James Pritchett was born in Thomaston, Alabama in 1924, and grew up during the Great Depression. His family "got along a little bit better" than most because his father was the local banker, and kept his job, so they "didn't need anything they couldn't get." Pritchett graduated high school in May 1942, and the war was "heating up" during his first year of college at Alabama Polytechnic Institute in Auburn, Alabama. In December [Annotator's Note: December 1941], about 1,500 students signed up with the Army, assured they could finish their degree program and enter the Air Corps as aviation cadets. In February 1943, the government "reneged," called all of them up for service, and ordered them to report to Miami Beach, Florida. Pritchett joked that he has never seen the promised reimbursement for his transportation to basic training. Florida was comparatively pleasant, but the training was not easy. After a couple of months, he was sent to a CTD, College Training Detachment, at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina where he took courses as diverse as physics and military courtesy. Next, he underwent testing in Nashville, Tennessee to determine his aviation aptitude and went on to Maxwell Air Force base in Montgomery, Alabama for pre-flight training. He underwent primary training under civilian instruction at Lafayette, Louisiana, where he found the food and weekend entertainment were "wonderful." He was flying a plywood PT-19 [Annotator's Note: Fairchild PT-19 primary trainer aircraft] that had technical problems and couldn't be used for acrobatics. He proceeded to Walnut Ridge, Arkansas to fly BT-13s [Annotator's Note: Vultee BT-13 Valiant basic trainer aircraft, also referred to as the Vultee Vibrator], but didn't do well on aerobatics, probably because he lacked a foundation, and it was determined that he was not going to be a fighter pilot. He went into twin-engine training at Stuttgart, Arkansas. He had a close call while practicing instrument flying with a partner. While coming out from an apparatus designed to force blind flying, he discovered his copilot reading a funny book, with no idea of where they were. Lost and low on fuel, Pritchett luckily spied a building sign, and knew the heading from Brinkley, Alabama to the airfield. Pritchett graduated with Class 44-D in May 1944.

A boyhood friend who was to meet James Pritchett for his graduation crashed and burned while giving night flying instruction at Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia and died about two weeks before the event. His death affected Pritchett deeply. After graduation, he went to Courtland, Alabama while waiting for orders. The only thing he remembers from that billeting was to fly one plane to Ponca City, Oklahoma, and bring a different one back. He went on to Brian, Texas for instrument training, after which he moved to Greenville, Mississippi to teach instrumentation update courses to pilots returning from the European Theater of Operations. Pritchett didn't like the job very much, and was anxious to get into the war. He volunteered to deploy to a "cold, wet, windy climate," and soon got orders to an ORD, or Overseas Replacement Depot, in Greensboro, North Carolina. There, he met the woman he later married. After a furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] home, he traveled to Glasgow, Scotland on the SS Isle de France; a luxury liner turned troopship, and moved by train to Stone, England. During the few days he was there, Pritchett had an unlikely encounter with a guy he knew from childhood. He went on to Membury, England right before Christmas [Annotator's Note: Christmas 1944], where was told he would be flying C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. Pritchett remembers looking up at the aircraft, and wondering how he would be able to fly that big plane. After a few brief days of instruction, he was assigned a mission to Bastogne, Belgium to deliver supplies to troops fighting the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945].

The weather in Europe during December 1944 was bad, according to James Pritchett's account, and the air space around Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] was "socked in." Supplies had languished, waiting delivery. Pritchett flew his first mission to Bastogne as copilot, and going in low, he could see little black spots in the snow that turned out to be foxholes. Germans surrounded the area, and the plane was taking small arms fire. Nevertheless, the crew pushed the racks of supplies out the door and was able to return to base unharmed in time for Christmas dinner. He continued flying ammunition, gasoline and supplies across to Europe until February, when he was reassigned to Melun, France. In late March, he learned he would be flying on the Varsity Mission. Pritchett expected to fly as a copilot on a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] but shortly before the operation ensued, he was called in to a meeting where the brass explained that some of the airmen would be flying gliders. Pritchett had pulled gliders, but had never been interested in flying one, and knew little about them. Pritchett drew a short straw, however, and was one of the unlucky airmen who had to show up on the runway to the realization he was in for a "double-tow" where one C-47 pulled two gliders to the target. He and a fellow pilot alternated control of the glider, which was a strenuous task. Pritchett goes on to described the intricacies of maneuvering a glider behind a C-47.

The drop zone for Operation Varsity was near Wessel, Germany, and James Pritchett described how General Montgomery's [Annotator's Note: British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery] troops were massed at the Rhine. The mission called for great numbers of aircraft to drop on a constricted area ahead of the ground troops. They had set up a smoke screen that unexpectedly drifted over the landing area, obstructing the view, and gliders were cut loose at less than optimum altitudes. Many were caught in the trees or otherwise wrecked. Pritchett's plane made a short landing, and its crew escaped unharmed, but Pritchett's flight leader and his tent mate were both killed that day. Germans surrounded the landing area, and Pritchett's crew remained in a ditch until enough personnel were landed to engage in combat. Pritchett saw his first man killed in combat that day. It took 24 to 36 hours for Montgomery's troops to get across the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River], and at one point, Pritchett was left on his own. He recognized another glider pilot, and the two teamed up to spend the night in the woods with ack-ack [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] exploding over their heads. They were several hundred miles from Melun, France, and as glider pilots, they had to make their own way back to base. By bicycle and motorcycle they reached the pontoon bridges across the Rhine, and joined the tail end of a convoy. At a crossroads along the way, an approaching motorcycle crashed into Pritchett, and broke his leg in several places. He was taken by ambulance to a hospital unit at Monchengladbach, Germany, where he was offered a Purple Heart, but because he didn't feel he strictly qualified for the award, he refused it.

From Germany, James Pritchett was flown to, and treated at, a general hospital in Herefordshire, England. After about a month he was fitted with a "travel cast" and put aboard the liner George Washington [Annotator's Note: USS Catlin (AP-19)] on his way back to the United States. While he was "on the ocean," the war in Europe ended, and the ship's galley prepared a feast, including baked Alaska, for the soldiers' celebration. He arrived at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, and after a short while was moved to Finney General Hospital in Thomasville, Georgia. For several months, he would report for a monthly examination, and return home. On one of the trips home he became engaged. During his period of care, the Japanese forces surrendered, and shortly thereafter Pritchett was married. He was still in the service under medical care, and was sent to a hospital in Boca Raton, Florida. His wife accompanied him, and housing was a problem. After six weeks, Pritchett got a medical discharge and orders to report to Keesler Field in Biloxi, Mississippi. He and his wife lived off base, and Pritchett learned to fly B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber]. He was discharged from the military at Keesler on 25 August 1946.

After his discharge, jobs were hard to find, so James Pritchett took advantage of the G.I. Bill and went back to college. His medical condition entitled him to an additional stipend, but in 1948 he and his wife learned they were expecting their first child, and he started looking for work. He answered a newspaper ad posted by the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, and one quarter short of graduation, he took a job to audit tax returns. He worked in various places around the United States for the IRS until 1957, when he left their employment for a banking job back home. Pritchett eventually earned his degree from Auburn University in 1976.

Asked by the interviewer to recall his voyage across the Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean], James Pritchett said his ship traveled, zig-zagging [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] all the way and without escort, and never saw an enemy vessel. Recounting his experiences at the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], he said that as far as he could tell, the troops were directly under his plane and all the supplies he dropped reached the GIs [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier]. The aircraft flew low enough for Pritchett to see the faces of the men in the foxholes. Pritchett only participated in one airdrop over Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. Asked if the war changed him in any way, he said it probably made him "more of a man." Pritchett was only 20 at the time, and said he had a lot of good experiences in the military that he thought were educational; it was a good thing for him. He doesn't think most Americans back home realized the magnitude of the war, or suffered in the way that Europeans did with the war on their home soil. He thinks World War 2 made a difference to other countries, some for better, some for worse; and Pritchett noted that American taxpayers helped Japan and Germany to recover, rebuild and modernize.

In James Pritchett's opinion, the significance of The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] is to let people know what the war was about. He regrets that most veterans who served will not get to see it. He recalled that when he visited, he was impressed with an exhibit about gliders, and was able to answer questions from a woman whose husband had been a member of an airborne unit that jumped from them. He said he believes that through the museum, anyone who visits, especially family members of those who served, can learn what the servicemen of that era accomplished for their country.