Henry Lederer was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in March 1920. His father was a watchmaker and jeweler who came to the United States from England when he was 17. Lederer was the middle of three children. His family moved to the Bronx [Annotator's Note: the Bronx is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York], New York when Lederer was about one year old. He went to high school there. Rumors of war were prevalent and apparent. When he was 18 to 19 years old, things started happening. His father was very interested in world happenings and they discussed some of it. The future looked like war. With Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] and his fireside chats [Annotator's Note: a series of evening radio addresses by Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944], they became aware war was imminent. Lend-Lease [Annotator's Note: Lend-Lease Policy, officially An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States 1941 to 1945] started under Roosevelt. Times were different and when FDR [Annotator's Note: Franklin D. Roosevelt] spoke on the radio it was a major, national thing. Everybody listened and discussed it. He gave them jobs with the WPA [Annotator's Note: Works Progress Administration] when they needed it. It helped the country immeasurably. The Dust Bowl [Annotator's Note: period of severe dust storms that damaged the ecology and agriculture of American prairies during 1930s] was awful. Roosevelt did a magnificent job with the people around him to help the American people. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Lederer what his reaction to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941 was.] He remembers it well. He was with a very good friend and they heard the radio broadcast. Lederer opened a bottle of whiskey because they knew this meant they were going to war. It was the only time Lederer ever had too much to drink. He decided at that point that he would enlist. In a couple of weeks, he signed up as an Aviation Cadet. He got his flight physical, and his blood pressure was too high. His family doctor said his pressure was normal and told him to do it again. He passed it and became an Aviation Cadet.

Henry Lederer chose to enlist in the Air Corps because he always loved flying. His father took him to Grand Central Station [Annotator's Note: Grand Central Terminal, Manhattan, New York, New York] where there was a 1927 or 1928 Ford Trimotor [Annotator's Note: Ford Trimotor, also called the Tin Goose, commercial transport aircraft]. He was enthralled with it, but he had never flown. There were magazines then that had wonderful aviation stories of World War 1 and it was good reading. He read them every month and he wanted to be a fighter pilot. Lederer went through three different training sections. The first was in a low wing airplane for basic in San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas]. He next went to Cimarron Field in Oklahoma City [Annotator's Note: Cimarron Army Airfield in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma]. From there he went to Coffeyville, Kansas for training. His final training was in Victoria, Texas flying AT-6s [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft]. He was transferred to a fighting unit and trained in the P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft]. Before he graduated, he was asked what he would like to fly. He thought that was wonderful. They lost at least 50 to 70 percent of the Aviation Cadets that had started with him. They did not measure up to standards. As a person raised in New York City, Lederer never had an opportunity to have a gun. Killing was not in his book. He was very fearful. When he went into combat, he wondered if he would be able to kill. He would not bring this up with his buddies. A very close friend, Colonel Robert S. Johnson [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Colonel Robert Samuel Johnson], shot down 28 airplanes. One night [Annotator's Note: after the war], they were talking. Lederer asked Johnson how he felt pulling the trigger and asked if he was fearful. Johnson told him he felt fear on every mission. Johnson was Gabby Gabreski's [Annotator's Note: Colonel Francis Stanley "Gabby" Gabreski] wingman at first and the three of them knew each other. That eased Lederer's thinking. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer tells a story of another pilot he interviewed.] Lederer went down to Bob Johnson's field. Behind the pilot in a P-47 was a steel plate that could absorb machine gun fire and the 20mm shells [Annotator's Note: German MG 151, 20mm aircraft-mounted autocannon] of the enemy. Lederer had been told that a plate was hanging in the mess hall of the officer's club. He saw it and asked Johnson later. Johnson's plane was shot up and he was out of ammunition. An Me-109 [Annotator's Note: Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aircraft] was behind him and was firing at him. The Me-109 ran out of ammunition also. It pulled up next to Johnson, the pilot saluted, and flew back to Germany. On the other hand, there were instances [Annotator's Note: Lederer's microphone falls off] where a bomber was hit with flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] and on fire and the crew bailed out. Lederer would see an enemy aircraft come in and shoot up the pilot. Lederer asks what makes a man kill like that.

Henry Lederer knew from his training in the P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] that he would be going overseas. He was confident he was getting the best training there was. He realized that it was possible there was better training and better equipment. The aircraft were shipped over in boxes. While they were being put together, a Public Relations group came and spoke to them about what was happening in the war. They were also taken to a hospital in England and were shown hundreds of civilians who had been wounded in bombings. It stirred up his emotions. He was with the 374th Fighter Squadron, 361st Fighter Group [Annotator's Note: 374th Fighter Squadron, 361st Fighter Group, 8th Air Force] in Bottisham, England. He lost several very good friends including people he grew up with. He does not understand how come he is alive and 91 years old and they were dead and buried young. Lederer was told by one person that the good die young. [Annotator's Note: Lederer uses Bob Stolzy, US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Robert J. Stolzy, as an example of this.] Lederer has two daughters getting doctorate degrees. He has a son who never finished high school but has several inventions for the medical industry. Lederer wonders if there are answers to these questions.

Henry Lederer started out flying bomber escort and ground support missions [Annotator's Note: with the 374th Fighter Squadron, 361st Fighter Group, 8th Air Force] up until the beginning of May 1944. He had five months of combat in the P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft]. The P-47s were replaced by P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. It was a hell of a difference. A P-51 could be flown for five to six hours. The P-47 was a fuel eater and it had about three and a half hours maximum of flight. Loiter time was how much time they could expend protecting the bombers over Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany]. The P-47 had ten minutes. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if the rules for protecting the bombers shifted with the new aircraft.] The procedures were no different. They always attempted to stay above and away from the bombers to watch them but gave themselves enough room to be able to dive towards them. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks about the military command making the decision to use the bombers as a way to draw the German fighters up to fight and be defeated.] They all knew the overall picture and that was that they had to possess air superiority without question. They also knew they were building a huge army for an invasion. They got the P-51s in May 1944. D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] was 6 June 1944. They had one hour of flight time and a couple of hours of instruction in a totally different airplane [Annotator's Note: before being sent into combat.] The weight of the airplane was the main difference. The controls were different as was the overall feel. Lederer liked the P-47 more because it got him back from combat. [Annotator's Note: Lederer asks for the tape to be stopped.] He feels that the P-51 is overrated as to its performance in the war. The P-47 did much more. The greatest group in the war was the 56th Fighter Group, 8th Air Force with Johnson [Annotator's Note: later US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert Samuel Johnson], Gabreski [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Colonel Francis Stanley "Gabby" Gabreski], Christensen [Annotator's Note: later US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Joseph Christensen Jr.], and the other Johnson [Annotator's Note: later US Air Force Lieutenant General Gerald Walter Johnson]. Flying the P-51 for only a month, meant they lost more pilots in the invasion [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France landings] and in the immediate period after than at any other time in their combat. The P-47s had been given to the 9th Air Force, which was necessary, but they got a liquid-cooled airplane [Annotator's Note: the P-51] and were put on the deck . They were shot down. The liquid-cooled engine only needed one small piece of metal to hit a coolant line [Annotator's Note: to cause it to crash]. It was a magnificent engine when you were not in combat. [Annotator's Note: Lederer says he considers this interview his opportunity to get even with the people who built the P-51 and laughs.]

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Henry Lederer what his first combat encounter was like.] It was an amazing experience. He saw Me-109s [Annotator's Note: Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aircraft] above and ahead of them. Lederer was going northwest, and they were coming southeast. The adrenaline started pumping and he thought there was something wrong with his oxygen. He turned it on full and realized he did not have that much of it. He was wound tight. His flight leader, Bob Sedman [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Captain Robert E. Sedman], said he saw one and called Lederer. They went after it. The enemy was going straight down. Lederer was traveling 450 miles per hour and started to rise to 500. The pressure was killing his ears. At about eight or nine thousand feet, he started adding back pressure and nothing happened. He thought he was not going to be able to pull out. His controls locked. That is called compressibility. He put his feet on the instrument panel and pulled. He went up at a 70-degree angle and leveled off. He called Bob and found he was in compressibility too and had very little control of the airplane. Lederer saw an Me-109 go by and he chased it. He got hit on his windshield. He watched the plane he was firing at go into the ground. He learned later that Jimmy Hastin [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant James D. Hastin] was above and ahead of him. His shell casings were hitting Lederer's airplane. When Sedman and Lederer landed safely, both of their airplanes were scrapped.

Henry Lederer flew 92 missions. That is a lot when you wake up every morning and wonder if you are going to be around that night. Lederer admires the bomber pilots. They had unbelievable courage and dedication. They were sitting ducks. Lederer did not fly every day. They had six to seven pilots in a flight so that they could relieve one another. You cannot be close to everybody, but the people he ate with are like brothers to him. He knew that if he needed help, they were there and they knew the same. It is something very special. Lederer met one of the people he flew with on 5th Avenue [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York] after the war. They said they would get back together again but it did not happen. At a reunion, one man asked how Lederer was and asked if he needed any money. It shows the kind of nut that was in a fighter [Annotator's Note: fighter aircraft]. [Annotator's Note: There is a break in the tape and when it continues, they are talking about Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin Jr., the American astronaut, who Lederer says was a nut.] Lederer's son has a friend who was an astronaut. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer talks about his own claustrophobia and then asks Lederer what the most fearful time for a pilot is.] Lederer has read that most accidents in aviation occur during landing. When he had to learn instrument flying, that was fearful. Leading a flight of other airplanes going through overcast became very stressful. All they had was needle and ball to know how they were flying [Annotator's Note: Lederer explains this in detail]. He had to maintain his concentration while scanning the instruments all the time.

Henry Lederer says the crosshair gun sight they used was horse and buggy compared to what they have today. They knew they had to shoot ahead of it [Annotator's Note: an enemy airplane] if they were coming in at an angle. They would try to slow down while adjusting to give lead to hit them. The chance of hitting them is fairly remote. They were trained on deflection shots as Aviation Cadets. They shot skeet once or twice a week during training to learn it. Bob Johnson [Annotator's Note: later US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert Samuel Johnson] had it licked because he shot at birds growing up and was tuned for it. He was fantastic. Lederer had a few kills. It was exhilarating but left plenty of room for thought. Getting him before he got you was a gift. They were four men teams. A flight leader and a wingman and an element leader and a wingman. The leader had the first opportunity to go after an enemy aircraft. There were not that many opportunities. Lederer often wondered how a guy like Johnson got so many kills. The Germans had fabulous pilots who were well-trained as they started in the Spanish War [Annotator's Note: Spanish Civil War, 1936 to 1939]. They were very good, but the quality of the Russians was not the quality of the Germans [Annotator's Note: Lederer means the aircraft]. He saw a German jet on the way to Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany]. He was in a P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] and saw three Me-262s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter aircraft]. They did not know what they were. They were flying much faster than the bombers. They landed and asked their intelligence officer what they were. They were amazed. It was an amazing time period for the technology that came about as a result of the war.

Henry Lederer says that over 600,000 people were killed in the Civil War. [Annotator's Note: American Civil War, 1861 to 1865] A little over 400,000 were killed in World War 2. The Russians lost millions. America had the facility and desire. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer talks at length about what the war would have been like if America had had to fight the entire German military.] Lederer says he has visited and looked at the cemeteries in France and Britain, it is sickening. Unfortunately there are some people who wish to be all powerful and are incapable of governance. There has to be a positive to war, otherwise why would we have a war. He says the oncoming generations will see change they will not believe. They will see contact with beings from outer space. He hopes they are friendly.

Henry Lederer was most affected losing his friend Jerry [Annotator's Note: no further name is given] in a training accident. Jerry was the instructor pilot teaching a student formation flying. The pilot in the other plane put his wing over Jerry's airplane wing. Jerry and his student could not get out of the airplane. That was about two weeks before Lederer finished his tour of duty which was 305 hours of combat. He was shaken up. Lederer was never asked about how he transitioned back to being a civilian. He could talk to a few people. He had expected to go through life with a guy like his friend. Everything changed because of that. The friend's brother disliked Lederer because he blamed him for his brother's death. [Annotator's Note: Lederer asks for the camera to be turned off.] Lederer developed a twitch in his right eye that he could not control. He had a complete relaxation from the tension he lived under in combat. The combat veterans coming back from Iraq [Annotator's Note: Iraq War, 2003 to 2011] and Afghanistan [Annotator's Note: War in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001 to 2014; Operation Freedom's Sentinel, 2015 to present] he understands. They have to get back to a part of living that is so different from what they experience. It is a tough adjustment that the military is finally facing up to. It is different now [Annotator's Note: from his World War 2 return experience] up to a point. He never smoked a cigarette until he got into the Army Air Corps. They taught him to smoke to be part of the group. The treatment he gets from the VA [Annotator's Note: United States Department of Veterans Affairs] is okay in one way, but he is afraid the level of quality in the VA is lacking. They may have the desire, but it does not exist. His medication was not working, and he complained. They mean well, but they could not give him the prescription that he had been prescribed. They finally gave in. There should be quality level, but they are limited in what they can buy. Lederer has two Distinguished Flying Crosses [Annotator's Note: the Distinguished Flying Cross, or DFC, is awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight] and two Air Medals [Annotator's Note: US Armed Forces medal for single acts of heroism or meritorious achievement while in aerial flight]. You should have a little pat on the back if you do something. He was there and he is happy he did it. He was one of thousands that volunteered and did their thing. They realized there is nothing that can equal the freedom and liberty in the country, and it is worth his life.