Southampton - The food was lousy. The living conditions were terrible. Danger was a constant companion. You were far away from home. It was war. This week four World War II pilots shared their experiences before a standing room only crowd at the Southampton Historical Society as the year's final oral history presentation took place. "We lost so many men, so many men," World War II fighter bomber pilot Art Lasker said. "We didn't think about it. We were assigned a mission and we had to do it or die."

More than 450,000 Americans were killed in World War II. "We are the lucky ones," Irl Flanagan said as he held forth with Lasker and fellow World War II veteran and pilot Ed Koral of Southampton. Their war buddy Ed Cartoski, a former Navy pilot joined them at the end of the panel discussion. These four veterans shared their memories for posterity as part of a joint project between the Rogers Memorial Library and the Historical Society. The program headed by Penny Wright of the Library seeks to capture these memories in a series of filmed interviews that are being recorded for posterity before they are lost forever.

If this jacket could talk! A unique oral history project undertaken by the Library and the historical society is capturing precious recollections.

The men were easy to find. They have all been fast friends since they met during the war. Three were local and one, retired Judge Arthur "Art" Lasker traveled from Bristol, Rhode Island accompanied by his wife Marilyn.

Mrs. Lasker sat in the front row and nodded when her husband spoke about their long acquaintance with Bob Hope. "He was a great guy during the war. He did a lot for the troops then and he continued to do a lot after the war. Just a great guy," Lasker said. Lasker went to law school after the war eventually enjoying a long career as a lawyer and a judge before retiring. He is writing a book he has titled "The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth."

Flanagan is still flying his own plane out of East Hampton Airport. He is enjoying his third career as the owner and operator of Southampton Aero-Services, a business devoted to aerial photography. Flanagan graduated from Jamaica High School in Queens. He enlisted in 1940 and served as a cargo pilot during the war. He made his way to Southampton in the 1950s where he served on the faculty in the town's public school system. He was an adjunct professor of English at Hofstra University as well. Flanagan's wife Portia was an editor at the Southampton Press.

Koral returned home and became a building contractor with a reputation for quality and reliability. He brought his sons into the business and eventually retired. He was sitting in his car in the parking lot at Cooper's Beach listening to Glenn Miller on the radio with a friend when Pearl Harbor was attacked. "We looked at each other and said "our lives will never be the same", Koral recalled. "I never saw that guy again."

The airman linger before heading into lunch as guests continue to ask questions and share information.

Koral, along with thousands of men and women enlisted in the war. Lasker who longed to be pilot was prepared to go to war in 1942 when he signed up. He had been a student at NYU. He was playing basketball when he heard the news. "I knew we would be in the war in 1939," Lasker recalled. He already had his pilot's license when he enlisted. "I wanted to fly," he said. Flanagan was a student at Hofstra when he heard the news. "I walked across the street to Mitchell Field and signed up," he said.

New recruits were put through rigorous training at a base in Atlantic City, New Jersey before they shipped out. Pilots were expected to meet the highest standards before they were sent out on death defying missions. Lasker credits his flight instructor with saving his life. "He was a real son of a bitch," Lasker recalled. "He gave me the works all the time." Lasker did not expect to make the cut but he did." I thought I was going to be a ground soldier," Lasker said. "I thanked him for passing me and he told me I was a good pilot but he was trying to make me a better pilot so I could survive in combat. He saved my life," Lasker said.

The food was awful by all accounts. Koral found maggots in his soup. The men lived on a diet of brown rice. Water buffalo was the only meat they had. When soldiers received food from home they followed the unwritten rule of sharing with their tent mates. The living conditions were worse. Hot showers were a rarity. "I went for a year without one," Koral said. He got pneumonia and spent some time in the infirmary too. Koral's weight dropped from 175 lbs. to 125 lbs. within months of landing overseas.

Flanagan proudly waved his wristwatch as he talked about the dangers of making cargo drops close to and behind enemy lines. "This is the wristwatch I wore as a pilot. It is still running because it was made in Sag Harbor."

A full house with standing room only turned out to greet the World War II pilots who shared their memories. Many simply closed their eyes to listen and remember.

World War II pilots flew dangerous aircraft without the benefit of navigation aides. "You had to be good at dead reckoning," Lasker said. "There was no GPS." Pilots were put through the paces as they were trained to identify every type of plane in the air within 1/100th of a second. A 10-digit number flashed on a screen before the pilot's eyes and they had to remember it. "We did it," Koral recalled. After three months of intensive training the pilots knew all their maneuvers. "In a fighter plane there is no fooling around," Flanagan said. Flying cargo planes was no picnic either according to Koral. "One bullet from the enemy and good-bye Mama," he said. "The P-39 was a lousy airplane," Lasker said of the plane he flew during the war. "Two guys got killed making landings while I was training."

"You had to be very proficient flying on instruments," Flanagan said as he described the runs he used to make from Burma to China. "It was all white for six hours," he said of the weather conditions. "It was like flying around inside a box of milk. You couldn't see anything at 1,000 feet. You knew there were other planes stacked up flying around you in the soup. You couldn't see them but you knew they were there going back and forth. You had to be very careful. It was about timing and instruments."

A P-38 Lockheed Lightning plane used in WWII.

Flanagan and Koral wanted to fly fighter planes, Lasker wanted to fly cargo. As fate would have it, Lasker was the only one to fly a fighter plane. His buddies flew cargo. Cartoski, the navy airman who sat quietly in the audience while his buddies held forth on the panel joined them at the end of their talk. "We used to like to mix it up in our planes every chance we got," Cartoski said as he described the "air fights" he used to have with Lasker in which the two pilots engaged in a game of wits and skill with each other. "It kept us sharp," Cartoski said.

Sharp was the operative word in one of the key missions during the war as the American troops in the Pacific Arena fought desperately to defeat the Japanese Army. The enemy held on refusing to surrender as the Americans dropped napalm bombs on women and children as combat escalated.

Lasker recalled the mission headed by Group Commander Cyclone Davis. A general ordered 63 planes including Lasker's into the air to bomb and straff the Japanese. "Our job was to end the war," Lasker said. Davis was told to go up the west coast and attack from the north. As he was flying this mission, his gut told him it was wrong. Davis wiggled his wings and the 62 aircraft flying in formation behind him turned and followed him.

"As we turned away and looked back we saw the sky blackened by anti-aircraft fire. If we had followed the general's orders we would have been wiped out. At least 30 planes would have been lost. I wouldn't be here," Lasker said.

Lasker tried to get a Medal of Honor for Davis after the war but was unsuccessful. Davis had accidentally shot down an American plane on a mission during the war. The mishap blackened his record making it impossible for Lasker to pursue his efforts on Cyclone's behalf.

"There was a tremendous sense of patriotism during the war," Flanagan said. "There was no question about our objective. Not like today where nobody really knows what the objective is. Everybody I knew was in." That patriotism extended to 43 percent of the nation's nurses who enlisted in the war to take care of the wounded. One of them, Marilouise Kelly, age 93, sat in the front row listening to the pilots. She had participated in her own oral history session at the beginning of the month when she shared her memories.

The war taught these men the meaning of honor and discipline by their own accounts. "It made a man out of me," Flanagan said. "I agree," Koral chimed in. "I couldn't add anything to that," Lasker said.