These are interviews of Oscar by Bill Theis. If you prefer to also read the transcription of the interview, click on the associated “Transcript of interviews” button. There is also an option to get summary of an audio segment in “Summary for each interview” button.
Gunnery Training & Social Outings: Oscar recalls his fighter gunnery training in Norfolk, Virginia, dating Navy nurses, and attempting an impromptu late-night visit aboard a docked cruiser for breakfast. Over the Atlantic, he flew target-shooting runs through poor weather and qualified as a sharpshooter.
Combat Tour & Transition: After his squadron leader, Major Blackburn, was shot down, Oscar stayed to schedule and guide new pilots before quickly returning to combat missions. He notes his promotion from Flight Officer to Second Lieutenant.
Hung Bomb Hazards: He recounts a dangerous dive-bombing run where only one of two 1,000-pound bombs released, leaving his wing heavy until he successfully dropped the second bomb on another pass. He emphasizes the extreme hazard of landing with unstable, hung cluster bombs.
Constructing the Officers’ Club: During an exceptionally cold winter living in tents, Oscar and his friend Hank used captured German double-walled prefab panels from a nearby depot to build insulated barracks and an officers’ club—complete with a P-47 propeller box repurposed as the bar.
Bastogne & Patton’s Support: Oscar led a challenging close air support mission to Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in dense snow and poor visibility. He also details providing flank protection and forward reconnaissance for General Patton’s 3rd Army across France following the St. Lô breakout.
P-47 Flight Mechanics & Tactics: He describes the physics and tactics of dive-bombing in the P-47 Thunderbolt—stalling to drop steeply, managing rapid acceleration, and pulling out hard to avoid compressibility. He also details the internal ducting of the turbo-supercharger system, which doubled as cockpit armor against 20mm flak.
Personal Losses & Postwar Flying: Oscar remembers his close friend Walt Cuning—a wartime personal equipment officer who later adopted several boys and became city manager of Colorado Springs. He also notes avoiding postwar mock dogfights to prevent unnecessary accidents.
Jet Encounters: He recalls encountering fast German Arado Ar 234 jet bombers while defending Rhine/Ruhr river bridges and comments on the high difficulty of flying an Me 262.
Las Vegas Gunnery Training: While stationed in Las Vegas, Oscar towed targets, served as range officer, and helped develop realistic bomber defense training by flying mock head-on passes in a T-6 against slow-flying B-17s.
Flight Transfers & Instrument Landing: During a base transfer to Belgium, Oscar flew an unfamiliar P-51 Mustang without prior instruction. Later, while nearly out of fuel in thick fog, he safely landed his P-47 by tucking in directly ahead of an approaching C-47 transport on final approach.
Christchurch Airfield Crashes: He recounts a fatal disaster in England where a pilot crashed into houses on two separate takeoff attempts on the same day, ultimately detonating a 500-lb bomb that killed the pilot and responding British firefighters.
Early Maintenance Experience: Oscar reflects on his early pre-war mechanic days working on Martin B-10 and Douglas B-18 bombers, detailing unique design quirks like the B-10’s external engine instruments and accessible bomb bay.
Post-War Plant Work & Farming: Oscar recalls his challenging years working nights around concentrated formaldehyde at the Celanese chemical plant while farming during the day.
Family Medical Hardships:
- Lillian: Suffered from suspected tuberculosis as a young woman (treated by collapsing a lung) and later endured severe gastrointestinal issues after half her stomach migrated above her diaphragm; Oscar cared for her through her later surgeries and recovery.
- Iris: Developed a severe childhood mastoid infection that required daily, painful drainage procedures at Scott & White in Temple prior to the availability of penicillin.
Recollections of Bill: Remembers Bill as an inventive jack-of-all-trades and auto body repairman known for clever metalworking, early use of Bondo, and living in temporary housing (a converted chicken house) while helping construct Fort Hood during the war.
Homesteads & Salvage: Discusses dismantling old barns and structures, salvaging beadboard ceiling lumber, gathering scrap iron for welding projects, and repurposing discarded items found at local junkyards.
Small-Town Life in Thorndale: Remembers small-town life and antics, including steam-train mail pickups, farm-depot shipping routines, elaborate local Halloween pranks, and the historic concrete Thorndale jail.
Postwar Tower Operator: Worked as a control tower operator at Bergstrom, where he battled sparrow mites and witnessed a Navy pilot buzz the tower in a prop/jet hybrid aircraft. He was laid off when licensing regulations changed.
Civilian vs. Military Mechanics: Worked on civilian planes at Ragsdale Airfield, noting that civilian mechanics performed full engine overhauls, whereas military mechanics simply swapped parts to send to depots.
Basic Training Leadership: Endured rigorous recruit training but was assigned to lead calisthenics and serve as squadron adjutant during dress parades because he already held staff sergeant stripes.
Parisian Leave: Visited liberated Paris with French-speaking Walt Cuning; they attended the opera and the Folies Bergère, ultimately walking miles back to their quarters after the subways closed for the night.
Liberated Booze: Found a hidden room full of premium cognac and champagne behind a false wall in a Kitzingen winery, which the flight surgeon “officially inspected” (by drinking it) before sharing it with the officers’ club.
Normandy Base Life: Lived on airstrips bulldozed out of French apple orchards, fought in green apple fights, and nearly burned down his tent by accidentally dropping a cigarette into a can full of repurposed tracer powder.
Romance & Shoe Rations: Dated a tall Belgian woman who likely wanted US citizenship; to match her height while dancing, he had friends back home use shoe rationing coupons to mail him high-heeled cowboy boots.
Nose Art & Unit Culture: Allowed his crew chief to select a Texan-themed Disney character for his plane’s nose art, and fondly remembered singing raunchy RAF songs with his unit.
Interviews by Dennis Cordes
Dennis Cordes of Austin, Texas, introduces his recorded four-part interview with his wife’s cousin, WWII Army Air Corps fighter pilot Oscar Theis. Recorded on September 1, 2007, at Oscar’s farm in Thorndale, Texas, the interview captures Oscar’s memories of flight training, combat over Northern Europe, and close calls, beginning with a discussion of a fighter aircraft model on his coffee table.
P-47 Thunderbolt & Missions: Oscar describes flying the P-47 Thunderbolt named El Texano (featuring Disney nose art), detailing its transition from escort duty to close air support and dive-bombing for General Patton’s Third Army across France.
Flying Captured Aircraft: At Kitzingen, after German pilots surrendered, Oscar flew an unfamiliar Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (marked with his identification code G-9T) but landed quickly when low-fuel warning lights appeared.
Pre-War Service & Flight Training: Enlisting in 1939, he worked as a mechanic, crew chief, and aircraft inspector at Randolph Field before entering the Sergeant Pilot Program in 1942, training on the Ryan PT-21, Vultee BT-13, and AT-6 Texan to graduate as a Flight Officer.
Las Vegas Gunnery Training: Stationed in Las Vegas in 1943, he logged heavy flight hours towing targets and piloting mock fighter passes against B-17s for student gunners before securing a rare transfer to a combat fighter unit.
European Theater Operations: Shipped overseas on the Queen Elizabeth to Christchurch, England; flew two D-Day escort missions (landing at midnight between jeep headlights on a grass-and-mesh strip); and flew ground support during the Battle of the Bulge at Bastogne.
Combat Close Calls at Metz: On a low-altitude level bombing run, Oscar’s fuel tank was ruptured by flak, forcing a return with fuel pouring over the wing and writing off the brand-new P-47; on another low-level run with delay fuses, he flew through preceding bomb blasts and returned with bricks in his engine.
Cherbourg Strafing & Emergency Landing: While strafing hedgerows, Oscar took an engine hit that covered his windshield in oil; he navigated to an uncompleted landing strip, avoided a crashed P-38, and made a wheels-down landing (while also recalling he accidentally put tracers through Major Blackburn’s wing).
Support for Patton & Unit Casualties: Stationed near Sainte-Mère-Église and later Saint-Dizier, his unit (405th Fighter Group, 509th Squadron) protected General Patton’s exposed flank, earning a Presidential Unit Citation; he notes that one in three pilots in the group did not survive the war.
Aborted Escort & Low-Level Sea Escape: During an early escort mission with severe wing icing, his flight aborted due to a drop-tank malfunction; returning beneath low clouds, Oscar dodged coastal flak 10 feet above the water, hacksawed damaged wing metal at an RAF emergency base, and flew the plane home.
Family Genealogy & Land Ownership: Oscar reviews photos and family lineages connecting the Melde, Winchey, and Simank families in Thorndale and Bishop, noting he purchased the neighboring 100-acre Winchey farm (which was later dismantled) and reacquired portions of ancestral Melde land.
Support Tactics & Radar Trials: He details close air-support tactics with General Patton’s tanks (where pilots rode inside lead tanks to direct air strikes) and recalls experimental radar-guided blind-bombing trials conducted over Luxembourg in poor weather.
Dive-Bombing Realities & Berlin Escort: Explains the challenges of dive-bombing in non-specialized P-47s (using delayed fuses for railroad embankments and carrying 1,000-lb bombs at Metz) and recalls flying an uneventful high-altitude escort for a lone P-38 reconnaissance mission over Berlin.
German Jet Encounters & Late-War Adversaries: Describes defending bridges along the Ruhr River against fast Arado Ar 234 jet bombers and notes how late-war German pilot attrition and fuel shortages diminished enemy effectiveness despite advanced equipment.
Return Home & Separation: After the war ended while based in Regensburg, Germany, Oscar returned home on a troop transport to Boston, endured a soot-heavy Pullman train trip to San Antonio, and served briefly as an engineering officer at Goodfellow Field in San Angelo before declining indefinite service and separating due to combat fatigue after 117 missions.
Postwar Separation & Unit Arrival: Oscar left the service after accumulating significant leave time and failing to secure a fighter pilot post during postwar downsizing. He recalls his early arrival in England as a replacement pilot housed in a Quonset hut, where Broadway producer Josh Logan was his roommate and unit PR man.
Airfield Accidents & V-1 Buzz Bombs: At Christchurch, an overloaded fighter crashed into houses on two consecutive takeoff attempts on the same day, causing fatal bomb detonations. During leave in London and later on base in Belgium, Oscar experienced German V-1 flying bomb attacks.
Base Construction at Saint-Dizier: During a bitter winter, Oscar and a fellow serviceman used captured German prefab panels to build an insulated barracks and an officers’ club, complete with an improvised bar made from a propeller shipping crate.
Family History & Migration: Oscar details his family’s history, including farming near the Canadian River in Oklahoma, returning to Thorndale to run a livery stable, and the cultural background of local German and Wendish communities (including German-language church services and schooling).
Photographs & Transport Command: Oscar and Dennis review wartime photographs of David Theis, discussing his service with the Air Transport Command in Casablanca flying C-47 and C-54 aircraft, cold-weather high-altitude flight gear, and David’s transport role during the Yalta Conference.