Interview with Taylor L. Davidson, July 20, 1991

Interview Summary

Born October 30 1918 in Clay County; educational background at one-room school in Seth Kentucky-- Berea-- and University of Kentucky; memory of what he was doing when he heard about attack on Pearl Harbor; drafted on February 20 1942 in Army Air Corps; trained in Colorado; sent overseas to New Zealand and Melbourne Australia; member of the Ninetieth Bombardment Squadron of the Third Bombardment Group of the Fifth Air Force; duty at Port Moresby New Guinea; group flew B-25s against Japanese shipping and in support of ground troops; Battle of Bismark Sea; refitting B-25s with .50 caliber machine guns in nose of plane for shipping attacks and strafing guns; Colonel Paul I. Gunn; attacks on Rabaul; duty as first sergeant in Operations which designated targets and armament; Davidson did not fly combat missions; General Douglas MacArthur's movements during the war; General George C. Kenney; duty on the Philippines at the end of the war; Harrodsburg native Dick Gentry liberating his brother Bill from a Manila P.O.W. camp; V-mail; hearing news about the dropping of atomic bombs while at Pearl Harbor; discharged from Army on August 14 1945; re-entering the University of Kentucky; ratio of women to men after the war; living at Cooperstown in 1945; Leonard Baird; acquiring job in Adjutant General G.H. May's office in June of 1947; political nature of the job; began career in National Guard in the infantry from 1947-1952 and then switching to the Air Guard; history of the National Guard; the National Guard during the Korean War; effect of World War II mobilization on the National Guard; 1956 flood; 1958 bus disaster in Prestonsburg Kentucky; Happy Chandler sending the National Guard to Sturgis Kentucky during school integration; the National Guard during the Vietnam War; National Guard's use during labor disputes; operation of draft boards during the Vietnam War; draft evasion case against Cassius Clay; difference between Kent State protesters and Vietnam War Protesters on Kentucky campuses; governors who Davidson served under and his opinions on them; organizing the Youth Advisory Committee during the Vietnam War; Davidson's involvement with the Kentucky Military History Museum; Colonel George Chinn; state flag project; Cuban Missile Crisis.

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