[MRM]

My grandmother died a few years ago and I used to try to get her to tell me stories. She would just sit back and say "Oh I can't remember those things". But I learned that if I didn't ask any questions and just struck up a conversation with her and got her talking she would end up telling me the stories I wanted to ask her about.

If he's a prop era pilot you might start the conversation with fairly neutral technical questions about the airplaneshe flew and how they compared to others of the era. I had an uncle in law of about the same vintage who would clam up if you asked him about the war point blank, but he would be the first to tell you that the last"fun" airplane built was such and such prop fighter and that all the jetsthat came after took the romance out of flying and then he was off to the races. Maybe the same thing will work for you.