Charles Watkins Adair was born in Dora, Alabama in 1923. His family moved a lot during the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s]. His father and uncle owned a coal mining business. They signed a contract to provide coal for the railroad. The railroad canceled the contract due to the Depression in 1930. Adair sold a magazine called Liberty Magazine and he had a paper route when he was 10 years old. When he was 14 years old, he worked at a grocery store. It was 10 cents to see a movie. He had two sisters and a brother. They did not notice if anyone was worse off because everyone was in the same situation. When he was a senior in high school he went to work in the mines. He carried supplies underground. He worked from three to seven in the mornings, then went to school, and then back to work from three to seven in the afternoons. He made 52 cents an hour. On 8 December [Annotator's Note: 1941], Adair and a friend went to Birmingham [Annotator's Note: Birmingham, Alabama] to join the Navy. His friend was color blind so they would not let him in, and Adair decided if his friend could not join the Navy he would not either. After that, he went to join the Marine Corps. The recruiter told him he had to get a pass from the Draft Board. He went to the Draft Board and did not get the pass because they had already sent out his draft notice.

Charles Watkins Adair went into the infantry in the signal corps [Annotator's Note: US Army Signal Corps, after being drafted in 1943]. He did basic training in the infantry. Then he went to civilian radio school in Kansas City [Annotator's Note: Kansas City, Missouri]. He went through training at Camp Crowder, Missouri [Annotator's Note: later Fort Crowder in Neosho, Missouri]. Radio school took five months. Adair met a team of men in the Air Corps. He then joined the Air Corps. He tried to join before, but they would not take him because he had a speech impediment. He stuttered, and when he first joined the service, they told him he did not have to go because of his stutter. When he joined the Air Corps they went him to Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri. He spent five months there. Then he went to San Antonio, Texas to Lackland Field [Annotator's Note: now Lackland Air Force Base, part of Joint Base San Antonio in San Antonio, Texas]. They did not think he was fit to fly airplanes. He was sent to Mississippi and Detroit [Annotator's Note: Detroit, Michigan] to learn to be an airplane engine mechanic. Then he was assigned to Malden Air Base in Malden, Missouri to help train aircraft mechanics to go overseas. He wanted to go overseas because his brother was in the Marines, and he had been overseas. When he told his commanding officer, he wanted to go overseas he had two weeks to prepare to leave. Then he was sent to Beaumont Field in Louisville, Kentucky where he worked on C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft]. They had six weeks to get familiar with the C-46s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando transport aircraft]. They flew two four-hour flights a day. After that, Adair went overseas. He was a replacement in the unit he joined. The C-46 was a good airplane. The problem was everything worked off hydraulics. A pilot could not fly without the booster controls. There were always leaks because the heat would crack the seals. Adair made sure when they took off, he had at least 10 gallons of hydraulic fuel with him. He was assigned to the 2nd Combat Cargo Group in the 5th Air Force.

Charles Watkins Adair was sent to Nadzab, New Guinea [Annotator's Note: Nadzab Airfield in Lae, Papua New Guinea with the 2nd Combat Cargo Group, 5th Air Force]. They were hauling aviation fuel up to the Philippine Islands for the fighter planes and the bombers. They hauled it in 55-gallon drums. They flew up from New Guinea to the island of Mendoza [Annotator's Note: unable to identify]. The second time they flew there, the Japanese had bombed the airstrip. They had to go out and make a circle. The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] came back and bombed it a second time. They were running low on fuel, and they needed to land. They had a cabin full of aviation fuel. They had to land in Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines]. The Japanese did not bother them, they were bombing the airstrips. They had fighters with them, P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] and P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. They were there for three or four months then they moved to Biak [Annotator's Note: Biak Island, West New Guinea]. They would fly supplies and troops up to the Philippines. Then they moved to the island of Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines]. They stopped hauling fuel and only hauled personnel and supplies up to the front island and then they would haul the wounded out. They landed at Clark Field [Annotator's Note: now Clark Air Base in Luzon, Philippines] to pick up the wounded and take them to New Guinea to a big hospital. After they landed, they had to hide the planes in the trees because the Japanese were dropping mortars [Annotator's Note: a short smoothbore gun which fires explosive shells at high angles] on the field. Adair did not care to carry patients because if they had to ditch the plane, they would not be able to get them out. They were there for eight or nine months. After that, he went to Naha Strip [Annotator's Note: now Naha Air Base] in Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. This was after the war was over. He was there in October 1945 when a typhoon hit. He did one flight with wounded from Okinawa, otherwise, it was just personnel and supplies. They trained for the invasion of Japan. They were going to drop off the paratroopers and British gliders. They were going to drop supplies and equipment by parachute. He was trained with the 11th Airborne [Annotator's Note: 11th Airborne Division]. They started that training in the Philippines. His best friend was in the 11th Airborne. He trained in Indiana to haul the gliders.

Charles Watkins Adair [Annotator's Note: with the 2nd Combat Cargo Group, 5th Air Force] had a close call at Nichols Field [Annotator's Note: Nichols Field in Luzon, Philippines]. They were supposed to land on a one-way airstrip. There was a strong crosswind that hit the plane. Their left-wing hit an engine on a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. It cut about three feet off the wing. They lost both engines on Naha Strip [Annotator's Note: now Naha Air Base in Okinawa, Japan] after the war. They had just gotten in the air and pulled the wheels up. They came back down in a hurry. They were only shot at by their own Navy. They were flying between islands in the Philippines. They had various colored flares to fire to let them know they were friends. After the war was over, they were flying in Japan and got into some bad weather. They had to go out over Tokyo Bay [Annotator's Note: in Tokyo, Japan], run their fuel out, and ditch in the bay. They had been circling for 45 minutes to an hour. They had to land in Yokohama [Annotator's Note: Yokohama, Japan]. Another time they ran out of runway and lifted off right over the water. They had a radio operator that was in the Philippines on a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] and he hauled Japanese prisoners.

Charles Watkins Adair [Annotator's Note: with the 2nd Combat Cargo Group, 5th Air Force] was on the island of Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines] when he heard the Japanese surrendered. At the time they were stationed in Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines]. They would be gone from their home base for a few days at a time and would sleep under the plane. They heard some machine-gun fire one night. Then some guys came over in a Jeep and were firing a rifle in the air. The Japanese had surrendered. After that, they picked up some paratroopers from Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. When he heard about the points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home], he thought he had enough to get out. He got five points for getting an Air Medal [Annotator's Note: US Armed Forces medal for single acts of heroism or meritorious achievement while in aerial flight]. He grew up. When he left to go into the service he had never been out of Alabama. He had a speech impediment his whole life. When he was at Washington University [Annotator's Note: in Saint Louis, Missouri] he had a professor that wanted to help him with his stutter. He had to keep all his grades above 90 in order to go to the professor's house to get help. He knew he wanted to go to college. He got out of the service in January 1946. He went into the school of engineering at the University of Alabama [Annotator's Note: in Tuscaloosa, Alabama]. That summer he went to work at a steel mill. He started to date his future wife. He did not go back to school in the fall and got married in March 1947. He started night school from 1947 to 1952. He worked 40 hours a week. He had a couple of babies. They did not have a car when he first started school. He worked for an iron company starting in October 1948. In 1972, he was elected president of the stock exchange company. He had a good career. He had the opportunity to go to Harvard Business School [Annotator's Note: at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts] in 1969. He retired in 1989. In 1984, he was asked to go out to California and help with a real-estate deal. He has three children, seven grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.

Charles Watkins Adair wonders if the United States has the will to do what needs to be done today. Back then [Annotator's Note: during the war] they knew it was their duty and they did it. Today he has seen a lot of people who think the world owes them. He got married in 1947 and they did not get a house until 1960. He wishes he would have committed his life to God. Winning the war gave the United States a good reputation. The rest of the world became jealous. You cannot buy friends, and the US keeps throwing money at other countries and they are not the US's friends. The positive aspect of the war was that we [Annotator's Note: Americans] had the will and ability to produce. The US outproduced their enemies. The GI 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] gave many people the opportunity to go to college. He wanted his boys to know what it meant to be tired from physical labor. He wanted them to learn something. This is not seen today. The war taught him a lot. It taught him about sacrifice. There was a chance he could have been killed. He had been at Washington University [Annotator's Note: in Saint Louis, Missouri] less than a month and he was a cadet captain. He had to report to a major. He was introduced to another major who was from Washington, DC. The major told him he was the oldest of four children and then gave his siblings names and his parents' occupations. Then major asked him to write his uncle in Saint Louis, but he did not have an uncle. The major said you do now. Adair had to write him letters describing what he saw and what they talked about. When they were in San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas] one of his classmates was arrested. Adair had written about him, and it turned out he was a German spy. When Adair was in Malden, Missouri he got a telegram that his uncle had died. They should not let people forget because they do not teach about the war in school. He thinks he is here because they dropped the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945].