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The “Remembering Shared Honor” (RSH) project sets out to collect and preserve oral histories related to Chinese and American cooperation during the Second World War in the China-Burma-India(CBI) theater of war.
This historical archive has a total of 7,073 entries.
Canadian Flyer with B-24 "80 Days"
Canadian flyer Gérard Labrie with American B-24 bomber "80 Days" during WWII. Note his heavy clothing and parachute.
In the background, the fuselage skid (tail-bumper) is lowered and is bracing up the tail on top of a small stand.
At the tail end of the great depression, my great-uncle Gerard Labrie moved from rural Canada to the USA to get a job and better living condition. He ended up enlisting in the US Army and was sent to the Pacific where he flew a P-40 with the Flying Tigers of Claire Chennault. Story goes that once he was coming up from under a Japanese bomber to shoot it when the bombs' door opened ant dropped its load and they all passed within inches of his airplane and that shook him ups o much that when he was back down he asked to be transferred and became a side gunner on a B-24. He was part of the force that reclaimed Guadalcanal from the Japanese. He made it back the USA after the war and went back to school and became a bridge engineer. I wish I had met him!!!
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Anecdote
At the tail end of the great depression, my great-uncle Gerard Labrie moved from rural Canada to the USA to get a job and better living condition. He ended up enlisting in the US Army and was sent to the Pacific where he flew a P-40 with the Flying Tigers of Claire Chennault. Story goes that once he was coming up from under a Japanese bomber to shoot it when the bombs' door opened ant dropped its load and they all passed within inches of his airplane and that shook him ups o much that when he was back down he asked to be transferred and became a side gunner on a B-24. He was part of the force that reclaimed Guadalcanal from the Japanese. He made it back the USA after the war and went back to school and became a bridge engineer. I wish I had met him!!!