Emma+F.+&+Ashlyn+A.+-+Earl+Miller


 * Emma Flesher and Ashlyn Achey **
 * __Veterans History Questions for Earl Miller:__ **


 * __Family Life__ **
 * 1) ** What is your birth date? **
 * 2) ** Where were you born? **
 * 3) ** Did you have any siblings?/ Older or Younger / Male or Female **
 * 4) ** Occupations before entering the military? **
 * 5) ** Are you married? **
 * 6) ** Did any other of your family members in the military? **
 * __Military Service__ **
 * 1) ** How did you join the military? **
 * 2) ** Why did you enlist? **
 * 3) ** When did you leave for basic training? **
 * 4) ** What was your experience with basic training? **
 * 5) ** Were you upset about leaving your family ? **
 * 6) ** Did you have any specialized training? **
 * 7) ** Where was it? **
 * 8) ** What was experiance with that ? **
 * 9) ** Why did you decided to pursue that career? **
 * 10) ** How was your life as member of the military? **
 * 11) ** Where did you serve? **
 * 12) ** How did you get to the Island? **
 * 13) ** What was the name of the island where you stayed? **
 * 14) ** What are some interesting facts about the island? **
 * 15) ** Tell us about the natives that lived on the island? **
 * 16) ** Where did you stay on the island? **
 * 17) ** What were the conditions on the island that you stayed at like? **
 * 18) ** Do you have interesting stories about your time there? **
 * 19) ** What was your job there? **
 * 20) ** What were some of your responsibilities while on the island? **
 * 21) ** Did you enjoy your job? **
 * 22) ** How did you feel on Able Day? **
 * 23) ** How did you feel on Baker Day? **
 * 24) ** What did you expect it to be like? **
 * 25) ** Was it what you expected? **
 * 26) ** Could you see the mushroom clouds from where you were? **
 * 27) ** Can you please describe the mushroom clouds? **
 * 28) ** How did you feel about Operation Crossroads? **
 * 29) ** Were you worried about radiation? **
 * 30) ** Can you compare Abel Day and Baker day please? **
 * 31) ** How did you feel after the explosions that took place? **
 * 32) ** What was your experience with Operation Crossroads? **
 * 33) ** How do you feel about being part of such a dangerous operation? **
 * 34) ** How did you feel when it was over? **
 * 35) ** Do you regret being part of it? **
 * 36) ** If so why/why not? **
 * __Going Home__ **
 * 1) ** When did you go home? **
 * 2) ** What was it like going back home? **
 * 3) ** How did you feel coming back home? **
 * 4) ** What was your biggest challenges with returning home? **
 * 5) ** Do you keep in touch with other veterans you know? **
 * 6) ** What occupation did you take up on arrival home? **
 * 7) ** Did you have adjust a lot to life back home or was it easy? **
 * 8) ** Why do you feel this way? **
 * 9) ** How did this project affect your life? **
 * 10) ** Did you learn any important life lessons? **
 * 11) ** If so what are they? **
 * Emma Flesher and Ashlyn Achey **
 * Biographical Narrative **
 * March 9, 2015 **
 * Earl Miller was born May 22, 1926 and was born in a small town called Mount Etna. Earl Miller had a brother and three sisters. His older brother was in the war in Europe. His brother was a tank commander in the Battle of The Bulge. Earl is married and has three children, two boys and a girl. Earl Miller’s youngest son decided he was going to get involved like his dad was. Earl tried to talk him into the Air Force, but couldn’t do it. **
 * Earl Miller was enlisted into the the US. Air Force because he was fascinated with flying. He went to basic training which is physical training, or strengthening training. Earl Miller’s basic training consisted of crawling through mud and learning how to handle all the men you were grouped with . During this time in his life, he developed muscle and self control. The lesson all men had to learn in the army, according to Mr. Earl Miller was, each man wasn’t his own man anymore he hadto follow someone else’s orders. He reported that this proved hard for some men because they thought of themselves and their own desires. Mr. Earl Miller stated that it did not take him long to realize that he was not his own boss anymore. After basic training ended, he had several choices in the military; an engineer or mechanic and an aircraft pilot. At first, Earl Miller wanted to be a pilot, he wanted to fly. Unfortunately there were not any schools for becoming a pilot open at the time Earl Miller had the chance of becoming a pilot. Instead a settled on becoming an aircraft mechanic, he moved to Armorial, Texas for training on becoming an aircraft mechanic. While he was there Earl Miller learned all about airplanes and even how to taxi a plane. He was then moved to Seattle, Washington where he learned how to disassemble, how to repair, how to reassemble and start a B-29. **
 * How Mr. Earl Miller got involved with the project he was part of, Operation Crossroads, was accidental. He was classified as an aircraft B-29 mechanic along with a bunch of other men. They were supposed to be shipped to Europe for a B-29 group, because of the bombardment of Germany; however, they were a day late and missed their flight. The men were then sent to Roswell, New Mexico for the time being until, they could find another place where the mechanics could be of use. They later found out that they had been selected, to be part of Operation Crossroads where the Atomic bomb tests took place. **
 * He spent time there preparing ships and planes for the atomic bomb testing that would take place there. When it came down to the time for the test to be done Mr. Earl Miller said that no one worried about the atomic bomb test because everyone knew that it was happening no matter what so there was no point in worrying about it. **
 * When it came to the radiation that came from the explosion, Earl Miller said,”that the radiation was the worst part of the atomic test.” He said that he as well as everyone that was there were exposed to atomic radiation. Earl Miller today still goes to the hospital as a result of the radiation that he was exposed to. When he got home after his time, he had two test that they had to do. They had to do two complete body tests to see whether the radiation that he absorbed was dangerous, and how long it was going to hang on, which they still do not know today. He said that many of the explosions that occurred were not above water. The majority of the explosions happened underwater. When an explosion happened underwater, there was little radiation that formed, the radiation was controlled or held under water so that you couldn’t see it. He said as the bomb exploded and the pressure left the clouds, that is what would happen to the clouds; which is a almost impossible photograph. The photos were taken underwater to see how high the water would go, and how high the radiation would go. As well as how high, how far the radiation and the explosion itself would expand was most important. The radiation broke up into smaller parts itself and would simply float away in the water. The water would expand from the explosion, which caused the water to loop like a wave. These waves went on for hundreds of yards sometimes milles until the pressure would drop far enough so the water could drop. Some of the waves would pass over on Earl Miller’s side so he could see everything happening. Some of the waves came over on his side, and passed over him just like it did anything else. Earl Miller was actually proud of it. The first explosion that occurred was on Monday, and the second on Tuesday depending on the weather. Earl miller says if all of the pictures of these explosions were in color it would make a greater difference, but they claimed that they did them a favor with the pictures that they took. The radiation coming of directly off of the mountain was treacherous, it killed anything in site. It killed the vegetation that was there. **
 * His son wanted to enlist into the Navy. His son spent four years on a Nuclear Submarine, when his son left port he spent ninety days under water without seeing sunlight. His oldest son was deaf in one ear and tried to enlist several times but the denied him. He made lots of friends during his time, he said coming home and trying to get everyone together was almost impossible so they wrote to each other often. Life lessons that Earl Miller said he learned was, working on a plane you have to be extremely careful where you spend your time. **
 * Earl Miller had to loaded several thousand cameras and fastened the cameras to the planes. so that the cameras could take pictures of the bombs and their explosions in mid-air. This included all types of cameras, high speed cameras, low speed cameras, colored cameras; any type that was available at the time was being used. These cameras were mounted inside of the planes that would fly over were the bombs exploded. Someone would be in the plane taking the pictures and all of this happened within split seconds apart from each other. Then afterwards cameras had to be dismounted and they were then separated. Later the films with the pictures of the explosions were sent away to different laboratories so that they would be processed. Mr. Earl Miller was released to go back home he reports it as being the easiest thing he has ever done. He taught car and airplane mechanics at a trade school after his time in the military. Mr. Earl Miller, thank you for giving us the honor and allowing us to conduct this interview with you, and sending it to the Library of Congress and thank you for your service. **

** Veterans History Project ** ** Interview; Mr. Earl Miller ** ** February 1, 2015 **


 * Emma Flesher - It is February 1, 2015, and I am here today interviewing Mr.Earl Miller. He was part of Operation Crossroads which was a branch of the Government used in Atomic Bomb testing, shortly after War..World War II was ended. Um, so, How did you join the military? **


 * Mr. Earl Miller- How did I join the military? **


 * Emma Flesher- Yes. **


 * Mr. Earl Miller- I was fascinated with flying. So, I decided that if I was going to be drafted, I’d rather select where I’m going and what I’m going to do. So, I enlisted in the air force and how I ended up in this project was strictly incidental. It was were the army thought it was the best place to put me in so, that's where I ended up, thats where I stayed. **


 * Emma Flesher- Okay, so did you have basic training before you got into this project? **


 * Mr.Earl Miller- Before I got into this project? Well, everybody, every G.I. enlisted or drafted went through what they call basic training. Which is what physical training, strengthening training and uh, after that I had a choice as to what I wanted to be, did I want to be a ground man, do I want to learn how to shoot a rifle, do I want to be in the basic operational service or do I want to get my hands dirty and learn to be some sort of mechanic. I had a lot of choices. I could have been learning to be a rifleman, some type of engineer. My final choice was being an aircraft pilot, that was my goal, trying to learn to fly a plane. And I didn’t care what size the plane was going to be. So,so, I was shifted from one air force base to another. Till they found the type of plane that, uh, I was going to stay on. Which uh, ended up being Amarillo, Texas for what they considered was for basic air force mechanics. From there I was sent to Seattle, Washington where they made the biggest, at that point, the biggest plane in the world which was the B-29. And that’s the one they used dropping the bombs on the Germans..I mean oh, on Russia, on Japan, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We were not part of that we were simply a part of a group that was testing d... different types of atomic weapons. To see how much destructive force. That’s how I ended up in what was considered Project Crossroads. **


 * Emma Flesher- Okay,so, what was your experience, in the beginning when you first embarked on this goal, in basic training? **


 * Mr. Earl Miller- In basic training, Basic training is not easy. They try- they try you to your utmost. You end up crawling through mud. You learn how to handle each other, each man, you learn all types of exercises. You develop muscle and self control and self control is one of the most difficult project that the army could train. Because each man wants to be his own boss and then all of a sudden you weren’t your own boss. You follow someone else’s orders day and night, and that becomes rather difficult at times and some, some people are more resentful to being told what to do. People would more or less thought of their own desire. **


 * Emma Flesher- How do you feel you dealt with, having been given orders all the time? **


 * Mr.Earl Miller- It didn’t take me long to realize that I’m not my own boss anymore, I had no choice, but to follow the orders that I’m given on a daily basis. I just followed the course followed the rules and got by. By learning to obey the rules and regulation that that the air force sets up. **


 * Emma Flesher- When you were trying to find a plane you wanted to fly, how did they train you for that portion of it? **


 * Earl Miller- Well How did they teach me how to fly? I never really did learn how to fly uh, because there were no schools. At the end of basic training, you had a number of choices. There were a lot of different positions that you can apply for so, I applied first of all for pilot training There were no schools available at that time. So, I decided, well there is always an engineer, there’s always a copilot, there is always a bomber and there is always a machine gun operator. I wasn’t too happy with machine guns so, I came down the line and the last one they had in was aircraft mechanic. So with all the other schools that were full there was Biloxi Mississippi but it was not the best place to live. So, after going down the list of choices I had I finally made the choice of aircraft mechanic. Living on Biloxi was not easy, I didn’t feel I’d like to stay there and be a rifle instructor for six, eight months, which was my choice. So, I volunteered for aircraft mechanic, I knew absolutely nothing about a plane. From there I spent the rest of my there time until I was certified to be an aircraft trainee. Now to get to be that I had to go to Amarillo, Texas, where I learned how to start a plane, what a plane is all about and even how to taxi a plane, it wasn’t easy. I spent six weeks there, then they sent me to Washington, ya where they made the plane, Seattle, that’s where I ended up in Washington. There those of us that didn’t get the choice that they wanted spent six more weeks, going through learning how to build a B-29, which at the time was the biggest plane in the world. It’s not easy we learned how to disassemble, how to repair, how to reassemble and how to start a B-29 aircraft. **
 * Emma Flesher- Okay so, when you where, from there how did you get involved in this project? **
 * Mr. Earl Miller- In this particular project, that’s another coincidental thing. You put, You were, put on a raster and we were mechanics, Classed as aircraft -29 mechanics. So, they’d put you on a list. My list took me to a small town in Inner City, Iowa. To be shipped to Europe for a B-29 group, for the planes taking off for the bombardment of Germany. When we arrived there, the plane, the flight had taken off the day before. So, we didn’t make it, so, we putting on another roster. Going to somewhere else, which we had no idea where. A few days later we got a notice, that we were going to be shipped to Roswell, New Mexico. So, we took a train and went to Roswell, New Mexico. There we were put on another list, of planes that were going somewhere else. We had no idea where. Finally the notice came out, that were now been selected, to be part of Operation Crossroads. We still didn’t know what we were doing, other than we were going to repair planes. So, one morning they came out with our shipping orders. From there we flew to several different stops, simply to refuel until we ended up, uh, I can’t even think of the place, we had gone, Kwajalein, the island of Kwajalein. And that’s where we spent, those of us that were sent there, spent just about a year on the island getting ready to do the Atomic bomb tests. And again we had no idea what would be coming off, until we were there for several months, this is what we were told we were going to do. From there we spent a lot of time preparing ships, planes and whatever was necessary, to do the tests. The tests themselves included the bombing of two bombs, which are all described and pictured in this particular book. I was lucky not all of us got this, but this front picture, and from there on this book is filled with all kinds of pictures of the things we did. And oddly enough the front section of the book has pictures of all the men, officers as well as enlisted men on the island. You know you don’t want to waste your time taking pictures of everybody in here because that’s 250 pictures. And you sure don’t want a load up with that. **
 * Emma Flesher- Okay, so, when the time came to test these bombs were you worried? How did you feel? **
 * Earl Miller- By the time the tests rolled around you were so unnerved, I guess you could call it that, that you really didn’t bothered by it anymore. You knew it was going to happen whether you were there or not. There was no use getting all steamed up. Where will I hide? Can I hide? How much damage are they going to create? How big a flare are they going to show? So those were the things you didn’t worry about. You worried about, Is it going to rain tomorrow? What’s the temperature going to be? Because the temperature ranged between 90 and 110. **


 * Emma Flesher- Did you get to see the explosions of these bombs? **


 * Earl Miller- The explosion of the bomb? Yes, I have pictures of them. **


 * Emma Flesher- Could you describe them for me? **


 * Earl Miller- Describing a great big bang is rather hard to do. If you heard thunder at its loudest clap. Multiply that by five. That will give you an idea about that noise that it created. Getting prepared for the tests required a lot of work. They wanted to take pictures of everything that happened, in the air and on the ground. To do this we had to equip quite a number of planes with cameras so that we could take pictures of everything that went on. Now the, the time on the island was not always working. There are a few times where you might wanna take one of the bombs that was dropped fire bomb. And that was an above ground, I’m sorry and inground explosion. There’s another one. That was an under water bomb explosion. And we could see all of these that we were far enough off to one side that uh you weren’t in any danger. If you’re interested in the picture of the size of the island. This is in black and white which will show up really good in there. This was the size of the island. **


 * Emma Flesher- What about the radiation that came from the explosion? **


 * Earl Miller- The radiation we will get to that very shortly, that’s what I’m paging through. The radiation was actually the worst part of the atomic test. All of us that were there were exposed to atomic radiation. When I got back I had to go out to the hospital, and I had two tests they had to do. Two complete body tests to see whether the radiation that I absorbed was dangerous, how long it was going to hang on, which they don’t know today. In fact, I have an appointment next week to go out. But if you want some pictures of what we had to do to the planes, you get them off the ground to take the pictures, I think I have two pages of them here. Cameras we had several thousand cameras that we fastened to the plane the planes to take pictures of the bombs and explosion in mid-air. They were all types of cameras high speed cameras low speed cameras, colored cameras any type that was available at that time. Now this goes back to the 40s, so you can imagine the types of cameras they did not have that we have today. Some of the cameras we mounted actually inside some of the planes. This is what the inside of a plane looked like after the cameras were in. This man is taking the pictures, these are the cameras; and he is taking pictures of the explosion after he was done. Now all of this happened split seconds apart. Heres another concession. Now all of these cameras, as you can see theres quite a few hundred and they're listed they were mounted inside the plane, to photograph what was going on. **


 * Emma Flesher- Was part of your job using the cameras to the plane what you did most? **


 * Earl Miller- What? **


 * Emma Flesher- Is what you did most fastening the cameras to the plane? **


 * Earl Miller- Yes, all of these cameras were attached to the plane. **


 * Emma Flesher- After words did you have to dismount the cameras? **


 * Earl Miller- The cameras had to be dismounted, they were separated and the films were sent away to different laboratories to be processed. Now some of the pictures that we have are after the explosion so they could. They considered radiation as it’s leaving. The pictures of the radiation after are rather hard to describe. This is a picture that always fascinates me. This was a B-29 flying, now there was another B-29 flying over top of it and took this complete picture of the plane in the beginning. Now thats was fascinates me about it. Okay these planes, as I said half of the explosions were not above water, the other half were down underwater. These were taken underwater, pictures that were taken underwater, and there’s little radiation that came of this this bomb because it was; the radiation was controlled or held under water so that you couldn’t see it. Now as the bomb exploded and the pressure left the clouds, this is what happened to the clouds. Which is almost impossible to photograph. Now its in black and white, but these were taken underwater to see how high the water would go how high the radiation would go and how far which was the most important item how the radiation and the explosion itself would expand. Heres another one, and you can see all around above us the radiation broke up into smaller parts itself and simply floated away in the water or in the air, but this one was taken underwater thats why you can see it up so high. Now this one was taken above, and if you notice that everything is completely different in this page than on this page simply because one is done in one way and the other is done in the other way. Now there was another picture, but I don’t know what happened to it as the water expanded from the explosion itself, the water looped like a wave and those waves went on for hundreds of yards sometimes miles until the pressure dropped off far enough so the water could drop. Now here again is a section of what happened to the waves. Now while these were going on, we were on the side so we could see everything happening. Some of the waves came over on our side and passed over us just like it did anything else. And we were actually proud of it. All of these are the waves that took off after the explosion. The first one explosion one on Monday and the second on Tuesday depending on the weather of course. If all of this was in color it would make a bigger difference, but they claimed they did us a favor with the pictures that they took which is what they did. So I don’t know what else I can give you, but the radiation, some of the radiation as it came directly off the mountain was treacherous. It killed anything in site. It killed the grass it killed the vegetation that was there. **


 * Ashlyn Achey- So where were you born? **
 * Earl Miller- I was born in a little town of Mount Etna. **
 * Ashlyn Achey- Did you have any siblings? **
 * Earl Miller- I have a brother and three sisters, and he was older than I was. He was in the war of Europe. He was what they considered a tank commander in the Battle of the Bulge. **
 * Ashlyn Achey- Are you married? **
 * Earl Miller- I am married, to a rather attractive young women. And we have three children, two boys and a girl. And my youngest son decided he was going to get involved into the military like I was. I tried to talk him into the Air Force, couldn’t do it he wanted the Navy. So he spent four years on a nuclear sub. When they left port they spent ninety days underwater. They had not seen sunlight until they came back to port. And the radiation that he had was quite concealed, because their method of proportion was atomic energy. It didn’t seem, to affect him at all. They usually had steak anytime they wanted it, and they were well fed and taken care of while they were down under. My oldest son, he had an ear problem. He was deaf in one ear so he wasn't eligible for the service. So he tried to enlist several times, but they wouldn’t take him. **
 * Ashlyn Achey- Did you have any friends made while you were in the military? **
 * Earl Miller- Um, the strange thing about friends in the service. We knew each other quite well as long as we were on the base, but the part that never developed like most groups they usually get together once a year and have a picnic of some sort. That never happened with this group because we were so spread out all of the country, and trying to get the group together was almost impossible. So we used to write to each other and that more or less died out. So now I still have one man who lives in Pottsville, that I haven’t seen in quite a number of years. But he was the last one I contacted after we were discharged, and most of us were discharged at the same time. **
 * Ashlyn Achey- Did you learn any important life lessons? **
 * Earl Miller- Any important life lessons. Well thats hard to say, working on a plane you’ve got to be extremely careful where you spend your time, because if you get too close to a prop you stand no chances. If you get caught under a plane, yes you have the same problem. Even though most of work was entailed getting rather close, their were any of the properties of the plane that were dangerous if you weren’t careful. **