Transcript of interview with Darren Gidel by Claytee White, October 21, 2009

Darwin Gidel, born in 1924, grew up in Rockwell City, Iowa. He describes his childhood activities, schooling, and the jobs he held as a teenager. After graduating from high school in June of '42, Darwin immediately joined the military. His basic training took him from Minneapolis to Missouri, after which he was stationed in Nebraska, California, Florida, and South Carolina for further training. As he recalls his early military training, Darwin also evokes the patriotic fervor that gripped the country. He shares stories about the kindnesses he and many other enlistees received from individuals and families, ranging from rides to dinners to overnights. Darwin's overseas assignment was in London, England, beginning in November of 1943. He vividly recalls the bombing raids he flew and describes them from beginning to end. His B-l 7 was shot down over Belgium in March of 1944, and he and eight other crew members were held as POWs for eleven months. Much of Darwin's incarceration was in a Luftwaffe Hospital in Brussels, where his injured leg was removed. His memories include hospital personnel, solitary confinement, interrogation, and later being moved around to many different prisons in Germany. He clearly recalls relationships among prisoners, the configuration of German prisons, types of food served to inmates, and finally his repatriation from Annenberg Castle in Germany. After the war, Darwin earned a degree in accounting on the Gl Bill, which eventually led to general administration work in Sacramento. Along the way he married and had four children. After his wife passed away in the late seventies. Darwin eventually relocated to Las Vegas and remarried. He describes the city, recalls the small town atmosphere, and compares the impersonal bottom-line attitude of modem casinos to the folksy, welcoming feel of those establishments in the early eighties.