Flight Deck Podcast

Please Note: During his retelling, American fighter ace Besby F. Holmes uses an ethnic slur to describe his attackers. This oral history is presented unedited as a historical artifact of one veteran's experience. In American fighter ace Besby F. Holmes’ oral history, recorded in the early 90’s, he recalls the scramble to get to a plane during the attack on Pearl Harbor. The night before, he had a few too many rum drinks at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel while on a blind date, and he was nursing a hangover. He planned to go to the beach afterwards “to let the sun bake the poison out of [his] body.” But his plans were waylaid when the attack broke out. In the midst of the commotion in Honolulu, with military trucks roaring up and down the streets, Holmes commandeered a civilian’s red Studebaker and sped to Wheeler Base where he saw 70 P-40s already burning. He was first directed to fly a biplane that hadn’t been moved in a month, and told the sergeant, “Thank you very much, Sergeant, but I don’t want to fly that t