Albert James "Jim" Ward was born in September 1927 in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. He was 14 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was outside playing with his friends when his older brother came outside to say "the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] just bombed Pearl Harbor!" The next day, many of his neighbors went to enlist into the service. He could not go because of his age. Rationing started during this time to help with the war effort. War bonds [Annotator's Note: debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war], salvaging, and a victory garden all became part of his life. Prior to Pearl Harbor, Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] had invaded Poland in September 1939. After Pearl Harbor, his two older brothers enlisted. One became a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] navigator and the other was a PC [Annotator's Note: patrol craft, small vessels used mainly as submarine chasers] boat driver on the English coast. Ward was proud of his brothers for enlisting. Ward's father owned a small lumber yard which was right across from one of the Higgins factories [Annotator's Note: Higgins Industries, New Orleans, Louisiana]. Ward was working as a watchman at the lumber yard and can remember seeing ships come and go. There was quite a bit of submarine activity at the mouth of the river [Annotator's Note: the Mississippi River at the Gulf of Mexico] during the war. He could hear ambulances going to pick up the injured when a ship was struck offshore. Damaged ships would be brought into the nearby Todd Shipyard [Annotator's Note: in Algiers, New Orleans, Louisiana] for repairs. People felt they were helping with the war effort by working at Todd or Higgins in town. There was a lot of sacrifice with the rationing plus family members being in the service. After high school, Ward joined a monastery and later the United States Army as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. His service was for two years after the war. His brothers returned in the Fall after the war. Ward was in the monastery during that time.

Albert James "Jim" Ward thinks the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] does a remarkable job of capturing what happened in the war. He had little current information during the war, unlike today's real time reporting of war in Afghanistan [Annotator's Note: Operation Enduring Freedom, 7 October 2001 to 28 December 2014; then Operation Freedom's Sentinel 1 January 2015 to 30 August 2021]. During the Second World War, Walter Winchell [Annotator's Note: Walter Winchell, American newspaper columnist] would report events that had happened in the past possibly as much as two weeks prior to his broadcast. It was difficult to get the feeling of what was really happening. By the time of the broadcast, something else had happened that would not be revealed until much later. Nevertheless, everyone paid close attention to the news of the day. People were anxious for the war to end so the troops could return home. Coffee was the major item rationed in the Ward family. They never went hungry. They cut back on things, but the Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939] was much worse than the war was. The Depression ended with the preparation for the war, not just when Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] happened in 1941. The ramp up for the war began in 1939 and 1940. That actually relieved the country from the Depression. There were few luxuries to spend the money on during the wartime rationing. There was no change to the education process as he entered high school. Ward worked during his time in high school. He did not have a lot of time on his hands. There were movies but they were different from today. There were no professional sports teams to follow in New Orleans. Ward lived in a location that was relatively isolated, so he seldom went to the city. He was a child during the war so others might contribute more to the story of World War 2. The Depression toughened up the Greatest Generation [Annotator's Note: nickname for veterans taken from "The Greatest Generation", a 1998 book by journalist Tom Brokaw] to be able to handle what they did during the war. They suffered deprivations and had to learn to respond to hard times. They had to work hard to make things happen. Without their sacrifices, we would be living in a much different world. Having recently visited the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum], he thinks it could not be much better. It is the right size to visit with family or friends in one day to get the story of what occurred during the war.