Virgil Faust was born in 1921 in Windber, Pennsylvania. His father was a carpenter by trade, and maintained housing for a coal company's employees. As such, he had work through the Great Depression. Faust graduated from Windber High School in 1939, and went to work for two different gas stations. In 1940, he was hired by the coal company to work with a mine surveying crew. Faust was with a Methodist Church youth group on the afternoon that he heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Before that, he had heard talk about the war in Europe, but knew nothing of conflict with the Japanese, so it was a complete surprise. He said he was "too young and carefree" to think about what it would mean for him. Faust got a draft notice, and was told he could get a deferment because he worked for the coal company. Figuring he had to go "one time or another," he joined the Army and ended up in the Air Corps. He was inducted at Indiantown Gap [Annotator's Note: Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania] then he was sent to Miami Beach [Annotator's Note: Miami Beach, Florida] for basic training. There he was tested, and sent on to radio school at Scott Field [Annotator's Note: now Scott Air Force Base in St. Clair County, Illinois] for 16 weeks. Faust never went home on furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] during his entire career in the service. He noted that the Signal Corps maintained the radios on which he trained. While at radio school, Faust volunteered for gunnery training, and was sent to gunnery school in Las Vegas, Nevada for six weeks. From there he went to Salt Lake City [Annotator's Note: Salt Lake City, Utah] for assignment and became part of a replacement group. From there he went to Blythe, California, to fly training missions. He then moved on to Walla Walla, Washington, and then to Grand Island, Nebraska, where his crew was given a new plane "right out of the factory," that had to have a couple of hundred flying hours before being sent overseas.

In June 1942, Virgil Faust went overseas starting from Grand Island, Nebraska and traveling to Bangor, Maine, then to Gander, Newfoundland, then to Prestwick, Scotland. He recalled that the first time he flew was in the back of an AT-6 [Annotator's Note: North American Aviation AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft] in gunnery school, and he enjoyed flying. Faust describes his crew and relates anecdotes about their dispositions and performance. They got along well. It took 16 hours to get from Newfoundland to Scotland. There the new plane was taken away, and the crew was sent to the replacement station at Bovington [Annotator's Note: Bovington, England] where they were assigned to the 91st Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: 322nd Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force], stationed at Bassingbourn Royal Air Force Base [Annotator's Note: in Cambridgeshire, England]. He arrived in the latter part of June, and spent most of July on training missions over Europe. On 15 August their first mission was to Flushing, Belgium to bomb German submarine pens. Faust said it was a "waste of time" because the pens were built with about "16 to 18 feet of concrete." The requirement for rotation back to the United States at the time was 25 missions. He mentioned that the Memphis Belle was in his bomb group, and accomplished the quota before returning to the United States to fly on bond drives.

After the normal briefing for Virgil Faust's second mission, he and the crew weren't much worried about the flight. They went up in the aircraft dubbed "My Prayer" to bomb a ball bearing factory in Schweinfurt, Germany. Most of the crew had no idea where that was or how long it would take. They only got as far as Koblenz [Annotator's Note: Koblenz, Germany], not even half way to the target. Over the Channel [Annotator's Note: English Channel], they test fired all the guns, and continued on their way. Two officers and five enlisted men were on the plane when it was riddled with fire. The copilot came to the back and gave the order to bail out but it was discovered that the engineer's parachute was on fire, and useless. Faust said that if they had all stayed with the plane to return to base, probably half of them would have been killed. First off, flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] hit the under side of the cockpit and ignited the oxygen tanks. It burned through the floor of the plane and consumed the engineer's parachute. There was a loss of power and Faust believes he was the first to come out of the aircraft. He said drifting through the air was the "most peaceful feeling" he ever had. The only sound was the wind blowing through the lines of the parachute. The ground came up "awful fast," but he wasn't hurt in landing. He roamed around for 24 hours before he was captured. A farmer and his family saw him on the edge of a field, and came after him with a pitchfork. Faust had no place to go, so he surrendered. The whole crew survived, with only three casualties. The navigator was burned and the ball turret gunner and the engineer had bullet wounds. Faust said they were "fortunate to make it back." He has a movie about the 8th Air Force that particularly addresses the Schweinfurt Raid, and shows a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] claimed to be "My Prayer" making a belly landing on the first British fighter base that they came to. Over the years, he has read other accounts of the aircraft "My Prayer." As they bailed out, the crew was spread along a long line, and when he landed, Faust had no idea of what happened to everyone else.

Taken captive, Virgil Faust went with the farmer to his house, and an older girl went off on a bicycle to alert the officials. The Hitler Youth [Annotator's Note: a Nazi Party youth organization] came and took him to their camp. A heavyset civilian who could speak English asked Faust where he came from, but never questioned him about his military mission. He spent the night in the Koblenz [Annotator's Note: Koblenz, Germany] city jail, and the next day he was taken to an interrogation station for airman at Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Dulag Luft in Frankfurt, Germany]. There he met two fellows, Tarbell and Burton [Annotator’s Note: unsure of spellings], and ended up spending time with them in custody. Faust was held for interrogation for about ten days. His response was always his name, rank and serial number, but after his continued repetitions, one interrogator brought out a big book that showed Faust's group commander, the four squadron commanders, and he read out the names of everyone on his crew. Faust said German intelligence was "incredible." He was sent to VII-A [Annotator's Note: Stalag VII-A in Moosburg, Germany], and every time new prisoners arrived, he looked for men he knew. Faust made friends with fellow prisoners Tarbell and Burton, and the three shared their food, their Red Cross parcels, and the contents of their personal parcels from home. Asked if he ever worried about his safety, Faust responded, "Ignorance is bliss"; he wasn't looking too far ahead. The thing that surprised him when he arrived in the camp was the number of men who were playing bridge. Faust learned how to play before leaving the camp [Annotator's Note: he was transferred to Stalag XVII-B in Krems an der Donau, Austria at some point] and taught others as well. He was a little concerned about how his folks at home were coping. They had news that he was "missing in action," then learned in October [Annotator's Note: October 1943] that he was a prisoner of war. After he was in VII-A for about two months, the prisoners were told they would be sent to a special Luftwaffe [Annotator's Note: German Air Force] camp. When they arrived at the new facility, they found it had been occupied by the Russians and the barracks were filthy. After the Germans fumigated and cleaned up the barracks, it evolved into a highly organized camp. New men arrived every day, and inmates conducted educational classes. Occasionally, when the Germans "got mad about something," they would close the school down. The German commandant of the camp was a highly professional colonel from Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany], who kept close tabs on the units. Every day, he would salute and greet the prisoners with "Good morning." After his sister was killed during a raid, he stopped his daily greetings until the prisoners began shouting "Good morning" to him, and he eventually returned to his daily routine. Faust was kept at XVII-B for about 18 months and held prisoner for 21 months altogether.

A month before Virgil Faust was liberated, the prisoners in the camp began hearing the artillery getting closer. Rumors started circulating that the Germans did not want to be taken by the Russians, and that the prisoners were going to be moved out. On 8 April [Annotator's Note: 8 April 1945], everyone who could walk marched away. The 75 wounded who were left behind were, by agreement with the Russians, left unmolested until the war ended and American forces could free them. Faust mentioned that some prisoners kept detailed records of life in the camp in two tin boxes, which they buried under one of the barracks when they left, and later used to create a book titled "Chronicle for 17-B" [Annotator's Note: A Chronicle of Stalag XVIIB, Krems/Gneisendorf, Austria by Luther Victor; published in 1992]. Faust never doubted that he would get out at some point, and "looked forward to it." He remembered that conditions were harsh; there was no heat in the barracks, and they "lived like cattle." The food supply was meager, and they had no source of vitamins. Faust said he suffered with chilblains in his feet and hands, and even after he got home, he was affected by the condition for about five years whenever the weather was extremely cold. He doesn't think the war changed him in any bad way, but noted that air force combat was a lot different from ground force warfare. Still, on some nights, memories come back to him. But at the camp, "everybody there was in the same boat," and although they longed for freedom, they "accepted it as it was."