Alvin Callender was born in 1918 in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Before he joined the military, he was a student at Southwestern Louisiana Institute [Annotator's Note: now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in Lafayette, Louisiana]. Callender had completed basic training and his first flight school when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He remembers being in a movie theater in Bakersfield, California, when the show was interrupted for an announcement that all armed forces personnel had to report to base immediately. When they exited the theater, there were trucks waiting outside to transport them, and Callender reported to the flight line. He said there was a "panic" over the possibility that the Japanese would attack mainland America by way of the California coast. The next day the cadets left for Phoenix, Arizona for an accelerated advanced flying school, and he graduated as a second lieutenant on 6 February 1942. He was sent to Key Field in Meridian, Mississippi where he trained on P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtis P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft]. His first solo was both thrilling and disquieting. Soon he was assigned to the 31st Fighter Group at New Orleans, Louisiana, where he flew P-39s [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft]. Callender didn't like the P-39 and was happy when the planes were sent to Washington state and given to the Russians. He sailed to England on the Queen Elizabeth with 15,000 other soldiers who being deployed. A band greeted them when they arrived in the United Kingdom, but Callender said the citizens were just as glad to see them leave after a few months.

Alvin Callender was based at Shrewsbury, England, and he recalled one afternoon when the sky filled with Spitfires [Annotator's Note: British Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft], and the aviators were amazed to see "lady ferry pilots" climb out of the planes. The Spitfires were handed over to the Americans for use in the All American Raid over France on 4 July 1944. After a week's training, his squadron [Annotator's Note: 308th Fighter Squadron, 31st Fighter Group, 8th Air Force] was escorting bombers to Le Havre, France to hit the German submarine pens. On the trip over the Channel, the flight leader's oxygen mask failed, and he spun out. Someone else took over, and after they completed the mission, the rest of the squadron was chased away. The flight group moved to the south of England, and the first mission Callender flew from there was for the Dieppe, France invasion [Annotator's Note: the Dieppe Raid or Operation Jubilee on 19 August 1942]. He flew two missions over Dieppe, and was otherwise flying patrols over the English Channel. On the last of those patrols, Callender's squadron could not get back to base due to the weather, and had to land at Beachy Head, England by radar. Callender recalls that the airstrip was outlined by the headlights of automobiles. He spent the night in an English castle, and when they pilots went back to their aircraft the next morning, they saw that they had landed on the very edge of the white cliffs of Dover. Callender's fighter group was moved by ship to Gibraltar, where they picked up a number of Spitfires, then sailed on to Oran [Annotator's Note: Oran, Algeria]. Soon after he arrived, Callender experienced a strafing attack and had to jump out of his aircraft while it was turned off but still rolling, and take refuge in a nearby trench. They had to do battle with the Vichy French who were holding up in the nearby hills. The Allied aircraft "worked them over," until they surrendered. From Oran, Callender's fighter group covered the general area including Tunis and the Kasserine Pass. It was on one of those patrol that Callender shot down his first Me-109 [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter aircraft], which he said was "quite an ordeal." After North Africa was secured, Callender was sent to Malta.

From Gozo Air Field on the island of Malta, Alvin Callender flew patrols in support of the invasion of Sicily. On the first day he was there, Callender recalls that someone on a ship started firing, and the "whole damn sea lit up," destroying about 40 C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] with paratroopers and other personnel aboard. While he was there, he met General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.], a "tough boogie," who chewed out everyone on the airfield. Callender's work started at the Messina Straits and once Sicily was taken, the group [Annotator's Note: at this time, Callender was flying British Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft with the 308th Fighter Squadron, 31st Fighter Group, 12th Air Force] prepared for the invasion of Italy. He was among the escorts of a B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] going into an airfield at Salerno that was carrying an officer from each squadron in Callender's group. Right before the planes landed at what was supposed to be a safe airstrip, they came under antiaircraft fire. 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] destroyed the B-25, killing all on board, including the captain and a colonel. Callender was called before a panel to testify about what happened. After flying 15 missions, Callender received orders to return to the United States. During a stop in Tunis [Annotator's Note: Tunis, Tunisia], he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was a passenger on a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] from Tunis to Casablanca [Annotator's Note: Casablanca, Morocco], then rode a C-54 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster cargo aircraft] to Dakar [Annotator's Note: Dakar, Senegal], then Brazil, then Puerto Rica. When they left there, they encountered a ferocious lightning storm that knocked the plane's radio out and had to turn back for repairs. Callender flew from there to Miami, Florida, and got orders to report to Camp Shelby, Mississippi after a 30 day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time].

After a 30 day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], during which Alvin Callender married, he was sent to Miami, Florida for physicals and rest and recuperation in a nice hotel with nice food. It was "a ball." He was then assigned to Training Command in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he was preparing new airmen for combat. When volunteers were needed for a "special mission," no one spoke up; nevertheless, four men [Annotator's Note: including Callender] were selected, and sent to Greensboro, North Carolina for expedited training. They returned to Miami, Florida, and got on a high priority flight to Karachi, India. On arrival, they were brought to a colonel's office, only to learn that the mission was cancelled. Sitting idle in the officers' club, Callender ran into one of his old commanding officers, who agreed to get him out of India. A couple of days later, he received orders to Kunming, China, where he was assigned to a Chinese-American Component Wing. Callender said he had a "belly full of training students," and moreover, he didn't want to work with the Chinese recruits. So he traded assignments, and was sent to a P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] outfit [Annotator's Note: 529th Fighter Squadron, 311th Fighter Group, 312th Fighter Wing, 14th Air Force] at a B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] base at Chingdu, China. There was a shortage of gas in China, and Callender said the fighters experienced a low number of flying hours. He remembered several B-29s crash landing, and jarring him out of his bunk in a barracks that was a few miles from the field. "Scary," he said. When they moved the B-29s to the Pacific, Callender went to Xi’an, China, where the fighters kept busy sweeping railroads, bombing bridges, and hitting anything else they could "shoot up" in order to interrupt the supply lines to the Japanese. He suffered bouts of malaria several times during his tenure in east. Callender was promoted to major, and stayed there until the end of the war.

When Alvin Callender returned to the United States, he was sent to Goodfellow Field at San Angelo, Texas to train students in P-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing-Stearman Model 75 primary trainer aircraft], but the base was soon closed, and he was sent to Randolph Field, at Universal City, Texas to yet another training command in PT-17s and AT-6s [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft]. Callender said he couldn't get out of instructing, so he resigned his commission as a lieutenant colonel, and went home in 1950. He wanted to mention that the Allies did not have air superiority until after the fall of Africa. Escort fighters always stayed with their bombers. But after Doolittle [Annotator's Note: later US Air Force General James H. Doolittle] took over, Callender said, fighters could "chase 'em" [Annotator's Note: the American fighter pilots were allowed to chase after any enemy fighter aircraft they encountered]. Callender accumulated four victories. His biggest thrill was shooting at down a Do-217 [Annotator's Note: German Dornier Do-217 Fliegender Bleislift or Flying Pencil heavy bomber]. It was on his second mission in Sicily. Callender was flying right under clouds when the German bomber appeared and Callender gave chase. He was being "peppered pretty good," so he shot out the bomber's rear gun, then set the cockpit on fire. He was working on a second one when his guns jammed and he had to return to base. Callender said from then on, he tangled with whatever he could. He noted that in China, he never saw a Japanese airplane in the sky, although he occasionally saw some on the ground. He goes on to describe the methods used to sweep railroad yards and shows the interviewer a book that recounts the entire history of the fighter group he served with in England [Annotator's Note: in England Callender flew with the 308th Fighter Squadron, 31st Fighter Group, 8th Air Force].

Alvin Callender went from second lieutenant to captain, and was appointed Operations Officer of the 308th Squadron [Annotator's Note: 308th Fighter Squadron, 31st Fighter Group, 12th Air Force] while he was in Africa. After his major was shot down over Sicily, he was running the show until a replacement could be named; he was offered a promotion to major if he would stay another six months, but he had flown 127 missions, and was ready to go home. Callender reviewed his service in the fighters, and said he loved dive-bombing. His flying career actually started with civilian pilot training in 1940; he was already in the military when the war broke out. He lacked 12 hours to get his degree in science and agronomy at Southwestern Louisiana Institute [Annotator's Note: now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in Lafayette, Louisiana], but he didn't want to be drafted. Callender said he knew he "didn't want to walk it, didn't want to swim it, he wanted to fly" the war. So while he was working a summer job in Jackson, Mississippi, he signed up, and was sent to Little Rock, Arkansas where he was inducted on 10 July 1941 as an aviation cadet. He went to boot camp at Thunderbird Field in Phoenix, Arizona, and was commissioned a second lieutenant. He continued his training at Bakersfield, California then went back to Phoenix for advanced flight training. Callender served 15 months out of headquarters in Kunming, China and was there for both V-E Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] and V-J Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. Among his fellow pilots, he had the highest number of points and could have gone home, but he told his commanding officer that he wanted to, "Stay until this thing is over." After he returned to the United States, he was training fresh pilots, and stayed in the service until 1950 when he retired from the Army Air Corps at Randolph Field in Universal City, Texas.

Recalling when his aircraft was hit over Tunis, Tunisia, Alvin Callender said he was in combat with German Focke-Wulf fighter aircraft when his superchargers were going in and out, and his engine failed. He had jettisoned the plane's canopy and dropped his wheels, and was ready to bail. But he was over German territory and didn't want to eat sauerkraut and wieners for the rest of his life, so he kept gliding. He decided to try to reach an American field hospital in the area, and idled down onto a beautiful wheat field. British half-tracks picked him up and he checked out fine, and started the first leg of his trip back to his home base riding in an ambulance. Along the way, he saw an observation plane in a field, pulled rank, and was flown immediately back to his base. The only time he actually bailed out was in flying school at Luke Field in Phoenix, Arizona. He had a mid-air collision with his instructor during bad weather, and parachuted into the dessert where he was recovered by a plane from base. He had to report to the review board, and was afraid he wouldn't get his commission, but everything worked out all right. He remembered another time when his aircraft was "shot up pretty bad" by ack-ack [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] and the plane's canvas wings were full of holes. He talked about the time in China when he flew a surgeon in to operate on a CIA agent whose appendix had burst and gangrene had set in. Two weeks later, they brought him home. In China, Callender said, the 311th Fighter Group had three squadrons that could field 30 planes at maximum strength. Callender called the P-51 [Annotator's Note: North Amwerican P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] a "dream ship." It had a 1,000 pound bomb under each wing; it was maneuverable; and, it was fast. The newer models had a Merlin Roles-Royce engine. Callender said, "Man, we could go." On his last mission he flew lead on 20 planes that were ferried from India to give to the Chinese at Shanghai. As an aside, he noted that the Chinese underground "stuck their necks out" bringing pilots out of enemy territory, but he didn't like training the Chinese pilots.

The bases where Alvin Calendar served were often under attack by the enemy. He spent many a night in an air raid shelter. He regretted to tell the story of one raid when he was on patrol and his wingman was shot down by friendly ground fire. He also told the story of being run out of a field near Kasserine Pass. He was sleeping in a former German dugout when the field was attacked at about four in the morning. The shelling started, and the airmen ran to their planes and began strafing the German and Italian columns that were approaching. Afterward they had to land at a field about 90 miles further back. For the remainder of his interview, Callender spoke about other raids and the American pilots' response. He praised the maintenance crews that kept their aircraft in good working order.