Robert E. Irion, Sandy, Utah: an interview by Benjamin Bahlmann, September 20, 2002: Saving the legacy tape no. 537, 538, and 539

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Robert E. Irion eptemb r 20th 2002 It was a kid I had known as a young boy, but- real sad story. Anyhow w finished training on February 8, 1944, and graduated, and the weather had been bad the last week or ten days of our training, and we were supposed to be flying P-40's. We finished all of our hours in the AT-6's. BEN: Oh Yeah - of course, that was between basic and your advanced did they just assign you to a single engine, or was there any kind of option? ROB: Okay. At basic, you had a choice- you could make your choice as whether you wanted to go to single engine or twin engine. BEN: Did they give it to you, or was it kind of a- you could put down a preference? ROB: It was- you could put down a preference and we'll assign you. It was- you had no assurances that you were going to do it. I just kept my fingers crossed. At that time, I actually wanted to fly a twin engine airplane. I wanted to fly a P-38, is what I had in mind, as I was going through training. And I thought, "Do you get to that from single engine advanced, or do you get to that from twin engine?" And I thought, "The chances of going into it are going to be slim because they've got all these four-engine bombers out there- all these B-25's, and all this stuff. I thought, "They're not going to put you in anymore of those anyhow." So, I asked for the single engine, and just hoped that some day I might get to fly a P-38. BEN: Did you know people who didn't make it to single engine? Or not make it, but actually chose multi engine? ROB: There were some that chose it, yeah. There were some guys that just simply wanted to be a part of the big crew, big airplane- they wanted to be in the bomber thing. 36