Robert L. Hammar, St. George, Utah: an interview by Winston Erickson, September 8, 2000: Saving the Legacy tape no. 104

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ROBERT L. HAMMAR 8 B • R 2000 RLH: The black pilot group and they were as good as anybody w had c v ring u . W never lost a ship that was hit in the air when they were with us. They w re xceJJ nt. W had British spitfires and we had P-38s from the 82°d Fighter Wing. What else? Anyway they were great. But, no, we didn't have too much-well there was some, but not very much. WE: What about flack? Did the Germans have [that]? RLH: Yes, they had the instructors there shooting those guns. They were very efficient. WE: They were good? RLH: Oh, they were too good. I remember, just a little, talking about how good they were, when we were going up the Po Valley we were entering Italy at the same point for about four days in a row and there was a railroad tunnel there and on the fifth time we went there, no flack, nothing. They pulled these flack guns out from the tunnel and they shot down five planes. All of our airplanes were every man for himself, so to speak, they were that good. The flack was excellent. Particularly when you get up to the Brenner Pass area, they would take those flack guns up the mountains, five, six, thousand feet, then we're flying at ten or eleven, so they're looking right down at us almost. They were very effective. WE: So you had to watch out for those. Are there ways to knock them out? RLH: Well, yes, bomb them. But we came up a little bit after I left, one time we were using what we call chaff, which are little silver strips, and we'd throw that out of the airplane. WE: That's to confuse the radar? 29