Rowland Elliott Ball was born in January 1924 in Yoakum, Texas. His father worked for the railroad and had many years of seniority, so during the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States] he was able to hold onto his job. Ball remembers that men would come to their house asking for food or jobs. After he graduated from high school in 1941, he found a summer job building an air base. After three months of that work, he had enough money to pay for a year of school at Texas A&M [Annotator’s Note: Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas]. He was automatically enrolled in ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] in September 1941. One day after playing a game of football, he and his friend took a nap in another friend’s dorm room. When they woke up, they heard all this commotion going on outside. Ball went outside and asked someone what was going on, and he was told that the country had been bombed by the Japanese [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. The change of feeling was immediate at Texas A&M. Everyone was military-minded from then on. Ball remained in school, and as long as he passed his courses, he was exempt from the draft. In December 1942, Ball decided to enlist in the service with the promise from the government that he could graduate from college and receive a commission. However, three months later in March, he was activated into the Army. He was sent to Camp Walters, near Fort Worth [Annotator’s Note: Fort Worth, Texas] where he took tests and got shots. He returned to College Station to resume classes. Ball then received orders to report to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio [Annotator’s Note: San Antonio, Texas] and then Camp Roberts in California for 16 weeks of basic training. He returned to College Station and was accepted into the ASTP program [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers]. A friend told him about a cadet program in the Air Corps, and Ball and some of his other friends decided to take the tests for the program. All but one guy passed. A week later, Ball and his friends received orders to report to San Antonio Cadet Classification Center.

Rowland Elliott Ball reported to San Antonio Cadet Classification Center [Annotator’s Note: San Antonio, Texas] where he took several tests to determine his classification. He qualified as a pilot, navigator, and bombardier. They recommended that he choose navigator because he scored the highest in that area. He was sent to pre-flight school in Houston [Annotator’s Note: Houston, Texas], and then Coral Gables, Florida for navigation school. He was then sent to radar school in Boca Raton [Annotator’s Note: Boca Raton, Florida] for one month, and then to Lincoln, Nebraska where he was assigned to a B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] group, the 60th Bombardment Squadron, 39th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force. His group was sent to training in Salina, Kansas for six months. The B-29 had a lot of bugs with it. In March 1945, training was finally completed, and they were sent to Harrington, Kansas to stage for a week. They then flew to Sacramento, California and on to Hawaii to John Rodgers Naval Air Station [Annotator’s Note: Naval Air Station Honolulu, Hawaii]. Two days later, his group flew to Guam [Annotator’s Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] stopping at Kwajalein [Annotator’s Note: Kwajalein, Marshall Islands]. His group had one practice mission to the Island of Rota [Annotator’s Note: Rota, Northern Mariana Islands] before they began their missions.

Rowland Elliott Ball served as a navigator with the 60th Bombardment Squadron, 39th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force stationed out of Guam [Annotator’s Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. His group’s very first mission was to bomb an aircraft engine factory north of Tokyo [Annotator’s Note: Tokyo, Japan]. As they began to take off, the third engine blew. The pilot was finally able to stop the plane when the nose was about to hit a palm tree. The crew was very upset that they missed the mission, so they all grabbed some alcohol and sat out under a palm tree looking at the sky. Their next mission was to Tokyo at night. Ball could see the city burning as they flew over Tokyo. He was so scared as he saw planes diving down into the ground. He could hear the anti-aircraft hit his plane. His crew was able to drop their bombs on the target and head back to the base without any major issues. Everyone was stressed with anxiety after being shot at during their mission. His crew went to Tokyo on two more missions. He later did missions bombing airfields from which kamikaze planes were taking trying to head to Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: Okinawa, Japan]. The Norden bombsight [Annotator’s Note: Norden Mk. XV bombsight] was not accurate at high altitudes. He recalled when General LeMay [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces then US Air Force General Curtis Emerson LeMay; Fifth Chief of Staff of the US Air Force] changed the way the Air Corps bombed Tokyo to make the missions more effective. The planes would have to fly at a lower altitude. Their major concern was flying over water for 10 hours with a plane that was not all that efficient.

Rowland Elliott Ball served as a navigator with the 60th Bombardment Squadron, 39th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force stationed out of Guam [Annotator’s Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. Towards the end of the war, the Japanese were running out of gasoline. Their fighter pilots were inconsistent and never seemed to have a plan of attack. They were not effective. The US Navy was very accurate in their shooting. During June 1945, he flew most of his missions, which were very long. In July, he had a day mission to Kure [Annotator’s Note: Kure, Hiroshima, Japan]. The target was a naval base storage site. They had a Life magazine photographer with them that day. When they hit the target, the photographer thought it was an amazing sight. He was on a “milk run” [Annotator's Note: slang term used by American airmen to describe an easy combat mission] night mission in July. When they got close to their target, searchlights raked over their plane and locked in on them. A steady stream of tracers was hitting their left wing and then a fighter pilot zoomed past them. Ball thinks that the pilot was trying to hit them. When they tried to release the bombs, they became stuck in the bomb bay door. The bomb was eventually freed from the bomb bay. [Annotator’s Note: Video break at 1:03:49.000.]

[Annotator’s Note: Screen is black until 1:04:31.360.] Rowland Elliott Ball served as a navigator with the 60th Bombardment Squadron, 39th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force stationed out of Guam [Annotator’s Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. Ball is very worried about the future of America. After World War 2 was over, everyone got back into civilian life in a better economy than before the war. Ball feels that the veterans picked up where they left off before the war began. Ball believes there should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and that we should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations.