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Robert B. Landry Oral History Interview, March 1-2, 1983

Oral History Interview with
Robert B. Landry

U.S. Army officer, 1932-63; Air Aide to President Truman, 1948-53.

Scottsdale, Arizona
March 1-2, 1983
by Hugh A. Ahmann, United States Air Force Oral History Program

See also: Robert B. Landry Oral History, by James R. Fuchs of the Harry S. Truman Library.

[Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Table of Contents]

 


Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted by The United States Air Force Oral History Program . The reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened February 1990
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

 

[Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Table of Contents]

 



Oral History Interview with
Robert B. Landry

Scottsdale, Arizona
March 1-2, 1983
by Hugh A. Ahmann, United States Air Force Oral History Program


[iii]

FOREWORD

One of the oldest and oft-used sources for reconstructing the past is the personal recollections of the individuals who were involved. While of great value, memoirs and oral interviews are primary source documents rather than finished history. The following pages are the personal remembrances of the interviewee and not the official opinion of the United States Air Force Historical Program or of the Department of the Air Force. The Air Force has not verified the statements contained herein and does not assume any responsibility for their accuracy.

These pages are a transcript of an oral interview recorded on magnetic tape. Editorial notes and additions made by United States Air Force historians have been enclosed in brackets. When feasible, first names, ranks, or titles have been provided. Only minor changes for the sake of clarity were made before the transcript was returned to the interviewee for final editing and approval. Readers must therefore remember that this is a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written, word.

[v]

KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS:

That I, Maj. Gen Robert B. Landry, have on (date) 1-2 March, 1983, participated in an oral magnetic taped interview with Hugh N. Ahmann, USAF Historical Research Center, covering my best recollections of events and experiences which may be of historical significance to the United States Air Force.

I understand that the tape(s) and the transcribed manuscript resulting there from will be accessioned into the United States Air Force Historical Research Center to be used as the security classification permits. It is further understood and agreed that any copy or copies of this oral history interview given to me by the United States Air Force and in my possession or that of my executors, administrators, heirs, and assigns, may be used in any manner and for any purpose by me or them, subject to security classification restrictions.

Subject to the license to use reserved above, I do hereby voluntarily give, transfer, convey, and assign all right, title, and interest in the memoirs and remembrances contained in the aforementioned magnetic tapes and manuscript to the Office of Air Force History, acting on behalf of the United States of America, to have and to hold the same forever, hereby relinquishing for myself, my executors, administrators, heirs, and assigns all ownership, right, title, and interest therein to the donee expressly on the condition of strict observance of the following restrictions:

DONOR: Robert B. Landry, Maj. General, USAF (Retired)

DATED: Feb 3, 1990
Accepted on behalf of the Office of Air Force History by: Elliott V. Converse, III, Col. USAF

DATED: Feb 13, 1990

[vii]

BIOGRAPHY

OF

MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT B. LANDRY

Major General Robert B. Landry was born on 1 December 1909 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He attended Tulane University for a year and then entered the U.S. Military Academy from which he was graduated in June 1932, and appointed a second lieutenant of Infantry. After serving at infantry installations in the United States for 2 years, he began flying training and in March 1935, was graduated with the rating of pilot and transferred to the Air Corps.

General Landry's first Air Corps assignment was as flying instructor at Kelly Field, Texas, followed by a 2 year tour of duty in the Panama Canal Zone. He then became a squadron Commander of the 493d Bomb Group; and Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations of the Air Staff of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces.

General Landry, in January 1946, was appointed a member of the Joint Operations Review Board of the Army Navy Staff College. The following July he entered the National War College, from which he was graduated in July 1947. A month later he was named executive to the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. In February 1948, General Landry was appointed Air Aide to President Truman.

He was designated deputy commander of the Second Air Force at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, in January 1953. On 7 February 1955, he became Commander of the Fourth Air Force, Continental Air Command, Hamilton AFB, California. In July 1957, he transferred as Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force. In June 1960 he was assigned to McClellan AFB, California. He retired in June 1962.

[ix]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PEARL HARBOR
AIR FORCE TOOK OVER THE AC&W CONTROL CENTER
ARMY WAS JEALOUS OF THEIR AUTHORITY
STUDY OF THE CAPABILITY OF THE HAWAIIAN AF TO FIGHT
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE DEFENSE OF HAWAII
NO WAR PLAN FOR HAWAII
ROOSEVELT DID NOT KNOW THE JAPS WERE GOING TO ATTACK PEARL HARBOR
BATTLE OF MIDWAY
FAMILY HISTORY
WEST POINT
FIRST ASSIGNMENT WAS AT CAMP STEPHEN D. LITTLE
INTEREST IN FLYING
APPLIED FOR PILOT TRAINING AT RANDOLPH AFB
ARMY PREJUDICE AGAINST THE AF
LIFE IN THE ARMY AT FORT HUACHUCA
BEGAN FLYING TRAINING IN 1935
FLYING INSTRUCTION AT RANDOLPH AFB
WASHOUT RATE
WENT INTO PURSUIT FLYING
TRANSFERRED TO PANAMA CANAL ZONE
DEFENSE PLANS OF PANAMA CANAL ZONE
NAVY EXERCISE IN PANAMA CANAL ZONE
HE WENT FROM POLLIWOG TO SHELLBACK
ASSIGNED TO BARKSDALE AFB, 20TH PURSUIT GROUP
DEPRESSION YEARS IN THE MILITARY
BALLOONISTS WENT TO HEAVIER THAN AIR
 
 
[x]
 
 
 
WAS AIDE TO GEN FRED MARTIN
GHQ HEADQUARTERS AND OFFICE OF AIR CORPS CONFLICT
ARMY EXERCISES AT FORT POLK, LA
SET UP AN EXERCISE FOR RESERVISTS
INACTIVE RESERVISTS FLEW OUT OF BARKSDALE AFB
GEN FRED MARTIN
AEROBATIC SHOW AT MARCH AFB
OBTAINED A B-18 FOR THE COMMAND AIRPLANE
COL HARRY OCKER DEVELOPED INSTRUMENT FLYING
IFR
LINK TRAINER
OLDTIMERS IN THE AIR CORPS
AIR CORPS TACTICAL SCHOOL
BETTER PART OF AIR CORPS BUDGET WENT TO THE B-17
GEN HOWARD DAVIDSON BROUGHT THE B-15 TO BARKSDALE AFB
WENT TO HAWAII AS GENERAL MARTIN'S AIDE AND OPERATIONS
HE HAD NO THOUGHTS OF WAR IN 1939
GEN H. H. ARNOLD
MURRAY GREEN ASSISTED HIM ON THE STUDY OF THE SALEM WITCH HUNTS
HAWAIIAN AF INVENTORY WHEN JAPS ATTACKED
RELATIONS WITH THE ARMY AND NAVY
PERSONNEL STATIONED IN HAWAII
BALLINGER REPORT
AIR CORPS HAD IDENTIFIED ITS MISSION IN HAWAII
FIRST RADAR IN HAWAII
ARMY REFUSED TO DISPERSE THE AIRCRAFT
INDICATIONS OF TROUBLE IN LATE 1940
B-I7 VERSUS B-24
ESTABLISHMENT OF HAWAIIAN AF
HE KNEW THERE WAS THE POSSIBILITY OF WAR IN THE PACIFIC
JAPANESE AIRCRAFT AND CARRIERS
 
 
[xi]
 
 
 
DUTIES AS GENERAL MARTIN'S AIDE
B-17S LOST AT CLARK FIELD
EVENTS OF 7 DECEMBER 1941
ARMY COULD NOT BELIEVE IN AIRPOWER
THE AFTERMATH OF THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR
TREATMENT OF JAPANESE POPULATION AFTER THE ATTACK
THE DEPENDENTS WERE SENT BACK TO THE STATES
EFFECTIVE USE OF INTELLIGENCE
GENERAL MARTIN RELEASED HIM TO JOIN THE VIII FIGHTER COMMAND
TRANSFERRED TO EIGHTH AIR FORCE
HE SET UP THE EARLY WARNING PLOTTING OUTFIT IN HAWAII
REPORTED TO GENERAL SPAATZ IN WASHINGTON
PREPARATION FOR OVERWATER FLIGHT OF B-17s AND P-38s
FLIGHT TO ENGLAND
P-38s ARE STILL FROZEN IN ICECAP
COL BERNT BALCHEN
VIII FIGHTER COMMAND ORGANIZATION
WENT TO NORTH AFRICA ON TDY
USE OF TACTICAL AIR FORCES
GETTING INFORMATION GAINED BACK TO THE STATES
EVALUATION OF PREPAREDNESS OF AAC FOR WWII
HE DID A STUDY ON AIR DEFENSE IN NORTH AFRICA
GEN GEORGE PATTON
OPERATIONS OFFICER FOR VIII FIGHTER COMMAND
COORDINATION WITH THE BRITISH
SPITFIRES VERSUS P-47s
UTILIZATION OF FIGHTER AIRCRAFT
P-51 HAD BUILT IN TANKS
AF PROTECTED GROUND TROOPS
ESCORT AIRCRAFT FLEW AT 15,000 FEET
EVALUATION OF GERMAN STRATEGY
OXYGEN MASK DEFECTS
 
 
[xii]
 
 
 
P-47
COL HUB ZEMKE COMMANDED THE 56TH FIGHTER GROUP
QUALITY OF PILOTS
OLDTIMERS IN EUROPE
WORKED FOR GENERAL DOOLITTLE
LACK OF MORAL FIBER COMMITTEE
APPRECIATION OF GERMAN AIRCRAFT
FIRST GERMAN JET
GEN JOHANNES STEINHOFF
ASSIGNED TO AIR STAFF AT SHAEF
DEPUTY COMMANDER, 93D COMBAT BOMB WING
HIS APPRECIATION OF AF LEADERSHIP IN EUROPE DURING WWII
GENERALS SPAATZ AND DOOLITTLE
SHUTTLE BOMBING
BOMBING WITH RADAR
BOMBING OF DRESDEN IN APRIL 1945
GEN IRA EAKER'S ASSIGNMENT TO THE MEDITERRANEAN
METHOD OF REPORTING KILLS
SERVICE AWARDS DURING WORLD WAR II
TACTICS AND METHODS OF FLYING
100TH BOMB GROUP
END OF WAR IN EUROPE
ORDERED TO AIR STAFF SHAEF
DUTIES AT SHAEF
US STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY
CONDITIONS IN GERMANY
RETURNED TO THE STATES
ASSIGNED TO THE STAFF AT THE NATIONAL WAR COLLEGE
ASSIGNED TO GENERAL SPAATZ' OFFICE, HQ AAF
GENERAL KEPNER REPLACED GENERAL HUNTER IN EUROPE, WWII
ALLIES HAD TOTAL AIR SUPERIORITY OVER FRANCE
OBTAINED THE AERIAL CAMERA BEFORE THE NORMANDY INVASION
 
 
[xiii]
 
 
 
DUTIES AS AN EXECUTIVE OFFICER TO THE CHIEF OF STAFF, ARMY AIR FORCE
AF BECAME A SEPARATE SERVICE
CHAIN OF COMMAND
ORGANIZATION OF HQ USAF
DUPLICATION OF SERVICES
GEN BENNETT MEYERS
UNIFICATION OF SERVICES IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF DOD
70 GROUP PROGRAM
DOD ACCESS TO THE PRESIDENT
OFFENSIVE AGAINST GERMANY A COMBINED AIR OFFENSIVE
GENERAL SPAATZ
HIS DEFINITION OF LEADERSHIP
GEN IRA EAKER
PROFESSIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION
SPAATZ INFLUENCED CHOICE OF HIS SUCCESSOR
ASSIGNED AS AF AIDE TO THE PRESIDENT
GEN "ROSIE" O' DONNELL
GEN HARRY VAUGHN
AF WAS IN FLUX IN LATE 1940s
CLOSE AIR SUPPORT IN WWII
COMMUNICATIONS DURING WWII
BATTLE OF THE BULGE
NO DOUBTS ABOUT THE OUTCOME OF WWII
SECRETARY FORRESTAL
ACCOMPANIED PRESIDENT TRUMAN ON TRIPS
ARRANGED PRESIDENT TRUMAN'S MEETING ON WAKE ISLAND WITH GENERAL MACARTHUR
ASPHALT VERSUS CEMENT RUNWAY CONTROVERSY
AIR FORCE ONE COMMANDER
KEPT THE PRESIDENT CURRENT ABOUT PROBLEMS WITH AIRCRAFT
 
 
[xiv]
 
 
 
THE PRESIDENT'S MEETING WITH GENERAL MACARTHUR
MACARTHUR WAS RELIEVED OF HIS COMMAND
KOREAN CONFLICT
THE PRESIDENT'S REASON FOR MEETING WITH MACARTHUR
BERLIN BLOCKADE
RELUCTANCE OF AF TO REASSIGN HIM
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON TRUMAN'S LIFE
DESEGREGATION OF ARMED FORCES
TRUMAN DECIDED NOT TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT AGAIN
PRESIDENTS TRUMAN AND EISENHOWER
SECRETARY LOUIS JOHNSON
OTHER MATTERS WHICH CONCERNED THE PRESIDENT
ROLES AND MISSIONS
ACTIVITIES HE WAS INVOLVED IN AS AIDE TO THE PRESIDENT
REORGANIZATION OF DOD
TRUMAN'S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
NO INFIGHTING AMONG PRESIDENT TRUMAN'S STAFF
COORDINATION BETWEEN THE STATE DEPARTMENT AND DOD
RELATIONSHIP WITH PRESS
EARLY DAYS OF SAC
ESTABLISHMENT OF AFA
SECRETARY SYMINGTON
TRUMAN WAS AWARE OF WAR PLANS
HOOVER COMMISSION
TRUMAN'S RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS STAFF
TRUMAN LIVED IN THE BLAIR HOUSE FOR 3 YEARS
ASSIGNED AS DEPUTY COMMANDER, SECOND AF
DUTIES AS DEPUTY COMMANDER, SECOND AF
GENERAL POWER CALLED THE DEPUTY COMMANDERS TO SAC HQ
GENERAL LEMAY
SPOT PROMOTIONS IN SAC
ENLISTMENT RATE IN SAC
 
 
[xv]
 
 
 
GENERAL POWER
TRANSFERRED TO FOURTH AF
STATUS OF AF RESERVE AND NATIONAL GUARD IN FOURTH AF
FOURTH AF COMMANDER WAS A PR JOB
PROBLEMS WITH RESERVE ASSIGNMENTS
TRANSFERRED TO DCS/PERSONNEL, HQ USAF
GENERAL PROMOTION BOARDS
INFLATION OF OERS
WHITE CHARGER PROGRAM
CADET PROGRAM
SAC PERSONNEL WENT TO CHIEF OF STAFF LEMAY
DID NOT USE CONSULTING FIRMS IN PERSONNEL
LEMAY MOVED PERSONNEL TO RANDOLPH AFB
LEADERSHIP
MILITARY PAY
PROFICIENCY PAY
AF WAS "SACOMCIZED"
PUBLIC LAW 616
ASSIGNED TO MCCLELLAN AFB
COMLOGNET
RETIREES WORKING FOR AF CONTRACTORS
DID NOT UTILIZE COMMAND HISTORIES
WORST ASSIGNMENT IN HIS AF CAREER

[1]

Oral History Interview #K239.0512-1372
1-2 March 1983
Taped Interview with Maj Gen Robert B. Landry
Conducted by Mr. Hugh A. Ahmann
Transcribed and Edited by Mary E. Monday

(Interview begins with Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941)

AHMANN: Have you read this recent book, At Dawn We Slept, by Prange

LANDRY: Yes. I have it up in the library here.

AHMANN: That is a massive account.

LANDRY: That was done by a lieutenant commander in the Navy who continued in the Navy and had very good assignments. Afterwards I think he retired from the State Department or someplace. He continued to pursue this. I'm still reading the bibliography. (laughter) And I was there.

AHMANN: Has anybody ever come to talk to you about Pearl Harbor at all?

LANDRY: No. Just some friends of mine who were over there.

AHMANN: Did you know Kermit Tyler [Lt. Col. Kermit A.] over there when you were there? He was that man who was at the plotting board on 7 December, that morning. He was at the control center, the AC&W [air control and warning) control center.

[2]

LANDRY: I probably have met him because Fort Shafter had the responsibility of setting up that plotting board. The Army was so goddamn jealous of the Air Force all the time that, Christ, they wanted to do everything. They set the goddamn various degrees of alertness. We fought them on that and lost, and we lost the whole goddamn air force out there because we lined them up wingtip to wingtip. They wanted to run the plotting board and was slow in getting it started. Of course we were not getting the equipment anyway. But we had nothing to do with it except as they might ask somebody something when they wanted to.

I'll guarantee you, after the attack came, we took it over right away, and the Hawaiian Fighter Command was set up. As a matter of fact, I became the executive officer, first to "Monk" Hunter [Maj Gen Frank O'D.] who was flown over and then replaced by Howard Davidson [Maj Gen Howard C.], who knew nothing about fighters. It was my responsibility to get that plotting center going. We got it going, and of course, we got materiel from the States. We got all the volunteer ladies there whose husbands were out fighting the war and people living there. We had a hell of a good plotting center eventually.

AHMANN: Where did the idea germinate for that plotting center? When did that originally get set up? Do you remember that? Or was that going when you got there?

LANDRY: Like I say--oh, no, it was not going when we got there. They had nothing like that. As a matter of fact, I got there in November 1940. There wasn't anything like it; there wasn't any feeling of a great threat although the Japanese were acting kind of funny even in those days, but no threat

[3]

of immediate attack. I would say that probably the priority for the equipment available, considering expenses, costs, and budgets, I guess Hawaii was pretty low on the totem pole. But eventually, I think as the situation began to deteriorate, the Japanese Fleet was sailing all around the Pacific; the possibility of an attack was always there, but it seemed so far away that a lot of people thought it would be other places first.

AHMANN: It was that remote.

LANDRY: It was that remote. So we did get the station up there on the northwest point of the Island of Oahu that detected the airplanes coming in, picked up the B-17s that were coming in and the others. They thought they were all the same thing. That was going, and the information was not even--well, it was probably telephoned to Shafter. Somebody took it, but they didn't know what to do with it. It was Sunday morning. There was no procedure; there was nothing written. We had not a goddamn thing to do with it. The Army was running it.

AHMANN: What was the Army, ostensibly, supposed to do with the information, alert the Air Force?

LANDRY: Eventually, I suppose they would have gotten an operational procedure going and alerted somebody. I was assistant A-3 in addition to being aide to General Martin [Maj Gen Frederick L.] and we didn't have any information about anything up there. We knew people were up there.

But it wasn't piped to the Air Force; it was piped to Fort Shafter to Mr. Short's [Maj Gen Walter C.] outfit. Those b-----ds were so jealous of their goddamn authority and

[4]

prerogatives that it was always a fight with them. As a matter of fact, General Martin ordered us to make a study--Art Meehan [Col Arthur W. ] who was the A-3, and I--of the capability of the Hawaiian Air Force to fight. We had the B-18s which had a range of action of a very small bomb load of about 225-250 miles. We had a bunch of fighters up at Wheeler (AFB HI) and that sort of thing, but we had no warning business.

The Air Force could never go direct to our own Air Force Headquarters at Langley--General Andrews [Lt Gen Frank M.] in those days. Well, in a sense you could, because our efficiency reports went through there and all that, administratively. But if you got into policy, and you got into budget; you got into equipment, and you got into control, if you got outside the Army lines, I want to tell you, you got fired or court-martialed or both.

It wasn't easy. General Martin was dealing with some of our people I suppose. I know he was. We wanted to get a study to show that the equipment we had was inadequate for the defense of the island, for the air defense, for the air support and defense. So we made this study. We worked on it for 90 days. They gave us 90 days to do it, Art Meehan and I, and I did a great portion of it. All we did was plot possible routes out from the island 225-250 miles. Well, Jesus, a carrier could stay outside of 350 and launch, and you would never know it. Then they could come in and recover, and we would just be flying around out there boring holes in the sky.

It was that straightforward. We just said it. We said, "It is absolutely impossible. We have to have the equipment out

[5]

here. The Navy is patrolling and is supposed to give us early warning with the old PBY boats." So there was no great deal of priority put on Hawaii by the bigshots in Washington. All this foolishness about messages being received and transmitted or not transmitted, it was a mess. Who is responsible? I really don't know. I don't think Mr. Roosevelt [President Franklin D.] had anything to do with trying to start the war.

AHMANN: The responsibility for the defense of Hawaii had to be with Kimmel [Adm. Husband E.] , Short, Martin, and Kimmel.

LANDRY: If you want to do it that way, but you have to remember that in those days we had a thing called unification. Even though the Air Force was not a service--it was the Army Air Force--we had the only goddamn air force that was land based anyway, except for the carriers.

We had unification, and under the unification act--I think Forrestal [James V.] was in those days--the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines were all supposed to get along. You were not supposed to use your position of superior rank and all that if you sat, say, at the council table.

Well, you know that old dog won't hunt, because you take a four-star admiral, who has the overall responsibility for the Pacific, who is sitting at the table with a three-star Army man, who has the responsibility for the land based thing, and a two-star guy, who is not responsible to Short and then to Kimmel and can't talk to his own War Department in Washington, well, you can see how silly unification was. It was just an awful phase, in my opinion, during my experience, to see some effort to get people to work together without

[6]

having the proper setup to do it, the controls, the law, the authority.

AHMANN: At the time you went to Hawaii, it was obvious that there was no plan--I mean, was it pretty vague?

LANDRY: There was a War Department plan that the Navy would offshore patrol; we would build up the bomber force with the B-18, which was all we had then. The B-17 was not really in production. There were a few coming along. And the P-40s that we had and the fighters. So you build up your local war plans based on the equipment you had. I just got a feel that Hawaii was not a very high priority target. It wasn't close enough to Japan. That's my opinion.

Sure, we had a war plan, but I think all of us felt that, Christ, what we got--nobody anticipated a surprise attack. You have to admit that the Japanese did a beautiful job, and they handled it beautifully and executed it beautifully and did a great deal of damage. I think even had we known we might have made it a lot more difficult for them, but coming in with the force they had and the equipment we had, I don't think the B-18s could have done much. They couldn't have gotten out there, for Christ's sake. I mean, they just didn't have the radius of action.

We couldn't send them out there and have them all drop in the ocean coming back. So like we had the limit of armed endurance with the fighters over in the Eighth Air Force later, which I was in, a limit of armed endurance was the radius of action. The bombers wanted to go in further and get the hell shot out of them, which they did a few times like at Schweinfurt and Regensburg, and lose 50 to 60

[7]

bombers. They didn't keep doing that. They waited for their little friends. You had better believe it.

AHMANN: The reason I asked if anybody had ever talked to you is that I have read books where this Kermit Tyler--he retired out of the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in the 1950s or 1960s--is quoted in books, actual words he said and things he did. I went to interview him one time, and I missed him. But I talked to him on the telephone. I said, "Did Walter Lord ever talk to you?" He said, "No, nobody has ever talked to me." Here, they were putting words in his mouth and everything. So that was one reason I asked you.

LANDRY: I don't even remember seeing that name. I think I read most of the books.

AHMANN: Yes, he would be mentioned in all those books.

LANDRY: It may be in there. That, in my opinion, is the best book ever put out. I don't think it is prejudicial at all. He just calls the facts. As I say, I haven't even gotten to the book yet. I'm reading the bibliography. I have several others.

AHMANN: Another book by Toland, Infamy, I just read that recently as a matter of fact. He tries to build a case that Roosevelt knew full well that----

LANDRY: I'll tell you one thing. Anybody who takes that position is either stupid or prejudice or crazy.

AHMANN: You are totally convinced in your mind----

[8]

LANDRY: No way in the world is the President of the United States going to do anything like that. Jesus, all you have to do is read this book, and you will find out the problem the President had, A Man Called Intrepid. That is not a history, but it is 95 percent true. It wasn't written until after the information could be verified at, what is the place in Washington? 25 years.

AHMANN: The National Archives.

LANDRY: Now if you think that Mr. Roosevelt was going to accept an attack like that and be in danger of losing the whole fleet, and if you consider the battleships, anything--you know, what Mitchell (Maj Gen William) had shown them would happen to them--well, then goddamn it, they sunk the Navy, just about. Just lucky that the Saratoga and Lexington were out at sea.

AHMANN: These same people who wrote this At Dawn We Slept have now written a book that has just come out about the Battle of Midway. Apparently that is a definitive study, too, about the Battle of Midway.

LANDRY: A lot of people have said--I was not there. I was in Hawaii at the time--the Navy was in it, and of course, we sent what we had, the B-17s that we had by then. That was really the turning point in the effectiveness of the Japanese Fleet, because I think we sunk two or three carriers.

AHMANN: Three or four as a matter of fact.

LANDRY: Three or four was what the figure was. That was the turning point because without those carriers, they were fairly vulnerable even with the submarines.

[9]

AHMANN: All their good pilots and everything.

LANDRY: We just shot them out of the sky.

AHMANN: In this interview I want to get a little bit of your family background too, by the way, General--where you are from. It shows you are from Louisiana originally.

LANDRY: I was born and raised in New Orleans. I graduated from Jesuits High School in 1927, and I wanted to be an M&E engineer, and I went to Tulane in 1927-28. I graduated in 1927. I went to Tulane in 1927 and through the first semester of 1928. My father had always been military oriented; I never was and couldn't care less really. I wasn't even a good Boy Scout, but he was for it. It was a means for me to get a decent education, I think. He was not a man with a great deal of money. I was a Kappa Sigma and enjoying myself and having a ball.

I took the physical, figuring I would never get the appointment because the best that my father could get for me was a second alternate through Senator Bob Broussard (Robert F., D LA) whom I was named after. My middle name is Broussard.

AHMANN: I was going to ask you about that.

LANDRY: I was all he could have. In those days it wasn't as popular as it is now. They didn't take the exams they do now. In those days if you had been through a semester of an accredited college, you did not take a mental exam, which pleased my father. Knowing I never would get there because the principal and the first alternate couldn't possibly both

[10]

fail, I went ahead and tried to please him, and by God, he called me up, "We are having a big party at the Kappa Sigma house," to tell me he had great news for me.

I would report to the Military Academy on 2 July or something. I said, "That's impossible. What happened?" He said, "The principal failed in some subject," and he was in a military school like VMI [Virginia Military Institute], and the first alternate failed or didn't quality. So that left dear old yours truly. (laughter) It ruined my whole evening. Anyway, that is how I got there.

AHMANN: What was this interest your father had in the military? Had he been in the Army or anything at one time?

LANDRY: He was an honorary colonel on the governor's staff in Louisiana. The greatest picture he has got is in his uniform with his epaulets on. He just thought that was the greatest thing since sliced bread, being in the military. Plus the fact he thought it was a good education, and there was a lot of "scary" involved. He was a pretty smart little man.

AHMANN: What did he do for a living?

LANDRY: He was in the Government service, in the custom house in New Orleans. He also practiced law. He was a graduate of Georgetown University in law. Why he didn't go into law, I don't know. But he went into the Government service, and he handled--Landry is a big family. He did a lot of law; he worked for the family and for very little of nothing most of the time. He just liked it. But he stayed in the Government service.

[11]

AHMANN: Had the Landrys lived in New Orleans a long time?

LANDRY: Oh, yes. There is a book here on the old families in New Orleans. I'll show it to you, if you want to, sometime. I didn't know it existed. The Landry family is well written up in there. I won't spend a lot of time on it. I'll show you a thing on my great great grandfather who was a famous woodcarver. The original Landrys came from France.

The man that came from France developed this whole family, or created this whole family, went to Louisiana and apparently had money, had position. I rather think that my father, who studied the family background--what is the word?

AHMANN: Genealogy.

LANDRY: Genealogy. He was always digging into the family background. We have a crest, and we have a book out showing this, as I say. That's where he came from, and I think that is where he got this interest in the military.

AHMANN: Your mother, was she from New Orleans?

LANDRY: My mother? My father was all French, and my mother was all German. She came from Hamburg. Her father, my grandfather, was a broker in Hamburg. Of all things, a great, big, good-looking 6-foot-2-or 3-[inch] guy. He got bit by a tarantula spider and, somehow or the other, it affected--he was one of those people who couldn't take it and didn't have drugs. It killed him in 2 or 3 days I am told.

AHMANN: What was her maiden name, your mother?

[12]

LANDRY: Bessie Scharpe, S-c-h-a-r-p-e, and my father was Luke Valcua [phonetic] Landry. (laughter)

AHMANN: Did you have any brothers or sisters?

LANDRY: I had a brother. He did some time in the Army. He studied law. He is dead. I had a sister who married Gen Milton Summerfelt (Brig Gen Milton F.] who was in the Air Force, an all-time, all-American guard. He was captain of the football team, class of 1933. My sister died too, unfortunately.

AHMANN: What was your brother's and sister's names?

Landry: His name was Ernest Scharpe Landry, and my sister's name was Val Louise. Val for my father, and Louise for somebody in my family.

Ahmann: When did your father die, General?

Landry: I don't remember the year now, but he died when he was 86. His father died when he was 94, and his mother died when she was 96. My mother died when she was about 82. So we have a little longevity there, I guess.

Ahmann: You say you wanted to be an engineer. Was that what you went to . . . . . . . . . .

LANDRY: My father then thought I might be a lawyer, and I liked the law. I could have been great in law I think, and I would have been good in engineering because I am kind of a half ass cabinetmaker. I have a tool shop and all that sort of thing. But here I was in the goddamn Army, knowing nothing about it and caring less. I wasn't a very good cadet for 2 years.

[13]

AHMANN: Did you have to walk off a lot of demerits?

LANDRY: Every month. I lived with a fellow named Robert Lee Scott, Jr. (Brig Gen). You have heard of him?

AHMANN: The famous fighter pilot?

LANDRY: Yes. He is something else, and he is alive.

AHMANN: He lives around here somewhere.

LANDRY: He lives in Sun City. But there is a guy like this fellow you talked about that did all these things and knew all of these things in Pearl Harbor days. There are some people who imagine things, talk about it often enough, and they know darn well they did it.

AHMANN: It becomes a part of them.

LANDRY: It becomes a part of their life, and there is no question in their minds. Well, I lived with him for 2 years, and he was wild, from Rome, Georgia. I think between the two of us we got more demerits than the whole goddamn bunch of plebes that first year, with the result that every month we had to report up to "Nellie" Richardson [Lt Gen Robert C. ] , General Richardson, the Commandant of Cadets and, "Sir, Cadet Landry reporting for excess demerits." Gee, it was terrible. (laughter)

Finally he said, "I don't know why we have people like you here in the first place," and we couldn't say anything about that. Anyway after 2 years and being turned out for English

[14]

AHMANN: For English?

LANDRY: Down in the South we had a lot of idiomatic expressions, and we split infinitives down there like there was nothing to it. We just had a nice, easy language. I had a "P" in English. If you split an infinitive, that was like was some great catastrophe. Now they do it all the time for emphasis.

AHMANN: Had you been a good student? You say you went to a Jesuit school there in New Orleans.

LANDRY: I had been a pretty good student. Yes. I played football and baseball and basketball and tennis. Yes, I had been a very good student. I just was blasé, I think, at the Academy because, first of all, I didn't understand the military, and secondly, I was influenced by my friend Scott, who was always causing some problem. And this wouldn't put you out, but I just hadn't gotten a hold on it. Everybody has a sense of pride, and I suppose when you begin to think you have got to go back home because I couldn't hack it, I said, "Jesus, I have got to do something. What the hell can I do with these split infinitives?"

Anyway, I got turned out. That would be four times in 2 years, every 6 months, and always in English. I could do the math, and the drawing, I was always--everything inclined towards M&E or engineering, civil or whatever, I did all right. But that goddamn guy turned me out every goddarn year. If you get turned out and fail in one subject by one-tenth of a point on a 3.0 system, out you go. Well, I took the test, and it wasn't much different than what I had been doing, but they let me have a 2.0. That meant I just passed. I don't know whether it was getting even with me or

[15]

hazing me, but it scared the hell out of me. So I got out of Company B where I was and went over to another company and got some more roommates and settled down a little bit, and
everything got all right. (laughter)

AHMANN: Normally, in talking to people who had been at the Military Academy, it was invariably the way people were found, who was in math or a foreign language, it seemed like.

LANDRY: I could do the languages. The way they taught it then it was just memory courses. But math was difficult. You get into high algebra and then calculus, but if you study it, it shouldn't be a problem. Some people just don't understand math, I guess, but I wasn't that bad in English. It was just the fact that, to some of the instructors, there were certain things that were pets with them. They were good instructors. They called math philosophy. They had great names for all that stuff.

AHMANN: What did they call physics in those--natural philosophy or something?

LANDRY: Yes. I was good in physics and chemistry. I had no problem. Drawing, I was an ace, passed it all the time.

AHMANN: I got the impression in talking to people in those days that profs really almost were just simply proctors. In other words, they didn't spend a lot of time in class explaining. There was a lot of recitation by the student, and it was a case of you almost picked it up, or it was just, like, too damn bad.

[16]

LANDRY: It was another form of discipline, I think, in those days, and I don't fault it at all. I was just blasé, no question about it. If I had gotten found, it was my own goddamn fault. But I did feel that this goddarn guy the fact that I didn't write English perfectly really was just incidental. I mean I was literate, my God. I was doing all right in my other grades. I thought it was the reason they didn't give me something less than 2.0, because I didn't change in a few days' time, taking a test in English.

AHMANN: Was he a young fellow just there?

LANDRY: I don't even remember who the b-----d was.

AHMANN: I was going to say, I'll have to go back and look at The Howitzer and see if I can pick out who it was. (laughter)

Of course you were there with "Bill" Dahl [Maj Gen Leo P.] and Hunter Harris [Gen Hunter, Jr.] and Thatcher [Lt Gen Herbert B.] and Wray [Maj Gen Stanley T. ]

LANDRY: I'll show you a lot of pictures of those people.

AHMANN: One thing I noticed in looking through The Howitzer, an autogyro landed there at West Point, I think the last year you were there. I found that fascinating that one of those things was flying around up there and where it came from.

LANDRY: Yes, the autogyro. I guess that was the forerunner of the----

AHMANN: The helicopter.

LANDRY: The eggbeater, the helicopter.

[17]

AHMANN: You also got your "A" in baseball then?

LANDRY: Yes. I had gotten my letter at Jesuits in football, baseball, basketball, and I was runner-up for the city championship in play. I played Bevo Sutter, one of the Sutter boys. Three of them had always been national and intercollegiate champs. Bevo ranked in the first five. So I had had a good athletic career. I loved competition. I played football, and I got my letter in the plebe year. But I was light; I weighed 135 pounds, between 135 and 155. I worked out in the gym to get it up, and I was just too--I am all busted up now with arthritis, but I made it. I was quarterback, and we had a pretty good plebe team. I got on the squad. I was too small to tell you the truth.

First of all, I still have the bad knee; I got my fingers all stepped on. I played on the B squad and got beat up more. Then towards the end of the season, we had "Gar" Davidson [Lt Gen Garrison H.] who was the coach of the plebe team. In those days we had "Biff" Jones (Col Lawrence M.) and Ralph Sasse [Col Ralph I.] as other coaches. They asked me if I would like to be a cadet coach. I was pretty good in punting among other things. So I said I would be delighted to do that; I was getting beat up enough. I coached for a couple of years under Gar Davidson as a plebe coach, and I enjoyed that. I was so fond of Gar Davidson. Such a fine guy, that fellow was, later Chief of Army Engineers and, of course, coach at West Point.

Basketball, I just wasn't good enough. I worked out in the gym to try to get my weight up. When I busted my knee, then I was finished in tennis. I was very competitive in tennis. But now I was not good enough for basketball; I have a bad

[18]

kneecap and can't play football. I remember playing in a lot on the side of a house in New Orleans. We used to play with that little light cotton ball and broomsticks. I could always get that ball and curve it like hell. I thought, "Gee, maybe I could be a pitcher," so I went out for pitching. "What did you ever do?" I told them, "I did a lot of pitching down in New Orleans." (laughter) I hadn't really done much. I forget what I played in the Jesuits. I think I was in the outfield.

AHMANN: You didn't pitch until you went to the Academy?

LANDRY: No. But I said to the guys, "This is the only thing left. I have got to do it. I have to stay on that training table," because that is where you get all the good food and that kind of stuff, cream, and that helped build me up. Plus the fact--well, later, that was the first year--but it was always good to be on that training table. Anyway, I went out for pitching, and I developed a pretty good ball. We beat the first team, the Academy team, every time we played them. The
last year I think we won something like 15 out of 17 games. We had a very good season. It was fun. So that was my athletic ability.

AHMANN: I notice, too, that the Giants and the Yankees were----

LANDRY: Every year we played them.

AHMANN: The Dodgers or somebody would come up and play.

LANDRY: No. The Yanks and the Giants, and always Lou Gehrig came up, but the "Babe" [Ruth] never showed.

[19]

AHMANN: While you were at West Point, did you envision yourself as staying the 4 years and getting your commission, serving your time and getting out? Were you thinking about a career?

LANDRY: I was there, and now having gotten the training--I never felt that I had to stay 5 years. I figured I was probably going to stay in the service, plus the fact that I had gotten myself sort of engaged in New Orleans. I graduated 10 June, I guess, 1932, and married in August, so I had to make a living. Even though I was drawing $115 base pay, I got $107 with the insurance taken out. During that year of graduation, you may remember that Mr. Roosevelt had a 15 percent pay cut across the board for all Federal employees, civilian and military. Plus the fact that having saved a little of our cadet money they gave us for a vacation, we were told that if we wanted to stay on leave right at the beginning of this period--June until we were supposed to report in September--we stayed on without pay.

I had my uniform; my wife had a trousseau. So we went on down to Camp Stephen D. Little and started being an Infantry officer.

AHMANN: Where was this at?

LANDRY: Camp Stephen D. Little in Nogales, Arizona.

AHMANN: I spent 2 years as an enlisted man in the Army down at Fort Huachuca in the 1950s.

[20]

LANDRY: All right. That was one of the battalions of the regiment at Fort Huachuca. There was a battalion at Douglas, a battalion at Fort Huachuca and regimental headquarters was there; then there was a battalio-- they were all Negroes--at Camp Stephen D. Little.

I ranked about the middle of my class. I didn't have a choice of going into anything. I wanted to go into the Air Force, which I will come back to in a minute, but I didn't. I was ordered to Camp Stephen D. Little. I suppose coming from the South and that sort of thing, and there was the Infantry; there I went.

I really wanted to go in the Air Force. I talked to my wife. In those days we had the airmail. Remember, the Air Force had taken over the airmail. It was one of the worst winters we had ever had for flying and practically none of our people knew anything about instrument flying, and they were killing pilots like mad. In those days we only had about 1,768 people in the Air Force, officers. I had said to my wife, "I would like to go in." She read about this stuff and about
getting killed and all. I thought, "It is a hell of a way to start a marriage out, having your wife not like it."

Then I had been told by some of my classmates who went on in down to Randolph--on the way to Fort Huachuca I dropped in to see them and talk to them. They said, "It is just as well you don't come unless your family is behind you, because if the instructors find out about that, your chances of being washed out are about 90 percent." Otherwise it is kind of hindrance to you. The guy gets up, and he can't relax.

[21]

I went on down there, and I took the Infantry as long as I could. We went down in August 1932. In December 1932 at Fort Huachuca one of the Negroes up there ran amuck and killed three officers and two wives. It scared everybody to death. At about the same time, the Government, because of saving money, cutting back, decided it was costing too much to pay the rent to Douglas, where they were paying for the grounds, paying for the water, utilities. So they moved those two battalions from Douglas and Nogales to Fort Huachuca, right after this guy did the killing.

That wasn't an inviting place to go. Then the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] came in. God, everything happened. I had a captain of the company, and I was a lieutenant. The captain of the company was a very good man, but they pulled him for CCC. So now I had the company. The black soldiers were damn good soldiers, and I was very fond of them. They were good athletes. I played a little ball with them and coached. But hell, I was a company commander, supply officer, the mess officer, the adjutant, musketry officer, and then we had to go out and bivouac in the mud and the tents. I said, "Jesus, this is not for me." (laughter)

A man came over from March Field [CA], flew over to see a friend there whose name was Major White [Maj Gen Major S. ] , a flight surgeon, later became a major, and he was Maj Major White; then he became a major general, and he was Maj Gen Major White. (laughter) He was a flight surgeon. Anyway, the pilot came over, and he flew right down that line of houses at Fort Huachuca. I lived in one of those adobe houses. You come down through a horseshoe kind of thing. I heard that airplane, and I sat down in the office, and I wrote out a letter to Randolph Field and applied for training.

[22]

I mentioned about killing all the people. I got a letter back in 2 weeks ordering me in February, right like that. I came home, and I told my wife, "I am just sorry. This is not my cup of tea. I'm trying to be a good soldier." And I was a damn good lieutenant. My commanding officer thought I was great and told me I had great possibilities. He was an old colonel about 62 years old and white hair, a dedicated infantryman. You would have thought that anybody out of the Infantry was no good.

Anyway, I put in and got this thing. I went up to tell him goodbye. He said, "Lieutenant Landry, I don't know what got into you, but I don't think you are doing the right thing." He was about as cold as a cucumber. That's the way I left. Whereas before that he thought I was a great lieutenant. Those were the prejudices.

AHMANN: I have had other guys tell me that.

LANDRY: It was terrible.

AHMANN: As a matter of fact, Gen Blair Garland [Maj Gen Elmer Blair], Signal Corps and then later on ARCS [Army Airways Communication System], he said the fact that he transferred
over to the Air Force at the end of the war----

LANDRY: It was Blair Garland, I think--is he on that list? No, Blair is a tall, slender fellow. That's not the one.

AHMANN: The fact that he went into the Air Force after World War II, like you say, the Army guys even then thought----

LANDRY: Yes, there was a lot of prejudice.

[23]

AHMANN: What were you doing down at Douglas with a battalion of----

LANDRY: I wasn't there. I was just mentioning that that was one of the battalions of the 35th Infantry.

AHMANN: What were they supposed to be doing, patrolling the border?

LANDRY: No. They were in training like any Army battalion would be, getting ready to fight a war, going out and building tents and shooting guns, training in infantry.

AHMANN: Did you work a full 8-hour day in those days in the Infantry?

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: I have heard stories that, oh, like somebody told me in Hawaii in the 1930s, everything was finished by 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

LANDRY: No. That's like when you were right down in Panama. I'll tell you about that. That's on account of the heat. There was no problem. It was hot down there, but it was cool up at Fort Huachuca. No, we worked the regular day, 7 till 4, whatever it was.

AHMANN: It was just like any peacetime army?

LANDRY: We had a training program every day; we would go out and shoot; we would drill. We would simulate some kind of a mission and pitch tents, the regular simulated attack or defense, whatever it was, the best you could.

AHMANN: Fort Huachuca really must have been isolated in those days?

[24]

LANDRY: It was the jumping off place of the world. (laughter) Literally! You were 75 miles from Nogales and 75 miles from Tucson.

AHMANN: What did you think of the Army, in general, at that time?

LANDRY: Lieutenants don't have much chance to think about anything. You get assigned to something and that's it. We had a nice group of people there. We had a nice club, played bridge and all that. I used to do some officiating around Bisbee and various places. I refereed football. We had athletics with the troops there. We played Douglas; we played Huachuca. This was still at Nogales, but up at Fort Huachuca. We played around the community up there. Those Negroes were damn good ball players.

AHMANN: Did they have Cavalry there at Fort Huachuca, too?

LANDRY: No. It was originally a Cavalry post, an Indian post.

AHMANN: But at the time you were there, did they have----

LANDRY: No, it was just the one battalion of Infantry.

AHMANN: That remained a black post then during World War II, didn't it?

LANDRY: I lost track of it. Now of course it is the Army’s big communications center.

AHMANN: Have you been down there lately?

[25]

LANDRY: Yes, I was down there. I have known all the generals down there and some of the people in the service but not recently. It was in connection with jobs when I first got here. They have had a big turnover all the time, and there are always new people. I have no reason to go there. I was there a number of times, guest of the commanding general, some friend that was in the Army.

AHMANN: You say you got a letter right back, saying come on down there?

LANDRY: In, I think, 2 or 3 weeks. Before that you were lucky to get one back in 6 months. There was a problem. The Air Force didn't know how long they were going to have to carry the mail. As small as we were, even with the Army Signal Corps, you will recall then, when you lose a few pilots that is a, with what we had--I remember at Barksdale [AFB LA) in 1935, when I first went----

AHMANN: You began flying training in March 1935.

LANDRY: Then I went to Panama. 1937, there were only 1,768 officers in the Air Force then.

AHMANN: Yes, that's hard to believe.

LANDRY: It really is hard to believe. And of course it was called the Army Air Corps not the Signal Corps.

AHMANN: Did you have any trouble learning to fly at all?

LANDRY: No, I didn't, no trouble at all. I don't know if you are interested in all this kind of----

[26]

AHMANN: Sure. There isn't much written about it. Unless a person has written their biography, this phase is gone----

LANDRY: I pretty well remember a lot of detail about my career because it has been, in a sense, very rewarding, very exciting.

Yes, I went on down there, and I have a picture I can show you later--not to do it now, at the break--showing my class. I went down between classes. Normally in graduation, the people who went to the flying school in 1932 started flying in September, and they went through primary, basic, and advanced, Randolph, Kelly [AFB TX], and--Randolph on primary, Kelly on basic, and then advanced over at Kelly. This was after Brooks [AFB TX].

I went there in February. That was right in between classes. My class had already graduated, 1932, but I was there with the class of 1933. I was one-half a year separated, so I was really with two classes. I didn't have any trouble flying. Like everybody, you have a fear of falling at first. I had a good instructor in primary, a fellow named Darr Alkire [Brig Gen Darr H.] who is dead now. He had been instructing for 6 or 7 years, and he was so goddamn fed up with it that he was a horse's ass, I'll tell you. He goddamn near convinced me that I couldn't fly, but he knew goddamn well that, technically, I was the best he had, and I knew it too.

Anyway, I got over the fear of flying because every time I was falling I would go into a spin right away, and that will convince you there is just nothing to it. He was a great instructor, very instructive. I could handle the

[27]

airplane pretty well and I learned basic. I had it primary and basic, both of them. He was really good, a little, short goddamn runt. He would get in that backseat, and he would take off, and he would cut the throttle on takeoff, all those things that you have to learn.

Do you know what he said to me? I got up, and I didn't think I could land straight ahead because I didn't think I could. I started to make a slight turn, which is the worst thing you can do; you just better go straight in because you begin to lose lift, and that is where a lot of people spin in. The natural tendency was to do it, but I knew I wasn't going to continue it. Just as soon as I would dip that thing, he said, "Who the hell do you think you are? Richthofen [Baron Manfred von]?" (laughter) Well, I never thought of turning on the takeoff or losing an engine. He was real good, but he was tough and mean. He wasn't a guy you could talk to.

Then I had a fellow by the name--oh, what was his name? I thought I had it last night in my mind, a very good, gentle instructor. He did a lot of good.

No, I was a good pilot. I went into fighters.

AHMANN: Your instructors, were they all Regular Army, or were they Reservists?

LANDRY: No, these were all Regular.

AHMANN: The reason I asked, there was a time in the late 1920s or 1930s I have heard where some of the instructors were Reservists, and they had a built-in bias against the West Point grads.

[28]

LANDRY: That's right. That was true. Even then there were some people who were not Reservists. They just didn't come in through the Academy. They came in through some other, through ROTC or something.

My other instructor was Trenholm Meyer [Col Trenholm J.], and he was terrific, a hell of a pilot too. All these people in the school were excellent pilots.

AHMANN: Was the washout percentage pretty bad?

LANDRY: Yes, it was. They were washing them out for a number of things. We started--I'll show you the picture--nine people I was with; only three of us got through. I know one of them was marginal, and the other one was a fair pilot.

AHMANN: Do you think it was a case of there were only so many pilot slots, and they had a----

LANDRY: No. I just think it was a case that some people aren't good enough to be a military pilot. In those days we were very, very choosy. I think we always have been in flying because you don't make many mistakes in flying. But the washout rate was high. There may have been a little feeling that, "Here is a West Pointer being given training by a non-West Pointer." But I think those were the days when there were more West Pointers than there were others. The war changed all of that; 80 percent of the Eighth Air Force were Reservists.

AHMANN: Which is kind of a miracle in itself.

[29]

LANDRY: Yes. The whole goddamn Air Force, when it built up so quickly after 1939, had to be from--you couldn't graduate enough people.

AHMANN: Yes. To take all of those people literally off the street and make pilots out of them.

You say you wanted to get into fighters then from the onset?

LANDRY: Yep. I liked fighters. I didn't want those damn big old airplanes. So when we got to Kelly, then you had a choice. I mean, when you got out of basic--primary, basic--you could ask for what you wanted. You either went into fighters or bombers. I think maybe they had some people who went into observation.

AHMANN: Yes, they had attack, bombers, observation, and pursuit. There were four branches.

LANDRY: I asked for pursuit. We were flying, first, in P-12s and some old P-1s they had to take out of storage. They ran short of airplanes. I enjoyed fighters. I mean, you are up there by yourself.

AHMANN: You say the reason you hadn't applied coming out of West Point was your wife's--it wasn't the right----

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: Had you ever even flown in an airplane before you went to West Point?

LANDRY: No. I used to build airplanes in my workshop, but I had never been up in the air.

[30]

AHMANN: Yet you wanted to be--of course your incentive was enough of this grubbing around in pup tents.

LANDRY: My incentive was, I just wasn't doing the thing I was going to do. You asked if I had any idea of staying in. I don't think I would have stayed in the Infantry. Not that I had anything against the Infantry. It just wasn't my goddamn job. Flying--in other words, my theory has always been that you have to enjoy work to do a good job. If you have to drive yourself to do a day's work every day, you are probably not going to come out very well. It was just a matter of what my original choice was, I guess.

AHMANN: You went to the Canal Zone then?

LANDRY: For 6 months I didn't get an assignment, and I don't know why. I guess it was a question of whether they needed somebody in pursuit aviation. So for 6 months I stayed there as an instructor, which I didn't particularly want. I wasn't a very good teacher. Football I loved, but flying an airplane? No. I would have been worse than Alkire.

Then I went down to Albrook Field [Balboa, Canal Zone] and got in that group down there. Great people like Frank Armstrong [Lt Gen Frank A. Jr.], Bill Hall [Lt Gen William E.] , DeRosier [Col Leo W.], Burt Hovey [Maj Gen Burton M., Jr.]. Col Charles [T.] Phillips was the group commander, a real hardnosed guy.

AHMANN: Was John Sessums [Maj Gen John W., Jr.] down there at that time?

[31]

LANDRY: Johnny Sessums, I think, was there. A great bunch of guys. We had a great bunch of guys. Robert Lee Scott was down there.

AHMANN: Did you do a lot of flying down there?

LANDRY: We flew every day, two missions. We would go up and dive and zoom. We had gunnery, went out to the gunnery camp. We really had some top people, I think, in the Air Force.

AHMANN: Was that a pretty idyllic life down there?

LANDRY: There was where we went to work at 6 o'clock and quit at 11.

AHMANN: That was due to the climate?

LANDRY: That was five hours of that climate, and that is about enough. Those of us who liked to play golf and get out and do things--I played golf every afternoon, practically, when I was there. I am trying to think of--Smith [Gen Frederic H., Jr.] was down there. He became Vice Chief of Staff under LeMay [Gen Curtis E.]. He was down there, a very good friend. He is dead now.

AHMANN: Was there a General Brown [Maj Gen Preston] down there in the Army at that time?

LANDRY: I forget who the Army commanders were. We were, of course, still under the Army. We stayed pretty much to ourselves there. I enjoyed the service. I was there 2 years.

AHMANN: Vice Chief in 1960, McKee [Gen William F., "Bozo"]. Was it before McKee?

[32]

LANDRY: After McKee. Freddie Smith. Freddie Smith was loaned to the Canal as the Air Representative there. He was there and a good friend. He married Admiral King's [Ernest J.) daughter We played golf a lot. We had a lot of golfers down there. "Ben" Schriever [Gen Bernard A.] was down there. I played a lot of golf with Bennie Schriever who-----

AHMANN: Who married General Brett's [Lt Gen George H.] daughter.

LANDRY: Yes. He was aide to Brett and what a hell of a golfer. People like that were down there. We really had a great bunch of people.

AHMANN: We had talked earlier about any cooperation between the Navy and the Army and the Army and the Air Corps. What was the attitude in those days down in the Canal Zone as far as defense plans?

LANDRY: I think there was a little closer working relationship. I was a lieutenant so I didn't get up much in that working level. I got to know the commanding officer very well because I liked baseball. I built a baseball field for them down there. I worked long hours on that, and he thought it was great that anybody would give all that extra time. As far as I knew, our relations were all right. The Navy came down there on an exercise, which is quite an interesting story--the thing that happened.

The Navy said they would like to have a couple of fighter pilots that would go on the Lexington--I have the book here--for a cruise, a 10-day cruise. I think they asked for volunteers and I believe I volunteered. I was told I could go, which pleased me a great deal. I was coming to the latter

[33]

part of the tour. They were down there having a big exercise. The exercise was about over. We didn't work very closely with them because they were all out to sea. We had these little fighters anyway.

We had the old Keystone bombers over at France Field. The greatest thrill of my life was flying one of those damn things. (laughter) The wings would go like this. I just went to get checked out because I thought it was exciting.

Anyway, they asked for people, and I was one of two that was assigned to--one to the Saratoga and one to the Lexington. I went on the Lexington. I believe that is the way it worked. Anyway I was on the Lexington. The Navy had decided—this was what I was told--that the exercise was almost over, but one of the traditions in the Navy is that if you are a polliwog, you have never crossed the Equator. The Admiral of the Fleet in those days--I don't know if King was—whoever was in charge of that operation hadn't, so they extended the operation and went on down across the Equator. I went from a polliwog, which is one who hadn't been, to a shellback.

I went through the royal dentist and the royal doctor and the royal everything, and the royal bath, and was accused of a very serious crime of overestimating the capability of the Air Force vis-a-vis the Navy, for which I was sentenced to climb the mainmast three times on the carrier. Well, I got up there one time, and the sea was pretty rough. I was going all the way up there. I think Captain Fitch [Adm. Aubrey W.), who was the captain of the ship, got a little bit concerned. He said, "That's enough. Come on down, boy." But I enjoyed

[34]

that. That was one of the highlights down there. That was good service down there, very fine people.

AHMANN: Did you fly off the carrier at all?

LANDRY: No. The one time I was going to take off on the carrier the weather was so bad, and a torpedo bomber had canceled the mission. I watched those fellows come in day and night, and I have nothing but respect for those guys. I want to tell you hitting that little goddamn postage stamp at night has got to be something to scare anybody. (laughter)

AHMANN: You almost have to question their mental attitude. They have, what is it? the second or third Lexington is down at Pensacola (FL), and they use it for training.

LANDRY: The Lexington that was out in the Pacific at that time was the ship that later was sunk in the Pacific.

AHMANN: That's the one you were on that was sunk later?

LANDRY: Yes. I got my certificate and my sentence. It might be of interest. I'll show it to you later.

AHMANN: Was it pretty common, though, that a couple of Air Force people would go with the Navy like that.

LANDRY: It wasn't very often that the Navy had a big exercise, and this was a big one. The sun sets over the Pacific, over the Atlantic--everything is different on the isthmus down there.

AHMANN: It actually runs north and south.

[35]

LANDRY: That was the Atlantic Fleet. I think it was. But that was the only time when I was down there that they had a big naval exercise.

AHMANN: Would the alert go on, and then you would go out and fly intercepts and that kind of thing, or was it maneuvers or anything like that? I'm just trying to get the picture.

LANDRY: I think in those days most of our thing was just basic training, skill work--gunnery and skill work, and we would have some simulated attack on each other, maneuvers and things like that. We had no alert system, no running out and getting in that I recall there. It was just basic training.

That was a peaceful time, I think, in 1935-37. We had no early warning or anything that I knew of down there at all.

AHMANN: Did you ever have an airplane accident in your career? I didn't find in the record that you did.

LANDRY: No.

AHMANN: Never got one chewed up?

LANDRY: No, thank goodness.

AHMANN: You went from Panama to Barksdale [AFB LA] then. Is that right?

L: I went to Barksdale. That was when I was in the 20th Pursuit Group. We flew the Boeing P-26. I was in--let's see, we had

[36]

the 55th, 77th, 79th. I was in the, oh, I don't know, 74th Squadron. That was a great little airplane. It was a good aerobatic airplane.

AHMANN: Have you ever been in the National Aviation and Space Museum in Washington, General?

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: They have a P-26 in there, and it is a beautiful little machine.

Apparently, as I understand it, it was at Barksdale that originally someone tipped over and broke their neck, and that they eventually put that big----

LANDRY: They put that big thing in the back. It had a tendency to put on the brakes. You could go over. Or if you hit like--for example, if you landed on the field with a lot of mud, when you went down it might just go over.

AHMANN: Of course you had finished West Point at the time the economic depression was probably at its peak.

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: You were put on, in effect, a month furlough without pay or the equivalent or something like that. Being in the military though, were you relatively free of the consequences of the depression like that?

LANDRY: I think we were. Here are a lot of pictures when I was down there. They are all of down there. I forgot I had those.

[37]

AHMANN: Beautiful.

LANDRY: We were not oblivious to it, believe you me, because when I was at Fort Huachuca and not on flying pay, which was another reason for going into the flying business, I want to tell you--my take-home pay, living at Fort Huachuca, was I think $107 a month. In those days they allowed you to have what was called an attendant or striker, and we had a live in colored maid. We didn't have many frills.

AHMANN: It was a good thing you lived in the middle of nowhere.

LANDRY: It was a good place to have been in those days. I think we stayed more to ourselves, and I think that one of the sad things about the military is that brought about staying to yourself.

AHMANN: Who are these people here?

LANDRY: Here is my squadron commander. I should have put names on here. There is Olds [Maj Gen Robert]; he was group commander finally. There is "Nellie" Nelson [unable to verify]. These two I forget. That is Hawaii. Here is a powwow with a squadron commander. Here we are in formation. Here is another picture. Those are the -26s. Here is probably some flying down--this is the flying school I think. That is flying down in Panama. Here is an exercise in Panama where we went out in the field. We flew all over Central America to show the strength of the Army Air Corps. We would take a DC-3 with 55-gallon tanks and land in some field, and the people would come out.

Those are pictures of the -26s. That was a great tour there, too.

[38]

AHMANN: Is that Barksdale here, General?

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: That is in the middle of nowhere, too, isn't it?

LANDRY: No, it is outside Shreveport. That's just a formation we flew, and there is another one. These are all Barksdale Field pictures. These are all the people around there. The mistake I made was not putting all their names on there. I should have done that.

AHMANN: Is this guy a flyer there with the glasses on?

LANDRY: Yes. We had some old people there. Monk Hunter was our group commander.

AHMANN: Yes, he just died last year.

LANDRY: Yes. Monk was our group commander.

AHMANN: Balloon activity in the Air Corps petered out in the 1930s. I have read where some of those guys, then, tried to come in and get in heavier than air.

LANDRY: They did. A lot of them got in, and they gave them what they called a very quick course to learn to fly, and they stayed in. I am just looking at some pictures as we go along here.

AHMANN: I have heard that these guys were a threat not only to the people around them but to themselves. Some of them really thought they could fly. Did that happen?

[39]

LANDRY: That is true. A lot of them were turned lose and given wings, but I think most of them, if I remember correctly, were smart enough to realize that they weren't really good enough, to the extent that they could go on a two-seater airplane or something like that. But there were some people who just thought they were good. We all kind of expected—I mean, I knew of a few that were just going to go up and kill themselves.

AHMANN: And they went out and killed themselves. I talked to somebody who was an instructor down there--I forget who it was--he said, "I knew some of these people were just going to go out and do it to themselves." That's too bad.

LANDRY: That is just it. It is like a lot of other things; you can't control them.

AHMANN: You have a nice collection of photographs here.

LANDRY: I have a whole bunch of stuff. I should have gotten this in some kind of chronological order for you. I just want to catch a few here. We have been talking about a few things I could have shown you.

Anyway, that was great service. We had the 3d Attack Group there.

AHMANN: Yes. They had moved from Fort Crockett [TX].

LANDRY: We had the, I think, 20th Fighter Group, or was it the 16th? Whatever it was. There again, we had some of the top people in pursuit and some of the top people in what was low-level attack, the A-3 and A-3A. All of those groups, at least four

[40]

to a half dozen cadres for other groups were formed out of those groups when we really had to go, when the buildup came along. All of those people were top people and really went farther upwards, did good jobs.

Here is a book on the royal works. That's fun. You can see my charges in there.

AHMANN: "Subpoena and summons extraordinary." (laughter) Falsehoods.

LANDRY: Oh, was it falsehood I was charged with?

AHMANN: Yes, that's what they have down here. I imagine that dealt with the--yes, here it is, "Neptunis erectus." (laughter) You wonder if they have that much fun today. I hope they do. "Regular assigned duty, fabricating lies, exaggerating falsely, expounding on the doings and operations." They had good writers. They were going to have you climb this mast?

LANDRY: Oh, yes. I did climb that bloody mast.

There is General Martin at Barksdale Field, and since we are talking about it.

AHMANN: Was he there when you were there?

LANDRY: Yes, he was one of the three brigadier generals working under Frank Andrews when the Air Force got its own GHQ Headquarters at Langley Field.

AHMANN: Then the third wing was out at March [AFB CA] I think.

[41]

LANDRY: That's right. I was in fighters, and as I said, a pretty good fighter pilot. The request came down from wing headquarters whether they would be willing to release me to be aide to the commanding general.

Fred Martin was one of the finest men I ever met and a very good military man and really dedicated. He had hands as big as--twice like that. He loved to play golf, so we had a great time. I played golf, and he played golf. I built the golf course at Barksdale as a result of it.

I came down, and I had been there, I guess, about 6 months or 9 months, and so they released me, and I went up and became the assistant operations officer to Elmer Ropers [Lt Gen Elmer Joseph, Jr.], called "Blackie" Ropers. I was his flying aide.

AHMANN: This GHQ [General Headquarters] and Office of Air Corps. I have read where there was a conflict of who was really running the Air Force and all this problem. Did that ever appear at your level, General?

LANDRY: This was the result of a lot of the Billy Mitchell thing and all the fight that showed, the fight for the budget and the fact that we couldn't get any money for the airplanes we needed. I think this was a natural development in the development of the Air Force to become a separate service. It was slow. But the Army had to agree to something better than we had had after the Mitchell thing. It was so goddamn obvious that all these things--we couldn't hit anything when bombing the battleships and all that sort of thing. It was always a matter of fighting for money, for the budget. That was the whole goddamn thing.

[42]

The top people succeeded in getting its own GHQ Headquarters, and that was General Andrews, a great man, a great aviator, and a very fine officer. Then we got the wing setup, and we got a few generals, and General Martin was one of them.

AHMANN: At this time now at Barksdale, did you train with the ground army at all in the sense that----

LANDRY: Oh, yes. The Army used to have exercises, the National Guard encampments and things like that, down near Alexandria.

AHMANN: Fort Polk?

LANDRY: I forget the name of it. It is south of Shreveport, near Alexandria. There were exercises, especially with the attack aviation. And there were joint exercises in various parts of the country. We had, I remember, exercises in the fighters, and in the attack aviation. I can remember Les Maitland [Lt Col Lester J.] had one of the squadrons of the latest, fast, low-level attack airplanes. We were supposed to go out on an exercise and survive on the community. We would just go out with a duffel bag, our airplanes; they sent a distributing point officer, DPO, out to do that, to make the arrangements where we would be billeted. There would be an airport there of course.

Then this guy--me in this case--would go out and make arrangements for fuel, arrangements for anything else that was needed, mostly a place to bivouac and food and that sort of thing. So we had those kinds of exercises. We were trying to get into a little more realistic thing where the
Air Force was mobile

[43]

AHMANN: In a sense like that--I could see where you could take off and fly your airplane--what about the ground crew on that? Were they flown in, too?

LANDRY: They would be ferried in in DC-3s or something like that. You took your maintenance, but it was a very skeletonized thing because the theory was that you could operate for 30 days with a minimum crew and a minimum of everything.

AHMANN: They have that "bare base" concept in TAC [Tactical Air Command] or something like that.

LANDRY: That's the same sort of idea.

AHMANN: How did it work? How good were you in those days?

LANDRY: I did it one time. I remember it being in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I made arrangements through a colonel in the Air Reserve who was a medical man, a highly regarded man. You got in touch with your Reservists and those people, inactive, and we put them up in a hotel at his recommendation and got a rate. In other words they would fly all day on these various missions, come in at night, and go to the hotel.

Well, it turned out to be a good whorehouse. (laughter) Les Maitland was up in what was supposed to be a big suite, getting loaded as he could do. Jesus, he was a drinker. He chewed my ass out--and me a goddamn first lieutenant--accused me of putting all these people up in a goddamn whorehouse, which I didn't know anything about. So I went to see my colonel doctor friend, and I said, "My God, did you know what was going on there?" I mean, it was like Mr. Truman

[44]

[President Harry S.] used to say--accuse him of playing piano on the first floor while the whorehouse was being run upstairs. He said, "No, I sure didn't know." I said, "Les Maitland is about to get me court-martialed. These people come back here tired, and they want to have a few drinks and food and go to bed, and this is really a goddamn house of ill repute. I have to get them out of there." So we got them out of there and went out to the country club, right outside of New Hampshire. This is a true story.

He helped me get that, and we put bunks in the--there were a few things in the country club house where a squadron could stay. This was a squadron operation. The rest of them we put in the gymnasium or a big building there. No, I think we accommodated them all in the club there somehow or the other. It was kind of a dormitory thing. It was very nice. In fact they turned the club over to us. These guys would go out on a mission and come back, and there they were in a nice country club. I said, "Well, goddarn, that is pretty good."

I was in town taking care of some supplies. They were coming back about 4 o'clock or something like that. Anyway, I was driving, and I came over a hill and, Jesus, I saw this big billow of smoke come up right over the ledge of the hill. I said, "Holy smoke, there must have been a crash, but that is not where the airport is." I got up over the hill and, goddamn it, the country club had burned down. (laughter) That's living on the community.

That's a true story. My God, Les Maitland was fit to be tied. I got ahold of my colonel doctor friend again. There was a university there, a school, and we got the gymnasium, and we put everybody up. In the meantime, everybody had lost

[45]

their golf clubs they had with them, all their clothes. The only clothes they had were their flying suits. You talk about--that was my experience in living on the community.

AHMANN: Did they ever figure out how the fire started? I mean, it wasn't anything you guys did?

LANDRY: No, it wasn't anything we did. We were sorry about it.

AHMANN: Talking about Barksdale, last fall I interviewed Gen Archie Old [Lt Gen Archie J., Jr.], and he said he used to come down there and pull his Reserve time at Barksdale. Was that common for Reservists to come in and fly like that? How did that work in those days?

LANDRY: I'm sure it was, and I think he did do that. He later became the Commander of the Fifteenth Air Force. There is a story about that. He probably did because he came from around down there.

AHMANN: Yes, he was from northeast Texas, right in the corner.

Did you have Reserve units, or was it a case that the Reservists who would come in and fly----

LANDRY: I don't know just how it was done. The National Guard always took care of their own thing because they had an encampment. My memory is not good on that. But it seems to me there was some kind of program where Reservists who wanted to keep up their flying proficiency were allowed to come in and fly a certain number of hours every few months, and they went to the nearest base. They were always handled nicely because we were very much interested in the Reserves.

[46]

AHMANN: Do you have some movies?

LANDRY: I want to show you something. This is all doing with Barksdale. You asked me something about Barksdale, about the Reservists.

Yes, I think that happened. I think I met Archie Old who came there to fly.

AHMANN: He claimed he built up a horrendous amount of hours during the 1930s there, going down there to fly.

LANDRY: I don't think he flew fighters. He probably flew in the—we had some DC-3s. We had just DC-3s, and we finally got a B-18 for General Martin. But I used to fly around, as I said, in the A-17A, but he probably flew in the A-17s.

AHMANN: General Martin, would he have flown a lot down there at Barksdale?

LANDRY: General Martin led the first around-the-world flight. Don't you remember? He lost his airplane, the amphibian.

AHMANN: That Douglas--he and--let's see, who was on there? Leigh Wade [Maj Gen] was on there.

LANDRY: The first around-the-world flight, and he was the leader. Then they had an accident, and he had to fall out. That's the way he became famous.

AHMANN: Is he the one who crashed in Alaska?

[47]

LANDRY: I think so. That's Gen Fred Martin.

AHMANN: At the time, he was a brigadier general. Obviously 10 years had passed. Was he still flying?

LANDRY: No, he was no longer flying himself. These pictures I'll show you. I don't mean to brag about flying, but I loved fighters, and I guess I was pretty good because I was selected to go out at the request of the people at March Field to put on an aerobatic show. We heard these airplanes were so good. I didn't know anything about it.

This guy came from one squadron, and Brick Lessig [Lt Col] came from another squadron, and I was from my own squadron. I was told that I was to get together a three-man aerobatic team and go out to Riverside and put on a show, doing an Air Force--when they raise money? An open house thing.

It wasn't the Air Force Association. It was some kind of organization. I didn't even get to pick the people. They gave me this guy and this guy, and we had never flown together. I said, "I hope you guys know how to manage this airplane because we have to put on a show out there." On the way out we flew pretty good formation and tightened this and that, but when we got out there I reported to--who was the guy? Quite a famous, well-known man in the Air Force. He was in charge of operations out there. I don't know whether General Arnold [Henry H., "Hap"] was there or not at the time.

AHMANN: Arnold might have left by that time.

[48]

LANDRY: He had left by then. This guy was one of the real oldtimers and a delightful guy, kind of tough, but the kind you liked. He said, "You have to put on a show here for 2 days." I said, "I have to have some time to practice because we haven't had a lot of time together in the air." We went on up and, Jesus, we did Immelmans and rolls, came down and did a slow roll and up like that.

By the time we put on that show the first day, we came down after a lot of stuff up in the sky--and they stayed in there real good with me. It was really just great fun. We came down, and I said, "We are going to do a roll; we are going to be about 25 feet off the ground. Can you do it?" They said, "Let's go." All I said was, "Just be goddamn sure and keep that nose above the horizon." I came down, and I did a roll right over the crowd, and then I pulled on up, and each one of them did. I thought, "Jesus, if anything happens, somebody is going to get killed."

I had no sooner gotten on the ground than I had to report to Major So-and-so. He said, "Lieutenant, what in the hell do you think you are doing? A roll like that down this close to the crowd and that close to the ground." I said, "You asked for an aerobatic demonstration, major, and that is what we did." I don't know whether he told me not to do it again, but we did it the next day.

AHMANN: You did have radios in your airplanes by this time?

LANDRY: We had some kind of intercom. I think we did, maybe we didn't.

AHMANN: That must have been pretty tough to try to fly acrobatics without plane-to-plane communications.

[49]

LANDRY: Maybe we didn't have it. I guess we didn't. I thought to myself maybe--anyway, we came down. They had the starlets there. Riverside, the people at March Field were always very close to the movie stars. That was a picture. These are P-26s here.

Oh, yes, I want to show you this. This is interesting if you are interested in human event things, how you pick people. We got a B-18 finally. General Martin wanted a bigger airplane, and we needed a bigger airplane for a command airplane. So I get to go and get checked out in a B-18, which is an easy airplane to fly and kind of fun. That's the same goddamn thing we had at Pearl Harbor, same airplane. I said to him--I want to show you a picture of Bill Yancey [Brig Gen William R.]. I said, "General, I have to get a copilot. Do you have any instructions on that?" He said, "Bob, no, I don't have any instructions on it. You just get a good man, but you just be dadgum sure he is a good golfer." (laughter) He was a good golfer, and he said, "Be sure he likes golf," because we played all the time.

So I picked a fellow named Bill Yancey who was in the 3d Attack Group. Where the devil is that Bill Yancey? He is in the picture here with Fred Martin. That was Bill Yancey who stayed with me as copilot and later had a B-29 wing at Castle Air Force Base [CA], retired, and during the process of looking for a job, somebody suggested he might work as Bob Hope's representative for the golf tournament that he puts on. So that`s the Bill Yancey who ran the Bob Hope golf tournament for years. He just retired from that.

AHMANN: At Palm Springs?

[50]

LANDRY: At Palm Springs. I don't know if that is of any interest, but that is what he did. I had that picture of Fred Martin. Didn't I show it to you? Well, that is Bill Yancey with me. Young Bill. It was down there at Barksdale, too, we had the old fellow who was a famous developer of instrument flying, the old fellow.

AHMANN: Crane [unable to verify] and Ocker [Lt Col Harry B.].

LANDRY: Ocker, Colonel Ocker was there. We had one of those basic training bi-wing planes with the fabric on it. He would go up there and fool around with his instruments. We all had a turn at flying that airplane doing weather reports. We would do them. Ocker was a great guy in promoting instrument flying, and we had him there.

AHMANN: Was he an enlisted man at one time?

LANDRY: I think he came up through the ranks and just began playing with compasses and gyros and figured it out.

AHMANN: Did you do any night flying or bad weather flying?

LANDRY: No, we all got checked out in instrument flying.

AHMANN: How good were you at that time. You are talking 1937, 1938.

LANDRY: Instrument flying, we had the Link trainer finally. But instrument flying is just as good as you practice it, just believe in your instruments. That is how it is. There is no reason why you shouldn't be just as good an instrument flyer as you are a VFR [visual flight rules] flyer.

[51]

AHMANN: Was there a great emphasis in the Air Force for IFR [instrument flight rules]?

LANDRY: Yes, particularly after the mail when I was telling you. These guys were flying into the goddamn mountains in snow, or they got into a snowstorm. You get disoriented in a cockpit; you get vertigo. You don't know what you are doing. You had better believe they emphasized it, really strongly. That was the beginning of the Link trainer where we would take a lot of training on the ground, that rough thing. Did you ever see it shake?

They were the first synthetic trainers, and they were kind of rough, but you learned confidence in your instruments. Now the sophistication is so you can simulate anything.

AHMANN: Did you ever think, during this time period, of getting out of the Air Corps at all? Here the airlines were building up, and you hear all of these stories of guys getting out and becoming rich and famous with the airlines.

LANDRY: I didn't because I loved the Air Force. I really did. I enjoyed the service, and I enjoyed the people. We had some great times at the club after missions or on Saturday nights, telling jokes. In between missions we would go over to the BX and have coffee and go back up and fly again. No, I really enjoyed it.

One thing that I will tell you about, though, that every young man goes through, and I am sure it is still the same. You said something about having some old people here in this aviation business, down in some of those pictures, and they were. Some of them, my God, they were just an accident going

[52]

someplace to happen. I'll tell you, some of us who were lieutenants, talking to these goddarn old f---s--we liked them. They were fine men, but Jesus, they just didn't belong in pursuit aviation and some of the stuff we had to put up with.

The only thing that disgusted me was the fact that, my God, if this guy can be a captain and a major, Jesus. It was taking us in those days 9 years to be a first lieutenant. If you were lucky, a captain in 12 to 15 years, a lieutenant colonel by 22, and then you were probably going to retire that way. Some of these guys were telling us how to run the Air Force. That was a little bit discouraging that we had to put up with that. Not that there was anything wrong with them, they just were not thinking.

AHMANN: Were you looked upon as second-class citizens within the Army, by the Infantry and the Cavalry?

LANDRY: I don't think we were ever looked upon as second-class citizens by the services, any of them. I think people didn't understand the capability of the airplane, even after World War I when they saw what it did towards the end there. They didn't want to understand it. They didn't fly; they didn't like to fly, and dadgum it, they didn't want to share the budget. As long as we were in the Army, it was a fight for survival. That was the whole damn story of the Air Force until September 1947 when we became a separate branch.

AHMANN: When you were at Barksdale, were you aware of the Air Corps Tactical School [ACTS] over at Maxwell in those days?

LANDRY: Yes.

[53]

AHMANN: Do you recall at that time what they thought of the Air Corps Tactical School?

LANDRY: Do you mean what the Army did?

AHMANN: No. What you as pilots thought?

LANDRY: I didn't go because my career didn't allow it.

AHMANN: You were too young.

LANDRY: Yes. But no, if you were selected to go to the Air Corps Tactical School, you were considered to be on your way up. I think it was a good thing.

LANDRY: It was tactical flying, but it was also tactics. I don't know how much strategy they got into, but I think less strategy but more of the tactical application of aviation, whether you were fighters or low-level attack groups or whether you were high-level bombers.

AHMANN: Did you know, at that time, of Claire Chennault [Lt Gen Claire L.] at all, and. how he had gone to China at this time?

LANDRY: No. His son was a classmate of mine at Kelly.

AHMANN: Claire had a very large family. I wonder where they all disappeared to.

LANDRY: I never did meet the great man.

[54]

AHMANN: He was from Waterproof, Louisiana.

LANDRY: That's right, come to think of it. I remember that now. No, I never did meet him, but I did know his son.

AHMANN: Were you aware in this late 1930s time period of what was going on overseas as far as--the Spanish Civil War had started in 1936, and the Germans were using a lot of airpower, and of course the Japanese were fighting in China. Stories about how airplanes were being used, was that getting down to your level other than newspaper reports? Was there any kind of formal----

LANDRY: I'm sure there would have been in things like the schools, but I don't recall that we ever had any observers over there. I am sure we did. I think what I knew about what was going on, especially in the war in Spain, was mostly what you read in the papers. We pretty well knew--I think a lot of people in the Air Force, young, middle, and older, knew that airpower had to someday find its rightful place. It just took a long, hard fight and another war to prove it.

AHMANN: In this late 1930s time period, the heavy bomber people were gaining a lot of influence in the Air Corps, and the better part of the Air Corps budget was going to the B-17. Were you aware of it at that time? Did it mean anything to you that those----

LANDRY: Sure. That part. I'm glad you brought that up. At Barksdale, we had built towards that time. The Army had given us enough money to build a B-15. Howard--later General Howard, Mr. National Cash Register--Davidson brought the B-15 into Barksdale. I want to tell you, there was some commotion

[55]

then. I can remember just so vividly going up there, and of course, even the attack aviation people didn't think they needed fighters. But now the goddamn big bomber man comes in with this big monster, and he showed us the goddamn gun placements and the big engines and the big load.

Some of us fighter guys were out there talking to, I think it was Major Davidson in those days, but he was the project guy. He made some remark, and I don't know if he made it in jest or not, but he said, "Listen kids, you guys are just wasting your goddamn time. You are just wasting your time. We'll take care of ourselves. Look at the armament on this airplane. Look at the altitude we are going to get. Look at the load we are going to carry. You had better think about this if you want a future in the Air Force." (laughter) We all went to the bar and said, "That's just a lot of bulls--t." (laughter)

AHMANN: We interviewed General Davidson some years ago. Of course he is still alive and doing fine.

LANDRY: Somebody told me just yesterday, he is 94 years old or 96. He comes up later in our discussion.

AHMANN: General Kuter, of course, was a fair-haired boy down on the faculty of the Air Corps Tactical School, and in going through the records of the school, he had made similar statements about you can ignore flak; you can ignore this; you can ignore that. I said, "Well, when all this was proved wrong later, how did you feel?" He said, "Yes, those words did come back to haunt me."

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LANDRY: It was some day when that B-15 landed. That was the biggest thing I ever saw. He put that right up against a P-26, and you kind of wondered what in the hell they could really do for us. They could shoot down enemy fighters. That's what it could do. (laughter)

AHMANN: Did you go to any kind of school outside of, once you finished the Academy and, of course, went to pilot school? Had you gone to any kind of schools at all during this 1930s time period?

LANDRY: Not during the 1930s, no.

AHMANN: There would have only been what? The Air Corps Tactical School, Infantry School, and Command and General Staff I suppose.

LANDRY: My assignments were all such--I guess timewise they didn't mesh. Then of course we went over in November 1940 to Hawaii. General Martin was assigned to go to Hawaii in November 1940 and form up the Twelfth Army Air Force--what did we call it? The United States Army Air Force. Yes--to form up the Twelfth United States Army Air Force. He said to me, "Bob, how would you like to go to Hawaii?" I said, "It sounds good. What do you mean?" He said, "I have just been ordered to go over there and do this job. Would you like to go as my aide and perhaps operations?" I said, "I would be delighted."

AHMANN: He invited you over then?

LANDRY: Yes, he asked if I would like to go with him. I was then, of course, his aide and one of his operations people.

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AHMANN: While you were at Barksdale of course, the Air Corps was building up now. Did it look like more and more we were going to get into a war to you? Do you remember how you felt at the time?

LANDRY: I don't know that any of us really thought about a war. I think we thought if things got bad enough that was why we were in the service was to fight a war. But I don't think any of us really had a great deal of discussion of what, where, and when it would be. We could see a buildup coming, but I think most of us looked on the buildup as just a natural development of airpower.

AHMANN: Of course World War II had started in the fall of 1939.

LANDRY: In 1939 when things happened in Europe, that's when we saw the buildup begin because that's when this country finally realized it had to do something; we might get in. But I don't recall in those days--I was there from 1937 until 1940 at Barksdale--talking about a war. You talk about a war in the sense that if you had to get in, no matter where the hell it was, you wanted to have the best equipment, and you wanted to have the best training. You wanted to have an attitude to fight and win a war. That's about as far as we ever went, but as far as when, where, or how--I don't think we talked about anything of a sneak attack in those days.

When we got over to Hawaii and things got a little tough with the Japanese and some of the things they were doing out there in the Far East, there was a possibility of a war with Japan. We talked about that. That's about when we began to talk about war, especially when we were working on that plan of what we could do with the B-18 I was telling you about, or

[58]

what we couldn't do. We were very, very much concerned. That is when General Martin had to go around the Army and go right to the Air Force to General Andrews and get a study to him. Normally, that would have gone through the Army.

AHMANN: Do you know why Martin was selected to go out to Hawaii?

LANDRY: I think because of his reputation and his quiet leadership qualities and the fact of his seniority.

AHMANN: Was he a good friend of--of course he was very much the contemporary of Arnold and Spaatz [Gen Carl, "Tooey"] and that whole crew.

LANDRY: Yes. He was highly regarded by all of them. I just think it was based on his reputation and his ability. He was a very good officer and a very good gentleman and a very good man, and he was more the type that inspired rather than directed all the time.

AHMANN: What about Arnold? Of course you would have never had any occasion to deal with him at his level.

LANDRY: Ah ha! (laughter)

AHMANN: Oh, making a wrong assumption. Excuse me.

LANDRY: Somehow or the other, I had a lot of contact with important people. Now we have to go back to Fort Huachuca. Now there is the great man. Back at Fort Huachuca, I was still interested in aviation as I told you I had been. I am going to show you this in just a minute.

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General Arnold was at March Field. This year, and I think it was done almost every year, Bisbee--the little town of Bisbee, a mining town there--was not so far away. The American Legion put on a big show every year. This year they had Arnold coming out with his P-12 fighters. They were coming out with a whole squadron led by Major Arnold. I represented the command and went down to Bisbee and went to the country club where they had a big dinner for him. I represented Fort Huachuca. I knew a lot of people in Bisbee because I had refereed football games and sports, so I was pretty well known. I was selected to go down and represent them, and I sat at the table with the general. I went up to talk to him. I told him of my interest in aviation, and I enjoyed his show and all. Really, I was very much impressed. General Arnold would say something to the effect, "You are certainly thinking right, son." (laughter) I said, "Well, maybe someday, General, we might meet."

He went on back. No, he was on his way to Washington. He said, "We will make a couple of stops, and the first thing you know, we will be in Washington, DC. Flying is great." Things like that. Later on--let's see now. This wasn't dated--in Washington, I think when I was on the way through to go to the Eighth Air Force to join General Spaatz, I ran into him. I was a colonel. I said, "General, .I want to refresh your memory. Remember when you said, 'One day I might run into you?' This little Air Force guy who watched your show in Bisbee in 1934 or 1935," whenever it was. "I have thought about you so often, and I would like to have a picture." So he gave me this. (Showing picture)

AHMANN: "To Col R. B. Landry. It is a long way back to Bisbee. My best wishes to you for the future. From one oldtime doughboy to another."

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LANDRY: He had been in the Infantry, too, at the beginning somehow.

AHMANN: I don't remember, frankly.

LANDRY: I really don't, but I just assumed he had from what he said there.

AHMANN: He has on those old military aviation wings.

LANDRY: I told him, "You have been sort of like my hero ever since I saw that flight. It probably had a lot to do with me making up my mind."

AHMANN: There has just been a biography written about him, and I have not read it yet.

LANDRY: Do you know who was working on it? Green that I told you about.

AHMANN: Murray Green. I guess it is a terrific book.

LANDRY: I am talking about the man now. I am jumping ahead. Talking about Murray Green, now I was in the White House as the Air Force Aide to the President. I was the youngest guy on the staff, and I got to know the President very well, for a lot of reason which we will get into later. The telephone rang; it was from the President. Normally, he just asked somebody to come over to see him. He was thinking about this thing about "McCarthyism," and he called me on the phone. I was sitting in my office. He said, "Bob, I have a little project for you." I said, "Yes, sir, Mr. President." He said, "I want you to dig into the Salem witch hunts of 1629, the

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'Know-Nothing' people, all that sort of thing where--all those kinds of things."

AHMANN: The hysteria.

LANDRY: "The hysteria sort of things." I wasn't a very good history guy on those kinds of things. I was trying to take notes, and I was trying to take notes, and he was rattling off what he wanted. He was so fed up with this McCarthyism business that he wanted a study made. Why he picked me, I don't know except maybe he thought I had some time and would do it. Anyway, he said, "I would like you to do that." I said, "Mr. Truman, how much time do I have on this?" He said, "Well, take all the time you want, but I would like to get it reasonably soon." I said, "I'll think about this and see how to go about it. It is going to take some months." He said, "That's all right."

I hung up with my notes, and Christ, I didn't know much about the Salem witch hunts, and I had read little about the Know Nothing party, and what was that group?

AHMANN: That was in the middle of the 19th century.

LANDRY: And all that kind of stuff, leading up to the kind of thing of McCarthyism, hysteria. Boy, I thought to myself, "God, I can't do this by myself." I could just imagine the research that was necessary.

I called up the Secretary and said, "Mr. Symington [W. Stuart], I just got this on the telephone from the President," which was unusual. "He just gave me a rundown on what he wants." I described it the best I could. I said, "I'm going

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to need some help from over across the river. I'm going to have to have a good historian, somebody good in American history that can come and work with me on this and do most of
the research because the President told me, 'You have access to the Archives. You have access to any source in Government for information. If you need a note, fine; others, just tell them.'" Mr. Symington said, "We will look around."

I got a call, and he said, "I think we have a man for you. He has an MA in American history. He is a bug on it." I said, "I would sure like to talk to him." He sent him over, and I told Murray [Green] what it was all about. I said, "I guess you get the message. You have got to do all the research." (laughter) "And we will put it together. I know what Mr. Truman is trying to prove. I know what the conclusions ought to be, and I'm going to tell you partly what it is, but we have to get the evidence, if it exists, to show that this un American." He said, "That's going to be very interesting. I'll be glad to do it."

Six months later we came out with a study that is this thing. I have it, and I was trying to find it. I gave it to the President, and he was delighted. I wrote a nice note for Murray, about Murray's contribution with the thing, which Murray has. It was later used; it was briefed down in the campaign of 1952 what this kind of thing, how un-American it is and how it destroys. I got the story, and I hope I can find it for you because it is really very interesting.

Later on, just jumping around again, when I was very close to Mrs. Arnold in later years, when I had the Fourth Air Force at Hamilton Field [CA], which will come in later, and she was living up there in Sonora in a beautiful place. That was

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where he was going to retire and write and that sort of thing. There is a lot of stuff on that I can give you. I was divorced at the time. Every time I had any kind of reception I would send my aide up to get her. I asked her to go, and she was my lady. So I got to know her very well and one of the sons. When she died, I was asked to go to the services. I ran into Murray Green. But that's all there was to that.

AHMANN: That's interesting though. Green has been around a long time.

Going back then, General Martin had asked you to go to Hawaii with him. That would look like a nice invitation.

LANDRY: It was. I was real pleased.

AHMANN: I have a list of what the--Hawaiian Air Force at the start of World War II when the Japanese attacked. You had about 100 P-40s and about 40 P-36s and P-26s, A-20s, and a couple of A-12s, 32 B-18s.

LANDRY: That was the main force, and then the fighter force up at Wheeler were the P-40s, weren't they?

AHMANN: Yes.

LANDRY: The rest of the stuff was just miscellaneous garbage.

AHMANN: Was Martin given a specific task to achieve? They created that Hawaiian Air Force. That didn't exist before. It was a bunch of squadrons and consolidated groups. What was the favorite phrase?

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LANDRY: Where you had a little bit of each.

AHMANN: Yes.

LANDRY: Composite.

AHMANN: Composite group.

LANDRY: Which is nothing but a mess. (laughter) That's all you had.

AHMANN: When I say the Army, I mean the non-Air Corps. Was your reception cool over there, to say the least?

LANDRY: I don't think so. When I say that our relationship with the Army was not good, it was not good when it came to policy and tactics and strategy. Socially, we got along very well. As
a matter of fact, the aide to General Short was Louis Truman [Lt Gen Louis W.], who was a classmate of mine and a cousin of Mr. Truman. I didn't know that at the time. I didn't know Mr. Truman at the time. That is Louis Truman. (Showing picture) He was a classmate of mine, and a fine officer he is. He made three stars. He stayed in the Army. That was Louis Truman. We were very close to all of those people, not just myself but others.

I was also a very close friend of Admiral Kimmel's flag officer. We had good relations. I also became the liaison between Twelfth Air Force, General Martin's air force, and Admiral Ballinger [Martin] who was a four-star guy for the Navy there.

AHMANN: He was the Navy commander.

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LANDRY: We all knew a lot of those people and not only myself but others. We did a lot of shopping at the Navy Exchange and places. Socially, we got along very well.

AHMANN: We have the Hawaiian Air Force in 1941. The Chief of Staff was James Mollison [Brig Gen James A.] ; Intel was Raley [Col. Edward W.], Edward Raley. Signal Corps was Clay Hoppough [Col. Clay I.]; Jacob Rudolph [Brig. Gen. Jacob H.] was the 18th Bomb Wing; 14th Pursuit Wing was Howard Davidson. Hickam [AFB HI] was commanded by a Col William Farthing [Maj. Gen. William E.]; Wheeler was Col William Flood [Brig. Gen. William J.], and Bellows [Field HI] was Lt Col Leonard Weddington [Brig. Gen. Leonard D.]. First of all, you had, physically, a small place. Was there a lot of constant interaction in a physical sense, face-to-face type thing?

LANDRY: You mean among the Air Force command?

AHMANN: Staff--yes.

LANDRY: Sure. We had some incompetent people over there. Good Lord, Rudolph is dead now.
He was more interested in garbage cans looking good than he was airplanes running well.

AHMANN: Who was this now?

LANDRY: That fellow Rudolph you were talking about.

AHMANN: Jacob Rudolph. Was he one of these oldtimers that had come into the Air Force?

LANDRY: I don't know. We had some oldtimers over there. We had some good people like "Bill" Streett [Maj. Gen. St Clair] , and of

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course, we had Rosie O'Donnell and Sweeney [Gen. Walter C. , "Cam"], a lot of great guys, the flying types. I am talking about some of these administrative people.

AHMANN: You mentioned this Martin Ballinger Report.

LAUNDRY: Ballinger was commander of the offshore patrol.

AHMANN: He said they should run this 360° patrol, but you didn't have the aircraft to fill the role. Was it unrealistic in that sense that----

LANDRY: For us to do it or for the Navy? We didn't think the Navy was covering the area well enough, but they didn't have any equipment to do it. We couldn't do it. We didn't have enough equipment to run patrols. It was not the charge of the Air Farce to do the patrolling; it was up to the Navy. The Navy had the responsibility for patrols; we had the responsibility for the attack.
AHMANN: Was the role of the Army Air Corps to defend Hawaii against attack?

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: Did Navy Air have a role in defending Hawaii?

LANDRY: In the sense that they would get warning with off the ship patrol and if there were carriers in the area, but they had no land-based aviation other than--well, it really wasn't land. It was only at Ford Island. They were patrol boats. The only time it became land based was when a carrier was in. Like always the fighters went ashore.

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AHMANN: Col William Farthing commanded 5th Bomb Group, 18th Bomb Wing. 10 July 1941, he had the plan for the employment of bombardment aviation and defense of Oahu, and it was to patrol and sink the enemy fleet and to defend the US Fleet. He apparently had a very good identification of what actually resulted then in the attack. It is almost like he was reading--did you know him well at all?

LANDRY: I was in the headquarters. I knew him and knew he had the outfit. They did some patrolling, but basically, the Navy did most of the patrolling, and it was to defend the island. The reconnaissance mission there was overstated.

AHMANN: I get the impression, though, that the Air Corps pretty well had identified what they should do out there.

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: They thought well enough to know how they would have attacked Hawaii themselves, as Mitchell had written years before. You had been able to identify the best way to defend. Was it then simply a case, like you keep saying, you just didn't have the hardware to do it?

LANDRY: I think that is right. Everybody knew that you sneak in under cover or secrecy as the Japanese did. Whether the attack came from the northwest, as it did in that case, or whether it came from some other quarter might be a matter of weather or strategy or tactics. We knew that if an enemy were coming in; the only way it could come in would be by carrier, and it would have some kind of supporting ships for that. The idea was that we would get some kind of notice of

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it from submarines, from patrols, either the Navy's or ours if we had some on, and then send a task force out to hit them.

If they came in, presumably, with some kind of an attack, the fighters were supposed to defend. Well, we didn't have the equipment to go out far enough to do any damage, and the fighters were all shot up on the ground. A few people got off and got a few of the Japanese. A couple of boys drove all the way from Honolulu, picked up a couple that were not burning, got up, and got about a half dozen Japanese between them. The mission was simple, and what would happen, how they would come, was just a question of detecting it.

AHMANN: Which then is the next question: When do you remember the first radars being set up?

LANDRY: We only heard that the Army was setting it up there. We had nothing to do with it.

AHMANN: That's right. I keep forgetting that. I keep thinking 1983 versus 1940.

LANDRY: It was way up on the top of a mountain. I think I drove up there one time when they were putting it on. But we had nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, on some of those things we were invited to stay out of it.

AHMANN: How did you attempt, or did you even bother to try and overcome this reticence of the Army to----

LANDRY We made trip after trip to Fort Shafter and to the "hole in the wall' after the attack. You remember thay had a big hole in the wall, a big command post in the walll.

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AHMANN: Alamanua [phonetic] Crater.

LANDRY: Yes, Alamanua Crater, a tremendous thing, kind of like the thing in Colorado.

AHMANN: Oh, the Cheyenne Mountain thing.

LANDRY: That's what I say, when our operations people or Fred Martin went over there to try to get something done, we fought and fought and fought on the alert plan--you know, Alert Number 2 or 3 of whatever it was that pulled the airplanes together for anti-sabotage. We felt we could take care of the anti-sabotage on the base. They forced us; they turned down every request we made to scatter the airplanes, to disperse them. There is no question about it; that's history. Jesus, when the Japs came in, all they had to do was go down the line and shoot them all up.

AHMANN: That must have been a beautiful sight.

LANDRY: If it hadn't been for that, if we had had some fighters at Wheeler Field, we could have caused them a great deal of trouble. The B 18s could never have gotten out to the fleet even if they found them because they were too far out. They didn't have the radius of action. There are some people who said, "Yes, we could have gone out there," but I just don't believe it.

AHMANN: Like you say, it would have been a one-way---

LANDRY: Sure, they could have gone out there and dropped their bombs and then ditched. Maybe under those circumstances, you would do it--probably would have, undoubtedly. If you knew where

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they were, you would have to do that. I think you would just have to go on a suicide mission or at least expecting to ditch, and maybe you could have done a lot of damage.

AHMANN: You mentioned earlier there really was no sense of war fever or anything out there.

LANDRY: I said when we first got there, there was no sense of--I said as time went on, 14 or 20 November when we got there.

AHMANN: 1 November 1940 the Hawaiian Air Force was activated.

LANDRY: There were some people over there in advance who activated it. General Martin didn't get over. We got over there on 14 or 20 November. The skeleton crew had been sent over to put things together and get the building where the headquarters was going to be and all over on Fort Shafter. It was not on Hickam Field. No, it had to be over there. (laughter) That old goddamn wooden building they gave us.

LANDRY: As the situation that you could read about in the papers and certain documents as we received them tended to show, there was trouble with the Japanese. We'll say when we first got there, we had to sort of fit into the environment and see what it was. We were still under the Army and what information we got came from the Army, all the intelligence and everything else. It was obvious that something might very well happen in the Pacific. It might have been thought that it might be at Wake [Island]. It might have been a stepping arrangement where they go to--that might have been one way they would do it and then get ready for the attack,

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but they took the bold approach and sunk a good part of the fleet.

People thought of the possibility of an attack on the island. They certainly did. That is why we made the big study. What could we expect we could do with the equipment we had? We cried for B-17s. We cried for them and finally got some. What did we have, about 20 some of them? Because I checked out on a B-17 there when we got them. What was the figure, 22, 25?

AHMANN: They have how many planes were destroyed. Here it is. There were 12 B-17Ds and 3 B-17s--I don't know. They must have been Es. So you had about 15 B-17s there.

LANDRY: We had, I think--I don't know whether they put them in the group or they split them in the squadron so they could begin the training, but they were a long time in coming.

AHMANN: What did you think of the B-17? You had been a fighter pilot all of your life.

LANDRY: I had a B-17 group at the end of the war in Germany. I think the airplane was tremendous, absolutely. It took a lot of beating, a hell of a lot better airplane than the B-24. Not
that the B-24 didn't do a magnificent job, but it seemed to be able to take--it had more altitude than the B-24. It, I believe, could take a better licking in the air and come home than the B-24 did. The B-24 had the Clark wing, and we couldn't get it up. It was a problem always in the stream and the air defense against Germany. But as for the airplane itself, thank goodness we had it. It was a development of the B-15. I mean, just the idea, although the B-15 probably

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had more to do, as I understand, with the development of the B-29, but we didn't have it.

AHMANN: In May 1941 in Hawaii, you had a war drill. This I read in Prange. It was a very optimistic approach. It almost bordered on unrealistic capabilities and a lot of good fortune and a lot of good luck.

LANDRY: You mean an exercise where we were under attack?

AHMANN: Yes.

LANDRY: Yes, they did. I remember having some kind of a big island exercise, assuming an attack or the danger of an attack. Everything was alerted in one big place.

AHMANN: Did the B-17 seem to be looked upon as this was going to cure all of your problems out there? I mean, this was going to be the answer?

LANDRY: The B-17 was going to give us the range to get out to a fleet. That was the main thing. The ability to shoot from the airplane was almost secondary except for survival. We had to be able to get the goddamn radius of action to drop a decent bomb load.

Now the B-17 would carry 8,000 pounds of bombs and go out--I forget what it was, but it was well--like 450 miles out or around there, 450 or 500: The B-18 carried something like 4,000 and had a range of action of 225-250. Well, it was no good to us against an attack. Who is going to come in that close? Because you can't get the carriers back out. There was a lot of discussion on how it would be done, the tactics

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that would be used, but the B-17 would give us some ability to destroy an enemy fleet.

AHMANN: General Martin, was he in correspondence with General Arnold in Washington on what they call today a back channel type thing, unofficial letter correspondence at all?

LANDRY: I don't know of any top secret messages that I ever saw or anything where he, you might say, clandestinely wrote to Andrews or to Arnold. But just as sure as you and I are sitting in this room, if my commander was wondering what was going on and knowing what the circumstances were, what I wrote personally was my own damn business.

AHMANN: But you, personally, don't know if Martin was writing Arnold?

LANDRY: I'm sure there were some contacts. There had to be.

AHMANN: Arnold had been out in Hawaii in 1939 on a visit to Hawaii. I was wondering if something he saw led to having the Hawaiian Air Force established.

What was the status of what you found out there, by the way? Was it a pretty ragtag operation going on out there?

LANDRY: No, it looked pretty good what they had, really. Bill Streett was one of the finest. Some of the top guys in the Air Force in bombardment were there, and the 5th Bombardment Wing, or Group, Wing--whatever it was, some of the absolute top guys we had. I always thought Bill Flood was a little bit old to be over there. He was the base commander there, I guess:

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AHMANN: At Wheeler, right.

LANDRY: He was the base commander. No, we had some real good people, and with the equipment they had, you couldn't ask for anything better in terms of personnel and training with the equipment.

AHMANN: Was Martin the right guy to have gone out there? Or was he too nice a guy to have gone?

LANDRY: Oh, no, certainly not.

AHMANN: Nice in the sense that people would take advantage of him--Short or anybody like that.

LANDRY: No. It had nothing to do with it. Short and his people just knew that we were part of the Army. It wouldn't have made any difference if you had had a fireball out there who was arguing with everybody all the time. It probably would have done more damage. Unfortunately, we were never able to convince them of some of the things we all believed in. It was the system, and it was the organization that was the problem not the people. General Martin was as good a general officer as I ever ran into. We have had some more bombastic ones. I would take him under fire anytime.

AHMANN: Did you ever read .a book--it was published in the early 1930s--called The Great Pacific War?

LANDRY: No.

AHMANN: This was a fictional account of a naval war between the Japanese and Americans in the Pacific. I was wondering if

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that had gained any currency in those days out there and was read at all.

LANDRY: I really had never had much contact experience with the Navy at all, because I was never exposed to them, only what I read and that sort of thing.

AHMANN: Was there any attempt to put shackles on you in your contacts with your Navy equivalents out there? Was there pretty free play of----

LANDRY: Like I say, I was a very close friend of Admiral Kimmel.

AHMANN: You did know Kimmel?

LANDRY: Oh, yes. I met him, but I was a very close friend of his flag officers. As a matter of fact, something comes to mind about talking about the possibility of war. Sure, a lot of us talked about the possibility of a war in the Pacific and the possibility of an attack on Hawaii. It was a big base. But how it would be attacked and when and where was something that was hard to try to--especially the timing.

Anyway, I can remember--what was his name? Let's say it was the captain. Maybe we will find his name. I think it was Clark but it wasn't that either. He was married to one of the Dillinger family girls, one of the big five over there, a lovely woman. We became great friends. He told me one time something about their war plans, and he said that under the condition of war in Hawaii--he said, "You ought to know this because if there is a war, Pan American is the flag carrier and comes through here, and under the war plan they would be taken over immediately by the military, by the Navy," which

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was part of the war plan. He said, "Just remember that, because if we have a war here, it might be important to get families out or something like that." Just talking one day--if. So to that extent people did talk about the possibility but not anything finite that you could put your hands on, because even though we didn't have the equipment to go out and intercept or to attack a fleet, it just seemed a little bit far away. There might be some notice.

AHMANN: Did you know anything about Japanese air capability in that time period? You read some books that that has kind of been a dated theory that the Zero aircraft was a big surprise to the Americans. We didn't know the Japanese had such a good fighter and all that. I was wondering if knowledge of Japanese military capabilities were disseminated at all?

LANDRY: No, I don't remember going into a lot of detail about that. We did have some knowledge about carriers, and we did know--I mean, we wouldn't have to have a great deal of brains to know that carriers would probably be equal to our carriers. I had been on the Lexington; I knew what they could do, and I knew you had a limited range of fighters and any aircraft. So we knew something about that. We weren't so much concerned about the aircraft. We figured the aircraft would be pretty good whatever they were.

All right, but we did know this. We realized that they could stay far enough away from us to be able to launch an attack, get back to their airplanes, even if the carriers had to come in a little bit, but they could launch far out to where we would never know it until the attack came.

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AHMANN: This knowledge was common to Martin and to Short, Kimmel and everybody?

LANDRY: Sure. It was certainly knowledgeable to us, and it was knowledgeable to the Air Force in Washington I am sure. There again, it was getting the money to build the B-17, and
the money that came, came in dribbles.

AHMANN: Did you do a lot of flying out there? You were General Martin's aide over there. Were you able to fly a lot when you got to the Hawaiian Islands?

LANDRY: I checked out in the B-17, and we had a staff airplane that I flew, not like we did in the States. But I flew enough to keep my hand in. I was a fighter pilot anyway; I didn't go up to Wheeler, but I checked out in the B-17.

AHMANN: As the general's aide, did he include you in staff meetings and this type of thing?

LANDRY: Yes, sure. Jim Mollison and I were great friends, the chief of staff.

AHMANN: With the exception of Howard Davidson, most of these guys kind of disappear from the history books.

LANDRY: A lot of them--Rosie O'Donnell took the B-17s to Clark Field, lost them all there.

AHMANN: Did you ever hear why that was?

LANDRY: Surprise attack, I think.

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AHMANN: I mean, the war had been going on for a matter of, what? a day or a day and a half already, and there they were sitting the planes out there.

LANDRY: There was no warning, no notice. As I understood what happened there, they were spread out. They only had a squadron. When you come in on the deck, and they were pretty close by I guess--they must have been--and they just picked them off.

AHMANN: The history books recount this controversy of why they got caught on the ground up there.

LANDRY: No notice, that's all I can think. I know goddamn well that if O'Donnell had had any notice, he would have taken off. But they had no fighters there, and they had no early warning.

AHMANN: What actually happened on 7 December to you personally? How did things progress.

LANDRY: I was in the quarters; my wife was--well, first of all, I lived right on the channel there. General Martin's quarters were right at the entrance to Pearl Harbor Channel, and I was down one house removed from that, fairly close to him on the channel. We were in bed. My wife was Catholic and was taking my daughters to church. She asked me if I wanted to go. I didn't want to go that morning. So she was leaving about, I guess, 10 minutes to 15 minutes to 8. While we were talking, I heard an airplane. I didn't pay much attention to it. Then the first thing I heard was the first bomb that was dropped was dropped on the big depot building. I said, "My God, what can that be?"

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I jumped up and looked out of the window, and about that time a Zero or torpedo plane came right down about 25 feet off the water for the attack on the battleships. My God, the Rising
Sun never looked so----

AHMANN: How far was he from you?

LANDRY: I would say about 300 feet from the house. I looked out the window from the second floor and here was this big Zero. I heard the bomb, and I saw the torpedo. I said, "Jesus, the Japs are here." From then on it was quite a show.

AHMAN: Did you go over to Martin's or anything?

LANDRY: I told my wife--we had a little baby then and a daughter who was young--to go downstairs and get in the staircase kind of an arrangement. I put a couple of mattresses over them. I said, "I have to go down to headquarters."

I, of course, got dressed and went down to headquarters. Everybody was--we got down there because they didn't attack the headquarters. We were right in the middle of the first wave of the attack. They hit the stuff on our flying line as well as bombing the battleships, the cruisers, and everything in Pearl Harbor. About all we could do was just wonder what was next. We couldn't shoot anything; we couldn't give any orders. We could call people, but very soon the communications broke down.

They hit the barracks, and the barracks started to burn. They dropped a bunch of bombs in there and killed a lot of people.

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AHMANN: Were you actually physically inside all of this time?

LANDRY: We were in the building, in the headquarters. I don't know if you were ever at Hickam Field.

AHMANN: No, I never have been.

LANDRY: There was some like an L-shaped thing like this, two-story, that we were in. That was kind of the office. That was the office on the base. When we moved off of Shafter, we came back over there. And it was right in the housing section, so we could walk to work. We could see what was happening over at Pearl Harbor. It was terrible. The feeling can't be described. And then what was happening right on our own flying field and the barracks.

They didn't hit us, but had my wife gone to church, she might have been killed. Because in coming down to strafe one of the buildings, they strafed the BX. The chapel was kind of on that path he was flying and some bullets went through the chapel and I think killed one of the altar boys. But they didn't waste any ammunition on houses. They hit the barracks, and they hit the depot, and they hit the airplanes on the field and low-level stuff. Of course, we couldn't have been more than 500 yards from the flying line.

My car got a bullet through the windshield. I don't know if it was a ricochet or what it was, and the house got a little shrapnel in the windows, but I think that was just from stuff flying around in the air. So we stayed there. Then the lull of about 20 minutes, and then the high stuff came in.

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Interestingly enough, a layout of Hickam Field showed where all the underground storage was supposed to be. The high-level attack from 12,000 feet, they just rumbled over there and started dropping bombs in this area, and it wasn't there. It had been changed. Then the dive bombers worked on the Navy some more. Of course they had been working on Wheeler Field and the one on the other side of the island.

There was nothing you could do.

AHMANN: To go back a minute, when they lined the planes up for anti-sabotage protection, did that strike you as a bad thing to do at that time?

LANDRY: We went over there; the operations people went over; General Martin went over. We said, "Please, let us disperse our own equipment. We will be responsible for protecting them even if we have to put our people out there to do it, our mechanics." We didn't want to line them up. We were just as fearful that there was any possible threat. "No. We feel there is no danger of an attack. It is anti-sabotage."

AHMANN: General Davidson said he made them give an order in writing to him to Specifically--

LANDRY: He got the order in writing, sure. So did we. Whether he got it from the Air Corps as we did---

AHMANN: He said he first verbally got it, and he claims that, whether there was a big time delay there or not, but he said he would not----

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LANDRY: We got the order from the Army, and I know we went up there time after time--well, I don't know about time after time. There were many, many calls and personal visits that we considered this dangerous, just the possibility of an attack. We would be sure to lose the equipment, but we couldn't prevail.

AHMANN: Prange points out in his book here that Short wanted to train Air Corps personnel as Infantry at one time.

LANDRY: Sure, he did.

AHMANN: That was a big fight to prevent that. It strikes me that Short really did not--there seemed to be the old idea that airpower was nothing more than long-range artillery attitude out there.

LANDRY: They just didn't contemplate how the hell, what good would it do? How would they get ashore? You had to have air to prevent them from coming ashore. If you didn't do that, they were going to walk ashore, and training a guy and taking on mechanics and all of our support people and giving them a rifle, we trained our own people to shoot. Under those circumstances, I don't think you are going to have to worry about them being able to kill somebody.

AHMANN: Was this obviously a thought in your mind, that this was a prelude to an invasion?

LANDRY: I think a lot of us got together, and for the rest of the day, since we didn't know anything about the size of the force, we guessed where they came from, but we weren't even sure of that--I mean the direction and the location. A lot

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of us, we sat there and talked, "Are they going to follow this up with their transports coming in for a landing, and then cruisers?" Because we didn't know what the force consisted of.

We waited and waited and waited, and we figured that if they were going to do that, they would have done it certainly by noon. In other words, there would have been something, whether they could get transports in or whether they could get airborne in. We kind of thought there might be some airborne stuff. There might be some airborne stuff to get gun emplacements on the hills and things like that. With all the damage and confusion it had caused, a big airborne force might have had some luck.

Right away, as soon as the attack was over, General Martin said to me, "Bob, you had better go over to Ford Island and see Admiral Ballinger and see what is left over there." I got in the car and went on over there. The oil was burning so bad that they had to put me in a steel-bottom boat to get over to Ford Island where Ballinger was. It was just terrible. You can't believe it unless you have seen pictures of it.

Here were all the admirals dressed in their white uniforms. They looked like they were walking around in a state of shock. I said, "Admiral Ballinger, General Martin sent me over to see if I could be of any help or what the situation was." He said, "Well, just take a look."

AHMANN: It says Martin went to the hospital that afternoon. Is that right?

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LANDRY: I don't know. He had a bleeding ulcer. He had a duodenal ulcer, and he had trouble with that thing bleeding once, I remember, when--stress usually brings it on or whatever it is. He probably did. As a matter of fact, once at Barksdale when he was there holding the fort for Andrews when Andrews was in Washington, that damn ulcer acted up, and he had to go to the hospital.

Just jumping around a little bit, I remember later talking to him after the war and after everything. He became head of Technical Training Command.

AHMANN: I have been sitting here trying to think where he ended up.

LANDRY: Of course, they found no fault with him in the Roberts Commission. He said, "Bob, I can eat anything now. I can eat beefsteak; I can anything. They tied my esophagus to my asshole." (laughter)

AHMANN: Sounds like he had a great sense of humor.

LANDRY: He had a great sense of humor. But he did have that bad stomach and, of course, they are awful.

AHMANN: What happened the next day then?

LANDRY: The rest of the time was trying to clean up and trying to find out what was left. A few B-18s took off. I had a friend there, Brooke Allen [Maj. Gen. Brooke E.], who is now a
retired major general, who took off in a B-18, went out searching, and he couldn't find anything. Gen Brooke Allen was in the bomb group. At one time he had been General

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Frank's [Maj. Gen. Walter H., "Tony"] aide. He is also his son-in-law. You have heard of General Frank?

AHMANN: Yes.

LANDRY: Frank was there when we first got there as a commanding general.

AHMANN: I'm trying to think of his first name. He ended up in fighters. Didn't he get relieved someplace in Europe during World War II?

LANDRY: No, I don't think so. I think you are thinking of something else. He is a tough old boy. He used to march all the troops to work with a record at Mitchel Field. Tony Frank.

The remainder of the day was trying to figure out just what the hell could be done, getting messages back, contacting the Army, contacting the Navy. There is nothing worse than a surprise attack because I can tell you, everything is really just torn apart. There is shock; there is uncertainty; there is lack of communication.

AHMANN: You had an idea where the Jap Fleet was?

LANDRY: No.

AHMANN: Was there any speculation? Because obviously they searched south, and they were north. That old story.

LANDRY: No, I had no idea. We weren't even sure when I said that we could see some airplanes flying away, that didn't mean anything because they came in devious ways. That was one of

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the uncertainties. We didn't know where the damn things were, so without knowing where they were or how close they were, we couldn't guess whether they had transport troops aboard or whether they would be coming in the next day. If they were going to come in from transports, it would have been some time later. If they were going to come in from airborne, which is what we thought was a possibility. It might take some airborne troops.

AHMANN: You were expecting those B-17s to come in. Had you been involved in that?

LANDRY: Yes, that was brought in. I think there were about 12 or 15 of them, brought in by "Ted" Landon [Gen. Truman H.J.].

AHMANN: Yes, I interviewed General Landon and, of course, Richard Carmichael [Maj. Gen.], General Carmichael.

LANDRY: These people up in the radar place were confused, too. They saw the Japs coming in, but they didn't know it was Japs because it was at about the same time. As a matter of fact, when Ted Landon came in, one of the attacks, they shot up a few of them landing at Hickam Field, so they scattered. They landed all over the goddamn island anyplace they could. We lost I don't know how many of them, but it was unfortunate. Of course they came in some of the new airplanes, the B-17Es, guns in cosmoline, and no ammunition. This was something put together in the States to come over to what could be a battle zone the next day, so you know that----

AHMANN: So the next day it was a case of trying to figure out what the hell was going to happen?

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LANDRY: Of course, the Lexington and the Saratoga steamed in later and some airplanes, I think, off the Lexington or the Saratoga came in and flew right over Hickam Field. Well, everybody was trigger happy, and they goddamn near shot them down. Now we were manning the machineguns. (laughter) Just before dark. But that was the only excitement.

Then we figured, "Well, we will just have to wait and see." Then we were at war. Of course you start thinking about families. What are you going to do with the people? We wanted to get them out of there, so we began moving people into the inland, up into the island, and also on the other side of the island, taking the families out. We got as many of them out as we could before the day was gone, got them off the base just in case, and things like that.

We went into an immediate blackout. From then on you tried to assess your damage.

AHMANN: Did you personally feel there was a threat from the Japanese population in Hawaii?

LANDRY: We had a Japanese maid and a daughter living with us, worked with us, and her husband worked downtown. I am sure that some people there said the Japanese were there taking pictures and reporting on the fleet, and I am sure that is true. As far as the Japanese people were concerned--that island had a lot of Japanese and Chinese. I never felt they were a great threat even after the attack.

We didn't treat them badly at all, but here was an attack by the Japanese on American soil, and you have a whole bunch of

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Japanese that you don't know too much about. I see nothing wrong in having--and I actually went down later that day to one of the places where there was a bunch of them. We had some right close to the base there where the police were put around them and soldiers around them to contain them. Because how do you know? Why couldn't you have had a strong cadre people in there now blowing up, causing a lot of trouble while the force was coming in. So right away you had to contain those people. Even after the containment, and that was done pretty quick, we had to get them out of there. We still didn't know.

All these people now that say we treated them badly, and it was all wrong. There was no reason to do all of this, no reason to contain them; that's a bunch of hogwash. Goddamn it, you can't take a chance in war and have somebody do
something that might defeat you---

AHMANN: That's a classic example. Now we are looking back 40 years ago.

LANDRY: Yes, but you have some of these goddamn people in the Government and Congress and one thing and another saying it was all wrong. We shouldn't have done it.

AHMANN: In retrospect we shouldn't have done it, but you don't know that at the time.

LANDRY: In retrospect, yes, you could say that. But let's get practical. If the guy had thrown the pass and it wasn't intercepted, you wouldn't have lost 7 to 0. Do you know what I mean?

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AHMANN: Did they ship all the dependents back to the United States?

LANDRY: As quickly as we could get them out of there, we did. We got them all out of there. A lot of them went by boat, and a lot of them were fearful because there were some of those one-man submarines around. There were some submarines noted by the Navy later in the area, big ones. Many of them were flown over.

Kind of an amusing anecdote to the whole thing was, of course, the Pan American Airlines. Captain Clark--and that is not his name. I have to get it for you--called me up. He said, "Bob, do you remember I told you that in case of war we take over Pan American. We are using Pan American to the extent possible to evacuate people. Of course, we have to start at the top, and we are evacuating some of the families" of people like Kimmel's wife and Short's wife and my classmate's wife, Louis Truman's wife, whom I knew very well. He said, "I promised you if anything ever happened I would be here. When would you like to go?" I said, "Well, like tomorrow." He said, "We can do it. We can do that tomorrow." I had my wife and let's see, 1937 to 1941, she was 4 years old and a brand new baby. He knew that. He said, "Yes, we can do that tomorrow, but I will have to unload Mrs. Short and Louis Truman's wife, your classmate." I said, "Oh, hell, don't do that." He said, "I will take care of it." So the next day they flew back on a Boeing Clipper.

AHMANN: How many children do you have, General?

LANDRY: I had those two by my first wife, and I adopted two with my second wife who died. Then I married the third time, and she had three children. So under our surveillance, I guess that

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would be seven. Out of them we have 18 grandchildren. It is kind of a nice family.

AHMANN: Did you ever get called to the Roberts Commission or to that congressional hearing after World War II?

LANDRY: No.

AHMANN: They were breaking the Japanese diplomatic code and all that. Did you think your Intel was good in those days?

LANDRY: I think one of the unfortunate things that happened--the people from Japan, the ambassadors, were talking to our Government about some kind of arrangement short of war. It was a hell of a good front, diversive action. I think probably that had a great deal of influence on the lack of concern of what could happen at Pearl Harbor or anywhere else but certainly at Pearl Harbor. I just think the Japanese were pretty clever. What they did was pretty awful, and to this day, I'm not one that can slide up to the Japanese and think they are the greatest people in the world, because that was a stab in the back if you ever had it. A lot of this generation now doesn't even know about it, but I'll never forget it. A lot of people were killed.

I don't think, even in Washington, that there was anything intentionally done. I think, it seems to me, that someone in the message department, of what I have read about the guy who had the task of it getting it delivered--about General Marshall [George C.] riding his horse and other people being here and there. They made a big thing about that. I don't know how many commissions they had on it. I felt it was just bad luck and very unfortunate, just goddamn bad luck. And on the part

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of the Japanese, well done. I hate to say it, but they really outmaneuvered us, just outmaneuvered us, so there we were.

AHMANN: Martin went home pretty quickly, then, didn't he?

LANDRY: No, he had to stay there. He said to me shortly after the thing was over--well, when the Roberts Commission was formed, which was pretty quickly. I think it was done in the first week or few days--"Bob, look, I am going to have to stay here through this commission because I am going to have to testify. We have a war on. If you want to get on with it, I can understand it. I certainly think you should. But if you want to stay, that is perfectly all right." I said, "You know I will stay as long as I can be of any service to you. If I can't really be of any service to you and the war effort, then I probably ought to move on. I think that is probably what I ought to do." He said, "I agree; " so he released me.

That is when I became the Executive Officer of the VIII Fighter Command to Monk Hunter, who had been my group commander at Barksdale Field. I was the executive officer. Then I got in the business of setting up the plotting. I was put in charge of getting that thing going. It wasn't going; it wasn't anything but a table over there, and nothing had happened. The Army hadn't done a goddamn thing. So we got that thing going pretty fast, and we got the equipment that we needed fairly quickly.

Then of course, General Dargue [Maj. Gen. Herbert A.] was picked to come over and replace Kimmel, to be the overall

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commander of the whole thing. Dargue came out and ran into a mountain. Do you remember?

AHMANN: In California. They didn't find him until the next spring.

LANDRY: He had some good people with him. The chief of staff had been a man at West Point when I was there, ahead of me. I forget his name.

Then Emmons [Lt. Gen. Delos C.] was there. In the meantime, by the time they got Dargue on the way over, a lot of orders had been issued. Monk was over there. Monk had his people that supported him and, of course, he would have been perfectly all right with Andrews, because that was Spaatz, Arnold, and Andrews, that group of people, and Eaker [Lt. Gen. Ira C.] , but when
Dargue was killed, then Emmons got that.

AHMANN: Of course Clarence Tinker [Maj. Gen. Clarence L.].

LANDRY: "Tink" was sent over to take over the bomber command. Tink was over there taking over the bomber outfit.

AHMANN: I have a note that says Tinker replaced Martin.

LANDRY: That was the Air Force, not the bomber command. I meant the Twelfth Air Force. Tinker replaced Martin. Martin still had to stay there for the hearings. Emmons didn't want Hunter. I remember going down with Hunter and putting him on a patrol boat, and the Navy flew him back home.

AHMANN: Why didn't Emmons want Hunter?

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LANDRY: He just didn't want him. He wanted Howard Davidson. So Davidson replaced him, and I still stayed as executive officer. I got along well with Howard Davidson. He was a different kind of a person. Monk was a feisty guy, always has been.

I stayed there until February, I think about the 12th, and an order came through requesting me for the Eighth Air Force. I had been asked for. Those are the kinds of things where during the war you can ask for people and get them. I didn't have any choice.

AHMANN: Who had asked for you?

LANDRY: I don't know who it was in Eighth Air Force, whether it was Frank Armstrong or Ira Eaker or some of those people. I don't know who asked for me, but it was somebody down the line. Everybody was jealous that I got ordered to where the war was going to be fought now, they thought, rather than in the Pacific. I think by then the thinking was that they had to get Germany first and maybe Japan could be contained.

AHMANN: One thing that surprises me: Your P-40s were replaced quite quickly in Hawaii. Is that right? In talking to Gen Gordon Austin [Maj. Gen. Gordon H.], he says it seemed like overnight----

LANDRY: Gordy Austin, I had him in Eighth Air Force. As I remember correctly, a carrier brought a whole bunch of them over, a whole bunch of fighters over there with the wings off. They couldn't fly them. Now you fly fighters wherever you go with air refueling. I think I recall--I am hazy on that--we got a

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whole bunch of them that came in on a carrier, too. That's right; they did.

AHMANN: Did you put those B-17s to patrolling like you had originally wanted to?

LANDRY: I don't think we had enough to do much patrolling.

AHMANN: Of course, some of them still went on to----

LANDRY: We tried to get as many as we could out to the Far East, but I don't think we did a hell of a lot of patrolling, because I don't think we had a hell of a lot left. The B-18s, there wasn't many of those left. They got a bunch of those. I don't recall. I was busy over at Fort Shafter, really. I had to move over there.

AHMANN: Did you put some of that AC&W in some of those tunnels and all that?

LANDRY: I had nothing to do with that. The Army had all of that. The only thing that I had to do, or that the fighter outfits of part of the Twelfth Air Force had to do, was to get that early warning plotting thing going.

AHMANN: Did you have anybody there with any experience in this kind of thing?

LANDRY: No, but I had seen enough of it and learned enough of it, and we had technicians who knew the system.

AHMANN: This was tying together the radars and ground observers?

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LANDRY: Yes, everything. It took some time. I left in February, and we had a plotting thing going with the radars that we had. We had the lines in, and we could plot them. We used to get an awful lot of menahoonies [phonetic], we used to call them, these signals at night. We called them menahoonies.

AHMANN: The Japanese, it turned out, were flying float planes off some of their submarines.

LANDRY: They say they were. We would get those things at night, and we would call them menahoonies.

AHMANN: Flying saucers. (laughter)

LANDRY: There is a book written on menahoonies. I have it if I can find it. That's what I did. I got this thing going, got it fully staffed.

AHMANN: You tied that into the actual squadron so you could----

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: Did you use GCI [ground-controlled interception], in effect, in those days? Was it that sophisticated? You could bring airplanes up and tell them, "Okay, you have bogies here."

LANDRY: No. What we would do, we could see indications of bandits or unidentified aircraft, plot them where they were, keep the base advised. There weren't any enemy airplanes that ever
came in.

AHMANN: You say you used wives and dependents?

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LANDRY: We used a lot of the ladies that were still there, were allowed to stay, or didn't go. They didn't want to go. They weren't forced to go. They volunteered, and then a lot of the ladies who lived there, quite a number of ladies who lived there, volunteered. All of them were volunteers.

AHMANN: Did that continue on?

LANDRY: Then a fellow by the name of "Mickey" Moore [Maj. Gen. Ernest] took it over when I left. I don't know if you have run into him or not. He was class of 1931. I really don't know what happened after that. I am sure they further developed the system.

LANDRY: What was the last thing we were talking about?

AHMANN: You had just about finished up your time in Hawaii there.

You said somebody asked for you over in Europe, ETO [European theater of operations].

LANDRY: That's right. I was ordered back to Washington, and I reported to General Spaatz. He had his headquarters--I reported to General Spaatz' Chief of Staff, which was out at Bolling Field. This was getting ready--Ira Eaker was already over in London, I think, setting up the Headquarters of USSTAF, United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe, which was going to be the overall administrative control of the whole thing. Spaatz hadn't gone over. We had no airplanes.

This was February 1942. I reported in, and I didn't have much to do. I forget what it was. It seemed to me I hung

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around that goddamn place for about 30 days. Everything was sort of formulated and formative. It developed that we were going to fly some airplanes over, the B-17s and the P-38s, at a certain time to England for our air defensive against Germany.

Eventually, and it seems to me it must have been in March, we had Monk Hunter; we had General Gerhart [Gen. John K.], John Gerhart, and several other officers were ordered up to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to prepare for the overwater flight of these units by way of Goose Bay, Greenland, Iceland, Scotland, into England. So we stayed in Lancaster there for, I guess--March, April, May. We must have been up there 2 or 3 months getting this all organized.

We were just there getting ready to move the B-17s and the P-38s. We worked on the plan and tried to find out about communications. There was a lot to be done, coordination with the units. We weren't very ready for a war, and I want to tell you, if you think there was confusion after Pearl Harbor, we had a little confusion after we got in the war in the United States. (laughter) It was really something, but it was all great fun, and we enjoyed it up there.

Finally, we got the go ahead to move the equipment, and we had to be working with all these different groups to receive these airplanes, first at Goose Bay. We didn’t have anything to do with Goose Bay. That was the base commander there. The weather was bad. It was in the spring or summer, but the weather was still bad, and there were no communications.

I was assigned to be the control officer at BW-8 [Bluie West], which is in the southern part of Greenland. Greenland

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had BW-8, which was the biggest airport down at the bottom of the ice flow, and BW-1 was up to the north with an airport which was an alternate route in case you couldn't get to BW-8, then one in Reykjavik, and there was a control officer there. I had Julian "Jake" Stanley, who was a retread, a lieutenant colonel with me. We went to Greenland and received the B-17s and P-38s that started coming in.

It was a big delay in Goose Bay, almost over a month. I remember the guys just sitting in the barracks, getting up every morning and wondering when in the hell they were going to get going to this big war. The weather was bad. I remember "Chuck" Stone, Bill Stone--there were three brothers--had a P-38 group, and they just sat there.

Anyway, finally they started coming in. We receive--I forget, it seems to me it must have been two bomb groups and four times the number of B-17s for four bomb groups and P-38s. They didn't have a real parking area, and there was one runway. It was up towards the ice flow. You came in over the fjord and up towards the ice flow. That was the way you landed. You came uphill, and when you got up there, you were looking at this big mass of ice. (laughter) Then when you took off, you took off downhill. Well, the only place we could put them was right along the runway, so we had these airplanes coming in, and we had to take them off. It was a hairy operation.

We got them all in there, and the weather was so bad for 6 weeks we couldn't fly. We couldn't get them off. Of course now we were frightened that there was going to be a German sub, or someway they would learn these airplanes were there,

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and a sub would come up and pop some bombs or some fire up the fjord. We never were touched, thank God.

One day the day opened up, and we got the whole outfit off. In the meantime we had two B-17s and eight P-38s. It just happened to be those numbers that got lost and landed up at BW-1. The weather was good enough for them to go, so we cleared them, and I thought we were rid of everything. But by God, the ones that went from BW-1 to Iceland flew over on a clear day and couldn't find the island and came back. ( laughter ) You may have read this story. They came back.

Let me show you something that was just in the paper that is coincidental. They came back and ran out of gas over the icecap. They couldn't come into BW; they couldn't find that. They ran out of gas and landed on the ice, and they are still up there. Now there is some effort of people to go up there and get the P-38s because there are so few of them in the country.

AHMANN: They should be perfectly preserved.

LANDRY: The airplanes are, probably, because they landed on the ice. They may be imbedded in the ice. So I had to stay and see that those people got off, and that took a little while because Bernt Balchen [Col] was the guy who worked with us.

AHMANN: What kind of guy was he?

LANDRY: Oh, God, he was built like a barrel, a chest like this, and strong legs. The guy was absolutely fearless; the cold meant nothing to him. He was an expert in rescue work up there. We tried to go up there--we had a PBY boat come in and land

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on one of the lakes that sometimes thawed out. That was too dangerous because it might freeze by the time you got up there. There was no way of walking up from where we were. We had to go all the way around the island to the east. He took a dogsled and got every one of those people off, and a lot of the instruments off the airplanes.

After that I got on an airplane and went on over to--I think a B-17 came through later on, and I went over with Frank Armstrong; he was on it. We went on over to Scotland and into London. He went to his command; I went to VIII Fighter Command.

AHMANN: The VIII Fighter Command and the 56th Group was over there already when you got there then?

LANDRY: No. We were there. We had an advance party, a Col "Woggy" Towle [Col. Stewart W., Jr.]. Colonel Towle was there as the advance officer. He was a colonel. The Chief of Staff of the Eighth Air Force was going to be Monk Hunter. Monk Hunter had gone over, of course. He didn't go through this operation in Iceland and Greenland. He was there, and of course Ira Eaker was already over there with General Spaatz.

When I got there they had a headquarters, and we stayed at a place called Stanmore. I have a picture of it someplace, which was a very nice kind of resort hotel that the British made available to our fighter command, because it was real close to the British fighter command. Then I went in as operations and tried to get ready for the war, which we weren't too sure when it was going to be fought. We had these airplanes. I was in operations, and I had the combat operations part of it.

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The invasion of North Africa--orders were received to send everything we had down to North Africa, the B-17s, the P-38s, and everything. We delayed it almost a year; then all of our airplanes went down, and I went down there just for 6 weeks

AHMANN: You did go down to North Africa?

LANDRY: For 6 weeks as an observer.

AHMANN: Where were you, in the Headquarters, North African Air Force?

LZNDRY: I forget where I stayed.

AHMANN: Do you remember who you dealt with down there?

LANDRY: I reported to General Spaatz, who was down there, and Ira Eaker.

AHMANN: Kuter was down there for a short time.

LANDRY: Yes, Kuter was down there. Kuter asked me to make a study of air defenses while I was there. Really, it was more or less for something to do, I guess.

AHMANN: Norstad [Gen. Laurisl would have been down there, too.

LANDRY: Norstad and Doolittle [Lt. Gen. James H.] was there. Doolittle was running the operation. Doolittle was running it, and Norstad was the operations officer, kind of dual purpose for Eisenhower [Gen Dwight D., later President] and for Doolittle. They were all the same thing.

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I think that is where Norstad came to the attention of Eisenhower, and that was the beginning of his great career. No question about that. And Norstad was flying around. Communications were so bad; you could get in a DC-3 and fly at tree level to go up and find out what went on or give an order to do this. "Hamp" Atkinson [Lt Gen Joseph H.] was down there with B-17s, and they would fly a mission on that desert, come back from the desert, and have to change all of the engines because the blowing sand was so bad. You talk about a tough way to fight a war!

AHMANN: Which raises a question, you say changing engines. That is a major job. Were the enlisted crew mechanics good?

LANDRY: Yes. They worked day and night right out in that goddarn blowing sand. That sand got in the engines; there was no way to prevent it. They had to get those missions going. They were lucky to get 8-10 hours out of the engines even though the missions weren't very far.

AHMANN: At this time the history books show that the Air Force tactical air forces were created in the sense that no longer were the ground commanders able to control the air, that the air was a separate branch and was integral, and it was going to be used en masse rather than parceled out. Did you become aware of any of that at the time, General?

LANDRY: I don't know, Hugh. I think it is correct to say that a lot of people on the ground and in the ground forces didn't understand the proper application of aviation. When they wanted something when they were in trouble, they wanted it. If it wasn't there, then you weren't doing your job. On the other hand, it was applied in places where it shouldn't have

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been applied. They had no cognizance of what it took to get an airplane turned around, especially operating in the desert or in any other place. This was a basic flaw in the ground forces trying to control aviation.

AHMANN: Once again, I keep quoting the history books, but this is what people are told: That the British had a great influence on Eisenhower and the other Army ground commanders down there to the effect that you couldn't be parceling out your air. You had to leave it under the air command so instead of having 10 P-40s here and 10 here and 10 here where 30 Germans can come over and wipe you out----

LANDRY: If you want to have maximum efficient use of airpower, you can't have it parceled. You have got to have it under control, because an air force or airpower is so flexible you can move it quickly. If it is held down in one place, you have people dying in one place or your equipment being shot up, and you have a lot of airplanes that just aren't in the operation.

AHMANN: This was the thing that turned about here in North Africa, then. The idea that you can't do it that way any more.

LANDRY: I'm not sure what they were having, but they had problems down there. There was a problem of putting it under one airman, and that was Doolittle. That was why he was brought in:

AHMANN: Did you know "Spike" Momyer [Gen. William W.] down there, General Momyer? He was in North Africa.

LANDRY: Not well. I knew who he was. I don't know him very well.

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It is correct to say that that was a problem. How bad it was down there, I don't know, because operating down there was a lot of real shoestring under the worst possible conditions, sandy.

AHMANN: Were those kinds of experiences--was there any means that they were disseminated back to Washington or to the Air Force at large? Do you know? They had to do what they did, and then if you went someplace else, you could have used some experience, what they learned down there. You had to kind of relearn it again.

LANDRY: I think as the war progressed as far as the development of airpower was concerned--the ground people that could be hit so hard, say, from the Germans had perfected the coordination between the ground and air. Those people learned that they couldn't survive without air cover. They really couldn't survive without air cover. As that became apparent, then it became concurrently apparent that just as you have under supreme commander a ground commander, you have got to have on the same level a separate air commander who can control his forces under the direction of the broad strategic plan. Then you get down to the tactics of it at the same level. It just goes down that way.

AHMANN: About tactics, ways of actually applying air, what kind of formations to fly, and how many hours you can get out of an engine, and this kind--was that kind of information fed back into the Air Force at large, do you know?

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LANDRY: I feel certain that as certain tactics were developed in combat, that information got back to Training Command. It also got back to the manufacturers: What kind of airplanes do you need? What vital parts of the airplane have to be protected? Long-range tanks? The development of the gun sight that was electric and all that where you didn't have to lead, like they had to teach us like we were shooting ducks. All you did was put the sight on the point where the bullets were going to hit. All of that stuff, the demand for it, the need for it, or anything that we found that we could develop in the field was immediately sent back. No, there was good coordination.

AHMANN: You say in some ways it was obviously a learning situation. Do you think, on a comparative basis, the US Air Corps-obviously they did their job--how well prepared was the Army Air Corps, do you think, to go into World War II?

LANDRY: I would say from the standpoint of the people, we had as good a group of pilot officers as you could find anywhere. In terms of equipment, until we got the B-17 and got the P-47, then the Mustang, the development of equipment, it was long and hard in coming.

For example, they gave us the P-38 to take over to England. All right, a fellow named Peterson, not Chesley Peterson [Maj. Gen. Chesley G.] but the other Pete, was one of our best group commanders. The first combat we had was right over Belgium, right just inside the lines over in the Continent. Pete got in a dogfight with a -190, went into a dive, and the airplane flipped over on its back, a P-38. At certain speeds, close to speed of sound, it just lost control. He

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was shot down because all the Germans had to do was follow him and shoot him up.

That was a very serious thing, because here was a P-38 which was going to have a good radius of action and all that sort of stuff, two engines, well, goddamn it, the airplane fell on its back in combat. Right away they sent for Ben Kelsey [Brig. Gen. Benjamin S.], who was the development officer, and a fellow named "Cass" Huff [Col. Sargent P.], who worked in our headquarters--he was in the maintenance part of it. He worked with Kelsey--to see what corrective action had to be taken. It took quite awhile.

We sent the things down to North Africa, and it was decided that the P-38 was not the airplane for the European theater. It worked well down there, and then they sent it out to the Pacific.

An interesting thing we had, too, about equipment, before the war the greatest airplane coming out was going to be the P-39, the fighter. That was the one that was going to shoot the 37 millimeter through the propeller. They had a group of them. "Shorty" Wheless [Lt. Gen. Hewitt T.] had it in New Orleans, at New Orleans Airport. I came from New Orleans. I had been down to see this famous airplane with a cannon, and just in practicing, learning to use the airplane, wartime aneuvers, that airplane began to tumble. We wanted to get rid of that thing, so we sent it down to North Africa, thinking they might be able to use it down there because it wouldn't have to be so high. They didn't want it either; so they gave it to the Russians. (laughter)

AHMANN: No wonder the Russians don't like us! (laughter)

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LANDRY: The last report I had was 1,800 or 2,000 of those things were sitting up on the side of the hill. You have probably heard the story.

AHMANN: No. What is it?

LANDRY: Well, it is true. As far as I know, they sat there. The Russians didn't want it either. Then we got the Jug, the P-47, with eight .50-caliber machineguns and a very sturdy airplane.

AHMANN: My information here says that in June 1942, the 56th Fighter Group was the first group to get P-47s.

LANDRY: Yes. "Hub" Zemke [Col. Hubert] brought it over.

AHMANN: That's right, and the first mission was 3 April 1943. You had three squadrons there. You had the 61st, 62d, and 63d. They had originally trained in P-39s and P-36s and then
converted directly into P-47s.

LANDRY: The P-36 was the Seversky, and we didn't buy enough of them. It wasn't quite the airplane, so they quickly went to the Republic P-47.

AHMANN: You had not seen the P-47 until this group came over?

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: You were there before the group was?

LANDRY: Yes. I was there in the summer of 1942.

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AHMANN: When you were down in North Africa, did you do any combat flying?

LANDRY: No. I did nothing but hang around and play poker at night with General Spaatz and Ira Eaker. (laughter)

AHMANN: I heard Spaatz was one of these guys who liked to start his day about noon. Is that true?

LANDRY: Do you mean with a nip?

AHMANN: No. He just liked to start his workday later in the day. Do you remember that at all?

LANDRY: I never heard anything like that. I don't think he was the best poker player in the whole world. Ira Eaker, I think, lived off of him.

AHMANN: I have heard the story that Mrs. Eaker was wearing Mrs. Spaatz' fur coat or something like that.

LANDRY: Later on in Washington, I'll tell you more about the poker, but I--Ted Curtis was down there, the man from Eastman Kodak. He was the chief of staff. He and I became good friends. I had all of these nights there. I was really down there as an observer to try to learn something about the problems of operating in Europe, which I did. Larry Kuter said, "Why don't you do this study on air defenses. You are not doing a damn thing around here anyway." I said, "Fine. I'll be glad to." Then in the evening I very often went over to see them. I was billeted somewhere around in the headquarters. We always had, not every evening but every now and then, a good poker game.

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AHMANN: Did you ever run into Patton [Gen. George S., Jr.] down there at all?

LANDRY: No, not Patton. I wish I had.

AHMANN: Did you ever see him at all?

LANDRY: I think I met him in Wiesbaden when I was telling you that Sammy Anderson [Gen. Samuel E.) and I were on this special committee of selected so-called combat people to write all the lessons learned in World War II.

AHMANN: He had been delegated to----

LANDRY: He was delegated. He lived in the hotel there where we all lived and where we all worked. I think I did meet him one time at a get-together; I can't remember. But he was there. I was there when he was killed in that accident.

AHMANN: I just read about that again the other day someplace.

LANDRY: It was kind of a shock when that truck pulled out in that road, and he hit it going about 90 miles an hour.

AHMANN: According to this one that I read, he wasn't going but about 15 or 20 miles an hour.

LANDRY: Well, I don't think that is true. The story was that he was in a hurry to get someplace, and he was going fast; it was kind of dark, and this truck just pulled right out in front of him. Nothing they could do. The word came that he had been killed instantly. But he was in charge of that group.

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AHMANN: Yes. He was supposed to write the history of the Army.

LANDRY: There must have been 60 or 70 of us combat people that were ordered there to start writing.

After the war--we will jump a little bit here--was over, I came back to Washington before I went to the staff of the National War College with Ted Landon, again, the representative of strategic airpower. We worked in Washington for 6 months on that so-called Bible, the doctrine of how to fight the next war. We had the Army, Navy, the Marines, Air Force, all the combat people there, worked on that stuff and worked on it. The Army had so many versions of how to do this and how to do that, and as far as I can recall, it never amounted to a hill of beans. Nobody ever used it. You can't write a Bible or doctrine on how to fight the last war when you are always developing new and special equipment, tactics, strategy, and everything. It kept a lot of people busy, and it was a lot of fun to discuss your experiences and then try to write it, but I don't think--I often wonder where that is.

AHMANN: I talked to other people who were involved in similar studies, and it is like it was just dropped down a chute and never seen again. Obviously it is sitting someplace.

LANDRY: It must have been an awful lot of material because there were some awfully good people in there that I remember. I was just thinking of things like this, there must be an awful lot of stuff in there that would be useful.

AHMANN: Did you write this air defense thing then, or not; down in North Africa?

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LANDRY: I wrote something, but trying to get information down there and put a study together--it was very difficult for me to get information from anybody. You would have to have been there to see how that war was fought. It was tough. It was real tough. The messages that you got, G-2 was bad. The conditions were so bad to fight under. It was hot; it was in the desert. I don't know that I ever got much of a report because I couldn't find anything. I think probably to this day Kuter may have thought I didn't do a very good job, and I don't think I did, but you can't write about something with nothing. He saw me floating around, I guess, and said, "What in the hell is this colonel doing down here? Put him to work."

AHMANN: When did you come back from North Africa?

LANDRY: It was about 6 weeks.

AHMANN: You were only down there for a very short time. How did you get back and forth, on a B-17?

LANDRY: Yes, on a B-17, one of the planes going down there.

AHMANN: Would you fly all the way around Spain?

LANDRY: No, I think where we had authority to overfly. There wasn't any problem getting down in there. I think Spain was favorable to it.

AHMANN: You had been sent to England simply to get these airplanes over there, these B-17s and P-38s?

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LANDRY: No, I had been sent to England to be a part of the VIII Fighter Command, but I didn't know what my job was. I was just ordered there. Of course Monk was the new commander
going over. Colonel Towle had been the chief of staff of the advanced party, getting the headquarters set up and got the offices. Then I was assigned to operations, and I was the
operations officer.

Let's see, there must have been three or four of us. Some of these people, senior to me of course, were trying to pick the rest of the staff for the VIII Fighter Command. That was the next step when we got there, to request certain people. Ross Hoyt [Brig. Gen. Ross G.] was one, I think, that was requested. Bobby Burns [Lt. Gen. Robert W.) was requested; "Buster" Briggs [Lt. Gen. James E.] was requested. Buster came over and became operations officer. I was the deputy or assistant in charge of combat operations, and Buster Briggs got a little problem of jaundice and was in the hospital 3 or 4 months and then finally went home. Bobby Burns went over to the bomber command.

AHMANN: What did you have for fighters over there?

LANDRY: We began to get the P-47s. The P-47s came in; they came in pretty fast.

AHMANN: Were you talking pretty closely with the Brits here on dos and don'ts?

LANDRY: Yes, I met all of the famous ones. We were just about 10 minutes away from the British Fighter Command, and these famous wing commanders from the air battle over Britain in
August 1941, all of those were famous guys with, you name it,

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10, 20, 30 Jerries to their credit, terrific guys. We met with them and talked with them and went out to see them. I went out to see them and flew some of their equipment, the Spitfires and that sort of thing, and tried to learn a little bit about some of their experiences.

During that period of time, before we really got going, before we got enough airplanes to fight, after coming back from North Africa, I was told that I was going to get--this is very interesting--a British fighter commander. It turned out to be a Scotsman named Jamie Rankin [phonetic]. He was the wing commander with about 32 Jerries, just a terrific guy. I was going to take an RAF [Royal Air Force] navigator--there were three of them--and then one other guy, a younger fellow, and this fellow who was a pilot and visit all of our fighter groups around the country. He was to go around and fly with them, show them some of the combat tactics. You were asking if there was any coordination.

I took these fellows back in for, I don't know, 30 days or 6 weeks or something. We went around to every fighter group we had in the country. I wasn't flying myself. Jamie was the guy; he was the combat guy. These other fellows were squadron types. Showed some of the squadron jobs. One of them was a navigator. I don't know why we had the navigator, but I think one of them was a navigator. Jamie was the key guy.

He would go up and whatever the kind of airplane they had, he would go up and the first time fly with them. Just briefed him in the cockpit and up he went. We had P-38s and P-47s, some, and still some P-40s, whatever they were training in. He would go up there and show them combat. I want to tell

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you, when they got down from a flight, these American boys of ours who were real good, they couldn't believe that this guy could do so many things with a fighter airplane.

AHMANN: I had heard that the Brits were totally unimpressed when the first P-47s showed up. Here they had been flying that light Spitfire and Hurricane and here comes this big thing with a big radial engine. Did they ever voice that to you?

LANDRY: I never heard that. They thought the Spitfire was much more maneuverable, and I think to some extent it was because it was lighter and they had some real hot pilots. They were fearless. They looked at this Jug that weighed 37,000 pounds with eight .50-caliber machineguns and thought, "we don't know." But I never heard them make any disparaging remarks. They just preferred the Spitfire.

AHMANN: Did you ever hear any American pilots in the early part of the war say, "We have to junk everything we have and fly nothing but Spitfires"? Did that school of thought ever----

LANDRY: No. As a matter of fact, we had sent some boys over who flew with the British, a whole squadron.

AHMANN: We had the Eagle Squadron.

LANDRY: "Bubba" Clark [Lt. Gen. Albert P.] was shot down, later Superintendent of the Air Force Academy. He was shot down.

They liked the Spitfire. They trained in the Spitfire although the British fought with them, and did very well.

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That was getting some more training for our people. But I never heard anybody run down the airplane. I think certain people will tell you that we wished we could have had the Mustangs because of the maneuverability and the increased radius of action and the gyroscopic sight. When they got that, boy, that was some airplane. That would do anything the Germans would do with the -190.

I want to tell you, that P-47 was a good airplane. It would come home with four cylinders shot off, oil all over the place--still running. It was a heavier, different kind of an airplane, but it got up there. We were able to get it up to 28,000-30,000 feet. It was a little sloppy, but it did a job
when you shot those eight .50-caliber machineguns. I was lucky enough to have one airplane, and I want to tell you, it goes apart.

AHMANN: It just kind of tears things off.

LANDRY: But that was a good airplane. It was all we had until the -51 came along.

AHMANN: When you were planning for the arrival of the American fighters, what were you planning for them to do? Were they going to escort bombers, or were they going to go over there and shoot the Luftwaffe out of the sky in dogfights? How were you going to utilize these things?

LANDRY: We developed the tactics right there in the VIII Fighter Command. It was simple. The bombers went out in a stream, normally, with the B-17s up here, the B-24s here, and the
B-17s here. The B-24s were a little lower. They were always about 3,000 feet lower because they couldn't get the altitude

[116]

with that wing. Now how do you protect them? Very often, too, they would send a diversionary force of B-17s out like it was going to one target and try to suck the German fighters over in that area, then the main stream would come along and go on in.

But how did the fighters protect the bombers? It was a simple thing. The only way you could do it, as you have a stream of bombers--there is a book written, The Limit of Their Endurance--that was the limit of endurance of the fighters to protect them. Here is a stream this long. One group of fighters would pick them up here, or one or two squadrons, depending. They would pick them up here, would fly as far as they could, the limit of their endurance so they could turn around and get home.

In the early days of the war, you were not allowed to go down and shoot up anything. If you got below 15,000 feet, you were court-martialed. And they did court-martial a couple of guys that got carried away. At that point that one would leave and another squadron or two squadrons or a group would pick them up and take them that far and another that far.

Now. all of them had the same amount of fuel. There are ways you can conserve fuel in your climb and things like that to help get you a little bit more radius of action. That was it. We would just bring them in in waves, some above, some on the side. You could see the fighters coming.

AHMANN: In the early part of the war, though, even with those tactics, you could only take them a little bit into the Continent. Is that right?

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LANDRY: Yes. It was only later when we got the belly tanks.

AHMANN: Why did it take so long for us to get that belly tank concept? Obviously they had been around for years.

LANDRY: I don't know why. It just took a long time. They had to be manufactured in the States, and they had to be gotten over there. I don't know why it took so long, or why they hadn't done it in the first place. I think one reason would be: We hadn't developed a tactic on how to support the bombers. The bombers didn't know.

AHMANN: If the bombers are telling you they don't need you, why bother with the tanks?

LANDRY: That's right. There was some thinking on that that they would fight their way in.

AHMANN: That's exactly what the Tactical School taught.

LANDRY: I don't know how many telephone conversations I had with one of the great guys we had in the Air Force, Fred Anderson [Maj. Gen. Frederick L., Jr.]. Fred Anderson was General Spaatz' operations officer. He was the operations officer for the VIII Bomber Command, and they were in a different part of the world. They had all the bombers up in East Anglia; we had all of our fighters. Many is the time he said, after they learned what it was to go in against those fighters without some support, they couldn't fight their way in even with a super flying fortress, too many losses. At Regensburg and Schweinfurt they lost 50 to 60 airplanes a mission. Well, they soon realized that those little friends were pretty important. They really did.

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The thing I was going to get at was that very often when we would write out an order, and they got a copy of it to see how far we were going to go, Fred Anderson said, "Goddamn it, you have got to go in there further. We want you to go in further." I said, "I want to tell you one thing, General; we are not going any further than the limit of our endurance." And many is the time he screamed at me on the phone. I said, "We are not going to wipe out the VIII Fighter Command just to save one of your bloody bombers. Wait until we get some tanks or wait until we get the range or the radius of action, and we will go all the way."

AHMANN: What was going to be the answer to increasing----

LANDRY: The answer was: The P-51 was coming along with the built-in tanks and the wing tanks. But these were all things that we had to go into the war with gradually.

AHMANN: But you saw this as the salvation down the road then?

LANDRY: Of course. I will tell you about a mission over Berlin. When we got the P-51s, the Germans didn't know what the radius of action was. They didn't know about the sight. This was towards the end of the war when the Germans were hurting bad, and we hadn't been to Berlin if I remember correctly. It was the first time we were going in.

We took the P-51s and made them into a formation that looked like the bombers. This was the way it was planned. Now we could do that. Before that, we couldn't get that far. So the P-51s looked like the lead ships of the bombers, and when the goddarn fighters that were left in Berlin came in--and most of them were trainees. They were not experienced

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because they had lost so many pilots--the 4th Fighter Group, which was the one that got the P-51s so quickly, must have shot down 24 in 1 day. They were shooting them like spearing pickles in a barrel. That was the difference.

Before that it was the limit of our endurance, and beyond that the bombers had to go many and many a time and do it alone, and they suffered heavy casualties. But we were fighting a war, and it was important to keep the Germans from recovering because they had a terrific recovery ability. You bomb a factory here, and they are making it some other place until finally we bombed everything out. Then when the Ninth Air Force hit all the petroleum things, Sammy Anderson's outfit, they lost the oil, and the tanks were stopped. That was the air offensive against Germany. It was only then, when they were so badly off, that "Ike" could take the ground forces in.

AHMANN: Do you know that the Army--they have that greenback series of histories of World War II----

LANDRY: I have it right here. I have some of them. I don't have the whole thing.

AHMANN: They, about 5 or 6 years or 10 years ago, published a book called The Last Offensive. This was the book covering the last combat operations into Germany.

LANDRY: Do you mean the Battle of the Bulge and all?

AHMANN: Even beyond that. It was the whole final thing. Even in there they made the statement to the effect--I used to carry the card with me, but I don't any more--there is little or no

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substantiation that the strategic bombing helped in shortening the war with Germany. Can you imagine that?

LANDRY: That's just a lot of bulls--t. Yes, I can imagine it from some people I ran into in the Army. We just denied them the use of the things that make war. Do you know how Patton broke loose down in southern France and swung around that east flank? With O. P. Weyland [Gen. Otto P.] protecting his right flank. It was the Saint-Lo breakthrough. The Germans were holding everything up there, the British, the Americans, everything. We made a maximum effort with all of the bombers and the fighters to protect them at Saint-Lo. We did some pattern bombing there. I went and watched that. You won't believe--that's when we killed General Miller [unable to verify] who was head--do you remember? We bombed some of our own people, but that was just bad luck. That just broke a hole right in the German lines, and that was when they were able to swing around, and Patton got going. It is crazy. They never would have gotten ashore without the softening

AHMANN: Let's face it. The US Army--to digress a minute--has yet to fight a war without complete air superiority over its head.

LANDRY: I think right now the Army knows that air support is a requirement.

AHMANN: I have talked to people who have been to Air Command and General Staff, and they are out there fighting that war like we owned every inch of the sky, and they are never going to air cover. As I understand it, like I say, every war we have fought this century, the Americans, if they hear an airplane, it is theirs.

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LANDRY: You can't fight a battle today without complete air cover. That is where the Germans made their big mistake in England. They came out there, and they went beyond the limit of their endurance when Goering and Hitler became possessed with destroying England, and what wasn't shot down over Britain by the RAF during that summer of 1941 and a little bit later, they had to ditch on the way home. They were falling out of the sky like flies, they tell me, on the other side. They lost control of the air. Of course, when we came in with the air offensive, they still had a hell of a force, but it was mostly fighters, except for some tactical weapons that they could use. But most of it was fighters. Then we finally destroyed them.

AHMANN: You mentioned the early part of the war that the escort airplanes weren't even allowed to get below 15,000 feet. There was always this old argument, too, that the fighters should stay with the bombers, or should they go off and chase the ME-109s they see in the distance. Is that an argument?

LANDRY: You will have to, I think, define that just a little bit. In the early days of the war with a limited number of fighters, we couldn't afford to lose one. If we could protect the bombers that had the ammunition to do the damage to the Germans, that was the main thing. It was the bomber force. If anybody got too far away, they were censored and grounded or something. Certainly, if they got below 15,000 feet to chase an enemy airplane that might have been on his tail, they were court-martialed. There were two or three of them. We simply couldn't take a chance of losing one of those things from ground fire or for anything else. One fighter was a pretty important thing until we got built up, and even then it was important. So in the early days, you

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stayed with the bomber formation, and when you got ready to go home, you stayed above 15,000 feet and, hopefully, you cut back on gas and things like that. You didn't pursue combat. You weren't allowed to. "Get your ass back home for the mission the next day." That was strictly enforced.

Later on as the German Air Force or fighter force began to get defeated and we had more fighters and we got more range in the airplanes and the job had been done, the fighters were released to come home and seek enemy targets. "Gabby" Gabreski [Col. Francis] was shot down by ground fire.

AHMANN: He ran what? The 61st Squadron?

LANDRY: Yes. It wasn't until those conditions were like that. We could afford to lose something, and we might as well use the ammunition that we had. We began to give credit, then, to fighter pilots who had destroyed in the air and destroyed on the ground, although destroyed on the ground was nothing like in aerial combat.

AHMANN: I often wondered about that.

LANDRY: That airplane couldn't take off.

AHMANN: Do you think that the German strategy was correct?

LANDRY: The first mistake they made was trying to go without the proper equipment and bomb England off the face of the map. I mean, that was all wrong. Goering must have been the most egotistical guy, plus an apple polisher, because he was the

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deputy to Hitler. Anyway, the first mistake was the wrong equipment and the wrong kind of air war against Britain.

Now you are asking whether---

AHMANN: If he had been trying to defend against you in the B-17.

LANDRY: Were the Germans right in trying to stop the air offensive?

AHMANN: How did they do it? Was it wrong or right?

LANDRY: They did everything they could possibly do to do it because the air offensive against Germany was the only thing that would make it possible to destroy the means of the Germans to wage war. If you didn't destroy that, there was no way Ike could have taken the forces in, or Jesus if he had come down.

AHMANN: Do you think the Germans deployed the Luftwaffe correctly? Would you have done it differently?

LANDRY: With what they had left, I presume they did the best they could. They wouldn't have deployed all over, and we had good intelligence. The stuff that we could intercept, we found out where they assembled when they got up the fighters to meet the bomber force. The point I would make is: The Germans had no choice but to stop the air offensive, because if they didn't stop that, they knew there had to be an invasion. If they had stopped that, there wouldn't have been an invasion at least in that time frame.

AHMANN: Of course this was not so much while you were still flying P-47s. Were you aware of ULTRA World War II at all, General?

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This ULTRA secret when they were breaking that code of the Germans? That was so high up.

LANDRY: No. But let me say, I'm not saying it about the whole airpower. When I talk about the air offensive, I am including the tactical aviation, too--Sammy Anderson. Because that was 10,000-12,000 level bombing. Those people did a great deal of damage, destroying railroad yards, destroying supplies and facilities, oil things and all. So when I speak of the air offensive, I am talking about every airplane as a weapon that could be directed against the Germans' ability to wage war. The Germans had no choice but to try to stop that.

AHMANN: You are right. They couldn't wait until a better day.

You talked about it wasn't until the P-47 and the P-51 came along that we really had a good fighter. What about such things as--I have heard stories that the American-made oxygen
mask was not very good. We had to go to an RAF type.

LANDRY: We stayed with our American one. We never had the RAF. So I don't know. But I do know that that oxygen mask had faults. As a matter of fact, we saw a couple of boys during my time out at 56th just climbing up and just went off like that, went right straight on down. The only thing we could figure was: He hadn't put it on right or too loose. That may have been a fault in the mask, or it may not have been. I never heard anything that our oxygen masks weren't good. It worked all right for me.

AHMANN: And you are the living proof.

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LANDRY: I think any kind of equipment could be more comfortable, but it is doing the job---

AHMANN: What about flying suits and gloves and those kinds of things that you don't hear much about--radios? Was everything about as good as---

LANDRY: I think we have always had good equipment. I think if you operated from East Anglia in England and you didn't operate in long johns--we got some of those scratchy British long
johns--that will keep you warm. (laughter)

AHMANN: I have heard that the P-38 was a terribly cold aircraft to fly. There wasn't much heat available.

LANDRY: I never flew one of those in combat or up at altitude. I flew it over there, but when you are up at 60° or 65° below zero, which is what you ran into around 30,000-35,000 feet every day, it gets pretty cold. Even in the P-47 you wouldn't say was like sitting in front of your fireplace in your living room. But if you dress properly--a lot of it is up to the individual. If you dressed properly, I don't think there was any problem. We never had any real complaints. Most of our people wore long underwear, wool or something, like going hunting.

AHMANN: You got checked out on the P-47 over in England then?

LANDRY: Yes. I had never flown it.

AHMANN: That wasn't an easy airplane to fly?

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LANDRY: It was an easy airplane to fly. My unfortunate thing was--the reason I got to go out in combat was that we got--not reason, one of the reasons I wanted to go was: I was doing operations without any combat experience in the air. You go up to like the 4th Fighter Group which was the Eagle Group that flew under the RAF, some of those goddarn hotheads, good pilots, said, "What do you know about the goddamn mission? You are writing these missions and all that sort of stuff." Well, I got sick and tired of that. Not everybody was like that, but a couple of those guys were. It made me madder than hell, and I just thought, "Well, I'm going to have to get out of here and get out there so I don't have to listen to that crap." But it was the logical thing.

I had known the boys in the 56th, and I got to know Hub very well. Hub was ordered back to the States to go and visit some of the training groups.

AHMANN: I have a note here in January 1944.

LANDRY: He was ordered back to the States to go to Training Command. He had built that 56th Fighter Group, and he was the leader in it, and he had gotten some Jerries, and he was ordered back to the States to Training Command. I think they intended to keep him there because he had all of this experience and one of the first. So he came to our headquarters and unbeknownst to me, although I had gone to see him a great deal because I was fond of all of those guys, Dave Schilling [Col. David C.] and all of them. All of those boys in there, I had gotten to know them.

Hub came and went to--let's see who was it? Got the word around either to Monk or somebody before he went home, "Why don't you let Bob Landry take that group while I am gone?"

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AHMANN: He left in October 1943.

LANDRY: So they asked me if I would like to go out and take the group, and I said, "My God, yes. I have been waiting for this. " I went out, and I had it about six months. But the time I went out I had such a bad cold. You get up to altitude with a bad cold. I had a hell of a time. For 3
weeks I couldn't even get in an airplane. Then I would go up with Dave Schilling and some of the other boys. I had checked out in the airplane, easy to fly. Anybody could fly them. They were one of the easiest flying airplanes you ever saw, but to learn the maneuvers and all that sort of stuff, I had a hell of a time. It took me a little while to get going. I had to learn over there.

When I was at Barksdale Field, I had bad ears, a deviated septum. I got some stuff on the inside of my ear, and they had to puncture my eardrum. It was like somebody had a knife in there. I knew what it was to fly with a cold. You can't go up there half sick, and here I was, I didn't want to tell anybody, pumping this stuff in my nose every night to try to get over it.

Hub went back thinking he was going to come back here. They said, "No. We are going to keep you in Training Command." He just took off and came back. In the meantime we turned over the group, when I left, to Dave Schilling. (laughter)

AHMANN: How did Zemke get back?

LANDRY: He just got on a goddamn airplane and came back on his own orders. That is a true story.

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AHMANN: When I was reading that, I couldn't believe that a guy----

LANDRY: A true story. I had turned over the group, because they said 6 months--they told me 4 months. I stayed 6 months, they gave me a couple of extra months. Then I turned it over to Dave Schilling, who was the deputy, and Dave had it about 2 weeks when who showed up? (laughter) From Fighter Command Headquarters but Hub Zemke. What are you going to do with a guy who was first in combat and everything else? So he got his group back. Dave Schilling had to wait until Hub got shot down. (laughter)

AHMANN: It wasn't Schilling that shot him down? (laughter)

LANDRY: No. He didn't get shot down. He got in a cloud and spun out, lost control of the airplane, and had to bail out. It is very funny, some of the funny things that happened during the war.

AHMANN: When that plane first came over to England, it was after it came over that they put the four-bladed prop on and added water injection. Is that right or don't you know?

LANDRY: No. I think it came over with four blades. I believe it did. And if I am not badly mistaken, it had water injection, or if it hadn't gotten it, it was coming, and they put it on the airplane, because the water made it possible to take off with those big loads of ammunition that we had. I think it had four blades to begin with. I can be mistaken, but I don't think so.

AHMANN: I was just kind of curious.

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Did the quality of the pilots consistently remain high as World War II progressed over there? Or did there, in the efforts to crank out more pilots, seem to be a deterioration in the quality at all?

LANDRY: None. As a matter of fact, towards the end of the war when we had now trained quite a number of people, I remember when I went down to the bombardment group--getting ahead of myself a little bit here--towards the end of the war and being checked out in a B-17 and the 493d Bomb Group that I took over, being checked out with the captain who had come from Training Command.

Towards the end of the war, they tried to send all of the people over that we no longer needed in Training Command. They came over there en masse. It was kind of a sad thing, because I can remember guys coming over there, trying to find jobs. You see, they would be sent over to units, and the units were in the war, and they didn't have jobs. Guys were going out begging for jobs.

I had in that group some people in the B-17s that were as fine types of pilots as I have never seen the likes of. We never suffered from the lack of quality. Fortunately, we had the numbers up; quantity remained high.

AHMANN: I have read where it did get to the point at the end of the war there--well, in fact at one point they took all of those pilots out of pilot training and threw them in the infantry.

LANDRY: We had so many in training and that sort of thing that it was a pity not to at least get them overseas. They had done an awfully good job in training our people.

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AHMANN: What about these oldtimers, guys who had been in the Air Force since maybe World War I even or the 1920s? I have heard that a lot of them, all they had done in the 1920s and 1930s was fly airplanes, and now they were colonels in the Air Force, brigadier generals, and really all they were pilots. They got over there to ETO, and they just kind of fell on their faces. Is this true that there was a lot that?

LANDRY: I'm not sure what you are talking about. There were some senior people that had been in plans or been in things, and I won't mention any names, but somehow--well connected people at the top who came over there, and it was some fearless young people who started the fight over there. Now there were guys who had been doing a lot of the planning--all due credit to them--and had a lot to do with the procurement of equipment at Wright-Patterson (AFB OH], and other people, planners, who came over there and expected to get a wing or a group. A lot of them had to go back home. They just didn't fit. That's true. I'm not going to mention any names, but it was a thing that happened. Some of the names you probably have mentioned. They expected to get a job right away and, boy, I want to tell you, you don't do it that way. But it wasn't critical; there wasn't enough of them. It was a disappointment to them.

AHMANN: Like you say, there were only 1,700 pilots during that whole time period. I had been told that you would be sitting there, and one day this colonel would show up, or a brigadier general, and they would put him in a job. He would just kind of fall on his duff.

LANDRY: No, it wasn't anything like that. There were a few rather important people that had a lot to do with plans and

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procurement who came over, asked to go over, were sent over, whatever. There just wasn't a place for them. The guy who was the wing commander usually was the guy who worked up from being a group commander. Take Jimmy Stewart [Lt. Gen. James T.], he was a squadron commander then a group commander. Here he was, he fought all through the war. A little different from Clark Gable who took a few rides and others. But no, there weren't too many of those.

AHMANN: In World War II, was morale such or was there any such thing as "flying fatigue," or guys just said, "Hey, it is a dangerous business; I don't want any part of this any more"?

LANDRY: I can speak to that from little authority because when I was out at the group--if you want to pick up there, the 56th Fighter Group--instead of going back to the VIII Fighter Command Headquarters, the bomber command and the fighter command were then made the Eighth Air Force. Doolittle had taken that over as Commander, and so he was running all fighter operations; bomber operations were run from High Wycombe in the big underground. So he wanted a director of fighters. I was sent to Doolittle as his director of fighters, which I stayed there for about a year and a half.

I had to tell you about this. How I got into the Eighth Air Force. So there I was as director of fighters and a good friend of mine from the bombers was the director of bombers. We bunked together and everything. We had a brigadier general over us, and then over him was a Maj. Gen. O. A. Anderson [Orvi1 A.] who was the operations, one of the great planners we had. You have heard of his name?

AHMANN: Right. He ended up down at Maxwell.

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LANDRY: Yes. Del Wilson [Maj. Gen. Delmar E.] was director of bombers. I'm trying to think of "Shorty" who was the brigadier over us. The directors of the fighters and bombers kind of put the field order together, but it was approved by the people. During that course of being there, I somehow or the other was ordered to be Chairman of the Awards Committee of the Eighth Air Force, and then I was made Chairman of the Lack of Intestinal Fortitude Committee to review all of those people who could no longer take it in combat. What the hell did we call it? They got scared, or they broke down. We had a flight surgeon or two on that, General Wilson, and I.

AHMANN: I never heard of that.

LANDRY: We had those two committees: The Awards Committee and the Lack of Moral Fiber, we called it. The least thing we could think of, moral fiber. Those boys who refused to fly or for one reason they just couldn't do it; they cracked up. We had to review that. So I would say there was a certain amount of that but not much. I'm just as sure as anything that anybody who went on a mission was scared to death all the time if he was normal, but when you got to the point that you cracked and you couldn't go; you couldn't get out of your bed; you were seeing pictures. It is true. There are some people that simply, physically, mentally, whatever it is, comes to a breaking point. What do you do with them? You can't have them hanging around. You can't give them a desk job. You have to get them out of there. How do you do that gracefully? Nobody wants to go home because of lack of moral fiber, and you don't want him in the outfit because of lack of moral fiber. It was a real delicate thing, and it was handled very carefully. Boy, we used to sit there and talk

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and debate and read the report to the commander and that sort of thing. It was sad.

AHMANN: Did you ever catch any pure and simple malingerers?

LANDRY: No. We just had bona fide cases where somebody cracked up. You don't use the word "yellow" any more in that kind of thing because yellow is climbing a mountain when there is nobody shooting at you. It is a lot different whether you want to go out to sea in a small boat or whether you want to get on an airplane over enemy territory all the time and have bullets coming at you. We had some of that. I think it was handled very well by all the commands. We never publicized it.

AHMANN: I was going to say, I have never heard about this at all.

LANDRY: I don't imagine a lot of people knew about it, because it was a very critical thing. We didn't want people out in the command saying, "No, there is a way you can get out of it." Because there were people who would seek ways. We had to be forceful; we had to take strong stands on it and try to get the people out for any reason we could, but we never, never used it as a weapon against anybody else.

AHMANN: Did you ever hear of--and once again these are stories you hear--pilots who would be in the bomber stream going to Berlin and would just all of a sudden take a left turn and fly off to Sweden and land and say, "To hell with it. " Do you know if that ever happened? I know these crippled bombers would fly there.

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LANDRY: They would head for Sweden if they didn't think they could make it. That was where Bernt Balchen was. He got most of them home. That was a tactic. That was just to save the
crew and the airplane too, maybe.

AHMANN. But you don't know if anybody deliberately----

LANDRY: I don't know of anybody who took off and just decided he was going to get out of the war. No, I don't think so. I think probably he would have been shot down by his own people if they knew it. (laughter)

AHMANN: We talked about German tactics and so forth. Did you feel that the Germans had good aircraft, the ME-109 and -190, the -110 and, of course, later the jets.

LANDRY: -210 and the rocket ships. They only got the jet in combat, but one of them appeared one time. I'll tell you a little story about that. The -190 was a hell of a good airplane. Everybody, even the British, said that. Until they improved the Spitfire, the -190 had the better of them. Then they got the -110, which was a twin, and the -210. The way our fighter people thought, it would be fun to run into a -110 or -210. That was ice cream and cake. Then the Germans used the rockets. They would stand off and try to use their rockets. That scared the bejesus out of a lot of people, because what can you do about it? But it was never really effective.

AHMANN: I have heard that. It was like dropping bombs.

LANDRY: You had to fly into it almost. That was never effective. Then one day a jet appeared, pure jet. That frightened

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everybody. I want to tell you, people reacted when they saw something like that or when they saw those big holes in the ground being dug from where the V-1 and V-2 was shot. That comes all the way down through the command in wartime. That airplane was never put in combat.

The test pilot for that airplane later became head of the German Air Force. I forget his name [Gen. Johannes Steinhoff]. He was burned very badly.

AHMANN: I have seen him down at Maxwell.

LANDRY: The report that I had on him. I was out as Commanding General of the Fourth Air Force at the time, observing the National Guard out in California, headquarters at Hickam Field. My wife had a ranch, and we lived up in Napa Valley. He was coming out to California. I didn't know him. We were prime at McClellan [AFB CA] on some of the fighter aircraft, F-104 and then the -100 or -101, and he wanted to come out there. When he did he came with a contingent of about three or four officers. I met him and invited him to come up and stay at the ranch overnight, which he did. He was the guy who tested that first jet. He had been burned in it. He had a claim of something like 210 fighters, but they counted the engines, not fighters, 210 aircraft. They counted the engines.

AHMANN: Oh, I never heard this.

LANDRY: They counted the engines. If you shot down a two-engine aircraft, that was two.

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AHMANN: I was going through an interview, and some of these guys had 300 or 400 kills. I was talking to this gentleman, and he said, "That's bull. Nobody could shoot down that many."

LANDRY: Well, that's true. They counted the engines.

AHMANN: A B-17 was four kills.

LANDRY: I never asked him that, but I got this from the British and I got it from somebody else that when you hear of guys that have 400 kills, divide that by two or four, and it is still a lot of airplanes. He apparently was a real fearless fighter, and he was in charge of this jet thing. I did get to see him, a very nice guy.

AHMANN: I saw him down at Maxwell once.

LANDRY: Burned badly.

AHMANN: I forget what his name is too. In fact I just saw a picture of him before the accident, a very handsome, Nordic-looking, good German.

LANDRY: Apparently one of their top fighter people. He must have been.

AHMANN: That German aircraft jet did get into combat, by the way.

LANDRY: It did towards the end?

AHMANN: Yes. It did towards the end. By that time they were so strung out.

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After you were with the fighters, you went to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations of the Air Staff of SHAEF [Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force]. What the heck was that job?

LANDRY: No. I had been saying to the people there, and I think I said it to "Pat" Partridge (Gen. Earle E.]. I said, "The war is kind of coming to a close here. I have had the fighter experience which has been a great experience. I would like to get out in a bomber outfit now. I have been hearing so much about the bomber. I would like to get a bomber outfit for the last--", towards the end of the war anyway, have that experience. So I was assigned to----

AHMANN: Here we go. 93d Combat Bomb Wing.

LANDRY: That was John Gerhart's outfit. Here was John Gerhart; he was made a brigadier general.

AHMANN: Is that the picture I saw there with the big stars on it?

LANDRY: Yes. That's John. Here is John, and here is John. I was trying to find this. (showing pictures) He died. John is dead. He later was Commanding General of NORAD [North American Air Defense] Command.

I went down to 93d to be the Deputy Commander of the 93d. We had a group in there, the 493d Bomb Group. Out of 52 bomb groups we had over in the Eighth Air Force during the war, I
think they ranked 51 or 52. They couldn't drop a bomb within 5 miles of the target. Their leadership was bad for a number of reasons I won't go into. John said, "I have to relieve
this guy. You had better go down and take that outfit." So

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I got down to a bombardment outfit. I had that about 6 months, I guess, or about 4 or 5 months. Whatever it was.

AHMANN: You were very fortunate that you were able to switch.

LANDRY: Yes. They let me go and, fortunately, John had the outfit. We went over together, so he was happy to have me. Otherwise I would have been like a lot of these people coming around looking for a job unless I could find it. I knew I could go there. So I did get that experience.

Then to carry on here. I guess you want all of this. We finished the war.

AHMANN: Let's talk about this a little bit. Who ran that wing, the 93d Wing?

LANDRY: John Gerhart. He was the wing commander. He was now a brigadier general. I was the deputy there. In other words just watching the missions and that sort of thing. I said, "John, I hope I am going to be able to get out into one of these goddamn outfits." We knew the situation down there, and I figured that was probably where I would go or should go. John said, "It is pretty bad down there. You had better get on and take that outfit over." I had to relieve him. That's how I got into the bombardment.

AHMANN: How many bomber missions did you fly? Do you recall?
LANDRY: I don't think more than half a dozen. It was towards the end of the war, and there wasn't the stuff flying around that there was in the other days of the war, but just the experience of being there was something. I remember Pat

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Partridge, who called me up one time. We got the group so it could drop bombs and was accurate and cut the reputation up a little bit and cured all of the goddamn gonorrhea and clap and syphilis. These boys' morale was bad, and their morals were bad. We got to lead the whole goddam outfit one time.

It was a pretty rough mission, and the weather was lousy. I was in the lead airplane with my group. Old Pat Partridge called me after the mission, and he said, "I guess you got a taste of what these boys have been going through in the bombers, haven't you?" I said, "I sure have, General."

AHMANN: He ran the 3d Air Division, is that right?

LANDRY: No. Pat Partridge was first the vice to Doolittle, deputy commander, and then he took over the 3d Division.

AHMANN: In Partridge's interview, he claims that the 3d Division was in need of great reorganization. Who did he relieve there? It wasn't LeMay, was it? It must have been somebody between LeMay and Partridge. I guess I could look that up.

LANDRY: You could look that up. I had been in fighters all the time, and I didn't pay much attention except to people I knew, like John Gerhart, where he was and that sort of thing.

AHMANN: How did you feel about leadership over there in the Air Corps in World War II, Spaatz and Doolittle?

LANDRY: You couldn't get better people than that.

AHMANN: I won't quote who said it, but it was a bomber leader in Europe in World War II, and he is kind of critical that they

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didn't drive the thing hard enough. He claims they could have gotten as good results from, let's say, fewer airplanes or something like that. Did you perceive that in anyway at all, General?

LANDRY: In my opinion, we got maximum utilization out of the airplanes. That old dog doesn't hunt at all. I could tell you that we thought in the fighters--we had one mission, and we would get up at 2 o'clock in the morning and get out there, and we were back in 3 or 4 hours. There we were sitting around. I said very often, "We ought to be able to fly a mission in the afternoon." Well, you can't fly a mission in the afternoon protecting bombers, because you can only operate the bombers once every 24 hours. The maintenance, flying those airplanes as hard as they were, availability of aircraft for a mission was sometimes low, especially if you had 3, 4, or 5 days in a row. I'll tell you about that in a minute.

I said, "Why in the hell don't we go out on some of these close-in targets, antiaircraft places, and get a P-38," which we had some over there, "that could navigate and have a bombsight in it." What did we call that? Kelsey and Casshuff [phonetic] put a bubble up in the front of the P-38 and a bombsight, and we called it the "Droop," "Snoop," something.

AHMANN: The guy would lay down.

LANDRY: The guy was in there, and he would lead. We would put three or four fighters on each P-38. I said, "Hell, we would fly a mission like that. That would be an easy mission. Christ, we can carry bombs on these goddarn----

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LANDRY: We tried those missions, and I don't know, they weren't, I guess cost wise, in terms of gasoline, time, and wear and tear, they weren't "cost effective." If we had one airplane go out of commission during that, it was one less airplane to protect the bombers. It was that simple. So that stopped.

But anybody who says we didn't do it fast enough, let me tell you one thing, when you consider the availability of airplanes, the weather that we had over Germany, which was terrible most of the time, crew fatigue, attacks by the Germans, and ground fire, that 90-millimeter gun or 88-millimeter gun that came up, and things like that. Anybody who says we didn't use maximum effort most of the time--you can't have maximum effort all the time. But we had in February 1944, I guess it was in February, when we really broke the back of the German Air Force, we operated at maximum effectiveness for about 4 or 5 days in a row. That means putting up between 2,200 and 2,400 bombers.

AHMANN: Was that that Big Week?

LANDRY: That was that Big Week. That was the big thing. One or two little guys who said it wasn't enough--it doesn't bother me at all for somebody to say they didn't like the way you do
it. We had good leadership.

AHMANN: Colonel Helton [Maj. Gen. Elbert] was the guy you relieved.

LANDRY: &quotButch" Helton.

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AHMANN: The 493d Bomb Group.

Did you ever get into the planning for targeting in Germany at all? You never got into that high up?

LANDRY: No, because the fighters had no targets with just the missions we had. The targeting was all done at Eighth Air Force Headquarters, every bit of targeting right there.

You were talking about leadership. I want to tell you about Doolittle. He and General Spaatz hit it off very well. Of course Doolittle is a fantastic man anyway. But he and General Spaatz traveled around the field and went to see these guys before missions.

(Interruption)

I remember one mission. He had a house on the Thames there someplace, near Eighth Air Force Headquarters. He didn't live there. Most of us lived there, but he had a house separate from the headquarters. He had the boys in after one hell of a goddamn raid on Hamburg or someplace where the flak was probably the worst or as bad as anything they had ever seen. There was a fellow there, it seems to me, named Goldberg who had volunteered for his second or third series of missions. He just wanted to fight that war until, until. I think a tour was 25 or 30 mission. He was on his second or third round.

Jimmy Doolittle would sit up on the back of a chair, and General Spaatz would stand there. Doolittle would tell them some story, the best storyteller in the world, absolutely. H e said to this Lieutenant Goldberg, if I remember the name

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correctly, this fearless warrior, "I have heard a lot about that flak today. How would you describe it?" You describe flak as light, medium, and heavy. He said, "General, there is only one way to describe it, and that is intense to unbearable." (laughter) I thought Doolittle was going to fall off his chair. He was a great moral leader for a lot of those people that went through some terrible mission.

AHMANN: Have you ever read that biography of Doolittle by Lowell Thomas?

LANDRY: No, I haven't.

AHMANN: How old is Jimmy now?

LANDRY: He must be in his eighties.

AHMANN: He goes everyplace. Did you ever get involved in these shuttle bombing things at all?

LANDRY: Do you mean where they went to Russia?

AHMANN: Yes.

LANDRY: No, I didn't, but I was in on the planning as far as we could--let's see, I think I was still with fighters. We went as far as we could; then the bombers were supposed to be in an area where there wasn't too much. Then the Russians were supposed to pick them up. My recollection of those two or three missions we did was that when our people got there, the facilities were so poor that it really wasn't worth it, and for the effect of what was done, there wasn't that much done. So that was the end of that.

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The most effective kind of thing was the coordination between the Eighth Air Force and later the Fifteenth Air Force under Nate Twining [Gen. Nathan F.] down in the Mediterranean, when we would coordinate. Then when that air force was built up down there, we could coordinate actions so that one or the other could draw off part of the German fighters. That was a beautifully coordinated operation. That was after the Fifteenth Air Force became big down there.

The thing to Russia, that was strictly political, I think.

AHMANN: At one time the--I guess they only did it once--Germans followed them to the base, bombed the base that night, and got a lot of B-17s on the ground.

LANDRY: My memory is very dim on that, because I think I was still in fighters.

AHMANN: Archie Old was in on it. That's why it is fresh in my memory.

LANDRY: I wouldn't be surprised.

AHMANN: Then they flew down to Italy or some damn thing. Did you bomb with radar when you went into B-17s?

LANDRY: When we started the war, no. Radar was just practically brand new.

AHMANN: But at the end there?

LANDRY: As soon as we got all of the airplanes equipped, or any airplane equipped with radar, we took radar pictures so we

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would have a--so this is how it started. It started gradually as we got the equipment, and in addition to the bombing run, you took the radar and as you got back to begin the library of radar pictures. Then as the war developed and towards the middle and the end certainly, we had enough good radar pictures that you could go in and bomb by radar bombing.

AHMANN: How good was CEP [circular error probable], or whatever you want to call it?

LANDRY: I don't remember what the CEP was. A lot depends on the delineation of things on the ground when you get a good initial point or target aiming point, but I would say as the people got more training and the pictures got more accurate and confidence, the radar bombing must have been pretty good. Of course you couldn't take many pictures when you couldn't see, so you were never too sure of the results. But you could use radar in connection with visuals, to be
certain of your position. It was used.

AHMANN: Towards the end of the war, did everybody just kind of toggle on the lead bombardier as opposed to each individual bombardier sighting in? Do you remember? I have read where, towards the end of the war, you would get one or two real good bombardiers heading a box, and then when he dropped, everybody would just simply toggle at the same time.

LANDRY: I'm not quite sure. I know that on certain targets you would drop on the lead because you wanted that magnitude. I don't know that the quality or the expertise of the bombardier determined that. I think it was more a matter of the targets you were firing at and whether you had one target or whether

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within, say, a squadron you might have a loose formation, and there were enough targets for more than one bombardier. So I would think it would depend on the nature of the target. Wouldn't you? I think that is it. I know, very often in the early days when they were en masse, like a big factory, you would bomb on the squadron or even the group.

AHMANN: Towards the end of the war, we bombed Dresden. We just bombed the city. There was no pretense of bombing a military target per se. It was simply a terror raid. Was this ever talked about or questioned as to whether this violated any ethics or morality or anything like that, General?

LANDRY: No, if you couldn't hit your primary target, there were certain targets, alternate targets if they were in the area, you could select. If everything was closed in and you couldn't see, you wouldn't come home with a load of bombs. You very often did release them on radar bombing on certain targets we knew were vital to the Germans. I don't think there was ever any question of whether or not some civilians were going to get killed or not, because the Germans put a
lot of the factories right in the cities, and who was to determine whether there was a factory there or not? Nobody was going to take a load of those goddamn bombs back and drop them in the North Sea when they were fighting somebody like the Germans or any other enemy. But as far as you might be leading to indiscriminate bombing, just get rid of them on a city and you don't care----

AHMANN: Like Dresden in April 1945. They just leveled the city there, the British during the night and the Americans during the day. There has been that criticism, and I was wondering whether, at the time, it was ever talked about.

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LANDRY: No, I don't think so other than just don't bring a bomb load home. Many a bomb was dropped on Frankfurt because Frankfurt was a big industrial place. It burned half of that city up,
but you were in a war. No, it was not anything that was a moral issue at all. It wasn't any more than a guy who is going to shoot somebody in an airplane. You have to make your firepower count. I'll put it that way.

AHMANN: Eaker was replaced at Eighth Air Force and sent down to the Mediterranean. Did that make much of a splash at the time it happened at your level that he was sent down?

LANDRY: No, I don't think so, and to this day Ira Eaker is a good friend of mine, and I certainly admire him like General Spaatz and got to know him very well. I'll tell you later on. I don't know what happened. I really don't know what happened. Those things at high level like that you never can be too sure. There is no finer and more intelligent, able, dedicated man than Ira Eaker, believe me, a close friend of General Spaatz'. Why he didn't stay on and take over the Eighth Air Force, I don't know.

My deductions are that taking over in the Mediterranean was a promotion, bearing in mind that Doolittle was already down in North Africa and probably scheduled to come up and take Eighth
Air Force because of his reputation, his flying ability, his morale that he could have on people, on young guys. I think all of those things entered into it. Whether there was some politics behind it, service politics as between the Army and Eisenhower, Spaatz, I really don't know. But I think there were some people who were surprised that Ira--being the superior, the point man, who came over and set a lot of things up, and the number two man in rank over there

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didn't stay on and perhaps take over the command or something.

Certainly it wasn't going to be Spaatz who was going. There was only one job there for him, and that was the Eighth Air Force. I just happen to believe that probably it might not have looked right, that he shouldn't have succeeded somebody and stayed right there, but I kind of believe that maybe there was more for him to do down there.

AHMANN: Once again, the history books seem to lead one to believe that Spaatz and Doolittle down in North Africa became close friends of Eisenhower, and when Eisenhower was made Supreme Allied Commander, he simply wanted guys he had worked with. I was wondering if any of those kinds of thoughts had ever been----

LANDRY: No, but I think it is entirely plausible. I think that is another way of looking at it. It is entirely plausible. Doolittle was down there in the middle of that goddamn flying sand with all of them down there. Doolittle was all over the place. As a matter of fact, the story is that he got up in a P-40 and went flying out to the front lines. Eisenhower heard about it and summoned him up there to the headquarters and said, "Now look here, Jimmy, if you want to be Commander of Eighth Air Force or something like that and you go flying out there, you will be on your way home before you can say jack rabbit," or words to that effect. Because Doolittle did; he got an airplane and went over to take a look for himself. Eisenhower didn't want to lose him, I guess, so I don't know.

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There may have been that closeness. I don't think it was any reflection on Ira Eaker. I know that Ira Eaker, it has never been a personal matter with him, because there were no two dearer, closer friends than Spaatz and Eaker. They have been together; they have been to war together; in Washington they went to the Army-Navy Club together; they played bridge together. No, I don't think there is anything to that. It is just one of those things that might have happened.

AHMANN: One reads that in the early days of the war, B-17 crews would come back and everybody would have shot down three or four airplanes, did this debriefing become far more sophisticated then as the war came along as to what the actual bombing results were? Was there a noticeable improvement on that?

LANDRY: There was considerable criticism that we heard about, that we had shot down more goddamn Germans than the Germans had airplanes. (laughter) I would say that you had a reasonably good reason to believe that. I think in the early days of combat a guy would be sitting there in a goddarn side gunner position or the tail gunner, nose gunner, or belly, top turret, and he was shooting. He saw something flying, well, hell, he had him, and he did have him or he thought he had got him. I don't think we had the cameras operating as much as we had later. We always had the cameras on the fighters. We had the cameras on the fighters right from the beginning. But on the bombers, you couldn't have a camera on every goddamn station. I think a lot of people were prone to make some claims that may not have been actual fact; not trying to cheat, but just in their exuberance, plus the fact that I think in those early days of the war, just like you award medals, you take a little poetic license, perhaps, in saying, "Well, maybe he did get it."

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After all, the success of any war depends upon the support of the people back home. Maybe there was a little exaggeration, and as the war went on, as kills or damage or destroyed had to be evaluated, it became tougher. I think there had to be a little bit of that in the beginning, but nothing that was an attempt to fool the public or anything like that.

AHMANN: You were talking about awards. Did you ever recommend or support or approve a Medal of Honor winner over there at all?

LANDRY: No, I never got into that. In my committee we looked at all sorts of recommendations for everything except that, from the DSC [Distinguished Service Cross], in those days the senior service medal, the DFC [Distinguished Flying Cross], Flying Cross--what is the one for valor? Here is the Medal of Honor--the Silver Star. Those were the three. The highest one we ruled on was the Distinguished Service Cross. Anything above that went right directly to the commander.

AHMANN: Were consistent standards maintained during World War II in regards to awards?

LANDRY: I think, at least the time I was on that committee, that we carefully studied every recommendation that came in from a wing commander for his groups and all. We knew what the
missions were; we knew what the losses were; we knew how intense things were and that sort of thing. We were right there at headquarters. I think there were three of us on it. We tried to be fair. I don't think we were lenient; I don't think we were too tough. It is like in anything; there are a few people that every time they took off on a mission they wanted to get the Medal of Honor. We had one guy that every time he went on a mission it was for---

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AHMANN: He won the war?

LANDRY: There wasn't very much of that. I think the allocation of awards was, I would like to say, very effectively and efficiently done without fear or favor.

AHMANN: In regards to flying, could tactics and methods of operation be, from unit to unit, kind of flexible, or was it pretty well from the top down as the war progressed?

LANDRY: In terms of the bombers over there, there was a progression on how to fight the thing. They flew loose for awhile. LeMay was pretty hep on this. He brought them all together so that you had a mass of fire. That was learned through bitter experience. The Germans could easily pick off one guy.

You just think about it. If your bombers are close, and you have all those guns so that you don't shoot each other, stepped down so there is room to shoot--they believed in mass firing--it was much more effective, and the losses were less. So there was a development of the tactical aspect of it.

AHMANN: Progression.

LANDRY: Yes, just that.

AHMANN: What about this famous 100th Bomb Group over there, the "Bloody 100th"? Was that a wing or a group?

LANDRY: No, that was the 100th Bomb Group. They had three squadrons.

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AHMANN: I have heard all kinds of stories that they were decimated for this reason or that reason. The favorite story, which I don't put any credence in at all, was that there was one time when a B-17 had it’s wheels down indicating it was surrendering to the ME-109s on its tail, and all of a sudden all of the guys opened up and shot down a bunch of German planes. From then on the Germans were after that group.

LANDRY: I never heard that story. I don't think I----

AHMANN: I only repeat it for your benefit.

LANDRY: No, I wouldn't put much credence in that. I would say this though, I have heard--the Germans had a radio. What was her name? Every night she used to talk about the----

AHMANN: "Axis Sally"?

LANDRY: Axis Sally, she would talk about Hub Zemke and Gabreski, anybody. They could identify all of our people and did. She would make all of these comments. Anyway, the 100th Bomb Group lost a complete squadron. The Germans just caught it and shot every one of them down. That was a terrible thing to happen over there. That's one-third of your goddarn force
in the air right there, that are up. That was bad.

The reason for it was, as I understood it, the Germans had decided they were going to show the goddarn Eighth Air Force that if they wanted to they could shoot down something. That made much more sense to me, that if they could knock out a whole squadron, just knock it out no matter how many fighters it took to do it, that might have a very strong impact on the morale of the rest of the squadrons and groups. If I

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remember correctly, they did it twice. They did it once that I know of, and I think they did it again.

They picked on this one outfit, I think, only because it was in a vulnerable position, or it was in an easy position, lead, tail, or something. It did happen once, and I thought it happened twice. The reason was that the Germans wanted to show them that they could knock us out of the sky, which of course they didn't and couldn't.

I never heard of that other thing.

AHMANN: I had you going home 1 June 1945. Is that right?

LANDRY: No. The war was over, and I was with the 493d Bomb Group. We were all told in the bomb group--the war ended on the 7th or 9th, depending on whether you, the war ended on the 7th, but the official signing was on the 9th. Practically all of us up in East Anglia had a haystack to burn. A lot of the guys got together, and they had a beer bust or shot French 75s, because by then we had liberated some Remy-Martin Cognac and all sorts of champagne when picking up prisoners. So we really had a stock.

On the 7th a lot of people started burning their haystacks and having a party because the war was over in Europe. I said, "Well, I don't think we will do that. I think we are going to wait until the official date." We burned our haystack on 9 May and had one hell of a--it went on all night.

Then we were to get our units in order to go back to the United States; this was what we were told. "We will now go

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back to the United States and be re-equipped with B-29s to continue the war with Japan." Now I started out at Pearl Harbor, and I thought if anybody ought to have a right to go back, it ought to have been Bob Landry. I got a message that "You are being assigned to take over Air Staff SHAEF, reporting to Frankfurt on 10 June" or 20, something like that, early June, 10 June I guess. I said to myself--I'm sitting there with my goddamn outfit all ready to go, packed up and
everything, sitting outside of a house that we lived in right on the airport there at the end of the runway. It had belonged to this British family. They wanted out of there. Just waiting for the order to go back to the States. We were all keyed up. "Jesus," I said, "Frankfurt. The war is over.
I'm going to get in a goddamn airplane and go on up and see Ted Curtis or General Spaatz. I have to get out of this. I saw the start of the war against Japan."

I went over to see Ted Curtis, and he said, "Well, they will need you over there. They want you over there. You have a lot of experience." I said, "Experience for what?" He said, "You have been around the fighter business, and you have been over here a long time." I said, "Look, I think I am entitled to go back and get a B-29 and go over against the Japanese. "He said, "You have a point." He said he would talk to the boss. "I think we can probably work it out." I didn't hear
from him, and I didn't hear from him. I called him. He said he was still working on it. I said, "Goddamn it, Ted, I'm depending on you, and if you don't let me hear something, I am going to come up there and talk right to General Spaatz."

I didn't hear for a few days and finally got a message saying, "This confirms your assignment to go to Frankfurt as

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Chief of Air Staff SHAEF." (laughter) Air Staff SHAEF had about 50 airplanes and 150 people just sitting on their butt over there doing nothing. I was mad as hell. I want to tell you, I was really mad. I never forgave him for that, because I don't know whether he talked to General Spaatz or not. I should have done it myself.

I went over; I had no choice. I checked into the IG [inspector general] in the Farbin Building and was assigned a nice house there in Frankfurt, everything in it, a beautiful house, by myself. I thought to myself, "If a guy ever commits suicide, it is probably for something like this." (laughter) I said, "Really, I have been s--t on." I had a 45 with me. You always had that. I said, "I had better put that son of a b---h away because I might do it." You are sitting around there with a drink. I didn't know anybody over there. Here I was having my group; I had been with everybody and now I was sent over to that place when the war was over.

I got over that. I ran into a friend of mine named Graham Madison [unable to verify], who was an intelligence officer for Eisenhower and Spaatz and also worked with the British. Graham Madison was a lawyer from New York, given a direct commission, lived in Paris, and a very fine guy. I cried in his beer. I said, "Graham, good God, I'm glad to see you or I might not have been around." I asked him where he was living, and we got together. Then things settled down.

I then became responsible for all the missions in the various countries where the Germans had been where we were putting missions, like Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Brussels, Belgium, various little places like that. One of my jobs was to see

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that these missions were set up properly and all working properly, military missions. They had nothing to do with civilian government.

There wasn't a hell of a lot of other things to do, but I had all of these goddamn airplanes, and I was my own boss because Air Staff SHAEF had been operated by a major general from London. It was part of General Eisenhower's staff. Hell, they had all gone. My classmate, Herbie Thatcher, who was with Eisenhower, was gone. Everybody was gone. Let's see, Herbie Thatcher was still there for awhile. That's what it was, and I finally ran into him. So the three of us got together and got a house in Bad Homburg when I was there. Then I had all of these airplanes. So we took off and went to every goddamn place that had been bombed out and saw everything. The only redeeming feature was that I was able to get to Berlin about 10 days after the war ended, at least not more than 20 it seems to me, and those bodies were still in that goddarn tunnel outside of Berlin that had been sealed off by the bombing. The place was beat up. I did get to these various countries and get to the Ruhr and see what we had done there.

AHMANN: What bodies were these, the ones in the subway?

LANDRY: These were the bodies that had been in there. The bombing by the Russians had sealed that thing up, and 3,500 Germans were in there. I saw what happened to the Reichstadt. I spent from June to about November, and I came back to the States.

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LANDRY: About 90 days of that time while I was there, I was assigned to that job, too.

AHMANN: This job was?

LANDRY: The job was to evaluate the results of the various types of operations that we had engaged in, that is the American forces. I represented strategic air.

AHMANN: Did this have anything to do with the United States Strategic Bombing Survey?

LANDRY: I don't know. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey--I have it right here. It probably had something to do with it, but in Eighth Air Force Headquarters, O. A. Anderson was a great guy to do research and studying the results of various attacks. We called that the Eighth Air Force Strategic Bombing Survey. They plotted every mission, and the reaction of every German fighter airplane, and a lot of the strategy was planned on that. I think that's what that was. But I am a little hazy on just what----

AHMANN: Anderson went over and did the Strategic Bombing Survey of Japan and got into a big cat-and-dog fight with the Navy over that.

LANDRY: That was later. This thing that I did in Wiesbaden, I was there part of the time. I think that must have been towards the end of it, but it had to be during that period of time. I'm a little hazy on that, but we did do that and did work in that hotel. We did live in Bad Homburg, and I did have this mission. That was my responsibility, the mission mainly.

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AHMANN: Was Germany just simply prostrate?

LANDRY: Yes. They were glad it was over. Those were the days we were told that you couldn't fraternize with the Germans, so the great comment that came, "If you meet a fraulein, you
have to say to her, 'Glad to meet you. Lie down, I want to talk to you.'" (laughter) Well, it was true. We were forbidden to be seen talking to them.

AHMANN: That didn't last long, is that right? There was simply no way to enforce that.

LANDRY: No, it didn't last long, and it didn't go on unless it was in public in the beginning. The German people, they were fine. They were so glad the war was over.

AHMANN: Did you ever build up any animosity against the Germans, per se, as opposed to like you mentioned the Japanese?

LANDRY: No. Just like I say, when you met the real German people, fine, but if you met the people like the SS troops and read and saw some of the things that Hitler did, and his people-those kinds of people, butchers--I mean you have to have some hatred for them.

Another thing, I got to see Hitler's "crow's nest," went through the place where he lived up in Berchtesgaden and all of that, all during this period. It wasn't a lost 5 or 6 months. It was really a great experience a few people had. But right in the beginning it was a great disappointment not
to continue the war.

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AHMANN: As it turned out, you probably never would have gotten out there with a B-29 anyway.

LANDRY: As it turned out, in August of that year I would have come back and the war would have been over. This way I got to see all the damage; I got to go where I wanted to, wrote my own orders. Not that I wanted to be independent, but the aftermath of a war is pretty awful. When the whole headquarters left to go out to the Pacific right away, everybody left to get to pursue the war. So all we had was the civilian governments moving in and some military, like myself. You didn't have time to get permission from somebody. There wasn't anybody to get permission from. You were kind of on your own. And I suppose, to some extent, you would have to say that they wanted people who were on their own to do it. That is the only satisfaction I can get out of it. But I am very happy for the experience now.

AHMANN: When you went to Berlin, did you have to deal with any Russians at that time yet, or was it pretty much an open city?

LANDRY: I had nothing to do with what was in Russia. They set up a civilian head there, governor or whatever they called it. It was just the military in the outlying countries.

AHMANN: When you came back to the United States, and you say that was about November that you came back?

LANDRY: The latter part of November or early December, just before Christmas.

AHMANN: Did you have a job lined up?

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LANDRY: Oh, yes. Then I was assigned to that continuing study of, the thing that I was telling you about, the doctrine. The combat veterans selected for this, from the four services, were to sit down--it seems to me there were 30 or 40 of us; we were little committees--and put together how to make a landing, how to do this, how to fight an air war, ground war. On each little committee you had the various people, so it was great experience to hear what they had done, how they thought we ought to do it. But like I say, it was awfully hard to get any fixed way to do anything. We wrote a lot of stuff.

I stayed on that for about 6 months, from about January, December until the summer, maybe a little longer than that, when Ted Landon, who was going to be the Deputy Commander of the National War College--then a major general; I was a colonel--said, "Bob, I would like you to come on and be my assistant over there for strategic air operations." I thought that would be fun. That was the only school I wanted to go to anyway. I think the other schools I went to were the practical part of it.

I was delighted, except I didn't think I was a teacher. But that was a great experience because, and it is still this way I think, we had in the very early days all of the combat people again, a lot of the people on this thing went through, on this study, the doctrine thing, went through there. They tried to select people who had combat experience in the beginning from all the services and the State Department. I was on that.

Everything was by committee work. There was no grading. There were a lot of speeches made by people and a lot of

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studies made of the war and that sort of thing. It was, in a sense in those early days, a kind of elevated thing we had been doing on trying to prepare doctrine. It was very interesting. But there wasn't anything to really teach; it was committee work. I just didn't think I fitted into the kind of guy to teach. I didn't mind being a committee. So I asked Ted to let me go. I wanted to get back in the Air Force. I said, "I just don't think I fit into this, as much as I have enjoyed it." So I was assigned, then, as Executive Officer to General Spaatz' Chief of Staff, whom I had known.

AHMANN: What was that job, Executive Officer? Was it the traditional executive officer job?

LANDRY: Handled people who were coming in, handled correspondence that was coming in, see that the right people got in or didn't get in.

AHMANN: Were you privy to a lot of this planning for the new Air Force then?

LANDRY: Not like being on the Air Council or anything like that. No, I was more of an administrative guy for him. I had to take calls for him; I had to get messages to him. I could go in and talk to him about this and that. Just like you have a right-hand man, you might call it a super aide or something, but those people have to have an executive officer. Stu Symington had an executive officer who was J. B. Montgomery (Maj. Gen. John B.). They depend on these people to keep them advised of a lot of things that are going on. The development of weapon systems and things like that was done in the Air Council, which began after the war, but I was privy to a lot of stuff that came in.

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AHMANN: How did you get that job in a sense? Had you just known Spaatz from North Africa?

LANDRY: I don't know. I said to Ted Landon, "A year is enough, I think I would like to do something else if I could." I didn't ask for any job; that was it. The next thing I knew, he said, "You are going to be General Spaatz' executive officer," which was a very nice thing. It was a plum. I didn't have a thought that I would ever serve in the Pentagon. I had never been anxious to. But I was delighted to be back near him again. Then a lot of things happened. That would have been in 1947. Wouldn't it?

AHMANN: Yes. You graduated from National War College in July 1947 and a month later, so it was August 1947.

Here is a question. Go back to World War II a minute. Frank Hunter was replaced by General Kepner [Lt. Gen. William E.]. Why was that?

LANDRY: I think it was because--well, I think we are getting involved in a personality here that I don't like to mention. Monk Hunter came over there.

AHMANN: Let me tell you what I have heard, then you can either confirm or deny it. I have heard that Hunter did not want to use his fighters as the Eighth Air Force wanted them used. I forget whether Hunter wanted to keep them locked to the bombers or wanted to go off and chase German fighters. I forget which was which. But he got into an argument with the powers that be on how to deploy his fighters, and he lost the argument and was sent home. That's what I heard.

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Kepner had been a "balloonatic," with that fellow Anderson who had flown up in a balloon.

AHMANN: Yes, out of Rapid City there.

LANDRY: A lot of us wondered what in the hell a balloonatic was doing in charge of a goddamn fighter outfit. So there was some feeling there, but in wartime you don't have time to get feelings. You just can't waste energy on that. But I believe that is what happened in the case of Monk. It is
sad.

AHMANN: On a different subject, you people had total air superiority in France right before the invasion and during the invasion. I'll ask you this: As a pilot, was there anything the Germans could have done? Was there any way they could lessen the impact of this on the ground? They didn't have an air force that could challenge you so, consequently, they had to move their troops at night, heavily camouflaged. Is there any way they could have overcome that problem at all?

LANDRY: No. They put--who was the famous guy that was killed, shot, that had charge of the emplacements along the channel.

AHMANN: Rommel [Field Marshal Erwin). He was strafed in an automobile.

LANDRY: Coincidental to this, at about that time three-dimensional photography came into play, about the time the Germans were putting the emplacements in. Could they have done something. else? I'll answer your question in a minute.

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About that time we had Elliot Roosevelt [Brig. Gen.] in Eighth Air Force Headquarters, and he had charge of a recon [reconnaissance] squadron kind of like the P-38, the British twin-engine thing, British night fighters.

AHMANN: The Mosquito?

LANDRY: The Mosquito. He had a squadron of those. We had a good colonel to help him run the outfit because he didn't know much about it. We put a good colonel in there as his deputy.

AHMANN: Would that have been George Goddard [Brig. Gen. George W.]?

LANDRY: No. I forget the name of the young fellow. He was a colonel, a very good man from the Eighth Air Force. The great advantage of having Elliot there was to have somebody who could go back home and talk to Papa. A true story. Doolittle used it every time he could, and who wouldn't?
I guess the people in intelligence heard about the availability of a three-dimensional thing, and there were high priorities on it. It was hard to get one. Elliot was dispatched to go back home and talk to Papa and see if we could get some help in getting one. I think we got it, not on the next airplane but the airplane after that. Then we began taking pictures of the emplacements.

AHMANN: Was this that brown wooden box?

LANDRY: I don't know. It was an aerial camera.

AHMANN: No, I mean the thing you used to look through.

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LANDRY I never really saw it.

AHMANN: There were two of them. We had one down at Maxwell.

LANDRY: I never saw it, but I have seen some of the pictures.

Where the Germans were putting these emplacements on the side of the hills over in Europe, on the channel there, you could almost see in there and see the goddarn guns sticking in there. The Eisenhower people had a pretty good idea where all the emplacements were. Without that there might have been a lot more casualties.

Whether or not the Germans could have done anything more, I doubt it. There wasn't a goddamn fighter seen on the day of the invasion. I flew over there with my assistant. We had a Spitfire, P-40, that we kept out at some field where we flew, and Oscar Coen [Col. Oscar H.] and I, who was my assistant for fighters in Doolittle's headquarters, I said, "Come on, Oscar, we are going to go over there and take a look at this goddamn--" We were in the headquarters during the invasion. We helped plan the fighter part of it.

We flew on in there. We had loaded guns and everything and didn't see--there wasn't anything to see after you got beyond where the troops were.

AHMANN: That must have been an impressive sight there on the beach, though.

LANDRY: Yes. But we got up pretty high and then came down because we didn't want to get shot down. (laughter) There wasn't a fighter in there; none were reported. I said, "Let's go out

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for a little afternoon flying," in violation of everything, but we went on in there, oh, 50, 60, or 70 miles.

I don't know that the Germans could have done anything. They were beat. But even being beaten as they were, they made it difficult in certain places on the beach, and it cost us a lot of lives. That was a great air offensive against them with the bombardment from the ships that the Navy had. We put up a maximum effort. The British put up a maximum effort. You never saw so many goddamn airplanes in the sky as were up that morning.

AHMANN: Never to be done again, I am sure.

We have been talking for almost 5 hours today, General.

LANDRY: That's a good time to stop.

AHMANN: When you came back from overseas and went to National War College, were you aware at all or had there been any planning in the Air Force towards a separate service? I am talking 1944-45 already. Were you aware of any planning in the Air Force, getting ready to become a separate service after the war?

LANDRY: Yes, very definitely, and let me answer that question after filling in a little that you asked me yesterday.

You asked me the question: What did the Executive to the Chief of Staff really do? I sort of slid over that quickly, and I said it was more like an administrative job. Well,

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that is correct, but let me just say a few things that you were responsible for. I think this would sort of apply to the Executive of the Secretary also.

An executive in that particular level would be--I was responsible for setting the Chief of Staff's appointments, coordinating those kinds of things, seeing that certain documents he saw, initialed, or didn't see, things that he wanted to get down to the Staff sometimes came through me, came through the Executive.

The physical setup of the office was: The Chief of Staff was sitting, we'll say, here, and on his left was a door that went to the Vice Chief, and on his right was a door that went to his Executive and his little personal staff. Then to the right of that was the Secretary, Mr. Symington, and his Exec. They were all right together there. So the Chief of Staff was right there to talk to the key people. Through the Vice Chief, he went to the deputies on the larger, big operational policy things. On the administrative stuff, to see that his office was functioning properly, his appointments, papers, and that sort of thing, and instructions he wanted done not relating maybe to a particular deputy's job. Many other things that a Chief of Staff would be involved in or concerned with on a administrative level would come through the Executive.

As an example, one of the things that I did at the direction of the Chief: When the Air Force became a separate service in September 1947, and before that, we knew that the bill was in Congress. In answer to your question: What was occurring in those years before September? There were lots of things going on. The Air Force was planning for it. The Air Force

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went through the Department of Defense at that time, I think was Forrestal, and it was an accepted fact that the Air Force had now proved that airpower should have its own department similar to the Army and the Navy, and the law was passed. So from the time the war ended, there was this move to see that the Air Force became a separate service. There was thinking, planning, and efforts being made and with the full agreement of everybody. There was no longer any controversy. There was no big fight or deal. It just required congressional action.

As a consequence of that, all of the Air Force's regulations were Army regulations, so the Chief of Staff had to see that those regulations that would apply to the Air Force that had applied to the Army had to be rewritten under the Air Force regulations. He appointed a committee of three people: Gene Zuckert [Eugene M.], who was a Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force at that time and who later became an Assistant Secretary, who had been the professor in charge
of the graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard, who Mr. Symington had gotten to be his Assistant Secretary, was chairman of this little committee, to review all Army regulations and rewrite them.

That was quite a job. A lot of it we just had to rewrite and insert things that now became Air Force regulations. Some had to be deleted or rewritten, and some new ones had to be written. Gene Zuckert was the chairman; I was appointed by General Spaatz and a Col Ralph Swofford [Lt. Gen. Ralph P., Jr.], who was a very, very fine officer, a star man at West Point, a very bright fellow. He was either in Plans or somewhere in the Air Staff. He was appointed as the third person.

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The three of us met for months, in addition to our other jobs. All these regulations were rewritten between 20 September, whenever it was, when the law became effective and the department was created, until about February or March. We had to review them all. So we now had our own regulations. It was great fun.

AHMANN: You had a lot of control over how----

LANDRY: Yes. It was a matter of just seeing that we now had our own regulations.

So that was the kind of job that you would do in addition to your administrative things.

AHMANN: In this position as the Executive, did you, in effect, kind of play a filter to Spaatz? In other words, if people came to you with stuff, and you would say, "Spaatz doesn't want to see this."

LANDRY: Yes, that's correct. Also, I can remember one thing that came to my mind, that I thought about a great deal. General Spaatz was a man of not a lot of words. He liked to have a short memorandum. He didn't want to sit around and talk about all of these things. You put a short memorandum in to him. If it made sense to him or he thought it was something we ought to go into, he would go ahead with it.

I was thinking about during the war that--you asked about radar bombing. We had no library of radar targeting because we didn't have the equipment. We had to develop it as we went along.

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It seemed to me that now we were concentrating on new kinds of equipment in the Air Force, and I wondered about targeting, which was very important. I thought to myself, "We are building a lot of airplanes, bombers and that sort of thing. Who is working on the targeting to see that we are getting the right kind of equipment, and the equipment we are getting that we are going to have targets for?" So I wrote him a short three-paragraph thing. He thought that was very good and very important, so he took that memorandum and gave it to the Vice Chief. The Vice Chief sent it to Plans.

So to the extent that I was sitting there in the administrative job, if I had an idea, I could go and talk to him, or I could put it on a memorandum. If some things came in that I saw, I could comment to him as his Executive Officer, not trying to overrule what the Deputy Chief of Staff wrote in Plans or Operations. But if it occurred to me that maybe a comment was necessary or maybe it hadn't been circulated properly, I could either go ahead and ask to send it to another office--Plans had something, go to Operations, Intelligence, the maintenance part, supply, new equipment, research and all. So to that extent, I think an Executive to somebody like the Chief of Staff and the Secretary plays a very important role in the administration of the Office of the Secretary and the Office of the Chief of Staff.

AHMANN: If a person is in a job like that for very long, does one tend to wear the stars better than the guy he is working for? Have you ever seen that happen, for example?

LANDRY: I'm not sure I understand your question.

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AHMANN: To give you an example: General Furlong [Lt. Gen. Raymond B. ] , who used to be the Air University Commander, was Military Assistant to Deputy Secretary of Defense Packard [David] and Clements [William P.], and he was in that job for 4 or 5 years. He admitted; he said he was there so long that pretty soon the power of the office--he started to kind of assimilate that on his own. He admitted it was wrong, but he said it tends to happen.

LANDRY: If I understand you correctly, you could say the Executive Officer to the Chief of Staff, whether he was there too long or whether it was just something he thought he ought to do, maybe he felt his job was important enough that he might interfere with something that is policy of, we will say, the Deputy Chief of Planning. No. I think that is a matter of common sense and control. If any individual in that kind of administrative job becomes too important to himself, he is going to create nothing but problems for himself and for the Chief. In other words, he has to be careful he doesn't impinge on somebody that has the real authority. He can certainly comment to the Chief and say, "I think, Chief, maybe we had better get some input from some other department." If you get pretty important to yourself, then you had better move on.

AHMANN: It is like I have heard the expression that the wife sometimes wears the stars better than the general does.

LANDRY: Well, that has happened but not very often. (laughter)

AHMANN: Another question I have here. In talking to people, I get the impression within the Air Force, in staff positions, that a commander in the Air Force deals more with his deputies,

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directly, rather than going through the Chief of Staff versus the Army today. An Army commander will deal exclusively through the Chief of Staff and not deal with deputies directly. Is that a fair assessment, even back in those days, that the Air Force dealt more with--like Spaatz, did he deal directly with his deputies or did he always go through his Vice?

LANDRY: No. I think he went through the Vice. The Vice, under the procedure that we had there after the war and the Air Council was created, the Chief never went directly to an Air Force commander or a command as such. The way he would deal with the commands would be frequent meetings that the Chief would have with the Commander of SAC [Strategic Air Command] or the Commander of Air Defense or the commander of any of the subordinate commands. That would be when they all got together to study the overall picture and to hear their complaints or their recommendations and suggestions. In the normal course of business, the Vice Chief was the guy who dealt with the commands. He, in turn, kept the Chief advised. That was on the big things.

If it was a matter of policy or something that was creating problems, it would be the Vice Chief first who would have to get into it and find out what was going on. Then, in turn, advise the Chief and make recommendations for changes. But the Chief, with all of the things he had to do in Washington on that level in dealing with the other services and Congress, just didn't have time to deal with all the chiefs of the commands as such. So the Vice Chief was a pretty important office.

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When the Air Council was created, I think we had probably the most efficient operation we have ever had. I don't know what the other services have, but the Council consisted of the Vice Chief and the deputies. They met at any time at the call of the Vice Chief.

For example, there was a weapon system coming in. Now Plans or operations would have a briefing, and all the deputies would be there to see that everybody had the proper input in deciding on, we'll say, a weapon system, what it should be, cost allocation, did it help meet the mission of the Air Force? All of those kinds of things. So I think we had a very efficient operation in the Air Staff level. It impressed me anyway.

AHMANN: Headquarters US Air Force was reorganized on 10 October 1947 with a Chief of Staff, Vice Chief of Staff, Assistant Vice Chief of Staff and three Deputy Chiefs, for Material,
Operations, Personnel, and Administration. Apparently Plans must have come under Operations.

LANDRY: At that time there was a separate office because Larry Norstad held that office for awhile.

AHMANN: He was in that job in the Department of the Army before the Department of Defense was created after the war. He worked for Eisenhower. Eisenhower was the Chief of Staff of the
Army, and Norstad was working over there. I guess he was the only pilot.

LANDRY: He would not have been working for the Army. It may have been when Eisenhower was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He worked on the Joint Staff. Norstad was in the Plans office

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for awhile after the war, it seems to me, when I was the Exec because I remember going down and talking to him about something.

AHMANN: Yes, after the Air Force was created.

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: This would have been before October.

LANDRY: Before, he would not have been on the Army's staff. I don't think that could be correct. He may have been in Plans in the Joint Chiefs Office.

In March 1946--this goes way back--there was an Air Board formed and Maj. Gen. Hugh [J. ] Knerr was appointed Secretary General of the Air Board. This was set up by Spaatz as the Air Force's top planning group, kind of like a board of directors. This apparently was in regard to down the road; what kind of an Air Force were we going to have.

LANDRY: That would have been in a period, I think, while I was over at the National War College. I would say--you asked what planning, was there anything being done before the Congress approved the separate department--yes, it had been going on for years.

AHMANN: I have a note that it goes way back to 1944.

LANDRY: The time had come when the Air Force had proved beyond any doubt that a separate department was the way to go in terms of how the Department of Defense should be organized.

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AHMANN: Did you ever deal with General Eisenhower, either during the war or after the war, in this time period in Washington?

LANDRY: No. I had met General Eisenhower. When I went across the river to Mr. Truman, it seems to me I remember going to a meeting of some people representing Mr. Truman when Eisenhower was Chief of Staff of the Army. But no, I actually had no official contact with General Eisenhower because I just never was in a position where it was necessary.

AHMANN: There seems to have been, when the Air Force was formed as a separate service, that some people within the Air Force leadership didn't necessarily think they should have their own medical service or engineers or signal support, that they should still have this from the Army. Do you remember that discussion ever going on, General?

LANDRY: I think the duplication of activity, as between all the three services, has always been a matter that comes up, because it all relates to the number of people you have and the budget process. So you could say that, instead of having three departments of engineers, like the Navy has the Seabees, the Army has the Department of Engineers; we had people that we would like to know could create an airport and put down the summerfelt track quickly in case of operations. You have to have a certain amount of ability to do your own job, but I don't recall that we tried to set up a Department of Engineering. I think we worked very closely with the Army Engineering people. I don't know that there was any conflict there. I think they allocated enough time to do the jobs for which we had money to budget on.

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AHMANN: Another thing that came up, and this came out when we interviewed Secretary Symington a couple of years ago. He said at one point he had to have a very serious talk with General Spaatz in reference to Spaatz being very reluctant to take pilot-rated people and put them in supply jobs, in finance jobs, and all these non-lying support activities. Symington, paraphrasing him, had to point out to Spaatz that if he wanted a separate Air Force, he had to take all of this baggage with you and that you had to have people who were no longer going to fly; they were going to have to sit there and do this job. Spaatz was very reluctant to accept that fact. Do you remember that at all, General?

LANDRY: No, I don't remember anything like that coming up. I think that for a long time all of the support positions in the Air Force, we put the people best qualified or the people available for those slots whether they were rated or non-rated. I think, just as a matter of evolution, that as more jobs came in place--for example, when we got in the missile business, you didn't have to be a pilot to handle a missile.

I don't recall any big debate or discussion between Symington or Spaatz because I was sitting in that office all the time. I don't remember seeing any correspondence. It was never an issue as far as I know.

AHMANN: Which gives another question: In those days were things decided a lot verbally, or were things done on paper? Do you recall?

LANDRY: I can give you an example which I thought to myself was so funny. It was amusing, rather, to me. I told you that

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General Spaatz sat there, and on this side here was the Exec's side, and the Vice Chief was over here. Here I was and here Symington's office was, and here was the Exec. So there was a little hallway between Spaatz' office and Symington's office. Every time Symington came through, he had to go through my office and in the door. I was like a jumping jack. When he would come through, I would have to stand up as a matter of courtesy. He wanted to go in and talk to General Spaatz. When he came out, I had to stand up. I spent a good part of the day exercising, seating and getting up, rising and seating, rising and seating. I thought to myself, it was just like pressing a button, and I was a jumping jack. I didn't say anything to him except, "Good morning, Mr. Secretary." "Anything I can do, Mr. Secretary?"

You asked whether or not there was a lot in writing. There was a great deal going on verbally. These were the days of the Air Force becoming separate. While there was a lot of stuff in writing, there was a hell of a lot of stuff that went on verbally between the Secretary and the Chief. To that extent, yes, there was a lot of discussion. (laughter)

AHMANN: Did you ever get that problem resolved, or did you just jump up?

LANDRY: No, I just kept jumping up and sitting down.

AHMANN: Did you ever take it upon yourself to go into Symington's office? Did the door only open one way?

LANDRY: I used to go in and talk with J. B. Montgomery, who was right next to me, about something. If Mr. Symington wanted to know

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anything, he usually went through J. B., but no. When I was called in there for something, yes.

AHMANN: Did you know Gen. Bennett Meyers [Maj. Gen. Bennett E.] at all?

LANDRY: Bennie Meyers from Wright-Pat? Yes. Well, no, the only thing I knew about him was General Arnold said, and something came up there, "You know, it is not unusual to have one bad apple in the barrel." Bennie Meyers got into some sort of problem. I have always thought that General Arnold had to recognize something was wrong, and he made that statement, I think, publicly. Didn't he?

AHMANN: Yes. Something to that effect.

LANDRY: You do expect every now and then that there might be a bad apple in the barrel. I forget what the issue was.

AHMANN: Conflict of interest, and I think he perjured himself in a statement. He went to jail for some period of time. I don't know how long. I have read about the trial and the congressional hearings and everything. Of course the minute he was convicted, boy, he was off the records, like he never existed, in retired officers' books. He was just gone. But I don't know what happened to him after he got out of prison. I don't know if I would want to go interview him or not, but he was there during a lot of activity before and during World War II. I don't know if he is alive today or not.

LANDRY: I think whatever the problem was--I think at that time he was in the Logistics Command at Wright-Pat. All I remember is what General Arnold said about the bad apple in the barrel. That probably took care of everything.

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AHMANN: The Navy opposed the establishment of the Defense Department, as I understand it. Was this pretty common knowledge that they were fighting this at the time?

LANDRY: Do you mean fighting the Air Force as a separate department?

AHMANN: Yes, and the establishment of the Defense Department. The idea that the Navy Department and the War Department would be abolished, and they would just be co-equal under a Secretary of Defense.

LANDRY: No, I don't remember that the Navy or the Army wanted to do away with the idea of the department. I think there was an awful lot of discussion about trying to eliminate the in-fighting for the budget every year. I covered that a little bit about over in Pearl Harbor. What did they call it? Where Forrestal, they were trying to get the services together where, in a sense, rank didn't make that much difference. They were all co-equal. What was the terminology, the way it was described?

AHMANN: This idea of one service? Everybody would wear the same uniform type thing like the Canadians have today?

LANDRY: No. Not co-equal. For the moment I can't remember what it was, but I don't remember that the Navy fought the idea of unification of the Air Force. Unification is what I am talking about. There was a great deal of discussion of unification and what it meant. It was something that the Secretary emphasized, and I think the President wanted it emphasized, that we had to have unification and stop all of this in-fighting about who had the authority. It related to the mission.

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The Navy had the carriers, and they had a very definite mission, but it was a sea mission, water mission. The Navy never fights from the land normally. The Marines, part of the Navy, support tactical operations, and the Navy, from carriers, has an operation off carriers. There may have been some conflict as to just how far inland the Navy would go and that sort of thing. Those kinds of things went on; they still go on.

AHMANN: I was going to say: They are still going on today.

LANDRY: But the idea was unification. Stop all this bickering for money and try to get a definition of the missions for the three services that made sense and could be enforced.

AHMANN: One of the notes I have here in reading all about this: This surprise attack at Pearl Harbor seems to have had a tremendous influence on the establishment of unified defenses.

LANDRY: I don't think there is any question about it. We were supposed to have unification. But as I told you, when you sit down with a four-star admiral and a three-star Army general and a two-star Air Force man who was a part of the Army, you know who is going to be running that meeting. It is just like the president sitting down with a bunch of vice presidents or something else. Now if you put four stars on all of them, that might cool things down a little bit.

AHMANN: This was one of the arguments. I think the PACAF [Pacific Air Forces] Commander now is only a three-star general, and somebody said that was a mistake because now, for the very

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reason you are talking about, he sits down with the CINCPAC [Commander in Chief, Pacific Command], who is Navy of course.

Did you ever deal with the subject of how big an air force we were going to have now in this time period? Remember they started arguing this 70 groups and got down to 55? Do you know at all or can you recollect where the idea of how many groups, where that actually started after the war?

LANDRY: Sure. Of course I was aware of that when I was on the Air Staff with General Spaatz, aware that it was going on in the newspapers when I was in the National War College. You could
read about it. In other words, the big discussion was: The Air Force said it would need a 70-group program for the minimum defense of the country. If you remember, after World War II----

Drew Pearson was the guy who kept writing about that, "Bring the people back by Christmas." The whole military defense of the United States was really culled down to something that was alarmingly worrisome to people in the military. The great thing we had in those days, we had the bomb; the Russians didn't. Nobody else had one. And we had the B-36, that lumbering old thing that could get over there and do something. As far as deterrence was concerned, that was a pretty good deterrent. Without that we would have been in grave danger because, remember, the Russians had a pretty good military force at the end of the war. They never really cut it back. The American public was told we had to cut it back.

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Early on the Air Force said, "We simply have to have 70 groups." That was 70 groups consisting of all kinds of airplanes, tactical, fighter, interceptors, bombers, and all that sort of thing. Symington fought for that, because that was what he was convinced we should have, the Air Staff.

Now I am talking about after the Air Force became a separate department. Now I was over across the river and reading about this and hearing about it and knowing what the position of the Air Force was, because I had a good relationship with Mr. Symington's office. It was my job, I thought, to keep posted on everything, and I was. At that time I was able to go in and talk to the President anytime I wished about anything.

This came up, this 70-group program versus 50. In those days the President was pretty firm on how much we should spend for the whole Department of Defense. The Bureau of the Budget and his people said, if I remember the figures correctly, the maximum amount of money that the Department of Defense can afford in this particular year, which was about 1947-48, that time period--1948-49 but certainly 1948 because I went over to the White House in February 1948--was $23 billion. That provided for only a 50-group program.

Mr. Symington, the Air Force, felt that that was not adequate for proper air defense, so he went before the congressional committees, the House and the Senate, and said, "We just simply have to have a 70-group program." One day, after testifying like that and knowing that the President's budget provided for only 50 and after having appeared before one of the appropriations committees, Armed Forces Committee--I think it was Senate--the paper, Washington-Post Star, I think

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it was, "Symington Defies HST [Harry S. Truman]." Because he was saying, "We simply have to have 70. "

Symington got a little bit concerned about that. My phone rang, and he said, "Bob, get on your horse and come across here. I want to talk to you right away." So I got in the car and went across the river. He said, "I want you to tell the President that I am in no way defying him. I am in no way trying to be contrary to what he feels is necessary, but in conscience and based upon what I have been advised, we simply should have a 70-group program. I am not trying to defy him. In all sincerity, I am only trying to tell what our people believe is necessary."

I went back, and I said, "Mr. President, Symington asked me to come over, and he just told me to come in and see you, and he is not in any way trying to go contrary to your wishes, but he believes in good conscience that he has to say this." Mr. Truman laughed. He said, "You get back on your horse and go over and tell Stu Symington to keep his mouth shut for a few days and this will all blow over." (laughter) That's an absolute true story.

Did I answer your question about the controversy?

AHMANN: Yes. As long as we are talking about it, the White House then must have been an entirely different thing than it is today as far as size, staff, and access to the President.

LANDRY: You have to bear in mind that any head of any company or any Chief of Staff or any Secretary of Defense or any President has his own organization for the way he operates and the people he wants to have. I happened to sit in on the final

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hearing that the Department of Defense had on how much they would get for their budget. I talked about the $23 billion. That's what, I think, he was thinking about. I think those are the figures.

I think the Department of Defense--Forrestal was there and the Secretaries and the Joint Chiefs and all. I was present. The President said, "Come on and sit in on this." I remember Mr. Truman's way--he went around the table to everybody, if I remember at that time General Bradley [Omar N.] was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. They all had their say. Of course the Air Force did too.

According to the figures as I remember, the total budget for what they all wanted for the Department of Defense came to something like $50 or $60 billion in those days. The President listened to all of it, and he said, "Gentlemen, I appreciate your coming. I am happy to have your ideas. The budget will be $23 billion. Are there any questions?" And that was that. (laughter) So we got a 50-group program.

AHMANN: Symington is quoted as saying, "That was like throwing a piece of raw meat to a bunch of lions," to do that over there at the Pentagon, just say, "This is your limit. You figure out how you are going to spend it."

LANDRY: He had no choice. The President made a decision.

AHMANN: The way the Department of Defense was originally set up, the Secretaries of the Army, Air Force, and Navy had total access to the President. In fact they sat in on Cabinet meetings, as I understand.

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LANDRY: I don't think there was any undercutting of the Secretary of Defense. I think it is like anything: You may go down below the level of the Secretary of Defense. It depends on what the subject is and how deep you want to get into it. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is the chief advisor to the President on military affairs under the Secretary of Defense. If he wants to go down to the level of the department heads or secretaries, I am sure those kinds of meetings did occur, but mostly, I think the high-level stuff, it would be the Secretary of Defense, and for military matters, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

AHMANN: As I understand it, the reverse was true though. Today the Secretary of the Air Force cannot go to the President without first going through the Secretary of Defense.

LANDRY: That was true in those days, too.

AHMANN: I misread it then. I got the impression that Symington could go to Truman anytime he wanted to.

LANDRY: No. He could get a message over there on something like this which was really not a matter of policy. It was personal. The President was very fond of Mr. Symington and had a great regard for him. No. I don't think they would dare bypass the Secretary of Defense then or now, unless the Secretary of Defense said, "Well, maybe you should talk to the Secretary of the Army, Navy, and Air Force on this matter." No, I think the Secretary of Defense would have always been there.

While I think about--last night I was thinking too--I said there was no question in my mind that the air offensive against Germany was very successful and was absolutely

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necessary if there was going to be an invasion, no matter where the invasion took place, and it was very successful. I want to make sure that the record will show that the air offensive against Germany was not just the American Air Force. It was the British; it was partly the British, the night bombing with the big stuff, the flare bombing of the night fighters of the British Air Forces and all of its components, the Canadian part of it. Then also the British had a very important job of the air defense of England. We had no responsibility for that. That is important.

So you see, the air offensive was the combined air forces and not just the American Air Force.

AHMANN: I don't think anybody would get that impression.

LANDRY: They might. It was a combined effort.

AHMANN: That reminds me. Did the people who served in Europe in World War II do better in the Air Force after the war than the guys who had fought World War II in the Pacific?

LANDRY: No. I think that LeMay and SAC--if you got in SAC, you might have had a pretty good chance to move a little faster because SAC, in those days, was really the big thing that we had. They had 90 percent of the fire power which was the big bomb. LeMay built up that and had the choice of people. But not as a consequence of what theater you were in. No, I don't think it made any difference at all.

AHMANN: Going back to Spaatz a minute, did he seem pretty much at ease in his job as first Chief of Staff of the Air Force?

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LANDRY: Yes. He became the first Chief of the Air Force in September when the Air Force became a separate service. Before that he was Chief of the Army Air Forces, and Symington was Secretary of the Army Air Forces. No. General Spaatz was always a man of ease. I have never seen him really overly excited, demonstrably so. He was not as bombastic as the stories you
hear about Arnold throwing the inkwells around the room and hitting the ceiling and all. (laughter)

AHMANN: Before I forget, a biography is in the process of being researched on Spaatz by a retired Air Force colonel named Dave Mets [David R.] who is now living down at Fort Walton Beach (FL). He used to be the Air University Review editor, and he has his PhD in history. He has been going around talking to people that had any association with Spaatz. I don't know if he will ever get to you or if he will ever get out here. I can get his name and send it to you if you ever have any comments to make about General Spaatz.

What would you say Spaatz' greatest contribution was at this time period? Did he bring something special to that office that none of his contemporaries had, do you think?

LANDRY: I think only to the extent that he was dedicated to the idea that airpower was going to be a very, very important aspect of winning any war and should have the flexibility of creating, deploying, and fighting the air battle, and that his leadership in that effort and also during the war was outstanding. He was one of the oldtimers, if you want to look at it that way, and he was part of a team of Arnold, Eaker, and many of the others that I didn't know personally. It was a matter of confidence in all of these people that

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worked together. There was some little political stuff, as between the rank and this sort of thing, but Arnold and Spaatz were great friends and worked together very well. I think General Spaatz was an excellent choice for the job he was given over in Europe.

AHMANN: Could you have characterized Spaatz as an intellectual at all, any kind of a thinker?

LANDRY: I have heard about intellectuals and all that sort of thing, and if you want to----

AHMANN: We will call Kuter an intellectual. On a comparative basis, where would you put Spaatz then?

LANDRY: I have no ax to grind with Kuter.

AHMANN: No. I'm just saying he strikes me as being one of these guys that didn't have much charisma to speak of, and he was more of a thinker than a doer; whereas, some people are better at getting people to work together, or some people are better at originating ideas. I am just trying to characterize Spaatz.

LANDRY: I think we touched on that yesterday when you said certain people who had been instrumental in the plans and building up the air offensive came to the combat area to try to take command, and they just didn't work out. There is nothing against Kuter. Kuter's job, as I remember his development, promotion, and jobs he had, was always kind of like a staff man, writing staff papers, advice and guidance, to Marshall. He was always on those levels. Spaatz was not so much that type as he created confidence in the combat zone. He was a man who was not what you want to call an intellectual. Hell,

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he didn't want to bother with all of that sort of thing. He tried to surround himself with people who could do the job. Like he played poker at night, he could relax and get on with the war, and he wasn't in the backroom trying to write a bunch of papers or that sort of thing. Certain people have certain characteristics, and Kuter would never, in my opinion, be a great commander. He may have run the Tactical School, and he may have had Air Transport Command or whatever it was in those days, but I don't think he would ever have been a man in Spaatz' place, as bright as he was.

AHMANN: That's what I say. He just didn't have that "good fellow" approach to life at all, very gentlemanly and all that, but he just didn't have that charisma like a Spaatz.

LANDRY: You can't write a rule for who is a leader. You can't write a rule. You think about that: Was he a good leader? A good leader is a man who, without really making a major effort,
inspires people to do their job. I think Spaatz, in his quiet way, inspired people. He could be tough.

The definition of an intellectual is a guy who sits in a backroom and uses big words and seems to know a great deal about things that a lot of other people don't, and he can project things and get quick answers. That's an intellectual. I think the word intellectual is overdone.

I think the more important thing is: What kind of a guy is a leader that can make a company successful in civilian life or can be a military leader and win the battles and campaigns?

AHMANN: One of the questions I always ask: Did you ever develop, during your Air Force days, a technique of leadership, or what is leadership?

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LANDRY: I think leadership is trying to inspire your people to try and do the job that has been assigned to you, whether it is the overall policy missions at the Department of Defense level or whether it is a squadron, group, or wing out there. It is the idea that the people not necessarily like you. Maybe they like the manner in which you deal with them. Maybe they know that you will support them, and maybe they know they might catch hell if things aren't done right. I think it is inspiration. It is the fact that, "Gee, why do we like this guy? We are glad to work for him," sort of thing.

AHMANN: Do you think leadership can be learned, or is it something that you kind of like have to be born with?

LANDRY: I think it is the kind of thing that you may develop as you go through life, and you must be born with it. Look at Patton. He was pretty goddarn tough and rude with the English language and that sort of thing, and a lot of people said bad things about Patton. But goddamn it, he was good in the field. I don't know how you achieve being a leader. You are made a leader by the people who are working for you. I don't think you can go to school and say, "Well, I have to
develop this characteristic," because a lot of people are put in a job, and they just don't get it done because somehow or the other the people don't do the job well. It seems to me you are born with it.

AHMANN: Where was Eaker during this time period? He was the Vice Chief.

LANDRY: I forget what he was when he went down to North Africa.

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AHMANN: I am talking about after the war.

LANDRY: Oh, after the war. He came in as Vice Chief for awhile for General Spaatz. Then I don't know where he went after that.

AHMANN: He retired.

LANDRY: That's what I thought. I think after that he retired from the Vice Chief.

AHMANN: Had he expected to be made Chief of Staff, do you think?

LANDRY: I really can't answer that. It may be that he didn't want it. He was, for the good of the country, one man who was able to write about airpower and continued to write about it. He wrote some very good articles. I really don't know why he retired. I really don't know why he didn't move up as the Chief when General Spaatz retired. I really don't know.

AHMANN: That's another question I had. General Vandenberg (Hoyt S.) was made Chief of Staff. I interviewed General Norstad a few years ago, and I asked him. There is some school of thought that maintains the reason Vandenberg was chosen Chief of Staff was that he was nephew to Senator Vandenberg [Arthur H., R-MI ] , and Truman saw this as a good way to encourage Senator Vandenberg to be nice to Harry Truman.

LANDRY: I have heard that story too, that maybe because Senator Vandenberg, who was a Republican, was the uncle of General Vandenberg, that that would be a good move, and we might have a friend on the Hill. I think there has to be something to that, but I don't know how you would apply that against the fact that General Eaker didn't move up and become Chief of

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Staff before Vandenberg did. I think there must have been something between General Spaatz and Ira Eaker, that they decided they wanted to do it this way. I think there was no question about the closeness, love, affection, and respect that General Spaatz had for Eaker and vice versa. I think that was something they must have decided on among themselves.

AHMANN: Another thing I have heard someone speculate, General, that a whole generation was jumped in effect. You had Spaatz and Eaker and Giles (Lt. Gen. Barney M.) and Howard Davidson; you had that whole group of general officers. Then you had the Vandenbergs, the Norstads, and people like yourself. They just bypassed that whole group and went to the next generation. That's too good a theory in retrospect, is it?

LANDRY: I don't know. Do you remember when General Fairchild [Muir S.] came in as Vice Chief? They went way down. Fairchild was not a man--I think it was Fairchild--who had a lot of publicity, but he had the respect of a lot of those senior officers who were in a position to make, support the next Vice Chief or Chief. I think he was brought in there, perhaps, as Vice Chief with the idea that he might then succeed to Chief of Staff. Those are the kinds of things that nobody can really tell what happened, because it isn't politics it is a kind of feeling among those people in senior positions that maybe this is the best way to go for the service, for the good of that particular service.

AHMANN: Here is a note. In 1947 the War Department General Staff, the Chief of Staff was Eisenhower, and Director of Plans and Operations was General Norstad. That was when the War
Department still existed. Let me jump ahead here. The

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Department of the Air Force--this would have been in 1948. Vandenberg was Chief of Staff; Vice Chief was Fairchild. Norstad was DCS [Deputy Chief of Staff] Operations. The Air University was established after World War II down at Maxwell. In your mind, in those days or later on, was the Air University a source for concept and doctrines? Was that going to be the Air Force think tank down there at one time?

LANDRY: I don't know what the mission of it was. I know it was created. We had a Command and Staff School there, I think, before that. Then I think we wanted something similar, maybe, to what the Army and the Navy had, something that was a higher thing, perhaps a think tank, perhaps where you could discuss policy and long-range plans. I really don't know anything about that, except that we created it, and it was sort of a step in the educational system of the Air Force above what you say the Command and General Staff School was.

AHMANN: What was your judgment of professional military education [PME] after the war? Would you say it was a necessary thing, a good thing, or kind of drain? What was your personal
opinion on that?

LANDRY: I don't know a great deal about that. My gut reaction was that the way we set up the educational system in the Air Force is not unlike that in the other services, but I think we have a very good one. I think it has played a very useful role, and I think it is kind of good for what you call our up-and-coming senior officers, the lieutenant colonels, the colonels, and that sort of thing, and even the brigadier generals or whatever rank goes into them. I think it is a damn good thing. Then going to the top thing of course, sort of like the master's degree and universities.

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I think the National War College is a very, very fine institution. That puts you on the level of bringing in State Department policy and that sort of thing. The only reason for a military is to support the policy, foreign policy and domestic policy of the United States. So there you bring all of those things together, and you get a little bit bigger picture of what things are all about.

AHMANN: When you were over at the National War College, did you have to write any research papers or these kinds of studies?

LANDRY: Oh, yes. It was a committee sort of thing. There were no grades or anything like that. The committees met, and the men wrote their own versions. It is the kind of thing, something like a think tank. When men of great potential get together, they don't argue; they debate, discuss. They don't necessarily disagree, but it is a place where you can get a lot of things out on the table. And just the fact that you are doing that, when these people become commanders or are in responsible staff planning and operations, I think it sets them up to be good leaders, good planners.

AHMANN: I have a note here going back to something we just talked about. In Spaatz' letter of resignation to Symington in March 1948, the upshot was that Spaatz was determined to see the job through, and then after he had gotten this unification thing, he wanted to "turn the reins over to a younger man." So apparently Spaatz had some influence, too, as to who was going to be the next Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

LANDRY: I don't think there would be any question that the sitting Chief of Staff would have a hell of a lot to say about who

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would be his successor. In March 1948 I had moved across the river, in February 1948.

AHMANN: Was that your time to leave, when Spaatz left?

LANDRY: It wasn't coincidental or anything like that. I didn't know when General Spaatz was going to retire. I don't think anybody did. After unification Symington and General Spaatz apparently felt that now that we had a separate department, we should have somebody in uniform over at the White House that was on a par with the representatives of those services, the Army and the Navy, on Mr. Truman's staff if it was acceptable to the President. They felt strongly about this. A lot of this, of course, went on without my knowledge because it just sort of happened.

At that time Mr. Truman had Maj. Gen. Harry [B.] Vaughn, who was one of his buddies and had a gun battery in World War I, and he represented the Army and the Air Force before we became a separate service. The Navy had Admiral Dennison [Robert Lee], a two-star admiral, a very fine man, to represent the Navy. So General Spaatz and the Secretary felt that maybe we ought to have a man over there. They decided on that. I am told that several people were being considered
for it. I was one of them.

I got a call one night at 10 o'clock at home that I was to report to the White House as the Air Force Aide to the President. I was a colonel. I had heard a lot about what was going on, but I naturally wasn't consulted. So there I was. It was kind of an exciting thing to be told to report
to the White House. I had never been in the bloody White

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House. I had never known a President, and here I was going to go over as the Air Force Aide.

Well, I went there, and that is how I got over there.

AHMANN: That was all there was to it. You had not known Truman.

LANDRY: No. I had not known Truman.

I came from the South, and a lot of people had said, "You must have been a Democrat because you were appointed." I would say, "I was neutral. I have never been anything," until after I got out of the service. I can remember General Spaatz, though, telling me when I was going over there--I don't know how this happened because I must have known a little bit about it before. I don't know just how it was. He said, "Bob, when you go over there, get all dressed up. Put all of your medals on." I have a few medals and all that thing. "Look important." But that is how I got over there.

AHMANN: Little has been written about what an aide does, or why or whether. When you went over there, was there a description of what your duties were going to be?

LANDRY: I was going to say that in that kind of job, no, there is no job description. It comes as a pretty exhilarating thing when somebody tells you you are going to be on the President's Staff. When I got over there, there was absolutely no job description. I knew I was supposed to represent the Air Force on that level. I knew I couldn't do

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anything like the Joint Chiefs of Staff do and impose myself on it. So I had to kind of feel my way.

When I reported there at 9:30, the President was having a press conference. I went in and met him. He always had a smile on his face. He said, "Colonel, I'm certainly glad to see you. You are going to be my Air Force Aide. I want you to know that you are going to be one of the family. We are going to have a press conference here, and you are going to be very interested in what you see and hear. I want you to stand behind me there with Harry Vaughn and Bob Dennison while this press conference goes on." So we stood there like potted palms and listened as we did every time he had a press conference.

Then I got a secretary, and I got an office. I said to myself, "What the hell am I supposed to do here?" You get a little publicity in the press, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going to do what the President wants me to do." So now we get into what you really did do. There was no job description. His only instructions to me was, "You are now a member of the family." Every morning at 9: 30 he had a conference with about 8 or 10 of his personal staff, his various secretaries for correspondence, for appointments, Matt Connelly [Matthew]; his assistant, John Steelman; his legal man at that time, Clark [M. ] Clifford; for correspondence was Bill--what was Bill's last name. There were about six or eight, and then the three aides sat in there. We didn't get into detailed discussion like the assistants did, but if you had anything to say about your own service or if a person wanted to know something, he might ask you. Or he might ask you just to check on something. It was a free-wheeling kind of thing, and it was the kind of thing

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that at the time you wondered whether you were really earning your pay.

The President believed in and had a great deal of respect for the Armed Forces, contrary to what some people have said. He liked to see the representation of the services on there. He told me that at one time he had been interested in going to West Point, but he said, "I had such bad eyes I couldn't," so he never did that, but he had his military experience in World War I as a battery commander, proud of that, National Guard outfit. Harry Vaughn had a battery next to him. So he knew something about the military, and he had a great deal of respect and admiration for them.

AHMANN: Did he ever demonstrate what his appreciation of airpower or the Air Force was? Did he seem to have a good idea of what it could or could not do?

LANDRY: I think, yes, he did, but I think nobody had ever been able to get into the White House and really talk to the President directly about airpower. That was what I was able to do. The President, every day, used to go in the library and swim and get a rubdown and relax. I used to go in the gym and work out, because I always liked to do that. I had a chance to talk to him about things in a personal way. I think what I am going to say will answer your question.

I got the impression that maybe the President really didn't know, not enough, but he had never been exposed to the real mission or what the Air Force is supposed to do or might do, what its capabilities were, its organization. I said to him one day, "Mr. President, I think something that might be helpful to you, since we have a new department, I would

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suggest that maybe you let us put on a little briefing for you. Let me talk to Secretary Symington and then Vandenberg. Let me put on a briefing on what airpower really is, what its mission is, what SAC can do, and I think it will be interesting." He said, "That's fine. You just lay it on."

I talked to Mr. Symington and General Vandenberg. J. B. Montgomery was the Executive officer and a good briefer. We put it on in the Cabinet room, and for the first time, the President was told about the overall mission of the Air Force. He really appreciated it. On any number of occasions, I was able to talk to him about it, not that I was trying to sell him on anything that was not good for the Department of Defense, but what was a better appreciation of what you say is airpower--its capabilities, limitations, and its application. I think he enjoyed it. Of course he liked to fly; he was in Air Force One. I don't think I sold it any more. I wasn't trying to be a salesman.

I just wanted to say that it wasn't that I was trying to promote something. I just thought it was a good thing for him to know, and he was glad to be able to learn it.

The point I am trying to make is: Having a representative of that department now that was co-equal was a good thing. Even though I had no job description, it was kind of left in my good judgment or bad judgment as what to do.

AHMANN: Of course you mentioned the time Symington called you to pass the word, but did the Air Force ever come to you and say, "Colonel, kind of put this word in for us if you can"? Did they ever try to--I hate to use the word "use"--I mean, utilize you or take advantage of your good office and

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association with the President to support an Air Force position in that sense?

LANDRY: I gave you one example where Secretary Symington was accused in the press of defying the President. Sure, that was one place where I put that at ease. In other words, Symington kind of worried if somebody said he was defying the Commander in Chief. I told you that story.

I can tell you another story of how that position was useful. Rosie O'Donnell was Commander of the Fifteenth Air Force. The Fifteenth Air Force provided the bombers we used in Korea, the B-29.

You may remember they were not allowed to go beyond the Yalu River to drop their bombs. They did only daytime bombing. Well, Rosie's B-29s were out there, and there was a limitation on how far they could go. What the Koreans were doing was just staying behind that line; they had batteries there and everything else. You could see them, and we knew it, but we weren't allowed to go across the line to bomb them. When they knew that, they were able to meet us at the line, and the B-29s began to take some heavy damage. So that changed how they used those
bombers.

Rosie went out to Korea to look into the situation and came back and had a press conference, as the press wanted to have. "What do you think of the situation out there, General O'Donnell?" He handled it very well. He didn't say anything that we ought to drop bombs on or that we ought to use atomic weapons or anything that way. He handled it very, you might say, properly.

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After that public thing in his office, he had some of his staff and somebody I think he kind of trusted in the press. He said, "Goddamn it, hell, we ought to use all the fire power we have got to defeat these people." It came out in the press that Rosie O'Donnell had said, "We ought to drop
the bomb. We ought to use the A-bomb." He hadn't said that at all. He said, "We ought to use all the fire power we have got most efficiently." But he thought he was saying that in private to some of his staff.

The press said, "Rosie O'Donnell says we ought to drop the bomb." Well, with that Vandenberg got all exorcised, and rightfully so. Here was one of his Air Force Commanders, of SAC, saying we ought to drop the bomb. He called me up, and he said, "Bob, come on over here. I want to talk to you." He told me that he had read this and had I seen it. I said, "I sure have," because Mr. Steelman had brought me a copy of it off the teleprinter by United Press, so I knew about it. He said, "I want you to tell the President that I have ordered Rosie O'Donnell to come and report to me on what he has done," like as if he might be on the hotseat and lose his job.

I went back across the river, and I went to see Matt Connelly. I said, "Matt, I have to get in to see Mr. Truman. I just talked to the Chief of Staff about something that he asked me to talk to him. "Matt said, "Okay. Go on in." That's the way you do those things on the staff. "Wait until in between the appointments, then go on in."

I went in, and I told him what I am telling you now. The President laughed again--no, first of all, I said, "Mr. Truman, I don't know whether Mr. Steelman has told you about

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that, but"--and he hadn't heard it because it was so quickly in the papers. I said, "He is accused of this. I would like to tell you something about Rosie O'Donnell. Rosie O'Donnell is one hell of a commander in the field." I told him how it happened and obviously the press had overstated this thing, and that Vandenberg was very much concerned because any talk about using the bomb is very bad. I mean, that stirs up the whole population. You know what is going on now. I said, "Vandenberg wants you to know, Mr. President, that he has ordered Rosie to report to him immediately and tell him what this is all about."

Again with a smile on his face, he said, "Well, you tell General Van not to worry about this." I told the President that "Rosie is a fighting Irishman, and he wouldn't say anything that he really didn't mean, but I don't think he would be silly enough to start talking about the bomb. This has to be something that the press has put out." He smiled, and said, "You go back and tell General Van not to be concerned about this. I believe I would have said the same thing if I had been in O'Donnell's place." That was the end of that.

Rosie came in, talked to Van. Van knew about it. I said, "Now Mr. President, the guy who is really worried about this, besides General Vandenberg, is General O'Donnell. I know General O'Donnell. We were lieutenants together at Hickam Field, and I know what Rosie is like. He is one hell of a fighting man and a good Air Force officer. Can I call him and tell him what you have said?" He said, "Sure, you call him up and tell him exactly what I said." So Rosie came to Washington at ease instead of thinking he was going to lose his job.

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Those are the kinds of things that you could and could not do.

AHMANN: We were talking about Harry Vaughn. I was looking through an old New York Times here, and it says here, "Vaughn's Self-Elevation and Rank Fails in Brief White House Coup." It said here, "The White House was shaken today by a palace coup in which Maj. Gen. Harry Vaughn, President Truman's military aide, announced his own elevation to be Chief Armed Forces Aide. He did not hold the position very long." Then it goes on that apparently Vaughn was talking to some reporter--here it is:

In his usual morning news conference at 10:30, Charles Ross, the President's Secretary announced that Col Robert Landry, native of New Orleans, would be the Air Force Aide. This was in keeping with unification of the Armed Forces. Two hours later a radio reporter encountered General Vaughn in the lobby, and the general casually mentioned the new title.

Apparently Vaughn, on his own, had decided he was going to be the chief aide of all the aides. Do you remember that incident at all?

LANDRY: I remember the stuff in the press.

AHMANN: I don't know if you can even read that or not, General. Just leave it there.

LANDRY: I remember that in the press. Of course Vaughn had represented the Army, which included the Air Force. I don't know; I don't think that Harry felt that I was just working for him. I think that's what they implied.

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AHMANN: That was the gist: all you guys were going to work for him.

LANDRY: No, I don't think so at all because I happen to know that there was an unofficial contact, a young Air Force colonel that used to report to Harry Vaughn over there before the unification. I knew that fellow, and he did report to Vaughn. So in a sense, Harry could say the Air Force was reporting to him, and he was the overall representative for the Army and the Air Force. But I don't think there was any question, he knew when I got there that I was representing
the Air Force. He supported my position. I got along very well with Harry. I don't think that he ever tried to superimpose himself over me. I had my own office; I had my own secretary. We jointly went out together, and I could report to the President. I didn't have to go to Harry Vaughn
about a darn thing. We got along very well, and that's just a lot of hokum, that stuff.

AHMANN: Was Vaughn just a crony in the nice sense rather than a negative sense? Was he just a good friend of Harry Truman? Was that his job really?

LANDRY: I think he was supported by Mr. Truman. He was a close friend, and like anything on a personal staff. He had known Harry Vaughn. I guess he brought him in there. That was before my days. Everybody uses the word "crony." I don't know what a crony is supposed to be. I was no crony in the sense that I had never seen the President. Bob Dennison was no crony, although he had met the President many years before when the President went down on the Arizona, which Bob Dennison was the captain on that ship when he went down to South America. I wouldn't call him a crony; he knew him. I didn't know the President.

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If you want to take us in line, you could say Harry Vaughn was the guy closest, had known the President longest. Bob Dennison had met him before, and the President was impressed with him. I don't know whether he asked for him or not when he became the Navy Aide. At one time Clark Clifford represented the Navy before he got out of the service before I got there. Clark Clifford was a lieutenant commander and was the Navy representative to the President.

I wanted to ask you about crony.

AHMANN: Crony, that kind of denotes that he got the job because he was a friend. Crony has taken on a bad meaning, I think.

LANDRY: That's what I mean, the way it is now, notwithstanding the fact that he wasn't capable; he just happened to be a good buddy some guy has put in a responsible position. I would say he was put in the position because he was an old and dear friend of the President. When he had the Army representative --Harry was a National Guardsman, I believe and now in the Reserve. Yes, he was a personal friend and put in that position because he was a good friend, got his promotion because of that, but he was near and dear to the President. Harry was a whip. As I said yesterday off the record, he was a deacon in the church. He didn't drink, and he didn't smoke. Unfortunately, anything Harry said was sometimes a little unfortunate. It made good print, and the press liked to take that up and berate him because it, in a sense, reflected on the President.

AHMANN: Who was this J. K. Vardeman, Jr. [phonetic]?

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LANDRY: Vardeman was the man whom, right after the war, the President brought in there. I think he was from Missouri. He was the man who represented the Navy. Clark Clifford was his assistant. Vardeman left and got an appointment on one of the commissions.

AHMANN: James Foskett [phonetic]?

LANDRY: That fellow, I didn't know, but I think he was also in that office, the Naval representative. At that time we had the admiral, "The Old Sea Dog" who had been a special Naval advisor to Mr. Roosevelt, who was still over there. He was carried over from the Roosevelt organization. The Naval office over there handled a lot of the administration that came from the Joint Chiefs. They had a pretty good staff there. They had a number of people. Vardeman. He was a four-star man over there. He stayed there until he retired. I will think of his name. We will look it up.

Bear in mind that Eisenhower had a different arrangement, and I don't know what it was. He didn't have, as such, an Army, Navy, and Air Force Aide. Nixon [President Richard M.] didn't have exactly that. I don't know if Ford [President Gerald R.] had----

AHMANN: It is obvious that this is the classic example of--it is like, for example, I seem to get the impression that the Secretary of the Air Force today, there is no on-paper arrangement for the most part as to how he is supposed to deal with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Unless they build up some kind of personal rapport, they just kind of work side by side with each other and do not have a lot to do with each other.

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LANDRY: Let's say there is no set TO [table of organization].

AHMANN: Going back to when you were working with Spaatz as the Executive, I sometimes get the impression that the Air Force was still in flux as to what kind of an air force it wanted. Did it want to have a SAC and a TAC and Continental Air Command and an Air Defense? The actual setting up of the Air Force seemed to be in flux at this time. Do you recall that at all?

LANDRY: I think in flux, you might mean as a consequence of what we had learned in World War II, as a reflection of what the particular Chief of Staff wanted to see done and his staff recommended to him, the concept of these big commands were created which made possible the carrying out of the mission of the Air Force as determined by the Secretary of Defense. A state of flux would mean to me that they determined after the war that this command structure was the best thing.

There was deliberation about it, what kind of command you wanted. These were lessons learned from the war. As of today, the command structure is pretty much the same as was determined in those early on days, and it has worked very well.

AHMANN: I have a note here that some people give a great deal of credit, or whatever word you want to use, to Eisenhower. That it was Eisenhower insisting to Spaatz that there be a Tactical Air Command established to make sure that the Army still would get its ground close air support. That was one reason there was a separate Tactical Air Command established; the Army was very afraid that the Air Force might put that down as a lesser priority.

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LANDRY: I am sure there must have been some discussion when Ike was Chief of Staff of the Army and Spaatz was around there. They had been together during the war. And the mission provided that the Air Force would provide tactical support to the ground forces. As a matter of fact, it was a good thing that we had a tactical air force that generated the need for funds. It was one of those things to do away with duplication. There wasn't any point in the Army having a tactical air force. That assured the Army that they would get the support.

AHMANN: Was there any talk of the Air Force simply becoming a bomber force, and the Army would keep the fixed-wing close air support?

LANDRY: I don't think we will ever go back to that. I think we have a very effective organization. As far as I can hear, read, or see, the Tactical Air Command can and would give the proper support to the ground forces. I don't think, at the level of coordination and command, there is any great friction at all. It would be completely silly for the Army now to create a tactical air command. I mean, I don't think Congress would buy that. I don't think the Secretary of Defense would, and I don't think the Commander in Chief would want it.

AHMANN: Going back to World War II in Europe for a minute, as the war progressed did you start doing close air support for troops in combat?

LANDRY: Sure.

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AHMANN: I gather at the start of the war, though, this was not too common a procedure.

LANDRY: At the start of the war, we had no battlefield in Europe.

AHMANN: I mean in North Africa, for example.

LANDRY: Yes, in North Africa there was support, but there we didn't have an awful lot of American forces committed. That was largely, greatly an air battle. But yes, sure, the British were there in force. I think the real development of American air support occurred over in Europe after the invasion. Look in the history and you will see what 0. P. Weyland's support of the American's right flank did to get--Patton said, "I have turned over my complete security to Tactical Air Command." Then Patton swung around, pivoted right on around. They had to stop him. The only thing that stopped him from going into Berlin was the political decisions that stopped, plus the fact that he ran out of gas, oil, and maps. (laughter)

AHMANN: I hadn't heard about those maps.

LANDRY: I think it was the 2d Division, the B-24s were stood down from combat operations to drop supplies and everything to him, but it was that kind of tactical support. Quesada [Lt. Gen. Elwood R., "Pete"] had the air force that supported other elements.

AHMANN: As I read the history books, in Europe they established--at some point when we got over on the Continent, they decided to put air-to-ground communications in jeeps and a pilot. That kind of concept had not existed before. Is that true.

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LANDRY: Do you mean communications with the airplanes in the air?

AHMANN: Yes, from the ground troops right at the frontline there.

LANDRY: That's right. I remember going to Vandenberg's headquarters. He had a big van which was his forward command post, not too far back from the frontlines. Although with the tactical air force command, you have to be right there with the ground troops. That coordination with the ground troops and the air components was developed and became a very close air support. Yes, we had never had anything like that. There again, all of these things developed as a consequence of the war.

AHMANN: You don't know until you have to do it.

LANDRY: You don't argue about who has the responsibility. We had the equipment. We had a war going on, and that was the important thing: How jointly you can operate and get the maximum effective use out of these people. So we had a very, very big tactical air support for the ground forces on the Continent. And it worked.

AHMANN: You mentioning that reminds me of what Gen Blair Garland [Maj. Gen. Elmer B.] said. He went in with his tactical air command communications. It was D-day plus 1 or 2. He was there. He has some home movies of the beach. You see all these films about world War II and eventually you keep seeing the same film, newsreel. But these are in color, and the color hasn't faded. He shows them marching these Wehrmacht captured soldiers down the beach and onto the boats. It is really a fascinating film. But he was there. You are right. He brought Quesada's communications to Europe. He was getting shot at. He said he really earned his money.

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LANDRY: They weren't very far behind the enemy lines, I'll tell you. They moved forward just as the ground forces moved forward.

AHMANN: Let me ask you that. Did the Battle of the Bulge, did that German attack come as a big surprise to everybody? Do you remember any warning about that?

LANDRY: I think there was enough that came out publicly that there was a big battle going on, and this was the last desperate effort of the Germans and who said to the commander--what was his name? The famous thing, "Nuts!" McAuliffe [Gen. Anthony C.]. "You surrender or else." He told them, "Nuts!" (laughter) I mean, we heard that kind of thing, but we knew the Battle of the Bulge was on. We knew that was the last desperate effort.

AHMANN: But there was no indication that the Germans were building up that you recall? Any intel?

LANDRY: No, I don't think we got any intelligence about that at all. I think by that time the damage had been done and what we knew in the field--we weren't privy to a lot of intelligence. It was pretty obvious to most everybody that the war was coming to an end pretty soon. It was just a question of when.

AHMANN: When you first went to Europe, how were people looking at the war? Was this going to be a long war, or were there time tables being set up, the milestones they were going to try to reach?

LANDRY: I think anybody who was somehow or the other associated with the military, I don't know how close or what available

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intelligence they had, but the grand strategy; you knew about that. The decision made by the Combined Chiefs of Staff at that time Marshall, the British, and everybody else-Canadians, Americans, whoever was on that Combined Chiefs of Staff--to the President, at that time Roosevelt and to Churchill [Sir Winston]. The grand strategy had been set now after the North African invasion to go after the Germans first. That we would eventually take care of the Japanese. Those kinds of things we knew.

We knew, of course, that MacArthur (Gen. Douglas] and Admiral Nimitz [Fleet Adm. Chester] was in the Pacific, and some of the controversy that went on there, which way they went, was interesting to hear about. But I think that kind of stuff we heard about.

When I went over there in 1942-43, the first units were there, I don't think anybody knew how long it was going to take, but I don't think there was anybody that didn't feel we were going to take these Germans on, and we were going to have an invasion, and it had to be done, and it would be done. I don't think there was ever the slightest idea of defeatism. When we all realized what the British had put up against----

AHMANN: Yes, they had been in the war 3 years almost before we got in.

LANDRY: We knew Roosevelt wanted 50,000 airplanes a year built, and we could do it. I don't think there was ever the slightest feeling that there might be some question about this. I think it got scary towards the end when we found out about these big holes in the ground, and the rockets coming.

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We knew, we heard about the possibility of the heavy water up in Norway, the bomber that we loaded with the most highest explosives that we had at that time, flown by one of the Kennedy boys. It blew up. We knew--I think there was enough filtering down--of the possibility of some kind of a weapon system.

Nobody talked about an atomic bomb, but they had some kind of an explosive that could be very bad. Then first the buzz bombs that was a new weapon, then the V-2, and then the appearance of that jet you talked about. Those things were alarming to the extent that maybe the Germans were coming up with something we didn't know about. In retrospect I think most people believe now that if they had developed the bomb, they might have developed some kind of bomb 6 to 9 months after the war ended, if they would have lasted that long. With a bomb, it could have changed the whole course of the war.

The time element was pretty important, not knowing what they were going to put in those V-1s and V-2s. They went up there and came back down with nothing but a normal explosive, but you never knew where they were going to land.

There was never any defeatist attitudes among anybody I knew, that we wouldn't take the Germans.

AHMANN: Going back to your days with Spaatz as Executive, did you ever deal with Forrestal at all?

LANDRY: I got to know Mr. Forrestal very well while I was over in the White House. Every Monday morning Mr. Forrestal came in for a private or special meeting about 9 o'clock before the big

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meeting. He always came in the east entrance. My office was near the east entrance, and very often I was on the way over to the staff conference for 9:30. I would see Mr. Forrestal and walk over from the east wing to the President's Office. I got to know him very well. He was a very effective guy. He had been a boxer in college. I was very much impressed with him. I mean, just talking to him, I felt pretty important. I thought he was a great man and a good man. I never really got to know him any more than that, but he called me Bob all the time. We had chitchats and this sort of thing, but other than that, I never had any dealings with him.

It was a great surprise when we found out that he was so intense and concerned about Communism that he was waking up at night and writing himself notes and was really just kind of having a nervous breakdown about the whole thing. Not that he was frightened, but it just sort of got to him. He was one of the people who insisted on and believed in unification and believed in trying to eliminate all of the in-fighting on the budget. The President had great confidence in him. He was a very good man.

AHMANN: 1948 was the Presidential election year. How did that affect you as the military aide? This whole business that we had a whole political year. Did you go to the conventions with President Truman, or did you stay back in the White House? How did that affect you?

LANDRY: I don't know if this is important or not, but we went with the President everywhere he went, normally, or I did if he flew. In June 1948 he took a trip which was a so-called June non-political trip to the Northwest and came down the east coast and down the southern route on what he called a

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non-political trip. The three aides were on that, and a good part of his personal staff was on that. It was great fun. That's when he stopped and did those whistlestops, appeared on the rear of the President's car and had tremendous crowds everywhere he went. Well, that was a great experience.

That was considered to be a non-political trip. We played no part in that except to be along and be with the President and represent the services. We were in uniform, of course.

When they got into the campaign, we had no part to play in it at all. When I got this assignment in February, Mr. Truman was going to run for office there in November, the voting. Some of my good friends in the Pentagon used to kid me, and so did Barry Goldwater [Senator Barry M., R-AZ]; one time he said, "You are probably going to have the shortest assignment in your Air Force career. You came here in February; you will be out of a job in November." I said, "I don't believe that. I don't believe that at all, not after what I saw happen on this trip, the great interest of the people." The campaign of the "do-nothing" Congress took effect. And the Congress did nothing that year, really, in terms of achieving any bills and that sort of thing.

To answer your question: No, we didn't get into the political end of it, but I knew Bill Boyle, who was the Democratic National Chairman from Missouri, very well. He came in to see the President a great deal. We talked an awful lot about the thing. I told him one time, "Bill, everybody thinks Dewey [Gov. Thomas E., R-NY] has this thing sewed up. I don't know. I just have a feel of what I saw, what I hear, what I read, I just think Mr. Truman is going to get elected." I was one of the few around. (laughter)

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I can remember at home. We all had a red telephone, right to the White House switchboard, all the personal staff. I could pick that phone up and talk to anybody. Along about 11 o'clock that night--the night of the election--it was still undecided, but it looked like Mr. Truman might get in. It certainly was not going to be a landslide for Dewey. So I called up Bill Boyle, I said, "Bill, we were talking about this thing. You and I felt pretty strong about this. It looks to me like the President is in." He said, "I don't think there is any question about it." I said, "How is he taking it?" He said, "I just talked to him. He decided to go to bed and wait and see what happens tomorrow morning." (laughter)

AHMANN: I couldn't handle that. Did Truman seem changed at all after winning that election? Did this change him in any way that you ever perceived?

LANDRY: No. I don't think there was ever any question in the man's mind that he was going to get reelected. When they had the headline in the Chicago Tribune, "Dewey Beats Truman," he got a big kick out of that. He laughed and laughed and laughed. He never gloated over it; he never felt any different than before that he was going to win this thing. Dewey was not the guy.

AHMANN: During the campaign, like during the convention time and then when Truman was out on the road, you just stayed at the White House?

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: How did you keep busy then?

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LANDRY: That's a good question. The President was not out that much, himself. No, he was not out that much. I don't remember flying to any particular place where he was going to make a speech. He didn't go out that much. Members of the Cabinet went out. He may have done some things, but I don't recall anything where he used Air Force One to do that. I really don't know.

It wasn't like it is now. You start campaigning 2 years before. I don't think he really got into the thing until that June trip. He said it was a non-political trip. The press said it was so obvious that it was a political trip. So you could say his campaign started from June until November. So he wasn't gone a great deal of the time.

AHMANN: I just glanced through Truman's biographies and diaries. It is apparent that you really did travel with him in the sense, like it talks about on Lincoln's birthday you went with him to lay a wreath.

LANDRY: We went with him every time. Very often Harry Vaughn and I would carry it up, or Bob Dennison. We went with him on everything around Washington. Every time he used to go see his sister before she died in Kansas City, we always went with him, stayed in the Muehlebach Hotel. He took over the fifth floor, and we all stayed there, the Secret Service and everything. We all went with him twice a year down to Key West. Things like that, his personal staff.

AHMANN: It also notes that you were the one to tell President Truman that General Arnold had died.

LANDRY: I don't remember that, but those kinds of things I probably mentioned to him. Yes.

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AHMANN: You went to the ball games with him.

LANDRY: I went to the football game. I got him to go to a football game. He had never been to an Army-Navy game. He had never been to an Army-Navy game, if I recall right. I have pictures of it here if you want to see it. Afterwards, I will show them all to you. I said, "Mr. Truman, don't you think you ought to go see an Army-Navy football game?" He said, "Why not?" I said, "We ought to go and take the family." So we got a special train. I said, "Do you mind if I invite a couple of my friends to go?" He said, "Certainly not." So I invited two of my friends and their wives, and we went on up there to the football game. We had a great time.

AHMANN: Is that where at half time he would change sides?

LANDRY: Yes. It is kind of hard to say what you actually did. I made this study I told you about, "Witch Hunting," because he wanted to, once and for all, tell the public that guilt by association is un-American. On the one, he called me one day to come over to the office right away. He said, "I am going to have a meeting"--I'm jumping around a little bit here. He said, "Bob, I want you to go over to Wake Island. Take two of the Secret Service, and there will be a State Department man going with you, and make arrangements for me to meet the great General MacArthur." I said, "Fine. Will it be all right if I go home and get my toilet articles?" He said, "No. I think you had better get going right now." So I got Jim Reilly and one of his men, and we went commercial to Travis (AFB CA); then we got on a transport there. He said, "This is all secret. We don't want anything leaking out on this."

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I went over in my uniform and flew out to Hawaii on air transport. We picked up the Navy guy and went on out there and set up the building, the old building that was there. I have a bunch of pictures of those. And I got that going. Those are the kinds of things you would get from him to do. It was great experience.

He said to me one time, and I will show you the great controversy as to whether MacArthur landed first

AHMANN: Yes. That story. I have read so many different stories on that, General.

LANDRY: Here is the official story. When the people on TV and when they made the movie, they were told, "This is not historically correct." They went ahead and did it anyway. Here is the story and the schedule when he arrived. I mean, that was an interesting thing. It shows how phony the media and the people that produce movies can be. It is a complete lie about who got there first and all that sort of thing.

I got another call from the President one time to come over. He said, "Bob, it has gotten to me that there is a real controversy going on between the asphalt-concrete people and the cement-concrete people for runways and taxiways and parking areas on airfields." We had and were building a lot of runways for the new big airplanes coming in on our SAC bases and other bases. The cement people wanted to have all cement, normal cement, because oil spills do not hurt it. Our people wanted it. The asphalt-cement people--they call it cement. Asphalt disintegrates. With oil and JP-4 fuel on it, it just begins to disintegrate.

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This controversy between these people and the manufacturers or the people who furnished the equipment got so hot that it got to the White House, like a lot of these things. People went directly to the White House, and they wanted a fair shake. The cement people wanted a shake, and the asphalt people wanted a shake.

The President called me in--now this had to do with a lot of airfields, runways and all--and said, "Bob, I want you to make a study or get me the information on what is really needed for the airfields. You call anybody you need." I talked to the Chief of Staff and the Secretary, and I got ahold of the Army, and I said, "I would like to talk to the Chief of Engineers who built our runways. I am on a project for Mr. Truman, and I have to talk to him." He came over to the White House. I talked to him, and I talked to some civilian people. I took some time.

I wrote a report on that. I think the consensus was that in fairness to all of these people, if we had to have a certain line of departure from which one got this and one got that, that probably we ought to use cement at the end of the runways where the airplanes stopped and ran up their engines, and maybe you could have asphalt in the middle, which you see sometimes. But certainly in all parking areas, it has to be cement because these airplanes stand there, and they leak or something. I said, "That seems to me to be the best solution to the problem. It comes out pretty equal if you divide it up on square footage." It was detailed reports like that that I did after talking to these people on those kinds of things.

Now this is just the job of Air Force Aide under Mr. Truman. Wherever he went I was on the airplane in command, and

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wherever any Cabinet officer went, I went in command of Air Force One. I had a crew; "Frenchy" Williams, who was a pilot who had come from American Airlines as a Reservist, I think, and became a colonel, selected by Air Transport Command, 15,000 hours of flying, was the pilot, and we had the crew. On the flight they were under my command, but in terms of the operation of the airplane, it was his. If there was any question of turning around and going back for any reason, I would have the final decision. I didn't tell him how to run the airplane.

We went down and got any number of heads of state: Mr. Nehru [Prime Minister Jawaharlal]; the President of Brazil; the President of Venezuela, who gave me this watch; the Shah of Iran twice, Mr. Churchill twice. When Dean Acheson was going to the meeting of the United Nations when it was being held in Paris every 6 months, I took him over, he and his wife. I stayed there with him, always in Air Force One.

There were an awful lot of things that came up to do for which there was no job description. Then sometimes there were times when I kind of wondered what the hell I was over there for anyway. (laughter) Do you know what I mean? There were periods when I didn't have a lot to do. It was fascinating, and a number of things came up that you were asked to do or something he would like to know.

Another thing of importance was--this is the kind of thing I did on my own initiative. I kept in pretty good contact with all the manufacturing people, aviation heads. I knew them all, knew all the companies, played golf out at Burning Tree where we had a lot of them, and then met them around Washington. Of course I knew most of the military.

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You may remember this. Douglas built the DC-6. That was the latest thing in an airplane. The DC-6 had a problem up in the cockpit. Apparently, some kind of gas was leaking out in the cockpit. A couple of airplanes just flew into the ground, just kind of slowly went down, and it was determined that it was some kind of a toxic material that was being released. So they were going to have to wear oxygen masks under certain conditions. Well, it caused a number of accidents.

Then Lockheed came out with their first four engine, the big twin-tail thing, and they were having engine problems. These were causing concern around the community because accidents were happening and falling into built-up areas, people on the ground. I think it was in Newark one came in and, for some reason, lost an engine and killed a lot of people. The populace was getting concerned about this just as the manufacturers were. This was all commercial air.

The people in Newark actually threatened and did put their bodies at the end of the runway to close the goddarn field. In visiting with the people around town, the manufacturers, they were concerned about it.

Here again, this got to the President's level. These airplanes were important, important to the commercial fleet; they were important to the military. What's going on? Certainly, the reaction of the public could be detrimental to our security, buildup of forces and that sort of thing, availability of commercial aircraft.

I talked to some people, and I said, "It seems to me that maybe this thing has gotten so important, and it is on a

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level now that maybe the President ought to get into it." I just made up my mind to that. I didn't have to talk to anybody. I went in and I talked to him. I went in to see the President one morning, and I said, "Matt, I would like to go in and talk to the President about something I think he might be interested to in." I explained to him, "There is a great deal of concern out there, Mr. President. You might have read in the paper where these airplanes are falling into communities and killing people, and it is having a hell of an affect on our commercial airports and our military airports. We'll find out what the trouble is, but in the meantime, we ought to have a study made by somebody and maybe a Presidential committee that will determine approaches to airports, how close you can get to them." He said, "That sure makes sense, Bob. Do you have anybody in mind?" I said, "Mr. President, I just happen to have a guy that I think would be perfect for this, and I think he would do it." He said, "Who is that?" I said, "I used to work for General Doolittle, and I think this is something that would be right up his alley." He said, "That's fine. You talk to him."

I called General Doolittle. I forget where he was. He had an office in Washington; he had been with an oil company, Shell Oil. I had met Doolittle years ago in New Orleans before I went into the service. I told him all about this. The President asked me how long it would take. I said, "I think it ought to be done in 6 months, and it ought to be started right away. That would be the main thing, to overcome this hysteria." A lot of people in the industry believed that, too. It would be very helpful.

I said, "General Doolittle, I hope you will do this because I think the President feels strongly that it is that necessary.

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I think you will get all the support in the world." We talked, and he said, "Sure."

The President said, "I'm glad you are going to take this, Jimmy. You will have an office over in the Executive Building, and you will have the necessary secretarial help. You will have authority to talk to whomever you feel is necessary to talk to. I would hope that you could have this report to me within 6 months or sooner." He was very happy about it and got right on it. This was the result of it, "The Airport and Its Neighbor." You may not remember, but there was a great deal of hysteria about these airplanes, for no reason, dropping out of the sky. There was really no control of approaches to airports, and the noise factor was developing, the danger of an airplane failing on takeoff or landing short. So that was the creation of certain specifications.

AHMANN: How much of this was then put to use, General?

LANDRY: It was distributed all around, and from that point on, I think it was--I'm not sure just exactly how it was distributed. It may show in here, "The Airport and the Community Plan." I really don't know from that point on. The report was submitted, and that was the end of it.

AHMANN: Let me ask you this question: In that sense, that you would proceed with this, would you then have alienated people over at the CAB (Civil Aeronautics Board) in those days, that you had stepped on their toes or their prerogatives?

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LANDRY: Oh, hell, no. You will see that a lot of this went to, the analysis articles, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, Department of Commerce. No, there was an announcement made
that the President was concerned about this and felt it was time that--there had been some specification for how many things were to airports and things like that. This didn't alienate or make anybody unhappy. As a matter of fact, this pleased everybody. I got no credit for it. I wasn't even mentioned. It was just that I was able to get somebody to take the job, and it was the President's commission.

What I am trying to point out is: It was one of those little things that, in that particular job, you are in a position to start something like that. If the President liked it, it was good. If he didn't, he told you.

AHMANN: What I am looking at is a log of President Truman's trip to Wake Island, 11 October 1950. "The plane landed at 4:30 AM. As he alighted, the President was met by General MacArthur."

LANDRY: MacArthur had gotten there the day before. You will see a picture--it may not be in there.

AHMANN: The Constellation landed on Wake Island at 6:10 AM. What was the Constellation?

LANDRY: That was MacArthur's plane. He came in on a Constellation.

AHMANN: At 6:10--6:30. What did they show on TV that time? What was that all about?

LANDRY: The only controversial thing was that it was said that the two airplanes got there at the same time, and General

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MacArthur held in the air until the President's plane landed so that the President would be on the ground greeting the great general. That was just a bunch of horsecock. The reason for that was to try to create the perception that MacArthur was pretty goddamn important. The President had to greet him. That wasn't true at all.

AHMANN: One story I read recently was that the plane landed and Truman looked out the window and MacArthur was not there. MacArthur was in the building. Truman waited on the airplane for something like a half hour or something before----

LANDRY: MacArthur was over there sitting in a jeep. I don't think he got out of his jeep until he saw the door open, but he was down there on the line. He was waiting. You can say all you want to. Maybe the President was getting his things together, and he didn't get out of the jeep. There wasn't any sense in standing there. But the general was at the bottom of that ramp when the door opened. This is all mischief, just a bunch of goddamn mischief. I could use a stronger term.

AHMANN: That's a good word. I never thought to use that word.

LANDRY: It is real mischief. It makes a story for the press. In a sense it may be pro MacArthur trying to build up and maintain his reputation.

AHMANN: Speaking of MacArthur and all that, what was your reaction to when MacArthur was fired there? Did that surprise you at all that that happened then?

LANDRY: No. I'll tell you a story about that. Mr. Truman had always heard the stories about MacArthur. He was a great man; no

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question about his military background, youngest Superintendent of the Academy, great Chief of Staff, and his war record. MacArthur wanted to do certain things in Korea that the Chairman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn't want done. He wanted to go on up and invade North Korea.

There was a delicate situation in Korea--political, a lot of it, again--that only the President and Joint Chiefs really knew about. As far as MacArthur was concerned, the only way to fight a war was to win a war, and he was correct. Unfortunately, just as happened at the end of World War II, there are international political situations that come into play that you have to live with. It doesn't seem to make sense to the military people.

For example, Patton could have been in Berlin by himself 2 weeks earlier; we could have been there, but our troops were told to hold at the river there so the Russians could come in and have a piece of the action. That was a political situation. You have heard it said: Why didn't we go in and to hell with the Russians? Well, the Russians were an Ally at that time. Lend lease, we had loaned them; they came in late. But those are the kinds of political decisions that enter into a war. It had never been like that before. We fought a war to the bitter end. Korea was a bit like that. Vietnam was a bit like that. These are the kinds of things that happen.

MacArthur was told to hold. I forget just exactly what the reason was. He got his orders from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He wrote a letter to Speaker Martin [Representative Joseph W., Jr., R-MA] of the House of Representatives in which he questioned the policy of the country in not going

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forward and winning this war. He wanted to do certain things. He went over the head of the Commander in Chief to the Congress, and there is no way this country can have control of the military or have the proper discipline by having a field commander--doesn't make any difference who he is, the Army, Navy, Air Force, or anything else--bypass the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bypass the President and go to the Congress. He got his neck way out.

MacArthur wanted to do things his own way in a lot of things, and he was not easy to deal with, as I understood it from where I was. No question about his military ability. There was some thinking that maybe he had gotten a little too close to Jesus, being the god out there in the Philippines, and had been alone, been away from the action too much. Anyway, he created quite a situation for the military and for the Commander in Chief.

The President talked to all the Joint Chiefs--I don't know whether it was individually or whether he had them all over-and it was decided that General MacArthur had exceeded his authority, and as such he should be relieved of his command. I wasn't in on any of this, but---

AHMANN: Did Truman ever comment to you?

LANDRY: No, he never commented to me. We went to the staff meetings, and we knew how he felt. What I am going to tell you is absolutely true. The best advice and guidance he got from everybody that was in the position was that this could not be tolerated. You can't have a field commander doing and fighting the war the way he wants to. If you are told to hold, you hold, and you don't go to the Congress and

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criticize the foreign policy of the Government, let alone the military operations of the Armed Forces.

The orders, instructions were going to be in writing from the President to General MacArthur that he would be relieved and would report to the Commander in Chief. Words to that effect. I never even saw it, but it was something like that. Frank Pace, then Secretary of the Army, was on a trip over there or going to the Far East and was to deliver this to MacArthur personally, quietly, nothing in the press at all about it. It was being handled properly, that is, the report to the President thing and relieved of command. It leaked. Then it went by TWX instead of by letter. It got in the press.

Then MacArthur had to come back to the country. He was relieved, and he did. But he didn't go to see the Commander in Chief at all. He went right to the public and made a speech before the House of Representatives. In talking to the President privately--I think in the gym working out--about this unfortunate thing, he said to me, "You know, Bob, I could have forgiven MacArthur everything if he just had had the decency to come and report to me first, and we could have talked it over. I could have forgiven him." What he meant by forgiven him; I don't think he would have reinstated him. But he said, "I could have forgiven all of this if he had had the courtesy to come and report to the Commander in Chief." Which is to say, there was no question in his mind now that this was proper action.

He wasn't a subordinate in the sense that he worked for the President. He was a subordinate to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who had control of the theaters, who in turn reported to the

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President. It was a very bad thing for any commander to have done. Historically, it has to be that way, and that is the way it is in the book. How it is written is something else, but those are the facts.

AHMANN: It is interesting that you say that. In the early years, if you read it it was almost like Truman was the only one who felt like MacArthur should be fired, but now it is becoming more clear that Bradley and everybody else----

LANDRY: Everybody on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, unanimously, felt that it could not be tolerated, but the President was the one who made the decision, and the President was the one who had to take the rap. The President didn't say anything. He just simply made that decision. He wasn't going to involve the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a public debate in the press, the media, because they have a way of telling their own story. But it was his responsibility as Commander in Chief. He didn't have to explain, "Well, I just made it myself," but the record will show it.

AHMANN: It is getting better. That is one good thing. As time passes by, I think some of these things--going back to the start of the war in Korea, were you able to help the President in that whole time period, the end of June, until we committed troops? Did he use you in any way at that time, General?

LANDRY: No, at the time we were out in Kansas City.

AHMANN: You got left behind, didn't you? (laughter)

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LANDRY: Yes, Harry Vaughn and I both did. We were there with the President. We were supposed to be available around the hotel, but we didn't have to sit there waiting to jump on the airplane. What happened was that Dean Acheson called to report that the North Koreans had moved south across the line of demarcation, and that we should get at it right away. Of course the crew was there, and the airplane was there. I was out visiting some people in Kansas City, and probably away from the phone just long enough not to get the call. The President went right straight with whoever was available, Secret Service of course, and Harry and I got there just about 10 minutes too late. We went out in the car, and the airplane was out at the end of the runway. They took right on off, and the President sent word back, "Don't be concerned about this. Just come on over when you can." So we got a flight and went on back.

In the meantime, they had had a meeting in the Blair House, because you remember he was living in the Blair House, with the Joint Chiefs and Dean Acheson and some other people, and Bob Dennison attended the meeting. Harry and I didn't get there in time. But all the decisions were made by those people, and we would not have had anything to say about it.

AHMANN: A contributor or anything?

LANDRY: No. It would have been just the advantage of being there. Like I was in the meeting with MacArthur [on Wake Island], the 2-or 3-hour meeting there, to see what was said, seeing history being made.

AHMANN: You were in that meeting then?

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LANDRY: Oh, yes. He invited me to sit in on it.

AHMANN: What was that controversy? Some woman was sitting in the next room taking notes who wasn't supposed to be.

LANDRY: It wasn't supposed to be; it was just normal, taking notes for the procedure.

AHMANN: Was there an agreement between MacArthur and Truman, and then MacArthur went back out to----

LANDRY: The reason for the meeting was, and the concern the President had was, he couldn't commit any more troops to the operation. As a matter of fact, he went over there to talk to MacArthur, to impress him with the need for him to release two of his divisions, prime divisions, to bolster up Western Europe.

An over commitment in Korea was considered to be most dangerous in terms of the opportunities it gave the Russians, without firing a shot, to move further west on the Continent. We didn't want to have an all-out war, and I think it was felt that about threeqz--uarters of our Armed Forces were in one way or another committed to the Korean thing, which left Western Europe kind of wide open. Short of using the bomb, that put us in a very bad position. The Joint Chiefs of Staff felt that way.

The President went over to talk to him to tell him that he thought it was necessary to release them. "Is there any question?" "Oh, yes, Mr. President, no question about that. Certainly, we are going to do that." You have never seen such an actor in your life. It was the first time I had ever
seen the man. (laughter)

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AHMANN: I have heard he could put on a show, have you dazzled.

LANDRY: No reflection on his ability as a good commander. He was better than John Barrymore. (laughter)

AHMANN: General Carmichael told me that. He had known MacArthur down in Australia at the start of the war, and during the Korean war, he went in to see MacArthur at his headquarters in Japan, and he said, "I walked in there, and General MacArthur put his arm around me, 'How are you doing, Dick?'" He said, "Obviously, MacArthur had quickly reviewed my biography and what I had done during the war, after the war; he had a fantastic memory. I walked out of there like I had just talked to God."

LANDRY: It is interesting, but that meeting lasted for about 2 1/2 hours, roughly.

AHMANN: Did it get heated at all?

LANDRY: No, no. It was very, very friendly, very friendly. Truman explained certain things, what he needed, what he wanted, the commitment was made, and to some extent later denied. As it went on, as a matter of fact, the President pinned another DSM [Distinguished Service Medal] on him. When we got back on the airplane--now I was going back with the President--we were talking about it, and the President said he was very much impressed with the general--the "great general" as he called him. He said he thought it was a good business, and he was happy he made the trip.

AHMANN: Now my memory of this TV show comes back a little bit, and Truman was making all of these sarcastic remarks about

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MacArthur, and of course, they had MacArthur making remarks about Truman. Where they got all this information, I'll never know.

LANDRY: I'll tell you one thing, I don't remember--I told you the story about how he felt about if MacArthur had done certain things, at least the military courtesy part of it. I never heard him condemning or anything like that. That was the end of it. He had always admired him as a military genius, and he was. He just got a little bit out of control. Certainly, he felt he could transcend the military hierarchy.

AHMANN: Of course, he had been "Emperor" of Japan since 1946.

LANDRY: That's exactly right. That's what I say, a little too close to God. I think he thought he had a little of Jesus in him. (laughter)

AHMANN: That is so true. I often think, "How would I react in a similar position if I had that much authority and power?"

LANDRY: I don't think if you were under control you would act like that. I think Bradley was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs at the time, and all those kinds of people--no question. I have never seen any correspondence on it, but my reason for saying that, I am sure, is the fact that the President had pursued this with the Joint Chiefs, and they all agreed that this was the way to do it.

AHMANN: In talking about the Korean war, did you ever hear President Truman make any comments, "He wished he hadn't committed us to that"? Did he ever talk about the war?

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LANDRY: It was just the opposite. I think he felt all along it was unfortunate as it was. The Communists had to be stopped someplace, and the time had come to make it known to them.

AHMANN: Going back a little before that then, when the Russians blockaded Berlin. That was in June 1948. Did you sit in on any of those decision making statutes?

LANDRY: No, but I'll tell you what I did do. I followed it very closely, and I talked to Mr. Truman about some of the aspects of doing that, of being able to land an airplane every minute and a half or 2 minutes with a load of coal or other supplies in very bad weather over there, very bad weather over there. He was interested in it. Of course it was a critical thing. There was a confrontation between the Western Powers and the Russians as to whether we would be able to supply Berlin or whether we had to shoot our way in. Going in by air was a solution to avoid shooting.

AHMANN: Did you ever hear any advocates of shooting our way in? Do you remember?

LANDRY: No, there was some discussion that if we couldn't find someway of doing it, there might be some firing going on. I mean, just talk. But the President wanted to avoid anything like that. When the Joint Chiefs came up with the idea of supplying them by air, why; they went right to it.

I remember talking to him about it one time. I said, "Mr. President, it is a very interesting operation. Do you think I ought to go over there and take a look at it and get a feel for it?" He said, "I think you ought to do that, Bob." So I went on over there and got on one of those damn things and

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went in and watched the operation, talked to the guy who ran it, Will Tunner [Lt. Gen. William H.]. I went to see him first. I said, "The President sent me out here to see what the hell you are doing, Will." He put me on one of those coal barges. I got on one of those damn things and flew in there. It was quite an operation.

Another thing that I was able to do to reassure him that this was really working.

AHMANN: In a deal like that, would you go over and check--would you say to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, "President Truman is sending me over here." Would you check in like that to the Air Force, General?

LANDRY: I'm sure that I mentioned that the President wanted me to take a look at it, but I didn't go over there to get authority to do it. I think I kept them informed on anything I did like that. I didn't keep them informed on the Wake trip because it was secret. I am sure that somewhere along the line I said to General Van, I think it was--whoever it was--that I was going over there.

AHMANN: I have talked to some generals in recent years that have served in general billets outside the Air Force, and then the Air Force in many respects, according to these individuals, is very reluctant to bring them back in.

LANDRY: There is a lot to that. I know what you are getting at.

AHMANN: Did you find that?

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LANDRY: Yes, that actually applied to me, too. I was over there 5 years, and I had a pretty good record. I suppose I was over there because I had a good record. Well, there were some people who kind of felt--I got this, I don't know how I got it. You pick up these kinds of things. "Old Bob Landry is over there. He has no responsibility, really, nice cushy job," and really I had lost 5 years of having command and all that sort of thing. There is no question about that. That is true. I got that, and I'm not sure just exactly how I got that feeling. But I knew Rosie very well, and I knew some other people on the Air Staff very well. Nobody ever told me that, but I heard that somebody had kind of indicated that.

The President must have been aware of that, too. By now, Nate Twining was Chief of Staff of the Air Force. This was at the end of the tour. Now we were in late December or January 1952-53. Ike was in. The President was still there.

I got a call from Nate, "Come on up. The President wants to talk to you." I went on over there, and he had just been talking to General Twining about something, who at that time was Chief of Staff. Was he Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or Chief of Staff? I think he was Chairman of the Air Staff. I forget what it was. 1952-53.

AHMANN: In 1953 Twining was Chief of Staff. Let me go back here. The Department of Defense----

LANDRY: I forget when Nate became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. I think he was Chief of Staff then.

AHMANN: Bradley was 1953-54 yet, so Twining was Chief of Staff.

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LANDRY: Twining was Chief of Staff. I don't think the President asked him to come over just to talk about me. But I went in there. Of course Nate was there. I knew Nate very well because now Nate was Chief of Staff. Vandenberg had gone. The President said, "Bob, I just wanted you to know what I have just told General Twining. I just told General Twining that I didn't want you to suffer in any way in your military career because of the time you have been over here as my Air
Force Aide. He has assured me that that will not happen." Just like that. I said, "Well, thank you, Mr. Truman." I looked at Nate, and I laughed, and then I got an assignment.

AHMANN: Truman was aware that that could possibly happen.

LANDRY: Yes. I had never talked to him about it. We had never talked about the end of my tour or anything else. Later on I talked to Rosie O'Donnell, and there was some question about maybe sometimes people got separated from the Air Force, boards and things, were coming up for promotion, and all these guys had a nice, easy job, solid sense and purpose outside the Air Force. You are absolutely right; it doesn't do you any good. It doesn't do you a great deal of harm in the
promotion cycle and all that sort of thing, and command ideas. It doesn't help to be away.

AHMANN: I gathered that. Where were you when that assassination attempt took place?

LANDRY: Having lunch at the Army-Navy Club.

AHMANN: Just down the street there.

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LANDRY: I was just on my way from the Army-Navy Club. It happened, I guess, just when I was there, just coming out. I came down the next street there, Lafayette Square, right by the house. He was, of course, in the Blair House. Jesus, all the policemen were around there. I didn't know what it was. I went right to the office and found out there was an attempted assassination.

AHMANN: Scares you, doesn't it?

LANDRY: It really did.

AHMANN: Did you ever talk to Truman about that?

LANDRY: Yes, he told us all about it. The guy was about to come in the house. He was upstairs taking a nap. He always had lunch and took a nap between 1 and 3 o'clock. He said to me once in the gym, "Bob, if I wasn't able to take a nap like this in between, I would never be able to hold this job down." He could relax that way. He was up taking a nap when it happened.

AHMANN: He, by Executive order, desegregated the Armed Forces in 1948. Did he ever comment to you about that, integrating the Armed Forces?

LANDRY: How do you mean, desegregated them?

AHMANN: I mean desegregated them, no longer were we going to have separate black barracks and black companies. It was all going to be one military.

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LANDRY: I think Secretary Royall (Kenneth C.]--wasn't he Secretary of the Army? No, I don't think there was a great deal of discussion about that that I remember.

AHMANN: Yes, Kenneth Royall, 1948, Secretary of the Army.

LANDRY: I think it was just another thing that was just a part of the evolution of things. I'll tell you another thing that Mr. Truman dealt with. They used to have Army Day, Navy Day, and Air Force Day. He said, "This is kind of ridiculous. We have unification, and here we are having three things." He, by decree, set Armed Forces Day.

AHMANN: Did you ever hear him discuss the use of atomic bombs, or this was going to be our national policy, this massive retaliation thing? Or the development of the hydrogen bomb, when he made the decision to go ahead with that at all?

LANDRY: No.

AHMANN: Did it surprise you when he announced he was not going to seek reelection?

LANDRY: No, I don't think so at all because, in a sense, he had had two terms, 31/2 years of Roosevelt's, and he was elected. He felt very strongly that two terms was the proper length of time for a President to be in office. I think it is the law now, too. In a sense, it would have gone contrary to what he believed. He wasn't elected, but he succeeded as Vice President. I think he felt 7 1/2 years was about right.

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AHMANN: In reading things by Truman and about Truman, he seemed to have over the years become a little antagonistic towards Eisenhower as time passed. Did he ever express any disfavor with him?

Well, for 6 or 7 years they didn't talk; there was no communication after Ike went into office. There was no question that he was very unhappy about something that had happened. You may remember that McCarthyism was hot in those days, and that was the reason he asked me to make this study that I told you about.

Eisenhower was running for office, and Eisenhower went out to Wisconsin, where Senator McCarthy was from, and--if I remember correctly, Eisenhower was out there making a speech. He had an advanced copy of the speech. He told us about this, Mr. Truman did. There was a paragraph in there that Eisenhower--I don't know how it fit into the speech--said something commendable about General Marshall. When Eisenhower went out there to make the speech--I don't know just how it was or who wanted it deleted, whether it was Senator McCarthy's people or McCarthy--he deleted that paragraph on General Marshall.

Mr. Truman thought that General Marshall was probably one of our greatest living Americans. He just thought this man was great, a great military man. He had done a great job as Combined Chiefs of Staff during the war; he had served as Secretary of Defense, and later on, as you well know, in retirement Mr. Truman called him back to take over Secretary of State, because that place was being flooded with all sorts of funny people, and policies were not right. Dean Acheson was gone.

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He [Mr. Truman) resented that, and for that reason there was no communication for 6 or 7 years that they even talked to each other. He really resented that because he just admired General Marshall so much. I don't know what the paragraph was, but I know that is what he said, and I know he was ill at ease when he had to ride in that limousine to go to the inauguration of General Eisenhower.

AHMANN: I guess they didn't say anything all the ride up there.

LANDRY: I'm not going to tell you what he said about going over there, but there wasn't much communication.

AHMANN: He made a comment later about the ride up there?

LANDRY: About having to make the ride.

AHMANN: Oh, he didn't even want to make the ride?

LANDRY: No.

AHMANN: Because there is a story--apparently after they got up there and were waiting to walk out on the rostrum, Eisenhower said to Truman, "Someone has brought my son, John, back from Korea. I think they are trying to embarrass me." This is quoting Truman in his book. Truman piped up and said, "I brought him back. I am responsible. Nobody is trying to embarrass you." Obviously, the thing did not go well. But you said there were more comments made than that?

LANDRY: It was a very short conversation. It had nothing to do with his son. He just felt ill at ease from that time on about

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the man. He resented what had happened in that particular reference to General Marshall.

AHMANN: Would Truman be that way? Was he one to take umbrage quickly in that sense or only in something like that that he was very sensitive to or thought a lot about?

LANDRY: He was very sensitive to the reports about his daughter and very outspoken about it, but he was not in any sense a mean person. There were very few people that he really didn't get along with or disliked. His idea of loyalty was pretty strong, and for anybody to do anything that was not complimentary to a man like Marshall didn't set very well with the Commander in Chief.

AHMANN: Did you know a Frank Margold [phonetic]? That was one of Truman's friends.

LANDRY: The name seems familiar, but I can't remember.

AHMANN: The story of what I want to ask you about, this Frank Margold was over in Italy right at the end of the war, and Brig. Gen. Hugh Lee was in Italy. Apparently, Margold, the civilian, got into some dispute with Lee, and Lee lost his star over it. I was wondering if you remember that incident at all?

LANDRY: I never heard of it.

AHMANN: When I was researching, I noticed that your promotion to brigadier general made the New York Times, at the bottom in the center there.

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LANDRY: I think probably in my books I will show you the one I got there. I won't try to go through them. I got both of mine in the White House.

AHMANN: Was that a brigadier general's slot so to speak?

LANDRY: No. There wasn't any precedent for any of that. There wasn't any job description. This was just created by the desire of the President. I went over there, and you had two-star guys. I don't know how this thing got started, whether it was the Air Force or whether the President--I think the President probably said something about this because he said something about my Christmas present. I think I was promoted in December, 21 December. Then later on the second star came along, and I was notified by the Air Force. That happened while we were down at Key West. I was there 5 years.

It would have been about the time period--I was 37 when I went over there--you would expect to get those promotions if you are going to get them at all. Then I got my permanent major general in--when I was with O'Donnell, probably around 1958.

AHMANN: Did you in any way get involved with that B-36 Navy controversy in 1949, when the Navy came out and said the B-36 was worthless, and the Navy could do this job; we should build carriers?

LANDRY: No.

AHMANN: Did you know Louis [A.] Johnson at all?

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LANDRY: I knew him very well. He was a very close friend of Harry Vaughn, and he was an American Legion man. He was an attorney, a very nice guy. He used to come in to see Vaughn all the time. I think Harry Vaughn had a very great influence on the President appointing him as Secretary of Defense. I got to know him very, very well. Louis Johnson did some things he never should have done, in my opinion. He is dead now, of course.

He tried to talk to the press like he would be talking--you would be here, and I would be talking off the record. He wanted, so much, to get a good press. So he would call them into his office and talk to them and expect that they would write exactly what he had said. The press always interprets what you say and takes a little poetic license. At least that is the way I look at it. He began to get a terrible press. He really got a bad press. I don't know why, but he asked me one time--I had gotten to know him because I had met him when he came to see Harry Vaughn all the time, before he got the appointment. They were very good friends, and I think the President had known him, but he was very close to Harry--he asked me to come over to see him. I went over to see him.

He sat down, and he said, "I don't understand what the press is trying to do to me." Of course he had been talking too much, been too free and easy with them. I said to him, "Mr. Secretary, all I can tell you is about my experience when I first came to the White House. There are an awful lot of goddarn guys over there on the White House Staff, and they are all exciting guys, fun guys. They like to drink and fool around and tell stories, and after about a week there and being exposed to them and never in my life having to worry about the press, because I never was around them, it

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occurred to me that I might get into some trouble because I know I am going to like a lot of these guys. They look like they are pretty regular guys. So I went to see Charlie Ross," who is a very savvy man, headed up the journalistic school at the University of Missouri. He was a very close
and old friend of Mr. Truman. He died, had a heart attack. I said, "I went in to see Charlie, and I said, 'Charlie, I'm going to need some guidance here.'" That was about 2 weeks after I had gotten my appointment. I explained to him, "Can you tell me how you deal with the press or how I should deal with the press? I can see that I am going to be running into them all the time. Everywhere we go, obviously, they want to be around. I would like to stay out of trouble, but I don't want to hide from these people." He said, "Just remember one thing, Bob. When you talk to the press, remember everything you say is going to be written or interpreted as they hear it. There is no reason why you can't be friends with them. You are going to be on trips." I said, "I can see having a drink with them. I know they like to play poker, and I like to play poker." He said, "Just be careful what you say. Just remember, if you get loose with them, they are going to use it. They are going to use it no matter how much they think of you or like you."

I said, "Mr. Secretary, I think maybe you had just better be a little more careful how you deal with the press." (laughter)

AHMANN: That's true, whether they like you or not, that's part of their job.

LANDRY: That's their job, and they will put the hatchet on you just as quick as anything. Then I think Louis Johnson was Secretary of Defense, and I think Ike was either Chairman of

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the Joint Chiefs or he was Chief of Staff of the Army in--let's see, it was when Johnson was in. Johnson came in--who did he replace, Forrestal?

AHMANN: Yes, in 1949.

LANDRY: We were invited over to a dinner. He had known Harry Vaughn very well, and he wanted to stay close to the White House, and there was no reason why he couldn't have a luncheon. I think he had it for General Eisenhower. He invited Vaughn, and he invited Dennison and myself to come over and have lunch with him.

He had been in office several months, and he went crosswise with Dean Acheson. He didn't agree with him on some things, and I think he went public on some of his disagreements on one thing or another.

Mr. Truman thought Dean Acheson was the finest man and Secretaries he had ever seen. I want to tell you, I certainly think Mr. Acheson, notwithstanding all the charges by the press that he and Mr. Truman was soft on communism, which was a lot of baloney, was as good a Secretary as I have ever seen. Acheson was a polished man and a dedicated goddarn American, smart, talk about articulate. He made speeches over at the National War College with not a note in his hand.

Anyway, we sat at this luncheon, and we heard Louis Johnson run down Dean Acheson. It had to get back to the President. We didn't tattle or anything, but when something was discovered that was being said that was detrimental to Mr. Truman's people that he depended on, why, somebody had to

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tell him. Maybe it was somebody else. I think General Ike was there. That was about the end of Louis Johnson.

AHMANN: Yes, the historians have not been very kind to Louis Johnson at all.

LANDRY: He wasn't very smart there. 0f course later on he had a thing in his head or something. But that about finished him off because that was disloyal. That was one thing the President would never put up with at all. You could say what you wanted to, but you didn't go around doing it that way. I forget who took his place.

AHMANN: Marshall, I think.

LANDRY: That's right. That is when Marshall came in. The President put Marshall in there.

AHMANN: Did you ever represent the President or ever deal with the National Security Council when you were there?

LANDRY: No. That was outside of my province. I never attended any sessions. I sat in Cabinet meetings as a matter of interest, a few of them, but that was--sometimes it was a military thing or something like that, and he would invite us to sit and listen. Like he did out in Wake when he invited me and the Navy man, too, to sit there.

AHMANN: Here is a note I have. It comes from Truman's diaries.[See correction below] In September 1948, he said, "Forrestal, Bradley, Vandenberg, and Symington briefed me on bases, bombs, Moscow, Leningrad. I had a terrible feeling afterward that we are very close to

CORRECTION to my answers to the interrogator's question at bottom of page 250 and his first two questions on page 251:

I'm at a loss to understand the ambiguity in my responses regarding the President's diary entry. I did become Air Force Aide on February 6, 1948 and subject briefing did take place in the cabinet room in September, 1948. The President's diary entry probably did not indicate any reason as to why the briefing took place, and certainly none would be necessary.

The correct answer to the question should have been: sometime in 1948 I recommended to the President that he have an up-to-date briefing by the Air Force on the capabilities and readiness of the Strategic Air Command to launch long-range airborne atomic bomb attacks on vital Soviet targets, if such action should ever become necessary. The briefing was limited only to the Strategic Air Command mission.

I felt it was important for a second reason: during this period the U.S. Navy had gone public claiming that the U.S. Air Force, just one year a separate service, did not have capable equipment for the job, and that the Navy could, and would like to, be given the strategic air mission. It was my feeling the resulting controversy was becoming more heated, the public was being misinformed and the Russians were probably enjoying the whole sad affair.

Without going into more detail, only the Air Force had the proper means of delivering atomic bombs great distances on enemy targets. In those early days the bombs were enormous in size and at that time the B-36 was the only aircraft available to do the job. It had been on the drawing board years ahead, its design and manufacture expedited by the Air Force for the task at hand.

The President thought the briefing was a good idea and told me to set it up, which I did forthwith with Secretary Symington. Besides the President's being brought up to date on the scope and readiness of the strategic operations, it was felt a briefing of this kind would have a stabilizing effect on the controversy previously mentioned as the information filtered down and out to the troops, since the President himself had taken a personal interest in the matter. In my opinion, the President was pleased with what he heard and saw in the briefing; the controversy subsided and finally went away.

s/Robert B. Landry
Robert B. Landry

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war. I hope not." This was September 1948. Do you member
anything about that, General?

LANDRY: No, not in September 1948. I got there in February. I am sure he had many meetings on that that I didn’t know anything about, but I have never-September 1948. Korea wasn’t until 1950.

AHMANN: For example, what this all boils down to, there was a great discussion of what kind of--obviously the Russians had been very aggressive in Eastern Europe and the cold war had started. There was this discussion, "If we get into the war with Russia, number one, do we use the atomic bomb, and what kind of targets do we use?" and this kind of thing. Do you remember ever talking to----

LANDRY: Just as sure as I am sitting here, that must have been discussed periodically.

AHMANN. This was the first time these things were being discussed.

LANDRY: I know that what went on was a lot of discussion of whether or not to develop a tactical atomic weapon, one you could shoot from a canon and one you could drop from an airplane. It was limited. But no, I was never in on any of that.

AHMANN: Did you ever get involved with those Key West meetings down there in 1948 where all the Chiefs of Staffs went down to Key West, Florida? This was an attempt to hammer out roles and missions and, i.e., who was going to get the money for that.

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LANDRY: Yes. I forget what--I have 10 more of these things. I am missing one. Here they all are. There was a written record of all these things. What date?

AHMANN: This 1948. I don't know if Truman was physically down there himself or not. I don't think he was.

LANDRY: I don't remember that they had a Joint Chiefs meeting. Many. of the members of the Cabinet were down there. The Chief Justice was down there often. People were invited down who wanted to talk to the President personally about something.

Here is February to March 1948. Here is--was this the vacation----

AHMANN: There was a Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of Defense conference at Key West in March 1948, and then they convened again in August 1948 at Newport News, Rhode Island. This was to assign the roles and missions of the different services, i.e., who was going to get what money to do what.

LANDRY: Here is 20 February to 5 March 1948. I think this is the time we flew down to--let me get the itinerary here. This time we went to Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands. Leahy [Adm. William D. ] , that's the great--they called him the "Sea Dog." (laughter) There is Clifford, Woodward, Vaughn, Graham, Landry, Dennison. Yes, we went down.

The President promised to take the yacht down one time, to go to Key West, and we all went down. We went by way of Washington to Puerto Rico and then to San Juan, Saint Thomas, Saint Croix. I am just trying to see who might have been there.

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No, I don't remember that there was any----

AHMANN: The President did not get involved in those.

LANDRY: No, I don't think so. They might have gone down there to use the facilities. I think that is probably what it was, to get out of Washington.

AHMANN: They had this horrendous conference and hammering out of things. of course nothing was decided on them.

LANDRY: They just used the facilities because it was nice and new facilities.

AHMANN: I thought maybe somehow you had gotten involved.

LANDRY: No, I was not involved at all.

AHMANN: In August 1948, Secretary of Defense Forrestal called General Spaatz and Admiral Towers [John H.] to come back to the Pentagon for a short period of time. They were supposed to state their views on strategic warfare. Do you remember that at all, General?

LANDRY: Roles and missions had come up about that time, I think. Roles and missions had to be defined from time to time, depending on the world situation, where you might fight, who should have what, and that always required a great deal of discussion and negotiation and give and take. It was during Forrestal that unification and all that stuff came out, fought over and hammered out. Roles and missions was one of them.

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AHMANN: Did you ever deal with Congress at all in any sense as Aide to President Truman?

LANDRY: No, I stayed away from the Hill. That was too political. (laughter) I knew a number of the members of Congress though.

AHMANN: How would you have known them?

LANDRY: Well, you just meet them. I knew all of the Louisiana people, and I met a lot of the people in various departments. It was more a friendly, social thing.

AHMANN: Speaking of that, was there quite a social life attached to being Aide?

LANDRY: Yes, as soon as you get there, you get your name in that kind of a job in the Green Book. If you are not in the Who's Who, you get your name in the Who's Who. If you have any sign of any kind of responsible position in the White House, you automatically get in, and that's the basis for invitations for a lot of the things, diplomatic, important--it is very interesting until you have to go so often.

AHMANN: Then it becomes a job almost.

LANDRY: It does. It takes up a lot of time, but it. is nice. The ladies usually enjoy it. It is fun. The Green Book is a social register. I have a copy up there.

AHMANN: I have just read about it. I have never seen one.

LANDRY: Some lady or somebody puts it together every year.

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AHMANN: It is just like a friend of mine. He died about 2 1/2 years ago. He ran the Chicago Tribune news office in Washington, DC. We had met years ago in the Army down in Arizona. Every once in awhile when I would go to Washington--he was like you. He got invited to every gathering of two people; he would get an invitation to it.

LANDRY: You get invited to a lot of diplomatic stuff. Here is the social list of Washington. That's what it is. It shows all the departments. That's the famous Green Book.

AHMANN: If you are in here and get dropped out, I imagine that is a catastrophe for some people.

LANDRY: Actually, when you get away from there, you are eliminated. That is, as I said, revised every year because there are people in and out of Washington. If you go back to, let's say, Washington State or Oregon, there is no sense in having your name in there.

AHMANN: She even takes advertising, doesn't she? (laughter)

LANDRY: Here is Air Vice Marshal W. C. Sheen, CB, DSO, BE, and "The officers of the Royal Air Force in the Washington area request the pleasure of the company of Major General and Mrs. Robert Landry at a reception." That's the kind of thing you have. There is a lot of that.

One nice job that I created there when I was with Mr. Truman. As the Air Force Aide, I gave a reception at Bolling Field every year for the senior Air Force representative on the Embassy staffs, the senior Air Force guy. That went over very big, some very delightful people. They appreciated

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that. That's just kind of one of those things you might put down as a job description because we just decided to do it.

AHMANN: That's very interesting. Like I say, this is actually the first time I have ever seen one.

LANDRY: That's the so-called famous Green Book. I hung onto one of them just to have it.

AHMANN: There were some amendments to the National Security Act in 1949. There were some changes in that law that strengthened the authority of the Secretary of Defense. Do you remember this happening at all?

LANDRY: I remember some revision of the powers of the Secretary of Defense in relation to the departments at the next level of command, but I don't really remember anything in detail. There again, those were formative years. The missions were rewritten; responsibilities were better defined. The Air Force had become a separate department. Those things are adjusted from time to time, logically.

AHMANN: Like there was another major reorganization in 1958, for example.

LANDRY: Right now, Jones [Gen David C.] has recommended that the Joint Staffs be so-and-so. I can remember when I was there there was one thinking that the Joint Staff ought to wear a different uniform, ought to be separate from their service. The Chief of Staff ought to be the Chief of Staff and do his job there. Then there ought to be a guy representing that service on the special staff. So you get the people to

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talking about, "We don't want anything like the German general staff was in World War I." So it comes up from time to time. Right now, they either have or don’t have enough authority, or it isn't defined properly. I don't know.

AHMANN: How did President Truman get along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff while you were there? Did he consult with them a lot? Did they come to the White House a lot?

LANDRY: He consulted most, as most Presidents do, with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The members of the Joint Staff don't come, normally, to most of the meetings. I think when the Cabinet meets, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs always attends. That is the individual or the office that represents the Pentagon other than the Secretary of Defense.

AHMANN: Was Truman an easy man to see? Was he willing to see a lot of people?

LANDRY: I think, yes. It is like anything. Everybody in the world wants to see the President, so the difficult .job is the man who makes the appointments, Matt Connelly. Insofar as meeting the President; if an :appointment was made for him, he assumed it was all right. He was not picayunish about it.

AHMANN: Did you ever go out on his early morning walks with him?

LANDRY: No. I never did that, but I did work out almost every day in they gym with him. He was doings his .workout, and it: was there that I had an awful lot of personal. conversations: with him. He just wanted to talk while he :was getting a rubdown .He swam all the time. No, I never did that, but I feel that I

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got very close to him and Mrs. Truman, too, which made my job there a great deal of fun.

AHMANN: Did you see your position, in relation to the President, much different from the other military aides at that time?

LANDRY: No, there was never any question of one or the other of us talking more often than another one. There was no question. If somebody wanted to talk, we didn't have to tell the other two what you talked about. There was no infighting there. We got along very well. As a matter of fact, that entire personal staff was unbelievably cordial to each other. There was very little infighting.

AHMANN: Today, it seems like the last three or four Presidents, all you read about is how the Presidential staff is divided into factions, and their biggest job is fighting somebody else rather than trying to work for the President.

LANDRY: John Steelman was the Assistant to the President. The other people had special fields, I mean like appointments; correspondence, Bill Hassett; appointment secretary, I mentioned that; the legal, and there were one or two others with a lesser amount of authority who were there that handled special things. But no, you didn't have three or four people vying for the attention of the President.

The nice thing about Mr. Truman was, he wouldn't have put up with anything like that. There weren't any big jealousies in there. I think less was written about the functioning of his staff than some of the others I have heard about, less people

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who were trying to curry the favor of the President and be number one. I think a lot of that was stopped by his simple organization. He had a Special Assistant and other people in certain fields, and that was that.

Ike had a chief of staff type of thing that was more like the military. Unfortunately, that governor got in trouble with that vacuna coat. (laughter)

AHMANN: Goldfine and Sherman Adams. (laughter) Harry Vaughn got involved with deep freezers and 5 percenters and all that.

LANDRY: He was very friendly with a very questionable guy, and that very questionable guy did some things that were not quite kosher. I don't know, they were attributed to Harry Vaughn, and maybe he got a deep freeze or something like that, anything that the press could get ahold of to embarrass the President, if it was done by a member close to the President, it was fair play for them. It does make the situation a little delicate for the people around the President. That old saying, "You have got to be like Caesar or like Caesar's wife; you can't"--anything that will reflect unfavorably on the President. There is a slogan for something like that.

AHMANN: Did you think Secretary of the Air Force Symington was at the right place at the right time for the Air Force?

LANDRY: No question about it, absolutely. I saw him at the services for Mrs. Truman. He lost his lovely wife and then later he remarried. He was there. He made a good Senator.

AHMANN: Had a shot at the Presidency a little bit, I guess.

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LANDRY: Yes. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine in one of those pictures there was his finance man, and Jess Sweitzer (phonetic),the famous golfer was helping promote him, but he just didn't have the constituency or money.

AHMANN: At the time you were in the White House, what was your observation of coordination between the State department and the Department of Defense in planning and getting together? Was there a good meshing in those days? Were they talking together? I am talking Forrestal and Acheson.

LANDRY: As far as I know, Forrestal and Acheson got along real well. Johnson, unfortunately, got crosswise of Acheson, That was unfortunate. Mr. Truman wouldn't put up with. that kind of
thing. You read in the paper right now a lot of things going on who is running the State Department? Is Weinberger [Caspar] or was it before him, General Haig (Alexander M., Jr. ), or
now Shultz [George P.]? Some of the stuff the press plays with is just really so damaging and not always correct. It doesn't help the working of the government at all.

AHMANN: But you say that kind of adversary relationship existed even back when you were there in the White House?.

LANDRY: Ever since I got close to this kind: of thing, I think the press is adversary.'

AHMANN: Do you think it has gotten worse, in your impression?

LANDRY: I think it has gotten worse, personally. I mean, the press was very mean to Mr. Acheson and Mr. Truman there for 2 years. I was almost afraid to take a drink at a cocktail party for fear somebody was going to start asking me a crazy

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question. Really, it was terrible, mean. I think right now it is--I wish I could hear the press support something that a top official of the government has accomplished. Even when they report now that the employment is down and the cost of living, is down and things are on the improvement, it is almost like it is an effort for them to talk about it with the same enthusiasm that they say, "Ah ha, it is up."

Hiding behind the first amendment gets to be awfully tiresome. The only thing that I think can compare with it is going before the Senate Committee of the Federal Legislation where they are protected by immunity, and they can put you through the damndest hazing you have ever been. through.

AHMANN: Yes. In reading the congressional hearing with Kimmel and Short [Maj. Gen. Walter C.] that comes out very clearly, even in that time period.

Strategic Air Command came into being with General Kenney, and his deputy was General McMullen [Maj. Gen. Clements]. In retrospect now, SAC got very bad marks in those days. Its airplanes really couldn't fly; they didn't have any targets; the training was poor. Were you aware of this going on at that time?

LANDRY: What time are you talking about?

AHMANN: 1947-48-49. They were over at Andrews yet in those days

LANDRY: Yes, I remember I really don't know. I think the development of the theory of SAC, the idea of that kind of a formation, the capability of the heavy bombers to do a great deal of damage if protected, daylight bombing which. was .what

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we were good at, radar bombing that we learned about in the war.

I don't know whether in 1947 we were still lacking of funds or the airplanes we were going to develop. We had now developed the B-29. I think probably what you are alluding to is the fact that maybe immediately the manufacture of airplanes was shut down, and these contracts were terminated. One of the things that put Mr. Truman in the limelight was the way he handled the settlement of contracts for all of that equipment. I think in those days they were trying to put together what the organization of SAC would be and probably within the Air Force allocation of funds to buy equipment. I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

AHMANN: Let me read this note I have here. This is early 1948. "Symington and Vandenberg seem to lack confidence in General Kenney as SAC Commander." They had sent Charles Lindbergh [Brig. Gen. Charles A.] around to the SAC bases to report on the status of SAC and how the training was going. It also says: "General Kenney did not like the B-36. He did not think the B-36 was a plane that should have been brought into the inventory, and he would have just as soon kept the B-50 as an airplane." In October 1948, then, General LeMay replaced General Kenney. I was just wondering if you were aware of any of that going on, General, at the time?

LANDRY: I wasn't aware at all. I know there was a lot of trepidation and a lot of concern about the B-36, the big lumbering thing up there, probably very vulnerable, but it was in production. It was the only thing we had beyond the B-29, and there must have been a lot of discussions on what the follow-on airplane would be, which became the B-47.

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AHMANN: That would have been in R&D [research and development] already.

LANDRY: That's right. But I think those would be normal discussions rather than anything unusual.

AHMANN: Were you involved with the establishment of the Air Force Association? This would have been in 1947 when they got that started.

LANDRY: No, except in those days I was in Washington. I supported it a great deal. Jimmy Doolittle was one of the people who put it together.

AHMANN: I think he might even have been the first president of it.

LANDRY: I think he was the first president. It was a great idea and was strongly supported by everybody in the Air Force.

AHMANN: I love that magazine. That saves me so much work in research. I really hand it to them.

LANDRY: They have good writing in there. They have very good editors and. writers.

AHMANN: Like if I have to go out and interview somebody that has dealt with electronics in the Air Force, all I have to do there is go to the electronics issue for the year, and that guy is in there.

LANDRY: It is a good magazine and has a good rapport with the aviation industry, the manufacturing part of it.

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AHMANN: Yes, it is. I am very happy with it.

Symington resigned in April 1950, kind of in protest to some of the lack of money being spent on the Air Force. Did President Truman ever talk about .that to you?

LANDRY: I don't think so. I think probably if that were correct, and I don't question what you say, Symington wanted to continue into the political world. He always wanted to run for the Senate, and I think he was more inclined to do it to get ready to run for the Senate, because he even asked me, when I was still in the White House, to come out to Saint Louis to a dinner and speak in his behalf, and I went.

AHMANN: Did you make a speech?

LANDRY: I went; and I talked a little bit about my experience in working with the Secretary and what a wonderful job he had done, what a dedicated man he was, and loyal to the President, and able, listened to the military, and supported the military point of view. I told the .story, I said, "Now I really have to tell you a story which will indicate how the President felt about Mr. Symington." I told the story about when the article appeared in the paper about "Symington Defies the President." Symington called me over and told me to tell the President he really didn't need to fire him and so on. That will give you some idea when the President said, "Just tell old Stu to keep his mouth shut for a few days, and this will all blow over." It will give you some: idea of what the relationship was.

AHMANN: That made big headlines.

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LANDRY: It really did. You asked about Symington. I think he had had enough. I believe Finletter replaced him. I think he wanted to get ready to run for the Senate. He didn't tell me that, but that's when I went out to talk for him; so putting two and two together, I think that is it:

AHMANN: The Russians exploded their first atomic device in August 1950. Do you recall what Harry Truman's reaction to that was? Would he have commented to you?

LANDRY: I think the general answer would be that everybody expected that there would be one.

AHMANN: In April 1949 Vandenberg briefed Harry Truman on the SAC war plans. Truman had asked the Secretary of Defense for a Joint Chiefs of Staff evaluation of the plans. What this really is leading to is: How much was Truman aware of these kinds of war plans?

LANDRY: I think he was aware of war plans. The thing that I talked to him about was hearing a little bit more about SAC, because SAC had 90 percent of the fire power that we had, and SAC was fairly new. I just wondered if he understood how SAC worked. I thought a presentation would be worthwhile. We didn't get into overall war plans. I only wanted him to learn how important SAC was to us in terms of damaging the enemy very severely. In a sense it was just telling how it operated.

AHMANN: Did President Truman have a little more--do you think he was a little more fond of the Air Force than the Navy? Did he ever show any kind of partiality; that one branch of the service seemed to be a little more the apple of his eye than any other branch, for example?

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LANDRY: He never said anything. He never leaned that way. He had been in the Artillery which was Army; everybody knew that. But I don't think he ever said or conducted himself in a manner that he favored one service over the other. No, I think he was pretty fair.

AHMANN: There was this Hoover Commission, which the official title was the Commission on organization for the Executive Branch. Did they----

LANDRY No, I can tell you why that occurred, though. He told us about this at a meeting one morning. Very often in those meetings he would just tell us what he was thinking, what he was planning to do. It was all very interesting. He said on several occasions what a pity it was that a living President was not being approached or was not in a position to act as a kind of elder statesman based upon his experience. For example, he thought at one time that maybe a former President ought to be a Senator without portfolio. He thought he should have some place in the running of the government where he could be called upon to speak in support of certain things based upon his experience. One of them was in the Senate. He said, "Look, here is a man, a great brain, engineer type, Mr. Hoover (Herbert), notwithstanding what happened in his administration but just a man with a great ability. It is a pity; it is a shame that the government doesn't use him in some way. I have come to the conclusion that since we are talking about reorganization of the government, here is a man who ought to be ideal to make a study." He told us that. He got our reaction. Of course, how could you disagree with him? All the staff there was ours, I mean mostly a senior civilian staff. One thing about it, civilians didn't like the military there, the three aides, to get into too many of

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these kinds of things. There were too many other people to do it, but we were entitled to comment on it anytime we wanted to, and nobody would ever resent that.

This was not a matter in our area, but he told us all about it. He said, "I am going to get in touch with President Hoover and see if he will accept this assignment." He did. Mr. Hoover came there, and he was absolutely delighted. He worked on it for a year or two, I think, and came up with a reorganization plan which nothing has really been done about --put on a shelf and forgotten.

AHMANN: Anything I have ever read about it, it really was a good reorganization. Which reminds me, did Truman have "yes" men around him, or were they pretty honest with him?

LANDRY: Not that I know of.

AHMANN: Like in these daily staff meetings, was there a give and take there?

LANDRY: Oh, yes. I think everything was, "Get it out on the table and let's talk about it." I don't think there was anybody who was "brown nosing" or anything like that. I think Mr. Truman could see through that too quickly. He wanted a fair and square reaction from you. He didn't want a bunch of bulls--t. There was nobody trying to be the most important guy there. That's what I said, it was a great pleasure to be there, sit there every morning at 9:30. Mr. Truman greeted everybody with a smile on his face, no matter how hostile the press was or anything else. Unbelievable!

AHMANN: Yes, because that is not my impression today.

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LANDRY: Absolutely, unbelievable. I can tell you because I was there, Charlie. Till this day, it is awful hard to explain.

AHMANN: Did you ever socialize on kind of one-on-one basis with President Truman? I mean, were you ever, invited to his quarters for dinner or .anything like that?

LANDRY: No, not one on one. Usually we were there, we would meet him and have a drink before we would go out with him or come home, like going to some of the meetings.--what is that annual meeting of all the press?

AHMANN: Where they roast the President?

LANDRY: Where they roast the President and things like that. We would come home and talk about it and that sort of thing. When we were down in Key West, Margaret [Truman) was down there. We used to see her. She would come down and stay awhile. Mrs. Truman very seldom came down. No, he never singled out anybody to socialize with. He had his friends.

When we went on the Williamsburg, or we were down there, we played a little bit of cheap poker; $50 take out; you could never lose any money. He had certain friends of his who had a bigger game. He had his personal friends, and, they would get together, like Chief Justice Vinson, [Fred], people like that. He never took a position, where he, in a sense, would like, well, he was more buddy-buddy with this guy than the other. Everybody knew that Harry Vaughn, and you can say what you want to about Harry Vaughn, the President was never going to get rid of Harry. Vaughn because Hardy Vaughn would never do anything that bad. He just put up with it, just dismissed it.

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AHMANN: You stayed there 5 years. Was that a long time for an aide

LANDRY: I came there in February because of the Air Force becoming a separate service. I suppose he was satisfied with me when he was elected. It is customary for Cabinet members to put in a resignation as a perfunctory thing: I mean; it is just a courteous, perfunctory, historically traditional thing. But there wasn't any such thing in the personal staff. I .just figured that if he wanted a change, he would tell me: I never went in and said, "Mr. President; do you want me to stay around?"

AHMANN: If you didn't talk to President Truman to get some guidance on how to do something or an allocation of office space, who would you deal with? Who was :really, ostensibly, your boss?

LANDRY: Let's see, we had somebody who handled the communications in the White House. Somebody; I forget who it was, assigned areas for your office. On help I went to the Air Force to get a secretary. Like with Murray when I needed help on that study, I went to the Air Force, either the Secretary's Office through his exec.

AHMANN: You kind of could go where you needed to go then?

LANDRY: I could go anywhere. All I did was pick up the telephone from the White House and call, somebody listened to you. If you don't go to the right place, why, they will tell you where to go. So if I needed any help I had a car there and a driver --I went to the Air Force. There wasn't anything I needed in the White House. You got what everybody else got.

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AHMANN: Who was writing your efficiency report in those days, or was there such a thing for you?

LANDRY: Yes, that's a good question. Who was writing my efficiency report? I presume it was General Spaatz or his office. It wouldn't be the Secretary. He wouldn't do that. Since Spaatz and Symington sent me over there, I presume it went back through General Spaatz' office or somebody. I really don't know. I never even looked at any of them. It is a good question. I never thought of it.

AHMANN: Usually that tells you who you are really working for. Well, it really doesn't tell you who you are working for.

LANDRY: In these kind of unusual situations, I was obviously working for the President, but the President doesn't write any efficiency reports. That's a good question. Maybe I ought to look in the record and see who wrote them, see how well I was doing my job. (laughter) I always thought, talking about that, even if I thought a guy disliked me or I disliked him intensely, I wouldn't want to know what he wrote about me. It doesn't help me; it doesn't do any good. I just said, "To hell with it."

AHMANN: When Eisenhower got elected, was it a foregone conclusion that you would be leaving then? How did that work?

LANDRY: It was a foregone conclusion. A new President's broom sweeps clean. He brings in his own people, his own staff. And they have all been different, from what I have been able to read. They all have a lawyer. They all have somebody to handle appointments, but it is a different kind of thing. Their

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titles are different. The things a man has to do as the President is pretty much the same.

AHMANN: Did you literally leave when Truman left?

LANDRY: Yes, I left 3 February. That's when I got everything out of the office. We stayed right there until Eisenhower's people moved in. Then I went down to Barksdale.

AHMANN: Who actually replaced you? Do you remember?

LANDRY: That's the difference. Eisenhower had a different arrangement. He had one man with the Army who was his military aide. He may have had an assistant to that man, an Air Force man. I really don't know what the organization was, but he didn't have the Army Aide, Air Force Aide as such.

AHMANN: He had an aide department run by an Army guy.

LANDRY: I forget the name of the fellow. A man he had known, a young, very bright fellow that I knew very well, but I can't remember his name. But that was his principal military aide.

AHMANN: There has hardly anything been written, I'll guarantee you, about military aides to the President.

LANDRY: There isn't anything because they are kind of like a sixth finger on a hand. They have no--as always in any one of those positions, there is no job description. They function according to the habits of the President. It is a very personal relationship.

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AHMANN: It would appear, to be, or., it was while you were there anyway. Like you say, God knows what it is today.

LANDRY: Yes, it is different, depending on what the man wants.

AHMANN: Were you there the day Truman went. to the train station? Did you go down to the train station with him when he left Washington? The day of the inauguration?

LANDRY: Yes, we went down. Everybody waved good by, no tears or anything, happy occasion. (laughter) I think Mrs. Truman was glad to get home.

AHMANN: Yes. You read that and you think, "Gee, to be President, that would be great." And to think, how could anybody be so happy to walk away from it, but I can well imagine that.

LANDRY: What the hell? He had done his job, and he was happy. He wasn't sad. It is really interesting that 3 years of his elected term he had to live in the Blair House.

AHMANN: Did he ever mention that that was a disappointment to him?

LANDRY: No, not at all because he was the one who got it done. With Margaret Truman's piano in the corner of her room upstairs, the floor dropped 18. inches. He decided that place was getting dangerous to live in.

AHMANN: I hadn't heard that.

LANDRY: Yes, that's a true story. The floor just sunk in. It had been rotting out. They had known it for quite some time. He had been there for quite some time. It was a question of how

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bad it was and when it should be done. I have a book on it written by the engineer who was in charge of it. He wrote a book on it.

As a matter of fact, one of the things the President gave us, he gave all of us a little something for Christmas. There is a plaque up there with a piece of the rock foundation, a nail, a piece of wood----

AHMANN: It has a crack in it.

Brig Gen Robert Landry: This plaster plaque retains a piece of the joist, the flooring of the Green room, two cut nails out of the woodwork, and a fragment out of the original foundation of the Executive Mansion, designed and built by James Hobau, 1790-1800. Under an act of the 81st Congress, removed from the original foundation and all the interior in the renovation and modernization of the Executive Mansion. All the stone and brick walls remained unchanged in position as well as the north and south portico.

Isn't that something.

LANDRY: It was just put in plaster of Paris. It fell off the wall, and it broke. That's very interesting. But he was over there across the street most of the time. Of course, there is nothing wrong with the Blair House. It is awfully pretty.

AHMANN: You can hardly walk in front of the Blair House these days. There is always somebody staying there, and you have to walk across the street.

What was the process when your job was over there? Did the Air Force come through with an assignment for you?

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LANDRY: As I told you, I became Deputy Commander of the Second Air Force. So I went on down there and stayed there.

AHMANN: Why did you get that job as opposed to anything else?

LANDRY: That's what they gave me. It certainly was a good job. I didn't ask for anything. When the President said, "I don't want Bob to suffer by having served me for 5 years," he just didn't want me to be given some kind of inconsequential thing, and certainly deputy commander of one of the SAC air forces was good.

AHMANN: That was Frank Armstrong down there?

LANDRY: Yes. Frank and I were old friends. I stayed there 2 years. LeMay told me about an assignment to the Fourth Air Force. I don't know whether he wanted me out or whether that was a way to get me out or what it was, but he said, "Somebody has to take this Fourth Air Force." He had nothing to do with it.

The Fourth Air Force was a Continental Air Command command, Reserve and National Guard. He said something about maybe Frank Armstrong would have to take it, or I would have to take it. I don't know whether he wasn't satisfied with me or what. Anyway, it was an air force, which in a sense was a promotion from a deputy to an air force to another one. Perhaps in terms of what the job was, you had to do, it may not have been quite on that same level. But anyway, I was ordered to Fourth Air Force.

I went out there to Hamilton Field. That had the nine western states under its surveillance. Continental Air Command Headquarters was in Mitchel Field [NY].

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AHMANN: Going back to the Second Air Force for a minute, you brought the first B-47s into the Air Force when you were there?

LANDRY: No. I had nothing to do with it. The B-47s were there.

AHMANN: They were they already?

L: Yes.

AHMANN: They had just come in. The 306th Wing had just gotten them. That Second Air Force was all over God's green earth, Barksdale, Lake Charles [AFB LAI, MacDill [AFB FLI, Lockbourne [AFB OH], Hunter [AFB GA], Turner [AFB GA], Sedalia [AFB MOJ, Campbell [AFB KYJ, Ramey [AFB, Puerto Rico], Pinecastle [AFB FL]. What did you find yourself doing
down there as a deputy?

LANDRY: As the deputy, going out and visiting with the places and checking on what was going on. It was a combination of what Frank wanted done as the commander and what he did himself. I served on many of the boards down there. I headed the budget committee down there for him. That took quite a time to put together for each air force. There was a lot of money involved. Special things that were done at that level. I took some time to check out on a B-47. Just like you do for a profile target, like SAC pilots do. But there is an awful lot of stuff at that level that you get into that the commander doesn't want to fool around with, and you do it.

AHMANN: Did you get into this F-84 toss bombing thing? Did that involve you at all?

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LANDRY: Not at all. We had a range down there, quite a bit of property at Barksdale.

AHMANN: As the deputy, you had mentioned earlier--I don't think we had the tape recorder going--that General Power [Thomas S.] would call Air Force Deputy Chiefs to SAC to talk to them. What kind of an arrangement was that? Why would he deal with deputies?

LANDRY: Just like LeMay would call the commanders in for a commanders' meeting, and the deputy commanders would also go to that, Tommy would call meetings once a month, if I remember correctly, of the various deputies because that was the deputy level. The deputies did a lot of things that the commander didn't get involved in. He knew what was going on. We had all sorts of programs, raising funds, athletics, just lot of miscellaneous stuff came up that he talked about. He had the agenda; he made it up. You can imagine in an outfit as big as SAC that we would be talking about how many baseball fields to build, how much money to allocate for them, recreational things, morale, maintenance procedures. Things that needed a lot of detail attention that the deputies had to get into.

AHMANN: Did you like your time in SAC? You had never been in SAC before.

LANDRY: Yes, I enjoyed it very much.

AHMANN: Was SAC the taskmaster I have heard. For example, I have heard maybe just an apocryphal story that if a wing commander had an airplane crash, the next day he had to see LeMay.

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LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: LeMay would fire people. He said, "I know it is not your fault, but I can't afford unlucky commanders." Is that true?

LANDRY: I think there was some of that. He was very strong on that. A guy had to come up and explain it, personally. LeMay was tough. There was no question about it. He was tough and good and unforgiving about a lot of things. That was his idea and his way of running the command. The mission that SAC had was very important. He couldn't afford any mistakes. It may be said that some of them were cruel and that maybe there ought to be circumstances that should be considered about this and that sort of thing, but his was almost like a black-and-white policy. If it happens to you, it is just bad luck.

AHMANN: "And I can't afford unlucky commanders."

LANDRY: That's right. It had an impact all the way down. It made you be a little bit more careful perhaps because bad luck is just like good luck. Very often you create the environment of what you have--good luck or the bad luck. It depends on how you look at it. It was kind of cruel, kind of tough. I never had to go up; I never had an accident or anything like that. It wasn't very pleasant to have to go up there and explain it.

AHMANN: Would you have dealt with LeMay at all in this time period in any sense?

LANDRY: No. He dealt with the deputies, and Frank Armstrong was a guy who didn't want to get involved in an argument with Curt

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LeMay. I remember going to the first meeting. I was sitting with Frank when LeMay had the commanders' meeting. I said, "Jesus, Frank, you have to respond to that. You have to. Do you mind if I do?" He said, "Yes, I do. You just keep your mouth shut and listen." (laughter) So I kept my mouth shut and listened. Frank didn't say anything.

AHMANN: What about this spot promotion thing that existed in SAC at that time?

LANDRY: I don't know of any spot promotions.

AHMANN: Maybe it was even earlier before you got there where if a guy did well, some young captain or aircraft commander did well, why, bingo, he could be a major the next day.

LANDRY: I never heard of that.

AHMANN: It could have been earlier in SAC's history.

LANDRY: I don't know about spot promotions in peacetime. You probably have something on it. There is something on it?

AHMANN: Yes, there is something on it someplace.

LANDRY: He may have had some limited authority. I would think more down the line in the noncommissioned officers.

AHMANN: What kind of morale did you have in SAC at this time?

LANDRY: I think the morale in SAC has always been good. It was tough.

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AHMANN: Did the enlistment rate stay pretty well in SAC?

LANDRY: Yes. You have to remember that SAC had a high priority, and with a guy like LeMay demanding this and that and turning down this and that guy, he had the cream of the crop. There
is no question about it. There were a lot of good officers in the other commands, but if SAC wanted a guy, that was a top priority. That is just the way it was.

The mission was tough, and the family life wasn't always so good. Guys on alert and things like that. After all, it is a hell of a lot better in the military if they have a good, responsible position than it is to have something irresponsible, goofing off, and just thinking, "If I had a good job, I could do better." Sometimes you have your cake, and you have to eat it. In SAC you had to do the job, or you didn't last long.

AHMANN: Was Power the kind of guy sometimes heard, a very arbitrary type individual?

LANDRY: He was a difficult man, very difficult, and without a heart.

AHMANN: The question that follows then: was he kind of an alter ego to LeMay, or did LeMay just use him for the bad things that LeMay thought he had to do?

LANDRY: I think a deputy or assistant or vice is really an alter ego all the time. I think that perhaps you could say that Tommy Power had the authority to relieve or to discipline or to censure people. He handled things that maybe LeMay didn't get into and without very much consideration for anybody, very tough. But in a lot of ways he was a good officer. It

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wasn't easy to deal with him. He was more likely the kind of commander that you would like to stay away from because you were never quite sure how you stood with him. You never knew but what he might say something one day and do something the next day.

AHMANN: He never followed LeMay up into the Air Staff?

LANDRY: No.

AHMANN: He went to ARDC [Air Research and Development Command] up at Baltimore.

LANDRY: Between LeMay and Power, they had SAC for 15 or 20 years.

AHMANN: You never got back into SAC again, did you?

LANDRY: No.

AHMANN: Was this by design or just the way----

LANDRY: No, just by circumstance.

AHMANN: How long were you at Second Air Force?

LANDRY: Two years.

AHMANN: Was that a normal tour, or was there no such thing as a normal tour?

LANDRY: No, it wasn't a normal tour. I just got told about the Fourth Air Force, and that I had been assigned to Fourth Air

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Force. I didn't ask why; I didn't ask to stay, and I didn't know.

AHMANN: You could well have gotten the impression, though, it was time to move. Was Armstrong still there when you left?

LANDRY: Yes. Frank was still there. He later went on as the Commander of the Alaskan Air Command. I forget the fellow who replaced me. Probably his name is in there.

AHMANN: No, I don't have that. I have got that you replaced Alfred Kessler [Maj. Gen. Alfred A., Jr.] at Fourth Air Force.

LANDRY: He died of a heart attack, and they had a vacancy. Having an air force command was always a good thing on your record anyway. I didn't mind it at all. It was dealing with the civilian components. It was really a PR (public relations) job. I have always, even at Barksdale and anyplace I have ever been, not gone out of my way, but I probably have always been more interested in dealing with the civilian community than a lot of people are. I think one of the mistakes that the military makes is--maybe they don't do it any more--putting out a lot of extra effort or going out of our way to cultivate friends in the community and get to know them instead of just sheltering ourselves right in our base life. I have always believed in that, so my dealing with the Fourth Air Force took me around nine western states in my own airplane and talking to people in the communities, business people, the National Guard, the Reservists, some very high-level, distinguished people. I didn't mind it. It was great fun. But I wouldn't want to do it for too long.

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AHMANN: There is a list I have of missions and responsibilities which goes on forever, almost, in regards to what you were supposed to do out there. What was the status of the Air Force Reserve and the Air Guard within your area?

LANDRY: It depended on the area in which you worked. Out in the Fourth, in the nine western states, it was very good. We had good National Guard squadrons. They were mostly fighters. The Reserve program was always a little difficult because--it has always been difficult. I enjoyed it, and I think we kept up the training; we kept up our contacts with them. I think, let's see, "Chuck" Stone [Lt. Gen. Charles B. III] was the Commander of Continental Air Command at Mitchel Field. I think the records will show that.

There are a list of the things we had to do which gave us--it was something of substance.

AHMANN: One thing it mentioned. Did you work for the Navy out there in search and rescue, out there at Fourth Air Force?

LANDRY: No.

AHMANN: That may have come later then.

LANDRY: What we did in search and rescue, we worked with the Civil Air Patrol [CAP]. That's who we worked with. That had been one of General Spaatz` pets after the war, setting up Civil Air Patrol. General Spaatz and General Eaker were the ones, I think, who developed that idea that this was an awfully good source to get young men interested in aviation to support the Air Force, and it was a possible source of

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material. But certainly they could do a lot of search and rescue.

AHMANN: CAP Headquarters is on Maxwell.

LANDRY: I think we set up an office before I left for plotting and coordination. I don't know if we had it there at Hamilton Field at one time or not. Of course Hamilton Field is gone now. At that time it was an Air Defense Command post. I was just domicile there, and my headquarters was there, but it was an Air Defense post, which has since been closed.

AHMANN: This Fourth Air Force, is that still in existence?

LANDRY: There is a Fourth Air Force, yes. It is one of the air forces in Continental Air Command, Reserve and National Guard. I don't know where the headquarters is now though.

AHMANN: Unless I talk to somebody who has been in a particular organization, I usually kind of trace its history, but—like yourself, you left there in a certain time period. I could care less what happened to the organization. So I don't really know what had happened.

LANDRY: They closed Hamilton Field finally, and they moved it somewhere else. I think there is a Fourth Air Force still in existence.

AHMANN: You were replaced out there by Gen Sory Smith [Maj. Gen.] in 1957.

LANDRY: Yes.

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AHMANN: You say you had to do a lot of traveling on this job?

LANDRY: In that kind of a job, you are supposed to do a lot of traveling because--I mean, after all, your personal contact with the civilian components is very important. You can't do a lot by telephone. It was kind of a public relations job. Obviously, the commander wanted to see what his units were like, his summer encampments of the National Guard, see that his Reserve programs were going well. I think you said you had a list of duties. It was the kind of thing where you had to get out in the field perhaps a little bit more than you would with a combat unit.

AHMANN: I got the impression reading that in one sense you would get enlisted Reservists, and yet it was difficult to retain them because sometimes the mission was really not there for them. Was that a problem?

LANDRY: Yes, that's right.

AHMANN: When I say there wasn't a mission, was there just no place to put these guys?

LANDRY: I don't know just exactly how that affected the whole thing. We had a lot of what you call "mobilization assignees" that came and did active duty at the various places. You had that kind of a program. A lot of Reserves have mobilization assignees. In that area you have that going.

You don't have a big inventory of combat aircraft except the National Guard. But for the Reservists themselves, the people who go to 2 weeks of training, that is kind of like a

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schooling, updating things, seeing that they do participate, keeping your quotas up if you can.

AHMANN: What would you do if an individual didn't attend his meetings? Did you get involved in getting any of these guys called back?

LANDRY: No. That was done by the local Reservists themselves. They had organizations, and they had a commander. What the job of that Air Force commander was was to encourage them to participate and encourage them to learn their skills, to be combat ready, to get mobilization assignments in case they were called upon. So it was just a backup for the military. It is not an exciting job like it is being with a combat unit where you have a lot of equipment and a lot more action.

AHMANN: Did you feel you were kind of in exile there for awhile?

LANDRY: It was the kind of thing that I didn't mind doing, but I didn't want to do it too long. (laughter) It was a nice, delightful thing to do because you are pretty free to do what you want to.

When Rosie O'Donnell came through there one time on his way to the Pacific on some kind of a trip, I said to Rosie, "Look, Rosie, goddamn it, this is a cushy job, and I can run it for awhile, but I wouldn't want to be stuck here forever." He said, "Maybe it is about time you get back to Washington or the Pentagon." I said, "Well, just don't leave me out here too much longer." So he called me up, and he said, "How would you like to come in as my deputy?" I said, "That sounds fine. When do you want me to come?" So I came on in as his deputy.

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AHMANN: You replaced John Mills, Maj. Gen. John [S.] Mills. Is that right?

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: I notice General Carmichael was there.

LANDRY: He was head of one of the Divisions

AHMANN: Personnel Planning and Training.

LANDRY: He was under DCS, Chief of Staff, Personnel. He had one of the divisions or sections. Whatever it was called.

AHMANN: You had never worked in Personnel before.

LANDRY: No. Of course knowing Rosie, I was delighted.

AHMANN: Wait a minute. You have a Maj. Gen. William Stone [Gen. William S.].

LANDRY: That's the one I think I replaced. I forget who it was. I think Bill Stone went out to be Superintendent of the Air Force Academy for a couple of years. I think he did.

AHMANN: Yes. August 1959 to June 1962.

Here you show up. General O'Donnell and then there was you. Ground Safety was William L. Tubbs. That must have been a civilian. Chief of Chaplains, Carpenter [Maj. Gen. Charles I]. Did the chaplains come under you people, Personnel?

LANDRY: Yes, I think so.

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AHMANN: Then there was Emma J. Riley, Colonel, for the WAFs [Women in the Air Force], and Nazzaro [Gen. Joseph J.] was there, Raymond Reeves [Gen. Raymond J.], John A. Watts for Civilian Personnel, and Carmichael was still there.

As Assistant Deputy, what kind of job happens there?

LANDRY: There again, the Deputy has to be free to do a lot of things, get out in the field, Air Council, things on the Hill, running the general officers' section, all sorts of things, running three divisions, the Assignments Division, the thing that Carmichael had. There were three divisions, I think, under there. We had the Civilian Personnel. I was chairman of the committee for civilian personnel of the Air Force. I handled that.

I handled all the things that were more administrative there. I had a lot to do with the appointments of the promotion boards, sat on some of the general officer promotion boards.

AHMANN: How do they work, the general officer promotion boards? What do you do? Do you go through their 201s.

LANDRY: Yes. Just like you do for any other promotions, colonel, majors. You decide who the people are who are eligible. You appoint a chairman, and you get a board of senior people. Then you give them a room and give them all the records and let them alone. The criteria is that they look them over and see who they recommend for promotion.

AHMANN: How independent are those promotion boards in the sense that if they recommend 150 or 50 colonels to brigadier general,

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who can break that up and say, "Well, we don't want this guy. We don't want that guy"? How does this work?

LANDRY: Once the board picks them, that is it as a rule, unless it is something obvious that they missed. Let's say you have 25 or 50 vacancies for LC (lieutenant colonels] and maybe you give them 100 records. They will go through those records and pick out the best of the 100. Let's say of all the available permanent colonels, you want to pick brigadiers. You have a dozen brigadiers or 20 brigadiers coming up. You will take a certain number of the available colonels, give it to the board. They come out with an order of priority, number one, two, three, four, and unless there is something that is flagrantly wrong, that is what goes forward. Those are the promotions. Nobody tries to dicker with it after you have a board of senior officers to review it.

AHMANN: How can a guy in the sense that--because talking to the guys in the Air Force, you hear, "Those promotion boards, it is all a fix. General so-and-so can get his boys promoted, and nobody in Air University gets promoted." This kind of thing. It doesn't affect me in the least, so I am really not concerned about it. But the theory is as you described it, and yet you hear all these people talk about all this personal influence coming in on this.

LANDRY: I think personal influence comes in on it if a general officer has given you a pretty good report, it doesn't hurt you. But there are no people asked at the last minute to write a special report. It is looking at the OER [Officer Effective Report] over a period of time. You don't look at just one; you look at all of them. You see how he has moved; what is his drive; what are his interests; what is his sense

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of responsibility. All the things that you would look to see, bearing in mind that as you go on up, you want a man who is capable of accepting responsibility on his own, who has a great deal of initiative and imagination, who doesn't like a lot of goddarn watching or tutoring. Let's kind of say, like a general officer, you want to feel that he is a general officer because he can accept responsibility and go out and do a job without being told how to do it. There are a lot of factors that come in. The same thing would be true in industry. Absolutely no difference in selecting a quality guy.

AHMANN: For example, if some general officer wanted a particular individual promoted and if his name did not come out on a promotion list or came out of the review board, can he step in and say, "Hey, I still want that guy promoted"?

LANDRY: I don't think so, not to my knowledge. I don't think so at all. But if a general officer has an outstanding man in his command, like a colonel for example--myself, I would say that this man is an outstanding officer. He has these kinds of qualities. He is general officer material, and I rate him very highly for that, or something like that. But that is as far as you can go.

I :think that best is the wrong word. I think any board tries to pick out the most highly qualified person, we'll say for a colonel, for a general officer, for a major, or for what.

My memory is a little vague on this. You may wonder, you may think, and I'm thinking now, well, we need a certain number

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of technical people in the business, a good research and development man, a good electronics man--somebody for R&D, somebody for procurement, somebody just to fly airplanes. I think by and large we try to pick the most highly qualified people for that rank. You don't necessarily have to be a graduate in chemical engineering or anything like that. It is just an overall wellqz--ualified guy, because those people that you get at the higher rank are in charge and usually have technician types to do special jobs. For example, I don't know, I think maybe who is picked for R&D as commanding general might be a man who has had a good background in research and development or some kind of engineering program. But that is where you get up to that level.

It depends on the level of the grade itself. Generally speaking, you start off by getting well-rounded people. As you get closer to the top, it may be that among the general officers available some guy may be picked out only because he is a good major general, but in a job that requires a certain technical background, they might, I suppose by recommendation of the Chief of Staff, consider this man because of certain skills. I don't think they ever go much further than that.

AHMANN: What about the point thing that got so inflated. Like today, a man is rated on a 1 to 10 scale, 10 being the best. Everybody gets a 9.4 type thing. The whole thing has been inflated. Did you have this kind of an inflation thing back in this late 1950 time period?

LANDRY: We didn't have it on a scale of 1 to 10, which has become kind of a common thing now. In just ordinary conversation, I

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rate this girl a 5 or a 10. (laughter) You can read an efficiency report, and you can tell pretty well whether the goddamn thing is inflated. If you read many of them, you can see some flowery stuff in there.

To the other extreme, you can read a report, and you can say, "This goddamn rater is really a hardnosed son of a b---h." You look at some of his other reports, and when you get them all in there discussing for a couple of days or 3 days, going through the records--and people have a reputation that gets around, too. "This guy is awfully easy, but this guy is really tough." Then you have to use your judgment. Then the people get together just like anything.

Some people are good at writing and some people aren't. Some people rate everybody a 10. (laughter) A lot of common sense in those things, but the record will pretty well speak for itself.

AHMANN: Did you get involved with the Air Force Academy at all when you were in DCS/P? It had just started.

LANDRY: Not directly in the sense that it started when I was with General Spaatz, looking for a place--300, then 100, then 25 or 50, and then down to 10, then down to 3.

AHMANN: You got started way back then?

LANDRY: They began looking around. I forget when the commission was appointed.

AHMANN: It was appointed in the early 1950s.

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LANDRY: Was it after we got the separate Air Force? Yes, it had to be.

AHMANN: It got down to three places: Illinois, Colorado Springs, and----

LANDRY: No, it was not when I was in the Pentagon. It was when I was across the river. I was never directly involved in it. I was involved in it to the extent that I would meet people and support the idea, never for any particular place.

AHMANN: Did you get involved then as Assistant DCS/P?

LANDRY: No, Rosie handled that himself. Rosie did handle that himself. Rosie was right in that all the time.

AHMANN: They had this "White Charger" program. In 1958 there was an officer RIF [reduction in force]. Do you remember that? Personnel requirements dropped, and it ended up--I think you only RIFed only 300 or 400 people, which actually you had a reduction in force to the extent where normal turnover didn't take care of it. You actually had to RIF some people.

LANDRY: I think that came after I left. I went there in 1957 and stayed until 1960. I'm not quite sure about the RIF. I'm real hazy on that.

AHMANN: In 1958 you had this "White Charger" program which you either had to separate, retire, or somehow get rid of 3,385 officers.

LANDRY: We must have gone through the records and weeded out those who were the weakest, I guess. I'm awfully hazy on that. I don't remember that.

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AHMANN: Did you get into recruiting of enlisted personnel? Did that ever come under your responsibility?

LANDRY: Only in the sense that that was handled by one of those divisions.

AHMANN: General Carmichael.

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: Another problem that really came about in this time period, the catch phrase was "the maturing of the force." Typical curve business, all of a sudden everybody at this end of the top end was getting very old. Do you remember dealing with that?

LANDRY: I think the age problem and the educational problem were continuing things you dealt with. I don't remember anything that was alarming, like everybody in the country club is 70 years old, and the first thing you know you know have a country club. (laughter) It was the same kind of thing, the force is getting older. No, I think we were always watching the age and the grade structure. But those were things that were done down in the three divisions.

AHMANN: Did you do some special studies when you were in DCS/P? Any special reports. It seems to me I saw a vague reference to it, but I couldn't run it down.

LANDRY: No, I don't remember writing any special reports.

AHMANN: At this time, too, the flying cadet program was finally chopped. How did you feel about the cadet program in the Air Force?

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LANDRY: I think the flying cadet program was good. It was built on the requirements needed to get the kids in. Like it was in the original days, just taking the boys and sending them through Randolph and Kelly as cadets with the officers that went through. I think we probably got another source, where they came from the ROTC [Reserve Officers' Training Corps] or from people with flying experience. But it seems to me we have always had some kind of cadet program where we bring in people from civilian life.

AHMANN: Nowadays, you usually bring them in through ROTC or OTS [Officer Training School]. Then they go to pilot training.

LANDRY: Rather than just cadets.

AHMANN: Cadets with a year or two of college.

LANDRY: All we did was substitute another method that gave them--well, what it does: It gives them more pay; it gives them more stature, and it gives them more of a reason or desire to stay in. I can remember the flying cadet program, the pay was very minimal. Those guys were considered to be enlisted men. One of the things that came up was: are they allowed to go to the officers mess? So they had some very unfortunate conditions there. I think going to this other thing made more sense. How we did it, I am not aware of that. But I think we did do it, obviously, from what you say. I guess that would be the reason. There was a better way of doing it.

AHMANN: Another thing that came out here in reading about this time period. The SAC DCS/P was a Brig. Gen. Ed Martin [Edward 0.]. When he would talk about SAC personnel problems, he wouldn't

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talk to DCS/P, Rosie O'Donnell or Truman Landon; he would go talk to LeMay. Do you remember this?

LANDRY: He would talk to LeMay because at that time--was LeMay Chief of Staff or Vice?

AHMANN: Chief of Staff.

LANDRY: I would say that made sense. I would say that that is probably correct.

AHMANN: Of course the problem then existed that all of a sudden neither Landon nor Rosie O'Donnell would hear about a problem from LeMay, and LeMay would wonder why in the hell you weren't doing anything about it. Landon or O'Donnell said, "Nobody has told us." ,

LANDRY: I would be surprised when I was there with Rosie that people from SAC went right to LeMay when he was Vice, which he was for a couple of years, and then when he made Chief of Staff, they started the same thing. Because no question about it, LeMay was slanted towards SAC. He expected to get the best of everything, demanded it. So as Vice Chief or Chief nobody was going to argue with him about it. It just made the job lower down a little more difficult. (laughter)

AHMANN: Did you ever deal with the warrant officer thing in the Air Force?

LANDRY: No, I never had anything to do with that.

AHMANN: Were there retention problems back in this late 1950s time period, keeping first term enlisted men in and first term officers?

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LANDRY: I don't remember that we had a lot of problems, I really don't.

AHMANN: Did you ever go to private industry or consulting firms while you were in Personnel to do studies or anything for you?

LANDRY: No.

AHMANN: You had the expertise?

LANDRY: I would say that I was what you would call an expert, had the expertise in personnel management. I have always looked upon those kinds of administrative jobs as common sense. Having been educated in the Air Force, you know what people like to have, you know what people's desires are; you know what their ambitions are, and the handling of people is a matter of trying to appreciate their position, their capabilities, their problems, how they fit into something. I think that a man who is trained in the military, who knows the service, either one, is able to handle personnel problems.

A person who likes people, is outgoing, like Rosie O'Donnell--practically knew everybody in the Air Force as big as it was--has a special ability to handle personnel only because everybody kind of feels old Rosie knows what is going on.

I don't know what an expert in personnel management is. You can go to some school and study all those sciences about it and that sort of thing. A personnel manager is just a guy who is trying to place people properly, be sure that conditions are such that you can get good productivity out of them, and yet they can enjoy life and feel some security. What the hell good is it to go to school to tell me how to

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talk to a guy that is having a bad time or convince him he ought to go into this. I just think your mental growth, your understanding of your service, all the things that gets you up where you are what you need. Your schooling would be your experience in the service.

AHMANN: Did you travel around a lot as DCS/P to airbases?

LANDRY: I went to a few. Let me tell you, when Rosie had been there and served four or five different Chiefs of Staff and was not the closest guy in the world to LeMay, he told me he was going to be out in the field. I went to most of the Deputy Chief of Staffs' meetings, which was LeMay, representing Personnel, to many, many of the meetings. I sat on the Council. He pretty much had his fill of it, and he wanted out.

AHMANN: Was LeMay hard to work for as Chief of Staff?

LANDRY: No. There were a lot of people who didn't dare, didn't want to get into any kind of discussion with LeMay because they didn't think that was in the best interest. LeMay sat there and asked everybody to say something, but it seemed to me a lot of people were very timid because LeMay was liable to come down on them. What was your question? Was he hard to work for?

AHMANN: Yes.

LANDRY: I don't think he was hard to work for. I think a lot of people were not completely at ease in dealing with LeMay. He is a very positive guy and very fixed in what he wanted and

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his ideas, and he didn't like to have people, not argue with him, but question the thing.

I had one experience where I took the position that the attitude we had about furnishing people for SAC had such a priority that it might be damaging for the rest of the commands that had a very important mission too. I just brought that up. I don't know what LeMay said, but after the meetings was over, Elmer Rogers [Lt. Gen. Elmer J., Jr.], the Inspector General said to me, "I don't know why you want to get into these discussions with LeMay about these kinds of things that he feels so fixed on." I said, "Isn't that the reason we come to these goddamn meetings, to speak out, not argumentative but just to get your views across. Maybe he doesn't think of everything?" So he was saying, "Isn't that dangerous?" It probably was. (laughter) I don't think he took it with any animosity. I just kind of figured that you were there--he talked about moving Personnel down to Randolph Field. It has been moved. I felt if you could move the whole goddamn outfit down there, but don't move the Deputy down. I don't know if they moved him.

AHMANN: As far as I know he is still in Washington.

LANDRY: I said, "I think it would be a terrible thing to move the whole office down there. I think there are a lot of people in Personnel who have to be talking to people in the Air Staff here to keep current on what the Air Staff is thinking. To move a major branch down there, completely, would be bad." Well, I had a big discussion with him about that. He said, "When I want to do something--move the whole goddamn thing down there. We don't need them here. We need the room."

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AHMANN: How did the DCS/P interface with--they moved the whole command down to Randolph now. What does that come under? Air Training Command?

LANDRY: That is an Air Training Command's base, but they are just domicile there.

AHMANN: How does the individual running Air Force Personnel interface with the DCS/P then?

LANDRY: I don't know. I suppose you have computers; you have telephones.

AHMANN: What about the days you were there? You were DCS/P. Did you have assignments and training? How did you get your wishes known down at the operating level?

LANDRY: No, you got it through the interoffice communications. You could walk down the hall and talk to somebody in Plans. You were right there.

Initially, I thought LeMay had in mind to move the whole goddamn office down there. I said, "How in the hell is Personnel going to keep in touch with what is going on in the Air Force?" I don't think he thought it through very much. Nobody else had because he just sprung it. So there was a little discussion on it.

It would be kind of silly for people to go to the meetings, as many of them did, and never open their goddamn mouth. It may not have done any good. It may have done great harm to them, but that's not my idea of having a staff meeting. A staff meeting is where you are expected to speak out. You

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don't agree, but once a decision is made, then you carry it out. But you ought to be heard.

When you get to back talking to leadership, a good leader, a good commander--it is well known that a very complicated field order is very often written and then checked with some of the people who are going to have to enforce it to be sure that you haven't overstepped the ability of that command to exercise it and that you are not surprising them with something that they wouldn't know too much about. In other words, consideration of the people who are going to have to do the job that you are going to order them to do. That's a good part of leadership, trying to be sure that this is within the capabilities of your people and give them a chance to comment on it. That's what leadership is all about.

An arbitrary leadership which says, "This is what we are going to do, period," is in my opinion not always effective as this other kind of leadership where there is a little more consideration, a little more coordination. On the other hand, you can't fault SAC for being a bad organization because it had a very dominant factor, and there were reasons that made it work. You got replaced pretty quick or relieved.

AHMANN: Was there a big study--was it Rear Adm. Lester [E.J Hubbell] Was there a review of military pay at the time you were in DCS/P?

LANDRY: There was always a review of pay, always. One comment on pay. You are civil service. The civil service has always had a good lobby on pay.

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AHMANN: Not today though. (laughter)

LANDRY: While we were lobbying for pay and trying to get equal with civilian life, I was chairman of the civilian committee for all the civil service in the Air Force. I think you had a couple hundred thousand people. We had the top dog right, a very nice, able guy that was representing them on the Air Staff. They pushed hard and very effectively for increases in pay, and they were very clever. They thought their GS-15s, -16s, -17s should be related to the one-, two-,three-, and four-star rank, for which they had the prerequisite when they traveled. They could get all of that. Pretty smart. They went for pay. It has always been my feeling that if the civil service hadn't been so successful in getting their pay scales up, probably the military would still be lagging behind. I think it is a matter of record that the civilians got the pay up, and then they had to listen to the military.

AHMANN: I think they are tied, no question in my mind.

LANDRY: What I am trying to say is: I think the civil service took kind of the lead in making the fight, because being civilians, they came under less criticism among members of Congress than if the military--here the military wants a featherbed; they want this and that. Look what they have. You couldn't say that to the civilians.

AHMANN: They have started this Senior Executive Service now.

LANDRY: What is that?

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AHMANN: It did away with the GS-16, -17, -18. They have what they call the Senior Executive Service. Somehow they are appointed to their jobs, and then they come under civil service, but they can be removed from the job, too, somehow. It is a little different. That fight still goes on: What kind of perks you are going to get?

LANDRY: Just think back what happened to me when I went on vacation after 4 years at the Academy and earning my pay and trying to be a good boy, being told that I could stay on vacation with no pay, and in addition to that, I had to take a 15 percent pay cut. (laughter)

AHMANN: Somebody told me one time that they came out of the Academy, and if you got a horse, you got an extra $30 a month.

LANDRY: It could be in the Cavalry.

AHMANN: He said if you get married you didn't get any extra money. (laughter)

Something that started in 1958 was proficiency pay for enlisted people. This was where you were going to take people who were in skill shortages and pay them extra money.

LANDRY: There were all sorts of things to induce men to get into those kinds of things and to attract them to the service. SAC took the lead on extra pay for certain kinds of people because of the responsibility that they had, being ready and on the alert all the time, in addition to the defense forces and all that. Proficiency pay, as I remember correctly, was a thing that came out of SAC for special skills. There was a lot of discussion--I wouldn't say controversy--but when you

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get into a thing like that, you have proficiency pay for a guy who is doing a special job on a piece of equipment on an airplane. You had proficiency pay for a guy who had to have extra training, which the Air Force gave him, on highly technical equipment, or proficiency pay in certain skills.

The point that arises there is: How many kinds of proficiency pay are you going to have? You can say that flying pay is understandable because you are either a flyer or you aren't. But proficiency pay down the line where everybody is working next to each other, what determines proficiency pay? It is not only the number of skills that is required for proficiency pay, but it is also the amount of money that you pay them. So it was always a very good subject for pros and cons. But it was put into effect.

AHMANN: There was a cut in flight pay in 1960 as a matter of fact. What brought that about?

LANDRY: I think the fact that as you got older, you flew less. For example, a colonel might have a job where he wasn't required to fly, really, and he had to go out and not make himself fly, but he had to use time just to fly 4 hours a month. Flying pay has always been under attack by the Congress, always has been. Been in danger of losing the whole thing. You can't get guys to fly these sophisticated airplanes without some extra pay. It is not only traditional, it is logical.

I think the compromise was that--it was a 'budgetary matter, how much money goes for pay--if you weren't required to fly; that is, if you don't need all of those pilots, maybe at least their pay has to be cut back. It used to be that your

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pay was pay and a half, so as you got up to a colonel, it was half of what your colonel's pay was. What they did was they got up to a certain level like a captain or a major, the likely ones that were going to be in combat, and then it leveled off. In other words, you didn't get automatic pay and a half; you got a percentage. That seemed to make sense.

It was better than no pay at all. It protected the guys that were down there flying. If you wanted to get into some comparison, you can talk about some of the older men, pilots who really went and rode in the backseat, for example, and collected half the pay of a colonel or a general. That eliminated all that kind of thing. Yet it protected the guys that were really flying the combat stuff. It didn't cut everybody off. I think that's the way it worked. It is just, there again, the evolution of something that made sense and protected the vital element, the pilots.

AHMANN: The expression was during the 1950s and the better part of the 1960s, "The Air Force was 'SAComcized'." SAC just pervaded the whole thing. Did you have trouble, then, keeping good people in TAC and MAC [Materiel Air Command]?

LANDRY: No. Despite SAC I think these other commands got some good people. I don't think we have ever--I wouldn't say that the inferior people went down there to MAC. I think the other commands did very well. They might have had to work a little harder, a little harder training and that sort of thing, because it stands to reason that whatever makes a person highly qualified, if you took all the cream off the top and you had a system of grading those people--if 60 percent of them went to one command, and you had 40 percent to distribute around the rest of the command, then you had fewer

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of those real top-rated guys. But it doesn't mean that the other people who are absolutely top rated aren't good people that can't be trained. I would like to think that they worked harder and did a little more schooling, training and that sort of thing.

AHMANN: There was a Public Law 616. I realize I am asking you to go back 23 years and remember some of this stuff. Public Law 616 says that if a colonel or a lieutenant colonel is passed over for promotion three times, they are discharged. Do you remember that problem?

LANDRY: Yes.

AHMANN: What was the reason behind that?

LANDRY: I would say about being passed over: Let's say that a guy comes up to LC, and he is passed over, and he is passed over, and he is passed over. He has reached a level at which he will never go further. In other words he won't advance in terms of the requirements of the force. That's all you can get out of a guy. It is the same way in industry. There are certain people that just can't handle a job above a certain level or responsibility. This is all level of responsibility we are talking about. Certain people don't want that responsibility. They would rather work for somebody.

AHMANN: What is wrong with having a major as a pilot for his whole career?

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LANDRY: Because he gets older; his physical ability as a pilot, especially, becomes less; his reaction time is less. If you are talking about pilots, it is very simple, but I think there is a level at which a person cannot be trained any further, cannot accept more responsibility. That is his level of production.

AHMANN: Why throw him out if he doesn't do more then?

LANDRY: If you can replace him in the normal course of being promoted--in other words, going up the ladder of success, he is just occupying a slot that a guy down below who has that capacity can't fill. Do you see my point? He blocks everybody whether it is a major level, lieutenant colonel level, or the colonel level. He sits there for 30 years if he wants to.

AHMANN: I mean, if he is doing the job well at that spot, why--for example, if I am a bookkeeper in a manufacturing plant down here, if I hire on as the computer programmer there, I may be the computer programmer for 30 years in that business. I may get raises in pay, but I'll never get to chairman. My job as computer programmer is not to advance in the company to be chairman of the board. This is the argument.

LANDRY: I think you have a very limited condition there. You are talking about a company, whether it is a large company or a small company. You are not talking about General Motors I don't think. I think in the military, where we hope our people will not necessarily be Chief of Staff--we are talking about the officer corps--but we would like to think that everybody would want to be Chief of Staff. They may not all want to, but there are signs when you read reports and you

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watch the progress of the various ranks; you are reading OERs; people get to a certain level where they just don't seem to get better.

Whatever it is, I am sure in the scientific world they have names for all of it. But there are levels that people get to, and if you put them in more responsible jobs, they break up. They go to pieces. Then of course the company or the military suffers.- I think probably one of the main reasons is that these people who, say, have been passed over four times, that means he has been looked at four times. Over that period, whether it is a yearly board of however many there are, if he hasn't been selected for the next rank, he probably never will. And there he sits. Whereas the man coming down, a rank lower, has all sorts of possibilities. He is holding the slot for which there may be a fellow who will go right on through it. As long as you have that kind of class, that kind of ability coming, you have it blocked.

It is a little bit different, I think, maybe in civilian life. You are talking about the computer business. Sure, there is a guy who runs a computer. Maybe he runs it well, and he doesn't want to go any further. He doesn't expect to go any further.

I think if we took that attitude about the noncommissioned officers and about the officers too, it wouldn't be good for the military. I just don't think it would be good especially in the officer corps and in the top NCOs.

You said a man can't do anything more in this particular--what do they call it?--rating, career field. If he has gotten as far as he can go there and he is a worker with his

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hands, he doesn't have to have a great deal of overall ability like you would have to have in a business manager or a vice president. Sure, if he couldn't progress in that skill, he is a hell of a good mechanic, and you need him, put him over there.

I think there is much more reason to spread out laterally in skills than there is in a professional officer who should progress up. Not every man makes general. We know that. But after colonels have been looked at for three or four times, 3 years or so, you have to make room for the other people.

A lot of things enter into it other than what we are talking about, I am sure. It is a good idea, maybe, that you have to weed them out. Maybe they have had 22 years of service--I don't know what a RIF program is. I don't know if we have any more of the RIF programs.

AHMANN: I think they had one about 10 years ago. Normal attrition usually takes care of any reduction in force.

Did the DCS /P office change much when Truman Landon came?

LANDRY: Yes. He told me right away, "Bob, I don't think we need a Deputy in here." I said, "What are you telling me? I am out of a job." He said, "I just don't think we need two people in here."

AHMANN: Was he right. I mean, did you?

LANDRY: I think he was wrong, but that was pretty obvious that he wasn't going to keep me. (laughter)

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AHMANN: He didn't beat around the bush.

LANDRY: No, he didn't beat around the bush at all. My wife had been sick, and had an operation. I wanted to see what was going to happen. We were going back to California. I thought we would have to. I went to see Tommy White [Gen. Thomas D.], and I said, "This is the first time I have ever asked for an assignment, Tommy, but my wife has been ill and had this operation. It is a question of whether she will even live. I would like to get back to California because that is where we have the ranch. If she is like this, I probably would want to be stepping out." I was coming up on 30 years of service. I could have stayed for 5 more years until I had 35 years of service. I said, "I understand that Travis is coming open, and I understand that McClellan is coming open, and there is a major general's job there." He said, "Which one is closer?" I said, "It doesn't make a great deal of difference because our place is in Napa Valley which is north of San Francisco."

We talked it over, and I think the first one coming up was Price [Maj. Gen. George E.] who had been at Sacramento for about 6 years. He said, "Why don't you go to Sacramento?" I had never been in the Logistics Command, but I knew Sammy Anderson very well, and I was acceptable there I was sure. So I went to McClellan Air Force Base in 1960.

AHMANN: Yes, you got there 22 June 1960.

LANDRY: My wife died in August. Then I stayed on for 30 years. I told the Air Force that I intended to retire anyway. But Tommy let me have that command, and it was a very good command. I enjoyed it. They had 14,000-15,000 civilian

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workers and a very fine civil service staff. Then we had a wing of early warning, and we were prime on fighters. That command was also prime on hardware for the exploration program into space. So there was a lot going on there.

AHMANN: It says here that you had the F-106 and the F-100s, and you had this GEEA.

LANDRY: Yes, there was a little thing up in the thing that they did all the probing in space with. See that little thing sitting right there. (showing a picture) That was a vehicle that was sent up in space on the Atlas missile. That was the thing that had all of the telemetry in it. That probed space for several years before we ever put a man up there. They made that at the shops for me.

AHMANN: Who was your deputy out there?

LANDRY: It turned out to be my brother-in-law, General Summerfelt. (laughter)

AHMANN: Did people think that was a little strange?

LANDRY: No. They didn't think it was strange at all. Everybody thought it was a good idea.

AHMANN: You got rid of surplus material out there, too, didn't you?

LANDRY: Yes. All of those big depots had a bunch of surplus stuff. Every once in awhile they would sell to the public. That was just a minor thing. One of the big things that we had was the support of about 53 countries in the Far East, the military missions.

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AHMANN: The Military Assistance Programs?

LANDRY: Yes, we had that in 52 or 53 nations in the Far East.

AHMANN: Did you have to go TDY [temporary duty], or did you ever go overseas at all?

LANDRY: No. It was just support of them, mainly logistic support. McClellan had set up an automated system. This was very interesting. They had a tremendous computer building. Hell, it was as big as some of the Air Defense Command buildings, big concrete thing. We had about three or four l0lls in those days, the big l0lls with the things on it.

It wasn't very long after I got there, and I had phoned out there once to talk to George Price, the guy that had been there before, although I didn't get into the computer business with him. It wasn't long after I actually reported that I went over to see that computer setup.

It was all automatic. An order would come in from various places in the Far East or from the bases of support, and it would come in like an order. We would put it in the machine; it would go into supply in various bins, automated, come out, wrapped. The civilian air transport people, the contract people,-would pick it up. It was the darndest, most----

A: Was this that COMLOGNET [combat logistics network] thing

LANDRY: Yes. The reason I mentioned that about the computer business. Here I was in command of the depot. I didn't have to know every nut and bolt and piece of equipment. I got to know the civilian people who were always there. You always

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had a military man. So they knew the detail operation. We had military colonels as heads of those divisions, so we had a good staff. But that goddarn computer business, I said to myself, "I am in command of the goddarn outfit, but it looks to me like the computer is running it." (laughter) So I said to myself, "You had better learn something about a computer." I had never fooled with a goddarn computer.

So every morning for about an hour or two for 6 months I went down there, talked to the people, watched it, and I soon learned the basic principles of the computer, the importance of the programmer, the importance of the technical man, the importance of the maintenance people, and especially that programming. It was very interesting.

AHMANN: As I recall, General Rawlings set up that COMLOGNET when he was in Materiel Command. I was talking about interviewing him the other day.

LANDRY: It was in place when I got there and working and a very efficient bunch of people. You talk about when you are in command of something--you like to feel you can put your hands on something and talk to somebody--talk to the computers. I talked to the people who were running the computers. It was a very efficient system. The order would come in; the computer would put it out to the various warehouses, sections, come out of the bin on a conveyor, come down there and be wrapped, delivered every day to the airplane that was taking it. It was a very efficient, very quick service.

AHMANN: As I recall, the reason they put that in was their ability to--it negated the need for a lot of depots. Of course it

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speeded it up. Plus the fact that it could keep a smaller inventory because----

LANDRY: I was going to say, you knew every day--the computer had it on the memory--what you had, what you took out that day, what the replacement was. So it went out one end, and you were replacing it on the other end, kind of an open ended thing. You should never, theoretically, be without that piece of equipment, providing it was available from the distributor or the manufacturer. You always knew where you--you didn't have to go down and do an individual inventory like you used to have to do. It was always there on the take. You knew exactly what was there if the information in the computer was right, and there were periodic checks to check that to see that it was correct. It was a very interesting thing that went on in that part of the command, plus the fact that Sacramento was a good town.

AHMANN: Did you have to deal much with contracting or visiting any aerospace materiel suppliers, or was that handled out of Wright-Patterson?

LANDRY: We were responsible for the contract with the Lockheed Company, a facet, division of Lockheed that did the periodic, heavy maintenance, 1,500-hour inspections-and that sort of thing, on the radar ships, radar Lockheed:

AHMANN: The C-121.

LANDRY: With the big disc an them. That thing we had--of course we had in the depot there a civilian representative from Lockheed and a civilian representative from North American.

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They weren't on the staff, but they were technical advisors to the depot, high-grade men.

AHMANN: That reminds me, in World War II did you have tech reps [technical representatives] in England and later on in Europe then, from Republic, for example, for your P-47s? Were there civilians from the factory there?

LANDRY: Not that I recall. There might have been people over there, in and out, when there was a problem, but not in the sense that we have tech reps at various bases.

AHMANN: I have just about exhausted my questions.

LANDRY: I think that is just about it.

The command there was well set up before I got there. It was a matter of keeping it that way.

AHMANN: Price came back to replace you, didn't he?

LANDRY: No. George Price retired and went down and was employed by Lockheed. I think he lived in Sacramento and commuted down there. He had been a test pilot before at Wright-Pat in the early days.

AHMANN: What do you think about military people retiring and then going to work for, specially out of Systems Command and Materiel Command, the very industry they have been dealing with all those years? Do you have any problems with that?

LANDRY: I don't think anybody ought to be penalized after he has served his country, penalized in the sense that he shouldn't

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be allowed to work for a company that might have been a supplier to any of the services. You just figure, the services require practically everything that the civilian needs to live on. I mean, it is anywhere from food to hardware to anything. I don't see any reason why a man shouldn't be hired, personally. I think, first of all, it is his inalienable right to try to continue to make a better living. I don't think anybody ever got rich serving in the Armed Forces. (laughter)

AHMANN: One of the questions I always ask: Did you ever use the Air Force history program while you were in the Air Force? Do you recall ever in any way dealing with the Air Force history program?

LANDRY: Let me see, in what way? I don't know how you mean. The writing of it?

AHMANN: The writing of it. Do you remember reviewing any of the histories, or did you ever talk to your historian? For example, when you were in the Second Air Force, there was a historian there someplace within your command. Did you ever say, "Let me see the history for the last 6 months," or anything like that?

LANDRY: No. I think one thing about a service like the Air Force, you get around a hell of a lot more than you do if you are an Infantry officer just by virtue of the fact that you have an airplane, your mission, or whatever. I think there is a lot of communication among units in the Air Force whether you are talking about the military or the Air Force alone.

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No, I didn't read any histories about what happened 6 months at someplace. It was very interesting. (laughter) I think it is very interesting that you are able to retain some idea of history if you are interested in it. I happen to be interested in geopolitics and try to read a lot, but I never went back and read the Air Force histories. I was pretty well informed on what went on.

AHMANN: In theory, one of the reasons the Air Force history program justifies itself is that we are an information resource. For example, if you are Second Air Force Commander, and you are bringing a new airplane into the inventory, you could go back and say, "What did they do when they brought the last new plane into the inventory? How much training did we have to do?" In theory, that kind of----

LANDRY: I would think if there was anything, a procedure for example, I think, not necessarily me or a commander, but I think if there was some procedure for--well, the maintenance procedures that was put together by an oldtimer in the Air Force, the charts, how you keep it.

AHMANN: B. Q. Jones [Col. Byron Q.] did that.

LANDRY: Yes. That kind of thing went on, and that had continuity. I think--maybe I misunderstood your question. I don't mean to say that anybody in the Air Force would ignore past history where it had a current application.

AHMANN: That is how, in theory, we justify it.

LANDRY: Yes, that's it, where it had a current application. But just to go back and read it and see that you did this and did

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that, well, you heard about it probably. It must have a practical application.

AHMANN: Is there anything you would like to add here, General?

LANDRY: No. All I can say is that I have enjoyed this. It is kind of fun to recollect all of these events. It is great fun to think about what you have done. Sometimes it brings to mind that you might have done something differently. (laughter)

AHMANN: Obviously, you had a lot of good times in the Air Force. What was the worst thing that ever happened to you in the Air Force?

LANDRY: Let's see. That goddamned assignment to Frankfurt after the war. God, how could I forget that? (laughter) That was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I always thought it was uncalled for and was a dirty deal.

AHMANN: Had you torqued somebody off?

LANDRY: No, I hadn't at all. I had been one of the early people over there. I guess they needed a colonel with some experience. I had been in the theater a long time. No, I hadn't goofed up on anything. It wasn't that at all.

AHMANN: After you got over there, was it clear that they needed somebody with some experience like you?

LANDRY: I really don't know. The reasons I told you, it was a dead thing. I suppose they were told to furnish somebody. I don't know why, of all the colonels available over there, that I had to get it. I had a group; I had a record. But I

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did go. There were no computers were they could punch a button and get me out of it. I knew all of those people.

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