Robert Walker was born in September 1923 in Birmingham, Alabama. His father died in 1931, leaving his widow with three little boys. That, together with the Great Depression of the early 1930s, meant the family had a hard time getting by. Walker's mother kept a garden and chickens, and bought two milk cows that Walker and his brother tended and milked and they sold the produce to boarding houses in their community. They also ran a paper route, gathered scrap iron and bottles, and did anything they could to earn money. After grammar school, Walker attended trade school to learn radio repair and electronics, and got his amateur operator's license. He said it was the "best thing he ever did." When Walker was 17, he was managing a corn machine business, and became buddies with the company's owner, who loved flying. Together they decided to join the Army Air Corps, and took the aviation cadet exam. His buddy failed but Walker, because he was already proficient in code transmission and reception and knew all the physics, passed and took the oath. He wasn't called up right away, but when he was 19 years old, he became part of the Maxwell Field [Annotator's Note: now Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama] Aviation Cadet Class of 1944A. Walker spent two months at Maxwell Field, where it was so hot that an ambulance followed their class exercises to pick up those who fell out. Many of his classmates were eliminated during basic training. Walker went on to primary flight school in Jackson, Tennessee where he trained in a Stearman [Annotator's Note: Boeing-Stearman Model 75 primary trainer aircraft]. He said that 45 percent of his classmates failed there, washing out on take offs, landings, or emergency landings. After two months, he moved on to basic flight school in Newport, Arkansas, for another two months. There he flew a monoplane with instruments that the cadets nicknamed the "Vultee Vibrator" [Annotator's Note: Vultee BT-13 Valiant basic trainer aircraft]. The cadets had to master all the fundamentals of flying as well as spins, rolls, loops, and some navigation. Walker studied instrument flying and night flying. It was a joke among the cadets that the Army tried to kill them before they ever got into combat. The next phase was advanced flight training in an AT-6 [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft] at Spence Field [Annotator's Note: in Moultrie, Georgia] in Georgia. Walker was 20 years old when he qualified and was awarded his wings in March 1944.

After qualifying [Annotator's Note: as a military pilot], Robert Walker was sent to Eglin Field [Annotator's Note: now Eglin Air Force Base in Okaloosa County, Florida] in Florida for training in aerial and ground gunnery, and proceeded to the Tifton, Georgia auxiliary field for his first solo flight in a P-40 [Annotator's Note: Curtis P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft]. Walker said his classmates cracked up five planes on the first day. Walker discusses the performance of the P-40 and describes what it took to solo. He was sent next to Camp Springs, Maryland where he first soloed in a P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft]. Walker said most of the planes were rejects from the war, and less than flightworthy. One plane he was supposed to fly was throwing oil, and that scared him. He mentioned that each plane had comprehensive manuals that they had to study. Walker describes what it took to qualify for night flying, how the pilot had to have a mental picture of all things, because he had to fly blindfolded. That too, he thought was scary. They also learned Air Corps fighter techniques and flight patterns; how planes worked in pairs, protecting each other. They practiced aerial gunnery with colored bullets; and low flying, hopping bushes and fences; skip bombing; and ground gunnery. Walker said it was "a little bit of everything for combat." He finished in 1943 and boarded a Dutch liner-turned-transport ship, zig-zagging [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] across the Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean] to Scotland. In England, he flew a few practice missions then transferred to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France], which had just been liberated. He celebrated his 21st birthday there. A short time later, he left for Sint-Truiden [Annotator's Note: Sint-Truiden Air Base or Brustem Air Base], Belgium where he started flying combat missions against the Germans.

On his first missions, Robert Walker was sent on four-plane flights to drop leaflet bombs over enemy territory. Each plane was assigned a town that would get a warning of the advancing military action. German fighters ambushed the four-plane group that flew out after Walker's, and all four were lost; a near miss that made Walker "feel a little squeamish." In December [Annotator's Note: December 1944], he was flying on the edge of Germany, and was called back because the Germans had started their counter-attack, commencing the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. The flight commander ordered them to shoot up a column they saw on the ground, and they were having a "field day," but had to return to base when the weather closed in, and all of Europe came under cloud cover. Walker said if the weather had been better, "those rascals never would have moved," because the Allies had the firepower to unload on them. Walker described the eight .50 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .50 caliber machine gun] with armor piercing incendiary bullets that he controlled; when he pulled the trigger, he said the recoil felt like somebody grabbed him by the tail and pulled him back. Where bullets converged, they could chop a tree down. The first day it cleared up, Walker's 404th Fighter Group [Annotator's Note: Walker was a member of the 506th Fighter Squadron, 404th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force] put three squadrons up, and Walker was wingman to the commander, "shooting 'em up." That was a stressful flight, Walker said, like being put "under the microscope." But he did well, and soon afterward earned a promotion to First Lieutenant. He flew fighters in the Battle of the Bulge for a while, then was made an air support officer with a tank outfit. He was "stuck" in a "darn" Sherman tank with an aircraft radio, but was "lucky." While some others who were doing the same job had a tough time, Walker enjoyed being with the enlisted guys in a tank platoon and got out unharmed. After the breakout, he was sent to the Bulge area control center at Verviers, Belgium where all the radar work directing flights was done, to study the command structure. He later had to access help from that center when he was shot up during a combat flight.

Returning to his first encounter during the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], when his squadron [Annotator's Note: 506th Fighter Squadron, 404th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force] attacked a column of German armored vehicles in the Ardennes, Robert Walker said they strafed and bombed the road, exhausting everything they were carrying. They surprised the enemy, and he doesn't remember any of his squadron being damaged. But the quickly deteriorating weather conditions became dangerous, and the pilots had to fly back to base on instruments. Walker describes what the airmen called "pickle barrel missions," used when cloud cover was dense. They would fly in close formation on instruments and radar all the way up, then spread out and drop their 500-bomb bombs on an unseen target. While the weather made flying impossible, Walker spent about two weeks with a tank outfit, and "camping out" with the ground troops. The unit drove right up to the German Border, to a town called Simmerath, Germany, where Walker had to be treated for dysentery. Walker said his 9th Tactical Air Force, "was right in the middle of everything." After the Bulge, Walker remembers the crossing of the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River] and a really big airborne mission at Wessel, Germany. His unit flew support, "in case any German fighters came in." Then the action moved to the Ruhr Valley, and the Remagen Bridge. His squadron caught the German forces on the main highway, ready to punch out of the Allied encirclement. Walker said his squadron really did some harm, and when they ran out of ammunition, called in reinforcement that ensured the containment. Then he remembers flying a mission over a resort called Bad Ems [Annotator's Note: Bad Ems, Germany] near Koblenz [Annotator's Note: Koblenz, Germany], where intelligence reported a gathering of Gestapo [Annotator's Note: German Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police; abbreviated Gestapo] "big wheels." The 12 plane squadron, carrying two 500 bombs each, arrived on schedule. Walker said he went in strafing, and at the precise time, punched the button at the top of the stick to drop his payload. It was memorable. On the next mission Walker flew, he got shot up.

A mission over the road leading out of Remagen [Annotator's Note: Remagen, Germany] proved problematic for Robert Walker. His squadron [Annotator's Note: 506th Fighter Squadron, 404th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force] was strafing vehicles along the road and his wingman, who was green and unfamiliar with tactics, complained that Walker was leading him into too much antiaircraft fire. Walker spied the position of the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] gun, headed right for it, and the two adversaries opened up on each other at the same time. Walker got a good burst in, and there was an explosion, but his plane went into a spin, having lost the tip of a wing and half of an aileron. He rolled back the canopy, but recognized that he wasn't high enough for a parachute to open; so he settled down to pull the plane out, and got control. The radar station guided him back to the field where he had difficulty landing because the brakes had been shot out. He managed to put the plane down intact, and once repaired, it became his personal aircraft. He named it the "Bama Bag." According to Walker, a "bag" is a fun-loving bar girl. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for aggressively attacking his target and skillfully carrying out his mission. Walker began to fly faster, making him harder to hit, and developed his own style of attack and evasive action. He commented that the Germans had "terrible" antiaircraft fire. Not long afterward, he flew an armed reconnaissance mission where he ran low on gas. He decided to set the plane down, and describes the landing trick he performed on the short grass field, barely dodging a fence. The area had just been captured, and he spent the night waiting for fuel with ground troops who shared their meager rations. He had saved the plane, and escaped the dangers of bailing out; he got no criticism for using his best judgment in the situation. His remaining missions were "mopping up" flights from his last air base at Fritzlar, Germany, where he was stationed when the war ended.

When the war ended, Robert Walker had flown 51 missions, and was moved to Stuttgart, Germany in a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. He was offered and accepted an opportunity to fly the plane while en route, and decided, "there wasn't much to it." While he was in Stuttgart, he went on several flights just to keep his skills honed, and when he left, he was given a big roll of 16mm film that included footage of all of his missions. Leaving Germany, the airmen were moved on old troop trains, where they contracted scabies, arriving at Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France] to take a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] home. The sea voyage included a stop at Swansea, Wales to take on ballast, then crossed the North Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean]. Walker called it a "crude ship," but took a four-hour shift steering the vessel. Always adventurous, he later had had an opportunity while in Florida to fly a PBY [Annotator's Note: Consolidated PBY Catalina flyig boat], and said it was the "sloppiest plane" he'd flown, and that it "meandered" all over the place. Overall, his opinion of the plane he flew most, the P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft], was very complimentary. It had a powerful motor and was tough to shoot down. Walker calls it the best high-altitude fighter, and notes that often they had to take refuge higher up. Toward the end of the war, the Germans concentrated all their antiaircraft guns around Dusseldorf and Cologne [Annotator's Note: both in Germany], and every time the fighters went over those areas, the sky would be black with flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. Walker recalled that one day, tracers came zipping between the blades of his propeller, and he had to "bump" his stick to turn the plane's nose down and avoid being shot in the face. That made him "nervous in the belly." Sometimes the flak was so thick that it was difficult to follow the planes with radar. Asked if he had ever flown escort missions, Walker remembered one mission flying with B-26s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber] to Erwin Rommel's [Annotator's Note: German Army Generalfeldmarschall, or Field Marshal, Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel] birthplace in the southern part of Germany; he said they leveled the town.

Robert Walker never got over the war. At times he had nightmares, and the ring of the telephone could "jangle his stomach." It took about five years before his nerves settled. In the ready room where the pilots had lectures, there was a sign that indicated "briefing time; nervous piss time; start engine time." The airmen were tense all the time, and it wasn't healthy. When he got home, he became interested in reading the bible and studying Christian principles. To him, the study of science is discovering the works of the Creator. He thinks Americans did a great job in the war. Asked if he thought the war changed the world, Walker observed that it made Germany "a decent nation," and that now the Japanese are "contributing to the welfare of the world." He regrets that the United States is not the power it used to be. He thinks people need to be reminded of how the military saved the nation, and that The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] is there to remind them.