Wesley Carroll was born in Slidell, Louisiana in 1922. He grew up there, and graduated from high school in 1939, after which he went to LSU [Annotator's Note Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana] from the Fall session of 1939 to the Spring session of 1941. He then transferred to Southwest Louisiana Institute in Lafayette [Annotator's Note: now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in Lafayette, Louisiana] until World War 2 started in December [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. On 22 January 1942, he joined the US Air Corps [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Corps; later the US Army Air Forces], and went to cadet school at Mesa Field in Sacramento, California. He graduated from there on 15 August 1942, and proceeded to Salt Lake City [Annotator’s Note: Salt Lake City, Utah] for ground school. He then went to Ephrata, Washington as a navigator with the 424th Bomb Squadron, of the 307th Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: 424th Bombardment Squadron, 307th Bombardment Group], flying B-24s [Annotator's Note: COnsolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. He went to Sioux City, Iowa [Annotator's Note: then Sioux City Army Air Base, now Sioux City Air National Guard Base, near Sioux City, Iowa] for his next phase of training, and while on a cross-country flight to Texas, his plane was ordered back and restricted to base for two days. His crew was sent to McClellan Field in Sacramento, California to be equipped for overseas. They went to Hawaii and stayed there as defense for while, and trained for a bomb mission. On Christmas Eve 1942, he was among 28 B-24s that flew to Midway Island, and from there bombed Wake Island, and all returned safely to Hawaii. When the Navy requested six planes to find a convoy, Carroll flew two reconnaissance missions out of Canton Island. From Canton he was ordered to the New Hebrides, and spent a couple of days there while his "clothing and everything" caught up with him. Then his squadron went on to Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Solomon Islands].

On 13 February 1943, they took off for a raid on Shortland Harbor [Annotator's Note: Shortland Harbor, Shortland Island, Solomon Islands], which called for six B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] and six fighters: three P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] and three P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft]. The aircraft all went up the Slot [Annotator's Note: New Georgia Sound], and off to their left they could see a Japanese fighter. When they got up there, there were 69 fighters waiting for them. They didn't know it, but the Navy had arrived 30 minutes before them and caught everybody on the ground; 30 minutes later, the enemy was in the air and waiting. Before they reached the bomb run they lost one B-24 that exploded in mid-air. After they dropped their bombs and started on their turn, another B-24 went down in flames. The four remaining bombers started back home. Carroll's plane lost an engine, and began losing power, so the pilot took the plane down on the deck. The crew members in the far back of the plane bailed out, and Carroll found out later that Japanese fighters had strafed them while they were going down in their parachutes. When they got down on the deck, one Japanese fighter came along with them, so they headed out to sea, and lost the fighter. When they were 20 miles offshore another engine quit, and they headed back toward land. They made a water landing, with five men left on board: the pilot, copilot, bombardier, assistant engineer, and Carroll, the navigator. Carroll was underwater, and figured he could get out. The life raft on the back of the plane was ruined, but he saw a box of emergency rations, and thought, "At least I'll have something to eat before the sharks get me." He emerged, as did the others, and the pilot and copilot managed to get a life raft out of the top of the plane. All five survivors got in it, and made it to land in about 20 hours. They were on the island [Annotator's Note: cannot make out the name of the island] for three days, and no one came for them, so they paddled down the island, and ended up on Santa Isabel [Annotator's Note: Santa Isabel, Solomon Islands]. They saw recon planes circling, but their little party was not spotted. At the last place they stopped, they heard the voices of natives in a canoe near the shore. The Americans finally convinced them that they were friendly, and got them to come ashore. The natives kept saying, "Good luck we find you." The aviators later learned that for every American they brought in, the natives received a hundred pounds of rice and a case of corned beef. The natives took them to their village, which was called Kia. The Australian Coast Watch sent a note that they were sending a PBY [Annotator's Note: Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat] to rescue them, and the aviators were finally brought back to Guadalcanal. The survivors were then taken to the New Hebrides, and after a couple of days of rest, food and liquor, were sent to Auckland, New Zealand for rest leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time].

In Auckland, New Zealand, Wesley Carroll “got a virus or something,” and ended up in the hospital. He was sent back to the United States, and moved around to different bases, spending some time in Cuba. There he trained navigators to fly over water. On 5 September 1945 he was discharged and went back home to Slidell [Annotator’s Note: Louisiana]. He joined the Air National Guard in 1949, and in February 1951 he was recalled to active duty. He went to Hampton, Virginia, and was chosen to go to France with the NATO [Annotator’s Note: North Atlantic Treaty Organization] forces. When he returned to the United States he was relieved from duty in both the National Guard and the Air Force. He returned to Slidell, and went back to work for the Post Office until he retired. He mentioned that it took 21 days to get back from the raid on Shortland Harbor [Annotator’s Note: Solomon Islands].

While training as a navigator at Mather Field [Annotator's Note: later Mather Air Force Base; near Sacramento, California], Wesley Carroll and the other students would go off, two to three at a time, on flights to Salt Lake City [Annotator's Note: Salt Lake City, Utah] and Ogden [Annotator's Note: Ogden, Utah], into Oregon, and over the coast. It took 15 weeks to get out of navigation school. When he graduated, Carroll had asked to be sent to a base on the East Coast [Annotator's Note: East Coast of the United States] so, naturally, they sent him in the opposite direction. He had a five day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] before going to California, and while he was home he was involved in an automobile accident. His left eye was injured, the wound got infected, and Carroll was hospitalized when he got to Sacramento. That set him back three weeks, and he graduated with the next class in line on 15 August 1942 as a second lieutenant. He then went to Salt Lake City for replacement. Carroll thought his training was good. He learned all sorts of navigation, including celestial navigation. And while he was there, radar and SHORAN, or short-range navigation, became part of the curriculum. [Annotator's Note: Carroll goes on to describe his training in the new technology.] He was trained on B-24Ds [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] that didn't have a ball turret; instead, it had a top turret and a tail turret. It was a fast airplane, and his flight was one of the best in the whole group [Annotator's Note: Carroll was a member of the 424th Bombardment Squadron, 307th Bombardment Group, 13th Air Force]. People would joke that the B-24 was "the box that the B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] came in," but Carroll's group didn't feel that way. They liked the B-24s and thought they were good airplanes. During a recon mission in Hawaii, they hit bad weather. When they got back to base, they were missing their bomb bay door. Someone on the island called he base to see who dropped a bomb on the island. When the door came off, it took a bomb and its shackles with it. Carroll's squadron was stationed at the Dillingham Ranch [Annotator's Note: on Oahu, Hawaii], and he joked about how they shared their landing field with the cattle.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Wesley Carroll what was going through his mind when his plane was going down.] Carroll was throwing things out; lightening the load. The crew did as much as they could, and he could see the surface of the water right before they hit, traveling at 125 miles an hour. The three crewmen in the back were thrown all around, and Carroll came up bloody. He had cuts on his eye, his back and his ankles. While they were out on the sea, they saw a Japanese fighter, and they saw one saltwater crocodile. On one of the islands, they found and tried a fruit that looked like a plum, and survived mostly on high-energy chocolate bars [Annotator's Note: D ration chocolate bars]. They attempted to heat water, but couldn't make fire. But, they had a good time. They traveled mostly at night, and stayed in the shade of the coconut trees during the day. They ate coconuts, too, but lost a good bit of weight. Their clothes no longer fit. The copilot and engineer were killed on subsequent raids; and Carroll has lost track of the engineer. The pilot died some years ago, so as far as Carroll knows, he is the only surviving member of the crew that crashed after the Shortland Harbor [Annotator's Note: Shortland Harbor, Shortland Island, Solomon Islands] raid [Annotator's Note: on 13 February 1943]. The 307th Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: Carroll was a member of the 424th Bombardment Squadron, 307th Bombardment Group, 13th Air Force] is planning a reunion, and Carroll hopes to attend.

The interviewer asks Wesley Carroll to discuss his recollections of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Carroll was in school at Lafayette [Annotator's Note: Southwestern Louisiana Institute of Liberal and Technical Learning; now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in Lafayette, Louisiana]. He and his classmates were sitting around doing homework, when the announcement came on the radio. Their homework stopped. He and a roommate tried to get in the Navy but they were told to go back to school. While at Lafayette, Carroll was taking flying lessons in a Piper Cub [Annotator's Note: Piper J-3 Cub light observation aircraft], although he was too young and had to lie about his age to get in. The truth was uncovered during an inspection, and he had to drop out. When the cadet program opened up, he went to Baton Rouge [Annotator's Note: Baton Rouge, Louisiana], took and passed the test, and was inducted into the Army Air Corps on 22 January 1942. Their test scores determined whether a candidate would become a pilot, navigator or bombardier. Carroll qualified to become a navigator, and went to training at Mather Field [Annotator's Note: later Mather Air Force Base, near Sacramento, California]. There, he was assigned to the 307th Bombardment Group [Annotator's Note: 424th Bombardment Squadron, 307th Bombardment Group, 13th Air Force]. [Annotator's Note: The discussion turns to the end of the war.] Carroll was in Victoria, Kansas [Annotator's Note: Walker Army Airfield near Victoria, Kansas] working as a navigation instructor at a base unit when he heard the news [Annotator's Note: that the war had ended]. Beforehand, he had been in Fairmont, Nebraska, and Grand Island [Annotator's Note: Grand Island, Nebraska]. Carroll's assignment with NATO [Annotator's Note: North Atlantic Treaty Organization] ended in 1952. He had a phone call from his wife on 1 December [Annotator's Note: 1951], which happened to be his sixth wedding anniversary, in which she told him he had a new baby daughter. Carroll went home on emergency leave, and he was kept in the United States, first in New Jersey, then at Brookley Air Force Base in Mobile, Alabama with Air Transport Command as a navigator on a C-54 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster cargo aircraft] until he was discharged.

Wesley Carroll and his wife raised three children. Their first son, James Stephen, was born in 1948 and was adopted by the Carrolls in 1951. At the end of that year, they had a daughter. In 1957, along came Robert. His daughter has four children, and Robert has two. Carroll and his wife grew up together. When his wife was about nine years old, her mother was killed in an automobile accident, and she was raised among step-siblings. [Annotator's Note: Carroll goes on to describe his grandchildren and their many accomplishments.] [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Carroll if he would do it all over again as far as the war is concerned.] Carroll doesn’t think he would, however, he would love to go back to the Solomon Islands to visit Kia; but he doesn't think he'll ever get there again. He would go back into the Air Force; he got seasick on the only ship he's ever been on and that was the one that brought him back to the United States during the war. Besides the B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber], Carroll has flown B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber], B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing N-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber], and B-26s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber]. He has ridden in B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber]. In the B-17s and B-29s, he was training the navigators.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Wesley Carroll how important it is for current and future generations to learn about World War 2.] Carroll feels that it is very important. When he returned to LSU [Annotator's Note: Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana], he wrote a paper on Compulsory Military Training. He feels a boy should have a year of military training when he comes out of high school. He was in ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] at LSU, and it helped. Carroll thinks it is very important that the nation has museums like The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana], and thinks more people should visit them. He has contributed artifacts to the New Orleans museum, and has taken members of his family to see it. He was excited about the Pacific Campaign exhibit [Annotator's Note: The Road to Tokyo gallery at The National WWII Museum]. He noted the PT boat [Annotator's Note: patrol torpedo boat] that was being restored, and mentions that he had a summer job at a Slidell shipyard, working on the LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP] at the beginning of the war. He slept through a ride on a PT boat after the Wake Island raid. He was on Midway Island at the time and saw gooney birds landing with their "wheels up." Reminded about the Wake Island raids, Carroll said they had trained for a dive bombing mission to Wake Island. The plan was to take off, circle Midway Island, then head out with the formation. But the weather had something to do with it, and the first planes away didn't circle, they just took off. His and another plane got up there and could see the others in the distance. They didn't know if they should continue or turn back; they went on, dropped their bombs and returned. There were supposed to be two Navy vessels with searchlights to guide them in when they returned to Midway, but it was after daylight, and they had gone. Carroll's plane had to radio for what was called "MOs," to get a fix and a course to get back to to base. Midway and Wake were tiny islands, hard to find in the ocean, but they got safely back. Carroll made one raid on Wake Island, the first one after it was captured. When they got back to Hickam [Annotator's Note: Hickam Field; now Hickam Air Force Base and part of Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam on Oahu, Hawaii], there was a big celebration and each of the crew members was decorated with an Air Medal [Annotator's Note: US Armed Forces medal for single acts of heroism or meritorious achievement while in aerial flight]. Carroll says that he "remembers it all." His wife says he's always talking about World War 2, but he remarks that "every now and then," something comes to his mind about what he did and where he was. He knows how lucky he is to be alive.

The message Wesley Carroll has for future generations is to mind their momma and their daddy. And, he says, mommas and daddies should control their children. When he came back [Annotator's Note: to Slidell, Louisiana] in 1949, he worked as a rural carrier for the Post Office. He returned to active duty during the Korean War, and came back as a rural carrier afterwards. He was promoted to assistant Postmaster, then went to Mandeville [Annotator's Note: Mandeville, Louisiana] and Hammond [Annotator's Note: Hammond, Louisiana] as an officer in charge, then went back to Slidell and stayed in administration until he retired in 1977. In all, he served 29 years with the Post Office.