World War II Veteran talks about Veterans Day
Nov. 11, 2021
Edward Chan is a 98-year-old World War II veteran who was a bombardier and who is a Mesa resident. He talked about his experiences during the war and after.
Chan was attending the University of Arizona when he went to war in 1942. “I decided to enlist because everybody else was doing it. And I guess I was one of the ones to do it,” Chan said.
He called it quite a journey. “I have a record of 32 sorties that I flew.” Chan talked about his experience with bomb bay doors. “Yeah, I had a fishtail sitting in the catwalk and trying to fishtail the bomb bay doors to close it so we could fly formation and land the aircraft at a certain spot,” he added.
Chan also went to flight school. “The records show that I could fly to be a bombardier, a pilot, or either one,” he said.
After that, Chan came home and went to Raytheon and Hughes for eight years and was superintendent of quality control.
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