Thomas Duncombe Dee II, Ogden, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, January 7, 2006: Saving the legacy tape no. 751

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THOM D M OMBED II J TOM: kay let me get my thoughts together for a couple of minutes. I may in those pictures. It helps me to remember. Turns tape off R 7 2006 n bring TOM: When was this? Anyway, I can't remember the date. We had established communication units all the way from West Africa, all across North Africa up to Cairo, then from Cairo up to ... at any rate, we ended up in Benghazi and Abadan and eventually down in Arabia. Then we had these units all the way to India and over the "hump" and down into China. That's what I'm getting at. It was a long, long, long way. So we had several units. One of them was in Iraq where they 're doing all the fighting now. One of the things we did was we'd send people to operate the units, like the radio range towers, things of that kind. When a plane left to go to such and such next station, they were advised when he left and were told when he was supposed to get there. BEC: So there was a whole string of communications stations built and your unit was overseeing that whole thing? TOM: Right. BEC: So you would go to a location and build the infrastructure and then hook up with another station you'd built further on. So you just had this whole string of stations, which could guide a plane clear across Africa, through the Middle East, India and all the way to China? TOM: Yes, that's the description I was trying to give. Well, our commanding officer, Colonel Bigert- I' ll show you his picture in a minute-commandeered an airplane. This was the airplane. [shows picture] It was a C-60. [Editors note: The C-60 was a twin­engine transport based on the Lockheed Model18 Lodestar. During WW 11 the Army Air 15