Laurence Romeo Stevens

Laurence Romeo Stevens, known as Larry Stevens, is a resident of Los Angeles, California, United States. He was also a tail gunner on a B-17 part of the 95th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force of the USAAF during WWII.

The interview with Paul Sidle

https://archive.org/details/video1231530188

Paul: On 27 June 2024 at 2:08 pm in Los Angeles.

Larry: Name is Larry Stevens, born and raised in city of Alhambra, now lives in Temple City, but its about 5 miles from him. He's a century old in two more weeks. Graduated from high school in 1943, left one to two months early. But he had one of his teachers upgrade his time so that he could go into the service with his friends. They graduated in February and said that they were going in and Larry said:

If you guys are going in, I'm gonna go with you

He had a brother that was upstate going through training and he was eventually kileled in Massina Italy in Patton's 3rd army.

Paul: Tell me a little about Alhambra

Larry: He was born in the city of Alhambra in 1924 July 10th, and was the beginning of the centurty so to speak and half our roads were dirty, I mean lived right close to Atlantic and Valley, and there was railroad tracks right down the street, his street was just a short street called "Edith", 1102 South Edith.

Paul: DId you alwaqys live on Edit/same place?

Larry: We never moved always stayed there. I went there the 4 years and come out after the war in June 6, D-Day, was his 16th mission, so I ahve 35 missions and survived them with the 8th airforce. During the invasion we were flying 5 miles at 2500 ft over the invasion, never saw a german fighter plane, only plane shot down that day was an english planes, it was fully covered with clouds on D-Day, so never saw it, so the English plane came over under the clouds and someone decided they didn't know what it was and decided to shoot it down but didn't know that it was an English plane. The fellas bailed out and saved themselves.

Paul: Was it one of your crewmembers on your plane that did it?

Larry: Oh no we weren't anywhere near him. He was out in the channel? There was 10 men in the crew, pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombadier were all officers. The rest of us were just enlisted men, top turret gunner, the radio man, and the middle of the plane and the ball turret gunner, two waist gunners, and myself. Anyways we survived 35 missions guarenteed I shouldn't be here. You go over the target and they shoot target at you. They have two ways of shooting flak. They put up an imaginary box and shoot up at the box. And the other way is they track you. Our 3rd mission we were tracked and they started. Because we were brand new crew we were low with low (7:45). They started tracking us and shot 4 rounds of flak, and I told him, well I didn't know at the time, lot of things in training that you learn certain things but don't learn everything. When the pilot turns the plane, when we start a bomb run its a 2 minute bomb run and you don't deviate from the bomb run. We go straight in, and this we were going straight and level, they started shooting a series of 4 and then hesitation while they reloaded and then another series of 4. Well the pilot on the bomb run has to turn the flying over to the bombadier so he can ajust with mechanical parts to drop his bombs. Anyways I told the co-pilot (8:45):

Get us off the bomb run or they're gonna nail us

But I didn't know thats what was happening because it was the bombadier that was flying. Larry didn't get a response. Well the pilot in the meantime was trying to take the controls away from the bombardier but the bombadier somehow speeded up the plane so we slid underneath the whole (formation), there was 20 of us on the bomb run, and Larry looked up and they were right underneath everyone else with teh bomb bay doors open and coming to the last 8-10 seconds. So that was happening,, and Larry was still saying (9:45):

Get us off the bomb run or they're gonna nail us

All of the sudden the pilot took over the plane, and he kinda hid the controls, he didn't back up but it felt like he backed up, he slowed down the plane. We got out from under the open doors of the bomb bays above us, and he put the plane on a wing and as he put the plane on the wing, the first, and it had to be 100% actual timing, from 8 seconds, 6 seconds, 4 seconds, and the last 2 seconds before they shot them down, he turned the plane off the bomb run and we heard the last two WHOMPs. And then the co-pilot said (10:44):

Wow that was meant for us!

And Larry replied (10:45):

Thats what I was trying to tell ya

Paul: Where were you bombing on your third mission?

Larry: We were bombing submarine bases, thats where they had their best flak gunners were at submarine bases. But they had 18 feet of concrete.

Paul: What kind of Payload were y'all carrying for that?

Larry: well, we were, propellers weren't they were new in those days, we took off at 60,000 lbs, and in other words we had bombs, in this case I think they were, they were 500 pounders. 35,000 lbs I think it was. Pardon me 60k lbs. And we were flying 5 miles up at (12:30) 35,000 ft. (12:43)

Paul: That was about 12 bombs, was that the max that y'all could carry?

Larry: Once they learned about propellors. One time we took off and we werent in our regular airplane, Full House we got 29 missions in before they shot us down, we did 35, and we did

Paul: Going back to early life, in Alhambra, you graduated in 43', LA famously having the Zoot Suit riots, could you tell me about your or family experience with that

Larry: Alhambra was just a small little town and the Zoot suiters wouyld be in the in the west end of town, and _(14:15)_ and other army personnel would come in and, because they were dressed in zoot suits, _back then_ and all the rest of them they would fight with them. They were hispanics/mexicans

Paul: Whats your family's origin?

Larry: My father was born in Santa Barbra in 1895 and his grandfather was bron in Massachussets and then filtered down to Alhambra, but great grandfather was born in England, and he was Irish, Spanish, mix. I asked my dad (15:44):

What origin are we?

Oh and my mother was born in Madera (wood in spanish) in 1900, she says (15:55):

I come in with the new year and come out with the old

She was a beautiful lady, and won the contest for the most beautiful girl in her town. But he asks his dad (16:14):

What background are we?

He says (16:16):

Well I speak spanish and english and your mother speaks spanish and english 'cuz thats just the way it was, I guess were Mexican

The Japanese will go into Mexico and become born in Mexico, Japanese people born in Mexico and are mexican, thats the way we affiliate them.

Paul: So you weren't the same kind of mexican as the zoot suit mexicans

Larry: Yep

Paul: What was your life like in Alhambra?

Larry: Well when I went through school I started school in 1924, or sorry 1929. I stqrted school and on (18:00) Sixen valley(?) and they built this school called Marguerita Grammar School, and the put me in there and they kept me in kindergarden. So I opened the school in 1930, and I went through 8 years of perfect attendance. The reason I had perfect attendance, one of the fellas didn't come to school one morning and I asked him (18:34):

How come you didn't come to school

He said:

I just told my mama I didn't feel good, just will stay home

So I did that withy my mother, I walked into the kitchen at 6 o'clock or it was probably 7 o'clock and I says (18:54):

Mom I'm not going to school today.

There was a box of cereal there not opened and another that was opened, and I reached over for the unopened box and in those days there wasn't that kind of food to go around. So I slid my finger across the top and cut it and said (19:16):

Oh mom look at me I'm bleeding!

And she says (19:18):

Well it serves you right, God punished you for not taking from the _opened box?_

After that I got 8 years of perfect attendance. Oh she had 10 minutes of (19:37) _wait?_ and only 5 minutes from school, 10 minutes of _wait?_ and she handed me my sack, lunch, and swattered me on the button and said:

You better get to school or you're gonna be late

After that he began to have perfect attendance.

Paul: What was your mother's name?

Larry: Belle Stevens, Valenswelen? (20:20)

Paul: Sounded like a good mother

Larry: Oh I had a wonderful father and a wonderful mother. My dad was such a good person. One day we sat down for dinner every night at 5 o'clock, but all had to have nice shirts on, look nice for dinner, and then we said, mom would get everything on the plates, say grace, and go ahead and eat. Well my dad got up to get a glass of water, and we all said (20:59):

Dad, we would'a done that for ya, we would'a gotten that glass for water.

He says (21:04):

Let me tell you this, you're a servant to no man, including your father, unless if someone wants to pay you for your time. I'm healthy, I can get my own glass of water, and I never, ever want to hear you say to your brothers and sisters, "Get me a cup or a glass of water."

So that was my dad. He was very, and then he also told me, we'd sit down int he living room and he'd say to me (21:40):

You'd break my heart if ever you saw a friend with something that was very nice and you said to yourself "Man I'd like to have that." Well, if you stole that, you'd break my heart. If you want something, you earn it.

One time I had a guy steal my cap, my son's friend, and I looked for that cap for a year, and I couldn't find it. Larry was Larry Steven's oldest son. Then one day one fellow said to me (22:12):

One of Larry's friends might...

He said that he saw him wearing it in Monrovia and he says (22:23):

That was Mr. Steven's hat.

He says (22:26):

Well he doesn't need it I need it.

He stole it from me and I never liked him after that.

Paul: Could you tell me a little more about your brothers and sisters? What were they like?

Larry: Oh had the very very best brothers and sisters. My oldest brother, treated us kids like he was our father as well as our father. My father educated us with his thoughts as I mentioned before. My oldest brother was into plastering, that was our background, plastering. He smoked a pipe, and he took that pipe, and because we all loved him, I mean he treated us kids like we were his children. He put the pipe on the piano, that was our entertainment, my sister played the piano and we'd all go around and sing around the piano and he put the pipe on the edge of the paino, so I told myself because I loved him as a brother but as a father, I took it into the kitchen and scraped out the bowl all that nicotine that was on the side bowl and I washed it and scrubbed it, and made it look like it was a brand new pipe, and set it back ont he piano, and he walked in and he picked it up and says (24:15):

Who would do this for me?

And I said very proudly (24:19):

I did!

He says (24:21):

Well all that nicotine around the bowl makes it sweet, but there'll never be a pipe sweeter than this!

That was my older brother. My sisters, the oldest one she was just a wonderful person and then brother just over me, I am second to last the one in the middle brother, he was really well read and so he ended up writing a sports page for the high school. And he (25:05) Elms foundation gave him a coin bigger than the silver dollar and thicker, almost a quarter of an inch thick. We're all so pproud of him, that was his Junior year. His senior year he wrote the school paper and they did the same thing with that year they gave him a big coin and it just made him a person of knowledge but he was also the school, high school president. He just, we had a very smart family, all the kids were just smart. I;ve always said that I was never smart but everyone has a talent and when I went into highschool, I asked my dad (25:58):

What do I study?

He says (25:59):

Learn to use your hands and you'll never want for work.

And he's certainly right I can use my hands so that I do never wanted for work.

Paul: So did you ever get a job in that time before graduating?

Larry: Oh yes that was right there when they started tracks. A group of, well my next door neighbor was my mother's cousin (26:25)

Paul:

Larry:

Paul:

Larry: