Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

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Bob Bruffey

Korea | Multiple Units

He thought he had a promise to go to technical school, but Bob Bruffey was frustrated for his first two years in the Air Force. Finally he got his wish and, after working on F-51's for a while, shipped out to Korea where he retrieved downed planes for repair. (4:36)
Bob Bruffey could only shake his head and wonder how he got assigned to a unit full of misfits. Surrounded by their drunken antics at his Korean air base, he escaped on the weekends to take food and clothing to orphans living in caves. (4:45)
Bob Bruffey returned from Korea and continued to work on airplanes, adding the C-47 to his list. Then it was off to Cold War work in Weisbaden, where everyone scattered when he asked what kind of outfit this was. "You were never here. This never existed." (5:41)
The missions were so secret, that when the plane returned from the East with no insignia, our own fighters were scrambled to intercept it. Bob Bruffey maintained that plane and when one of the crew defected to the East, he had to go to Washington for debriefing. He couldn't help but laugh at his intelligence contacts there. (4:05)
When Air Force technician Bob Bruffey shipped out to Germany for the second time, he was sent to Libya for air/sea survival training. This involved being pulled through the water in a parachute. When the chute wouldn't release and he was pulled under, he experienced an eerie calm just at the edge of death. (2:35)
He'd been in Korea and Cold War Germany, but Bob Bruffey had one more conflict to attend. After confronting a python at yet another survival school, he flew technical missions to flight check the gear at airfields in Vietnam and Thailand. Still in the Air Force when he returned stateside, he had a moment of enlightenment while serving coffee to a General. (7:36)
Bob Darino

WWII | 294th Engineer Combat Battalion, VII Corps, 1st Army

New Yorker Bob Darino was drafted in 1943 and trained as a combat engineer. Shipped out to England to prepare for the Normandy invasion, the eighteen year old got "scared as Hell" when he was briefed on the German defenses. (3:42)
The waterproofing worked great and Bob Darino powered his jeep through the surf and up the hill at Normandy. Waiting for the main part of his unit to catch up, he told soldiers he thought were sleeping to "Get up! Get up!" They weren't sleeping. (5:25)
Moving through France, Bob Darino recalls how the grateful civilians came out with toasts of strong apple brandy. After a close call with a booby trap, he was injured when a tank shell landed right under his jeep. (6:40)
At the end of the war, combat engineer Bob Darino went from sampling delicious cherry pies in German farm country to experiencing the horrifying spectacle of concentration camps. He will never forget the words of General Eisenhower. (3:33)