Join Kim Munson as she delves into the remarkable life of Lieutenant Colonel Bill O’Neill. From his early dreams inspired by an airshow in St. Paul, Minnesota, to his full-fledged career as a pilot in WWII and the Korean War, O’Neill’s journey is one of courage, passion, and exceptional dedication to aviation. This episode paints a vivid picture of the challenges faced by military pilots, their heroic missions, and the transitioning landscapes of aerial warfare.
SPEAKER 04 :
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and her other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Munson.
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That’s AmericasVeteransStories.com. And this show precipitated from a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France, for the 72nd celebration of the D-Day landings by the Allies on the European continent to push back and defeat, ultimately defeat, Hitler and the Nazis. We returned stateside and realized each of these stories is important. They’re each different. And hence, here we have America’s Veteran Stories. I’m honored to have on the line with me Lieutenant Colonel Bill O’Neill. He was a pilot and began in World War II. Bill, welcome to the show. Hello.
SPEAKER 05 :
Very nice to be with you.
SPEAKER 07 :
So tell us a little bit about you. Where did you grow up?
SPEAKER 05 :
I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. And when I was about 10 years old, my family moved to California and settled in Long Beach.
SPEAKER 07 :
And where were you when you heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed? Do you remember?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, very vividly. It was, of course, a Sunday, Sunday morning. And they interrupted the normal broadcast system. and announced that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese. I remember very distinctly.
SPEAKER 07 :
How old were you at that time, Bill?
SPEAKER 05 :
I was 15.
SPEAKER 07 :
And what did the country do? What happened in your town after that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it’s funny you should ask that. Of course, Long Beach is right on the coast, just south of Los Angeles. And we were immediately pretty much restricted to our local area. And blackout became the word at night. All the headlights on vehicles were shielded with just a very small part of the lens open for light. Your home, after dark, the shades all had to be pulled. and a minimum amount of lighting involved. And we were very fearful of an attack by the Japanese on the coast. And in fact, we were even concerned over the possibility of a landing of Japanese troops. So everything really went quiet and slowed down on that day.
SPEAKER 07 :
Now, were you the eldest in your family, or where did you fall in your family?
SPEAKER 05 :
I was third in line of a family of three boys. I had two older brothers, five and six years older than me.
SPEAKER 07 :
And did they serve in the military?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, they did. My oldest brother also went to pilot training, and he became a pilot himself. First pilot on B-17 and co-pilot on B-29s.
SPEAKER 07 :
And which theater did he serve in?
SPEAKER 05 :
He didn’t go overseas. He was on his way with his new crew in a B-29 to the Pacific Theater when the war ended. So he did not see any overseas duty.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Okay. And then your other brother?
SPEAKER 05 :
My other brother, who was about a year to 18 months, somewhere there, younger than my oldest brother, was single when the war started. And he was working for the Bank of America at the time. And he had become a very good friend of the bank guard who happened to be a retired Navy person. who had quite a bit of influence with the existing Navy. And he made arrangements for my brother to go into the Navy immediately as the equivalent of a staff sergeant in the Army, a three-striper. And he served, he went, he enlisted on the 20th of December of 1940, 41, and was stationed at Long Beach in the Navy shipyard for about 16 months. And then he went on board a destroyer and went to the Pacific and was involved on a destroyer for the entire length of the war. And he went through many major battles in the Pacific with that assignment and returned, fortunately, without a scratch. I didn’t enter the service until I enlisted in the aviation cadet program in 1943, February of 43. But I wasn’t called until I finished high school and turned 18, which was in July of of 1943. And then I went from there into the aviation cadet pilot training program and I graduated from flying school and received my wings and a commission as a second lieutenant in March of 1945. Okay.
SPEAKER 07 :
Had you ever flown before you joined the military?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, only as a passenger in a light aircraft. It just so happened that my middle brother, the one that was going to Navy, but before he did that, one of the men that worked with him for the Bank of America was a private pilot And my brother flew with him a number of times, and I finally talked him into taking me up. And that was probably shortly after, no, I’d say probably about 1946. No, I’m sorry, about probably 41 before the war started. And I flew with him a couple of times in a little biplane just for familiarization. But that was my only experience in flying.
SPEAKER 07 :
Is that what influenced your decision to become a pilot?
SPEAKER 05 :
No. When I was a young lad, about five or six years old, we went to, I lived in St. Paul at the time. And my dad took us to an air show at the local field in St. Paul. And there, for the first time, I saw an airplane and saw it do some aerobatics and some other things. And I decided right then and there that I wanted to become a pilot when I grew up. And from then on, I was pretty much crazy about airplanes and built model airplanes and flew them and spent a lot of time with a buddy of mine, a high school buddy of mine, at the airport, bumming rides, and just talking to pilots that we would meet at the civilian part of Long Beach International Airport.
SPEAKER 07 :
I hadn’t really thought about hanging out at an airport and bumming rides. That’s not something that happens, I think, very often now, or at least not that I know of. Okay. Anything else you want us to know about your training to become a pilot?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it was a very intensive program. And starting out as late as I did, by the time I went through, they sent us, first of all, to college. in different locations around the country because they thought we were all 18 years old in my group and all fresh out of high school but had no other experience. And they thought we should be a little smarter than just being a high school boy. So they sent us to school for six months where we had a very intensive course centered on physics. We had three hours of physics every day. One hour of lectures, one hour of problems, and one hour of laboratory work for six months, plus English and history and grammar. And then I finally got into the flying training program, which consisted of three phases. Primary flying school, where you learn how to fly. and become proficient just in flying. And then we went to basic flying school where we were taught, checked out in the airplane, and then did a lot of transition work, learned how to fly formation, got night checkouts, night formation, and cross-country work. And then the third phase was advanced flying. Each one of these courses lasted about 10 weeks. sections landed about 10 weeks. And then I went to advanced flying school where I flew a twin engine trainer and again went through basically the same thing. A lot of instrument training, a lot of formation, a lot of night flying and navigation and did learning new systems and new equipment for navigation and then graduated from that program. That was in March of 45. when I got my commission and my wings.
SPEAKER 07 :
And once you got your wings, what happened, Bill?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, unfortunately for me, but fortunately for the country, the war in Europe ended in May of 1945, two months after I had graduated from flying school. So I didn’t get to go to the European theater anymore. But I was sent to a base in North Carolina and was assigned to a position as co-pilot on a C-47 where they were teaching glider pilots how to fly gliders. And the C-47s were used to tow the gliders in the air and take them up to altitude so that instructors in the gliders could teach fledgling glider pilot how to judge distances and make landings in a glider. And while I was there, the war in the Pacific ended in August, August the 15th, 1945. All training came to a complete stop. And they closed the base and just said that everybody on the base was pretty much declared surplus. I didn’t want to get out. I wanted to stay in because I was doing what I wanted to do, which was to be a pilot. And I tried to find another job, but they were closing everything up. So they sent me to a base in, let’s see, in Kansas where I got a little flying time while they were still trying to decide just who they wanted to keep and who they wanted to let go. Of course, being a brand new pilot with a limited amount of flying time, about 400, 500 hours by then, I guess, they decided that I was not really worth that much to them with such limited experience and no combat experience and they had of course thousands of pilots with a lot of flying time and a lot of combat time and so they decided that I should be released from active duty and so at the end of 1945 I was separated from the active force But I joined the reserve and I went back to my home in Long Beach and they were just starting up a reserve training program at Long Beach International. So I went out there and signed up and started flying with the reserve. And I flew very active with the reserve because I was single and had a job that allowed me to have a lot of free time and that I could spend at the airport flying military aircraft.
SPEAKER 07 :
The Center for American Values is located in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk, and it was founded for several reasons. One, to honor our Medal of Honor recipients, and they do that through over 160 portraits of valor of Medal of Honor recipients. But additionally, they are teaching these foundational principles of honor, integrity, and patriotism through many of their educational programs. and also their On Values presentation. So for more information about the center, go to AmericanValuesCenter.org. That’s AmericanValuesCenter.org. And a sponsor that I greatly appreciate for America’s Veterans Stories is Hooters Restaurants. They have locations in Loveland, Westminster, and in Aurora on Parker Road, and great specials Monday through Friday for lunch and for happy hour. Great place to get together with your friends to watch the sporting events and just have some great food. In particular, their fish and chips and their nachos are delicious. I hear that their fish tacos are quite good as well. So again, thank you to Hooters Restaurants for their sponsorship of the show. The official Marine Memorial is located right here in Colorado in Golden at 6th and Colfax. It was dedicated in 1977, and it is time for a facelift. And the USMC Memorial Foundation is working diligently to raise the funds to make that happen. And a great way that you can honor our military, to say thank you to those people who have put their lives on the line or have given their lives for our freedom, is to support the USMC Memorial Foundation. And you can do that by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org.
SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you so much for having me. To learn more, reach out to Teresa at 520-631-9243. Teresa would love to talk with you. Again, that number is 520-631-9243.
SPEAKER 09 :
All Kim’s sponsors are in inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s kimmonson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening. honored to have on the line with me, Lieutenant Colonel Bill O’Neill. He was a pilot, was training in World War II. And we were talking about you were relieved of active duty. You were getting involved in the reserves. But before we continue on with that, you said that you’ve been training on these C-47s, which these were the planes that were pulling the gliders. And Bill, I’m not sure everybody knows what these gliders are and exactly what their purpose was in World War II. So please explain that to our listeners.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. Well, the glider we were flying was made by WACO, W-A-C-O, who also made airplanes. And it was called the CG, which was a cargo glider, CG-4A. And it was a high wing. It looked like an airplane without an engine. And it just had a large fuselage and quite a large wing. The wingspan was about 60 feet. The length of the fuselage was about 45 to 47 feet long. And we would be told, as I said, they offered us the chance to fly them ourselves. And so we would be towed up to about 5,000 feet using a tow cable from the C-47, which was about 200 yards long. And then we would release ourselves from that tow rope and just start gliding, slow it up to glide speed, and then pick out a field, and then just maneuver the glider to land it. Now, the glider could carry 15 buoyant equipped soldiers or you could put a small field artillery piece in it or you could put a jeep in it with about a half a dozen guys seated around it and when you landed the glider it was a real funny looking set up because it had a big blast nose on the front rounded but not tapered to the sides. It was just curved around the front in glass and a frame around that, so you had excellent visibility. But it was designed so that when you landed and stopped it, you could unlock the nose section and raise it up, opening it up like a clamshell, and drive the Jeep out right through the front of the glider. and the troops could come out along with it, or if you just had the troops, they would all get out and head for whatever they were supposed to do next. And that ended your duty as the pilot of the glider, and then you would just go back to the rear or to be picked up and brought back to your home base in combat. That’s the way they were used. For us, of course, we just flew them with a pilot and an instructor pilot, and then once you were checked out in it after a couple of rides. Since we had all gone through flying school, we had learned an awful lot about how to land a power-driven aircraft. So it’s not that much harder to learn how to fly one without an engine and be able to judge your distance and altitude from your landing field and to get it down where you want it. It’s not that tough.
SPEAKER 07 :
Bill, just a question regarding Normandy, June 6, 1944, because they brought gliders in and the conditions were terrible. I can’t imagine coming into battle on a glider. It’s just kind of hard for me to believe on that. Do you have any comments on that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, of course they’re not. The intent of it was not to drop them right. along the firing line, so to speak, right where the troops were, it would be behind it to a marshalling point. And the idea was that they had hundreds of C-47s pulling gliders into Germany. And they were usually flying at about 5,000 feet above the ground and subject to a tremendous amount of ground fire activity. and also attacks from German fighter aircraft. And a tremendous number of them were shot down and the personnel on board the gliders were all killed. But the idea was to land just short of where the firing line is actually existing and then marshal a whole bunch of the troops from a number of gliders into an organization, and then they would be used as necessary along the front lines, or if an attack was to be planned, they were part of it to advance forward with the ground forces already in position. It was a very, very tough mission. That was pretty much of a one-way mission for the pilots of the gliders.
SPEAKER 07 :
And these guys knew that, and they did it anyway. That’s right. We owe them a tremendous debt. Let’s go now. You wanted to stay in. Now, at this time, when you joined, it was the Army Air Corps. When did it become the Air Force?
SPEAKER 05 :
In 1947, after a long battle by the commanding general’s of the Army Air Force who had worked through difficult times to convince the Congress and the President that the air arm of the Army should be separated from the Army, that their missions were so different in nature that it wasn’t a good idea to try to keep them with the Army. And General Hap Arnold, a four-star general, and Ira C. Aker, another four-star general, were the two that really fought hard for separating the Air Arm from the Army. And in 1947, in July, as a matter of fact, of that year, Congress passed a law creating the Air Force, the U.S. Air Force, as a separate branch Jeff says the Navy is a separate branch from the Army, totally divorced from the Army, and just called the U.S. Air Force, and that occurred in 47. We used to wear brown uniforms, and when we changed over in 47, we all went into blue uniforms and black shoes as opposed to brown shoes. That’s how the Air Force became a separate branch and when it occurred.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. At this time, you’re in the Reserve still, correct?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, I was still in the Reserve. And I was very active in the Reserve. And in late 1948, we received… We had been using twin-engine and single-engine training planes to fly, which were really outmoded at the time, but it gave us time to have a lot of training, a lot of instrument training, cross-country training, and night flying, as well as, of course, day flying. And we got new equipment in. They were made by Douglas, Douglas Aviation, and they were called the A-26, A for attack. It was a twin-engine attack bomber that had come out late in the war, but it saw limited duty both in the Far East and in Europe. It was an excellent airplane. It was powered by two 2,000 horsepower engines and was capable of flying 400 miles an hour straight and level, which was quite an achievement for any kind of an airplane other than the P-51 and P-47, which were fighters that flew in that range of speed. And none of our other aircraft even came close. Most of them were in the 250 to 325 miles an hour range. So when the B-26 was made available to us, we all were checked out in that aircraft, and then I continued flying that until the war in Korea started in July of 1950. At that time, we had had the airplanes for more than a year and had done a lot of training in them, and as a result of that, The commanding officer of our wing, which comprised of four squadrons of B-26 units, we were recalled involuntarily to active duty. We were sent to Georgia Air Force Base. I was flying out of Long Beach. We were sent to Georgia Air Force Base, which is right over the other side of Mountain Street. just to the northeast of LA. And we trained there for about a month, a month and a half. And then we flew our aircraft with the installation of ferry tanks. We flew them from San Francisco to Hawaii and from Hawaii to Guam and Guam to Japan and or Korea. And we all landed in Korea. And then we were assigned to a base in southern Japan on the island of Hokkaido. And the location of the base was about 25 miles south of Hiroshima, where this atomic bomb was dropped. And we started flying missions immediately into Korea. By that time, The North Koreans had pushed the U.S. forces all the way down to the southern portion of the peninsula of Korea, and we had to fly missions from Japan all the way over to Korea, drop our bombs, and then return all the way back to Iwakuni, Japan. which was about five, depending on the time of the war. My first three missions were about seven hours long. We had to use external drop tanks on our aircraft in order to fly that distance in time in the air. But as we gained additional strength on the ground and started pushing the North Koreans back, we came with a tremendous amount of force. And it drove them back very rapidly, all the way up to the Yalu River, which is the river that separates China from North Korea. And of course, we could not fly north of the Yalu River, or we’d get shot at by the Chinese. So that was as far north as we could go. And those missions, those were the ones that took so long to fly because we had a long ways to go just to get to the area where we would drop our bombs.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.
SPEAKER 04 :
God bless.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’ve been referring to Bill O’Neill as Lieutenant Colonel Bill O’Neill, but he said, remember to say that he’s retired. So retired Lieutenant Colonel Bill O’Neill, it’s so great to have you on the show.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
We are now talking about your experience in Korea. And around this time was when the jet engine comes onto the scene, correct, Bill?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, that is correct.
SPEAKER 07 :
And that changed things, didn’t it?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, very, very much so. Unfortunately, the airplane that I was flying at the time was the Douglas A-26, which incidentally, the designation was changed back in 1947 when we became a separate branch. And the Air Force, prior to that, as the Army Air Force, used to identify fighters with a P for pursuit, like P-51, P-47, and so forth. And A stood for attack, and B stood for bomber. Well, when we became a separate branch, for some unknown reason, they decided they didn’t like those letters anymore, or at least some of them. And so they changed from P-51 and P-47 to F standing for fighter. So there you have F-15s and F-16s. but we still have the old P-41s and P-47s around. So it became rather confusing. And the other thing was that during the war, Martin made an airplane, a twin-engine bomber, that was designated as the B-26. But then when we changed after the war, the old Martin B-26 was removed from the active inventory, and they were junk. And the A-26 then… was re-designated as the B-26. So it becomes a little confusing sometimes when people don’t know why that happened. But that’s how we ended up with the B in front of it instead of the A. But ours were prop-driven airplanes, but they were still very fast and very maneuverable. And the Air Force was, when we first started using the old World War II to P-51 as the fighter. But while I was there, they started bringing in the Lockheed F-80 called a Shooting Star. And that was a 450 to 500 mile an hour jet, single engine jet fighter. But we and the bomber fleet remained using our old prop driven P-26s. It was a fine airplane. And let me tell you a little bit about our operation. When we arrived over there, we had been trained day and night. We were assigned a temporary duty, what we called TDY, with the 3rd Bomb Wing. They had two squadrons of B-26s that were there during the occupation of Japan. And so they were immediately put to work with bombing missions but they were really snowed under with work. And so they took our squadron and attached us to the third bomb wing operation there at Iwakuni. And the way we started flying all of our missions at night, and they flew theirs in the daytime. The reason we started flying at night was that the North Koreans at that time would go out and do a lot of repair work on railroads and main supply routes, all of their roads, and move troops and equipment during the night. And so that’s why we started flying night missions. And we would normally have, on a typical mission, a primary target where we would drop a portion of our internal load on a main target. And then we would proceed to an area and fly in that area for one hour, just as attacking targets of opportunity, flying at low level, very dangerous in the mountains. A lot of mountains in Korea, just like Colorado, but not quite as high. 5,000 to 7,000 feet was about as high as they went in North Korea. But we’d fly low-level looking for targets of opportunity, main supply routes, trains, convoys of trucks, troop moonovers or troop concentrations, and just attack them. We would carry X-Turtle rockets, bombs. We had six wing guns, 50-caliber machine guns, six of them, three in each wing, outboard of the propellers. and we would attack everything that we could find that was movable, and would then return to, after we had pushed the North Koreans back, they would land at Taegu, a southern base in Korea, and refuel and debrief from the first mission, We load the aircraft to take off about 2 in the morning. We’ll fly a second mission, and then we cover back in Japan. So we fly two missions in one night. And you were pretty tired by the time you ended up with that second mission. And I flew 53 of those. 50 was the requirement to complete the tour. And I flew 53. Some of the fellows flew as many as 60. before they quit. But losses were pretty high, and we never really knew what happened to the crew that didn’t return because we flew single ship. We didn’t fly in big formations. We would go by ourselves to our primary target, and then from there we would be assigned to a particular area a large area that we would patrol back and forth, up and down cross lines for a whole hour until we had consumed all of our ammunition and bombs, guns and rockets. And then as we were leaving the area, we had it all set up so that another airplane would be coming in to take over the patrolling of that area for the remainder of his hour. And so all night long, we would have one airplane in each area patrolling it to stop all of the transportation that would normally go on during the night. And so if someone didn’t return from a mission, we didn’t know what happened to them, whether he was shot down, ran into a mountain, or a target fixation and dove into the target because that also used to happen. Get too low and forget to pull up or not check your terrain before you started your pass on the target to be sure that you had an escape route. You didn’t want to get into a blind canyon, so to speak. So it was a pretty dangerous thing at night and in weather. Oh, my gosh. Very dangerous. So we had quite a lot of losses, unfortunately. No one from our wing that ever got out of the airplane ever made it to safety, anybody that bailed out and lived was captured and sent to the Hanoi Hilton that you’ve heard so much about.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, now the Hanoi Hilton, that was Vietnam, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
No. Yes, that’s true, it was. But the Hanoi The North Koreans also had similar facilities.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Okay. Got that. So how big was your crew on the plane, the bomber that you were flying?
SPEAKER 05 :
A crew of four. There was a pilot, a co-pilot, a navigator, and a radar bombardier.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, who manned all of the armaments and the guns and all that?
SPEAKER 05 :
The pilot. You had a very elaborate control panel in the airplane on the left side of the pilot’s seat where you had all of your switches and controls where you could fire the guns or the rockets or drop the bombs. And then on the control column was a release trigger for the six guns of the wings and a button on top of a control column that you used to fire the rockets and the bombs. And you could select them as you wanted them.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, my gosh. I never realized that. That is absolutely fascinating. Fifty-three bombing missions in the Korean War. That is pretty astounding, Bill.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Anything else you want to talk to or tell our listeners about Korea?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, I don’t believe so. No. The only thing I might want to add to that is that the, remember I mentioned that there were two other squadrons from the third bomb wing that were flying daylight missions when we got there, but their losses became so heavy that they did the same thing that we did, and that’s start flying at night to reduce their loss ratio because the anti-aircraft fire and ground fire It was pretty intense, even at night. But it’s a little harder to see your target. Our airplanes were all painted black, and that helped us quite a bit. But theirs were silver. Lying in the daylight, they took a lot of losses. So very soon after we got there, they switched over into night operations as well.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. That’s about it, really.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. And how did the Korean War come to a close?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it was all brought to a close by virtue of the fact that we had met with the North. Well, meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have to say this, that we fought the North Korean Army until December of 1950. At that time, the Red Chinese, who had been massing troops on the north side, decided to invade. And they came down and came with a tremendous force and pushed us all the way back down south again, almost back down to that base that I mentioned, Taegu, which was way down south in the peninsula of Korea. And then we had to push them all the way back again So the 38th parallel are just north of Seoul, Korea, which is the capital of South Korea. And there the fighting became stagnant and the lines didn’t move very much. And then we started having the peace talks at Panmunjom in Korea. And finally they agreed to a ceasefire. And the ceasefire has never ended. We are still basically at war with those people, and only in a peace, in an undeclared war, really. There’s a lot of things that go along the North border there with North Korea that aren’t really reported, but theoretically we’re in a standoff with them and a peace treaty has never ever been signed. So that’s how it ended when they finally agreed to the terms of a ceasefire. And that remains until this day. That happened in 1953. So that war ended and ran from 1950 to 1953.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, well what happens for you after that then, Bill?
SPEAKER 05 :
After that I came back to the United States and was assigned as an instructor pilot in an Air Force flying school at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma. And I flew a twin-engine bomber training airplane for pilots in their advanced phase of pilot training. When they graduated from our school, they went out into heavy bombers at that time. And I did that for about almost four years, during which time I attended several different schools in the Air Force for instructor pilots and instructor training, and developed quite a background in the training field. And from then on, the rest of my career, no matter where I went, I ended up as an instructor pilot, a check pilot, a stan-eval, flight standardization evaluation check pilot and advanced into that to become the head of the standardization evaluation program for a very large air division. At that time, I had been promoted to the rank of major, to captain, of course, and then major. And I ran that show for a couple of years in the Far East, And then I took over as the base operations officer at Yokota Air Base just outside of Tokyo. The base operations officer is responsible for the operation of the airfield, its maintenance, its navigational aids, its approach aids, and just general maintenance. running of the airport, just as an airport manager would do here. And I had that job for about two years. I had a four-year tour in Japan, came back to the States, and was assigned a headquarters job at the Air Defense Command in Colorado Springs. And I had a desk job there, but I did fly quite a bit. While I was in Korea after I became the base ops officer. I was also designated as a VIP pilot, and I used to fly a small twin-engine jet transport, very similar to, well, very small. It was a carried six-pass thick people, and I used to do a lot of flying. That’s my only association with the war in Vietnam. I used to fly down there probably once or twice a week and take high-ranking officers, State Department people, congressional people from Tokyo on down into Southeast Asia to wherever they wanted to go, into Bangkok or any one of the bases down there that we had. And I used to fly and run from one place to another. in that location and then return them to Japan, and then they would take care of the rest of their business and return to the States. And I did that until I returned here to a headquarters job in Air Defense Command, and then I retired from there in 1968, tail end of 1968. I spent 25 years with the Air Force either on active duty or in a reserve status.
SPEAKER 07 :
Once you retired from the Air Force, did you continue? Did you work as a pilot, or what did you do?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, I flew 25 years in the Air Force, and I flew 25 years as a civilian after that. I retired, as I said, in November of 1968. The airlines were not hiring me. I was 43 when I retired from the Air Force. But the Air Force, the civilian people were not hiring anybody beyond the age of 35 at the time, and so I couldn’t get on with the airlines. So I became a corporate pilot, and I flew for a man that was a A very rich man. He was in the RV business, airplane business, and real estate business. And I became his personal pilot. And I flew with him a four-hair bike, taught him how to fly, really. And eventually he got his own ratings and so forth with my help. And then I left him and I bought my own airplane. And I had a Beechcraft Bonanza. for about 11 years and then I finally had to sell it because the cost was getting a little prohibitive. That airplane is a very expensive toy and so I sold that and I haven’t flown since. But I did fly a total of 50 years from start to finish.
SPEAKER 07 :
What would you say to a young person today that’s thinking about becoming a pilot in the military?
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m all for it. I talked to a lot of young men about enlisting and going for a career in the Air Force because I loved every minute of my service and I only wish I had stayed longer before I did decide to retire. But yes, I very strongly recommend it. I think it’s a great career field and if you like to fly, you get to fly some wonderful airplanes.
SPEAKER 07 :
And what would you say is your favorite airplane?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I had two that I really liked an awful lot. One was the B-26 because it was very fast, very maneuverable, and it would take a lot of battle damage in a wartime situation. But for just sheer fun, and flying the T-33 jet trainer fighter trainer was probably my favorite airplane because it was totally aerobatic and I love to do aerobatics and it was fast it was a very quick airplane easy to fly and just a lot of fun to fly and to enjoy the feeling of flight and speed that you get out of a jet aircraft that you do not experience in a conventional aircraft.
SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening. From the mountains to the prairies… Bill O’Neill, this has been such a fascinating conversation, and it’s really been an honor to get to talk with you about this. What’s kind of the final thought that you’d like to leave with our listeners?
SPEAKER 05 :
Flying is here to stay, and if you like aviation, you should attempt to… try to get a license to fly airplanes because there’s really nothing like it. It’s a really wonderful experience, and I strongly recommend it and promote it. And in ending, I might say that my total flying experience in the military, I racked up a total of about 6,000 hours of flying time and another 2,000 to 2,500 hours. as a civilian pilot.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s a lot of hours. So retired Lieutenant Colonel Bill O’Neill, thank you so much for joining me.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you very much for having me. I enjoyed it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Great. And our quote for today is from General Henry Arnold, Hap Arnold. He was an American general officer holding the ranks of general of the Army and general of the Air Force. Arnold was an aviation pioneer, chief of the Air Corps, commanding general of the United States Army Air Forces, and the only United States Air Force general to hold the five-star rank. and the only officer to hold a five-star rank in two different U.S. branches of the military. And his quote for today is this. He says, Your limits are somewhere up there waiting for you to reach beyond infinity. So, my friends, this is Kim Munson with America’s Veterans Stories signing off. God bless you, and God bless America.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 01 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
