Cary Salter was born in December 1921 near Macon, Mississippi. His father was a country doctor. They lived seven miles out of town. When he was five years old, he saw a man land a plane in the field across from their house and this sparked his interest in flying. He has two sisters and a brother. He graduated high school in 1939. His father let him take flying lessons from a World War One pilot [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918]. He went to Mississippi State University [Annotator’s Note: in Starkville, Mississippi] to take engineering courses and he took some civilian flying courses. Next, he went to work in Tennessee. Then he started taking night classes at Vanderbilt University [Annotator’s Note: in Nashville, Tennessee] where he started taking advanced pilot training for civilians. After Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], they were told they needed to sign up to be pilots. Salter was working on river barges after the attack had happened. They floated them down the Mississippi River to New Orleans [Annotator’s Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He reported for cadet classification in Nashville, then he was sent to Florida.

Cary Salter went to Florida for flight training. He graduated as a second lieutenant in 1943. [Annotator’s Note: Salter describes the planes he flew in the civilian training program and then in the Army Air Corps.] After he graduated, he was granted leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and he went home before going to Venice, Florida. While there, he flew a P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] which was one of the newer combat planes. Others were flying the P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] in China. By the time they went into the war, they started flying their missions in the P-40s. When Salter went overseas, he was put into a P-51 group [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. They went to a reconnaissance school. Salter was kept as an instructor. With his last class, he went overseas. They were sent to a replacement depot in England for a month. They were then sent to a P-51 fighter group in Paris [Annotator’s Note: Paris, France] in December 1944. He had married in June 1944. He had his 23rd birthday there. Salter flew on Christmas day. He did a test flight in a P-47 on New Year's Day.

Cary Salter flew 10 missions in early January and February [Annotator’s Note: presumably of 1944]. Many of the missions were dive bombing with the P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft]. Sometimes they were assigned targets and sometimes they went out looking for targets. Salter got to fly back to England to pick up a new P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. Salter was glad he could see the other guys because he would have gotten lost. Salter was able to have five extra days on break because of bad weather. He got back on the last day of March. On a mission to Germany, they encountered some German fighters. Salter shot down one of the fighters. They chased another plane all around before shooting it down. They shot three planes down in total on that mission. They saw several more planes when Salter’s wingman ran out of ammunition. His wingman got three and Salter got two and damaged a third.

Cary Salter was in a dogfight when his wing was hit. It flipped the plane over. He went to pull out and nothing happened. He had to get the plane up to 120 miles per hour in order to pull out. He had to return to the base. He had to make a long, slow approach to land. His propeller hit the ground and the plane bounced. He had to bail out of the plane. It was so badly damaged that they had to give him a new plane. He flew missions every day. He was in the 354th Fighter Group [Annotator’s Note: 353rd Fighter Squadron, 354th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force]. They trained in P-39s [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Aerocobra fighter aircraft] and then when they got to England they flew in P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. In December 1943, Salter was finishing up his fighter school. They were based north of Normandy [Annotator’s Note: Normandy, France] in a small town called Cricqueville. When Salter was flying, the windows came loose and hit him in the forehead. He had to have 14 stitches. He was in the hospital for 10 days. When he got out he was sent home. He had to land with one eye. The P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] was a big airplane. The P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] was harder to fly. He trained down in Florida. The landing gear went down if they pulled the handles down.

Cary Salter did not dread going overseas. He was in a group with a good bunch of guys. A lot of them ended up being high-scoring aces. They had flown a mission from France and landed a little bit west of Frankfurt [Annotator’s Note: Frankfurt, Germany] which was the first mission staged from east of the Rhine River. One of the guys ahead of him was shot down and killed. Then Salter got hit, and his map went behind him. He had no map and no radio. When he found Frankfurt, he knew how to get home from there. He is not sure how the war changed him. He thinks people should know all the wars we were in. He was involved with the reserves during the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. He thinks museums are good. He likes to go to reunions.