April 8, 2025 • 23 mins
In this epiosde, I spoke with Lawrence V. Drake regarding his latest book "Pilots and Painted Ladies: 493rd Bomb Squadron and the Air War in the CBI". Raised on a farm in Montana, Vernon Drake enlisted in the Army Air Corp in the spring of 1942. Assigned to the 493rd Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Group of the 10th Air Force stationed in India, he piloted B-24 bombers into Burma in a fight to prevent the Japanese from advancing north to China, then flew C-108 gas-hauling tankers across the formidable Himalayas to support the U.S. and Allied armies.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Ernie Pile World War
Two Museum Podcast. Your podcast at Ernie Pile, the Voice
of the American soldier during World War II. My name
is Doug Hesse and if you're tuning in to the
Ernie Pole World War Two Museum Podcast, what we do
on this podcast is share with you pieces of Pile's
life from its humble beginning on an Indiana farm to
becoming a post surprise winning American journalist, a war correspondent
(00:40):
who is best known for his stories about ordinary American
soldiers during World War II.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
And today we have a very special guest with us today,
Lawrence V. Drake, and he is.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Going to be talking about his book Pilots and Painted
Ladies four ninety third Bomb Squadron and the Air War
in the CBI. Lawrence, Welcome to the Ernie pol World
War Two Museum Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Thank you, Doug, Thank you for inviting.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Me, well, thank you for agreeing to come on and
spend a few minutes with us today. And one of
the first things that we always like to do with
our guests, especially our authors, is to allow them to
kind of spend a few minutes to share with the
audience what their book is about.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Sure, glad to My book's really about.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Growing up.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You know, everybody has thinks that their father is just
the average guy, which is what I did as well.
You know, I didn't seem to do it into the
fact that I was wearing an insulative flight suit when
I was out delivering papers, or I was wearing a
leather flight jacker with a neat flying cobra on the
(02:02):
front of it when I was riding my horse or
delivering papers or whatever, and it just was just normal
for me. Well, we had this big old trunk, and
every once in a while we'd open that big old
trunk and we'd find all kinds of army paraphernalia in there.
And not until I was older that I really realized
(02:25):
the significance of all of that. And you're going through
it and finding metals, you know, finding oh gosh. I
just got really into the flight manuals and whatnot that
my dad had kept, you know, and even had even
had a clock that he had gotten out of a
B twenty four when he brought it back to the US.
(02:48):
And these kinds of things were just normal for me.
But I really loved aviation myself, so I really got
into it. And later on I got to the bottom
of the trunk and uh, I find out a scrap
book that has a lot of pictures of these painted
ladies that are scantily clad.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
You know, age boy, I'm going, well, I kind of
like that's.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So that kind of got me interested in what was
turned out to be uh uh quite a history of
my my dad's time in the service. Uh he he Uh.
He was was an artist from very young and he
was always drawing, always sketching, and uh when he ended
(03:37):
up going into the Army Air Corps and uh we
shipped overseas. Uh he was shipped over to India. Uh
and uh he was into the CBI, which is of
course of the China Burma India Theater which is now
(03:57):
mymar But uh so he was shipped over there and
as a B twenty four pilot, and while he was there,
he found that the airplanes didn't have nozart on them,
and people knew that he was an artist, so before
he knew it, they're asking him to paint nose art
on airplanes. And so that's what I saw on these
(04:20):
scrap books for these paintings that he painted, and he
painted about fourteen of them, and out of gosh, he
was flying by B twenty fours, and out of eighteen
thousand B twenty fours that were built, some of them
(04:41):
made back to the United States, and there was a
contractor who salvage contractor who cut some of these images
out of the airplanes, about thirty of them right out
of that, two of them are my fathers. So those
(05:02):
ended up in a magazine for the Smithsonian, and Dad
discovered those. And when he discovered those and showed them
to me, that's when I thought I got a story
here to tell. And so that's kind of where the
whole idea of the book began. But that was quite
a few years ago, and so that's really what the
(05:26):
book is about, is about, is his time from a
kid until he ended up in the service and paintingies
the snows art.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Now, Lawrence, like so many stories that we've heard World
War Two veterans, they didn't like to talk about their
time in the service.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Was that true with your dad as well?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
That it sounds like you had to discover this on
your own and it wasn't something that he talked a
lot about.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, he didn't talk a lot about it early on
as he got older, towards end of his life. Actually,
I think it was at the point when he found
those two paintings of his in the Smithsonian magazine that
kind of peaked his Well, he's always been a historian,
so he started writing down a lot of his history.
(06:20):
And he always kept in contact with his crew as well,
so he had kept letters and whatnot. And Dad kept everything,
I mean, he kept everything. In fact, when he passed away,
it took me two years just to go through all
the stuff that he kept. Of anything he put his
(06:40):
name to he kept. So yeah, so I had plenty
of material to draw from, I guess you could say,
plus all the things that he wrote. And then also
I discovered the Commemorative Air Force. Actually it was called
the Confederitive Air Force Confederate Air Force at the time.
(07:03):
And uh uh, they had ended up with two of
that those were those were the two paintings that he
had ended up in their museum. And so I forwarded
that on Dad, and he became a member of the
Camemority of Air Force, a Confederitive Air Force, and wrote
(07:25):
quite a bit of information for them for their for
their books. And so between that and uh then he
also did about a gosh, probably three or four hour
audio tapes telling his story just sitting in his chair
at home holding the microphone, which were often than not
(07:48):
ended up down by his belt and.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
So you know, the audio quality is really poor, but
a lot of his story was there too, so I
had a lot of material to work with.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Absolutely, was it emotional for you to work on this
book because you were writing about your father and some
of the great things that he was doing.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Oh yeah, yeah, not only that, but just just uh,
the more I got into it, the more I felt
somewhat connected to that whole theater.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
In fact, modern technology is wonderful. And being a pilot myself,
I got online and I got a flight simulator, uh,
and I was able to fly the routes that he flew.
It cool, very cool, And yeah, it was very cool.
(08:51):
And with you know, with the satellite technology and the
three D imaging and whatnot. I mean, it's not like
being there, but as well as get without actually in
the airplane. So that was that I really tried to
live the Yeah, the adventure he was on, it was
(09:12):
very cool.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Absolutely, In terms of that, we kind of talked a
little bit about this off air, But obviously the Ernie
Pile Museum talked about Ernie Pile. But we were talking
earlier that Pile was before he came a war corresponded,
he was into aviation and wrote a lot about aviation
(09:37):
in terms of that, and like I was telling you earlier,
that was one of the reasons why I was kind
of intrigued with your book is because of that, I'm
going to say, loose connection with Pile.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yeah, well, you know it's interesting that I did. I
knew of Ernie Pile, but I hadn't really studied, but
I understand that from what I read that he actually
ended up in the South Pacific Islands and that's actually
where he lost his life, was correct? Was there? So
he was in that part of that theater as well.
(10:12):
And then the other connection is is it turns out
I have a Pile in my ancestry.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Oh is that right?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Gets some digging, but unfortunately it's not a close connection.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Well you never know, right until you start looking at that. So, Lawrence,
what surprised you during the writing and the research of
this book. Did anything really kind of surprise you in
that process?
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Well?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I think the.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Biggest thing is that you've got a bunch of kids
going overseas. They're between ages of nineteen and maybe twenty
four to twenty five that are flying these big four
engine complicated bombers, and it's like, what was kids that age?
(11:01):
I guess is that you know, it's the other guy's
going to get it, not me, you know, you know
I'm indestructible, you know, And and the things that these
guys went through. I just can't imagine my grandson's going
through this kind of thing. I mean, you know, with
with their friends dying on a daily basis, with just
(11:25):
the horrific events that they went through, you know, the
bombing runs into China, getting shot at, getting shot at
by the ground as well as as fighters, and then
of course he was shipped up and went into northern
uh the Hassansa Valley up in northern India and flew
(11:50):
converted beef twenty fours that converted into gas tollars and
and flew them over the Himalayas in the worst weather
in the world. Were the tallest mountains in the world,
and almost constantly on instruments.
Speaker 6 (12:06):
In bad weather with with no no, very little navigation aids,
and UH you know, just the the fear that they
had to put up with constantly.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
It was, you know, that's the kind of thing that
he didn't really talk about. That's the thing that you know,
I kind of dug out over the over the years
when I researched it. He would talk about if he
was going to talk about anything, it was more or less,
you know, the good things, the good times, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, So you said your father did fourteen paintings, if
you will, onto aircraft. When he did his first one,
was he reluctant? I mean, did he think I'm not
good enough to do that or what was he kind
of thinking?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Do you know?
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah, actually he went to the commanding officer and asked
if he could. He was the one that instigated it, Okay,
so yeah, yeah, because he had when when uh in
other bases where they stopped, he would see the airplanes
that had the art on it, and he'd say, why
didn't we have it on arcs? You know? So, uh,
(13:23):
as he got it started, and once he had painted
the first one, because he just asked if he could
paint it on his airplane, right, And once he got it,
once he painted that first one, well, you know, everybody
else had to have one. And also he yah it did. Uh.
(13:45):
He attributes painting these girls on the airplanes to saving
his life because he was his commanding officer would allow
him to skip mission wow paint, So you know, he
flew a lot of missions, but he did. He did
(14:07):
skip some missions because of the painting.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Interesting, now, when others would come to him and ask
him to paint something on their aircraft, did he take
a lot of input or was this something that it
was his way in the way he wanted to paint,
or any feedback on that.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Well, I have to assume a lot of things here.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Sure, absolutely I get that.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
But and in my book I kind of write it
as a novel, you know, I really try to develop
the characters right in the book. I just think it
makes the more interesting reading. And you're real. But generally speaking,
the crews of the airplanes already had named their airplane,
(14:57):
so we had a name to start with. And then
so much of the art was done as copies of
the Milton Caniff art, which was you know, the they
were the poster Grill calendars, you know, so they would
do a lot of copying that and then dress them differently.
(15:19):
In different hair colors and whatnot. But that was the
basis for a lot of the art. And of course
those calendars were hanging out all over the base, so
wherever they were at, so he had plenty of bottles
to work with. Well, you know, I see a cartoon.
There's a cartoon I see which is a great cartoon
where the painter is up there on the side of
(15:40):
the airplane painting this naked lady and there's on the
scaffolding next door next to him, there's a naked lady
on the scaffolding. You know, not the way it happened, right, Yeah,
it's not the way it happened.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, So he was using a lot of artistic freedom,
if you will, to be able to make it real
appealing to whoever he was painting for.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, and Sam, what do you do? Sometimes give several sketches,
you know, they could jet, you know, choose the one
that they liked the best. Yeah, generally, speaking of it
was just a it was a rendition of the name
of the airplane.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yeah, that's great in terms that So you uh, you
put this into a novel, was it? Obviously you said
it made it feel more real and probably less dry
from a quote unquote true history book, if you will.
Was that hard to get into the mind or try
(16:42):
to get into the mind of some of your characters?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Well, not really, I mean I've I've I've written what
seven books now, right, Yeah, out of my style, I
just the way I write. I'd rather, I'd rather do
dialogue than just dry. You know, this is this is
how it was. That was how it was. You know.
(17:07):
I tried to take the event and then put dialogue
with it to make it feel more real.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Right, yeah, me too.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Well, and you know, no disrespect, but just writing about
painting could be dull if you look at it from
a pure historical fact, right, And this kind of gives
it a little bit more color, if you will, to
kind of steal a term out of that.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah. And how these airplanes got their names too, is
you know, you know, you kind of have to guess
when you when you look at you know, like the
ice Creeen.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
It was named the ice creen because they picked up
a whole lot of ice and they made it through,
you know, so they called it ice cream, you know,
And and just that kind of thing, those names being
a whole lot more than.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Just just a girl's name or something.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Right, Yeah, there was, for lack of a better word,
true meaning behind it.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah. So in many cases, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, that's great. How long did it take you to
write this book?
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Well, the actual writing of the book probably about a year.
Gathering information probably for twenty years, you know. Wow. Yeah,
I've got stacks and stacks of information. Yeah. In fact,
my my uncle, my dad's brother, was also in the CBI.
(18:39):
He flew the which was the twin engine cargo holler,
you know, and he flew over the mountains as well.
He flew over the Himalays and in the China and whatnot.
And of course those airplanes couldn't above the mountains. They
(19:00):
had to go through the passes and what because they
didn't have the they didn't have the service ceiling that
the B twenty fours had or the C forty six
is or and so their fly His story is really
quite interesting as well, and he never did talk much
(19:21):
about it.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
But I.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Kind of started a book on his adventures too, because
his son has been collecting a lot of things. So,
I mean, these guys that flew I mean, okay, the
flying flying from India into Burma, you know, across the
Bengal that was really dangerous and flying you know, the
(19:45):
bombing runs went out. Mostly they were there to bust
up the railroads and shipping areas because the Japanese were
pushing north trying to get into China, and those are dangerous,
but they weren't anything compared to flying these flying the
tankers over the Himalayas. That was in fact that they
(20:06):
it was called the Illuminum Highway because there were so
many crashes over the mountains that you could follow the
crashes the illuminum on the ground and get over the mountains,
you know. Yeah, So, but those stories are just incredible.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Well, and I appreciate that you taking the time to
write some of these down and capture it, because that
generation is leaving us and it was almost gone, and
there's a lot of great stories, a lot of great history,
a lot of great information that once they're gone, those
stories are gone forever. And so really appreciate you helping
(20:45):
capture that. And there was just there's just so much
going on in World War Two, as it is in
any war. It's not always about the fighting that's taking place,
but it was also helping these airman along the way
by just maybe having something I don't want to say simple,
(21:06):
but something as a picture or painted on their aircraft
that that maybe made them feel like they were part
of home or home or something larger than themselves.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Well, also, the airplanes really had personality, and they became
they came became alive. They were as real people. I mean,
that's when they called them. She had meant, you know,
she's a great airplane. It was because that airplane had
a soul. Yeah, some of them. Some of them were
(21:37):
bad and some of them are good, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Just like just like any person out there, right there's
and there's some bad ones out there.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
All have personalities. And even Dad said, he said the
one that he flew back home, which was mission completed,
he said it was the best flying airplane of all
the planes. He said, this was a really nice fly airplane. Well,
all be twenty four as they came out of the
well three different factories, you know, but some flew good
(22:07):
and some flew bad. You know.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Well, and maybe it flew better since he knew he
was going home too, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Right, Well, Lawrence, thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So much for coming on spending a few minutes with
us today and to our audience or our listeners, please
go out and get a copy of Lawrence's book, Pilots
and the Pain of Ladies four ninety third Bomb Squadron
and the Air War and the CBI.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I think you're going to really enjoy that.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Also check out some of his other books that he
has as well. Lawrence, again, thank you so much for
coming on and spending a few minutes with us today.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well, you're welcome. I'm glad I was able to do it.
I'd probably could have gone for another twenty minutes with
no problem.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
No, absolutely, but you know, as we kind of talked
a little bit, we find that twenty minutes or so
seems to be that nice sweet spot that we have
because you know, we don't want to read the book
to anybody. We want them to be intrigued, hopefully to
go out and pick up a copy of the book.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Well, thank you for coming on, and thank you again
for listening to this episode of the Ernie Powe World
War Tube Museum Podcast. Please check us out on Facebook
at Friends of Ernie Pile, or you can follow us
on Twitter or Instagram at hes Doug fourteen. Thank you
for listening to this episode of the Anti Power World
War Tube Museum podcast.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
And we will talk to you soon. Thank you.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Ernie Pile World War
Two Museum Podcast. Your podcast at Ernie Pile, the Voice
of the American soldier during World War II. My name
is Doug Hesse and if you're tuning in to the
Ernie Pole World War Two Museum Podcast, what we do
on this podcast is share with you pieces of Pile's
life from its humble beginning on an Indiana farm to
becoming a post surprise winning American journalist, a war correspondent
(00:40):
who is best known for his stories about ordinary American
soldiers during World War II.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
And today we have a very special guest with us today,
Lawrence V. Drake, and he is.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Going to be talking about his book Pilots and Painted
Ladies four ninety third Bomb Squadron and the Air War
in the CBI. Lawrence, Welcome to the Ernie pol World
War Two Museum Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Thank you, Doug, Thank you for inviting.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Me, well, thank you for agreeing to come on and
spend a few minutes with us today. And one of
the first things that we always like to do with
our guests, especially our authors, is to allow them to
kind of spend a few minutes to share with the
audience what their book is about.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Sure, glad to My book's really about.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Growing up.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You know, everybody has thinks that their father is just
the average guy, which is what I did as well.
You know, I didn't seem to do it into the
fact that I was wearing an insulative flight suit when
I was out delivering papers, or I was wearing a
leather flight jacker with a neat flying cobra on the
(02:02):
front of it when I was riding my horse or
delivering papers or whatever, and it just was just normal
for me. Well, we had this big old trunk, and
every once in a while we'd open that big old
trunk and we'd find all kinds of army paraphernalia in there.
And not until I was older that I really realized
(02:25):
the significance of all of that. And you're going through
it and finding metals, you know, finding oh gosh. I
just got really into the flight manuals and whatnot that
my dad had kept, you know, and even had even
had a clock that he had gotten out of a
B twenty four when he brought it back to the US.
(02:48):
And these kinds of things were just normal for me.
But I really loved aviation myself, so I really got
into it. And later on I got to the bottom
of the trunk and uh, I find out a scrap
book that has a lot of pictures of these painted
ladies that are scantily clad.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
You know, age boy, I'm going, well, I kind of
like that's.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So that kind of got me interested in what was
turned out to be uh uh quite a history of
my my dad's time in the service. Uh he he Uh.
He was was an artist from very young and he
was always drawing, always sketching, and uh when he ended
(03:37):
up going into the Army Air Corps and uh we
shipped overseas. Uh he was shipped over to India. Uh
and uh he was into the CBI, which is of
course of the China Burma India Theater which is now
(03:57):
mymar But uh so he was shipped over there and
as a B twenty four pilot, and while he was there,
he found that the airplanes didn't have nozart on them,
and people knew that he was an artist, so before
he knew it, they're asking him to paint nose art
on airplanes. And so that's what I saw on these
(04:20):
scrap books for these paintings that he painted, and he
painted about fourteen of them, and out of gosh, he
was flying by B twenty fours, and out of eighteen
thousand B twenty fours that were built, some of them
(04:41):
made back to the United States, and there was a
contractor who salvage contractor who cut some of these images
out of the airplanes, about thirty of them right out
of that, two of them are my fathers. So those
(05:02):
ended up in a magazine for the Smithsonian, and Dad
discovered those. And when he discovered those and showed them
to me, that's when I thought I got a story
here to tell. And so that's kind of where the
whole idea of the book began. But that was quite
a few years ago, and so that's really what the
(05:26):
book is about, is about, is his time from a
kid until he ended up in the service and paintingies
the snows art.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Now, Lawrence, like so many stories that we've heard World
War Two veterans, they didn't like to talk about their
time in the service.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Was that true with your dad as well?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
That it sounds like you had to discover this on
your own and it wasn't something that he talked a
lot about.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, he didn't talk a lot about it early on
as he got older, towards end of his life. Actually,
I think it was at the point when he found
those two paintings of his in the Smithsonian magazine that
kind of peaked his Well, he's always been a historian,
so he started writing down a lot of his history.
(06:20):
And he always kept in contact with his crew as well,
so he had kept letters and whatnot. And Dad kept everything,
I mean, he kept everything. In fact, when he passed away,
it took me two years just to go through all
the stuff that he kept. Of anything he put his
(06:40):
name to he kept. So yeah, so I had plenty
of material to draw from, I guess you could say,
plus all the things that he wrote. And then also
I discovered the Commemorative Air Force. Actually it was called
the Confederitive Air Force Confederate Air Force at the time.
(07:03):
And uh uh, they had ended up with two of
that those were those were the two paintings that he
had ended up in their museum. And so I forwarded
that on Dad, and he became a member of the
Camemority of Air Force, a Confederitive Air Force, and wrote
(07:25):
quite a bit of information for them for their for
their books. And so between that and uh then he
also did about a gosh, probably three or four hour
audio tapes telling his story just sitting in his chair
at home holding the microphone, which were often than not
(07:48):
ended up down by his belt and.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
So you know, the audio quality is really poor, but
a lot of his story was there too, so I
had a lot of material to work with.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Absolutely, was it emotional for you to work on this
book because you were writing about your father and some
of the great things that he was doing.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Oh yeah, yeah, not only that, but just just uh,
the more I got into it, the more I felt
somewhat connected to that whole theater.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
In fact, modern technology is wonderful. And being a pilot myself,
I got online and I got a flight simulator, uh,
and I was able to fly the routes that he flew.
It cool, very cool, And yeah, it was very cool.
(08:51):
And with you know, with the satellite technology and the
three D imaging and whatnot. I mean, it's not like
being there, but as well as get without actually in
the airplane. So that was that I really tried to
live the Yeah, the adventure he was on, it was
(09:12):
very cool.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Absolutely, In terms of that, we kind of talked a
little bit about this off air, But obviously the Ernie
Pile Museum talked about Ernie Pile. But we were talking
earlier that Pile was before he came a war corresponded,
he was into aviation and wrote a lot about aviation
(09:37):
in terms of that, and like I was telling you earlier,
that was one of the reasons why I was kind
of intrigued with your book is because of that, I'm
going to say, loose connection with Pile.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yeah, well, you know it's interesting that I did. I
knew of Ernie Pile, but I hadn't really studied, but
I understand that from what I read that he actually
ended up in the South Pacific Islands and that's actually
where he lost his life, was correct? Was there? So
he was in that part of that theater as well.
(10:12):
And then the other connection is is it turns out
I have a Pile in my ancestry.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Oh is that right?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Gets some digging, but unfortunately it's not a close connection.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Well you never know, right until you start looking at that. So, Lawrence,
what surprised you during the writing and the research of
this book. Did anything really kind of surprise you in
that process?
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Well?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I think the.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Biggest thing is that you've got a bunch of kids
going overseas. They're between ages of nineteen and maybe twenty
four to twenty five that are flying these big four
engine complicated bombers, and it's like, what was kids that age?
(11:01):
I guess is that you know, it's the other guy's
going to get it, not me, you know, you know
I'm indestructible, you know, And and the things that these
guys went through. I just can't imagine my grandson's going
through this kind of thing. I mean, you know, with
with their friends dying on a daily basis, with just
(11:25):
the horrific events that they went through, you know, the
bombing runs into China, getting shot at, getting shot at
by the ground as well as as fighters, and then
of course he was shipped up and went into northern
uh the Hassansa Valley up in northern India and flew
(11:50):
converted beef twenty fours that converted into gas tollars and
and flew them over the Himalayas in the worst weather
in the world. Were the tallest mountains in the world,
and almost constantly on instruments.
Speaker 6 (12:06):
In bad weather with with no no, very little navigation aids,
and UH you know, just the the fear that they
had to put up with constantly.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
It was, you know, that's the kind of thing that
he didn't really talk about. That's the thing that you know,
I kind of dug out over the over the years
when I researched it. He would talk about if he
was going to talk about anything, it was more or less,
you know, the good things, the good times, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, So you said your father did fourteen paintings, if
you will, onto aircraft. When he did his first one,
was he reluctant? I mean, did he think I'm not
good enough to do that or what was he kind
of thinking?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Do you know?
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah, actually he went to the commanding officer and asked
if he could. He was the one that instigated it, Okay,
so yeah, yeah, because he had when when uh in
other bases where they stopped, he would see the airplanes
that had the art on it, and he'd say, why
didn't we have it on arcs? You know? So, uh,
(13:23):
as he got it started, and once he had painted
the first one, because he just asked if he could
paint it on his airplane, right, And once he got it,
once he painted that first one, well, you know, everybody
else had to have one. And also he yah it did. Uh.
(13:45):
He attributes painting these girls on the airplanes to saving
his life because he was his commanding officer would allow
him to skip mission wow paint, So you know, he
flew a lot of missions, but he did. He did
(14:07):
skip some missions because of the painting.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Interesting, now, when others would come to him and ask
him to paint something on their aircraft, did he take
a lot of input or was this something that it
was his way in the way he wanted to paint,
or any feedback on that.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Well, I have to assume a lot of things here.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Sure, absolutely I get that.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
But and in my book I kind of write it
as a novel, you know, I really try to develop
the characters right in the book. I just think it
makes the more interesting reading. And you're real. But generally speaking,
the crews of the airplanes already had named their airplane,
(14:57):
so we had a name to start with. And then
so much of the art was done as copies of
the Milton Caniff art, which was you know, the they
were the poster Grill calendars, you know, so they would
do a lot of copying that and then dress them differently.
(15:19):
In different hair colors and whatnot. But that was the
basis for a lot of the art. And of course
those calendars were hanging out all over the base, so
wherever they were at, so he had plenty of bottles
to work with. Well, you know, I see a cartoon.
There's a cartoon I see which is a great cartoon
where the painter is up there on the side of
(15:40):
the airplane painting this naked lady and there's on the
scaffolding next door next to him, there's a naked lady
on the scaffolding. You know, not the way it happened, right, Yeah,
it's not the way it happened.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, So he was using a lot of artistic freedom,
if you will, to be able to make it real
appealing to whoever he was painting for.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, and Sam, what do you do? Sometimes give several sketches,
you know, they could jet, you know, choose the one
that they liked the best. Yeah, generally, speaking of it
was just a it was a rendition of the name
of the airplane.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yeah, that's great in terms that So you uh, you
put this into a novel, was it? Obviously you said
it made it feel more real and probably less dry
from a quote unquote true history book, if you will.
Was that hard to get into the mind or try
(16:42):
to get into the mind of some of your characters?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Well, not really, I mean I've I've I've written what
seven books now, right, Yeah, out of my style, I
just the way I write. I'd rather, I'd rather do
dialogue than just dry. You know, this is this is
how it was. That was how it was. You know.
(17:07):
I tried to take the event and then put dialogue
with it to make it feel more real.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Right, yeah, me too.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Well, and you know, no disrespect, but just writing about
painting could be dull if you look at it from
a pure historical fact, right, And this kind of gives
it a little bit more color, if you will, to
kind of steal a term out of that.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah. And how these airplanes got their names too, is
you know, you know, you kind of have to guess
when you when you look at you know, like the
ice Creeen.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
It was named the ice creen because they picked up
a whole lot of ice and they made it through,
you know, so they called it ice cream, you know,
And and just that kind of thing, those names being
a whole lot more than.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Just just a girl's name or something.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Right, Yeah, there was, for lack of a better word,
true meaning behind it.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah. So in many cases, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, that's great. How long did it take you to
write this book?
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Well, the actual writing of the book probably about a year.
Gathering information probably for twenty years, you know. Wow. Yeah,
I've got stacks and stacks of information. Yeah. In fact,
my my uncle, my dad's brother, was also in the CBI.
(18:39):
He flew the which was the twin engine cargo holler,
you know, and he flew over the mountains as well.
He flew over the Himalays and in the China and whatnot.
And of course those airplanes couldn't above the mountains. They
(19:00):
had to go through the passes and what because they
didn't have the they didn't have the service ceiling that
the B twenty fours had or the C forty six
is or and so their fly His story is really
quite interesting as well, and he never did talk much
(19:21):
about it.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
But I.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Kind of started a book on his adventures too, because
his son has been collecting a lot of things. So,
I mean, these guys that flew I mean, okay, the
flying flying from India into Burma, you know, across the
Bengal that was really dangerous and flying you know, the
(19:45):
bombing runs went out. Mostly they were there to bust
up the railroads and shipping areas because the Japanese were
pushing north trying to get into China, and those are dangerous,
but they weren't anything compared to flying these flying the
tankers over the Himalayas. That was in fact that they
(20:06):
it was called the Illuminum Highway because there were so
many crashes over the mountains that you could follow the
crashes the illuminum on the ground and get over the mountains,
you know. Yeah, So, but those stories are just incredible.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Well, and I appreciate that you taking the time to
write some of these down and capture it, because that
generation is leaving us and it was almost gone, and
there's a lot of great stories, a lot of great history,
a lot of great information that once they're gone, those
stories are gone forever. And so really appreciate you helping
(20:45):
capture that. And there was just there's just so much
going on in World War Two, as it is in
any war. It's not always about the fighting that's taking place,
but it was also helping these airman along the way
by just maybe having something I don't want to say simple,
(21:06):
but something as a picture or painted on their aircraft
that that maybe made them feel like they were part
of home or home or something larger than themselves.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Well, also, the airplanes really had personality, and they became
they came became alive. They were as real people. I mean,
that's when they called them. She had meant, you know,
she's a great airplane. It was because that airplane had
a soul. Yeah, some of them. Some of them were
(21:37):
bad and some of them are good, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Just like just like any person out there, right there's
and there's some bad ones out there.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
All have personalities. And even Dad said, he said the
one that he flew back home, which was mission completed,
he said it was the best flying airplane of all
the planes. He said, this was a really nice fly airplane. Well,
all be twenty four as they came out of the
well three different factories, you know, but some flew good
(22:07):
and some flew bad. You know.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Well, and maybe it flew better since he knew he
was going home too, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Right, Well, Lawrence, thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So much for coming on spending a few minutes with
us today and to our audience or our listeners, please
go out and get a copy of Lawrence's book, Pilots
and the Pain of Ladies four ninety third Bomb Squadron
and the Air War and the CBI.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I think you're going to really enjoy that.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Also check out some of his other books that he
has as well. Lawrence, again, thank you so much for
coming on and spending a few minutes with us today.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well, you're welcome. I'm glad I was able to do it.
I'd probably could have gone for another twenty minutes with
no problem.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
No, absolutely, but you know, as we kind of talked
a little bit, we find that twenty minutes or so
seems to be that nice sweet spot that we have
because you know, we don't want to read the book
to anybody. We want them to be intrigued, hopefully to
go out and pick up a copy of the book.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Well, thank you for coming on, and thank you again
for listening to this episode of the Ernie Powe World
War Tube Museum Podcast. Please check us out on Facebook
at Friends of Ernie Pile, or you can follow us
on Twitter or Instagram at hes Doug fourteen. Thank you
for listening to this episode of the Anti Power World
War Tube Museum podcast.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
And we will talk to you soon. Thank you.
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