Samuel J. Delcambre, Jason Theriot, Hewitt Theriot, Mrs. Delcambre, unknown man (son? grandson?):

-Enlisted in the Air Corps to dodge the draft in 1942; they needed men very badly and Delcambre was assigned as a gunner
-Sent to Kessler Field for basic gunner training and then to Barksdale Field in Shreveport, LA and assigned to the 93rd Bomb Group, 328th Squadron on a flying crew as a waist gunner
-Immediately sent out to Page Field in Fort Myers, Florida for training; trained as flight crews on coastal patrols for submarines
-Picked up 2 depth chargers once from Barksdale and sunk a surfaced German submarine on the way back to Fort Myers
-After training they were told that they’d be shipped off with new planes to either in the dessert (sand colored) of the Far East or to England (green colored); they got green planes

-Flew to Newfoundland and from there flew as a unit to Scotland; lost a plane going to Scotland in the Arctic Circle in cloud cover, it just disappeared
-Arrived at Alchomberry Field outside of London and September 9 started doing bombing trips; made 8-9 missions from there
-Saw Roy Landry from New Iberia there with the National Guard guarding the field (8:17)
-Got a letter from his mother saying she was glad he was in London as there was a war in North Africa now;
-That day the tanniod came on and said: “All crews in your summer clothes leave and go to your planes immediately;” they were headed to North Africa

(11:42) North Africa
-Flew over Spain and Portugal and landed in Oran, North Africa; they were not supposed to fly over these countries but they were needed urgently
-It was raining all the time at Oran and they lost a plane while it was trying to take off and the wheels collapsed
-Flew them to LG139 in Tobruk, Libya over a battle field in a night trip
-From Libya (LG139) went to Bizerte in December 17 (1942)
-They flew from Oran to Sousse and back, Oran-Sousse-Palermo-Tripoli, Tripoli-Sousse, Tripoli again, Messina-Palermo-Naples, and Palermo-Naples
-They were all over water trips (25 trips in all) and that ended Delcambre’s stay in Africa

(15:00) England
-Next trip was a diversion flown over to England
-On the way spent the night in Gibraltar
-Diversions were dangerous missions
-They had a small group of planes, 2-3, that flew along the German coast to bait their fighters to come out and the main group can then sneak around the back
-Flew this diversion April 13, 1943

(16:14) other diversions
-Then went on to Vegesack and Wilhelmshaven, Germany
-From there to France and then Antwerp, Belgium
-By then had 30 trips and it was May 5, 1943
-Delcambre considers himself lucky as most planes were shot down in diversions

(17:25) left Europe
-Leaving the Air Force/ bomber group they were being briefed for a (#31) mission
-Got to the runway and were ready to leave when a jeep pulled up and grounded the whole group except one who didn’t have enough points to go home
-Sent back to the U.S. and went to Florida for rehabilitation, resigning, resting and recreation
-Gave them a complete physical and Delcambre was put in the hospital as he couldn’t hear
-Afterwards assigned to Charleston, South Carolina First Air Force training center and taught; he was the top man running the school
-He stayed there for 17 months

(19:36) Story of meeting a friend at the school (Frank LeBlanc)

(21:50) Combat Tour of Duty
-First trip out “bagged one” but it’s not on his record; Air Force did not confirm “kills” from bomber crews because of all the crossfire
-They’d have a formation of 3 planes with 10 guns each in one small area; there was no way of knowing who shot who
-But the German planes were faster, smaller and shot cannons so their range was longer; Delcambre’s bombers were known as “P-shooters” as they had such a short range
-If you were going to drop the bombs, had to fly straight and level for 5 minutes before the dropping point; the bombardier then set the Norden Bombsight that figured the trajectory
-Used (the Germans) a box with 5 guns to shoot as a scope and their planes were the targets; if you were hit/crippled and that was when the German fighters got you
-That was the problem but it had to be done this way; lost a lot of men
-Daylight bombing was much more successful as they could see and swarm the Germans

-Got frostbit a few times in 60 degrees below zero and no flack vest but just an oxygen mask
-Flew from anywhere from 20-25 thousand feet; flew “tree-top” level trips and night trips
-Delcambre was diverse and some thanks to his training in hunting submarines down; in Africa they were after Rommel’s supply lines
-Earned the Distinguished Flying Cross once and the Airman’s Medal four times

-Discharged in 1944 and re-signed up for another 2 “hitches,” stayed in for 10 years; they tried to get him to rejoin when the Korean War broke out—his term ended the day before

(29:38) Stories
-They were training for the Ploesti Oil Field raid but Delcambre didn’t get to go as his tour had ended
-His airplane did go and came back; 53 bombers were lost on that trip

-The movie “Memphis Belle” and the B-17 footage

-Defining what it means to be “flack happy;” too many close misses in fighting and becoming nervous
-When training the crews at the school, Delcambre kept seeing Germans in the clouds

-Shot many enemy planes down, as far as he knows; describes how he shot down a plane on his last mission

(37:19)
-Gunners were freestanding and with an air hose and had their heads out the window looking; parachutes were on their back and Delcambre never had to use his

-Shot as an expert with 45 at the shooting range and at gunnery school trained with the .20 caliber machine guns
-Also at gunnery school first time to be in an airplane

-Left New Iberia January 19, 1942 and sworn in February 2, 1942 at Camp Livingston in Alexandria, Louisiana
-Left with Gervais Patout, Lee Castille and Roland Durand; talking about Lee in the Pacific war, he never came back

(41:44) North African campaign trip
-The British 8th Army almost got boxed in Egypt and were pushing Rommel back
-That’s when they came in and were in Tripoli to strafe the town and bomb the ships and go back home
-Shot random and Delcambre shot his down a street while flying; a tree-top level trip

-The purpose was to help the British get out the German in Tripoli
-When at the base (U.S) was told there was a mistake made and they came in an hour later than what was asked for
-While at the base in Fort Slocomb, New York met to 2 British soldiers and they were talking and found they were a part of the 8th Army
-They wanted to thank the bombers that flew over and helped them in Tripoli

-In the Libyan Desert they stayed in tents and the beds were 3 feet underground
-At night it’d get lower than 50 degrees and over a 100 in the day and never rained in the last 40 years—rained the day they left
-Sand was everywhere and the sandstorms were terrible
-Had to be flown to Egypt to take a bath once a month; they were in the middle of nowhere

(Looking at pictures in North Africa)
-Had to wear British uniforms as the British were the only Allies at the time in Libya and the locals (Limies) would shoot at anybody else that was seen as an enemy (Germans and Italians)

(55:40) the French
-Never in France; met some French in Africa that would visit with them
-Tells a story of speaking French in Egypt for a haircut and a shave
-Saw Paps Blue Ribbons Beer and Tabasco Pepper Sauce in Egypt’s restaurants
-They spoke St. Martinville French
-Never given problems for being Cajun
-Had his name spelled “Delcambro” so he was given the nickname “Delcambro the daigo”

(1:03:15) Tunisia
-Where a big fight happened
-Tunis was where the Germans left to go to Italy to get away
-The only thing Delcambre ever did there was just bombing; they were hitting the harbors
-Hit up the staging areas for the Germans to the battle front in Africa

-Re-describing the sinking of the submarine near Florida and how they held depth chargers
-Talking about the German U-boats in the Gulf and how long they might have been there; wives tales
-Flying trips and what they did up there; flying formations
-Ground crews and the Rosie the Riveters that built and kept their planes going

(1:19:58) Talking about people he met from the area during the war; people that they know/knew

Transcription Begins:

Samuel J. Delcambre
6606 Daspit Rd. on Hwy. 86
New Iberia, La. 70563-8945
Born: January 21, 1921
Waist Gunner—B-24
North Africa
Interview conducted by Jason P. Theriot

I enlisted in the Air Corp in January 1942 to join the branch of service of my choice. I left New Iberia with Gervais Patout, Lee Castille and Roland Durand for Camp Livingston, Alexandria, Louisiana.
On February 2, 1942, we were sworn into the Air Corp. Lee Castille and I were split up at Kessler Field after basic training. He went into another outfit and he ended up in the Pacific. He never came back.

I went to Barksdale Field in Shreveport where I was assigned to the 93rd Bomb Group, 328th Squadron as a waist gunner in a B-24.The Air Corp was in desperate need for men at the time. I was immediately shipped out to Tindyl Field, Panama City, Florida, for gunnery school. I shot expert with the .45 caliber because I was a hunter on this end. We flew the AT6 Texan to practice shooting at low targets.

From Tindly Field, I went to Page Field in Fort Myers, Florida for our training. There I joined my squadron and my crew. From the minute we arrived, we got in that B-24 training plane flying coastal patrol looking for submarines. It was the typical training of the time. We didn’t have any machine guns or any bombs. We went on a cross county flight and picked up two depth charges from Barksdale—the only two on the base. On the way to Florida (June 1942) we ran into a surfaced German submarine…and we sank it! It was about a hundred and fifty miles south of Pensacola. The kill was confirmed by the Navy, and the pilot (his name was John L. Jerstad) was awarded the Silver Star for that. A submarine was painted on my airplane, right at the top. They had a lot of submarines in the Gulf. In the beginning, the coastal towns would leave all the lights on, and the Germans could pick up the silhouette of our ships passing by. It was nothing for those U-boats to sink a dozen ships before returning home. We had nothing at the beginning to protect against that. We barely had enough planes to train the pilots.

In the beginning all we had to wear were fleece-lined flying suits. We didn’t see the electric flight suites until later on in the war. Flack-jackets; I never saw that. Armor protection; I never saw that. Earplugs; I never saw that. We ate before we left, and we ate when we came back. We had a little hole to pee in when we were airborne. Over the target, you pee’d in your pants! I was scared up there. If you weren’t scared up there, then you were crazy. I believe that I was the only one who prayed in French and in English at the same time. The 93rd Bomb Group lost over a hundred planes in the war…we were lucky.

We were told that we were being shipped off. If we got sand-colored planes we were going to Egypt and North Africa; if we got the green planes we were going to England. We got the green ones. We modified our planes with bulletproof tanks. We flew as a unit to Scotland. We were the first group to go as a unit. We lost a plane on the way—Friday’s Cat. I signal them, and they flashed back to me. That was the last time anyone saw them. They just disappeared. We were up in the Arctic Circle. If you crash land in that; you’re good for about thirty minutes.

I arrived at Alcholmberry Field right outside of London. On the ninth of September we started our bombing trips. We made eight or nine missions from that field. On my first trip out, I got me a “kill,” but the Air Force doesn’t confirm “kills” from bomber crews because of all of the crossfire from the formations that we flew. We’d have planes stacked up and bunched up in a little area, and we got ten guns each, so anybody come in is gonna have a bunch of guns on him at one time. But, those German planes had the advantage on us; they were faster, they were smaller, and they shot cannons—their range was longer. We were shooting “P-shooters,” and our range was not that long.

In order for us to drop our bombs properly, we had to fly straight and level for five minutes. Within those five minutes the bombardier set that Norden Bombsight, which did everything for you to figure the trajectory of those bombs going down. So, we were flying straight, and they (German AAA) knew our altitude. They used a box, just like five men in a blind shooting at one duck, so those five men shot where that duck had to go. They were using at least a thousand guns over the targets we were bombing. And they were told to shoot in that box and keep right on shooting. When they crippled you, that’s when the fighters would get ya.

We lost a lot of planes and a lot of men like that. But that is where the big, big problem was; we had to do it that way. And that’s why daylight bombing was such a success. We just swarmed them, that’s all. But, they knocked down a lot of airplanes. I saw a lot of bombers blow up. And in my case I was lucky; I got away with just losing my hearing.

I got frostbit a few times in sixty degree below weather with no flak vest, just an oxygen mask. When we first started flying we didn’t have the electric suits; that came later on. Our bombing runs were anywhere from twenty to twenty-five thousand feet. But I flew three or four missions “on the ground” —treetop level trips. I flew some night trips, too. I’m diversified.

We were really after those submarines in the beginning. We tried to hold them down, so they wouldn’t get to our shipping. When we got to North Africa, we were after Rommel’s supply lines. We went after his shipping to keep that down.

One morning I was headed to my plane for a mission. I was the first one there, it was dark, and I got challenged: this fella hollered, “Halt, who goes there?” I said “its Sam Delcambre, member of the crew.” This fella hollered back, “Sam, you ole SOB, come here!” I walked up to him, and it was Roy Landry from New Iberia on Orange Street. He was with the National Guard unit and they were pulling guard duty on the airfield.

I got a letter from my mama one day and she said that she was glad that I was not in North Africa, because they had started a war over there. She didn’t know that I had already completed nine missions. Soon after, the tannoid came on and it said, “All crews report to your planes with your summer clothes on immediately.” We were on our way to North Africa.

From England we flew across Spain and Portugal to Oran in North Africa. We were not supposed to fly across those countries. Our colonel, Colonel Timberlake said, “Sometimes you’ve got to bend the rules to save men.”

The British 8th Army got boxed in Egypt, and after the battle at El Alamin, Montgomery started pushing Rommel back. That’s when we came in. We landed in Oran; it was rainy and muddy. We flew to Bizertte, and then on a night trip to LG139, which is in Tobruk, Libya in December 17, 1942. Those British troops were around Tripoli, and we got an order to go to Tripoli at eight in the morning, strafe the town on our way to the harbor, drop our bombs on the German ships in the harbor, and strafe the town on our way back home. This was a tree-top-level run. I remember just shooting my gun down the street. The purpose of that trip was to assist the British 8th Army to get the Germans out of Tripoli, so we did that. But, come to find out, there was a mess up with the time. We really got there an hour late. I didn’t know anything about this mission until I came back to the U.S. at Fort Slocomb in New York waiting to be shipped home. I was in town and I ran into two British soldiers in New York. And they were “PO’ed” until they were fighting mad. So I got to talking to them. They were mad because they had to fly their planes all the way east, through the U.S. just to get back home from Egypt. They called everybody “blokes.” They said what they really wish they could do was to meet the men in those bombers that flew over Tripoli that morning that we flew that mission. I asked him why. He said, “I was a satchel man.” And there was this German pillbox with machine guns in front of him. He was ordered to drop that satchel charge in the pillbox. Just when he was getting ready to do this, here comes our bombers, strafing the whole damn area and the Germans came out with their hands up saying, “Kapult!” We flew over and machine-gunned the area, and the Germans gave up. And here’s these British boys getting ready to throw a satchel of dynamite in a pillbox. We saved their lives: the Germans and the British.

We lived in tents in the Libyan Desert, and our beds were three feet under ground. In the desert it was in the fifties and lower at night, and it was up to a hundred during the daytime. It hadn’t rained there in forty years. Sand…sand everywhere. When a sand storm would come up in the desert, you couldn’t see your face; you had to use a compass to go to the mess tent. We had one canteen of water a day. All we had was Spam and powdered eggs, and you took a bath once a month. They flew us to Egypt so we could have a bath. We didn’t have any camps or airports; it was just a landing strip, the desert, and us. We were wide open, in the middle of nowhere: no fences, no roads, no nothing. This was the battlefield and there was nothing but wreckage everywhere. The nearest big city was Tobruk, twenty miles away. The harbor there was full of ships—from the bottom up. North Africa was really something. (He has a picture of British gas truck and a busted up Stuka dive bomber)

We had three stripes painted on our tail rudder: a red, white, and blue stripe. That was our color code. That was the only international marker that we had in North Africa, and we wore British uniforms. That was for survival. You see, before we got there (Libya) the only people on the desert were British and Germans (and Italians). The Americans were new to this war. The “Limies” would shot at anything that wasn’t British or didn’t have a British marking or uniform on. So we all wore British uniforms. The next war that we are going to fight has started already; and what is the enemy doing today? —he is dressed like an American civilian. The civilians are going to catch it in the next round.

The French were not too far from us. They would come to our area and visit with us now and then. (He has a picture of he and a French Legionnaire) I was bilingual and I could speak with them. One time I went to Egypt to get a shave, a haircut, and a bath. The barber was an albino. I told him: “Raze sa propre” (Meaning: shave it clean). He said, “Mustachio jamain,” (Meaning: the barber never cuts the mustache). He shaved my face, but he didn’t want to shave my mustache. I went to a restaurant in Ismailia, Egypt on Lake Bitter, and on the table was Paps Blue Ribbon bear, Tabasco Pepper Sauce, and they served me pot roast, just like momma used to make it. They spoke St. Martinville French. I was lucky that I was born and raised in this part of the country and taught a little bit of French from my parents. I was never called any names, except a typewriter error misspelled my name; they spelled it DELCAMBRO—some people called me “Delcambro the Daigo.”

Our job in Tunisia was to bomb German and Italian shipping. We lived in the desert and flew missions everyday. We were bombing the harbors in the Mediterranean; Naples, Messina, Palermo, Tunis—all of these were staging areas for the Germans to move supplies to the battle front. We were sinking all of their ships that were re-supplying North Africa. We flew to Sousse, Sousse, Palermo, Tripoli, Tripoli, Sousse, Tripoli again, Messina, Palermo, Naples, Palermo, Naples; all were over-water trips. That all gave me twenty-five trips in; the date was February 15, 1943. That ended my stay in Africa.
My next trip was a diversion, flown out of England. On the way to England, I spent the night in Gibraltar. A diversion is a very dangerous mission. Not many planes make it back from a diversion. They sent a small group of planes—three, two, something like that—to fly around the German coast and suck the fighters out, so the main group can sneak around the back door. I flew this mission on April 13, 1943. I’m lucky I made it.

From there I went to Vegesack, Germany, and Wilhelmshaven, Germany. I went to France then Antwerp, Belgium. By that time I had thirty trips in and it was May 5th, 1943. Immediately after our 30th mission they grounded us. We started training for the Ploesti Oil Field raid, but I didn’t make that trip. I had had my thirty missions, and my tour was over, so they sent me home. I couldn’t even light a cigarette after they ground us, because I was shaking to pieces. My airplane, Jerk’s Natural, went on the mission. It was one of the few that made it back in one piece. They lost fifty-three bombers on that trip; that’s 530 men. The original pilot was killed on one of the Ploesti raids. They were two or three Congressional Medal of Honors awarded on that trip. It was a low-level trip against the oil fields in Romania. It was a two-thousand-mile trip. They had to use auxiliary tanks for that mileage. The B-24 was the only long-range bomber that they had. All the other bombers could not go there. The B-17 could not compare to what the 24 could do. It could carry a much bigger load, much further, but it was a box. They called it the “pregnant cow,” and they had all kinds of names for. It was not a beautiful airplane, but it was a worker. It flew all over the world.

We had the best ground crews in the world. They were dedicated and they took good care of those airplanes. The finest workers built our planes: Rosie the Riveter did more to win the war than anybody else. They are the ladies, the girls, the work force that got into all of those planes and tanks to build that stuff which allowed the men in the factories to go off to war.

I shot at enemy airplanes on many a trip. And I didn’t get another good shooting on an airplane until the last trip that I made, which I think I got another one. That plane was coming in straight from the nose. He came in the front and passed over my plane, and I was on the [left] side. As soon as he cleared those engines I let him have it. He went down through the formation, but I don’t know what happened to him. I saw the pilot though. He was just a little bit further than my garage, so I know that I hit him, I gave him a burst right in his engine.

We flew in ‘V’ formations for protection. First of all you could fly right behind another plane because of the “prop-wash;” you would lose control. We flew in a box. And anytime an enemy plane came in that box, we had several guns pointed at him at the same time.

The waist gunners were freestanding. The only thing we have attached the airplane is an air hose. You gotcha gun in your hand, your parachute on your back, and your head out the window all the time. You keep looking and watching. I had shot expert at gunnery school with the .20 caliber machine guns, but we never trained to use a parachute. I turned my parachute in, after my tour was over, and it was unused. I was just a poor boy from the country and I had never been in an airplane before.

When I left the bomber group, we were being briefed for the next mission; it would have been number thirty-one for me. They briefed us; we got into our planes, got up on the runway, revved up our engines, checked all of our mags, and waited for the signal. Right when we got the signal to take off a jeep pulled up in front of us, flagging us down. We stopped. They pulled the whole crew off, except one man, and grounded us permanently.

I had suffered from “flak-happy,” just like those bicycle courriers in New York—they get traffic happy. They get so many misses that it’s not even funny. “Flak-happy” happens every time you go up there on a mission; you got a thousand guns shooting at you. As long as you see that black smoke, don’t worry, but as soon as you start seeing that red ball, they’re close. And when you start hearing them barking like dogs, or like somebody beating on a drum—Boom—they’re getting close. That’s how I lost my hearing.

I flew in that stuff for thirty trips. Some trips were eight to ten hours. We stayed up there a long time. They were shorter when we would leave from England, but over the desert, we’d leave at noon and we’d bomb at dusk, and we’d get back around mid-night. “Flak-happy” is when you are completely fatigued; you just break down.

I came back to the United States and went to Florida for rehabilitation, resigning, resting and recreation, and they gave us a complete physical. Well they put me in the hospital because I couldn’t hear anymore. I had “bum-ears.” I was reassigned to Charleston, South Carolina, First Air Force training center. I was the top-man for running the school for the Air Force. We checked out the new crews and I stayed there for seventeen months. On those first couple of training flights over the ocean I could see [imaginary] fighters in the clouds; that was from being “flak-happy.” It took me a while to break that. Man, wow, it was bad.

That was my tour of duty during the war. I can’t say that I was a valuable man for the Air Force, but they thought I was because I earned the Distinguished Flying Cross once and the Airman’s Medal four times.

(*You had me read an article about one of your missions over the Brest Peninsula; the article mentioned you as “Waist-gunner, Samuel J. Delcambre, a Cajun from New Iberia, La. saw the crew of the stricken ship…” This was from Captain Author Gordon, 8th AAF. Air Force Journal, October 1943. I would like a copy of that article to accompany your story)