Lloyd Rogers was born in Patterson, Louisiana in May 1914. He is 90 years old [Annotator’s Note: at the time of the interview]. He had two sisters. He graduated high school in 1933 at the age of 19. Many of the families near the end of World War One [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918] had influenza. His father was a watchman at a sawmill. Rogers went to work for Shell Oil Company after graduation in 1935. In 1939, the war scare was on and Shell laid him off. He volunteered for service in 1940. A year later, the draft started. He joined the Army Air Corps.

Lloyd Rogers joined the service in New Orleans [Annotator’s Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. He had basic training in St. Louis, Missouri. He was issued a World War One [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918] uniform for basic training. They were the 89th Reconnaissance Squadron. Later in the war, they became a bomber squadron. They were in cardboard buildings. It was one big room with cots on one side. They had to learn everything pertaining to aircraft. In 1941, planes were being built for bombing purposes, but they did not yet have them for training. In December of 1941, the war started and they were ready to go. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on 7 December [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. They left basic training for Louisiana and started training in B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber]. On the West Coast, there was a submarine scare. They were heading to Africa. The sand was pink. They went with 57 B-25s. There were seven men in a crew.

Lloyd Rogers went to Florida to have modifications done on the airplanes and to put extra gasoline tanks in the bomb bays. They went on to Puerto Rico, then Trinidad. Then they went to an island called Ascension. The American airfield was built on an extinct volcano. Next, they went on to Africa. The Nile River flows north. They arrived at the Suez Canal in Egypt where they joined a British garrison. They were using British bombs. They were flying their aircraft to Egypt. Men were coming from England. They were there for four months before the Allied invasion of North Africa [Annotator's Note: the Allied invasion of North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch; 8 to 16 November 1942]. They were under the command of the British Royal Air Force, which was part of the British 8th Army under Montgomery [Annotator's Note: British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery]. They slept in British tents that were made in India. They ate mutton and drank tea. It was something to write home about. Those tents were their homes until they left in 1944. The staging area was in Taranto, Italy. There was a snowstorm. They stayed there for two weeks waiting for a British ship to take them to India. The weather was bearable, but when a sandstorm occurred they could not open their mouths. The flies were horrible. They had kerosene. Rogers would make stews and gumbos.

Lloyd Rogers remembers that there were temporary airfields in the Sahara Desert. Each airplane was dispersed with 100 yards between them. They did this so that the Germans could not take out the entire outfit. They lived in tents next to the aircraft. They bombed the Germans in the daytime. The British had officers who lived with them in their headquarters. They directed the 12th Air Group where to bomb. They used British bombs. [Annotator’s Note: Rogers describes the ground crew.] Rogers had to get the planes ready for battle. There was constant bombing for about two months. The Germans were retreating while Montgomery’s [Annotator's Note: British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery] forces were advancing. A lot of planes were lost in a sandstorm. Rogers was already there when the Allied invasion of North Africa [Annotator's Note: the Allied invasion of North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch; 8 to 16 November 1942] happened. The Germans annihilated the Americans at the Kasserine Pass [Annotator’s Note: the Battle of Kasserine Pass, 18 to 24 February 1943; Kasserine, Tunisia]. Two squadrons left them for two months. They got the job done. When they moved to Tripoli [Annotator’s Note: Tripoli, Libya] they finally saw greenery. Mussolini [Annotator's Note: Italian fascist dictator Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini; also known as il Duce] had an airfield there. Then they moved to an olive grove town in Tunisia. They lost a lot of airplanes to flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. When they left Tunisia, they went to Sicily [Annotator’s Note: Sicily, Italy]. It was a mountainous terrain and the Germans were well-fortified. The pilots had to learn how to skip bombs.

Lloyd Rogers was in the 9th Air Force, and the other two squadrons were in the 12th Air Force from England helping the invasion [Annotator’s Note: the Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, 9 July to 17 August 1943; Sicily, Italy]. Rogers had several airplanes to take care of. They had started to put eight bombs under the wings. A New Zealander was flying an American plane and crashed it into Rogers' plane and tents. The King of England [Annotator’s Note: King George VI of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth] had come to congratulate the troops. The British had their different units surrounding the place with one American B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] bomb group sitting among them. The British troops gave the king three hip hip hoorays and the Americans only clapped for him. This shook him up. The Arabs would come into the tents at night and steal from them. One day they had a close call. German dive bombers got close to them. The Germans would come at night. The anti-aircraft groups would send flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] up. They had a P-40 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] outfit to protect their bombers. They kept getting replacement troops. They invaded Sicily [Annotator’s Note: Sicily, Italy] with the British. Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] noticed the people had a lot of German vehicles. They bombed from two locations in Sicily.

Lloyd Rogers was on the eastern coast of Sicily [Annotator’s Note: Sicily, Italy]. From there they bombed Italy. Then they moved to mainland Italy. They went to Naples [Annotator’s Note: Naples, Italy]. After the bombing in Italy, they were ordered to India. Rogers did not go to the briefings as a ground crew member. They were told to box their tools. It snowed in the mountains on the way to the staging area. They went east in the Mediterranean Sea and went to Cairo, Egypt. They were there for two weeks. They got tropical shots. They went to Bombay, India on a train. They went on to northeast India. They were met by modern B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] and got right back to work with the British 14th Army. Bombing operations were different because the terrain was different. It was jungles and mountains in Burma. They bombed for 13 months. In May 1946, they received B-26 invaders [Annotator's Note: The Martin B-26 Marauder is an American twin-engined medium bomber that saw extensive service during World War II]. He remembers when they dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. He came back to the United States on a ship, arriving in Virginia. The Japanese had invaded India. They had American food in India. They still used British tents in Italy. They had thatched bamboo huts in India.

Lloyd Rogers remembers the new B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] was a better aircraft all around. The B-26s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-26 Marauder bomber] were bigger and better. Rogers got dysentery [Annotator’s Note: an infection of the intestines that causes diarrhea containing blood or mucus]. He had 145 points and only needed 45 [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 they kept him in because he was a mechanic. He went back to work for Shell Oil Company after the war. He got the job before he was discharged. He was discharged at Camp Shelby [Annotator’s Note: Camp Shelby, Mississippi]. He wanted to get out of the service. He was a technical sergeant when he was discharged. He worked in production for Shell in a field that produced oil.

Lloyd Rogers worked with a seismograph machine before the war to find oil deposits for Shell Oil Company. They would drop dynamite into the drilled holes to see if there were oil deposits in south Louisiana and Texas. They drilled in the Gulf of Mexico as well. He retired in 1976. In 1946, a lot of men were going back to work because they were returning home from the service. He worked for Shell before the war and they paid good money. They used some government equipment. They had a nice living facility. He would work seven days on and seven days off. He traveled all over the United States going to reunions for his unit. He kept up with individuals from all five squadrons. He went to the reunion in New Orleans [Annotator’s Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] in 1976.