Warren William "Bill" Allen, Junior was born in January 1924 in Saint Louis, Missouri. He grew up with two younger siblings. His father worked for the Hydraulic Press Brick Company and was able to provide a very good life for the Allen family throughout the years of the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. He was sitting around the radio when FDR [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] talked about the "Day in infamy" [Annotator's Note: Day of Infamy Speech; President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a Joint Session of the United States Congress, 8 December 1941] after the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Allen graduated from Webster High School [Annotator's Note: Webster Groves High School in Webster Groves, Missouri] in January of 1942. In July of that year, he began taking classes at Purdue University [Annotator's Note: in West Lafayette, Indiana]. While a student at Purdue, Allen tried to volunteer for the US Navy's V7 program [Annotator's Note: V-7 US Navy Midshipmen Officer Candidates Program, 1940 to 1945] but was turned down because he suffered from allergies. He then volunteered for the Army Specialized Training Program [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers]. The army accepted him, and he was inducted at Jefferson Barracks [Annotator's Note: Jefferson Barracks Military Post in Lemay, Missouri] in January 1943. After two semesters at Purdue, Allen was sent to North Carolina State University [Annotator's Note: in Raleigh, North Carolina] where he continued to study engineering. By the time he completed his second semester there, however, the Army decided that it no longer needed the high numbers of engineers it previously thought it would. Allen was removed from the ASTP and sent to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina for basic training. After completing basic training, he was sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina where he joined the 87th Infantry Division. When Allen arrived at Fort Jackson, he was assigned to Battery C, 335th Field Artillery Battalion after it was learned that he had taken two semesters of ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] with an army artillery unit while a student at Purdue University. When he joined Battery C, Allen was trained to operate an M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun]. His job was to act as security for the battery and the battery's 155mm howitzers [Annotator's Note: M1 155mm howitzer; nicknamed "Long Tom"; heavy field gun]. The training was tough with 25-mile hikes, but he made a lot of friends. His First Sergeant was an "old school" soldier who was very tough on Allen and the rest. When his unit received orders to ship out, they were sent to Camp Kilmer [Annotator's Note: in Central New Jersey] and were given a three-day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He took the time to visit his family in Saint Louis. In October 1944, Allen boarded the SS Pasteur [Annotator's Note: SS Pasteur (1938)] and headed for the European Theater. This ship was a French ship managed by the British merchant marines. The ship was packed with troops, and many of them, including Allen, became seasick. Allen had to sleep on a floor in the hall. The trip lasted nine days and he disembarked at Birmingham, England and was trucked to Macclesfield, England. He lived in a Quonset hut [Annotator's Note: prefabricated metal building] and continued training until he was assigned to an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] to go over into France. The English civilians were very nice to him. It took him three-days on the LST to cross to Rouen, France.

Warren William "Bill" Allen, Junior [Annotator's Note: with Battery C, 335th Field Artillery Battalion, 87th Infantry Division] disembarked in France and began his way towards the Sauer Valley. Allen did not always know where he was, he just followed the convoy. Allen, managing the 50 calibers [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun], set them up on the perimeter of his unit. The 88mm [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] had a very characteristic sound, and he always hit the ground when he heard them. His unit participated 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], but they were located at the far end of the flank and did not see much combat. He overheard that Germans were dressing up as American soldiers to infiltrate the units. Allen was given orders to walk down a railroad track with the 50-caliber machine gun to keep an eye out for any disguised Germans. He kept a carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine] on him as a personal defense. His unit received orders to back out on Christmas Day [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1944] and head for the Ardennes Forest [Annotator's Note: region in southeast Belgium that extends into Luxembourg, Germany, and France]. The weather was cold, snowy, and horrible. They had limited amount of winter clothing, but the most importantly was keeping his feet healthy because trench foot [Annotator's Note: immersion foot syndrome] was common. He had a Christmas dinner out of his mess kit. Allen has a great admiration for those soldiers who were in the thick of combat. His position was always a few miles off the front lines because he managed the heavy machine guns. Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] was shattered when his unit passed through it. Allen respected the German soldiers and their determination to fight. There was an instance when his battery shot down a German plane, and Allen felt horrible because a mother just lost his son. In late January [Annotator's Note: January 1945], they reached the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s] and the weather started to get a little better. Around Easter 1945 [Annotator's Note: 1 April 1945] he was able to take a shower. It had been three months his last one in England.

When Warren William "Bill" Allen, Junior's unit [Annotator's Note: Battery C, 335th Field Artillery Battalion, 87th Infantry Division] arrived in Germany, they mainly stayed in the woods to they could set up their equipment. Once, while Allen was in a German town, he briefly conversed with a German boy. The Germans were very clean and well organized compared to the French civilians. When his unit crossed the Rhine River, they liberated a boatful of wine. All the soldiers dumped their water out of their canteens and filled them up with wine. His unit was part of the liberation of Buchenwald [Annotator's Note: Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany] and was able to enter the camp. The inmates as skeletons and slept on narrow bunks. It was surreal, but also numbing. Americans came to Europe as liberators and not conquerors. Allen did have a girlfriend before he left for Europe and married her upon his return to the United States. He kept in touch with her while he served in Europe. He was in Plauen [Annotator's Note: Plauen, Germany] when he heard the war ended in Europe. Since he was on the Czechoslovakia line trying to keep the Czechoslovakia people from crossing the German line. Many locals knew that the Russians would gain control of the area and they did not want to stay. Once the war concluded, Allen did not remember celebrating but just winding down. His division left Europe soon after and returned to the United States and began preparing for the invasion of Japan. He was in Saint Louis [Annotator's Note: Saint Louis, Missouri] on VJ-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. He was excited when Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] dropped the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] to end the war. He returned to Jefferson Barracks [Annotator's Note: Jefferson Barracks Military Post in Lemay, Missouri] to await discharge, but he did not have 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], so he was sent to Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Trenton, New Jersey], and assigned to help discharge other soldiers until January 1946 when he was discharged himself as a sergeant. He returned to college on the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] and received a degree in engineering. To this day, his body responds to artillery fire.

Warren William "Bill" Allen, Junior's most memorable experience of World War 2 is meeting different people. Many of the people he was associated with did not have college degrees but had other great talents. He fought in the war because it was the thing to do. His service is invaluable to him today. He able to speak to youth about his experience Most Americans have an appreciation for World War 2 because it was a time when the country was united. Every civilian took a part in the war efforts. There should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and they should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations because there is an urgent need to educate Americans about it. [Annotator's Note: Video goes black at 1:01:28.000.]