Ernie Jacob Miller U.S. Air Force

00:00 It wasn't recording. Okay. My name is Sabrina Bonet. I'm going to be interviewing Ernie J. Miller You're 84, right? Today. And we're friends with the Missouri Job Center.

00:15 Yes.

00:16 Okay. And I was asking you how much service you had you would serve from 1947 to 1953. And can you tell me a little bit about the service you were.

00:34 Well, I had boot camp in San Antonio. They sent me from San Antonio to Kearney, Nebraska. And the.

01:00 I knew.

01:00 I was like, oh, Kearney is a little bit yelling out in the middle of the brass.

01:06 Okay.

01:07 Nine thousand, six hundred and forty three people.

01:10 Okay. You can remember that from 1946. Oh, my goodness. Okay.

01:17 All right.

01:19 I'm so sorry about that.

01:21 That's where I got my training on the P51.

01:27 Okay.

01:28 The Mustang.

01:29 The Mustang, yeah. You only see those at air shows now.

01:32 No, kid. But anyway, I trained there for. Well, from there, they sent me to Seattle, Washington, to have some training. What they. What they do is they. They've got a C47, and it's pulling a real long rope with a huge sock on the end of it.

02:19 Oh, my gosh.

02:20 Probably the thing is probably 20 foot long.

02:28 Oh, my gosh.

02:29 It's huge size. And that's how they trained you to hit a target.

02:39 Okay. And what were you dropping? What kind of bombs were you dropping? What kind of bombs were you dropping from the P. Or what kind of. You were shooting from the Pima P51.

02:49 Yes.

02:50 Okay.

02:51 Yes. Wasn't dropping any bombs.

02:53 You're a fighter pilot.

02:54 Fighter pilot. But anyway, you were graded as to how many holes you can put in that sock.

03:06 Would you like some coffee while you're waiting on the other.

03:11 In a given time? I, I was made for it.

03:25 I, I, you were made for it.

03:27 I took. I, I shot the sucker, pulled it all through. Bunny.

03:32 Oh, my gosh.

03:35 And I got back when. Then I went back to base. I got out of the plane, got down on the ground, and I was fixing to walk under it to go to my barracks, and a gun took off. I had a runaway gun. Oh, no.30 caliber.

04:07 Oh, geez.

04:09 And that sucker took off, fired gazillion rounds. From that day forward, now we had our plane.

04:25 Anytime.

04:28 I'll go back and I'll grab waters.

04:30 That way, everybody's got something.

04:31 If I can't get here, they will park where they could hit.

04:37 Oh, yeah. Okay.

04:39 From that day forward, we had to park them to where they pointed at the mountain, right?

04:49 I imagine so.

04:50 Yeah, we did.

04:51 And then after Washington State. When did you go to. When were you called up to go to Korea?

05:00 Let's see. From Washington, they sent me back to Kearney, Nebraska. And from Kearney.

05:14 And there was an air force base in Kearney, Nebraska.

05:16 Yeah.

05:16 All right. Okay.

05:19 Yeah. And then from Kearney, they sent me to.

05:31 You were saying Seoul earlier, but I don't think you were near there.

05:36 No, they sent me to the West Coast.

05:43 Okay.

05:45 To board a ship. Oh, yeah.

05:48 Fun. So the Navy carried you. You know, my U.S. navy before I joined it. Before I joined it, they carried me all.

05:56 All the way over. We went by Hawaii, and we went by. And then we finally made. We got to the boat.

06:11 My mistake.

06:12 God. And it was a raining season.

06:16 Oh, no. Yeah, it was monsoon season, right?

06:19 Yeah.

06:19 Oh, my goodness.

06:20 So here we are, a kid, and they put us on a train. No windows in the train in Manila. And the rain. They have monsoon season. The rain. Blue rides your car.

06:49 Oh, geez.

06:49 Russia drowned us. It just drowned us. It was a horrible trip. From Manila to Clarkfield was probably 75 miles, right?

07:06 Clarkfield. Clarkfield Air Force Base.

07:09 Clarkfield Air Force Base in the Philippines. Yeah. So we finally got there soaked, and I mean soaked. And they took us to a huge mess hall. I mean, this thing was huge. High ceiling leaked like a sin.

07:35 Oh, geez. So obviously you didn't build it.

07:38 No, I didn't. But we finally got to the mess hall and got something neat. And then we tried to find a place, signed up for goody. So we got that done, went to my. I found out where my company was. Well, it's the four of us. We couldn't get old days. And I went to the. Chris has got a back home long barracks, probably 150 club on. Oh, my gosh, guys.

08:29 That's a lot of people.

08:31 Yeah, I found the punk and we. I tried to get some rest. Couldn't sleep, couldn't leak.

08:52 Right.

08:55 But the next day, did we buy those little bitty cameras? A little worn out there. They might have been a little tired. Fell out. Everybody that come over on the boat with me, they. They got them out in formation to muster up for.

09:14 For duty, right?

09:15 Yeah.

09:15 Okay.

09:16 All right. Then they had three of us. They picked three of us out of this entire group to march these group of men.

09:41 Oh, yeah, yeah.

09:47 But I remember.

09:51 That happened in boot camp to me, because I was the oldest.

09:54 Yeah.

09:55 I didn't know how to march anyone either.

09:57 Well, out of the three of us, they picked me. So I was in charge of all these people trying to Trade in March. So they finally took us to a staging area which had barracks and the.

10:23 Circle that we hired, you know.

10:27 So had a barrack, it had a orderly room and it had a gun room.

10:41 Okay. In the gun room. I think he's killing the chickens back there.

10:48 But anyway, I was assigned a room and for the night. The next morning, the general came out.

11:08 Do you remember his name?

11:14 His name?

11:23 General Martin. Okay.

11:25 Daryl Martin.

11:26 All right.

11:27 All right. He. Adam, bring me up to the, to the orderly room. And we went in and sit down in a room, he and I. And he says, private Miller we have picked you. I had an option to take care of these people. And what this was, was the 18th Base Service Squadron.

12:16 Okay.

12:17 Which means anything the general wanted, you done it.

12:22 Yeah. Okay.

12:23 On or off of the bay. Char me, 15 years old.

12:33 Did they tell you why they picked you?

12:36 Well, they. They had several of us march the troops. I didn't have any problem with it at all. I could march them right off into the. The ocean.

12:56 And then when, when did you become a pilot from that?

13:00 I became a pilot after we were settled in there. Then the general. General, I got to be good friends. I mean, good friend. He wanted to be. I wanted to fly and I told him I wanted to fly. You are in charge of the 18th Base Service Squad. Now, what they do if a plane goes down out there somewhere and jungle, you go get it.

13:55 Oh, geez.

13:56 Yeah.

13:57 Okay. That doesn't sound like much fun.

14:00 It's not much fun. And what happened?

14:05 You want me to come back with some coffee?

14:07 What happened?

14:08 I will happily accommodate you asking or text.

14:13 In 1948, a B29 which was called Lady Luck 3. Lady Luck 3 B29. And it and its crew were flying, going to fly nonstop around the world.

14:48 Oh my gosh.

14:48 It was being refueled in the air.

14:51 Oh, yeah, I've heard of that.

14:58 The right wing. Sara Mad One in the Philippines. And they got into some bad weather and the right wing caught the top of the mountain and spun it around and it crashed.

15:30 Burn. Oh my gosh.

15:35 On top of this cotton picking mouth. So guess who they called.

15:43 Yeah.

15:44 To go get them.

15:45 Oh my goodness me. Yeah. You had to pick up. They didn't want the enemy getting the, the electronics and all that.

15:51 Right, Right.

15:51 Okay.

15:55 The old general called me in and he says, you get what you need, guns, men, vehicles, and you go, you get the remains of those men there. Nine of them in that plane.

16:18 Oh my goodness.

16:19 On top of them. I get them all together and we drove and Drove and drove as far as we could. And then we had to abandon the vehicle. Yeah, through the jungle. And I had two little Filipino guys. The guns were taller than they were.

16:59 Oh, my goodness.

17:01 And them little suckers could do anything. Oh, they knew the area. And they let us back to a staging area. So we set up camp and the two Filipinos went out and killed wild hog. Brought it back in.

17:38 Oh, nice. Yeah, they had a little barbecue out there.

17:42 Yeah, they did.

17:42 In the middle of the Sierra Madre mountains.

17:45 Jungle. So. But anyway, I got. I got all the troops settled down and gave them all their orders. We had stand guard duty because the Philippines was full of. Well, I say full. There was hundreds of what they call Huckabella Hut. They're communists. They roam the jungles and everywhere and they go to these villages and they raid them. They take everything out of them, including the women. They're gone back into the jungle.

18:40 Huckabella. What?

18:41 Huckabella. Huck.

18:42 Oh.

18:44 So we got back and set up a base camp. And our little Filipino guys, they went out and killed the hog and brought it back in, dug a hole, started a fire down there. And they put this hog in there and cut it there overnight.

19:19 Yeah.

19:20 And the next day, about 12, 1:00, it was ready. But anyway, they, they. They kept food, but they had to.

19:35 Climb the rest of the way to.

19:36 The mountain from there up the mountain. And it was young. I mean, we had men up there with machetes cutting the path for. And we got up so far, and it started raining. Rain all the way up the top of that sucker.

20:11 Oh, my gosh.

20:12 And we walked up. It was horrible. But we finally got to the top and these little Filipinos knew the general area where that plane went down. And we found it. We should be ready. I'm ready.

20:41 Is this all one ticket?

20:43 The right wing had caught the mountain top and spun it around. This is a B29. It's a huge airplane.

20:51 Lady Luck, you said?

20:52 Yeah. Lady Luck 3.

20:53 Yep. Anything on that menu is available the.

20:55 Entire time that we are open. Trash.

20:57 I like it. No cheesy menu, Right.

21:00 Show me a few something I can't order.

21:02 That's not cool. Were you able to bring the remains down the mountain?

21:07 We got what we could. It's like I died my eyes. The half moon that you used to guide the airplane with.

21:27 Right. Okay.

21:29 This we call stick, but it wasn't a stick. It was a half moon.

21:35 And that comes with the side.

21:37 But anyway, I got it. How about that? How about for the pilot. And we got bits and pieces of other.

21:48 Whoever wants to go next, I'm happy to obey.

21:50 She was scattered all over the mountain.

21:53 Oh, yeah.

21:55 We had two gunny sacks.

21:57 What would you like in your Officer, do you want American cheddar?

22:01 Nine men. That's how many was in the plane.

22:07 And you get a side as well.

22:09 So we trudged back down the mountain. It was Thanksgiving Day when we got back to base camp and the general.

22:30 And then best for last blew in.

22:32 There in a chopper and picked me up.

22:38 Will anybody want any hot sauce?

22:43 Army base got enough Thanksgiving dinner for all my people and myself.

22:57 Oh my gosh, that's wonderful.

22:59 Yeah. And he was crazy. I got on the inside. When I got into chopping, I got on the inside, he was on the outside.

23:21 My goal is to get everybody as hyper. I've never achieved it.

23:24 And he's sitting there and we're talking and he's got his right leg out of the chopper.

23:31 Oh, geez.

23:33 Hang there like it was nothing. You know, this is the. But he was a really nice guy. He's a general.

23:42 Did he help you get to flight school then?

23:45 Yes, he did.

23:46 Okay.

23:46 Yeah, he did.

23:48 And where did you attain attend training for flight school?

23:51 I trained for flight school in the Philippines. And this one? Oh, we had an air field there. I do not remember.

24:17 Well, Hickam was Hawaii, and then Clarkfield was. All right. And tell me about your experience as a pilot.

24:27 Well, when I learned to become a pilot, I was thrilled today because I was a natural, Right?

24:43 You said you shot the bullets the fastest for the sock.

24:49 So.

24:49 Okay.

24:52 I mean, I was here I am a farm boy and I'm sitting in a P51.

25:00 And then where are you originally from then? Are you originally from this.

25:04 Amboy, Illinois?

25:05 Amboy, Illinois.

25:07 From afar.

25:08 Okay. All right.

25:13 Yeah. And I. I love.

25:21 And you were. You were telling the ladies that you. You could zoom around those enemy planes. Planes like no tomorrow. Isn't that what you said you were telling the ladies earlier how fast you could zoom in and out of those enemy planes during Korea.

25:37 You got when you don't care whether you live or die.

25:45 More coffee? Okay, that changes. Let me know. Otherwise, I leave you be.

25:49 We're good.

25:51 Thank you.

25:51 You're at nuts from. Kevin was my best friend. From all the adventures you've been through, I could do anything with it. I mean, I could set that truck around its rear end.

26:11 Oh, yeah. Again, it's a P51 Mustang, right?

26:16 Yeah.

26:17 Okay. All right.

26:19 Yeah. And it was just a Dream fly.

26:30 But you had a couple times where you got to meet the ocean. You told me twice. Twice.

26:36 Yes. Yeah, I was jumped by 3 migs, and I couldn't get away from him. And my wingman, they had him off to the side trying to kill him. Yes. And I'm sure they shot the plane up. I played like I. You never know. I was dying. And I brought her down. I don't know how far above the ground it was, but I was very close. Like I was going down for good, or they would have killed me in my feet.

27:31 Oh, dear. Okay.

27:34 So I kept her close to the ground, and I kept going down and down and down and down and down. And of course, I was taking the power off of it all the time, so would slow down but would not stall. Plus, they saw you had it right. You're done. So, see, they were still back there. The boys had shot me up to me. And that was North Koreans. Yeah. They were waiting for me to crash. Well, so I took it down and kept her close to the ground. And I got into a bunch of trees and I kept a treetop high and brought it around so they couldn't see me and landed. I set it down in the water in the ocean, Right close to an island. And the islanders, of course, saw me, and they came out there and got me out of the way. It was the island of Garcia. I'll never forget it.

29:22 Of Garcia.

29:23 Garcia.

29:23 Garcia. Okay.

29:26 So they saved my life. They got me. They took me to the island and fed me good, too.

29:41 Oh, good. And what was the second time? And you went up again in your airplane the second time you got.

29:52 Oh, second time I got here. Well, my buddy and I. Were she flying? He was my left wing man. Yeah.