class – and there was probably 40 – went into the service. They were like me – they wanted to do their part, and I know no one that tried to evade the draft or stay out of the service.
Q: OK. How did you family and wife or girlfriend feel about you going off to the war?
A: They were worried, like any parent would be. But they also realized – my dad had been in World War I and, ah, they realized the importance of going, because they realized that without us getting involved and helping England that Germany was going to overrun them. But like any parent, they were worried.
Q: OK. In what branch of military did you serve?
A: Air force.
Q: The air force?
A: Ah-huh.
Q: Ok, where did you undertake basic training?
A: Keesler Field, Mississippi.
Q: Was that a good experience?
A: Ah, being away from home for the first time and, ah, basic training (laughing). . . They used to – of course, we were all beginning aviation cadets, but we hadn’t been accepted. We was going through basic training and they used to run us out to the end of the runway to watch airplanes land, and the old sergeant would say – he’d let a few cuss words and he’d say “this is as close as you’re ever going to get to an airplane!” (laughing)
Q: OK. What was your interactions with men from all part of the country?
A: It was great. I – I enjoyed that part of it. I made a lot of friends. It – I had – it’s one experience that you’ll never have again, and that I wouldn’t have had had not this came about. Ah, I had never been out of Oklahoma, but it was an experience – I’ll tell you – everyone that I met in the service was gung-ho. Nobody had any bitter things to say. It was just a great experience.
Q: In your training, can you elaborate more on what was your training about while you were going into the war?
A: Well, we ah. . .
Q: How did they prepare you?
A: Well, when I went to flight training, there was 140 of us who started out. And, ah, there was only 72 of us that graduated. They were tough – I mean, academic – of course, in high school I hadn’t had geometry, I had a little algebra – but some of the stuff I really had to get down and dig and I was one of the younger ones in the class, and, ah, the tradition was – on mental – if you passed one test, or flunked one test, they’d give you an opportunity to take another test. If you made a failing grade on that you automatically separated – they sent you to the infantry. A lot of pressure. A lot of pressure. A lot of guys that washed out that were probably better pilots than I was, and it was really hard to see a friend get washed out and not make it knowing how hard they tried.
Q: OK, giving the facts, historically, the race relationship in this country had been strained to say the least. How was your experience as a Native American man defined, or shaped, by your time?
A: Well, I’ll say one thing. I, ah, I was in the Eighth Air Force and, ah, at that time, ah, there wasn’t any difficulty, ah, in the unit that I was in. In fact, let me kind of give you an idea what my squadron – the people that was in the Eighth Air Force – we had P-51 units that would escort the bombers, and most of the time when we’d get going in over the target, they would get off to the side and not intermingle because of the flak. They had a black squadron in Italy that came up that – about two months before the end of the war – and started escorting us. Thos boys stayed right with us. They intermingled – not one time did they . . .
Q: . . .go astray?
A: . . .go stray. And they had a lot of respect from the Eighth Air Force.
Q: That sounds so nice. After basic training, where did the military send you?
A: Well, I went to, ah, pilot training, and then, ah, graduated from pilot training, and, ah, I, ah, went to McNeil Field in Florida where I joined up with 9 other crew members to form a crew. At the time, I was – had just turned 20. The oldest man in this crew was 21. We had about six weeks training together before we picked up a brand new airplane in Hunter Field, Georgia, and flew the northern route to England, and then we joined up with the 388th Bomb Group that was stationed in England.
Q: OK. In what capacity did you serve during World War II, your duties, you r rank, and the places in which you served?
A: I, ah, like I said, I was in England – flying out of England. I was a first lieutenant. And, ah, we flew out of England. I flew 24 missions, ah, ah, not with the same crew. On the first 6 missions I flew with my original crew. Everything was normal. We had a few things like the tail gunner thought he had to have a cigarette. At 20,000 feet he took his oxygen mask off – our oxygen system exploded, and luckily we put the fire out. I think on the third mission a concussion blew off the plastic nose of the airplane. But on the seventh mission – we went to briefing that morning – we usually went to briefing at 4:30, and the target was Munich. And, ah, after briefing we normally went back to the mess hall to get some breakfast and coffee. And this captain came up to me and said, “I need a favor.” I said, “OK, captain.” I knew him and I said, “What can I do for you?” He said, “I have 34 missions and I got a telegram from the Red Cross that my mother is seriously ill and not expected to live, and I don’t want to go home without completing my tour. If I do, I’ll have to go to the Pacific when I get back.” So I said, “Sure, you can fly with my crew.” I said, “They’re good. They know their job, and there’s not a man on there that doesn’t do his job. So, let’s OK it with the squadron commander,” which we did. I go back to the mess hall to drink my coffee and about that time, ah, they called the MPs – they called them MPs instead of air – APs – came in and said “Grab your parachute, another officer on another crew’s got sick and we need a replacement.” So I grabbed a parachute and he run me out to the end of the runway. I climbed in the airplane and we joined up with the formation. We had two bomb groups – the 452nd was to be the lead group. The 388th, which was my group, was to be the second group. The 452nd was to take out an air field outside of Munich. Our job was to go in on a munitions factory and destroy it. The 452nd went in, had medium flak, and they got most of the fighters on the ground before they got off the ground. They were about 10 minutes ahead of us. As we, ah, turned onto the IP, which is your point to turn toward the target, about three minutes after we turned toward the target the navigator called out, “Two airplanes going down.” I glanced up - which my original crew was flying right above me – in time to see the wing come off. And I told him, I said, “Count parachutes.” He counted one parachute. And, I didn’t know at that time – I even didn’t know – the Red Cross didn’t anything – they wouldn’t tell us anything – all they done was called me in and says “We’ve got to censor your mail. We don’t want you calling or writing anything back to the states until we know for sure what happened – whether they were PWs or whether they were killed.” So it was after I came back out of the war that I was able to find out that four of them were killed, five of them were PWs. And the guy that took my place – I only had a name – I had no idea where he was from – and it took me two years – I would go to these – we had a reunion every year and about the third time I went to the reunion, I kept looking for that name thinking he might be there. . .
Q: On the roster?
A: One day I looked there and there was his name. I hunted him up and I stuck out my hand and I said, “I’m the guy that you took my place on that airplane.” He let about two cuss words and said, “I’ve been looking for you for 40 years!” (laughter). But he was one that survived it, and, ah, it was – it was quite an ordeal, you know, knowing that it could have been you. . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And you just don’t know – sometimes fate has its way of making things where you don’t understand.
Q: That’s so true. During that time, what was the relationship between blacks and whites in the military?
A: I seen – I seen nothing that, you know, out of the ordinary. Everybody that was in the service was gung-ho. In briefing, we had, you know, both three or four different nationalities – they were just as gung-ho to get – most of them were in the ground crews. They were as gung-ho to get us off the ground and see us come back, ah, as we were. And in the briefing, they’d always tell us, “If you get shot up, and you see your airplane can’t make it back, you can always try to make it to Switzerland,” which was a neutral country, “and if you make it to Switzerland, it’s a neutral country, and they’ll keep you till the end of the war.” Not one airplane that I – in our bomb group ever tried to go to Switzerland. They always tried to make it back. A lot of time they’d crash land. A lot of times they would crash in the, ah, ocean coming back, or the channel – English Channel. But the relationship – I seen no one that, you know, had any problems regardless of nationality in the military.
Q: That’s good. What kind of contact did you have with the people back home and what kind of correspondence did the military permit?
A: Well, of course, I was – of course they was always cautioning us what to write and what not to write. It was – try to at least once a week, you know, to correspond with my mother and dad, and, like I say, whenever the crew there got shot down, ah, I had to take any correspondence – I couldn’t mail it – I took it over to intelligence and they would censor it before I was able to mail it. But, ah, they sometimes – the letters that I would write would be 30 days before they would get them. About the only way they kept up with what was going on in the war was – most of the time – was go to a movie and see newsreel of what, you know, no telling how old it was, but something that happened.
Q: Do you feel comfortable talking about the combat?
A: Well, there’s good and there’s bad. I’ll say this – there was a lot of young men in their prime that didn’t come back. And that’s the part that hurts. Ah, knowing they had families, they friends, they had girlfriends, they had wives – and that’s the bad part. I remember (break in interview when tape stops) – it was – I made a lot of good relationships in the service. I still try to correspond with a lot of them. Of course, it’s getting limited on World War II veterans. I think we’re losing something like 10,000 a day. But, there’s good and there’s a lot of bad. The worst thing that I remember were those that didn’t come back. It’s tough.
Q: OK, what was your most memorable experience during the World War II combat?
A: In combat?
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I guess the incident when my crew got shot down, there. That’s the thing that sticks in my mind more than anything. Ah, you have dreams about it, ah, it never – it never leaves my mind. Most everyday I – something comes up that reminds me of it.
Q: How long did you service during World War II?
A: In World War II I was in there three years. I got – I got recalled in the Korean War, and, ah, in 1952, and I spent two and a half more years in the Korean War. And, ah, I will give you an experience in the Korean War. They – I went through instrument training. I went from bombers to jets, single-engine jets. And I was sent to Panama City, Florida, where we checked out in F-94, ah, all-weather interceptors. I was in the air defense command. In the F-94s you have a radar operator. Ah, Georgia, at that time, I guess was a lot backward as far as, you know, the blacks were really not treated like other states. The day that we received our radar operators, which was a man who was going to be your two-man crew, there was one black radar operator, ah, out of the 12 that they sent in to join up as crews. There was – the group that – I was 27 years old then. Most of the guys were younger than I was. There was some resentment there of not wanting to fly with the black, ah . . .
Q: Pilots?
A: No, he was the radar operator.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I told the squadron commander, “I’ll fly with him. I have no resentment.” When we got down on the ground, ah, he knew his job as well as I knew mine. And, I said, “Let’s go to the mess hall and get something to eat.” He said, “No . . “ I said, “Hey, if you’re going to be my radar operator, you’re going to go where I go, and we’re going to stick together, and you’re going to go to the places I go.” Within a week, every pilot started asking questions: “What’s he like?” “Does he know his job?” I said, “Man, he knows his job better than I know mine!” Every pilot wanted to fly with him!
Q: (laughing) OK. How long did you serve during World War II?
A: Two and a half years.
Q: And after serving during World War II, where did the military send you or were you immediately discharged?
A: Well, I, ah, when I came back from, ah, England, ah, I came back on the Fourth of July. And we had, I think it was 3 weeks or 30 days leave, then we were to go to – a troop train was supposed to pick up – what they did, all the pilots, bombardiers, and navigators were to go to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, all the ground crews and the gunners were to go to a place in New Mexico. We were to have 6 weeks training in B-29s, then we were to join up as crews to go to the Pacific. It just so happened, the day that we got on the troop train in Camp Chaffee, Arkansas – there was about 1500 of us on the troop train – and it was at that time – I don’t think anybody had a radio or anything – we didn’t know that that day was – you know, somewhere before noon that V-J Day had – was announced. We saw people – we’d go through these little towns – celebrating and we didn’t know what was going on. When we got into Kansas City, they stopped the train about 200 – well, you couldn’t – people were on the railroad tracks at the train station and the train had to stop about 200 yards short of the train station. And that’s when we found out, you know, what was going on, because the people had just mobbed – and they wouldn’t let us off the train. For about two hours we sat on that train until they brought in busses and took us into motels and put us 6 in a motel and brought us in a bunch of blankets. We had to sleep on the floor. And they told us in 24 hours we’d get back and get on the troop train. Three days later, the MPs were still trying to round up everybody! (laughter) It took them three days to get everybody back together where we could get on that troop train. We went on to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We got there and there was about 20,000 – other bomb groups sent their pilots, bombardier, and navigators – there was about 20,000 of us there. We didn’t know what to do – they didn’t know what to do with us. And I was there about two months, I guess, and they come out with a point system that you could be discharged if you had this many points. Well, I had enough points and I wanted to get out because I wanted to go back to college. So, me – when I got out I went right straight back to college and got my education.
Q: That’s good. What kind of reception did you receive when you got back to the United States?
A: Ah, it was wonderful! Everybody was, you know, you couldn’t find anybody that just – you know – just tickled to death to see you. It was – it was – everybody, I mean, strangers – it was a good feeling. Made you feel like what you’d done and what you’d been through was worth it.
Q: In terms of your war experience, how did those experiences affect you at all – in your relationships or in actions with your family and friends, spouse, or girlfriend?
A: Well, it was different. Ah, ah, you went away as a – still wet behind the ears, I guess – and you matured in a hurry. And you had a – things meant more to you – things – you didn’t have them teenager thoughts and things like that. You sensed a lot of urgency, ah, to get on in life and try to – try to do something because, you know, you’d lost a few years out of your life. But, ah, it was different, ah, ah, and – there was about two months there that you didn’t know what to do. You wished you stayed in, you know, you had mixed feelings. It was different.
Q: Do you still keep in touch with some of the people you served with?
A: (Side One of tape ran out and some of Mackey’s answer was cut off) . . . real bad, but I still correspond with him, probably, oh, every 15 days we correspond. And, ah, he has promised me when his health gets good he’s going to come down and visit me, which I haven’t seen him in person since 1945.
Q: But you all still talk to each other.
A: Oh, every 15 days. And we talk about the boys, you know, in the crew and things like that, you know, and, but we discuss a lot of things that happened. We always went – wherever we went, we went as a crew. When we wasn’t – we would fly – you could fly two missions straight, then you could take a day off. And the days that we had a day off, we’d go – sometimes we’d go to London and sightsee, but we always went together as a crew. We didn’t separate – the officers didn’t go one way and the enlisted men the other way – we went as a crew.
Q: That’s good. How has your World War II experience impacted your life? Did it have any affect on your view of other wars the US became involved in after World War II?
A: Well, after you get out, you start paying more attention to history, and you start listening – whereas, I used to never watch news, never read the newspaper too much about world – what was going on in the world. But after I got out, I started, you know, watching the news, reading the newspapers, and about that time television came out. And I – I realized that we were going to have trouble with Russia right off. Ah, we didn’t finish the – we should have finished off Russia when we went over there, but we, we didn’t. We let them get away, and, of course, they cost us a lot of problems after that.
Q: OK. What kind of general observation or conclusion do you have about World War II?
A: It was a necessary deal. We almost waited too long. Had we waited, I believe, another 60 days, England would have fell. I’ve all the respect in the world for the English people. Ah, they really got hit hard. Ah, they had them buzz bombs – I’m not sure you’re really familiar with them buzz bombs?
Q: Ah-huh.
A: You know, they had a motor on them, you know, and they’d go over at night and you could hear them going over headed to London, and, ah, over half of the people lived in them bomb shelters and in the subways. And it was really disheartening to see families with little kids, old people, living in them subways, trying to stay warm. Candles about all they had. Then you’d hear the bombs going off, ah, you know, and everything. Those English people really – and I admire them. I just really admire them, ah, because they – they took it on the chin a long time before we got involved. And had we not got involved when we did, England would have fell.
Q: Well, that concludes all our questions. And what is your conclusion on World War II now that you’re at home – how do you feel about it today, in 2004?
A: Well, we should have got into it a long time before we did. We let Germany run over a bunch of small countries. I mean, they just took them over. And I look at it this way, we should have got involved a long time before we did. The same way I feel about today – we should have got Saddam Hussein a hell of a long time ago. Had we got him a hell of a long time ago, I think the problems we’re having today wouldn’t be here. We got – a lot of people disagree – they think, well, if we’d have left him alone, we wouldn’t be having terrorists. Let me tell you something, had he got – and he was going to get it – he was going to get the nuclear bomb, and when he got it, you don’t think he wouldn’t have used it on us? We would have been the first target. And we would be fighting right here on our own soil and – where, you know, we took it to him, we wiped him out. They’re having a lot of problems over there, but eventually, the United States will get control. And the world will be a lot better off.
Q: Well, Mr. Mackey, it’s been a pleasure to meet you. I will do you justice in this paper, and I just, you know, I was a little sibling at that time, but I do commend you. You still look good!
A: I feel good! My health is good and I go to these reunions and the guys that are there were older than I was. I was one of the youngest guys there in World War II in my bomb group, and, ah, but I’ll tell you what, they come in wheelchairs, they come with oxygen bottles, and they’ll tell you right quick like, “this may be my last trip, but I wouldn’t have missed it.”
Q: Well, it’s been a pleasure to meet you and thank you so much for the interview.
A: Thank you.
