James Billingsley was born in Erie, Pennsylvania in November 1923. He remembers the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression] very well. He was six years old and he lived with his brother and mother. They shared their quarters with four other families with only one bathroom. His mother had only gone through the tenth grade. They were always on relief. A good friend of his who later died flying in Burma, had a father who had a business. When Billingsley was 17, he asked him to work shining shoes for him. Billingsley played violin in high school. When the war started, his school started a code class. He was offered another job and made a good wage. His mother was thrilled. They were still poverty stricken. He was drafted on 6 February 1943 and entered the Army on the 13 February at Camp Swift, Texas in the 262nd Field Artillery Headquarters [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Battery, 262nd Field Artillery Battalion]. He could tell that outfit was not going anywhere so he transferred to the Air Corps at Keesler Field [Annotator's Note: now Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Mississippi]. They were full and transferred him to the 69th Infantry Division and then to the paratroopers. He trained at Fort Benning, [Annotator's Note: Fort Benning, Georgia] in August 1944. On 19 November he left for New Guinea, Leyte, Luzon [Annotator's Note: Philippines], Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan], then Japan [Annotator's Note: mainland Japan].

James Billingsley was at Fort Benning [Annotator's Note: Fort Benning, Georgia] in an area called The Frying Pan. The men who trained them had been in combat in North Africa and were as tough as nails. They had no sheets or pillowcases and ate out of mess kits. One thing they were taught in the airborne was how to take care of themselves. Moose Hannah [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] was about six foot two and had a buddy who was small. In formation, the sergeants would yell out their last name and the men had to yell their first. The small buddy could not yell loudly enough so the sergeant beat him. Moose hit the sergeant and drove him against the wall. The lieutenants just watched. Billingsley is glad they were tough. Another kid had his watch stolen and the captain told him to take care of it. The person who had stolen it was beaten and had his hands smashed. You did not screw around in this outfit. They shipped overseas and arrived in New Guinea on 8 December [Annotator's Note: 8 December 1944] and stayed until Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines], where it rained constantly. Their uniforms would just fall off. Leyte is nothing but jungle. Japanese paratroopers dropped on Pablo Airfields one and two [Annotator's Note: San Pablo Airfield and Buri Airfield, 6 December 1944]. Billingsley was in a hole with a sergeant. They looked up ahead and saw a guy shoot himself. The sergeant told Billingsley to never die bad. He carried that with him for the rest of the war. On 20 January [Annotator's Note: 20 January 1945], the Division [Annotator's Note: Billingsley was a member of the 674th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 11th Airborne Division] got in boats to Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines]. They landed on Nasugbu on 31 January. Billingsley was one of the first off the boat. He went ashore all by himself. He saw three Japanese right ahead of him, but they were cut down by machine gun fire.

[Annotator's Note: James Billingsley went ashore on Luzon, Philippines, on 31 January 1945.] Billingsley made his way back to his Battery [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Battery, 674th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 11th Airborne Division]. He was a replacement troop. The sergeant did not take to him. On 4 February, the sergeant put Billingsley on the front lines with Lieutenant Joe Baker. They were in an old garage. There were a lot of Japanese there. This is where they really had to kill. It is a terrifying thing to kill somebody. Billingsley was an artillery man but was with the infantry. They started going through little towns. Baker was giving one fire mission after another with Billingsley acting as radio man. They went through four little towns. They would see wounded there. They went through at least 30 fire missions when they came to a roadblock. They went through some houses and they were exhausted. That night there was a terrible banzai attack [Annotator's Note: Japanese human wave attack]. The next morning, Billingsley came out and saw an awful sight of wounded men. As they moved forward, there were three machine gun nests. The commander called for a tank. The tank took out the machine guns. The tank backed up and hit a mine right next to Billingsley. All of the men in the tank were killed. When the tank exploded, the bogie wheel [Annotator's Note: also called road wheel] went right in front of Billingsley and destroyed a house. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley asks the interviewer to rest a minute.]

[Annotator's Note: There is a tape break and this clip starts with James Billingsley midsentence. There are some cuts and then he starts talking about a roadblock he and his outfit encountered on Luzon, Philippines.] They headed towards Manila and came to Parañaque [Annotator's Note: Parañaque, Philippines]. There were infantrymen everywhere. They had 50 casualties that morning. Joe Baker [Annotator's Note: unable to identify; possibly US Army Lieutenant Joe A. Baker] went in to see General Swing [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General Joseph May Swing,] who was pushing his officers like crazy to be the first into Manila. They had opened a stash of food that the Japanese had, including lobster and saké. The Japanese had taken aircraft guns off their ships and installed them in the streets. Billingsley and some others crossed the street to go take the guns out. They walked about five minutes and all hell broke loose. They were flat on the ground. Joe Baker was rolling back and forth. Billingsley cut Baker's sleeve off and started treating his wounds. They retreated under the heavy machine gun fire. Baker was put in a jeep and Billingsley was crying like a baby from frazzled nerves. Baker told him it was great to work with him. Billingsley would not see Lieutenant Baker again until 1949. Billingsley was pulled aside and told to stay there. That night they received tremendous mortar, grenade, and machine gun fire. The next afternoon, Billingsley was in a big shell hole and mortar shells started landing. He was hit by shrapnel. There was a severely wounded man next to him. He stuck his morphine into that man. As the doctor was treating him, he said he heard Billingsley had won a Silver Star [Annotator's Note: the third-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy]. Billingsley asked what the hell did he do?

[Annotator's Note: James Billingsley was treated for a shrapnel wound at Parañaque, Philippines and sent back to his Headquarters Battery, 674th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 11th Airborne Division.] Billingsley spent the day and night being cared for. He ate well. Captain Grant [Annotator's Note: no given name provided] asked him to help with the next day's attack on Nichols Field [Annotator's Note: Nichols Field, Pasay, Luzon, Philippines, 4 February 1945]. He spent the night with the soldiers there. He started up the road and he saw a leg in a boot nearby. At Nichols Field, there were haystacks in the field. He went through a lot of combat there, but he cannot remember to this day what he did. When he got back to the rear, he was told he would have to go to the hospital due to his leg. A driver took him to the hospital. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley pauses and then says to go through this twice is hard.] The hospital was leaving but there was a surgeon still there. He looked at the wound and said he needed to operate. They stuck a twig in Billingsley's mouth and then took out a scalpel and did the work right there. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley stops and says to cut for a while as that exhausted him. He had a hard time remembering what he was going to say and asks to cut again.]

[Annotator's Note: This clip starts with James Billingsley midsentence in a new story.] Billingsley says that after the tank blew up, they were hitting so much resistance that an air strike was called in. A-20s [Annotator's Note: Douglas A-20 Havoc medium bomber] or A-26s [Annotator's Note: Douglas A-26 Invader light bomber] came in and bombed them instead of the enemy. He and two others jumped behind a house. One of them, Jim Patton, was one of the finest men he had ever seen. Later on, they were fighting at Tagaytay Ridge, a terrible place. Billingsley was sent up to be the forward observer. He was thrilled by the captain thinking that highly of him. Billingsley sat down to eat with Jim Patton. The infantry had horrible casualties on the Ridge. Billingsley did not go on that attack, but he saw Patton get killed. He was sick with pain. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley breaks down.] Back in Parañaque [Annotator's Note: Parañaque, Philippines], there was a staff sergeant that had gone bonkers [Annotator's Note: insane]. He would work all night with his knife trying to make his hole bigger. He would tell them they would all be killed. When the campaign was over, 3 May [Annotator's Note: 3 May 1945], he busted himself down to Private and joined the MPs [Annotator's Note: Military Police]. A couple months later, Billingsley ran into him in Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines]. He told Billingsley he was doing better but he knew all of the guys were going to be killed in Japan. General Stilwell [Annotator's Note: US Army General Joseph Warren Stilwell] came to decorate some of the soldiers on 9 June [Annotator's Note: including a Silver Star for Billingsley]. General Swing [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General Joseph May Swing] was with him. As they came to Billingsley, Stilwell asked "did you get him?" Billingsley replied he thought so, to which Stilwell said, "you must have." The outfit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Battery, 674th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 11th Airborne Division] put on a show. Some gliders went up with MPs, including the one who had gone bonkers, and paratroopers. A storm came up suddenly and hit the gliders. That MP was killed in one of the gliders [Annotator's Note: the one who had previously gone "bonkers"]. You just never know.

James Billingsley was on the line and he had fired his rifle so much that he could not touch it due to the heat. The line was long, and he could see guy's heads turning. A guy then came to him and said that Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] was dead. He wondered how this could happen. [Annotator's Note: The tape breaks and returns with Billingsley talking about a friend who was killed.] Jim Patton was killed, and it devastated the men. A two-and-a-half-ton truck came up to take the dead and wounded out. They laid them all out. The men were threatened with court-martial if they went over to look at their friends. The dead were picked up by their heads and their feet and thrown into the truck. It really devastated him. That is one of the things they had to live with. A Japanese who surrendered had maggots in his back. The hardest thing about the war was that Billingsley was just an ordinary guy. After Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines], he went to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. When he got there, it was pretty much over. The atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] was dropped. He was in Lipa ]Annotator's Note: Lipa, Philippines] when he heard of it. His outfit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Battery, 674th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 11th Airborne Division] was taken out of combat after 50 days. They went into the University of the Philippines. When you looked at the men who came in, you could tell they were about half-mad [Annotator's Note: insane]. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley mentions that he keeps losing his train of thought. The tape breaks and he repeats the story.] There was a favorite woman some men visited named Lena the Hyena. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley laughs.] His friends tried to get him to see her, but he would not. There would be 50 guys lying in a tent awaiting women.

James Billingsley worked with Filipino forces. He was in the middle of it, and was pulled out. There was a Filipino major there. Billingsley was told to make his bed and bring him food. Being through what he had gone through, Billingsley did not like it. He was told he was going back on the line, and that is one of the most terrifying things you can tell an infantryman who has been there. Billingsley remembers looking at the men's faces to see how they felt about going back on the line. When he first landed on Nasugbu, the Filipinos ripped them off. They would take their food and just disappear. They would also send their children into the camp to steal food. After they left Parañaque, they were going through farms. The locals would complain about them ruining their farms. He does not remember the details of a lot after 65 years. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley and the interviewer go back and forth over where Billingsley was on Luzon, Philippines.] Billingsley remembers fighting at Nichols Field [Annotator's Note: Nichols Field, Pasay, Luzon, Philippines] and remembers a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] flying across while they were fighting in Manila. The Filipinos shot it down.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks James Billingsley to talk about Nasugbu, Philippines.] They came out of Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines], and he got to know a lot of guys there. The Navy was really good at getting them into the landing. He went in the water right up to his shoulders. He raised up and saw three Japanese about 75 yards ahead. They were shot down immediately. He got with his outfit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Battery, 674th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 11th Airborne Division]. The Filipinos tried to rip them off. He went up Highway 17 [Annotator's Note: now Emilio Aguinaldo Highway] and fought through lots of towns with Joe [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant Joe Baker]. They went through four towns before they got to Parañaque. A lot of the Silver Star [Annotator's Note: the third-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy] stuff happened there. Billingsley encountered small arms, rifle, machine guns, and mortars, a lot of mortars. It moved fast. That infantry was really pushing it. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley references a letter Joe wrote.] Joe later became a Colonel and fought in Korea and maybe Vietnam. Red Mahon was another guy Billingsley fought a lot with. Charles Mahon was in the Army his whole life. He fought in World War 2 and Korea. He was in the 674th [Annotator's Note: 674th Airborne Field Artillery Battalion] in Korea, fighting with the 173rd Parachute outfit [Annotator's Note: 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team]. There was a Lieutenant Yungens [Annotator's Note: possibly John Alfred Yungen] who got banged up on Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines]. He came back and fought on Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines]. Red Mahon was Yungen's forward observer at a railroad station. Yungens dug two foxholes for him and Mahon. They knew a banzai attack was coming. They really got hit the next morning. Yungens took a mortar to the back and was killed. Camp Yungens in Japan was named after him.

James Billingsley encountered quite a bit of Japanese resistance going up Highway 17 [Annotator's Note: now Emilio Aguinaldo Highway, Philippines]. They ran into the Genko Line [Annotator's Note: Japanese defensive array of hardened blockhouses, pillboxes, and tunnels] at Parañaque [Annotator's Note: Parañaque, Philippines]. They could not get through Mabato Point. Being a forward observer, Billingsley was always behind the infantry. There were a number of Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] there. He only came face to face once when he got out of the water. A tank went out and got past a roadblock. Billingsley never remembered going backwards once. It was always attack and always going forward. He never saw any napalm being used. He never saw flamethrowers. He was only involved in an airstrike in a different area. He knows for sure that a lot of Americans were killed by friendly fire. [Annotator's Note: There is tape break. When it starts back, Billingsley is saying someone was a coward.] A good soldier will die before he will let down his fellow soldiers. The [Annotator's Note: something unintelligible] he could never stomach. For the people in the 11th Airborne to lie about what they did is unforgivable. Anything he has ever said is true.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks James Billingsley why he chose to be a paratrooper.] Billingsley grew up a poor kid. He wanted to do something he was never able to do before. When he got into the service and joined the 262nd Headquarters [Annotator’s Note: Headquarters Battery, 262nd Field Artillery Battalion], his captain was not going anywhere. He then went to Fort Sill [Annotator's Note: Fort Sill, Oklahoma] to train officers. He did not want to do that. He was never more proud than being a paratrooper. He was somebody. He has kept in touch with a lot of the guys but a lot of them are dead. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley offers letters from Red Mahon to The National WWII Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana]. Mahon was one tough son of a gun. He would shoot wounded Japanese in the ass. When he first got to training, he was in the 542nd Parachute Infantry [Annotator's Note: 542nd Parachute Infantry Regiment (Separate)], Company G. The first week they beat the heck out of his. In the second stage, they lift big logs. The training was excellent. They had to pack their own parachutes. The night jump was the most exciting thing he did. Billingsley was picked to be the first out of the plane. It was wonderful. The one thing about being a soldier is cowardice. You cannot in anyway transfer that. You cannot be a coward. A lot of men washed out at the 35 foot tower. Those guys were lined up in front of the others and were berated like you could not believe. They were really cruel to them. Training combat soldiers is taken dead serious. You cannot be on the line if you are not physically and mentally fit. His outfit, the 674th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion fought in Korea. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley talks about 11 officers being killed but does not elaborate.]

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks James Billingsley to talk about a soldier who committed suicide.] A guy told Billingsley to never die bad. Die like a man. They were fighting somewhere, and a guy was killed right in front of him. Billingsley went to pick him up by his shoulders, but he was too heavy. He asked another guy to switch places with him. The other guy did and was killed. You do not forget things like that. This guy died for him. [Annotator’s Note: Billingsley gets emotional.] [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Billingsley about seeing a six foot tall Japanese soldier.] He was in Leyte [Annotator’s Note: Leyte, Philippines], fighting for the airstrips. Japanese paratroopers were dropped there. He did not do much fighting on Leyte. On Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan], they did things to weed them out, like homosexuals. They had a nice guy who just disappeared one day. Billingsley asked about him and was told they could not have people like him there. They would take men on minor patrols to try and weed out those who would not pull the trigger. Today our black people are important to us, but in those days they never saw them. There were terrible things that happened in New Guinea, that he does not want to get into. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him again about the six foot tall Japanese soldier.] He hid behind a tree and saw the guy. [Annotator’s Note: Billingsley laughs about it.] He says that is so cowardly he cannot even talk about it. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley seems to be referring to the suicide. The interviewer asks him to retell a story about seeing five men in a tree.] He recalls a big radio station. One of the biggest things about war is confusion. He only knows the men went their way and he and his men went theirs. He is not ashamed of it.

James Billingsley was treated well as a replacement. In combat troops, it is a different thing altogether. He never heard of any trouble while fighting because everybody had a rifle. Once back in the United States, they were robbed. One guy said he could tell they were back home. There are a lot of things about war you can never talk about. He learned to be brave. Billingsley was on Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines] when he heard about the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on 6 and 9 August 1945]. They were in Buckner Bay [Annotator's Note: Nakagusuku Bay, Okinawa, Japan]. Okinawa was horrible. Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan] was horrible too, but Okinawa was worse. When Billingsley got to Naha [Annotator's Note: Naha, Okinawa, Japan] there was nothing but a smokestack. Billingsley was sent to Japan on 5 September 1945. He flew there from Okinawa in a C-54 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster transport aircraft] and landed at Atsugi Airfield. They were playing Frank Sinatra [Annotator's Note: American singer] records. He was to be stationed in northern Japan and was told they were to walk there. They went to Yokohama and other places. He was there until 15 December [Annotator's Note: 15 December 1945]. Japan was completely devastated. There was nothing standing, and the people were so poor. He does not think it would have taken long to invade them. They took over a hospital. The Japanese would be brought in to work, but they could not talk to them. They would put up a whole building and not use nails. The little kids would be shining the windows.

James Billingsley was on patrol one night in Japan. He went into a train station and there was nothing there, but kids huddled. He went down the road and heard water. His men went up to a house where an older man answered. There were two young sons there. The man got out tea cups and they had tea together. He never saw anyone impolite or rude. He never saw a young girl. The kids would turn their backs on them. The kids said they were not worthy to be looked upon because they had been defeated. The Japanese were big into steam baths. Billingsley was asked to build some showers. He became a hero there. All of the other batteries had plumbers. He made his own boiler and built the showers. The latrines had to be dipped clean. He asked some cooks to build a shed for him and he used to give them hot water right away. They fed him well. That made him a hero. He kept a diary. They were pretty happy to go home.

James Billingsley got extra points for his medals towards coming home. He went into a depot and had to take everything out of his barracks bags. They were not allowed to take any souvenirs home. He never got seasick. The second day out, they were holding a sale on the second deck. They were being sold their souvenirs back to them. Many of the men were so seasick he could not believe it. He took care of them all the way home. They came into Seattle [Annotator's Note: Seattle, Washington]. There were hundreds of ships there. There was a railroad strike. He finally got off the ship on Christmas Day [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1945]. The people in Seattle invited them in and fed them. He got discharged on 12 January [Annotator's Note: 12 January 1946]. He finally got home via a hospital train.

James Billingsley was in the mountains fighting and going down a gulley [Annotator's Note: in the Philippines]. Machine guns opened up on him and his men. They thought it was friendly fire. When he got home, he went to see his parents. He went to college. He used the G.I. Bill to get two degrees. The war did not change him. He says he emoted more in the interview than he had ever in his life. His son was with the 1st Cav [Annotator's Note: 1st Cavalry Division] as a medic and was never the same after he came back. He was a typical Vietnam Vet, way out of it. Billingsley was very fortunate in becoming a band director. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley refers off camera to someone who worked with him.] He did not think about it until he thought about it. The first five years after the war were great and the next five years we were right back in it. The biggest thing in America today is leadership. What have we learned? We are still fighting. He had a chance to work in Canada. He was told it gets 40 below up there and that ended that. He is a very patriotic, loyal, American. He could never leave this country ever. The greatest thing he learned from the war was never to forget. [Annotator's Note: Billingsley gets very emotional.] That is why The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] needs to be there. He is just an ordinary guy and those men gave their lives. The ones he feels for today are the wounded. If you love somebody, you do not forget them.