George F. Mills was born in Spencer, Tennessee in May 1921. His family moved to Rock Island, Tennessee where his father worked in construction building a dam for a Tennessee Power Company. In 1929, the family moved again to Decatur [Annotator's Note: Decatur, Alabama] where Mills has lived since. He was born the youngest of eight children and the only one to join the service during World War 2. His brothers were employed as welders in defense plants throughout the war. His family did not struggle for food or shelter during the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States] and often shared their food with their neighbors. At age 16, Mills got an after-school job with the Western Union telegraph company and worked nightly until 11:00 o'clock at night. He was aware of world events at the time. He often wondered when President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] would declare war. On the afternoon of 7 December 1941 [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], Mills was returning from Selma, Alabama where he had taken a friend to visit his daughter and son-in-law. They stopped at a lunch counter and heard the news of the attack but were unsure what it meant for them as Americans. It was not until Roosevelt's declaration of war on the following day that Mills says he knew the country was in trouble. Just shy of 21 at the time, Mills knew he would be drafted soon. A friend who worked at the draft board told him he would be drafted in a few days. Mills and two friends decided to sign up before being drafted in hopes of being able to stick together. After enlisting and reporting to Fort McClellan [Annotator's Note: in Anniston, Alabama] for induction, Mills never saw his two friends again. Mills chose the Army because "all wars are won by the Army." He was then sent to Camp Livingston, Louisiana [Annotator's Note: Camp Livingston, now part of Kisatchie National Forest, Rapides Parish and Grant Parish, Louisiana] for basic training where Omar Bradley [Annotator's Note: US Army General Omar Nelson Bradley] was stationed with the 28th Division [Annotator's Note: 28th Infantry Division]. After basic and advanced training in Louisiana, Mills was sent to Carrabelle and Dog Island, Florida for amphibious training, and on to Pickett, Virginia for cliff-scaling instruction. Mills was then shipped overseas to England.

In October 1943, George F. Mills was shipped overseas and stationed in South Wales [Annotator's Note: South Wales, England]. While there, he was often posted to sentry duty along the English coastline. England was under constant German night attacks from the V1 rocket [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug]. In May 1944, he was transferred to the Tidworth Barracks [Annotator's Note: in Wiltshire, England] where he was able to see the massive buildup of men, ammunition, and equipment needed for the invasion of Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Mills' landing was with General George Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] and the 3rd Army. He boarded a transport ship to Normandy in July 1944 and saw his first combat at Saint-Lô [Annotator's Note: Saint-Lô, Normandy, France] as a communications sergeant with E Company, 109th infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 109th infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division]. His first taste of combat was "hot" and he felt worms in his stomach until he first encountered the enemy and knew he had to do his job and "get with it." After Saint-Lô, Mills continued into combat until reaching the western edge of Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. They used large guns which tore Paris all to pieces. After the German withdrawal from the city and the neutralization of any remaining German snipers by the Free French fighters [Annotator's Note: Free French Forces, forces of the Free France government in exile], Mills had the opportunity to parade through the streets from Arc de Triomphe [Annotator's Note: The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile in Paris, France] to Notre Dame Cathedral [Annotator's Note: Notre-Dame de Paris in Paris, France] passed viewing stands of military brass and throngs of Parisians offering wine, flowers, hugs, and well wishes. These celebratory citizens were common throughout the towns of France he helped liberate. Mills spent two nights in Paris – the first in a pup tent on the outskirts of the city and the second with a French family who dug up and shared a case of wine they had hidden from their German occupiers four years earlier. Fighting began the next day at Compiègne [Compiègne, France].

After liberating Paris France, George F. Mills [Annotator's Note: with the Company E, 2nd Battalion, 109th infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division]the following weeks passed at a rapid pace as the Germans quickly retreated from France towards Belgium and Luxembourg. He entered heavy combat in northern Luxembourg near the city of Weiswampach. His company tried to take several German pillboxes [Annotator's Note: type of blockhouse, or concrete, reinforced, dug-in guard post, normally equipped with slits for firing guns] in a frontal attack and suffered several casualties. At night, Mills and others crept up to the pillboxes and dropped grenades into them, killing the occupants. They continued into the Hurtgen Forest [Annotator's Note: Battle of Hürtgen Forest, 19 September 1944 to 10 February 1945, Hürtgen (Hurtgen), Staatsforst (state forest), Germany] and into Diekirch, Luxembourg where they were restored to full strength. E Company was separated from the rest of the regiment and sent forward to the village of Fouhren, Luxembourg two miles from the German border. The communications section were set up on the second story of a three-story house that could only be defended from the east, west, and south sides as the north side lacked windows. On 18 December 1944, after several days in this position, they were surrounded by members of the 5th Panzer [Annotator's Note: 5th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), German Army] and 373rd Vanguard Divisions [Annotator's Note: unable to identify] and unable to be resupplied with ammunition or food. The Panzers took out the company Jeeps and intimidated an Allied tank from attempting to break through. Mills informed his captain of the situation and reported they were down to six rounds ammunition. Just after dark, the Germans blew a hole through the north wall and used a flamethrower set the house on fire. Mills was ordered to call in an artillery strike to flatten the town as they surrendered. Many years later, Mills had the opportunity to meet the family who he had forced out of their home in Fouhren ahead of his capture. The men of E Company were marched through the night to a small country house where they were interrogated and received medical attention. Mills was wounded by shrapnel in the initial fight and thought he had lost his eye, but a German doctor managed to sew up the flap of skin that had fallen over his eye. The Germans marched them to Stalag IV-B [Annotator's Note: Stalag IV-B in Mühlberg, Germany] where the prisoners were fingerprinted and photographed before being separated by rank. All the officers were sent to concentration camps, all the privates were put in coal mines and factories for slave labor. He estimates that he and about 800 other NCOs [Annotator's Note: non-commissioned officers] were marched for the following five months to Stalag VIII-A [Annotator's Note: in what is now Zgorzelec, Poland] on the Czechoslovakia border surviving only on rutabagas and sugar beets that they could find on the road. Upon arrival at the camp, one man died immediately. The guards allowed for Mills and some others to bury him on a hill on the camp's south side. While burying him, the Germans fired a volley and their bugler played Taps [Annotator's Note: final call of the evening in the US military, also used at military funerals] in his memory. This impressed Mills greatly. Not long after arriving, Russian artillery units began closing in on the camp and the prisoners were turned around and marched west. After a week on the march, the 800 NCOs had shrunk to about 240 men. Many men died from exposure and starvation, but most died from dysentery [Annotator's Note: infection of the intestines]. After a night in a barnyard, Mills woke up to the sound of a large, tracked vehicle coming his way. As the vehicle came around a turn in the road, Mills and the others saw it was an American halftrack [Annotator's Note: a vehicle with front wheels and rear tracks] and command car. The prisoners took their captors captive and were given beans and carrots by the liberating halftrack crew. Someone slaughtered a calf and they enjoyed their first meal in months. They were then taken to Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France] where they were deloused, fed, and given new clothes. Mills was halfway across the Atlantic when the Germans surrendered, the ship's lights were turned on and they continued on to New York Harbor [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York].

George F. Mills [Annotator's Note: captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] managed to survive based on a basic human need to fight against death. Despite losing nearly 70 pounds, he continued to fight to stay alive. One night a German ration wagon pulled up and he could smell the food hidden beneath the tarpaulin. He snuck over and discovered the wagon was full of goose liver sausage and bread. He ate his fill and returned to his friend, Andy [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] , to fill him in on the nearby food store. The men visited the wagon one-by-one throughout the night to eat. In the morning, they were lined up and had their mouths inspected for any remaining food particles, but no one was punished. While at Stalag VIII-A [Annotator's Note: in what is now Zgorzelec, Poland], a British prisoner came looking for a five-dollar bill in exchange for a pack of cigarettes that could be used to trade for food. Mills gave the Englishman a 100-dollar money order he carried with him in exchange for 20 packs of cigarettes. Mills used those cigarettes to trade for milk, bread, and even rations from the German guards. They ate well until the cigarettes ran out. While at Stalag IV-B [Annotator's Note: in Mühlberg, Germany] he was given a card to write home to his family. He told Andy [Annotator's Note: his friend; phonetic spelling] that he never believed it would be sent home, but he wrote it anyway and asked his mother for cookies, candy, and socks. His mother, who up until that point had only received MIA [Annotator's Note: missing in action] notices regarding his whereabouts, took the letter to the family's German-speaking barber who translated the address and told her where he was being held, but that she would not be able to send anything to him. While on the march to Stalag VIII-A, the column of prisoners received letters from the Allied front which told them the war was all but won and from the Germans which told them the Allies had been pushed back to the coast of France. Mills did not know what to believe about the course of war. After he was liberated, and upon his arrival in New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York], he called his family to tell them he was home but did not know when he would see them. He boarded a bus to Decatur [Annotator's Note: Decatur, Alabama] and arrived at the bus station at three o'clock in the morning. He spent the early morning hours drinking coffee before walking home. After ringing the bell, Mill's sister came to the door and in excitement ran back to the kitchen to get her parents without unlocking the door to let Mills in. Mills and Andy were together from basic training throughout the war and stayed close afterwards. He still stays in touch with his wife and daughter. Mills shows a Bible [Annotator's Note: book of the Christian scriptures] with a metal back that his mother gave to him to wear over his heart during combat. His fellow prisoners begged him to read from the Bible to keep their minds off their gnawing hunger pangs. After spending 90 days at home, Mills was called back into service at Fort McClellan [Annotator's Note: in Anniston, Alabama] where he served as a platoon leader for a training outfit. He had enough points to be discharged [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home], but men were still badly needed to fight in the Pacific. He was discharged from Fort McClellan in October 1945 with the rank of sergeant. His experiences with starvation have had lasting effects on his relationship with food. After returning home, he gained 60 pounds in 30 days and still deals with the sensitive effects of hunger. He told Andy after their capture that maybe it would be a good thing to get out of the fighting, but after a few weeks of a starvation diet he felt it would be better to still be in combat. Mills did not take advantage of 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]. He should have gone to college, because he needed a car and new clothes and wanted to get back to work.

George F. Mills most memorable experience of World War 2 was when he landed on the beaches of Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France]. He knew he was in war, and it kind of bothered him. He fought because it was something a good person should do when their country is being attacked. He needed to get out and defend it. World War 2 changed his life because he has a positive view on life. It helped him figure out his limitations and his abilities. He is proud he served his country and it is an honor. Most Americans to not care much about the history and sacrifice of World War 2. These past couple of years [Annotator's Note: at the time of this interview] have shown that no one appreciates America. There should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] that should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations because schools are not teaching about the subject. He is concerned that history will repeat if the children do not learn about the World War 2 experience. Mills is thankful for having this interview and hopes it contributes to the mission of the Museum.