Densho Digital Archive - George Uchida - Leo Uchida Interview (denshovh-ugeorge

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RP: George, you worked, then, gardening on the weekends?

GU: Sometimes. I would help Elmer or Daniel, David, but very little. No, like I said, I didn't do too much when I was small, since I was smallest. I think I didn't work very much, just helping sometimes here and there.

RP: So what was the most difficult part of resettling back? You were actually in a new area. Was it, you're going from a farming area in Florin, go to Manzanar, now you're in Los Angeles, and you're going to university and high school.

GU: I wouldn't say there was any particular difficulty. I was just going with the flow, moving here and there. And because, because, like I said, I was the youngest, I didn't have that much sense of responsibility either. Like I said, I went with the flow and then lived here and there and did what I was told, asked to do. So I can't say that I went through any kind of difficulty. The rest of the family was making do for me.

RP: Then after you graduated, you went into the Air Force?

GU: Yeah, I think about a month or two after that. I had the intention of trying to get into the flight, in the flying part of the Air Force, but I wasn't physically fit to be any, like pilots or any other flight crew, so I ended up in the Aircraft and Engine Mechanics, and that's how I spent my time in the service.

RP: And what type of planes did you work on?

GU: Oh, B-29, B-50, B-47. I think that was the only three major type of aircraft that I worked on. I was always in the heavy bomber group. Did get to fly 'em few times, in those planes, as a flight, as a ground crew.

RP: You told me that you were also involved in the first efforts at refueling bombers in the air?

GU: Yeah. At that time, at that time, the Air Force was trying to get this air refueling system worked out. And it started out by using a flexible gas hose, but after that, they finally were able to get into the, what they called the flying boom, and with a hard metal tube, pipe, that would come out of the tanker and go into the nose of the fighter or bomber type aircraft. And so I was, I was due in the service when it was in that flexible hose type of experimenting with the refueling system. Of course, I was just a flight crew member, I didn't have anything to do with how the refueling system was organized or anything like that.

RP: During the time you were there, you said that there were, there was a flight around the world?

GU: Yeah. The air refueling aircraft involved in it were from Tucson, Arizona, but the bomber, actual bomber is the B-50s.