William Albright's father was a mailman. Albright was born in May 1923 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1960, he worked for Black and Decker [Annotator's Note: Black & Decker Corporation; now Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.] for a few years. His father retired with a disability and died of cancer in 1950. Albright graduated from Lancaster Catholic High School in June 1942 and enlisted in the Army Air Corps in September. He and his family were sitting at the kitchen table at noon when they heard the news of Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] over the radio. His father looked at him and his brother and said he was afraid they had not heard the rest of that. His brother spent three years in the Navy on a blimp crew out of South America. Albright ended up as a gunner on a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. Albright's father had been in the 227th Aero Squadron [Annotator's Note: American Expeditionary Force] in World War 1 and spent time in France. His mother was a strong woman. She knew what was going on and had control of her life. She had some tough breaks with her kids. She was a devout Catholic. On 8 September 1943, she was reciting her rosary when the beads came apart. She thought she was about to hear something bad. An usher asked her to the back of the church. There she received a telegram that reported Albright as missing in action.

William Albright enlisted in the Army Air Corps because he wanted to fly, even though he had never flown before. He had flying in his blood from a young age, he made models of airplanes. He built a model he did not like and set it on fire. He says that was an omen. [Annotator's Note: Albright laughs.] He went to the recruiting office and took a test for Cadet [Annotator's Note: Aviation Cadet] school but did not pass. He enlisted then and went to Keesler Field, Mississippi for basic training and aviation mechanics school. He then went to the Willow Run Bomber Plant in Ypsilante [Annotator's Note: also known as Air Force Plant 31, Ypsilante, Michigan] for flight engineering school. He volunteered for gunnery school. After that he was assigned to a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] crew in Texas. That was his first airplane ride. He stayed with his crew for two months in Texas for training and then went to Scott Field, Illinois to a brand new B-17 that they flew to Scotland. They were taken off that plane and went to Chelveston, England and assigned to the 8th Air Force [Annotator's Note: Albright joined the 364th Bombardment Squadron, 305th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force in October 1943].

William Albright got along well with this crew. There were two or three of them who did things together. They were the tail gunner, the radio operator, and a waist gunner. They spent a few hours in a bomb shelter in London during an air raid. He only remembers Covent Gardens, where they stayed in a hotel called the Rainbow. He was on his fourth mission when he was shot down so the was not in England for long. He had arrived in October [Annotator's Note: October 1943] and his aircraft was shot down in November. His pilot's name was Lieutenant Robert M. Jackman from Adrian, Michigan and was some kind of a pilot. He could stall it [Annotator's Note: the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] in mid-air and recover it well. Albright was in the ball turret, but he loved to sit in the nose when they were flying, especially during landing and take-off. He did not feel he was big enough to be a pilot. If something happened, you needed to have strength. The airplanes were very cramped, especially the ball turret. Your knees were near your ears and the handles to operate the guns were above your head. He recalls one mission against a molybdenum mine near Knaben, Norway. He was in the ball turret for ten hours. He wore an electrically heated suit and a flak jacket. He also had an oxygen mask and throat microphone. He did not have room for a parachute. He had a chest pack that he would have to put on. They started to lose power in one engine. [Annotator's Note: Albright starts to talk about the mission they were shot down on. The interviewer asks him to start over.]

The day before William Albright's second mission, two B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] had a mid-air crash over the field. There was a lot debris scattered. The next day they blew a tire on their aircraft on some of the debris on takeoff. They managed to fly the mission to Norway. They landed at a RAF [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force] repair depot on one wheel. The pilot was terrific. The plane was ruined and had to be junked. They received a new plane for their next mission. They had to fly 25 missions for a complete tour at that time. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer states that the average mission life expectancy was 14 missions.] When they were flying at the end of 1943, he was told that if they completed three or four missions they had paid for their training. That is about how long they made it. They were only flying about one mission per month then because of the weather. When they arrived in 1943, they had P-47 Thunderbolts [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] for escorts. They did not carry enough gas to escort them past France. After he was shot down, they started to fly P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] that could go to Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany] and back. Their hearts sank when the fighter escorts left them. They encountered flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] and fighters on every mission. They were hit by flak on their first mission. The adrenaline starts to flow when the Luftwaffe [Annotator's Note: German Air Force] comes. In those days they were young and invincible. They would go on a mission then go get some beers. Nothing was going to happen to them.

William Albright was a ball turret gunner [Annotator's Note: on Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber number 42-30645]. The unfortunate part is that they were open to all ground attack. Fighters would not attack from underneath because they would be coming in too slow. He would not be in the ball turret on take-off or landing. There were a lot of ball turret gunners who did not get out. The number three engine had the generator for the plane's electricity. When his aircraft was shot down, they lost two engines first but were still flying. Engine number three went out too and they lost power. That means the turret had to be manually turned to allow him to escape. They were on their way to bomb the submarine pens at Bremen, Germany. They were having engine trouble on the way in and that made them slow down and lose altitude. That made them sitting ducks for the enemy fighters. They were trying to reach France. When they flew out of England, it took ten or 15 minutes to get over the Channel [Annotator's Note: English Channel]. At that time in 1943, everything past the channel was enemy occupied. If their target was in Northern Germany, they would come in over the North Sea. Albright knew they had lost oil and were losing altitude. The pilot [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Robert M. Jackman] said they had one engine running at full power plus and could fall off, so they better bail out. They had bombed the target. They all landed south of Bremen in a town called Oldenburg [Annotator's Note: Oldenburg, Germany].

[Annotator's Note: William Albright had to bail out of his Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber over Germany on 26 November 1943. He landed in a town called Oldenburg.] All of the crew except for the top turret gunner [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Technical Sergeant Arthur J. Biesak], who had been killed, got out. They were all captured. The waist gunners [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Staff Sergeants Joseph S. Masaitis and Jesse L. Brammer] and tail gunner [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant John H. Brandenburg] were hit in various places. The radio operator [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Technical Sergeant Rolland J. Kinney] and Albright were the only enlisted men who were not injured in the attack. The bombardier [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Robert H. Tank] saw the plane crash into a hill. Albright had never parachuted before but landed well. He feels he had a whole squadron of guardian angels his entire time. He decided he wanted to get through all of the stuff in sky quickly and he fell about halfway before he pulled his ripcord. He hit the ground 30 to 60 seconds later. There were about six German soldiers right there. They took his parachute off and put it in the basket on a bicycle. He stayed in a solitary cell for a couple of days and then was taken to Frankfurt for interrogation. The interrogator spoke perfect English and had graduated from the University of Minnesota [Annotator's Note: in Duluth, Minnesota]. He already knew all of the answers to his questions. Albright just asked when he would get to eat. In the solitary cell, he got brown bread and ersatz tea. It was green and not very watery. He had received no special training for being taken prisoner, other than to use common sense. They really tried to get his home address. He never gave it to them. They had a very good sabotage operation. They knew more about him than he did.

[Annotator's Note: William Albright was interrogated in Frankfurt, Germany after being shot down in late November 1943.] They were in Dulag Luft [Annotator's Note: Durchgangslager der Luftwaffe, Transit Camp of the Airforce] in Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany], the interrogation center. They were in solitary and would be interrogated every day. After about two weeks, he was put in a boxcar and sent to Krems, Austria to Stalag XVII. Everybody thought the war would be over in six months. There were about 1,000 to 1,500 prisoners there when he got there. The Russians were separated from the others. There were two fences with empty tin cans in between them with guard towers on each end. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him what bothers him the most looking back on it.] Being captured bothered Albright. He thought it was a waste because he could not do anything for the war effort. The first thing he thought upon waking up, was if he would last the day and what would happen tomorrow. He feels no guilt about anything. He accepted that he was a victim of circumstance. The camp had wooden barracks that were old. It was separated into four separate compounds. Each barracks had one washroom for 150 men. There was one latrine with walls for urination and then seats in the middle along a bench with a trough underneath that ran to a cesspool. There was a lot of dysentery. The officers were in a different camp and were treated much better. Each compound had a field they would walk around for exercise. Each barracks had a chief. Albright was in Barracks 18A. They knew they had German plants [Annotator's Note: spies] in the barracks. They did not talk much or get close to anybody and they spoke perfect English. Sergeant Kurtenbach [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant Kenneth Kurtenbach] was the interpreter for Albright's prison camp. He was one of the few who could speak German. Albright did not know him personally.

[Annotator's Note: The tape cuts and then comes back to William Albright in midsentence.] In Wendover [Annotator's Note: Wendover Field, Utah] they had .30 calibers [Annotator's Note: Browning M1919 .30 caliber machine gun]. When they went up for gunnery practice, they would shoot these guns at targets going down a track. Guys would go up before the instructors got there and make a whole belt of tracer bullets. There were buzzards circling around in the sky. They would try to shoot them, but nobody ever hit one. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer returns to the prison camp story. Albright was in Stalag Luft XVII-B in Krems an Der Donau, Austria.] They would have one to four roll calls a day. They would stand in formation and the German guards would go down and count everyone. They called all of the guards "Schultz". One they called "the groundhog". He would crawl under the barracks to look for tunnels. They would pull the caps off the muzzle of the guard's gun and put flowers in them. After roll call, they just sat around. They got Red Cross parcels that was 90 percent of their food. The Germans would bring rutabaga soup. The parcels would have powdered milk, coffee, cheese, and meat similar to SPAM [Annotator's Note: canned cooked pork made by Hormel Foods Corporation]. Once in a while you would get a can of corned beef. One guy noticed his can said that it had been canned in Argentina in 1917. It was still good and delicious. There was quite a bit of bartering. They would barter for a camera and film, but most of the time it was for fresh vegetables. They would trade the cigarettes, coffee, and sugar. The cigarette was the monetary system. A couple of men had crystal radio sets they made. They would use the wires out of the electric suits. They would trade to get the other parts they needed. There was an Fw 190 [Annotator's Note: German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft] fighter base just down the hill where the guards would get things. The men listened to the BBC [Annotator's Note: British Broadcasting Corporation] news every night. They drew a map of the continent that they hid during the day. They would update the map with pins and thread. Towards the end of the war, they just kept the map out in the open. The guards would come in and look at it too.

[Annotator's Note: William Albright was a prisoner of war in Stalag XVII-B in Krems an Der Donau, Austria.] They evacuated their camp and marched across Austria towards Berchtesgaden [Annotator's Note: Berchtesgaden, Germany]. For the whole month of April [Annotator's Note: April, 1945] they were on the road. They marched in groups of roughly 500 men who followed different routes. They took everything they had. Then they would get whatever they could find on the road such as fruit, radishes, sugar beets and anything else. They would sleep on the ground or in a barn. They were not guarded very well. Everybody had survival on their minds. Leaving the group would diminish their chances of survival. They only knew they were heading West and moving away from the Russians. The guards did not want to be captured by the Russians. A few prisoners were left in the hospital at the camp. The march went across Austria and followed the Danube to Braunau [Annotator's Note: Braunau am Inn, Austria] where Hitler was born and raised. They were in the middle of the forest when they stopped marching in early May. About two days later, two American tanks came up the road. A captain got out of the turret and said hello. He told them they were liberated and free but suggested they stay there. They were along the Inn River between Austria and Bavaria. The guards had left by then. Trucks came and filled up with the men and took them into Bavaria [Annotator's Note: Bavaria, Germany]. They went to Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France] where they caught a ship home.

William Albright was liberated in May 1945. He never knew what was going to happen from one day to the next and that was what bothered him the most. The uncertainty was the worst part. He passed the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. They were walking and when they approached the camp, the Germans made them trot past. There were Jews marching in the opposite direction. He was told he was supposed to go there but does not know if it is true. Albright's most vivid memory is hard to say. They all just wondered if they were going to make it home okay. They took one day at a time. He does not think much of being shot down. Sometimes he dreams a little bit about it. He wonders then what he could have done different and what would it be like today. He does think about the guy who did not make it. Arthur J. Biesak [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Technical Sergeant Arthur J. Biesak, the engineer and top turret gunner]. Fate had something to do with Albright's destination. When his crew was being made up, whoever got there first was the first in command. Albright had studied B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] and was then assigned to a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber], which he knew nothing about. He happened to be the second engineer and was assigned to the ball turret. The other guy was the first engineer and he was assigned to the top turret. He was the one on the crew who was killed. That would have been Albright if he had gotten their first. To this day, he thinks his guardian angel had a lot to do with it.