Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:45 | The war had ended and the airmen were getting antsy. They paid an outrageous amount for a bottle of booze to take their minds off the fact they were performing enlisted men's duties. The enlisted men had mostly gone home. so the officers had to pitch in. Navigator Sy Glauser became the supply officer.
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He already had a specialty when he joined the Army Air Corps. Sy Glauuser was trained in aircraft radio maintenance and repair, but he wanted more so he applied for aviation cadet training and was accepted. Assigned as a B-17 navigator, he was abruptly switched to B-29's when they decided they had enough crews in Europe.
The difference between the B-17 and the B-29 is like night and day, says navigator Sy Glauser. You had to wear three layers of clothing in the non-pressurized B-17 but in the B-29, you could fly in a t-shirt. He arrived in the Pacific theater just as the first atomic bomb was used so his crew never saw any combat.
