Mighty Eighth Air Force collection now available online through Digital Library of Georgia

Polly Powers Stramm
·4 min read

Roy Babb first visited Savannah in 1942 when he joined what was then the new Mighty Eighth Air Force. The 21-year-old had enlisted in the military the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor and was here for only four months before he boarded a ship bound for England where Mighty Eighth pilots took off in bombers to fight the Nazis.

“I was a private making $21 a month,” Babb recalled in an oral history recorded for the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth in Pooler. His accommodations in Savannah were in “wooden barracks” near the site of the old Savannah Municipal Airport at Hunter Field.

Four months after Babb arrived in Savannah from his hometown of Greenville, S.C., he “was in a convoy (of ships) headed to England.”

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Babb’s recollections and other Mighty Eighth history and photographs can now be heard and seen online, thanks to the museum’s recently established link to the Digital Library of Georgia. Museum officials are thrilled about the online availability.

A photograph of a group of servicemen standing in front of the building headquarters for the United States Eighth Air Force Base Command in Savannah, Georgia. A sign on the building reads "Headquarters Eighth Air Force Base Command." The back of the photograph reads: "Early 1942 Savannah Ga." In England, on 27 May 1942 Eighth Air Force Base Command was redesignated VIII Air Force Service Command.

“Without online access, these photographs and oral history interviews are only available for research through a personal visit” to the museum, explained Dr. Vivian Rogers-Price, museum historian and research center director.

“These online resources will aid upper elementary, middle, and high school teachers and their students with courses in Georgia history and World War II. In addition, independent researchers, university professors, and students interested in the Eighth Air Force will find this information valuable."

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The Eighth Air Force participated in an American bombing campaign against the Nazis, becoming World War II’s most extended military campaign. Of the 350,000 members of the Eighth Air Force serving during WWII, 26,000 were killed in action and another 28,000 became prisoners of war.

Instrumental in the victory over Germany, the Eighth grew to be “the greatest air armada of all time,” according to museum information.

A photograph of six officers, taken at the United States Eighth Air Force unit headquarters at High Wycombe, England. Three hundred fifty thousand American servicemen served as part of the unit alongside the British Royal Air Force. From left to right in the photograph: Colonel Leon Johnson, Brigadier General Asa N. Duncan, Colonel Paul L. Williams, Colonel Charles R. Booth, Colonel Charles A. Jones, and Colonel Clarence H. Welch.

Babb’s convoy of ships took 14 days to sail to England. On the way, the ships likely were targets for the Nazis. “When we got to Iceland, all hell broke loose” because of Nazi submarines nearby, he recalled. The threat was abated, and the soldiers continued their journey.

Once in England, Babb and the other ground personnel would watch as planes took off across the English Channel. The planes had a specified time to return and he remembers counting each one as they appeared in the skies on their return flights.

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D-Day plans “were really something,” he said, adding that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower delayed the invasion because of bad weather. Babb remembers being granted 24-hour leave and listening to a live performance of Glenn Miller’s Band, which was like “heaven on earth.”

The British people had to adjust to the American soldiers, or “Yanks,” being stationed in their country, he said. They used to say, “Yanks are overpaid, oversexed and over here.” Babb recalled.

Pooler's National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force has placed 26,000 American flags in their Memorial Garden for the annual Flags for the Fallen event. The flags represent the 26,000 Eighth Air Force airmen who were killed in World War II.
Pooler's National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force has placed 26,000 American flags in their Memorial Garden for the annual Flags for the Fallen event. The flags represent the 26,000 Eighth Air Force airmen who were killed in World War II.

The Eighth is active today and headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.

The Digital Library of Georgia is a GALILEO initiative based at the University of Georgia Libraries. It collaborates with Georgia’s libraries, archives, museums and other institutions of education and culture to provide access to key information resources on Georgia history, culture and life.

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The Mighty Eighth Museum is the only center dedicated to preserving and presenting the history and stories of the Eighth Air Force from WWII to the present. It opened on May 14, 1996.

For information go to: dlg.usg.edu and search for the Mighty Eighth Air Force Collection.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Digital Library of Georgia adds Mighty Eighth Air Force collection