Densho Digital Archive - Bob Utsumi Interview (denshovh-ubob-01-0021)

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MA: Okay, so you were talking about joining the Air Force, and July 8, 1949, when you received, what was it? You enlisted?

BU: Enlisted in the United States Air Force, USAF Aviation Cadet Program.

MA: And that was in Texas?

BU: Pilot training (...).

MA: And that was in Texas?

BU: Well, when I enlisted, it was right here in San Francisco, I got sworn in there, and then I went to Texas to start my basic training at Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, Texas. And I was there from July 1949 until, yeah, July '49 until March of 1950. And then I went to the jet fighter school, advanced pilot training at Williams Air Force Base, Chandler, Arizona, outside of Phoenix. At that time, Phoenix, greater Phoenix was a hundred thousand people. [Laughs] It's changed.

MA: So what appealed to you about the military, or the Air Force in particular? You mentioned you thought it was kind of adventurous and exciting?

BU: Oh, yeah. It was, the camaraderie with the whole experience and the Air Force family, I had three children, and my wife, we just loved the twenty-one years that I spent in the Air Force. Although my wife had to make nineteen moves, she kind of put that behind her. And we were never strangers, we were always friends and welcomed to each unit we went to, wherever we went. This is after I finished pilot training, and got married soon after I, we became part of the Air Force family. Anytime we moved, the receiving organization knew we were coming, and somebody was assigned (from) the receiving organization to help us get squared away with the housing, whether it was temporary housing until we got squared away. And the daily activities and flying was just a ball. It was just, just so much fun. And a lot of training, one thing you really learn was that all these emergency procedures that we learned, that we had to keep practicing all the time, you keep practicing and practice until you, they become normal procedures. So when the emergency occurs, it's just a normal procedure you go through. You expect, you're expecting it, and so you knew exactly what to do when it happened. Fortunately, I didn't have that many -- [coughs] excuse me -- emergencies where, never lost an engine, so I was lucky in that respect.

MA: What kinds of planes were you training in?

BU: Mostly single engine fighters. Spent most of my experience in the, what they call fighter interceptor, all-weather interceptors, fighters. And they were single place fighters, interceptors where a lot of 'em are two place, where you have a radar observer or weapons officer in the back. I was always in a (...) single place F86D, F-102 and the F-106. And the, I flew (propeller aircraft), early part of my career, I started off as a flight instructor in a reciprocal engine, regular, conventional reciprocal engine. And so, let me see, oh, yeah, and then there was one year, one year in between in there where I flew B-25s for a year as a mission pilot for the radar observer training (program). And I think that's why I have my hearing problems now, it's because of the noise, noise that I experienced during that one year there.

MA: And during the Korean War, you were saying you were a flight instructor.

BU: Okay, during the Korean War, I was, that was when I was a flight instructor. And they call it a directed duty assignment, which means if you're a flight instructor, once you became assigned as a flight instructor, you had to stay as a flight instructor for three years. Well, that covered the whole period of the Korean War, 'cause I graduated in August of '50, and because of the B-25 interruption that one year, my three years of directed duty assignment didn't end 'til '54, and the Korean War had ended. And then, from that point... let me give you the births of my three girls. I was, one of my early assignments was as a flight instructor, was at Waco, Texas, the James Connolly Air Force Base. And my oldest daughter Chris was born there. Then I got transferred to Craig Air Force Base, Selma, Alabama. I was an instructor there, but this time I was instructing in the instructors school, pilot instructors school. And my second daughter, Patty, was born there in Selma, Alabama. And then from there, I went, took some training in the F86D in Perrin Air Force Base, Texas, and then got permanently stationed to England. RAF station, Manston. And while there, our third daughter was born. And actually, she was born at a... let's see, what do they call, RAF Station Burdrop Park Hospital, which was seventy miles west of London, while we were stationed seventy miles east of London.