Jack Buckner was born in Florida but when he was one he moved near Atlanta [Annotator's Note: Atlanta, Georgia] where he was raised. His father was a welder for the railroads who had been a blacksmith in the Navy in World War 1. His uncle served in the Philippines Campaign. Some of his ancestors were in the War Between the States [Annotator's Note: American Civil War]. Buckner was born in February 1923. His father was out of work a lot during the Depression. Things were tough on his parents because they were trying so hard. World War 2 helped pull us out of the Depression more than the government programs did. He feels that a lot of people do not realize how the people of this country suffered during the war due to rationing. When he returned from overseas, and got married, he and his wife rented a garage apartment. In cold weather, they had no heat. He could not get a heater because he did not have a ration stamp. Buckner was 18 when Pearl Harbor was attacked [Annotator's Note: by the Japanese on 7 December 1941]. He joined the military in January 1942 at age 18. He was sent to Maxwell Field [Annotator's Note: now Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama] as an Army Air Corps Cadet. His whole class was sent to bombardier or navigation school. He was at a skating rink when the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor was announced. He said we would sink Japan within six months. He was shocked but would not have been if it had come from Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler]. There were people against the war. Even Lindbergh [Annotator's Note: Charles Augustus Lindbergh, American aviator] was very strong for the Germans.

Jack Buckner enlisted because he was patriotic. It was his duty. He always wanted to fly so it was a great opportunity to be an aviator. He joined the Army Air Corps. He had not given the Naval aviation much thought as he used to build model airplanes used by the Army. He graduated from bombardier school in Albuquerque [Annotator's Note: Albuquerque, New Mexico]. He was disappointed he did not make pilot school, but he accepted it. He was very fortunate that he learned well and was a good bombardier. There is a lot of mathematics in the training. The easiest thing is looking at the bomb site. The preparation really determines how accurate you are. He had to learn how to identify enemy aircraft, Morse Code, and meteorology. The Norden bombsight was probably the biggest secret at the time. He had to guard it with a sidearm when it was carried in and out. [Annotator's Note: Buckner details the mechanism and how it works.] The airplane flies into the wind so it flies in a straight line. Most missions were from 22,000 to 26,000 feet in altitude. They had to be on oxygen. He graduated on 15 August 1942 and went to Sebring, Florida to train on B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. His group was formed in Boise, Idaho and then went to Washington and finally Iowa to complete their training in severe weather. They received orders to go overseas. Just before that, Buckner and his pilot were sent to Tonopah, Nevada [Annotator's Note: Tonopah Army Air Field] to work with Dayton Research Development [Annotator's Note: Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio's Special Weapons Branch] on creating a glide bomb for attacking submarine pens. He does not know if it was ever used. It was the beginning of guided missiles.

Jack Buckner was in Boise, Idaho when his aircrew was formed as part of the 347th Bombardment Squadron, 99th Bombardment Group. They did all sorts of practice missions there. Then they went to Salina, Kansas to pick up their plane. It was 40 below zero with 50 mile-per-hour winds. They flew it to DeRidder, Louisiana, then to West Palm Beach, Florida and then to Puerto Rico for a couple of days. He had never seen such a beautiful place. They hated to leave. They flew over the Amazon basin and ran into a thunderstorm too high to get over. Two aircraft collided but did not crash. They land in Natal, Brazil [Annotator's Note: He refers to some notes] for fuel. The navigator hit the destination right on the money. They landed in the jungle in Africa. They were amazed at the natives and the British airfield. They flew up to Marrakech, Morocco. They learned the base hierarchies quickly and that flight crews were the bottom level. Their base in the desert had no facilities. They managed to get some equipment on their planes and then they took off. The literally had to build their own airbase. They slept under the wing of the plane at first. It was very cold at night. It could be 120 degrees when they took off and then 40 or 50 below zero at flying altitude. They would take buckets of water with them to freeze so they had ice for their drinks. They resented the English because they had a ration of Scotch but the Americans had nothing. They were stationed close to Constantine [Annotator's Note: Navarin Airfield, Algeria, February 1943]. After Rommel [Annotator's Note: German Field Marshall Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel] was routed, they moved up close to Tunis [Annotator's Note: Tunis, Tunisia]. They bombed Bizerte and Tunis as well as shipping out of Sicily and Italy. The mission was to stop supplies from coming into North Africa. The Germans started using transport aircraft instead of ships, so the missions switched to bombing airfields.

Jack Buckner and his aircrew would get orders each late afternoon as to what bombs to load. They did not know the mission until the next morning's briefing. Buckner was the assistant armament officer for his squadron [Annotator's Note: 347th Bombardment Squadron, 99th Bombardment Group, 12th Air Force]. The aircraft guns had to cleaned twice per mission, to keep them from freezing. Early on they had to load their own aircraft until the ground crews arrived. They even had to fuel the plane with five gallon cans. They had very little interaction with the local population. They were very untrustworthy. He did not have to guard the bombsight at this location. It was safer left on the plane. They had dust storms constantly during a scirocco [Annotator's Note: Mediterranean wind from the Sahara desert]. They only had C-rations and K-rations to eat. They went to Casablanca once and Buckner went onboard a military ship that had ice cream and Coke [Annotator's Note: Coca-Cola]. He could not believe they were in the same war. The Battle of Kasserine Pass [Annotator's Note: series of battles of Tunisia Campaign, February 1943] was underway while he was there. His crew was on standby to leave and fly back to Casablanca [Annotator's Note: Casablanca, Morocco] but did not end up going. About that time, Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] was brought into North Africa. They all hated his guts, but he shaped up the Army and put the backbone into the effort. He never met Patton.

Jack Buckner and his aircrew only flew missions in support of ground troops in invasions. For the invasion of Sicily, they were bombing airfields hoping to get airplanes on the ground. He saw Allied aircraft the Navies accidentally shot down in the Mediterranean. They had some P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] for escorts for some of the time. About half the time, they did not have escorts. At that time, the German fighters were superior. The only thing that could stand up to them were the British Spitfires [Annotator's Note: British Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft]. The P-38 was not as maneuverable but was great at high-altitude. There was a lot of German fighter opposition. The P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] could stand up to them. The P-40 [Annotator’s Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] was the main aircraft when he first got there, and it was mostly used for close air support. We had the best bombers, but they had the best fighters. For defense, they flew a tight formation to concentrate the ten guns on each plane. The biggest danger was the antiaircraft fire. It could knock an aircraft out of formation and then the fighters would pounce on them. Buckner was able to shoot two enemy fighters down, both German Messerschmitt 110s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf 110 Zerstörer (Destroyer)fighter-bomber]. They were fortunate in that they only had one crew member killed. Their radio operator was on a different aircraft that got hit by flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] and then by ten or 12 fighters. The plane made it back to Africa, but the radio operator was killed. Buckner's plane never crash-landed. A piece of shrapnel came through the plane once but missed Buckner. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him about the death of the radio operator.] You accept it. You might play cards tonight and tomorrow night someone is not there. It grows on you and you learn to accept it. It could happen to you tomorrow. The Lord is in charge.

Jack Buckner says the biggest problem with Army life is the boredom. They played baseball and card games. On a day off, they would sometimes requisition a jeep and go to Constantine [Annotator's Note: Constantine, Algiera]. They were careful not to eat locally because of dysentery. They could smell the cities a mile or two from away. Dysentery kept more crew members grounded than anything else. Buckner was grounded twice due to sinus and ear issues. The altitude changes were bad. If your ears were plugged, it could rupture blood vessels. It was almost blinding pain. They had no library or chapel but they did have a chaplain. The pilot and navigator were Roman-Catholics and Buckner was a Baptist. When they went to town they could at least see girls. They would buy something and just see what the other part of the world looked like. They had to take parts off the jeep to keep it from running so it would not get stolen. They only got V-mail [Annotator's Note: Victory Mail; postal system put into place during the war to drastically reduce the space needed to transport mail] then. About a third of the ships crossing the Atlantic were sunk, so you never knew if you were getting anything. The officers censored the enlisted men's mail.

Palermo, Messina and Sicily [Annotator's Note: all in Italy] were very severe targets for Jack Buckner due to the amount of antiaircraft fire. Naples and Foggia [Annotator's Note: in Italy] were really tough. As they started bombing into northern Italy, the fighters would get them coming and going. About half of their crews were lost. On one mission, that he was not on, the planes could not bomb the target due to weather and only three made it back to their field. Some went down in the Mediterranean. They lost some crews completely and a lot of airplanes. It was just the weather that got them. Getting replacements for both was also hard. There were a lot of skeleton planes that parts had been robbed from. It was hard to get new airplanes over to Europe. They were always a little short on crews. They did manage to fill their missions. The longest mission he ever flew was about eight and a half hours. His last mission was to Augsburg, Germany from North Africa. Over Switzerland, they had been hit by fighters and had an engine out. They turned around and headed back. They were at 24,000 feet then and by the time they got to Africa, they were down to 2,000 feet. They landed safely.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks about Jack Buckner's last mission as a bombardier.] They would wake up around five o'clock in the morning and get a quick breakfast. The crews would then go in the briefing room and get their target, how to approach, and what other aircraft would be there. They would then check the plane and take-off. They were hit by fighters from middle to southern Italy. They fought them off. His crew did not get to the target [Annotator's Note: they had lost an engine after being hit by fighters] and dropped their bombs in the Mediterranean. They sweated it out until they got back home. Over the Alps, they discussed whether or not to bail out. This was the 50th mission and that made a difference. They were told they were going home so they made it back. This was in November 1943. They knew the war was not going to be over soon. They had seen that Italy was not going to be a pushover. In the event they were going down, they had orders to shoot the bombsight to destroy it. As the bombardier, Buckner would take the temperature at every 1,000 feet of altitude to calculate what the true altitude is over the target. That would provide the entry to the bombsight. He was also checking the flight path to see the wind speed and direction. He had to man his gun if fighters hit them. After bombs away, he would write poetry and sing songs, once out of enemy territory. The British would get a drink when landing. Later, the Americans would do the same, but they were there too early for that. They did buy local wine that they would have when they landed.

Jack Buckner and his crew moved from Constantine [Annotator's Note: Constantine, Algeria] to around Tunis [Annotator's Note: Oudna Airfield, Tunis, Tunisia]. Life on base was the same, just a runway on the edge of the desert. [Annotator's Note: The tape break cuts interviewer's question.] When they got there it was very cold. In the middle of the day it could get hot. In April and May, the rain stopped, and the heat came on. It was dusty and hot. They slept under blankets with powder to keep bugs off of them. They had straw mattresses. He never saw any snakes or rats. They always had the confidence that we were going to win the war. There was never any doubt. They had a first aid tent, but they had no medical facilities. All four squadrons of the group were there [Annotator's Note: Buckner was a member of the 347th Bombardment Squadron, 99th Bombardment Group]. They were glad to see replacement troops and would try to help them as much as they could. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Buckner if he thinks a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber would have sustained as much damage as their Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heaavy bomber did, and kept flying.] His plane probably would have, but a lot of the planes would not have. The B-17 was a very tough, reliable plane. He saw some that were nearly cut in two and still landed. The B-17s could fly tight formations at high altitude which provided good air cover. The B-24 was not very stable at high altitude and could not fly as tightly.

As the war progressed, the air support was hit and miss for Jack Buckner and the other bomber crews [Annotator's Note: in the 347th Bombardment Squadron, 99th Bombardment Group]. They would be told what level of support they would have on each mission. Their B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] had a large diamond on the vertical stabilizer so you could recognize them. They were known as the Diamondbacks. All of the aircraft had nicknames and painted symbols. His aircraft was called Warrior [Annotator's Note: Aircraft number 42-29474] and had a painting of an Indian [Annotator's Note: Native American]. He sometimes flew with other crews in different planes. He once flew five missions in four days. At first, the pilots did not trust the automatic pilot. On one mission, Buckner was flying with their squadron commander as the pilot and he kept turning the wrong way. He finally had to scream at him to turn the right way. He then turned so hard it messed up the gyroscope on the bombsight and they missed their target, a battleship. There was a colonel waiting for them when they got back, to learn what happened. That was the last mission that commander ever flew. Buckner was promoted to captain. The Norden bombsight was good and very accurate. He cannot recall any case where the sight did anything wrong, the problems were human error. The lead bombardier was the one working the sight. All of the formation dropped their bombs when the lead plane did so.

After being promoted to captain and finishing his last bombing mission, Jack Buckner left his group [Annotator's Note: 347th Bombardment Squadron, 99th Bombardment Group] and went to 15th Headquarters [Annotator's Note: 15th Air Force] with Doolittle [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces General James Harold Doolittle] for a short time. He was asked to stay on, but he wanted to go home. He was able to get orders on a PBY [Annotator's Note: Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat] and flew to Miami [Annotator's Note: Miami, Florida]. He returned on 1 December 1943, went home for a few days, and got engaged. He then went back to the rest camp in Miami. He went back to Atlanta [Annotator's Note: Atlanta, Georgia] on Christmas day and it was snowing. He got to his house and his parents and fiancée came out to greet him. He hollered, "Merry Christmas" and then slid on the snow and fell. [Annotator's Note: Buckner laughs.] He had been in North Africa for Thanksgiving. They had no special chow for that holiday. He went to Midland, Texas to be checked out as an instructor. He got married there. He then went to Roswell, New Mexico to train pilots on bombing runs. He then moved around a lot. He was in Victorville, California until the war was over. He then mustered out in Montgomery [Annotator's Note: Montgomery, Alabama]. He stayed in the Reserves about ten years and was a lieutenant colonel when he finished. He was not recalled to duty for the Korean War. Buckner never really thought about not coming home from the war. He had become a Christian at 13. He was not worried about dying. Very few men were pessimistic about making it home. He mustered out of the service in November 1945. He was living in an apartment in San Bernadino [Annotator's Note: San Bernadino, California] and was on the porch when he heard of the Japanese surrender. In Roswell [Annotator's Note: Roswell, New Mexico], his former pilot and copilot were flying B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] at Clovis [Annotator's Note: Clovis Army Air Field, now Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico]. He went up to visit and they tried to get him to join them and go to the Pacific. He had a new wife, so he decided to stay. The copilot got his own crew in the Pacific but did not make it. Buckner thought the B-29 was luxury, especially compared to the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber].

After the war, Jack Buckner used the G.I. Bill to go to school. His first child was born, and he was having a tough time in school. He was working about 30 hours a week while going to school. It was more than he could handle. He got a job as an engineer for 25 years. When he was 50, he resigned and opened his own construction company. He did that until he was 65 and turned it over to his two sons. World War 2 gave Buckner the opportunity to save money. The educational opportunities the servicemen had probably had the most profound effect on the country in his lifetime. His parents had raised him to have solid values. He had a religious conviction that was a moral compass for him. The war broadened him by travel, by seeing the rest of our country. The mixing of people is what melded our country together. Many of the men Buckner served with had never been more than 20 miles from their homes. Buckner never had any problem with being sent to take lives. He believed that God established governments and that they are to be obeyed as long as they are good. He was a hunter and killed birds and rabbits. He raised livestock for food. He had nothing against the individuals. He was fighting against ideas that represented something worse. The founders of this country had to fight all the way through. He loves history, nothing is new. We repeat these things, good and bad. Buckner feels very much that The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] is necessary. It was such a profound war. If the lessons learned do not carry on, we will suffer. He teaches his children and grandchildren. There is more to war than shooting. He thinks our schools are not teaching it. His most devastating time was when he got into an argument with the pilot and they missed the target. He thought he might get court-martialed. Losing their waist gunner was also devastating. [Annotator's Note: Buckner gets very silent.]