[Annotator's Note: Video glitches several times throughout this segment.] Bernard Kofsky was born in Brooklyn, New York in August 1924. His father worked in manufacturing factories 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]. His fathered traveled and relocated the family several times. Kofsky had three siblings. He did not suffer during the Depression, and he never went hungry. His father purchased a beer garden that became so popular, the Mafia "confiscated" the business. Kofsky was 17 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. It came to a great surprise to him. He did not know where Pearl Harbor was. It was a horrible day. Kofsky knew that he would be drafted, so he decided to volunteer during his senior year of high school in March 1943. He and his friend went bar hopping the day before their induction. The next morning, they boarded a train that took them to Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Trenton, New Jersey]. They lived in a tent with a pot belly stove and were evaluated. He and his friend eventually were separated. The training was hard. The military asked men to volunteer for "home battalion" which Kofsky thought might be interesting. He soon learned that it was a trash detail. After a week of testing and evaluations, he was shipped to Atlantic City, New Jersey for basic training. He marched and drilled on the boardwalk. He lived in a hotel with hot running water. He was then assigned to KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police] duty and hated it because he had to peel potatoes for thousands for troops. He trained with rifles at the sand dunes. He was then shipped to Brooking, South Dakota. He learned how to type for a month. Although he passed the course, he did not enjoy it very much. He was then shipped to California on a sleeper car. He was one of few soldiers there and his superior was very nice. Because Kofsky was a clerk, he typed up his own furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] but was denied. He was assigned to the gym at the base. He and other guys started a softball league. He did not have a driver's license but drove a jeep around the base. He volunteered to drive a truck in a convoy. One day he was given orders to pick up the mail. While he drove between a building and a tree, he hit part of the truck on a tree branch.

[Annotator's Note: Video glitches several times throughout this segment.] Bernard Kofsky enlisted in the Army but decided to take a pilot's test. He flunked but decided to go to gunnery school instead. Gunnery training was very dangerous. First, he was taught to shoot a machine gun on the ground. He was then taken up in a plane and had to shoot at a sleeve pulled by a plane. He was sent to Las Vegas [Annotator's Note: Las Vegas, Nevada] to continue his target training with a shot gun. His had to shoot at skeets [Annotator's Note: clay targets] while standing on a moving truck. He and his friends snuck out of the base to go to the Golden Nugget Casino [Annotator's Note: in Las Vegas, Nevada] and the local rodeo. He was shipped to Oklahoma where he was an assigned to a crew as a tail gunner. He then trained with his crew [Annotator's Note: 94th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force]. While he was on a mission [Annotator's Note: during the war], he saw a German jet for the first time. In the mission debriefing, he said he saw "white puffs." His commander told him that he saw the newest type a plane, a jet. The flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] was terrible. It was like going through a steel curtain. He could hear "ping" sounds as it hit the plane. He felt blessed that he was never hit. The British were great people and persevered by holding back the Germans. The British were stubborn through the whole war. They were bombed continuously and still fought against the enemy. He was having dinner at a girl's house in England and had to go to an air raid shelter. He was overseas from November 1943 through 1945. His crew completed 35 missions. Around his 24th mission he contracted pneumonia [Annotator's Note: an infection of one or both lungs] and was hospitalized. His crew finished the last 11 missions without him. When they completed their missions, they went back home, while Kofsky remained in the hospital recovering from his illness. After he left the hospital, he went on three more missions with other crews. During the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], the weather conditions were terrible, and they could not fly. The military was asking crewmen to volunteer for infantry. Kofsky did not volunteer. He knew it was bad because his brother was a medic on the front lines. The Germans began to slack off as the war progressed. The bombers were bombing every production facility including ball bearing factories. Americans were bombing during the day and the British were bombing at night. The flak increased during their bomb raids. The worse was going to Homburg, Germany because the flak was so bad. On his very first mission, he had to abort because his plane was having engine trouble. They plane had to fly back to base by themselves and went through flak. They finally met a P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] to support them.

Bernard Kofsky's [Annotator's Note: with the 94th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] worst mission was in Schweinfurt [Annotator's Note: Schweinfurt, Germany]. Every time he went on a mission, he had to tie a towel to his bed so the orderly would wake him up early in the morning. He was fed a fresh breakfast, then was briefed about where his target was located. The commander explained how to get there and how to get out. They also told everyone what to do if they got in trouble. Everyone hated missions to Schweinfurt because it was deep into Germany. Those missions were very dangerous due to the heavy flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. Many planes went down. Planes disintegrated next to him. One of his crew members got hit by flak while trying to dislodge bombs from the bomb bay. Somehow, he was able to dislodge the bombs and when the crew landed back at base, his crewman went to the hospital. He hated wearing oxygen masks because they froze up all the time. He contracted pneumonia [Annotator's Note: an infection of one or both lungs] near the end of his overseas deployment. Kofsky often sent clues home about his mission through the mail. He wore special clothing to keep him warm in the plane. When he urinated while on the plane, it would immediately freeze. He never brought food with him on his deep missions. He flew a total of 26 missions before the war in Europe ended. Immediately he was shipped back to the United States on a ship. He enjoyed his trip home much better than his voyage to Europe. On his voyage to Europe, he boarded an English ship called the Dominion Monarch [Annotator's Note: the QSMV Dominion Monarch]. The food was horrible, and he had to eat out of his mess kits. He was served mutton. He was on the ship for two weeks because the ship had to zigzag [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver]. He slept in a rope hammock at the bottom of the ship and did not like the saltwater showers. The voyage back to America was glorious. There were Germans on the ship that served him food. He gambled the whole voyage. He sold his .45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] and his painted flight jacket. Not long after he arrived in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York], the Japanese surrendered, and World War 2 ended. He was on the New York subway when he heard the news. He was discharged from the service in October 1945 as a staff sergeant. He took advantage of 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] and went to mechanic school. He also took the 52-20 benefit [Annotator's Note: a government-funded program that paid unemployed veterans 20 dollars per week for 52 weeks]. In 1950 he got married. The war changed his life. Kofsky became more self-sufficient. There should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and they should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations because it is a history lesson.