William Schrader was born in February 1926 in Hollywood, Florida. An only child, his father moved the family to California 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] looking for work when he was just two years old. His father found a job picking fruit. Schrader went to school in Los Angeles [Annotator’s Note: Los Angeles, California]. When he was 15 years old, he recalled the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. His family had just bought a new car that day. In April 1944 on his 18th birthday, he enlisted in the United Sates Army Air Corps. He hoped to be a pilot, but he could not pass the test and was sent to Amarillo, Texas for basic training. Basic training was fun. He had to retake his basic over again when he had a hernia operation. He completed his basic in July 1944, and was sent to gunnery school in Loretto, Texas. He was assigned to a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] crew in Boise, Idaho. His crew flew from California to New Guinea where they trained for 10 more weeks. They slept in tents and ate peaches and spam. His crew also bought horse meat from Australians and barbecued it. From New Guinea, his crew flew to Samara [Annotator’s Note: Samara, the Philippines] and was based there for the rest of the war. He was a replacement with the 23rd Bombardment Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group, 13th Air Force and he was the nose gunner aboard a B-24 and flew eight missions. When the war concluded, they flew a final mission along the coast of China looking for Japanese who wanted to surrender. A typhoon hit the Pacific islands and it was a scary experience. Another scary moment was while he was in the United States, when his plane was leaking a lot of gas. The pilot thought they were going to have to bail out.

During his time in the Samar Islands, the Philippines, William Schrader [Annotator’s Note: serving with the 23rd Bombardment Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group, 13th Air Force] visited all around the island and bought a monkey. He brought the monkey back to the United States after the war. He did not keep it for very long because the monkey was mischievous. While in the Philippines, he did not associate with the local population. He heard over the loudspeakers about the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. His group continued to do patrols until the signing of the Japanese surrender [Annotator’s Note: on 2 September 1945]. [Annotator’s Note: Video break at 19:34.000.] On long 14-hour missions he was given spam and peaches with a loaf of white bread. While he was in the Philippines, he contracted three-day malaria [Annotator's Note: disease caused by a parasite that commonly infects a certain type of mosquito which feeds on humans]. He was discharged in 1946 and returned home to Sacramento, California with his crew on Thanksgiving Day. German prisoners served him a meal. He was sent to Fort McArthur [Annotator’s Note: near Los Angeles, California] and was discharged after a 30-day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. After his discharge, he went to work at Fox Studios. He attended Los Angeles City College on the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] earning a degree in business administration. Schrader 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.