Lawrence Wulf was born in Avoca, Nebraska in May 1919. His father was a farmer but was also the director of a bank his grandfather had started. He also owned property and was a good businessman. Wulf wanted to go to college after high school and wanted to pay his own way. His father also threshed grain and paid Wulf to do that. He went to school for one year and then ran out of money. He got a job at a bank after that for four years until Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was attending school part time. Wulf heard the news of Pearl Harbor on the radio, and knew his life was changed. He went to enlist and was already 1A [Annotator's Note: Selective Service Classification indicating the individual is available and fit for military service] in the military classification system. Knowing he would be called up right away and be put in the Army, he enlisted in the US Army Air Force so he could fly. He had seen Lindbergh [Annotator's Note: Charles Augustus Lindbergh, American aviator] fly at an annual picnic once.

Lawrence Wulf enlisted in the US Army Air Force. He was sent to Victory Field in Vernon, Texas. His instructor was Jimmy Moore [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. He went to Waco, Texas and got his wings there. He was assigned to fly B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] and was sent to Peyote, Texas. He went to Tennessee and trained more. He was to go to Europe but was pulled back to pick up his crew and train as a pilot instead of copilot. While there, he was switched to train in B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] to go to the Pacific. He went to El Paso [Annotator's Note: El Paso, Texas] and got his crew for the B-24. They got their plane in Topeka, Kansas in December 1943. They flew it across the Pacific. They went from Arizona to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] to Honolulu [Annotator's Note: Honolulu, Hawaii]. They spent a couple days there and then went to Canton Island [Annotator's Note: in the Republic of Kiribati] and worked on the plane. They then went on to Australia, outside of Sydney. The Japanese were in New Guinea by then. Wulf bombed a lot in New Guinea from Nadzab [Annotator's Note: Nadzab Airfield in Lae, Papua New Guinea, as a pilot with the 19th Bombardment Squadron, 22nd Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force].

Lawrence Wulf [Annotator's Note: a pilot in the 19th Bombardment Squadron, 22nd Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force] liked both the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] and the B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. The B-24 was a little faster and was larger. The B-17 had a single rudder. Both were easy to fly, but the B-24 responded to the rudder better due to having dual rudders. His first missions were bombing New Guinea. The Japanese were coming to Nadzab [Annotator's Note: Nadzab Airfield in Lae, Papua New Guinea] where they were based. They would get hit at night and would use slit trenches for cover. He flew 51 missions overall. They went after shipping, planes on the ground, and ack-ack [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. He lost some of his crew. Sergeant Reavis [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] was killed on a flight with another crew. The crews could take leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and then Wulf would fly somebody else. This allowed the crews to get their points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. When they first went over, they were required to fly 25 missions to be able to go home. As the war progressed, that got raised to 50 missions.

Formosa [Annotator's Note: Republic of Formosa; present day Taiwan] had not been hit and was going to be hit for the first time. Lawrence Wulf's group [Annotator's Note: 19th Bombardment Squadron, 22nd Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force] was called the "Red Raiders" because their commander, Richard W. Robinson [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Colonel Richard W. Robinson], had red hair. Wulf was the Operations Officer and made up the schedule of who flew. He made himself the group leader and he told Robinson. The pilot was Captain Hume [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], the copilot Heff [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], with Wulf being the command pilot. Colonel Robinson asked him who was leading the group and then told Wulf to put him in as command pilot. Wulf moved himself to pilot with Hume as copilot. That evening, Heff saw that he had been taken off and he begged to go. Wulf took himself off the flight and put Heff as copilot. One of Wulf's crew was close friends with the gunner. They were scheduled for early take-off. Wulf went to bed and woke up hearing the planes warming up. He heard a plane's engines revving up and thought that was Hume and Robinson taking off. They went down the runway and there was silence followed by an explosion. Wulf's navigator came in and told Wulf what happened. A Corsair [Annotator's Note: Vought F4U Corsair carrier-based fighter-bomber] had taxied up and was facing the runway with his prop turning. Captain Hume could not see it and his wing passed over it. The propellor cut about eight to ten feet off the wing. The plane was at full power and at the end of the runway was heavy equipment that they slammed into. The plane caught fire and the bombs went off. The squadron flight surgeon, Captain Martin [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], asked Wulf to go help identify the bodies. All they found of Colonel Robinson was a leg with red hair on it. That was not pleasant. This was on Samar [Annotator's Note: Samar, Philippines], where they had just moved from Angaur [Annotator's Note: Angaur, also called Ngeaur, Palau]. The mission had been called off.

Another squadron hit Formosa [Annotator's Note: Republic of Formosa; present day Taiwan]. [Annotator's Note: Lawrence Wulf, a pilot with the 19th Bombardment Squadron, 22nd Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force, describes what led to this in the clip titled "Disaster on His 50th Mission" of this interview series.] Lawrence Wulf flew the last mission up there on a night reco [Annotator's Note: reconnaissance] as a lone plane. That is when he got shot up. They had a new plane with new radar that allowed them to bomb through the clouds, so Wulf took the mission with Captain Blank [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. They flew above the overcast all the way up. Over the target, they broke into a bright, moonlit night. Wulf had a make-up crew, and the bombardier was not his regular one. The bombardier started the bomb run and the searchlights got them bracketed. He could not see anything in the cockpit because it was so bright. The lights were coordinated with the ack-ack [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire], and they were hit several times. They lost number four engine and then number three. They were losing altitude. They had dropped their bombs. They went from 12,000 feet to 5,000 feet. Wulf wanted to get over a mountain range and ditch over the ocean. Blank got number four started again, but number three was windmilling. They were able to maintain just above stalling speed. They landed around sunup in the northern Philippines. Wulf did not know the nose and right main tires were shot out. He lost rudder control upon landing, and they went across country and came to a stop. His navigator got some shrapnel in his foot. Over the target, Wulf felt like he had been hit in the foot with ball bat. The heel of his shoe was gone. Shrapnel had torn it off. He was fortunate. If it had hit him, he could not have flown the plane. It had 110 holes form the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. That was a testament to the durability of the B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. That was Wulf's 51st mission and he said that was enough. That mission had been flown out of Clark Field [Annotator's Note: now Clark Air Base in Luzon, Philippines]. Wulf went home after his last mission and was in the United States when the war ended. He was home on leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He went back to school on 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]. His father was killed in an accident, so Wulf took care of his mother. Wulf lost his wife and went back to banking. He stayed in the Reserves for 20 years. He flew often. He flew AT-6s [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft], C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft], C-54s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster cargo aircraft] and whatever was available.

Lawrence Wulf [Annotator's Note: a pilot with the 19th Bombardment Squadron, 22nd Bombardment Group, 5th Air Force] was at Angaur [Annotator's Note: Angaur, also called Ngeaur, Palau]. Fred Bailey wrote a book that Wulf bought [Annotator's Note: unable to identify]. Angaur Island is a small island. When he landed there ahead of the group to set up operations, things were not ready. He told his bombardier, Hank Wada [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], to take a jeep and find a beach to swim at. They found a place on the north end of the island near the airstrip that they assumed was a docking spot for ships. They looked out towards Peleliu [Annotator's Note: Peleliu, Palau] where the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] were and saw a huge wave coming towards them. They started running up an incline. The wave was coming right at them. He instinctively grabbed a ring on the cliff as the wave went over them. They were barely hanging onto the ring when the wave went out. They got to the top of the hill and the jeep was still there. Wulf read the book and got in touch with the author who had spent time there taking photographs of the wreckage after the war. The author was going to the island and asked Wulf to go with him. Wulf passed. If he had not seen the wave coming, he would have been washed miles into the ocean. Nobody would have known. Wulf told Bailey about the story. Bailey took pictures of the rings for him on his trip there. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Wulf if he would like to take a break. Wulf indicates he would have to refer to notes to continue. He then talks about something he has offscreen.] Susan Sheehan [Annotator's Note: Austrian-born American writer] went over to New Guinea and knew Wulf knew the crew and pilot of a plane that had disappeared. She got information from him and wrote a book [Annotator's Note: "A Missing Plane", three-part article in "The New Yorker" magazine published in 1986]. He had trained with the crew of that plane in El Paso [Annotator's Note: El Paso, Texas] and they went overseas together. They were to fly their planes from Nadzab [Annotator's Note: Nadzab Airfield in Lae, Papua New Guinea to their next base in Owi, Schouten Islands]. That pilot decided to take a short cut, hit the mountains, and disappeared.