Francis Neilson was born in October 1925 in Tacoma, Washington. His parents divorced when he was a toddler, and his mother's two successive marriages meant that he moved around quite a bit. And, he was growing up during the Great Depression, which made times even harder. Neilson said it was "a kind of liberation" to go into the armed forces. He volunteered for the Air Corps and was inducted in February 1944 at Fort Lewis, Washington. He completed basic training in Laredo, Texas, where sand permeated everything. He had a short furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], then went to Las Vegas, Nevada for a very primitive form of aerial gunnery training. He remembered that then, unlike today, going into town provided only minimal entertainment. Next he went to Sioux City, Iowa where he became acquainted with the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. While there, he made some friends and advanced in rank to Private First Class. There were already more fighter pilots than needed. Tests showed that Neilson had an aptitude for gunnery so he was sent to Lincoln, Nebraska, where his first ten man crew was formed, and because he was rather tall, he was assigned to the tail gun position. He joked that he flew the whole war backwards. He occupied a rear turret and sat on what looked like a bicycle seat, with his legs curled under. He operated two .50 caliber guns and had a big wooden box behind each shoulder that fed links of ammunition into the guns. At high altitude, his view presented the vapor trails created by the four engines, and reminded him of the billowing dust that a car kicked up while traveling on a dirt road.

Among the many things Francis Neilson learned in Lincoln, Nebraska was that oxygen was a good cure for a hangover. In the fall of 1944, the crew was issued a new B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] that they flew in stages to Greenland; then to the Azores; then to Marrakesh [Annotator's Note: Marrakesh, Morocco], North Africa, and on to their air base at Foggia, Italy. When Neilson's crew arrived, their new plane was appropriated, and they flew on various older aircraft. For a while, the crewmembers were split up so they could go on missions with experienced personnel, but they were soon reunited. The men lived in an olive grove, in six man tents that had dirt floors and were heated with barrel bottoms that were fed with aviation fuel. Food was adequate but the airmen would sometimes trade cigarettes from their K-rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals] for fresh eggs with the local farmers, which they would cook in their mess kits over an outside fire. Neilson thought that was "fun." They also cooked chickens they snatched from the Italian prisoners of war who worked in the mess hall, just for a change of menu. Most of the airmen had rank, so that if they were shot down, they got better treatment from the Germans. The men played darts in the non-commissioned officers club, and kept pets for amusement.

Defying orders, Francis Neilson took pictures and kept a journal of his flights, and later put together a book that, among other things, covered his encounters with the enemy's air force. He talked about the German shortages of pilots and fuel, much of which had been caused by Allied aerial bombing. Describing the American aircraft, "Each plane is bristling with guns," Neilson said, and he did not often have occasion to experience enemy aircraft attacks. But the antiaircraft assaults from the ground could be devastating. On one mission, one of the planes in his squadron [Annotator's Note: 414th Bombardment Squadron, 97th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force] came back to base with a hole in its wing big enough for a person to "drop through." Throughout the 35 missions Neilson flew, only one of his crewmates was wounded. He was hit when flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] came through the aluminum skin of the plane and hit the waist gunner in his back. He bled pretty badly, but he didn't die. Neilson remembers missions over Germany, Yugoslavia and Austria to destroy military targets such as oil refineries, marshaling yards, munitions facilities and ball bearing factories, as well as aircraft sitting on the ground. Neilson found the work exciting, and sometimes frightening. He described wearing a flak vest, and also mentioned the brown skivvies, the "prickly" wool garments, a nylon suit that was electrically wired to keep the airmen warm at high altitude, and the sheepskin jacket and pants. Moving around was cumbersome with all that clothing and the oxygen apparatus. Once out of enemy territory, Neilson could crawl out of the tail and join other members of the crew in the middle of the plane. Neilson goes on to describe the function of the turbochargers, and the technique of "feathering" an engine.

Francis Neilson recalled one mission when one of their engines had gone out over the Adriatic Sea. When the second engine went out, they began losing altitude, and had to fall out of formation. They were past the threat of enemy aircraft, but staying in the air became crucial, and the order came to lighten the load of the plane. They dumped out the ammunition, the guns, and anything else they could tear loose. When they reached land, they had to avoid the shoreline cliffs and landed on one and a half engines. Neilson praised the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] as being "pretty airworthy." He said his 15th Air Force convened with the English 8th Air Force [Annotator's Note: the United States 8th Air Force was based in England] over Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany], and the aircraft performed well. Partway through his tour of duty, he was given leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], and he spent a week in Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy] where he attended an opera, toured the catacombs, and visited the Vatican. He said the locals were friendly, except for the "Fascisti [Annotator's Note: members of an Italian political group that supported Benito Mussolini]," who didn't like the Americans dating their girls. Rome was under blackout orders, and Neilson felt anxious walking the dark streets at night. A lot of his missions were what he called "milk runs" [Annotator's Note: easy missions]. They were not particularly important targets and, therefore, not heavily protected. But his last one, right before VE-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945], was "historical" in his mind. Neilson had accomplished the requisite number of missions, and after spending some time at a replacement depot, what they called a "repo-depot", returned to the United States on a ship. Neilson was discharged in 1945.

When Francis Neilson got back to the United States, the war with Japan was still raging. He had a ten day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], and was asked if he had been a prisoner of war because he was so thin. He was sent to Santa Anna, California to train on the B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] with a view toward assignment in the Pacific. His training had hardly begun when the United States dropped the atomic bombs, and the war was over. Asked if he knew about the concentration camps in Europe, Neilson said he did; in fact, the airmen were issued a "kit" in case they were shot down. The kit included his photograph, and statements in several languages that identified him as an American. He knew that if the Yugoslavian partisans rescued him, they would try to get him back into Allied hands through the underground. He also knew that if he was shot down in Germany or Austria, that the civilians might kill him, and he was safer in the hands of the military. He saw other planes go down, and when there were parachutes, he counted them to report at the debriefing sessions after a mission. He remembered getting a shot of whiskey to "calm the nerves." On one mission, their lead commander was not satisfied with the bomb run and ordered them to go back. At one point they were facing another one of their own planes. They had to duck under to miss it, and Neilson was tossed out of his seat and hit the roof, disconnecting his communications cable. Out of contact, he thought they were going down; he had unlatched his door and had one foot out when the plane straightened out. He plugged his communications back in, and found out they were going to make it. Neilson said there were a lot of risks that didn't involve enemy aircraft or antiaircraft fire.

Although Francis Neilson was a war veteran, he was not yet 21 when he got out of the armed services, and couldn’t get a beer in a tavern. He served in World War 2 because he felt he had no choice; after the war, he declined the offer to continue in the Air Corps, and was discharged as a staff sergeant having served for 22 months. He took advantage of the G.I. Bill and went to a college in Washington called Pacific Lutheran [Annotator's Note: Pacific Lutheran University in Parkland, Washington] for a year. In the summer, the G.I. Bill subsistence stopped, and jobs were scarce. He took odd jobs to cover his expenses, then he went back for a second year of higher education at the College of Puget Sound [Annotator's Note: University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington], but still didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. World War 2 changed his life by liberating him from a dominating mother, and helped him grow up.

Francis Neilson feels it important that there are institutions like The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] and memorials like the one in Washington, D.C. [Annotator's Note: the National World War II Memorial] to preserve and teach the history of an event that saved the American way of life. He feels they could help to avoid future wars. Neilson is a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion and is among the few surviving members who fought in World War 2. He is impressed with the younger veterans and would like to see them treated better. In his later years he tried to reconnect with his own crew members that had scattered around the country, and had some success.