Eugene (Gene) Broussard, Sr., Jason Theriot, Hewitt Theriot:

-Broussard was out ducking hunting at Lake Deautrive when he noticed a lot of airplanes fly overhead
-Got home and listened to Roosevelt’s speech on declaring war on Japan
-Went into active service December 16, 1941 and tried to get a job where he could use his legal profession
-Was turned down as he needed 2 years of practice, he only had 1 ½ years
-Wrote to the FBI and they said the same thing

-Went into the Air Force and trained at Avon Park, Florida; was already flying by himself
-Was pulled out without being told why and put into bombardier training
-Later he was called into a meeting with the FBI, asking him to work for them now
-He was to have a secret job watching over the Norden Bomb Sight; was the main military secret base form WWI
-For 4 years he had to write a report to the FBI; he was not paid as it was “so secret” and the Germans would come for him; never told anybody the whole 4 years
-The best way to get into Norden was to be a bombardier

(4:22) Training
-The bombsight has 2 parts, the horizontal stabilizer and stays in the airplane and then the most important part was the vertical stabilizer
-When checking a bombsight you had to bring a 45-cal pistol; instructed to shoot 2 shots into the bombsight if something went wrong or someone stealing secrets
-In ground training they had to hit these “bugs” that moved on the floor while standing on a bombsight that was also moving; easy for Broussard to do

-First time flying on a bombing run as a cadet, dropped the bomb a mile away at 4,000 feet away from the target
-The next run hit it dead center; average of 5 feet form a mile away, while the typical average is 400 feet
-Was made an instructor to teach the other boys to do the same
-In 4 years they were able to improve the bombardiers by 400%, from teaching 2 classes of 60; the error was now 100 feet by the end of the war

-When each class went through bombardier school the 10% was taken for instructors and then sent to Carsbad Central Instructors School
-There they competed against each other and took 62; Broussard was numbered as the fourth best bombardier in all of the U.S.
-Never went overseas after that; they told him that he was doing more good teaching than fighting

(7:47) Teaching
-First class he taught was sent out to Tampa, Florida; 60 cadets
-In 3 months a 1/3 (20) were killed in training; so the field was closed down and investigated
-For in the beginning of the war more airmen were killed in training than in combat; towards the end the numbers changed
-In Europe 50,000 bombardiers, just them alone, were killed; it’s said that it was the bombardiers that won the war, especially since it was them that dropped the atomic bomb
-Never knew anything about the atomic bomb until it was dropped
-Stayed mostly in Texas and worked at 10 different airfields (he lists them)
-Talking of stories with working with computers, older bombardiers from WWI, other instructors

-Had to fly with every cadet, 60, for about 60 months; trained around 500 in all 4 years
-Lectured to other classes other than his own; tells a story of calling out another instructor
-Once over in Europe all they had to do was fly 25 missions and the come home; Broussard thinks that killed them faster

(18:28) Question: Was there any rhyme or reason for flying in a V formation?
-Flew in the squadron (V) to protect each other; if they flew together it would be a lot easier to shoot them down
-They had 6 guns on each plane to shoot down enemies (B-29)
-Never got training in gunnery, was too specialized (talked about how the guns might have been loaded)

(23:28) Joining Up
-Signed up a week after declaring war; had a low draft number and knew he’d be soon
-Figured he’d go into the army infantry if he didn’t make a move quick; tried the legal profession side first, then the Air Force
-After 6 months of training and trying to get a commission the Army legal department calls him and asked him to work for them
-Said he wanted to work for them 6 months ago and he’d only do it from them if he still got his flying pay and they wouldn’t let him so he said “'well you can shove it up your ass then”
-Broussard thinks now he should have taken it as he’d have gotten promotions and eventually paid better, it’d have been a safer job too
-Was a 1st Lt. for 3 years and never got a promotion even though he was so good

-Had to work 14 hours a day or be shipped out; flew 364 days out the year with 1 day off
-Flew everyday with pilots, men and women, so he wore his parachute; never had jump training though but thankfully never had to use it
-When Broussard was to be married, he needed at least 10 days off and one of his general was able to get him out for it (July 1942)
-Broussard believes he probably would have been killed if he had not became an instructor
-Goes back to the airfield incident in Tampa with the 20 boys killed—reason was that the planes’ wings were 3 feet too short
-Talking about types of planes and those Broussard knew in the service

(44:12) Teaching math

(47:48) Talking
-Thoughts on the atomic bombs
-Airplane training, what could have changed and made it better
-Other stories Theriot has heard for his other interviews
-More on different planes
-Plane maneuvers in training and teaching
-Discharged in November 1945

Transcription Begins:

Eugene D. Broussard, Sr.
Born Dec. 13th 1917.
Interview was conducted by Jason P. Theriot, July 30, 2001.
Bombardier Instructor/FBI

On Pearl Harbor Day I was duck hunting at Lake Deautrive and I noticed a lot of airplanes passing over. So I figured something had happened. When I got home I sat at the dinner table and Roosevelt made his famous speech that Japan had declared war on us. (The US declared war on Japan.)

I got into active service Dec. 16th 1941. And before getting into the service I tried to get a job where I could use my legal profession. So I wrote to the legal dept. in the Army and they said they couldn't use me because you had to have two years of law practice and I only have a year and a half. I was practicing law over here (in New Iberia.) I finished at Tulane Law School. So I wrote the FBI and they said the same thing-that I needed two years.

So I went into the Air Force. I was training in Avon Park, FL and I flew five flights by my self and I was doing well. All of sudden they yanked me out of pilot training and put me into bombardier training…I couldn't figure out why. I found out pretty soon why. About a week or so later the FBI called me into a secret meeting and they said, "We want you to work for us now." Well I said, "I wanted to work for ya'll two months ago." They said, " We have a special job for you. Your job is secret. You can not tell anyone about it. Your job is to watch over the Norden Bomb sight." The Norden Bomb sight was the main military secret we had during the early stages of WWII. They said for me to watch for anything that's not right and report it to them. So for four years I made a report to the FBI.

So when the FBI told me that I had that job, I was pleased because I was only making $75 a month. I asked how much are you going to pay me for working for you. They said that it was so secret that they couldn't pay me. It was so secret that I couldn't tell anybody what I was doing. It’s a secret job. They said the reason why it was so secret because if they (Germans or Japanese) found out what you were doing they would tried to get to you first. They said, "I'll give you an example of the kind of things to look for. There was a German in Germany who found a U.S. Air Force cadet with the looks to match and all, so, he came to the US in a submarine to look for his twin; and he found that cadet and killed him and disposed of his body. He was trying to get the Norden Bombsight. They caught him. The way that I figured that was when you transfer airfields they finger print you and I think they caught him on a fingerprint. So I was supposed to look out for things like that.

I did that for four years. I never told anyone that I worked for the FBI. The best way for me to keep an eye on the Norden Bombsight was to infiltrate the bombardier school as a cadet. So I was working for the FBI and I became a bombardier cadet. Nobody knew that I was working for the FBI. My best friend in the service was a captain named Bennett. He was in charge of all the bombsights at Childress Air Force base in Texas; and he didn't even know that I was checking on him. (He laughs.)

The bombsight is made of two parts: the bottom is called the horizontal stabilizer, it's about 14''-10''; and it stays in the airplane all the time, but the most important part was the vertical stabilizer, it's about the size of one-and-a-half footballs end to end. And you could not check out a bombsight without checking out a 45-cal pistol. We were instructed that if something went wrong and someone was trying to steal the secret, you would shoot two shot into the bombsight to destroy it.

I got into bombardier training. In ground training, to train you, there is a mechanical bug on the floor about as big as a battery; and it moves. And you get on a stand about 8 feet high and there is a bombsight that you operate; so the bug was moving and you had to try to hit the bulls-eye. Well that was a synch to me it was easy to do. I would hit the bulls-eye every time. I was used to shooting a rifle so it came very easily.

The first time that I flew on a bombing run as a cadet, I dropped a bomb from about a mile away at 4,000 feet; and I missed the target, which was a shack, by about 10 feet. I was disappointed. So the next time, on the second run, I hit it dead center. So my average was 5 feet from a mile away. When we landed the commanding officer of the field told me, he said, "boy you don't know what you did. The average bombardier’s error right now is 400 feet and you have an error of 5 feet." He said, "I'm going to make you an instructor; you teach them other boys how to do that." From hunting with a rifle all my life, bombing came easily to me. In four years, in the U.S. Air Force training, I never saw anyone else with as good as a five-foot error on a mission or practice run.

In four years we improved the bombardiers by 400%; the error was 400 foot average at the start of the war, and by the end of the war I instructed two classes where the error for one class of 60 cadets was less than 100 feet. So we made the cadets 400% better than they were four years earlier. They were good at the end of the war. They were accurate. We had taken out all the bugs by then.
See the reason I bombed so accurate was that bombing is all technique and procedure. And at that time, in the beginning, all I knew was procedure. I hadn't developed any bad habits by then. When each class would go through bombardier school, they would take the top ten- percent and make them instructors. Then they took those 10% and sent us all to Carlsbad Central Instructors School; and they made us compete against each other. And they had 62 bombardiers there who were the top ten percent of their class; and I came out fourth in the US. In one way, you could say that I was the fourth best bombardier in the US. So I never did go over seas. They said, "You doing more good here teaching them boys.” So as squadron bombardier, I taught 60 cadets at a time."

We taught one class of 60 cadets and sent them to Tampa, Florida. Within three months they killed 1/3 of them; 20 of them got killed in training. So they closed the field because they thought something was wrong. At the very beginning of the war more airmen were being killed in training than in combat. Towards the end, those numbers completely changed. Over Europe, we lost 50,000 bombardiers, just bombardiers. Most people, when asked what contributed the most to winning the war in the Pacific, they say the bombardier, because a bombardier dropped the atomic bomb, and that won the war (against the Japanese).

I never knew anything about the atomic bomb until after it was dropped.
I was stationed at ten different airfields, mostly in Texas.
One time we had an exercise where the top military brass was invited; and they made a model ship on the ground. And I dropped a bomb right down the smokestack of that ship. Sometimes we would practice dropping bombs at 20,000 feet from 4 miles away with great accuracy.

While instructing a class of 60 bombardier cadets I had to personally fly with each one. So I flew every day. Over the years I instructed almost 500 cadets-60 every 6 months. I would lecture to the classes as well. We would teach them in the air and on the ground.

In Europe during WWII, the airmen just had to fly 25 mission; and then they could go home, but imagine losing 50,000 bombardiers, just bombardiers. Boy that's a lot.
You see they flew in V's (the squadron); that was for protection, to protect each other. You see, if you got them all together it would be a hell of a lot easier to shoot the enemy fighters down. The bombardier, in a B-29, was the aerial officer. He had six machine guns in the front that he fired- six machine guns- one man. -Six 50-cal.

Towards the end of the war, the sight for the machine guns was 98% accurate. The ground crew would load the guns with ammunition to full capacity, before a mission. And boy, they would fire a lot. There were a lot of shells going out.

The B-29 was pressurized. There was a large tube, from the front of the plane to the back. That enabled you to move around without a pressure suit. The second best plane was the B-17. And of coarse we had the B-24 or the ‘flying coffin’ as it was called.

See I had a really low draft number, they were going to get me. So I had to make a move quick. I figured they would draft me into the army infantry, so I joined the air corp. (He joined a week after we declared war)

After it took me six months to earn a commission, the Army waited two weeks and called me to the legal department. And they said “we want you to work for us now.” I said 'I be damn, I wanted to work for you guys seven months ago.' See, they were watching me all the time. I said well that's good; I wanted to do it seven months ago. The only thing is I just got married; and I'm not making a whole lot of money, so if I get into the legal department can I have my flying pay-that's 50% extra. They said 'No we can't do that.' I said, 'well you can shove it up your ass then.' I told them right then and there.
I never got a promotion for about three years in the Air Force. I stayed a 1st Lt.

When the B-29's first came out, they trained us, and on the final examine I scored 100%. That's how much I knew about the plane. Would you believe (he was told) that when a B-29 gets to 20,000 feet, it could fly a mile on a gallon of gas? That's amazing.

The bombsite has two indices, one is stationary and the other one moves, and when the two touch each other the bombs automatically fall. Well, we had a malfunction on the plane; and the indices had a problem so the bombs wouldn't drop, so I told the pilot to fly around and I will drop them all at one time manually. There was a target on the ground. And I dropped 20 bombs from 20,000 feet-guess where they hit; they all hit in the (shack) bull’s eye.

I went to school 18 years to become a lawyer, when I got into the service would you believe I went to school for four more years. All fours years in the service I was in school, all the time. See when I was a bombardier instructor, they'd teach you other things, I studied to become a Navigator. We had to keep track of our time 24 hours a day; and everybody worked at least 14 hours a day. You had to put down when you slept, when you ate, and if you didn't work 14 hours they would ship you out. They were strict on us. And at Childress we flew, out of 365 days, we flew 364-we had one day off in the whole year. It was a grind. We had to be in great shape. We got enough exercise flying at 10,000 feet every day.

And I flew with a different pilot every day, sometimes even women pilots. I wore my parachute all the time, just in case. We never had any jump training though; they could have done better with that. They could have done better with a lot of things, but we got by somehow.

I got a leave to go home for 10 days. I got married in Coteau, Louisiana in July 1942 to Elsie Babineaux. I bought a car and drove home about once a year. I was lucky I was an instructor. If I had been a combat bombardier I would have probably been killed. We lost a lot of young boys. We lost some during training. At that field in Tampa, they lost 20 cadets out of 60. They checked those planes and found out that the wings were 3 feet too short. Can you believe that? I was a similar kind of plane that they flew over Tokyo-Doolittle- a B-25. What do you think encouraged him to make that raid? Man! And he went himself you know. (Doolittle's Raid.)

In the B-24 and the B-17 we had to fly with an oxygen mask when we hit 10,000 feet. It was so much trouble to go to the back of the plane to the toilet that we would just piss out of a hole in the side of the ship. Talk about cold. We'd wear regular coveralls, and fur-line suits. It was 40 below. In the B-29 you were comfortable, because it was pressurized. We were quite comfortable on the B-29.
At 4,000 feet, you drop the bomb about a mile and a half before the target. The Norden Bombsight took care of the distance for you. It came naturally to me, like shooting a rifle with a telescopic sight. The bombsight only went 70 degrees. You set the cross hairs in the telescope and put them on the target. If the cross hairs stay on the target you are all right; if they are not synchronized you're not right. At 20,000 feet you had to start setting up about minutes before target.

My best friend in New Iberia was Donald Duncan; incidentally he became a bombardier instructor too. He and his two brothers were all pilots; they were from Avery Island. My great-grandfather was a general in the Mexican War; my grandfather was a colonel in the Civil War, and my daddy was a Captain in the Spanish American War. I was way down. I was just a First Lieutenant.

In advance, I had no idea about the Atomic Bomb. I read in the newspaper, in Albuquerque, that a deaf child felt a vibration; and no body else felt it. See Los Alamos is about 100 miles from Albuquerque. I was in New Mexico during that time, but I had no idea what it was. We didn't know about it till after.

If we hadn't drop the atomic bomb on Japan, we probably would have lost half-a-million men (in the ensuing invasion.) It killed a lot of people, sure, but look at the Russians. They lost 12 million, with no atomic bomb. Look how hard it was to take all those little islands in the Pacific. If we had invaded the Japanese homeland, every man, women, and child would have had a gun.

I was discharged in November 1945. Now the day that I resigned my commission, the Army came and told me that if I signed up the reserves, they would make me Captain-today. Can you believe that? I told them to shove it again.

I bet you there is no record of me working for the FBI. I had to send them reports periodically. I would say, in the letter, that I was going fishing. If I saw something that didn't look right, I would report that I caught a fish, and they would come see me right away. But I never did see anything. In those reports, I never caught a fish. In early '42 the Norden Bombsight was our biggest secret. The Germans had nothing close to it. It could have changed the war for them.

They lost the air battle over Britain, which was a turning point of the war. With the Norden Bombsight, they could have turned the tide in their favor.