Paul Roach was born in January 1921 in Hugoton, Kansas. He went through high school. It was not a big school. He had one sister and three brothers. He was the middle child. [Annotator’s Note: Roach shows the interviewer his yearbook.] His father worked for a creamery company and then he had his own business. His mother stayed at home to raise the children. Roach enjoyed playing football and running track. They lived in farm country, and the farmers could not pay cash for the product they bought from his father because of the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s]. His father lost his job and joined the WPA [Annotator's Note: the Works Progress Administration was a federally sponsored program that put unemployed Americans to work during the Great Depression]. His father got a job with a dairy company. Roach had to walk a mile to school. They did not have the things they had before. His father lost their car. Roach worked in the local bakery. He graduated in 1938.

Paul Roach went to Kansas State University [Annotator’s Note: in Manhattan, Kansas] in the fall of 1938. He went there for two years. He worked as a mechanic in a local garage. He was inducted into the Army Air Corps in January 1942. He spent 30 days on furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and then went to San Antonio [Annotator’s Note: San Antonio, Texas], graduating in November 1942. He got married in Waco, Texas in 1942. Then he went to Sedalia, Missouri to transition from single-engine planes to multi-engine planes. He moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina only to be transferred to Nebraska. He left Nebraska in October 1943 to go to Europe. Roach was in the 72nd Bombardment Group until July 1945. His son was born while he was overseas. He went back to school. He thought about the Flying Tigers [Annotator's Note: the First American Volunteer Group of the Republic of China Air Force composed of American airmen and ground crew] who started a freight line after the war. His parents moved to California. He joined the Air Force Reserves. The Army Air Corps became the Air Force in 1947. He worked with a private engineering group. He retired in 1983. He retired from the Reserves in January 1981. He had multiple jobs. [Annotator’s Note: Roach describes his jobs.]

Paul Roach was a city engineer. He was in the reserves for two weeks in the summer. He was taking classes in command school. [Annotator’s Note: Roach describes his job as an engineer and in the reserves.] When Roach went overseas, he was sent to England. He was in the 72nd Troop Carrier Squadron. They towed gliders. [Annotator’s Note: On D-Day, these gliders were used on an unprecedented scale to transport troops and supplies to Normandy. They were towed by transport or bomber aircraft before gliding into the landing zone, where supplies could be retrieved.] They led the first group of gliders that went into France to open the war in June [Annotator's Note: Roach is referring to D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. They left around four in the morning. Roach took the second group on the same day. A lot of the group took in paratroopers. They towed the gliders in to put behind the German lines. Once they got a base established, they had to take in supplies. When they went into the air, the sky was filled with airplanes and the ocean was filled with ships. They towed the gliders at about a thousand feet and dropped down to 500 feet when they dropped the gliders. Roach worried about getting hit by their own ships because this happened in Italy. Roach’s plane was called Little Willy. When they went into Belgium, his plane was shot down while another crew was flying it. That crew was captured and put in a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] camp. Roach flew 15 combat missions over enemy territory. On one mission, they flew into Bastogne [Annotator’s Note: Bastogne, Belgium] at night with supplies. They had packs under the planes and would cut them loose as they reached their destination. Flying into Belgium was a disaster. It was foggy over the Channel [Annotator’s Note: the English Channel separating France and England] and Roach lost his wingman. They were towing gliders. They had gliders and planes scattered all over the battlefield. Instead of Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] being in charge of the battle, they gave it to Montgomery [Annotator's Note: British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery] and it was all screwed up.

Paul Roach did five combat missions. They did a lot of resupplying. They were hauling gas in when Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] was making his run into Germany. The crew would load 50 five-gallon cans into the cargo of the ship. They would get as close as they could to the line. Most of the airfields were sod. He made five trips that week. He came back home in June 1945. When Japan surrendered, he got out of the service. When they were in France, the fog was dense. Roach took a commanding officer to southern England through the fog. He followed a railroad track, but could not see far enough in front of him to have a safe trip. Another time, he got stuck outside the base because of the dense fog. Roach was never attacked. A couple of other planes took ground fire. He did not lose his crew. They lost three planes and their crews.

Paul Roach went away to war as a boy and came back as a man. He did not have any outstanding experiences. He had a nice bed to sleep in at night. When he was not flying, he was the squadron motor pool officer. He built a cover for the commander's jeep. He trained for the flights and D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. He had to keep an eye on the plane to make sure it was running well. Roach did his job and participated in getting his job taken care of. World War 2 is probably the most memorable war since the Revolution [Annotator’s Note: the American Revolution, 19 April 1775 to 3 September 1783, fought between American colonists and the British] and the Civil War [Annotator’s Note: American Civil War, 12 April 1861 to 9 April 1865]. There were more issues involved in World War 2. The wars were important to the development of the United States. Even in World War 1 [Annotator's Note: World War 1, a global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918], the people did not get as involved as they did in World War 2. Everybody was involved in that war.