Honoring the Survivors' Legacy - Attacks on Oahu (Part 5)

  • Published
  • HQ PACAF/PA
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii --  Ellsworth "Bud" Jung (pronounced Young)

Ellsworth Jung #106
July 26, 1985

Q: Mr. Jung, let me ask you first, when did you first join the Service?
A: November 1, 1940.

Q: How did you come to be in the Air Corps?
A: Well, actually I enlisted in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and I just saw an ad in the local paper that if you had a high school diploma, you could come down and join the [Army] Air [Corps] and serve in Hawaii. And that's something that was intriguing to me, so I did it!

Q: When did you finally get to Hawaii?
A: Well, it was the first week of December of 1940. I don't remember the exact dates... 6th of December or something likethat, in '40.

Q: What was the first duties you were assigned to?
A: Well, our first duties, of course, were some drilling and ground training. We were put in a tent city as soon as we arrived at Hickam Field, before we were assigned to barracks. And shortly after that I was assigned to the 26th [Bombardment] Squadron and put into the main barracks and I guess one of the first duties I had was

Q: After you finished KP, what did they have you doing?
A: Well, I had asked to go to AM school (airplane mechanic school) when I enlisted, and they did. They sent me through airplane mechanic school.

Q: Was that at Hickam there?
A: That was at Hickam, yes.

Q: When did you finish that, roughly?
A: I think I finished it in June of 1940.

Q: Were you assigned to a Squadron then?
A: Yes, I'd been in the 26th Squadron. I'd been in 26th Squadron from the time I arrived. And after finishing AM school, then I went through flight training. I went through flight engineering school.

Q: What types of airplanes did you fly?
A: We were B-18's at that time.

Q: What sort of plane was the B-18?
A: Well, the B-18 was a twin-engine bomber. It was... well, we used it... we did use it to dropping little 100-lb. sand bombs we were bombing tow targets that the Navy took for us, and bombing some of the islands out there that we used for targets. But I was flying before the War broke out, as a crew member, in a B-18. Our Squadron I think at that time had been assigned two of the early Flying Fortresses (the ones without the tail guns.) But I hadn't flown a [B-]17 until right after the War broke out.

Q: Just before the War broke out, what was your daily routine like?
A: Well, the daily routine was on the flight line. As a flightengineer, I worked with the mechanics, I worked with armament, and we flew. We flew our missions where we were training pilots
in instrument... I remember one of my duties as a flight engineer was to put the black shroud around the co-pilot so that he was flying in the dark. And we would fly over here and do all types of simulated things, just for the pilot training really.