"Our group, B-25, was supposed to go in the Pacific, and we were supposed to fly a mission from some island near…Japan onto Japan to the Japan mainland, that’s what we were supposed to do. And this thing got so bad, so very bad, that the…

"Were there dangers? Flying is risky. It’s always risky. We had a saying that…there were old pilots and there were bold pilots, so you have to be careful. They says, there were never any old, bold pilots. If you’re too bold, you never get…

"I just about knew it was gonna happen. I was the right age. I was about…18, 19 at that time, and…I felt I was gonna go. I did learn, however, that if you volunteer, sometime you can pick the service that you want, and when I got to…

"When I got home, Evelyn came over to the house to see me. I didn’t know she knew I was at home. Somebody told her. And anyway, she said, 'You ought to go to church tomorrow.' And I said, 'Yeah.' So we went to church, and we…

"Then we had VE [Victory in Europe] Day. And that’s a funny one. I had my little motor scooter that I had mechanics build for me, that I designed in Paris. I was riding up and down the streets of Paris on VE-Day with a beautiful young lady…

"We went back to England and got ready for the Holland invasion, biggest invasion we ever had. 1,876 gliders. And we went in the 21st of September, I believe it was. We were in there 21 days. It was a long steal. But it worked out all right. We…

"We went into southern France. Of course that was an easy mission. And we had anti-glider and anti-parachute poles, pine trees that they’d [the Germans] planted in the big field we were going to land in. So we landed the gliders in between the…

"We were going to fly from England to Italy for the southern France invasion. And [Rev. Fitzgerald was] all set to go. I told him I’d take him to Rome, and we’d go and see the pope and all this. I’m just talking [laughs]. And they said, 'We…

"The day that we went over to in the, D-Day, the night before, this chaplain [named] Fitzgerald came up to me. He said, 'Lieutenant, you mind if I pray for you?' He said, 'I’m Catholic, and I know you’re Protestant.' And I…

"Let’s see, from there we went up to England in Oct-, March of ’44 to train for D-Day. And they sent me down to my base. We were based in Cottesmore, England, 316th Troop Carrier group. I was in the 36th Squadron."