Thomas Eakes was born in November 1922 in Beaumont [Annotator's Note: Beaumont, Texas]. He had one older brother. His brother encouraged Eakes to join the service. His great-grandfather owned a plantation in Louisiana with 5,000 acres and 125 slaves. Eakes' grandfather did not like that and took his family to Texas and was cut of the will. Eakes' father drove a streetcar and bus and then started the Yellow Cab Company in Beaumont. His mother did not work, and his father lost his job during the Great Depression. They farmed and he worked for the WPA [Annotator's Note: Works Progress Administration]. They did not have electricity and Eakes had to cut wood for the winter. They would get bull calves from the dairy farms. His father bought a gas stove and refrigerator. Eakes got caught stealing watermelons. He and his friends would go fishing and swimming. Eakes' brother bought him a rifle. They lived near an artesian well where they would get bullfrogs to eat. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if he recalls where heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Eakes was in Beaumont and he worked at the Enterprise [Annotator's Note: Beaumont Enterprise newspaper] and Journal [Annotator's Note: Beaumont Journal newspaper] newsroom. His brother had gone in the service in 1939 and he came home. Eakes was 20 then and the war had started. Eakes' brother told him to go in right away and pick the Air Force. Eakes went to a recruiter, signed up, and left that night. He had never been away from home and he learned an awful lot.

Thomas Eakes had basic training at Ellington Field [Annotator's Note: now Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base] in Houston [Annotator's Note: Houston, Texas]. He said he wanted to be a gunner. He was told they needed mechanics and made him one. He went to Keesler Field, Mississippi [Annotator's Note: now Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi] for school. He would go to class an hour early. He trained on B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. He went to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] to the Consolidated [Annotator's Note: Consolidated Aircraft Corporation] factory for a familiarization course. He saw his first B-24 there. He then went to Tulsa, Oklahoma to another factory. He was given an airplane there. He went to Casper, Wyoming and then was sent to Sioux City, Iowa the next day. He was assigned to the unit there for 30 days. He got 15 days to go home [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and then went on the RMS Queen Elizabeth to Liverpool, England. He took a train to Seething [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force, or RAF, Seething, Norwich, Norfolk, England]. He spent 21 months there with the 713th Bombardment Squadron, 448th Bombardment Group. They were short of maintenance men and were spread thin.

[Annotator's Note: Thomas Eakes served in the US Army Air Forces with the 713th Bombardment Squadron, 448th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force based in Seething, Norwich, Norfolk, England.] Eakes spent 21 months there earning six battle stars [Annotator's Note: device worn to denote subsequent awards on medals and ribbons]. His airplane participated in six big missions. The "Feather Merchant" [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator, serial number 41-29178] was the last plane he remembers. It flew two missions on D-Day [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Before that, they had to destroy the Luftwaffe [Annotator's Note: German Air Force]. The planes would bomb in Germany and France. The fighters could not go to Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany] with the bombers. On some days, the planes would go to Africa and stay overnight. On the way back, they would bomb Poland. After 21 months, Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] killed himself. Some airplanes were being sent back and Eakes was put on the last one. The airplane had to be nursed back. After three days, they landed in Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts] and ran off the end of the runway. They went the rest of the trip by train. Eakes got a 30 day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] after they landed. He then went to Tucson, Arizona and was assigned to B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. He was getting ready to go to war again when Mr. Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] dropped the bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] and the Japanese decided they could not win. Eakes had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to get out, so he did. He was not happy in the service. His brother retired from the service. He had run the Red Ball Express [Annotator's Note: Allied forces truck convoy system] for Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.]. His brother fought in the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] and turned down a battlefield commission. Eakes wanted to be an architect but after he got out of the service, he lost the desire to go to school. His job was waiting for him at the Enterprise [Annotator's Note: Beaumont Enterprise newspaper] and Journal [Annotator's Note: Beaumont Journal newspaper]. They had a strike, and he did not want to cross the picket line. He quit but then returned later and worked in their mail room. His philosophy was to never leave a job mad and he would return to the Enterprise and Journal three times. He went to work for Mobil Oil [Annotator's Note: now ExxonMobil] and retired after 34 years in 1986.

Thomas Eakes says his time in the service would not be the same now. He was not cut-out for the service. He spent three years because he was needed. Everybody served. Serving made him more responsible and it taught him a lot. He had never been away from home at 20 years old. He knew his wife when she was a little girl. When he came back, she was 17. It took him two years to talk her into marrying him. They were married 61 years before she died. He still misses her. He went to London [Annotator's Note: London, England] once and did not enjoy it. He went to Scotland and they treated him differently than the English did. The English treated Americans like dirt. Eakes does not think the war means much to Americans today. The kids are not taught well. He has never understood how we beat Germany twice and Japan once and then fixed up their countries and gave them back. If it had been the other way around, we would be speaking German or Japanese. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if places like The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana are important for teaching about the war.] Yes, people need to know what people went through. The boys now going overseas have a tough time, but they can speak to their families. His generation did not have that. They only had mail and not all of it got across. He calls the servicemen "lost boys" because that is what they were, boys. When they lost an airplane, they lost ten boys, not men. Eakes was far from being mature even when he got out.