Eddie Patrick - Comm NCO, Flying Tigers

Chennault agreed to let us go out there on a 15-day trial basis. Personnel and equipment was kept to a minimum to allow rapid air evacuation in case it was needed. He said, ‘I’m afraid they’re going to come in there and blow you away as soon as they find out. They’re going to be after you for sure.’ Pappy said, ‘We’ll take a pilot for each plane, a mechanic for every other plane, armor for every other plane and one radio man.’ Before they could say anything, I said, ‘I’m not going to ask one of my guys to go as I have more experience than any of them, so I’ll go.’ They agreed. So I went with them to Kanchow. I was 19...

Betty Jo Workman - Aerospace Nurse

The only time I was with the chimps was when they came back after their space trip. They’d bring the chimp down to the little hospital on Bahama and on Grand Turk Island. That little chimp Ham was friendly. He had just come back from space and, you know, socked with all those things he was supposed to do and I was the only one in nurse’s uniform, the rest of them were doctors and everybody hanging around in their scrubs and the press was there. And they wanted me to hold Ham. I wasn’t sure I wanted to because I didn’t know if he was angry or what. He seemed nice. I took him and he put his arms around me like a little baby...

Robert Inghram - Figher Pilot and POW

If we had something going on a clandestine operation such as making maps or digging in the tunnel or making frames for the tunnels—whatever—and  a goon would come in then the guys watching the gate would  tell the ‘runner’ to alert these guys that the Germans are coming in. Be aware because our operation might have to shut down. It was a well organized camp in all respects. We had some prisoners in the camp who were German speakers. In fact, one American didn't speak English until he got to grade school. These guys helped us in our 'business; transactions as we traded for some things we needed aht we couldn;t scavenge. We got so we did some pretty good trading with the guards.

Virginia Keefer - WASP Trainee

I first learned about the WASPs when I saw a picture of the WASP pilots on the cover of Life magazine. I thought this is unbelievable to actually get to fly those big airplanes, to do something for the war effort. The idea of the boys letting us play with their airplanes was overwhelming. I eagerly made some contacts and the next thing I knew I was driving north, clear across the state to Toledo, to be interviewed. I went to Dayton for my physical. I ate bananas all the way to bring up my weight, which of course I didn’t. I didn’t weigh as much as I should so they fibbed for me so I wouldn’t be disappointed. I stood at 5 foot 6 inches and only weighed 108...

Bob Joyce - B-17 Combat Crew and Diarist

5-12 Feb 45  Mission #11 I flew in #32 with Gadd, Briscoe and Pappy and I certainly am lucky to be here writing this now. We raided Regensburg and hit the oil refineries. Couldn't see the ground over the target, but I never saw so many planes in the sky at one time in all my life. I counted over a hundred in three boxes - 42 planes from our wing. We got off at 9:25 and landed at 4:30. Long flight and I nearly never made it. Came closer to the Purple Heart postumously than anyone could.

Marshall Cantor - Ground Support

During the monsoon season we had to ford two streams with the Jeep to get to the hospital. One stream was so deep and swift that I used a snorkel-equipped jeep. The snorkel goes into the air intake through your carburetor so the engine could breathe. The snorkel was homemade; every outfit did it. I was sitting waist deep in the water. We attached a rope to the jeep and controlled from the banks to prevent its being washed down stream. During the long rain deluge, nurses had to deal with a tree that collapsed one ward and severe flooding throughout. Half of our campsite was under a foot of water. We'd take the nurses to the movies. Ellen and I sat on a coconut log. It would be raining and we'd sit two heads popping out from under one poncho to see the movie...

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Bobbie Keck - Military Wife

Right after Bonnie was born, I woke up and started crying because Jim wasn’t there. This nurse came in and said, ‘Why are you crying?’

I said, ‘Because my husband is overseas flying out of England over Germany and he’s not going to see his baby, at least for awhile.’ And she said, ‘Just count your blessings.  There are women here who have delivered babies and their husbands have already died.’ So that shut me up. And I was grateful. I was grateful to her for saying that, because it suddenly occurred to me that there were others much worse off than I ...

Jesse Angular - Ambulance Driver

We were in Calcutta about three weeks. They were preparing for an invasion into Burma with American troops. Merrill’s Marauders were already in Burma. General Stilwell had the Chinese coming from China into Burma; supposed to meet in Calcutta. The Japanese controlled the Burma Road so getting supplies in there when they needed them was nearly impossible due to the need to travel long distances over monsoon-muddy mountainous roads. In preparation, they decided to deliver some landing strip materials to a little airport in Burma. Due to monsoons and so forth, the terrain was muddy and hard to land on. We were to take supplies by a narrow mountainous road in “deuce-and-a-half” trucks...

Clara Morrey Murphy - Flight Nurse

As each campaign was completed and our troops moved forward, we moved forward to prepare for the next campaign. Our Squadron moved from Algiers to Tunis to Sicily: we flew in right after the invasion of Scicily. We were first at Licata on the southern side, then to Palermo. We stayed in Palermo for nine months. We were in North Africa during Rommel's campaign. I kinda respected this old Desert Fox: he was so successful. But he was a threat to us and the troops coming up to the Kasserine Pass. That’s where we had so much trouble and had so many patients. Our poor boys were getting slaughtered. Our squadron evacuated many patients from the Kasserine Pass. We were at Tunis when Rommel was finally pushed back.

Jim Keck - Bomber Pilot

So many groups were stationed at different locations in England. When you took off on a mission it would be called today a Maalox moment because you had all these airplanes taking off from different bases usually at night. They weren’t formed up. You’d take off individually. Each group had its own system and its own heading. With all these airplanes taking off from these various bases, you could fly out to a certain altitude and then you'd turn, come back, and then form up as a group. There were some mid-air collisions but there were a lot of airplanes in the air and no radar control, no traffic controls. And radio silence. You just took off and hoped for the best.

Litzie Trustin - Refugee and Military Wife

People knew there were concentration camps. Nobody knew exactly what was going on—in 1938 there were a lot of Communists in the concentration camps because they were very concerned about those as much as the Jews but primarily it was Jews. In the very beginning if somebody was taken, they actually let the family know. Sometime in 1938—I don’t know exactly when—one of my uncles was on his way home from his office when—nobody knows why—somebody just picked him up off the street. The next thing we knew he was in a concentration camp...