Paul Carter was born in Febuary 1922 in Davidson County [Annotator's Note: Davidson County, North Carolina], the son of a farmer. He grew up in the country, tough without running water or electric lighting until he was a teenager, but he enjoyed his friends and rural activities. Carter attended school through the tenth grade, and was working as a shipping clerk at a High Point [Annotator's Note: High Point, North Carolina] veneer plant when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He remembered he was 19, and that he and his friends "weren't bothered" by the news. He was drafted in February 1943, and went to Georgia for 13 weeks of basic training then, without furlough, was sent overseas. The training was tough but Carter said his farming background helped him to "take it better than some of the others." He shipped out from Newport News, Virginia, and landed in Oran in North Africa. It was night when he got off the ship and Carter remembers children begging for cigarettes and candy. The soldiers moved by train to Morocco, where they lived in tents. While there, Carter visited Casablanca, got a cheap haircut and shoeshine, and was astonished by the traffic.

From Morocco, Paul Carter was shipped to Sicily where he was assigned to Company K, 179th Infantry Battalion, 45th Infantry Division. He was a rifleman and first scout so his job was to lead the attack. But when he reached Sicily, Carter said, the war was over there, and he saw no action. His company was in Sicily for a while, preparing for the invasion of Italy. While he was there, General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] talked to the troops on the topic of "toughness," and Bob Hope put on a show. Carter also described the three changes in command he underwent in that short period of time. Without knowing their destination, his division moved on to Italy, landing without resistance at Anzio behind the first wave whose foxholes the 45th Division used in succession. Carter remembered moving out from Anzio to replace the English, and later losing his buddy in an ambush. He described the enemy's delayed action tactics of booby traps and mines. Carter's division was responsible for taking Venafro, Italy, moving across the river under heavy machine gun fire and retreating three times before finally capturing the town. Contrary to written reports, Carter said there wasn't a shot fired in the town. People rushed into the streets and the women were hugging the soldiers. On the whole, Carter said, the locals were happy to be liberated, and were willing to trade American candy or cigarettes for a shave or good Italian wine.

At one point, Paul Carter was in an action where he put more ammunition through his rifle than at any other time. What was left of his platoon was ordered to move out, and after searching into the night for the rest of their company [Annotator's Note: Company K, 3rd Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division], they returned to headquarters. He remembers eating doughnuts all night long. Carter went back to the front, and was helping to remove a dead tank soldier from a bombed out house when the enemy forces moved in. The GIs [Annotator’s Note: slang term for an American soldier] around him all surrendered, but Carter said, "I ain't goin'." He was trapped without his rifle or grenades, and someone raised the alert that there was still one man in the house. Carter saw a German pull the pin on a hand grenade and aim it at the house, and he and the hand grenade crossed paths as he ran out of the structure. The prisoners were taken to a sand pit and it was then he realized, when he saw Germans everywhere, that he was a prisoner of war. On several occasions, Carter was sure he would be shot, but noticed that the Germans were treating the American prisoners more humanely than the Americans had treated their captives. When they were marched out of the area, the prisoners walked in a ditch, and their guards walked on the road, one of them on a bicycle. The group was strafed, and the man in front of Carter was hit in the foot, the man behind him was killed. The guards put the injured man on the bicycle and one of them walked him along the path until they reached their destination. They ended up in a studio outside of Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy]. After his capture, Carter was never searched or interrogated.

While he was a prisoner in Italy, Paul Carter nearly starved. Before leaving Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy] his clothes and shoes were taken away, and he was allowed to take a shower. Each prisoner was given a clean Italian Army uniform to wear, but no shoes. They left by truck, and later moved to boxcars that were packed with prisoners and without toilet facilities. The train stopped one time along the way, and the prisoners got out and were fed hot rice and onions. When they reached Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany] they were taken to some kind of a women's dormitory where they cleaned up, got a food box, and started feeling better. Carter said it may have been under the influence of the Red Cross, but they were treated in accordance with the rules of the Geneva Convention. The facility was known as Stalag VII-A, and he was sent to work on a bombed out airport. He said the prisoners "struck on that" and caused a lot of trouble. Carter said overall he "fared good" during his three month stay. He remembered that Americans could get a pack of coffee for 20 dollars. At night they would bribe the guard and go to a beer hall. Carter found the Germans, particularly the women, friendly, until the bombing started. He experienced about a dozen air raids. The English prisoners' barracks was hit one day while they were out. It was disconcerting to undergo bombing by his own countrymen, and to endure the verbal harassment of the German locals. He was moved from Munich to somewhere in the countryside where he dug potatoes. Then, he was transferred to another farm in Poland. They joined long term prisoners from the South African campaign, all of them performing farm chores. As Christmas [Annotator's Note: Christmas 1944] approached, German "big shots" came to the area to hunt, and the prisoners were used to run rabbits out of the brush. The prisoners were allowed to clean up for Christmas, got some time off, and had a little get together with their Christmas parcels. Carter thinks it was the best Christmas he ever had. Life as a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] could be horrible and dangerous, but Carter said he did what he had to do and got on pretty well with the guards. He said that by then a lot of the Germans were sick of the war.

The prisoners began to get reports that the war was coming to an end, according to Paul Carter, and they could see Germans moving away from the advancing Russian front. Before the Russians could reach the farm where he was held captive, the German SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization; abbreviated SS] marched the prisoners deeper into Germany. They moved from barn to barn, surviving on potatoes and anything else they could steal along the way, for almost two months. Asked if there was a difference between the SS and the regular German Army troops, Carter said, "You didn't mess with them [Annotator's Note: the SS men]." Although he considered attempting an escape, he recognized there was "no use." When they started receiving packs of American manufactured matches from the French, Carter knew they were close to liberation. The guards took off the night before the Americans arrived in an armored truck and a jeep. They were liberated on 14 April 1945, and told to go into the nearby village and take whatever they wanted. Carter said it felt good to be a free man again, but he began to wonder what it would be like to get home. The Americans pillaged the village, and waited while the nearby airstrip was repaired. Then they were flown to Camp Lucky Strike [Annotator's Note: one of the transit and rehabilitation camps in France named after popular cigarette brands; Lucky Strike was near Le Havre, France], France to wait for a ship heading home. While there, a friend from his hometown found him and took Carter to an area where he ate off of plates and slept in a bed with white sheets. It had been a long while since he had such luxuries. Carter was on the boat back to the United States when the war ended in Europe [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945].

When Paul Carter arrived in the United States and learned that he would be getting 60 days of leave, he was overjoyed. He left Fort Bragg, North Carolina by bus and made contact with his mother by phone, the first time she heard from him except for V-mail [Annotator's Note: Victory Mail; postal system put into place during the war to drastically reduce the space needed to transport mail] that he sent from Europe months before. Carter noted that he wasn't married then, and had a good time when he got back from the war. When his leave was up, Carter traveled to Miami, Florida, and reported to Camp Blanding, Florida. He was discharged as a private in October 1945. Asked how World War 2 affected his life, Carter said it took a while, but he finally realized that he learned a lot. It made a difference in the way he looked at people and his evaluation of who might be considered a friend. He said he felt the significance of The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] rested on telling people the truth about the events of the war. Carter said he would like to visit the museum at some point in the future. He thanks the Lord that he got out of the war without serious injury.