On graduation night, the auditorium was draped in red, white and blue streamers and American flags. All the mothers cried because the entire class of boys would volunteer for service the next day.

Red first went to the Navy recruiter who turned him down because he didn’t weigh enough. The old doctor who gave his physical said, Son, you go home and eat a lot of cornbread and butter, drink a lot of sweet milk and come back in the fall. Red was so angry with the Navy for rejecting him that, come fall, he volunteered for the Army Air Corp instead.

The family was living in Hot Springs then, and through the summer, Red worked as assistant to an ambulance driver. He was to report for duty right after Christmas, just a few weeks before his eighteenth birthday. The war was going badly. His friends and relatives knew he would be in the thick of it very soon. He insisted on going alone to the bus stop and walked down the street, carrying a book under his arm. Red’s mother cried for weeks, saying over and over again, “He looked just like he was going off to school.”

This is how Red Roberson came to become the tail-gunner for Crew 37 of the 39th Bomber Group. He made 32 missions over the South Pacific from their base in Guam and came through the war without a scratch.

By the time the war was over, Red’s family had moved to El Centro, California. He moved in with them, went to junior college by day and drove a taxi by night. He played football, but was so small he was constantly being clobbered on the field; had his nose broken twice and got one of his front teeth knocked out. Later, he returned to Arkansas and played football at Ouachita Baptist College in Arkadelphia. During this time, Red served in the ROTC. As a member of the ROTC, he knew he could be called up at any time, for any branch of service, as a “filler.” He graduated with a degree in English, secured a teaching job at an Arkansas junior high school (where he was also the basketball coach), but just a couple of months into the term, he was called to serve in Korea as a Second Lieutenant, Infantry.

Red often said that it was there in the frozen, muddy trenches on the Korean Peninsula that he set his sites on flight school.

Red’s sister, Vera, writes, “We were very proud of him, and he was handsome in his uniform . . . curly red hair, gray-green eyes, a lop-sided grin and lots of freckles. He was quick-witted, loved to tease, had a scrappiness about him that got him in trouble sometimes, and had a jaunty walk. He was a wonderful big brother to me. He tried to teach me to jitterbug, and he was great at it!!”

Thomas C. Roberson enlisted in the Army Air Corps on 20 November 1943 at the age of 17 yrs old, at the time a resident of Garland County, Arkansas.

After WWII, he returned home and attended Ouachita Baptist College in Arkadephia, Arkansas on the GI Billl, active in ROTC and the Reserves. After graduation he taught High School English then returned to active duty with his commission.

His various stations include:

Korea
Ft Leavenworth, KS.
Ft Rucker, AL.
Heidelberg, Germany
Ft Bragg, NC.
Ft Sill, OK.
He was hospitalized at Fitzsimon’s Campus in Aurora, CO. with lung aliments for 6 months
He returned to Ft Leavenworth
Vietnam
Ft Rucker, AL.

He married his wife Jolene – they have 2 daughters – Thoma who was born while on their first assignment to Ft Rucker and Robin while stationed in Heidelberg, Germany.

One bee story recalled by his youngest daughter Robin is: