Raven 5: An Airman's Story

By Edward D. Connor

Edward Connor was barely out of high school when he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps before the beginning of World War II. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, he and thousands of other young men were quickly trained to conduct the air campaign in the Pacific. Stationed first in Australia and then in New Guinea, Connor describes his wartime experiences. He also describes his two decades of service in the U.S. Air Force as an electronic warfare officer â a "Raven." In his straightforward memoir, Connor recounts some of the most harrowing events experienced by a young man looking to serve his country and survive a terrible war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456622541

Book preview

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Part I: World War II

I began my career in the military in 1940 when I was 18 years old. I had graduated from Eastern High School in Washington, D.C., and gone back to Florida because I wanted to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville. I really didn’t have enough money for college, but my grandmother set up an appointment with the dean of men to discuss my options. He offered me a deal where I could work on campus while attending classes. I immediately realized it was going to be quite a grind. I would take a job most mornings as a busboy in a fraternity house, go to school in the afternoon, and study at night.

Attending university in Florida would be sort of a homecoming for me. I had spent the first four years of my life in the Key West area, until my mother died. Then my sister Eleanor and I went to live with our grandparents in Inverness, north of Tampa. My father was in the U.S. Navy and spent most of his time aboard ship; therefore he was unable to care for Eleanor and me. My grandfather was clerk of the Circuit Court in Citrus County, and my grandmother was the head of the County Education Department.

In 1937, when I had completed the ninth grade, we moved in with my Aunt Rosalie in Ocala, 25 miles farther north near Gainesville, because at that point my grandparents had become too old to take care of two teenagers. Aunt Rosalie was my father’s sister. We moved there for a year before moving to the D.C. area. My father had remarried, and Eleanor and I joined him and our new stepmother in their apartment in southeast Washington. My father by then had become a chief petty officer at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, where he instructed cadets on maneuvering small ships.

After I graduated, Dad informed me he had completed his job raising me – in other words, Time to get out there on your own, kid – so I headed back to Florida.

After I’d had my interview with the dean, I met up with Gene Quinn, a high school classmate of mine from Inverness. He and I visited the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa. Being young men, we were looking for a good time – but we were also looking for opportunities to begin our adult lives.

Gene and I had downed a few beers at the festival and were feeling pretty good. As we wandered through the various attractions, we passed a recruiting booth for the U.S. Army Air Corps. They needed transport pilots. I guess they needed them badly, because they offered us the opportunity on the spot to fly around Tampa in one of the aircraft we would be operating if we joined up.

Even back in ’40, the Army brass was well aware the United States could find itself in a war in the near future. By that time, the Japanese had invaded Manchuria, and the Brits were already knee-deep in a fight with Hitler. Anyone with half a brain could see what was coming.

So, talking over a few more beers, we decided to enlist. Gene did it because his family owned a dairy farm near Inverness, and he wanted no part of managing cows. As for me, I went into the Army Air Corps because I decided it was the way to gain an avocation as well as an education.

We didn’t sign up back at the booth, however. We signed up in Ocala, near my aunt’s house. The Army Air Corps sent us to Jacksonville for our physical exams. That’s when we hit our first hitch. Gene and I both failed our physicals, at least in terms of becoming pilots, because we were both colorblind. To this day, I have no idea why such a condition prevents you from being a pilot. I can say this because, as it turned out, I spent over 20 years in the Air Corps and U.S. Air Force certified as a crew member, and I