Interview with Thomas Richard Young, artist and Army Air Forces veteran (463rd Bomb Group, 774th Bomb Squadron, 15th Air Force), concerning his experiences as a B-17 pilot and a prisoner-of-war in the European Theater during World War II. Basic training, Miami Beach, Florida, January, 1943; primary flight training, Mira Loma Air Base, Oxnard, California, 1943; basic flight training, Mirana, Arizona, 1943; advanced flight training, Marfa, Texas, 1943-44; B-17 training, Roswell, New Mexico, 1944; crew assignment at Lincoln, Nebraska, 1944; crew training at Sioux City, Iowa, 1944; trans-Atlantic flight to England, 1944; assignment to the 15th Air Force, Foggia, Italy; living conditions at Foggia; experiences with the Tuskegee Airmen; various missions to Munich, Germany; his account of his B-17 being shot down on the nineteenth mission, November 16, 1944; details of his capture by Italian troops; interrogation by German personnel and solitary confinement; Stalag Luft III, Sagan, Germany, December, 1944; evacuation of Stalag Luft III and forced march to Spremberg, Germany, January-February, 1945; Nürnberg, Germany, 1945; forced march to Moosburg, Germany; liberation by 3rd Army troops. Appendix includes a photocopy of a drawing titled, "North Compound, Stalag Luft III, Sagan, Germany, January, 1945."
Interview conducted in 1999 for the World War II Prisoners of War Oral History Project.