June 11, 2025 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, between the Korean and Vietnam Wars, U.S. Navy Captain Royce Williams flew more than 220 missions. One mission, however, was classified as Top Secret—and for over 50 years, Captain Williams didn’t tell a soul, not even his wife. No one knew what this 27-year-old South Dakotan did that day in the skies over Korea—until now.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. There's some of our favorites.
Between the Korean and the Vietnam wars, US Navy Captain
Royce Williams flew over two hundred and twenty missions. The
(00:34):
following story was classified as top secret because if the
word got out that the Russians were now engaging our
troops in the Korean War, World War IIE could have
easily broken out. For more than fifty years, Captain Williams
didn't tell a soul, not even his wife. Nobody knew
what this twenty seven year old South Dakotin did that
(00:56):
day over the skies of Korea.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Now yes, born more or less to the Fosse clan
of South Dakota, which is rather famous. My mother was
one of thirteen. My dad who was a mail carrier
on motorcycle. He was in World War One and then
(01:24):
settled near where he was born in South Dakota town
called Wilmot. Very patriotic upbringing. He was large in the
local legion commander of the unit at times, and I
(01:49):
grew up engaged in the community. I took on scouting
as a serious matter and was their community's first eagle sky.
But I turned out to be an awfully good farmer,
and though my brother and sisters pretty much worked for
(02:09):
my dad in the grocery business, I worked for a
lot of family. It was a lot of uncles and
their farms, and then when I moved to Minnesota, I
was sort of on demand and farming, and I worked
for my uncle at a resort. Mother didn't worry much
(02:31):
about me. She came out one time because we weren't
back as expected, and she found out that we had
been in the trestle of a railroad track and the
train was coming and we ducked down below the rails
and underneath in the wood supporting the bridge, and we
(02:57):
were safe. But mothers don't like those sort of things.
I was full time, engaged and very athletic. I played
in all sports and lettered in all of them, and
I was taller of that I've lost five and a
half inches with the compression of my back, but that
(03:21):
is manageable and every life's good. I had my first
flight when I was four years old and a Ford
tri motor out of a pasture in South Dakota, along
with my grandma her first flight too, when she was
eighty and interested in aviation. From that time on, my
(03:43):
brother likewise, and when I was about seven or eight,
two years older, we made a pact. The famous avieaters
in those days were Lindy Lindbergh in Roscoe. Well, his
name is Linn. If i'd call him Lindy, he'd called
(04:06):
me Roscoe. Later on, when I was signed duty on
the USS Independence, Roscoe Turner came aboard as a VIP
and I was his guide. Takes us to World War Two.
My brother, about two years older than me, and I
(04:28):
were roller skating in front of his grocery shower, and
he came out and said, boys, come in and listen
to this, And it was FDR on the radio proclaiming
the attack on Pearl Harbor. We all got very serious
and are thinking thereafter how we're going to participate. My
(04:51):
dad likewise thought he ought to jump in, but they
wouldn't take him, but he sent his two sons. Everybody
in America was full time engaged in some way or
other in support of their country in World War two,
(05:12):
and little kids were saving the foil from gum, and
in the slightest little thing like shoestrings or whatever, everything
was going into a war effort, and that made them
special and changed their life. I was sixteen and I
(05:34):
joined the local Minnesota Guard. The Guard was called up,
and I had two cousins in it. They went to
Morocco and both were killed. I didn't go because I
was sixteen, and I went up to Camp Ripley for
training in northern Minnesota. Let me finish high school, and
(05:56):
when I turned seventeen, I was eligible for naval aviation
and applied and accepted and sent down to Corpus Christy, Texas.
I didn't get any actual combat in World War Two.
(06:16):
I flew the airplanes and we were instructed to keep
an eye out because we were flying over areas of
the ocean where Terman submarines were operating. But I was
pretty much hit. My brother finished a little bit ahead
of me, chose the Marine Corps for his aviation, was
(06:43):
in on the Okinawa combat for our area, and I
went through a full career pretty much same as I did.
He got more carrier landings than most any other marine
I know, and I was in World War Two Korea
and Vietnam, and I relieved him in his final station
(07:05):
on Admiral McCain's staff at sink Pack and Hawaii, and
he retired the next day. Talk to him a couple
of days ago. He's almost ninety.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Seven, and you're listening to the voice of Captain Royce Williams,
and my goodness, it hearkens back to a different day
in this country. The story of Captain Royce Williams continues
here on Our American Stories. Lee Hibibe here the host
of All American Stories. Every day on this show, we're
(07:36):
bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from
our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't
do the show without you. Our stories are free to
listen to, but they're not free to make. If you
love what you hear, go to Alamerican Stories dot com
and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.
Go to Alamerican Stories dot com and give and we
(08:10):
continue here with our American Stories. And let's continue now
with Captain Royce Williams in his own words about his
own life.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I made patrols in nineteen fifty two second tour in
South Pacific on the Princeton. We were shadowing with the
ship that the Admiral was on and we were all
slated to go around the world. We hit a typhoon
(08:44):
off kam and one squadron lost eight airplanes on one flight,
and we were sent back to the States and they
continued on the around the world cruis Well. I got
selected for regular Navy, and having only high school background,
(09:04):
I was sent to the University of Minnesota for eighteen
months to get two year degree. I got a four
year degree and still had another quarter due me, so
they sent me to postgraduate school and coming out of there,
the Korean War was underway and I went to a
(09:25):
fighter squadron out of Miramar in the fall of fifty
two and I was flyting F nine F five, which
was the new model of the Panther, and our mission
(09:46):
was primarily closer support and reconnaissance. Were targets were trains,
train tracks, trucks, bridges, tunnels, and we were not getting
to some of the prime targets with manufacturing far to
the north. So late November that Force seventy seven and
(10:14):
others decided to put together a task force of three
carriers and associated ships probably numbering twenty some and in
the press of night we headed on up off Changing,
which is one of the major northern cities of North Korea.
(10:38):
And in that morning I was on the first combat
flight that attacked Horiong. Well, when I came back from
that flight, I was told that take a quick snack
and come back. You're on the combat air patrol next,
(10:59):
So we thought it was going to be not too exciting.
But we took off in a snowstorm, a blizzard five
hundred feet ceiling formed as a division of aircraft under
the clouds, climbed through to on top, which was twelve
(11:22):
thousand feet. Well, while we were in the clouds, we
got a message from our controller in the combat information
center saying that there were bogies unidentified aircraft inbound headed
toward the task force eighty some miles north of us.
(11:45):
So when we arrived on top of the clouds, I
could see to the north contrails they were very high.
About the time, the flight lead had a light indicating
he had a warning regarding his fuel pump and he
(12:10):
was instructed to detach with his wingmen and remain over
the task force, and I proceeded with my wingmen instructed
to intercept. There were seven contrailts and as they came
over us, I could see that they were MiG fifteen's.
(12:32):
I didn't know what country. I assumed probably Russia because
we weren't very far from their territory, but as assigned,
I pursued them, climbing in their direction. As they turned,
they headed back, and in my assumption I thought they
were going home, but when I got to twenty six
(12:55):
thousand feet, they split into a group of four airplanes
going to the right and three to the left and descending,
And when they dropped below the contrail level, I couldn't
see them anymore and reported that to Combat Information Center
on the Eriskane and they had also lost contact with them.
(13:18):
A being a smaller target, the radar no longer picked
them up, so we didn't know where they were or
what they were doing. So I was instructed to turn
around and come back and establish a barricade at twenty
six thousand feet between the last contact of the MEGS
(13:39):
and the task force. Well, it was while in that
turn the four that turned off to the right came
in and met me from a ten o'clock position relative
to the clock and where I was flying, and they
were all shooting, so I didn't pick them up until
they were thought they were in range, and I turned
(14:01):
hard into them, and as they passed by, I was
within range and tracking their number four airplane. The one
that was closest to me, the farthest behind the lead,
and fired a short burst and he dropped out of formation.
(14:23):
I reported to the information center that I had just
thought i'd just hit one, and they said, do not engage,
and I said, we are engaged. They said, go get them.
The three remaining pulled up hard and showed me how
(14:45):
classy an airplane they were flying, as they could really
out maneuver high climb and zoomed to about two thousand
feet above me, and they had split to her. The
guy who just loow his wingman was coming in and
I was going to track him, but he was in
the sun and I kind of lost him, and I
(15:06):
saw the other two, who already turned into me, coming back,
so I changed my aim point and was tracking the
lead and he fired at me, and I thought he
was a little out of range, but he was coming
in fast, so I fired and I may have hit
him because he turned away, and then his wingman came
(15:31):
in and I changed my point of aim onto him,
and he was firing away and I was shooting at
him a rather long burst, and then he quit, but
he continued flying towards me and flew directly underneath me,
and I would assume that he was probably hit the pilot.
(15:52):
And while this was happening, the other three came in
from the other direction. So depending on what happened to
these that I hit or didn't hit, uh, I may
be up there with six. My wingman wasn't with me anymore,
because when I hit the first guy and he dropped out, uh,
(16:15):
my wingman trailed him, tracked him on down to where
thought he was going in the ocean, and I don't
know what he did from that time on, but I
didn't see him again. Well, it was now mightily engaged.
These guys were no longer formation. They were uh singles,
(16:37):
operating as a single fighter trying to shoot me down.
And I wasn't trying to do anything fancy. I was
countering their attacks. And then as they pulled off, they
would pull abruptly up so high uh that I couldn't
(16:59):
uh track him anymore. They weren't a target. They were
just getting positioned to come back in and let the
next guy have his turn. Well, one time a guy
failed to do that pull up and he kind of
slid in front of me, and while he was in close,
(17:19):
I fired and hit him, and it was almost as
though he stopped and his airplane pieces were coming off
him and I had to turn abruptly to avoid running
into him. So let's lasted about a half.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Hour, and you've been listening to Captain Royce Williams in
his own words, which we love to do here on
this show. When we come back, we're going to continue
with the remarkable story of Captain Royce Williams here on
our American Stories. And we continue with our American Stories
(18:12):
and the story of Captain Royce Williams. Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
So this lasted about a half hour. And toward the
end of this thing, I was on the tail of
one of them and he stopped maneuvering and was slowing
down and losing altitude, and I was out of ammunition.
(18:42):
So I turned around and I saw a meg was
coming in on my tail, and I turned real hard
into him and I'd say it was a lucky shot,
but he hit me with a thirty seven millimeter right
in the wing. Butt had exploded in the accessory section
of the engine, destroying all of the hydraulics and a
(19:04):
lot of the electrical severed the cable to the rudder.
The guy settled right in behind me at perfect shooting range.
But I had my elevator working and I would jam
the stick forward and then I would pull it back,
and this would be pretty high ge zooms, and I
(19:28):
was always had one hundred percent power of the whole fight,
and so I had pretty good control for this maneuver
that really saved my life. I dove into the clouds
and lost sight of him, and so I knew I
was in bad shape, and I thought about ejecting, but
(19:51):
this is winter time and the ocean is extremely cold,
and now I'm wearing an immersion suit that probably would
have extended my survival to maybe twenty minutes, and there
was no time for me to be rescued, so that
would have been it. My commanding officer of the squadron
(20:18):
had taken off and with a division four airplanes to
go up and relieve me. On takeoff, he saw me
coming into the task force area under the clouds and
being shot at by the destroyers. They didn't know who
(20:39):
I was, and they were at general quarters ready to
fight and cleared to shoot if they had an unidentified
and they were concern so they shot, and he called
off the dog, saying he's friendly. I was talking to
a group of people in Pensacol, the first time I
(21:00):
ever talked about this at all, many years later, and
one of the gentlemen afterwards came back and said, I
was one of the guys shooting at you. I was
under destroyer and he said, I said, you didn't hit me,
don't worry. I saved the adrenaline for after my landing,
(21:22):
and then I did get a flush of that once
I realized what I'd been through. The plane captain, who
kind of owned that airplane, got a grease pencil and
went around, circled all the perforations and counted two hundred
and sixty three. So I did meet the captain and
they congratulated me for whatever I did, and said he
(21:46):
thought I had just earned the Navy Cross. I had
a meeting with the senior admiral in the Western Pacific,
who told me that we were covered by the operation
of new capability called NSA, and this being their first venture,
(22:07):
had a team on the Helena, which was right off
the coast of Vladivostok where the base was located that
these bigs came from, and their censors told them that
I got at least three and I was told that
(22:27):
this is after we got into port and Yokoska, and
told to never tell anybody ever. And so I spent
maybe fifty some years or something like that. We're never
told a soul. They told me there was a lot
of surmising by other people and they were concerned about
(22:48):
maybe World War three's going to get out of hand.
I was told that because we had this new capability
of ns say, we didn't want him to know about it,
and if I were to come out with all this
information that it would be more than I, as a
(23:12):
single fighter pilot, than there would actually have gleaned by myself.
At some point I received word that the President elect
was on his way out and had requested to meet
with me, And so the president came over to me
(23:35):
and then took me by the elbow over to a big,
overstuffed leather chair, placed me in it. The little shove
sat on the arm and said, before we get down
to business, we ought to have a drink, don't you
think well? I concurred, I said yes, sir, And he says, well,
(24:02):
we have bourbon, Wisconsin, water and soda. What do you have,
my son, John's the bartender. Well, bourbon and water please,
He said, we have awfully good scotch. I said, well, sir,
before the bourbon and water, and then we have awfully
good scotch. I said, well, sir, really bourbon and water, Lieutenant,
(24:28):
We've got the world's fine scotch. Mister President, I'd drink
bourbon and odd John give him a bourbon and water.
So he did, and then we chatted and we didn't
talk directly anything about the Russians. We talked about his
new position as president and uh that I uh Indicatid
(24:52):
was a career man, and he said, we'll make me
your boss, and uh, we'll have a lot to do
with the equipment he use, and so we sort of
discussed fighting equipment and how much better the big happened
to be in performance and that sort of thing awful.
(25:13):
Accompanying him was everybody who was anybody in the command
structure in the Korean War. So he'd asked me a question,
and one of I wanted to engage, so they would
talk about it, and then he kind of me, and
then another general will come in and say his peace,
(25:34):
and then he and Lieutenant what were you going to sing?
And the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the
Joint Chief ofs f Omar Bradley. So I was proud
of the company I was in. I got other awards
and other wars and other holes in my airplane hit
(25:56):
by sam missile when Day barely just knocked off a
chunk of my tail. So life went on and I
engaged fully, and.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Life good and good, and life indeed has been good.
You've been listening to the voice of Captain Royce Williams,
the only American aviator to single handedly shoot down four
Soviet miggs, and then well, he had to keep it
secret for just about fifty years. And by the way,
(26:33):
the first person Captain Williams shared his story with after
it was declassified was his bride. And today William's friends
at his local American Legion Post four sixteen in Encinitas, California,
are working very hard to get him the Medal of Honor.
With over twelve thousand American Legion posts across this great country,
be sure to stop by one in your neighborhood and
(26:55):
think of it, or even better join. If you or
your family member have been vets, you would be supporting
all the great things the Legion does, and who knows,
you may even get to meet a national hero like
Captain Royce Williams. Celebrating Captain Williams, the American Legion, and
all of our veterans for their service to this great country.
(27:18):
This is our American Stories.
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. There's some of our favorites.
Between the Korean and the Vietnam wars, US Navy Captain
Royce Williams flew over two hundred and twenty missions. The
(00:34):
following story was classified as top secret because if the
word got out that the Russians were now engaging our
troops in the Korean War, World War IIE could have
easily broken out. For more than fifty years, Captain Williams
didn't tell a soul, not even his wife. Nobody knew
what this twenty seven year old South Dakotin did that
(00:56):
day over the skies of Korea.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Now yes, born more or less to the Fosse clan
of South Dakota, which is rather famous. My mother was
one of thirteen. My dad who was a mail carrier
on motorcycle. He was in World War One and then
(01:24):
settled near where he was born in South Dakota town
called Wilmot. Very patriotic upbringing. He was large in the
local legion commander of the unit at times, and I
(01:49):
grew up engaged in the community. I took on scouting
as a serious matter and was their community's first eagle sky.
But I turned out to be an awfully good farmer,
and though my brother and sisters pretty much worked for
(02:09):
my dad in the grocery business, I worked for a
lot of family. It was a lot of uncles and
their farms, and then when I moved to Minnesota, I
was sort of on demand and farming, and I worked
for my uncle at a resort. Mother didn't worry much
(02:31):
about me. She came out one time because we weren't
back as expected, and she found out that we had
been in the trestle of a railroad track and the
train was coming and we ducked down below the rails
and underneath in the wood supporting the bridge, and we
(02:57):
were safe. But mothers don't like those sort of things.
I was full time, engaged and very athletic. I played
in all sports and lettered in all of them, and
I was taller of that I've lost five and a
half inches with the compression of my back, but that
(03:21):
is manageable and every life's good. I had my first
flight when I was four years old and a Ford
tri motor out of a pasture in South Dakota, along
with my grandma her first flight too, when she was
eighty and interested in aviation. From that time on, my
(03:43):
brother likewise, and when I was about seven or eight,
two years older, we made a pact. The famous avieaters
in those days were Lindy Lindbergh in Roscoe. Well, his
name is Linn. If i'd call him Lindy, he'd called
(04:06):
me Roscoe. Later on, when I was signed duty on
the USS Independence, Roscoe Turner came aboard as a VIP
and I was his guide. Takes us to World War Two.
My brother, about two years older than me, and I
(04:28):
were roller skating in front of his grocery shower, and
he came out and said, boys, come in and listen
to this, And it was FDR on the radio proclaiming
the attack on Pearl Harbor. We all got very serious
and are thinking thereafter how we're going to participate. My
(04:51):
dad likewise thought he ought to jump in, but they
wouldn't take him, but he sent his two sons. Everybody
in America was full time engaged in some way or
other in support of their country in World War two,
(05:12):
and little kids were saving the foil from gum, and
in the slightest little thing like shoestrings or whatever, everything
was going into a war effort, and that made them
special and changed their life. I was sixteen and I
(05:34):
joined the local Minnesota Guard. The Guard was called up,
and I had two cousins in it. They went to
Morocco and both were killed. I didn't go because I
was sixteen, and I went up to Camp Ripley for
training in northern Minnesota. Let me finish high school, and
(05:56):
when I turned seventeen, I was eligible for naval aviation
and applied and accepted and sent down to Corpus Christy, Texas.
I didn't get any actual combat in World War Two.
(06:16):
I flew the airplanes and we were instructed to keep
an eye out because we were flying over areas of
the ocean where Terman submarines were operating. But I was
pretty much hit. My brother finished a little bit ahead
of me, chose the Marine Corps for his aviation, was
(06:43):
in on the Okinawa combat for our area, and I
went through a full career pretty much same as I did.
He got more carrier landings than most any other marine
I know, and I was in World War Two Korea
and Vietnam, and I relieved him in his final station
(07:05):
on Admiral McCain's staff at sink Pack and Hawaii, and
he retired the next day. Talk to him a couple
of days ago. He's almost ninety.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Seven, and you're listening to the voice of Captain Royce Williams,
and my goodness, it hearkens back to a different day
in this country. The story of Captain Royce Williams continues
here on Our American Stories. Lee Hibibe here the host
of All American Stories. Every day on this show, we're
(07:36):
bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from
our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't
do the show without you. Our stories are free to
listen to, but they're not free to make. If you
love what you hear, go to Alamerican Stories dot com
and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.
Go to Alamerican Stories dot com and give and we
(08:10):
continue here with our American Stories. And let's continue now
with Captain Royce Williams in his own words about his
own life.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I made patrols in nineteen fifty two second tour in
South Pacific on the Princeton. We were shadowing with the
ship that the Admiral was on and we were all
slated to go around the world. We hit a typhoon
(08:44):
off kam and one squadron lost eight airplanes on one flight,
and we were sent back to the States and they
continued on the around the world cruis Well. I got
selected for regular Navy, and having only high school background,
(09:04):
I was sent to the University of Minnesota for eighteen
months to get two year degree. I got a four
year degree and still had another quarter due me, so
they sent me to postgraduate school and coming out of there,
the Korean War was underway and I went to a
(09:25):
fighter squadron out of Miramar in the fall of fifty
two and I was flyting F nine F five, which
was the new model of the Panther, and our mission
(09:46):
was primarily closer support and reconnaissance. Were targets were trains,
train tracks, trucks, bridges, tunnels, and we were not getting
to some of the prime targets with manufacturing far to
the north. So late November that Force seventy seven and
(10:14):
others decided to put together a task force of three
carriers and associated ships probably numbering twenty some and in
the press of night we headed on up off Changing,
which is one of the major northern cities of North Korea.
(10:38):
And in that morning I was on the first combat
flight that attacked Horiong. Well, when I came back from
that flight, I was told that take a quick snack
and come back. You're on the combat air patrol next,
(10:59):
So we thought it was going to be not too exciting.
But we took off in a snowstorm, a blizzard five
hundred feet ceiling formed as a division of aircraft under
the clouds, climbed through to on top, which was twelve
(11:22):
thousand feet. Well, while we were in the clouds, we
got a message from our controller in the combat information
center saying that there were bogies unidentified aircraft inbound headed
toward the task force eighty some miles north of us.
(11:45):
So when we arrived on top of the clouds, I
could see to the north contrails they were very high.
About the time, the flight lead had a light indicating
he had a warning regarding his fuel pump and he
(12:10):
was instructed to detach with his wingmen and remain over
the task force, and I proceeded with my wingmen instructed
to intercept. There were seven contrailts and as they came
over us, I could see that they were MiG fifteen's.
(12:32):
I didn't know what country. I assumed probably Russia because
we weren't very far from their territory, but as assigned,
I pursued them, climbing in their direction. As they turned,
they headed back, and in my assumption I thought they
were going home, but when I got to twenty six
(12:55):
thousand feet, they split into a group of four airplanes
going to the right and three to the left and descending,
And when they dropped below the contrail level, I couldn't
see them anymore and reported that to Combat Information Center
on the Eriskane and they had also lost contact with them.
(13:18):
A being a smaller target, the radar no longer picked
them up, so we didn't know where they were or
what they were doing. So I was instructed to turn
around and come back and establish a barricade at twenty
six thousand feet between the last contact of the MEGS
(13:39):
and the task force. Well, it was while in that
turn the four that turned off to the right came
in and met me from a ten o'clock position relative
to the clock and where I was flying, and they
were all shooting, so I didn't pick them up until
they were thought they were in range, and I turned
(14:01):
hard into them, and as they passed by, I was
within range and tracking their number four airplane. The one
that was closest to me, the farthest behind the lead,
and fired a short burst and he dropped out of formation.
(14:23):
I reported to the information center that I had just
thought i'd just hit one, and they said, do not engage,
and I said, we are engaged. They said, go get them.
The three remaining pulled up hard and showed me how
(14:45):
classy an airplane they were flying, as they could really
out maneuver high climb and zoomed to about two thousand
feet above me, and they had split to her. The
guy who just loow his wingman was coming in and
I was going to track him, but he was in
the sun and I kind of lost him, and I
(15:06):
saw the other two, who already turned into me, coming back,
so I changed my aim point and was tracking the
lead and he fired at me, and I thought he
was a little out of range, but he was coming
in fast, so I fired and I may have hit
him because he turned away, and then his wingman came
(15:31):
in and I changed my point of aim onto him,
and he was firing away and I was shooting at
him a rather long burst, and then he quit, but
he continued flying towards me and flew directly underneath me,
and I would assume that he was probably hit the pilot.
(15:52):
And while this was happening, the other three came in
from the other direction. So depending on what happened to
these that I hit or didn't hit, uh, I may
be up there with six. My wingman wasn't with me anymore,
because when I hit the first guy and he dropped out, uh,
(16:15):
my wingman trailed him, tracked him on down to where
thought he was going in the ocean, and I don't
know what he did from that time on, but I
didn't see him again. Well, it was now mightily engaged.
These guys were no longer formation. They were uh singles,
(16:37):
operating as a single fighter trying to shoot me down.
And I wasn't trying to do anything fancy. I was
countering their attacks. And then as they pulled off, they
would pull abruptly up so high uh that I couldn't
(16:59):
uh track him anymore. They weren't a target. They were
just getting positioned to come back in and let the
next guy have his turn. Well, one time a guy
failed to do that pull up and he kind of
slid in front of me, and while he was in close,
(17:19):
I fired and hit him, and it was almost as
though he stopped and his airplane pieces were coming off
him and I had to turn abruptly to avoid running
into him. So let's lasted about a half.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Hour, and you've been listening to Captain Royce Williams in
his own words, which we love to do here on
this show. When we come back, we're going to continue
with the remarkable story of Captain Royce Williams here on
our American Stories. And we continue with our American Stories
(18:12):
and the story of Captain Royce Williams. Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
So this lasted about a half hour. And toward the
end of this thing, I was on the tail of
one of them and he stopped maneuvering and was slowing
down and losing altitude, and I was out of ammunition.
(18:42):
So I turned around and I saw a meg was
coming in on my tail, and I turned real hard
into him and I'd say it was a lucky shot,
but he hit me with a thirty seven millimeter right
in the wing. Butt had exploded in the accessory section
of the engine, destroying all of the hydraulics and a
(19:04):
lot of the electrical severed the cable to the rudder.
The guy settled right in behind me at perfect shooting range.
But I had my elevator working and I would jam
the stick forward and then I would pull it back,
and this would be pretty high ge zooms, and I
(19:28):
was always had one hundred percent power of the whole fight,
and so I had pretty good control for this maneuver
that really saved my life. I dove into the clouds
and lost sight of him, and so I knew I
was in bad shape, and I thought about ejecting, but
(19:51):
this is winter time and the ocean is extremely cold,
and now I'm wearing an immersion suit that probably would
have extended my survival to maybe twenty minutes, and there
was no time for me to be rescued, so that
would have been it. My commanding officer of the squadron
(20:18):
had taken off and with a division four airplanes to
go up and relieve me. On takeoff, he saw me
coming into the task force area under the clouds and
being shot at by the destroyers. They didn't know who
(20:39):
I was, and they were at general quarters ready to
fight and cleared to shoot if they had an unidentified
and they were concern so they shot, and he called
off the dog, saying he's friendly. I was talking to
a group of people in Pensacol, the first time I
(21:00):
ever talked about this at all, many years later, and
one of the gentlemen afterwards came back and said, I
was one of the guys shooting at you. I was
under destroyer and he said, I said, you didn't hit me,
don't worry. I saved the adrenaline for after my landing,
(21:22):
and then I did get a flush of that once
I realized what I'd been through. The plane captain, who
kind of owned that airplane, got a grease pencil and
went around, circled all the perforations and counted two hundred
and sixty three. So I did meet the captain and
they congratulated me for whatever I did, and said he
(21:46):
thought I had just earned the Navy Cross. I had
a meeting with the senior admiral in the Western Pacific,
who told me that we were covered by the operation
of new capability called NSA, and this being their first venture,
(22:07):
had a team on the Helena, which was right off
the coast of Vladivostok where the base was located that
these bigs came from, and their censors told them that
I got at least three and I was told that
(22:27):
this is after we got into port and Yokoska, and
told to never tell anybody ever. And so I spent
maybe fifty some years or something like that. We're never
told a soul. They told me there was a lot
of surmising by other people and they were concerned about
(22:48):
maybe World War three's going to get out of hand.
I was told that because we had this new capability
of ns say, we didn't want him to know about it,
and if I were to come out with all this
information that it would be more than I, as a
(23:12):
single fighter pilot, than there would actually have gleaned by myself.
At some point I received word that the President elect
was on his way out and had requested to meet
with me, And so the president came over to me
(23:35):
and then took me by the elbow over to a big,
overstuffed leather chair, placed me in it. The little shove
sat on the arm and said, before we get down
to business, we ought to have a drink, don't you
think well? I concurred, I said yes, sir, And he says, well,
(24:02):
we have bourbon, Wisconsin, water and soda. What do you have,
my son, John's the bartender. Well, bourbon and water please,
He said, we have awfully good scotch. I said, well, sir,
before the bourbon and water, and then we have awfully
good scotch. I said, well, sir, really bourbon and water, Lieutenant,
(24:28):
We've got the world's fine scotch. Mister President, I'd drink
bourbon and odd John give him a bourbon and water.
So he did, and then we chatted and we didn't
talk directly anything about the Russians. We talked about his
new position as president and uh that I uh Indicatid
(24:52):
was a career man, and he said, we'll make me
your boss, and uh, we'll have a lot to do
with the equipment he use, and so we sort of
discussed fighting equipment and how much better the big happened
to be in performance and that sort of thing awful.
(25:13):
Accompanying him was everybody who was anybody in the command
structure in the Korean War. So he'd asked me a question,
and one of I wanted to engage, so they would
talk about it, and then he kind of me, and
then another general will come in and say his peace,
(25:34):
and then he and Lieutenant what were you going to sing?
And the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the
Joint Chief ofs f Omar Bradley. So I was proud
of the company I was in. I got other awards
and other wars and other holes in my airplane hit
(25:56):
by sam missile when Day barely just knocked off a
chunk of my tail. So life went on and I
engaged fully, and.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Life good and good, and life indeed has been good.
You've been listening to the voice of Captain Royce Williams,
the only American aviator to single handedly shoot down four
Soviet miggs, and then well, he had to keep it
secret for just about fifty years. And by the way,
(26:33):
the first person Captain Williams shared his story with after
it was declassified was his bride. And today William's friends
at his local American Legion Post four sixteen in Encinitas, California,
are working very hard to get him the Medal of Honor.
With over twelve thousand American Legion posts across this great country,
be sure to stop by one in your neighborhood and
(26:55):
think of it, or even better join. If you or
your family member have been vets, you would be supporting
all the great things the Legion does, and who knows,
you may even get to meet a national hero like
Captain Royce Williams. Celebrating Captain Williams, the American Legion, and
all of our veterans for their service to this great country.
(27:18):
This is our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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