Bernard Peters was born in March 1923 in Oakland, Oregon. He had two older brothers and two younger sisters. His father was a farmer who raised grain and sheep. His father passed away when Peters was 10 years old. He was raised in Los Angeles [Annotator’s Note: Los Angeles, California]. He walked to school during the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s]. Sometimes they had no shoes. He was on the harmonica team in grammar school. He sang in the Glee Club in high school and in college. His brother had a paper route. On one Sunday during the Depression, they found out that they ate their pet rabbit for dinner. Peters and his brother sold Christmas trees during the holiday season. A friend drove up to their tree lot and told them Pearl Harbor had been bombed [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. His older brother was in the service in 1936 in Hawaii. Peters went to Los Angeles City College and was then employed by the government. He went downtown to take the aviation cadet exam. He wanted to join the Army Air Corps. He went to the draft board and asked to be drafted.

Bernard Peters was sent to Kern, Utah for basic training. They were in tar paper barracks. They went through a snowstorm. He was sent to Washington to start his aviation program. He slept in a dorm room. They took classes there that were allied to flying such as engines, weather, and navigation. Next, they went through classification. Peters was selected to go through pilot training. [Annotator’s Note: Peters talks about his job before enlisting.] The primary training for pilots was in Glendale, Arizona. He trained in a bi-plane with an open cockpit. When they went upside down, his seatbelt came undone and he had to brace himself. Then they went to California for single-engine training. He graduated from advanced training on 27 June 1944. He got married three days later. They went to Georgia for a few more months of training and then were sent to Virginia where they boarded a troop ship.

Bernard Peters still has some of the daily news sheets they put out regarding the war. They had to zig-zag [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] across the ocean because of the German U-boats [Annotator's Note: German submarines]. When they got to Naples [Annotator’s Note: Naples, Italy], they were served a meal by German and prisoners and some Italians. Peters started his first mission in January 1945. He flew 49 missions in Italy. Many of their missions targeted railroads, bridges, and ammunition dumps. They were nicknamed “Bridge Busters”. [Annotator’s Note: Peters describes some of the bridges they targeted.] The Germans had 88 mm guns [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] in the area. They were putting up a lot of flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. Peters' plane was hit in the wing, barely missing the gas tank. The plane next to them went down. Only five parachutes came out of the plane. The pilot and copilot went to the side of the mountain. Peters had to check the plane before going in. Only the left brake worked when they landed. They went up over the end of the runway and through the barbed wire fence and came to a stop in the vineyard. The plane did not catch fire. They put a new wing on it and patched 140 holes. When they returned to the United States, they were given a month off. Peters went home to his wife. Then he was sent to South Carolina. The war was over in Europe [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945], but they thought they would need the planes in the Pacific where the war was still being fought against the Japanese.

On his 49th mission in Italy, Bernard Peters dropped leaflets. They were written in German on one side and Italian on the other informing people that the war was over. They would drop anti-personnel bombs in a side-by-side formation. They knocked out bridges where the ferry boats would land. After his 32nd mission, he got a three-day rest in a camp in Rome [Annotator’s Note: Rome, Italy]. This was during the time they were moving closer to the front line. They flew the planes to Naples, Italy on the southern route. On the runway, they could not see the other planes over the hill. The B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] were hidden. Then they flew across the ocean to Brazil and on to Puerto Rico. The food was generally good. They were supposed to go to Savannah, Georgia, but could take an alternate route to Miami, Florida. They had to go through customs. The crew took the bags to be checked. Then Peters went to get checked in to go to Savannah. Sometimes they would take the bread in their jackets and put the bread on a makeshift toaster. They were given C rations [Annotator's Note: prepared and canned wet combat food] on the longer missions. They converted their stove to gasoline. They had a 50-gallon drum they used for water. They had to heat the water on the stove. They would practice shooting their revolvers. They got in trouble one day because a local farmer complained to the colonel. They enjoyed the movies that were sent over.

Bernard Peters lost his hearing completely in one ear so he had to get out of the service. He went to work for a stationary company as a trainee in sales. [Annotator’s Note: Peters describes the work he was doing.] He lived in Los Angeles [Annotator’s Note: Los Angeles, California]. Peters chose not to use 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] when he found out he and his wife were having their first son. Peters’ older brother was shot down flying out of North Africa to Naples, Italy. His second brother flew 32 missions out of England in B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] as a bombardier.