Edward J. Nickerson, Jr. was born in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] in July 1920. His father was a typesetter. His mother was born in Illinois. [Annotator's Note: Nickerson's wife comes in and offers tea.] When Nickerson was in high school, someone mentioned the CPT [Annotator's Note: Civilian Pilot Training Program]. He signed up and went to ground school. He did his flying in Joliet [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] in a J-3 Cub [Annotator's Note: Piper J-3 Cub light observation aircraft]. From then on, he loved it. He got his civilian license in 1942. Nickerson was in a friend's home when he heard about 7 December [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. It did not mean a great deal at the time. He enlisted the following November [Annotator's Note: November 1942]. He has forgotten the day-to-day of signing up. He still went through all of the flying schools. His primary was at Sikeston, Missouri in PT-19s [Annotator’s Note: Fairchild PT-19 primary trainer aircraft]; basic was in Independence, Kansas in BT-9s [Annotator's Note: North American BT-9 basic trainer aircraft]; and advanced training was in Eagle Pass, Texas in AT-6s [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft]. He then went to Bergstrom Air Force Base outside of Austin [Annotator's Note: Austin, Texas] and flew DC-3s [Annotator's Note: Douglas DC-3; the civilian variant of the C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. In Indiana, he picked up his aircraft and flew to England. They stopped in Maine, Greenland, Iceland, and Scotland, before final in England. In Iceland, he landed out of the fog and another aircraft crossed right in front of them. As they pulled in, an A-20 [Annotator's Note: Douglas A-20 Havoc medium bomber] had piled up right on the airfield. This was early 1944. [Annotator's Note: Nickerson's wife brings tea to the interviewer and they have some conversations.]

[Annotator's Note: Edward Nickerson flew across the Atlantic and landed in Scotland in early 1944.] Edward Nickerson dropped the aircraft off at Grantham, England. He then went to Chalgrove [Annotator's Note: Chalgrove Airfield, England] to the Pathfinders. He loved that area. He had a motorcycle and he would go into Oxford [Annotator's Note: Oxford, England]. The main street there was made of rubber. He had a girlfriend there. He returned in 1974 with his wife and went to Sunderland, England. He saw a sign that said, "E. Nickerson" and he went in to meet them. He thinks he was in the 4th Pathfinder Squadron [Annotator’s Note: unable to verify unit designation]. There were four. [Annotator's Note: Nickerson tells the interviewer of someone who may they know and says he went into Bastogne, Belgium with a Lester Voss. He gets up to show the interviewer his missions.] They did not have daily or weekly missions. [Annotator's Note: The tape stops and restarts with Nickerson sitting down.] He flew resupply missions, dropped paratroopers, or pulled gliders. He had no preference. He had a crew. When he went to England, he flew with Boyd Rogey from Wisconsin. His navigator was Jones [Annotator's Note: no given name provided] from Pennsylvania. The radio operator was Goodwin [Annotator's Note: no given name provided] and the crew chief was Lenig [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling and no given name provided]. They had not trained for their types of missions until they got to England. He does not remember his first mission. He arrived just after D-Day [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] at the end of June 1944. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer says he flew a supply mission to Bastogne, Belgium but he says he did not.] He flew paratroopers to Bastogne, the 101st Airborne [Annotator's Note: 101st Airborne Division] or maybe the 82nd [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division].

Edward Nickerson remembers little black puffs of smoke on a mission when they were shooting at him. He remembers Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. He also flew a glider mission and then another over the Rhine River that he vaguely remembers. He flew six missions: one glider, two paratroopers, and three resupplies. The pilot in the left seat is in command. The navigator and both pilots kept an eye on the drop zone. He flew in both positions at different times. The crew chief took care of any damage from bullets. They would debrief after each mission. Some of them would get a snort [Annotator's Note: shot of alcohol] to take care of their shakes. Jim Murphy was killed in accident. Nickerson heard about it. He heard nothing about O'Connor or Phillips [Annotator's Note: unable to identify either]. It was like losing a friend. It was sad. They flew different aircraft as assigned. He flew the C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. He loved it, it was a forgiving aircraft. He also flew C-54s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster cargo aircraft], and then B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber]. He got about 25 hours in a T-bird [Annotator's Note: likely Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star jettrainer aircraft] for his jet indoctrination. After the war, he was sent to Wichita Falls [Annotator's Note: Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas] to fly them. He went to school at Chanute [Annotator's Note: Chanute Air Force Base, Champaign County, Illinois], which was nice for him, because he could see his mother on weekends. He wrote letters to her from the war. His father passed away while he was overseas. He had cancer. When he was not flying missions, he flew as much as he could on training flights. He got out and went back in and his AFSC, Air Force Specialty Code, was Maintenance. He went to maintenance school. He spent a year in Japan with F-84s [Annotator's Note: Republic F-84 Thunderjet jet fighter aircraft] then worked on F-86s [Annotator's Note: North American F-86 Sabre jet fighter aircraft] in Waco, Texas.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer says that Edward Nickerson was on the O-Nine Six, Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft serial number 42-93096, that The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana had just purchased.] He recalls that the Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] mission was early morning. He does not recall where he flew from. The Pathfinders were moved from England down to Chartres [Annotator's Note: Chartres, France]. At Bastogne, there was snow on the ground. When the heaters are working, they had heat. He wore a flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] jacket. C-47 heaters were pretty good though. He thinks they flew through flak at Bastogne. On a resupply mission, you are not shot at. In France, he visited cathedrals and he remembers the Chartres Cathedral. He went through Notre Dame with his French girlfriend. He was in Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France], near the Eifel Tower in a bar on V-E Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. The Champs de Élysées [Annotator's Note: Avenue des Champs-Élysées] was elbow-to-elbow and a P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] flew right down the Champs. Everyone celebrated. He vaguely remembers coming home.

[Annotator's Note: Edward Nickerson came home after Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945. The interviewer asks him if he was going to be sent to Japan.] That happened after he got with the Field Training Wing. He came back and got out for a year or so and then reenlisted. He went to the Field Training Wing and then spent a year in Saudi Arabia. He shook the hand of Ibn Saud [Annotator’s Note: Abdulaziz ibn Abdul Rahman ibn Faisal ibn Turki ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al Saud, the first King and founder of modern Saudi Arabia]. That was a nice tour. He had gone to Supply School and was in the materiel business. He always got along well with all the pilots. They hung out at the pub a lot. They did not do much formation flying other than when he was towing gliders. Resupply missions are on their own with just one aircraft. For gliders there were usually three aircraft at the same altitude. Their aircraft were not named like the fighters and bombers. They usually flew different aircraft and they did not carry sidearms. He did carry a Beretta [Annotator's Note: pistol] on the streets of Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] once. He did do some gunnery from towers. He did get an hour in the P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. That was great. They did not carry an escape and evasion kit that he remembers. The Gooney Birds [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] very rarely got shot down.

Edward Nickerson flew home from England to Bangor, Maine. He vaguely remembers coming home. His mother met him. His father was not living. It was easy to adjust to civilian life. He went back to school for one semester. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer breaks to look at pictures and do some scanning]. Before a mission is planned, someone has to go in and establishes the drop zone and communications. That is what the Pathfinders did. Nickerson did not do that job. He just dropped after the zone was established. Nickerson was not concerned with being shot up over Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. He parked the airplane and that was the last he saw of it. It was the crew chief's responsibility to take care of that. He would be concerned with his area. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer mentions him meeting Lester Vose at a reunion and asks what they chatted about.] They did not chat a great deal. He feels he should have talked to him a little more about Bastogne. He is looking forward to future reunions. He and his wife had a great time at this one. [Annotator's Note: Nickerson gets a globe and looks to find the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik]. There was a smoldering pile of aircraft there when he landed. The weather was bad. There was generally good weather in Europe when he was flying. The navigator did it all. The pilots did dead reckoning.