Arnol Sellars was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1924. He lived in Louisiana, Texas, and overseas but Tulsa is home. He went all the way through high school in Tulsa. He had one brother and one sister. He was the oldest. They lived on the northside of town. It was not the best, but they were happy. He grew up during the depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. They froze all the bank accounts at one time. They had a friendly grocer who would see people through. Eventually, they had to pay. Life in Tulsa was good for him. They were not poor but they were not wealthy. He had a lot of friends. He could go for a hike and take his .22 [Annotator's Note: .22 caliber firearm] to shoot rabbits. His parents were loving and took good care of them. He did not know where Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] was. They heard it on the radio. The radio was one of the main sources [Annotator's Note: for news] like the newspapers. They did not know what it meant at the time. Pretty quickly things became rationed. They did not have a supply of rubber so they could not get tires. His father saw that coming and bought a new set of tires to keep in the basement until they needed them. People in their 20s started joining the service. He wanted to join the service too.

Arnol Sellars joined the Air Force Reserve so he could get a deferment [Annotator's Note: postponement of military service] and stay in college. They decided they needed some fresh blood and his deferment ended. He was sent to basic training for the Army Air Corps. He did basic training at Sheppard Field [Annotator’s Note: now Sheppard Air Fore Base in Wichita Falls, Texas] where they learned to march and salute. They got a large number of vaccinations. Sheppard Field is not a pleasant place. He was put in during the winter and it was cold. Two or three people were so depressed they committed suicide. The water tower was painted in a black and white checker pattern so the airplanes could see it and not run into it. One guy climbed up there and jumped off. Everyone else knew they would be shipped out and leave there so they endured it. The trained there for a couple of months then went to the next training station. He then went to Austin College in Sherman, Texas. It was a good education to prepare them for what they needed to do. They learned morse code, were taught navigation, and did a lot of physical training. He was in a queue waiting to get put in an airplane. After Austin College, he went to the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center. When he finally started to fly, he went to Chickasha, Oklahoma [Annotator's Note: Chickasha Field; now Chickasha Municipal Airport in Chickasha, Oklahoma] for primary flight school where they flew the Fairchild PT-19 [Annotator's Note: Fairchild PT-19 primary trainer aircraft] trainer. They learned to fly without any of the advanced stuff for about 65 hours. Then they were sent to Garden City, Kansas [Annotator's Note: Garden City Army Airfield; now Garden City Regional Airport in Garden City, Kansas] which was a basic flight school. They had a bigger airplane. They learned radio work, instrument work, and night flying. That was another 70 hours. Then he went to Victoria, Texas. The Southside was Aloe [Annotator's Note: Aloe Army Airfield near Victoria, Texas] and the Northside was Foster Field [Annotator's Note: Foster Army Air Field; later Foster Air Force Base near Victoria, Texas]. He was there for advanced school. They flew the AT-6 [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft]. It was a wonderful airplane. They improved everything they had learned. They started shooting and learning gunnery. They could express interest [Annotator's Note: in whether they would prefer to to train as a single-engine pilot or multi-engine pilot]. He wanted a single-engine. A lot of it depended on size [Annotator's Note: on the physical size of the individual]. A lot of guys wanted to fly bombers because they could work for the airlines when they got out. They graduated in Victoria. They got a ten day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to go home and strut around in their officer's uniforms. Then they came back and learned to fly fighters. They flew P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] like the Flying Tigers [Annotator's Note: the First American Volunteer Group of the Republic of China Air Force composed of American airmen and ground crew]. They had a lot of fun and they crashed a lot of them. He never wrecked one, but he could have. It was a handful after the AT-6. He went to join a replacement unit in Abilene, Texas. It was a big P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] training school. They taught them everything they needed to know. They got 140 hours of flying time. It was an easy plane to fly. He solo flew that plane at 19 years old.

Arnol Sellars went overseas to Italy to join a fighter squadron. When he got there, he had a lot more time on the P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] than the regular members of the squadron. They had been flying P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft]. They took them away and gave them the new P-47s. When he showed up, they only had about 50 hours of flying time in the P-47s. He had 150 hours in it. They kept jumping around airports. He started out in a Roman village named Tarquinia [Annotator's Note: Tarquinia, Italy]. Then they moved up to Pontedera [Annotator's Note: Pontedera, Italy], near Florence [Annotator's Note: Florence, Italy]. He flew from there until they got ready to cross the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River in Germany]. He was in the 522nd Fighter Squadron, 27th Fighter Group [Annotator's Note: 522nd Fighter Squadron, 27th Fighter Group, 12th Air Force]. They had three other groups stationed very close to them. They were at Pontedera and another group was at Pisa [Annotator's Note: Pisa, Italy]. They had that country flooded with P-47s. Some historians and archeologists in Italy are identifying crashed aircraft and notifying the families of the deceased. They asked Sellars to assist them with contacting some of the families. Their targets were bridges and rail lines. He flew in Italy until January 1945. He had gotten there in October 1944. The flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] was terrible. He never saw a German airplane in the air. They had a couple of guys get some victories. They were mainly blowing up real estate. After that, he went to France. The senior guys flew planes over. He ended up having to go with the ground detachment on trucks. They went to a harbor just north of Pisa where they loaded onto LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank]. They landed at Marseille [Annotator's Note: Marseille, France]. The airbase they were going to be stationed at was not too far from Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. It was a good airfield with concrete runways. They would get requests to have a pilot go with the infantry. He was called "Rover Joe". When they [Annotator's Note: the infantry] needed air support, he [Annotator's Note: the pilot traveling with the infantry] could show them [Annotator's Note: pilots supporting the ground troops] exactly what he wanted them to bomb. He would shoot smoke on it. He would not ask them to do something they could not. Flak was the main source of their casualties. He did see a German plane one time. It was a 163 [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Me-163 Komet rocket-powered fighter aircraft] rocket plane that shot up through the bomber formation and then, when it ran out of fuel, went back down through the bomber group. There were up for 30 minutes max. It came by like a 4th of July [Annotator's Note: Independence Day in the United States] skyrocket. The various headquarters were getting publicity conscious. They would say how many missions they had. They wanted more sorties per day than the single daily missions being flown at the time. They did not have any more 500 pound bombs so they were told to use their guns on targets. They took an eight ship group out in two flights of four. All four aircraft in the flight he was in were shot down. They must have gone over an antiaircraft training school. Sellars' plane was hit in the radiator. A radiator on a P-47 hung down under the nose. The nose was not round, it was oblong. The bottom half was the radiator and the oil cooler. He got hit in the oil cooler and all the oil fell out. He turned around and headed back to the lines, but he could not get there. The engine froze. He was gliding down out of the clouds when he was hit again and part of his wing was blown off. When he bailed out, he hit his leg on the tail and broke it. The Germans came and picked him up. They treated him very nicely. It was 2 April 1945. He was scared at 20 years old. He looked like he was 16 years old. They knew things were bad. They put him in a MASH [Annotator's Note: Mobile Army Surgical Hospital] unit up in the hayloft of a barn. They got the debris out of his leg, gave him antibiotics, and bandaged him up. He could look down the hayloft and see the town was under bombardment by the Americans. They were shooting the big stuff. All of a sudden, a building would jump into the air and then it would turn into a pile of bricks. They put him in an ambulance and took him to a regular hospital. He stayed there until the town was liberated. They did not have much food. He ate a lot of rabbit and cabbage. There was an infantryman there, but he died from his wounds. He was the only American in the German civilian hospital. Once in a while, they [Annotator's Note: the Germans] would get a bottle of beer and they would give him some. They all wanted to speak English. He wanted to learn some German, but they would not talk to him in German. The physical therapist who came to work on his left ankle helped him learn a little bit of German. He got good treatment.

Arnol Sellars was in the hospital when President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] died. They [Annotator's Note: the Germans] thought they won because he died. The Germans were nice to Sellars. He got a couple of letters from them after the war. He got repatriated through a series of MASH [Annotator's Note: Mobile Army Surgical Hospital] units. He ended up in Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] on VE-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. The town went nuts and he could not walk. The guys went outside and had stars in their eyes. They were giving out free drinks. The air guys went out and set off all their flares in the sky over Paris. It was like the 4th of July [Annotator's Note: Independence Day in the United States]. They put him on a plane and flew him to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey [Annotator's Note: Camp Kilmer in Piscataway Township, New Jersey and Edison Township, New Jersey]. They gave him the choice of which hospital he could recuperate in. He chose the one in Oklahoma. His leg never worked right but he can get along with it. It got good enough that he joined the National Guard and he was able to fly again. He received his discharge in late 1945. He joined the Guard in 1947 when his leg was healed because he was in school and had gotten married and he needed money. The Guard paid a Captain 240 dollars every three months. He was living 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]. That was big money. He stayed in the Guard until the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] started. He was reactivated for that. By that time he had children. They passed a law when he was at the airbase in Louisiana that said if you were a prisoner of war in World War 2, you have been involuntarily recalled, and you had four dependents you could get out. He had all of those things. He applied and he got out. A lot of his squadron members did not have that exemption. They went over there and they got killed. They left wives with two kids. He never felt guilty about his decision. He is talking about 75 years ago. He does not think it is important to anyone anymore. There have been many movies made about the war. Saving Private Ryan [Annotator's Note: 1998 film directed by Steven Spielberg] is the most realistic. It shows you how it really was. There are several aviation movies, like the Memphis Belle [Annotator’s Note: 1990 film directed by Michael Caton-Jones].