Myron L. Guisewhite was born in 1921 in Avis, Pennsylvania, one of the five children of a New York Central Railroad worker. When Guisewhite finished high school in 1940, he left home for the first time to follow in his father's footsteps with the railroad. On 7 December 1941, he was working out of Buffalo [Annotator's Note: Buffalo, New York], and was shocked when he heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He knew something was going to happen, because the war in Europe was too big a deal. All the kids wanted to go into the armed forces. Guisewhite quit his job and enlisted. Too young to get into the aviation cadet program, his mother had to accompany him to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to release him. He took the entrance exam and was put on inactive reserve for six months. He was called up on 17 January 1943. Guisewhite went to Nashville [Annotator's Note: Nashville, Tennessee] for classification, and was sent to Santa Ana, California for pre-flight training. He always wanted to fly. There was no flying in pre-flight. There was only school, marching, discipline, and Army stuff. In ground school he was taught math, physics, meteorology, navigation and code. After about six weeks, he went on to primary training school at Tucson [Annotator's Note: Tucson, Arizona], where he got to fly the Ryan PT-22 [Annotator's Note: Ryan PT-22 Recruit primary flight trainer aircraft]. It was a nice place, and he was happy. He was pretty confident when he first flew solo and found it exciting. He had good training. He continued to California for basic training, where he flew Vultee BT-13s [Annotator's Note: Vultee BT-13 Valiant basic trainer aircraft; also known as the Vultee Vibrator], known as the Vultee Vibrators. The recruits worked up to bigger engines, higher speed planes, then went on to advance training at Luke Field [Annotator's Note: now Luke Air Force Base, Glendale, Arizona] in Phoenix, Arizona. There, he trained in the AT-6 [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft] and began gunnery practice out at Gila Bend [Annotator's Note: Gila Bend, Arizona], in addition to the usual ground school. He remembers learning to lead targets through skeet shooting exercises that he loved, since he had been a hunter all his life. On 3 November [Annotator's Note: 3 November 1943] Guisewhite was awarded his wings.

In January [Annotator's Note: January 1943], Myron L. Guisewhite was in preflight training. By Christmas [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1943], he was in Casablanca [Annotator's Note: Casablanca, Morocco]. That's how quickly soldiers were being brought into action. Following a three-day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], he reported to a debarkation spot in North Carolina. He left Newport News [Annotator's Note: Newport News, Virginia] on a converted ocean liner, and headed for the Mediterranean [Annotator's Note: Mediterranean Sea]. Guisewhite remembers being on submarine watch during the journey, and zig-zagging [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] as they sailed the Atlantic. When he got to Casablanca, the airmen reassembled and took basic combat instruction from pilots returning from the front. Guisewhite went by train to Tunis [Annotator's Note: Tunis, Tunisia], where he settled in at a tent encampment. The mission was cancelled, and there were some sad boys. Sixty-five of them went on to Sicily [Annotator's Note: Sicily, Italy] where preparations were being made for invasion. The airmen were trained on C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] that handled differently from the fighter planes, but they finally mastered the big, slow aircraft. During exercises, Guisewhite was impressed with the turnaround points of Mounts Vesuvius and Etna and recalls taking snapshots. It was one of best times of his life. In March [Annotator's Note: March 1944], the crews all boarded troop ships at Palermo [Annotator's Note: Palermo, Sicily] bound for England. Thinking of Casablanca, Guisewhite says that the nights were bitterly cold, and the days were very warm. In Sicily, the soldiers rigged up heaters that burned airplane fuel to keep warm. He said that although the men were from all over the United States, they became as close as brothers. They all went on leave together and were like family. The crews, except for the navigator, remained the same, and Guisewhite rotated between pilot and copilot duties. In the United Kingdom, Guisewhite arrived in Scotland in March, and was stationed in Saltby [Annotator's Note: Saltby, England]. There was more training, and Guisewhite found night formation flying tricky and vertigo was common. They flew all over the country for practice.

On D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], Myron L. Guisewhite flew the 82nd [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division] and 101st Airborne [Annotator's Note: 101st Airborne Division] troops into Normandy. His squadron [Annotator's Note: 32nd Troop Carrier Squadron, 314th Troop Carrier Group, 52nd Troop Carrier Wing, 9th Air Force] dropped combat engineers behind the lines in Cherbourg [Annotator's Note: Cherbourg, France]. Their initial flight took off around midnight, and the drops continued all day. Guisewhite said they were up almost every day after that hauling supplies, men, and equipment, and picking up wounded on the beaches and taking them back to hospitals in England. On the beaches, they landed on perforated steel mats that the engineers cobbled together to make a strip. Every plane had a nurse and was equipped with stretchers stacked two or three high. On every trip he made, Guisewhite kept an eye out for his brother who was part of the invasion force under Bradley [Annotator's Note: US Army General of the Army Omar Nelson Bradley]. His brother was wounded during the invasion, but some other pilot flew him back to England. When Guisewhite learned his brother was back in the United Kingdom, he flew a plane to where he was supposedly convalescing, but he had already been transferred. Guisewhite never did catch up with him. The flight was considered an exercise. [Annotator's Note: Guisewhite reviews the training he received for towing, snatching, and landing gliders.] Guisewhite's duties when unloading paratroopers during daylight hours when they could see the drop zone, were to push a button that turned on a red signal light at the cargo door in the back of the plane. The paratroopers would attach their static lines to a cable. They would jump when they got the green light. The paratroopers were jumping under full gear, and the weight of their packs affected the rate at which they descended. It all happened very low to the ground, so the jumpers were not sitting ducks in the air for too long. Later in the war, the planes were equipped with radio altimeters that measured the exact level above the ground, and the pilots loved it. Guisewhite was with the 314th Troop Carrier Group, 32nd Squadron, 52nd Troop Carrier Wing.

After the Holland invasion [Annotator's Note: Operation Market Garden, Netherlands, 17 to 25 September 1944] partly failed due to the horrible weather, Myron L. Guisewhite was dropping gliders with jeeps, trailers and all kinds of equipment to get the divisions out. Guisewhite was transferred to temporary duty with the newly formed Pathfinder group [Annotator's Note: 1st Pathfinder Group (Provisional), 52nd Troop Carrier Wing, 9th Troop Carrier Command, 9th Air Force]. Using purely navigational equipment, it could supply the troops with equipment and medical supplies in any weather. He was sent to Oxford, England, where the 9th Pathfinder Group was assembled. Each ship was equipped with special radar, and with a navigator trained to operate the unit. He spent several months practicing flights using the 717 LORAN set [Annotator's Note: LORAN, long range navigation radar] and got good at that. The unit was assigned to an airfield just north of Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy], and their practice continued over the Mediterranean Sea. He began Pathfinder training in October 1944. Before that, on the few occasions when he had time off, Guisewhite remembers going with a buddy to English tearooms for their communal aspects as well as the music. He also said there were fun times visiting a club called The Nut House. Guisewhite also attended a play in London [Annotator's Note: London, England]. Otherwise his activities were routine, moving people and supplies around England. There was a mixture of squadrons involved in the Holland mission, and Guisewhite recalled dropping Polish troops, who were trained in England, into the fray. His squadron dropped men and vehicles, in gliders, at Eindhoven [Annotator's Note: Eindhoven, Netherlands] and Arnhem [Annotator's Note: Arnhem, Netherlands], although the weather prevented their success at Arnhem. There was heavy ground fire during the missions.

Myron L. Guisewhite trained with the Pathfinders [Annotator's Note: 1st Pathfinder Group (Provisional), 52nd Troop Carrier Wing, 9th Troop Carrier Command, 9th Air Force] in Italy during the final months of 1944 in preparation for the next bad weather event, which turned out to be Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. On 24 December 1944, Guisewhite's plane left England in heavy fog, carrying ammunition, food and basic supplies. There was a narrow path in and out, and when they reached their destination, the sun was shining, leaving their planes without cover. Guisewhite remembers they lost of few aircraft and seeing the crew of a downed plane running for the woods. He was able to drop his load, the crew pushing the boxes that were attached to parachutes, out the back of the plane. Guisewhite found it sad, because he could see the GIs [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier] in the snow, waving, grateful to see the supply planes. But they started losing altitude right there and turned around to retreat out of their little corridor, running on one engine. They had to get past the woods to land and were able to reach a farming area near Reims [Annotator's Note: Reims, France]. Luckily, it was a good landing, and Guisewhite walked away from it. Although it took a while to get transportation, the crew was able to return to England. It wasn't Pathfinder work, but the squadron withstood the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] to get the plane safely down. When they glided into France, their first encounter was with the farmer whose field they plowed up. They couldn't communicate with him, and the man didn't understand that they had landed on purpose. Guisewhite doesn't remember how they got to an airbase, but they were flown back to England. It was the only mission he flew to Bastogne. It was the end of his Pathfinder experience, and he went to some airfields near Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France], and his assignments turned into just ordinary work, moving people, equipment and supplies back and forth. [Annotator's Note: Guisewhite describes an episode when he had to fly and land without air speed. It turned out all right.]

In March 1945, Myron L. Guisewhite was in France with the 438th Troop Carrier Group [Annotator's Note: 438th Troop Carrier Group, 53rd Troop Carrier Wing, 9th Troop Carrier Command, 9th Air Force] and didn't get involved with Operation Varsity [Annotator's Note: Operation Varsity, 24 March 1945, Wesel, Germany]. He was, however, flying missions that he felt good about, picking soldiers up and taking them to the French Riviera [Annotator's Note: French Riviera, coast of southeastern France] for R&R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation]. Before that, he was delivering five-gallon cans of tank fuel to Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] troops, which were moving rapidly through Europe. Guisewhite often had to land on makeshift runways or in fields to catch up with the Army's progress. On V-E Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945], he was in northern France, then rotated home, leaving from Prestwick, England, stopping off in Iceland, Greenland and Labrador [Annotator's Note: Labrador, Canada], and ending up at Bradley Field, Connecticut. He went home on a short leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], and then reported for stateside duty at Myrtle Beach [Annotator's Note: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina]. He lived off base on the beach for a short time before being transferred to Austin, Texas. There he joined a troop carrier group, mostly carrying personnel. Retracing his return from Europe, Guisewhite mentions that he was first assigned to George Field, Illinois where he trained on C-46s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft], and also checked out in the C-119s [Annotator's Note: Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar cargo aircraft]. One trip was scary. When flying from Montana to Washington, he was testing an aircraft and ran into wind problems. He had to fly under heavy cloud cover and struggled through a precarious landing.

Myron L. Guisewhite was sent back to Europe with the occupation Army. Assigned to France, he became involved with the European Air Transport Service, EATS. Flying out of a base near Marseilles [Annotator's Note: Marseilles, France], he operated old C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] that were repainted shiny silver. After overcoming a reconstruction error, he flew his aircraft for what amounted to a commercial airline, to destinations all over Europe. It was a busy schedule, and they flew in all weather. He was transferred to Orly Field in Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France], and remembers flying a Chief Justice Murphy to Belfast, Ireland. Before that, he took an emergency shipment of insecticide to Sardinia [Annotator's Note: Sardinia, Italy]. After his tour of duty with EATS, he was transferred to Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany]. The United States had begun selling aircraft and parts and delivering them to foreign countries. Guisewhite's crew got a trip to Turkey. Taking advantage of their orders to go by the best available route, they stopped in Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy] and Athens [Annotator's Note: Athens, Greece], ending up in Ankara [Annotator's Note: Ankara, Turkey], where his surplus aircraft was sold for 25 grand [Annotator's Note: 25,000 dollars]. After an overnight stay, they returned through Palestine, and spent some time in Alexandria, Egypt. Back in Munich, he called his wife and asked her to join him in Europe. They met in Paris and did some shopping with money Guisewhite made reselling his monthly ration of cigarettes for a handsome profit. After a couple of weeks touring the city, they continued to Munich.

Myron L. Guisewhite and his wife furnished an apartment in the suburbs of Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany] and lived amicably among the local people. His wife took trips that the Red Cross organized for the wives of servicemen. They bought a surplus jeep for 200 dollars and traveled around Germany in it. The couple returned to the United States in the fall of 1945. They sailed out of Bremerhaven [Annotator's Note: Bremerhaven, Germany], stowing the jeep in the hold of the ship. When they got to Brooklyn, New York, they drove their jeep home. After a leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], he reported for duty at Myrtle Beach [Annotator's Note: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina], then transferred to Austin, Texas for routine carrier work. He was discharged in July of 1948. He had no problem at all readjusting to civilian life and used the G.I. Bill to attend Temple University [Annotator's Note: in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. He specialized in electronics, especially television, and taught for a while at Temple. He took a job as a factory representative for a television company, traveling around the country. He began assembling his photographs and memorabilia from his time in the armed services and asked his son to help him research his journey. The photo album he created garnered a lot of public attention, and Guisewhite has enjoyed the activities associated with its use. He thinks moving from fighter training to troop carrier service was a break for him, and probably accounted for his coming out of the war alive. He is glad it happened. Looking back at his memories has been sort of nice.

Before D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], Myron L. Guisewhite remembers a couple of false starts due to the weather before actually taking off for Cherbourg [Annotator's Note: Cherbourg, France] just after midnight. By then the weather was okay, and there was moonlight. There was antiaircraft fire when they got around their target, and Guisewhite says we lost a few. After D-Day, their work was mostly evacuations and resupply. He served as copilot during this time, because he was new on the job. On that initial flight, his plane came through whole. He remembers that when he flew into Holland his aircraft had a shell go right through the plane. Most of the damage they encountered came as a result of ground fire. Guisewhite found it interesting that instead of cushions, the planes were outfitted with three-eighths inch steel plates under the seats, to keep them from getting clobbered from the bottom with small arms fire. After the beaches were secure, they loaded up the infantry wounded, sometimes two trips a day. He remembered feeling lucky when he returned from the D-Day mission. All the planes had the white invasions stripes painted on them so they wouldn't be shot down by our own invasion troops. Removing the wounded after the initial invasion was sickening, Guisewhite said, noting that the ships had a death stench that gave the plane an awful smell. He said there would be wounded soldiers in various states of injury, and the nurse running around trying to take care of them. Guisewhite said he felt good about the job of getting them out of there. He was flying out of Saltby [Annotator's Note: Saltby, England] at the time.