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Show ROBERT THAYER D B R 2002 Group and that's when I was selected as one of the squadron communications offic r . And I went from there to Pyote, Texas, and that's where we started our training th 381 t. So I was in that 3 81 st_which I am most proud of-from the very start. And we trained in Pyote, Texas-I don't know whether you're familiar with that. BEC: Never heard of it. ROB: That's another jumping off place (laughs). They used to say the jackrabbits died of loneliness out there. It was terrible. We used to have to wear dust masks part of the time because the wind blew so hard, and the dust was in the air. But it actually afforded us some of the best flying time of any base in the United States. They flew all the time, day and night, up there. We started out with one or two airplanes, and eventually, oh, we had probably thirty by the time we finished our training. BEC: group? ROB: Tell me specifically, what were your job responsibilities in your Well, as a squadron communications officer, at that time, I had charge of all of the radio operators. We had to train all the radio operators, and that included their Morse code and oral communications, vocal communications. We had to train the navigators because they used our various radio equipment for navigation, and we had to maintain it in the aircraft, our radio mechanics did. So I had the radio mechanics, and then the training section, and then the base section, which included all of the telephone and teletype equipment that was in there. Well at that time, that basically was it. Then, of course, we were getting new equipment in. When we first started we didn't even have a tube tester, and we had to scrounge a lot to get the equipment that we needed. I had a good master sergeant-oh, he was excellent (laughs). I wouldn't have made it without 14 |
